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With regard to her adding things to your workload....well, a boss gets to do that. That's the nature of being the boss.
If it's more work than you can get done in a week, respond by asking her which of your other deadlines is postponed or cancelled. This not only gives her the right to make the decisions, which is her job as boss, it forces her to take that responsibility, as boss, to address staffing issues.
Yea, that's a part of the plan we came up with. We're going to meet on Monday for the week's plan (not my routine work, but my research) and then on Friday for her to garner if she's happy with my productivity.
I realized today that one of my issues is that I tend to be a perfectionist. I don't like to show case my work until I feel it's perfect, which is rare. This personal issue bleeds into my professional and personal life. Today, I threw it out there any way, and she seemed to be pretty happy with it. OTOH, I did work several evenings, which I don't share with her because she frowns on OT. eta: to be clear, what enabled me to present my work was that I did something that I wasn't comfortable doing, but which is pretty common ime. I had to draw an arbitrary line in the sand for validity. I don't like doing this.
At this point my plan is to wrap up my project to the proof of concept stage, write up the paper on my own time for publication, and land another gig within the company. I'm already working with two different depts. on this. I'll give her and the department head my research, a paper ready for publication, tie up the routine work nicely, and give my notice. They can respond with cash or we'll just part ways.
If I may, I too am having an issue with my manager's way of managing. I work in a very busy medical environment with a huge amount of patients coming in and out on a daily basis. I am one of six schedulers for this clinic and have been here under six months. It is very busy and complex booking appt. for patients as we have over 30 doctors that have specialties and sub-specialties as well as booking all the radiology appts.
My manager likes to have weekly meetings with the new people which includes one other woman. These meetings only consist of our errors and nothing positive. She enlists the help of certain co-workers to report back every little thing they feel should be brought to her attention but never is anything regarding the other co-workers brought up..the ones that have been there a few years or more. The ones that disregard company policy by sneaking using Facebook, texting while there is a line of people waiting to check in, shopping online, yelling in their native tongue to their kids on the phone, leaving their seat to socialize elsewhere in the dept, etc. Never are these things brought to the attention of my manager because these women are always protecting each other from getting in trouble, everyone except the new girls, me and one other lady. Each week there maybe a few booking errors out of hundreds of correct ones and mind you I am still in training. But knowing that no matter how hard I try to do the best I can by giving excellent customer service to these primarily elderly patients in pain, making miracles happen to get someone in need to see a doctor, none of these things are looked at or discussed at these meetings. This is a one on one meeting by the way. Kind of reminiscence of having to go to the principals office every week. Leaves me feeling defeated, negative about the place and the other women as if no matter what good I do, only the few mistakes that anyone could make are the focus of these meetings. Just yesterday a five year employee made drastic mistakes but no one is reporting them. What do I do? I hate coming to work knowing the slightest mistake will be reported and I mean slightest. The patients enjoy my checking them in because I am more mature than most of these women, give them the respect they should have as well as humor to lighten their day. Other's are rude and impatient because they can't handle the elderly. Help.
If I may, I too am having an issue with my manager's way of managing. I work in a very busy medical environment with a huge amount of patients coming in and out on a daily basis. I am one of six schedulers for this clinic and have been here under six months. It is very busy and complex booking appt. for patients as we have over 30 doctors that have specialties and sub-specialties as well as booking all the radiology appts.
My manager likes to have weekly meetings with the new people which includes one other woman. These meetings only consist of our errors and nothing positive. She enlists the help of certain co-workers to report back every little thing they feel should be brought to her attention but never is anything regarding the other co-workers brought up..the ones that have been there a few years or more. The ones that disregard company policy by sneaking using Facebook, texting while there is a line of people waiting to check in, shopping online, yelling in their native tongue to their kids on the phone, leaving their seat to socialize elsewhere in the dept, etc. Never are these things brought to the attention of my manager because these women are always protecting each other from getting in trouble, everyone except the new girls, me and one other lady. Each week there maybe a few booking errors out of hundreds of correct ones and mind you I am still in training. But knowing that no matter how hard I try to do the best I can by giving excellent customer service to these primarily elderly patients in pain, making miracles happen to get someone in need to see a doctor, none of these things are looked at or discussed at these meetings. This is a one on one meeting by the way. Kind of reminiscence of having to go to the principals office every week. Leaves me feeling defeated, negative about the place and the other women as if no matter what good I do, only the few mistakes that anyone could make are the focus of these meetings. Just yesterday a five year employee made drastic mistakes but no one is reporting them. What do I do? I hate coming to work knowing the slightest mistake will be reported and I mean slightest. The patients enjoy my checking them in because I am more mature than most of these women, give them the respect they should have as well as humor to lighten their day. Other's are rude and impatient because they can't handle the elderly. Help.
Yep, I hear you, osuzana. Positive reinforcement is important to people. I know praise, when warranted, motivates me to be a better worker. Why some mgrs don't realize this I don't know. Good luck to you. Maybe things will change once you're done with training.
Yep, I hear you, osuzana. Positive reinforcement is important to people. I know praise, when warranted, motivates me to be a better worker. Why some mgrs don't realize this I don't know. Good luck to you. Maybe things will change once you're done with training.
Thank you. Technically, my three month probation is over yet the weekly meetings keep going on. I can't tell you how much I enjoy helping our patients both on the phone and in person and that they are truly grateful to have someone that genuinely cares, but that doesn't seem to be so important as to accidentally making a booking error....maybe two or three out of hundreds that are made a week. We see up to 350 daily!!!!!! I was cashing out my drawer one day as all the patients had been checked in and the other girls were emailing, texting or just not around, yet I got it for not answering a call, even though there were five other women available. My boss just takes the word of these cliquey women, never sees what goes on but has been told how great I am with the patients and how quickly I keep the line moving. I need a job but after having to put up with the double standard and the "meeting", my positive attitude is hard to keep up. Any other suggestions?
When I say I confront I don't mean anything aggressive, to be clear. I'm thinking of going to the boss with things I don't like to have a discussion. My dh thinks I should just keep quiet, which is my normal MO. He also thinks I shouldn't take things so personally, but that's a personality thing that isn't easy to turn off.
My boss nit picks and verbally micro-manages, but from what I've seen thus far it doesn't always include follow through. For example with nit picking, she noted in a meeting yesterday that she didn't understand an approach I took for a specific action. She said I should have done it X, Y, Z way. Either approach gives the same results, but the way I did it saved me some time. I perceived her as being annoyed, but I might just be paranoid.
She'll also give me off the cuff tasks in our weekly meetings, which I simply don't have the time for. By the next meeting she may or may not remember the tasks she gave. She'll forget conversations we've had. I'll complete a task she asked to be done and then she'll ask me why I'm wasting my time doing it. It's frustrating for me and it's getting me down.
With all that said, as mentioned in one of my other threads, she gave me a strong year-end review. This is what makes me think I'm bringing a level of paranoia to the situation.
What would you do? Please share any experiences you have had in the past with approaching your boss. Thanks!
I work in an environment where we have tons of procedures and processes in place for various reasons: compliance, audit trackability, business requirements, cost efficiency, etc.
Personally, my "confrontation" is more of a dialogue. I would ask her directly why did the project or task need to be done one way versus what may have appeared to you easier to complete another way. There is potentially a down stream impact that you may not be aware of.
Case in point-- we have this process at my work for when an employee is terminated retro-actively (how this happens in practicality I don't know-- I would think your manager knows when you terminated, but I digress).
During a service recovery, I found that the folks who complete all of the termination tasks were not following the user procedure documentation and process flow. Just as an overview to make things make a little more sense, when a termination is entered or modified, a data alert is sent out on a nightly batch cycle to our vendors, security, health insurance companies, 401k companies, etc. Basically this is to let our partners both internal and external know that someone has been terminated and there may need work to be done to ensure the employee is caputered as terminated.
Getting back to what was happening, the processors who complete the terminationi n HR were taking short cuts. They would delete the termination so that they could change some data (maybe the term date, the eligibility for re-hire, the last day worked, the term reason, etc) and then would re-enter it later with the correct data. Sometimes this was the next day-- sometimes they went ahead and deleted other information that they thought would make it easier to process. In the end, what thes epeople did not know by following their short process is that from a systems standpoint the employee was never terminated and triggers were being sent all across the wires that an employee was actually not terminated after all. This would cause a lot of work on vendors systems and our own systems trying to et the employee "hired" again.
The processors did not know this-- or understand it. They thought they were doing something just easier and more convenient. They didn't see that there were reasons why something was set up to transact a certain way. In fact, since their view was so narrow in scope because of their role, even when I had a training with them to help them understand-- it still took several follow up meetings for them to truly understand the why.
So long story short, you need to have a dialogue with your manager. There may be reasons she or he expected you to do something one way.
As for the projects and side tasks she gives you, if you are feeling overwhelemed you should go to her and ask her to help re-prioritize your work. I.e. "Hi Manager, you just gave me these two new tasks to complete, A and B, and I have projects and tasks C, D, E, F, and G still in progress. I would like for you to let me know what you feel is more vital to accomplish this week, this month, etc. I want to make sure I am focusing on the projects that you feel are more important, etc" or something like that.
That is what happens when you don't train. Also a boss should be reading articles and books on how to become a better boss. Improvement is continuous and fluid. There is a lot of literature on management out there. It is easy to pick up a book and read.
And to Samston. Delegation is a management tool. They are supposed to delegate some management tasks to somebody that has the skills and qualifications to do them competently.
Quite frankly, I don't think the best managers are trained.
I think there are inherent qualities that make a good leader. I.e. I don't think people can be trained to be a leader-- you either innately are a leader or you are not.
I think an average manager can learn a lot from experience, training, reading, etc.
But in general I think the best leaders/managers are born not trained.
Well, you're obviously getting good end of year reviews, so it's not going to hinder your career-wise I think. However, personality-wise, it sounds like this is all bothering you enough that you feel that something is going to have to change. Is there any potential for discussing all of this with a person higher up the chain or maybe HR? I don't know what good that would really do, but maybe it's an option.
I think that you need to make a decision about whether you will be able to tolerate this personally in the long run. If you feel like you can't make the experience more positive somehow, then I would consider finding a new job. But you should really think about all of the positives at your current job and see if you can make them overrule the negatives so to speak first. I hope this advice helped.
So long story short, you need to have a dialogue with your manager. There may be reasons she or he expected you to do something one way.
As far as routine work goes that has procedures, many of which I tend to write up myself, that's not really the issue. My mgr has told me on more than one occassion that she has no interest in even hearing about routine work. There isn't much of a reason for her to expect me to do things a certain way in my research because, as with the nature of research, it's novel. I am better informed and have greater expertise than she does in my work, and that's part of the problem. I shared this with her on Wednesday, so hopefully this will be taken into consideration in the future.
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As for the projects and side tasks she gives you, if you are feeling overwhelemed you should go to her and ask her to help re-prioritize your work. I.e. "Hi Manager, you just gave me these two new tasks to complete, A and B, and I have projects and tasks C, D, E, F, and G still in progress. I would like for you to let me know what you feel is more vital to accomplish this week, this month, etc. I want to make sure I am focusing on the projects that you feel are more important, etc" or something like that.
Yea, as mentioned we set something like this up, which will start tomorrow. I'm still very nervous about our dialog this past week. Hopefully, I didn't shoot myself in the foot.
I was talking to an HR guy this past week due to another silly issue going on in the co and he mentioned how this woman that used to do write-ups for positions landed an associate director job. She was pretty much low on the totem pole, below his level at least, and next thing they all new she moved to a different dept and landed that gig. I don't know how HR stuff works, but he was miffed.
I had the opportunity last week to have small group sessions with two of our executive leaders.
In one, someone asked the question about what this EVP meant about succession planning (it is one of our goals for all levels of leadership this year). The woman who asked it is a little bit of a non-sequitor kind of gal-- but she went on to explain how she felt it wasn't fair that a year ago when her team lead was selected, she felt (and some others felt) that the girl had already been handpicked from the team and that no one was ever really considered for the role.
I thought the executive did a good job of basically explaining succession planning to her. He did say he could not speak to what happened in her personal story, but he said that for the most part a company should have about 50% of all roles promoted from within by people who have been identified as the obvious choice for a role. The other 50% would probably be those roles that are just open-- there is no real obvious choice, bring in outside talent, promote internal hidden talent, etc.
Now-- I know the people pretty intimately who were being discussed by this woman's question-- and the girl that won the team lead job was by far the most outstanding employee. Her work ethic, level of detail, level of ability to understand the full end to end work streams, ideas, etc were far superior to anyone else in that group. Most people who were upset about her selection were upset because this girl had been there only about 18 months versus some of them who have been working in the same role for 3-5 years.
From their perspective this girl had not right to get the job-- but honestly none of them demonstrates leadership potential or even an ability to think outside the box. Unfortunately, they are not able to see that just by doing a good job at your day to day tasks-- is not necessarily enough to be promoted into a higher level role with more accountability and responsibility.
This person in your story-- could very well have been like that one girl who did get promoted. Or she could also be the teachers pet for the hiring manager-- but sometimes there is a very legitimate reason why some people move up the ranks and others just kind of stay in the same ole same ole
Well, you're obviously getting good end of year reviews, so it's not going to hinder your career-wise I think. However, personality-wise, it sounds like this is all bothering you enough that you feel that something is going to have to change. Is there any potential for discussing all of this with a person higher up the chain or maybe HR? I don't know what good that would really do, but maybe it's an option.
My mgr suggested that we could possibly bring in the dept head as a third party observer. I would rather not to be honest. He knows even less about what's going on than she does. I would only consider HR if my job becomes threatened.
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I think that you need to make a decision about whether you will be able to tolerate this personally in the long run. If you feel like you can't make the experience more positive somehow, then I would consider finding a new job. But you should really think about all of the positives at your current job and see if you can make them overrule the negatives so to speak first. I hope this advice helped.
It does and thanks. I agree. I would rather stay where I am to be honest. I like the job itself. But, I am very sensitive and I don't know if I'll be able to get past the negative interactions. I wish I could eliminate that part of my personality.
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