Work work work

[rowyn]

It's been a busy few days since I got back to work.

A couple of months ago, my manager, Glinda, asked me to take over the job of a co-worker. He worked part-time, mostly right at the beginning of the month, when he'd spend 30-40 hours preparing reports for Toddler's monthly board meeting. The rest of his job was two-four hours doing one weekly report, and the occasional special project.

My regular duties consist of a number of things that either need to be done daily, or would be best if done daily. While I don't have so many of these that I have no time for additional duties at all, my job does not lend itself well to being postponed for a week while I focus on doing this new job every month. Someday, I hope to do his job more efficiently and easily, but for the moment, it's still quite time-consuming and tiresome.

At the beginning of May I took over part of his duties, and at the beginning of June I took over another chunk. Glinda wanted me to take over the rest this month. Her deal with me was that I wouldn't have to do anything else except for these reports. She would take all my work, and either do it herself or get someone else to do it.

This has gone over with indifferent success. First off, I'm the first-line technical resource for my department, and when something goes wrong, people come to me. I can't tell them to ask Glinda these questions, because most of the time, she doesn't know the answer, either. Loan officers foist off their difficult customers upon me, for me to explain problems to. I still get email I need to respond to. In short, I haven't been able to give my new duties more than my divided attention.

That aside ... it seems to be going all right. This is the second day I've been working on reports, and after around 14 hours of work, they're probably about 70% done. That's the good news.

The bad news is that I have so much other stuff that Glinda wants me to do right now.

She wants me to do the loan department's testing of the new build of our banking software. This is supposed to be done by tomorrow. I don't even have the information yet to finish doing the board reports.

Also, I'm supposed to be researching some thorny three-year-old accounting issues that only recently came to light, and a third party is breathing down my neck about those.

Never mind my old duties: one of the accounts that I usually keep balanced has been out of balance for over two weeks now: Glinda couldn't get it balanced one day and it's been a mess since. She gave up on it. I'm sure I can fix it.

I'm sure I can do all of this stuff. I just can't do it all at the same time. And, despite my best efforts, having these deadlines loom is stressing me out. I keep hunching up my shoulders as I peck away at the keyboard. My back is a one long series of knots. I know that none of this is that important. Life and the bank will go on if these things don't get resolved as quickly as everyone wants.

But it's still weighing on me.

Comments

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

If they want you to do the work of two people, they should expect to double your pay. If they won't, then refuse to do all the extra work saying that they need to hire more people. The economy may be bad, but that didn't magically put a big S on your chest and give you the ability to bend steel in your teeth. You are one person; you can only do the job of one person.

Overtime?

[telnar.livejournal.com]

I think that "refuse to do the additional work" implies a type of confrontation which isn't really necessary. It would probably be enough to simply demonstrate the consequences of doing the additional work. In the short run, you might need overtime in order to just review the work which is being farmed out to verify what is being done wrong, but once your manager understands what is happening, then it becomes a simple question of setting priorities.

There is a limit on the amount of work you are able to get done (although the exact level of that limit might be negotiable depending on whether you would be willing, for example, to take time and a half in comp time when you have to do extra work). It is your manager's job to understand that limit when making decisions about what to assign to you. My guess is that you could talk to her and come up with a transition plan to get rid of the pieces of your work which are less important (or easier to delegate).

Anyway, good luck with it. I hope you manage to reduce your stress (whether by solving problems, or learning to be less bothered by them).

Re: Overtime?

[rowyn]

Anyway, good luck with it. I hope you manage to reduce your stress (whether by solving problems, or learning to be less bothered by them.)

Thanks. Right now, I'd be happy with "less bothered by them". I know they are going to be solved. I just can't seem to stop angsting over it anyway.

Can stress be defined out of existence?

[telnar.livejournal.com]

As a compromise, can I convince you to only stress about work while you're in a position to change things (e.g. when you're sitting at your desk doing or avoiding work)?

Yes, I know that approach shows my Vulcan side, but stress really doesn't do any good when you're not working, so let's just decree that it won't occur :)

Re: Can stress be defined out of existence?

[rowyn]

I don't angst nearly as much about work while I'm a home (especially on my days off) as I do when I'm at work.

But if this whole phenomenon responded well to logic, I wouldn't stress about ANY of it, since NONE of it is really of meaningful importance in my life. :)

[rowyn]

The situation isn't nearly this drastic. I'll do another post about it to clarify. :)

[gen.livejournal.com]

I think so many people have had job trouble lately that we tend to assume that what we may percieve as a little problem to be worth something acting disruptive and quitting over. A prime example is my mentioning the return of SJ, and althugh it flusters me to a certain extent, it's not like going to work is going to be like yanking out my toenails.

[rowyn]

Yup, exactly. This doesn't even rate as bad as having SJ come back, in my book. Though I do think your employers are nuts to consider hiring SJ back, after the way she treated 'em. Yeesh.