Apparently, at the moment, not much. Or at least that’s how I feel. What. A. Day. Hell. What a week. I can’t think of the last time I felt so betrayed … and weakened. A person can only be strong for so long and then something has to give. Right now, that’s where I am as I sit here crying because I feel like I let someone else win. Maybe, just maybe, if people had more confidence and faith in my staff, and didn’t have to micromanage every tiny little thing they—and I—did, today would have turned out better, or at least different.
I’m good at my job, although my mid-year review seems to tell a different story. I’m so bothered by it that I have half a heart to walk into my bosses’ office and tell him that I’m stepping down and he’ll have to find someone to replace me. I’ve had enough of having my motives, intentions, actions, and deeds questioned. I’m one fucking person. I get 24 hours in my day and I spend more time waiting—waiting on other people, waiting on applications to run—than I should. I’m tired of being made to feel like I’m just not good enough, that I haven’t met goals or expectations, that I’m a disappointment.
Maybe I’m making a mountain out of a molehill, but I really feel set upon, and I’m certainly not going to get any sympathy from anyone. I’m pissed. Not just angry, but really pissed off.
Let’s see if I can attempt to capture the events, which put me in my current miserable state.
A month or so ago, my boss gave me my mid-year review, which ended up a 6 page diatribe on how I’m doing so many things wrong. I took it like a champ. And then it started to stew and fester. I didn’t get a chance to read his review right away, in fact, it was a couple of weeks before did. Then I got angry and started to feel hurt. I started to write a response, but was smart enough to stop myself from submitting it because it was written very emotionally. I can’t help it, I’m an emotional writer. It hurt my feelings to read his words and it felt like a knife being twisted in my chest. Up until that time, I thought I was doing a fairly decent job considering what I’ve had to deal with for the last year and a half. No one—and I mean no one—else has had to hire 7 new staff members and fire another. No one else has had to learn a totally foreign job flying by the seat of my pants with little to no guidance AND teach all of these new staff members how to do their job. No one else has had to be so undermined and had their every move watched or questioned. The lack of trust, whether real or imagined, is overwhelming. It makes me feel like I just can’t do anything without someone holding my hand every step of the way.
It started with a lukewarm to bad review. Not that I was expecting anything glowing, but acceptable or meets standards would have been nice. But I took it. I sat there like a fucking champ and listened to every word. And it was okay … until I actually read the comments. He didn’t just question me, but my staff. They’re a great team. They work well together and they get along. They don’t fight amongst themselves like I see in other teams. Some of his statements I can understand, but not all. There is one member of my team that I find to be an asset, but has somehow ended up with a target on her back. She has a strong personality and I find that refreshing. In my opinion, she’s easy to get along with. She does a good job with the tasks she’s given and progresses with regularity. I should mention that I hate when people go around me to rip my staff. If you have a problem with MY staff, tell ME. Don’t tell my boss, you chicken shit. And don’t jump on the ‘me-to’ bus and say you have a problem when you never mentioned it before then act like I’ve known all along.
Besides the not-so-glowing review, I have been absolutely up to my eyeballs in work, even taking on tasks and responsibilities that aren’t mine, in an effort to prove myself worthy. Again, it seems to go unnoticed. I know my boss is dealing with some things, but hey, I’m still here and I have a damn long memory. I really am trying my best to meet all of the needs of others, often neglecting my own needs. The number of gears I burn through in a single day would be a long haul trucker to shame, constantly switch to different tasks and trying to keep my head above water.
One of the things that I got called out on was that I don’t always anticipate the needs of the unit managers. Gee, I’m terribly sorry, but I didn’t hear you over the sound of my fingers striking the keys on my keyboard as I try to do my job and that of my staff because they’re so overwhelmed that half the time, they can’t finish their regular duties.
Today is report day. I got an email late yesterday—actually two, one sent to me and my staff and one just to me and my current nemesis. The first was essentially a reminder that compliance reports are due today and let’s endeavor to make things go off without a hitch. The second was very micromanagey. Telling me that I need to check the work of the my staff with the ‘kick me’ sign on her back. After a brief discussion with her this morning, she was okay with me checking up on her work; after all, if it worked out well, maybe next month we wouldn’t have to deal with it. She starts at 7:00 AM. At 7:15 she received the reports that she needed to process and immediately go to work taking the necessary steps to get them out the door. It looks something like this: scan and make copies of the report, marry it to the cover page, send the complete letter/report to the originator for review. Wait for a response and then, if approved, email the whole thing. Sounds simple, right? It should be were it not for a few kinks in the works. For one, the copy/scan process takes about 45 minutes for all nine reports. The marrying another 45 minutes or so. From there, Nemesis has decided that we/she simply cannot be entrusted to send a simple email so she insists that the message be created, screenshotted, and attached along with the completed report. For all nine reports. Then wait for her to approve each of the reports.
At some point during the day, I got an email from my boss asking how the reports were going. I responded that a couple we were waiting on the approval to send them. Then all hell broke loose. While I was writing my response, Nemesis popped off a quick two sentence reply stating that she had received the review copies and ‘most of them were wrong’. *insert stunned look here* She straight up threw my staff under the bus. Odd, I had reviewed them and other than a couple names on the bcc list being duplicated or wrong (right last name, wrong first name; father and son), pointed out, immediately corrected, and new review copies sent, they were fine. The addressee and cc list along with the contents of the letter and report were all correct; this is the more important part, we can send bcc copies any time. I responded to my boss with exactly this information and he seemed pleased with the actions taken so far. Then Nemesis commented that one of the county reports should be sent in two separate messages—totally unrelated. I replied indicating that we had never done it that way before and it added a great margin for error and even more time to an already lengthy process. I assumed (yeah, I know, never assume) that she would respond, but she never did. So I waited. Until 7:00 PM and, after sending two or three messages asking what I should do and not getting a response from her, I left. Almost 2 hours late. This was supposed to be my 36 hour week and I worked closer to 45. I was tired and had other things to do, including spending some time with my family, making dinner, and doing homework. It was 7:30 before I got a reply from anyone. Then Nemesis threw me under the bus. Telling me what time she came in and left, that she had to stay almost an hour late—must be nice to leave so early—and that she had to stay late to rewrite the cover letters yesterday. … Why? The only thing wrong with the cover letters was the bcc list. That should have taken 30 minutes. Tops. THEN she tells me that she had spoken to the plant manager in the desert and he told her that he didn’t want his data shared with the other desert plant managers. Seriously?!? You couldn’t have passed that information on early? That little tidbit would have been helpful to know and would have ended the discussion immediately, but it still doesn’t change the fact that, for years, the information contained in the report had been sent to all of the plants in that county and no one ever said anything about it.
Now I’ll probably have to go in for a bit tomorrow—my day off—just to separate the reports so that they can be emailed separately. I am NOT looking forward to seeing my boss, who is probably wondering what the hell just happened. If I do seem him, I’m likely to burst into tears or just suck it up and take all the blame. What I won’t do is let my staff take the blame for Nemesis’ shitty communication skills.
THIS is why you don’t micromanage people. The unintended results end up burning all involved.