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Ever have reports you do that you just stopped sending? I took over duties from someone who left the company . was trained to run this report, and I didn't send it out the first time I was supposed to, but no one said anything. The distribution list wasn't that big anyway, just a few people. It's a internal quarterly report pulled from the system, so it's not like im doing anything special which gets released companywide or anything, . I guess I'll continue running it but not sending it until someone asks.
I'd definitely bring it up with the group that originally requested it to see if they actually use it. When in doubt, take a few minutes and ask someone (via email so there's a paper trail of the conversation). That way you can't be blamed for being lazy and just not doing that part of your job
Work processes become outdated, but some people are unable to adapt and continue doing things the old way regardless.
Years ago I took a job and my assistant was in her early 60s. She had been doing the same job for 25 years or so, before computers became ubiquitous.
This job had a purchasing component to it, which had become automated a decade before I got there. POs and receiving info all recorded on the server. Nonetheless, my assistant insisted on printing all POs, copying them onto various colors of paper, and filing them in strange and mystical ways that would have been familiar to office workers of the 1960s and 1970s. When items were received, the same papers got pulled out of their various files, shuffled around, notations made, stamps stamped, collated and refiled in a different set of cabinets.
Nobody ever looked at any of them. She was constantly busy and complained that she was overworked, and that computerization had created her crushing workload. She simply could not accept that 70% of what she did was useless.
She was 6 months from retirement, in the union, and the big boss’s wife. Rather than fight that fight, I simply waited it out and refused to start hiring her replacement, which would have required a complete re-write of the job description, until after she was gone.
The day she left I had the facilities people bring up a bunch of shred bins, emptied her numerous file cabinets into them without reviewing a thing, and started work on a new job description which would only have inflamed her while she was there.
Agree with Lekrii. Consider contacting the group to determine if the report is still valuable or necessary. It's possible they may ask for updated parameters so that it is more usable going forward.
Work processes become outdated, but some people are unable to adapt and continue doing things the old way regardless.
Years ago I took a job and my assistant was in her early 60s. She had been doing the same job for 25 years or so, before computers became ubiquitous.
This job had a purchasing component to it, which had become automated a decade before I got there. POs and receiving info all recorded on the server. Nonetheless, my assistant insisted on printing all POs, copying them onto various colors of paper, and filing them in strange and mystical ways that would have been familiar to office workers of the 1960s and 1970s. When items were received, the same papers got pulled out of their various files, shuffled around, notations made, stamps stamped, collated and refiled in a different set of cabinets.
Nobody ever looked at any of them. She was constantly busy and complained that she was overworked, and that computerization had created her crushing workload. She simply could not accept that 70% of what she did was useless.
She was 6 months from retirement, in the union, and the big boss’s wife. Rather than fight that fight, I simply waited it out and refused to start hiring her replacement, which would have required a complete re-write of the job description, until after she was gone.
The day she left I had the facilities people bring up a bunch of shred bins, emptied her numerous file cabinets into them without reviewing a thing, and started work on a new job description which would only have inflamed her while she was there.
I had something similar happen at an old job. I had worked for a company as a word processor and one admin in particular always complained of being swamped, and passed off her work to me. I eventually left the company but was called back 2 years later to move into that admin's spot. On my first day, my boss said, "I hope you don't become as overwhelmed as she did - she was always very busy." He said this while gesturing to the massive stacks of papers on the back credenza.
I went to work organizing the desk, and quickly realized that the massive stacks were extremely old presentations - sometimes a dozen printed copies. Just stacks and stacks. I began getting rid of the duplicates and ended up clearing off the ENTIRE CREDENZA and was left with about 10 small documents to be filed. At lunch time the boss came out of his office and expressed surprise. When I told him what I discovered, he shook his head and said something to the effect of, "We should have gotten rid of her sooner."
Work processes become outdated, but some people are unable to adapt and continue doing things the old way regardless.
Or someone just makes the unilateral decision to stop following the process, and then things start falling through the cracks in other areas in which that someone may be unaware.
Instead someone should take the initiative in recommending the process be revised or eliminated but to make that decision unilaterally should be a no-no.
I agree that you shouldn't just unilaterally stop running the report.
But it also is telling that NO ONE on the list said -- "uh, where the report on XYZ?"
The report can't be that vital is NO ONE asked about it when it wasn't forthcoming.
The older I get the less I'm bothered by being paid to do something that wastes my time and doesn't really need to be done. If there's a company or boss willing to pay me to create and compile reports that no one reads? Fine with me.
I'm just about done caring about whether managers and companies get their act together. As long as they don't complicate my life in the process. ....and pay me, of course.
Work processes become outdated, but some people are unable to adapt and continue doing things the old way regardless.
Years ago I took a job and my assistant was in her early 60s. She had been doing the same job for 25 years or so, before computers became ubiquitous.
This job had a purchasing component to it, which had become automated a decade before I got there. POs and receiving info all recorded on the server. Nonetheless, my assistant insisted on printing all POs, copying them onto various colors of paper, and filing them in strange and mystical ways that would have been familiar to office workers of the 1960s and 1970s. When items were received, the same papers got pulled out of their various files, shuffled around, notations made, stamps stamped, collated and refiled in a different set of cabinets.
Nobody ever looked at any of them. She was constantly busy and complained that she was overworked, and that computerization had created her crushing workload. She simply could not accept that 70% of what she did was useless.
She was 6 months from retirement, in the union, and the big boss’s wife. Rather than fight that fight, I simply waited it out and refused to start hiring her replacement, which would have required a complete re-write of the job description, until after she was gone.
The day she left I had the facilities people bring up a bunch of shred bins, emptied her numerous file cabinets into them without reviewing a thing, and started work on a new job description which would only have inflamed her while she was there.
Sounds like the place I just started working at. The woman I replaced just retired. She had worked there for 30+ years. Just cleaning out her mess in the space she had was a huge project. I found stuff going back to 1988. I found carbon copies of typed materials (from a typewriter) that no longer meant anything. I found manuals for copiers made in 1982, as well as every other machine they ever owned that was long gone in a junk yard somewhere.
We have a server (as almost all companies have now a days) but I found stacks and stacks of files saved on CDs that were "back ups" even as recently as last year. Going through electronic files, I found "back up" copies of everything from 10 years back up until last year (in some instances multiple copies of the same file because, in her instructions she left, you need multiple copies in case someone inadvertently deletes one.
I understand that way back when when you didn't have servers and saved stuff on floppy disks that this made sense (in a way). Somehow, she never got out of that paranoia. She also somehow passed all this archaic thinking along to all the other "old timers" who are freaking out that I'm cleaning up her mess.
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