Different Angle of Normal
I looked over my last post, and... oh dear. It seems I'm still in the same poor situation I was in then, except even worse.
Well, let us begin where I left off. That incident with the car led to a bit of recrimination - I still haven't taken it in for a servicing of the front wheel, which is squeaking a bit, but nobody is worse for wear. The workload on the other hand is still there, and hasn't abated a bit - if anything it's only increased.
It's having an effect on me, of course. People have started pointing out how I rarely if ever smile anymore - it's particularly evident because my scan-card photo was taken awhile ago and is all a-beam with happiness - and how I answer the phone as if it weighed a tonne, even when it's first thing in the morning. I mildly disagree: I do still smile, but only with the right half of my mouth. I suppose that makes it more a smirk than a smile. But then I don't really have anything to smile about when it comes to work.
I've already mentioned how my manager was called to a new project and I've been having to cover his duties as much as I can since then. But it's only gotten worse since.
I don't think it's a breach of the NDA to describe the way my department is structured - but just in case, I've just spent a bit of time removing personal information from the easiest-to-access parts of this blog. The Paranoid Parrot in me now assuaged, let me proceed. On paper, the organisation chart is topped by the GM. There are two branches downwards - one leads to the manager, and one leads to the "Lead QA Auditor". Under the LQAA is the Document Controller; under the manager, there are three branches - one leads to my beaming face, one leads to our Assistant, and one leads to the Team Leader. Under me there are two inspectors; under the Team Leader are a whole bunch of inspectors. That is, of course, on paper. In practice? The Team Leader absconded last week, but even before that she was new; what it really looks like, under the section under my manager, is just one line leading to me. And under me is everybody. (The LQAA is also apparently feeling herself over everybody, because I receive reports that she steps in and complains about the things my people do, but she doesn't address these complaints to me ever.)
It's a petrifying situation - I'm suddenly responsible for absolutely everything because, after all, in the near-absence of my manager (not that I blame him in the least, he's insanely busy and every time I see him he's exhausted and practically falling over), I'm the highest-up in the department, and I don't think I'm ready for it at all. It's also a tiring situation, since I haven't even gotten used to day-to-day operations but we already have three projects running and consuming a heap of time and mental power. It's times like these that make me feel horribly limited...
...last week the GM came to see me, and gave me a long speech about how I'm normal and need to be abnormal. It mostly went entirely over my head, apart from the bits where I was a bit flattered that he thought I was being normal when it's barely a month since the car incident. But then he's an extrovert and these overstatements are part and parcel of the way he communicates. I was very lackluster in my responses, which I think disappointed him, so he ended it by telling me to think it over and go to find him when I had an answer.
I suppose he was disappointed because in the past I've agreed to plenty of the ideas he's come up with and maybe this is the first time I've dissented, even if only by silence and cautious answers. But I think I have an answer now, and I also think he won't like it. Maybe I'm over-thinking, or I'm going at it from a different angle, but...
I have to respectfully disagree with the idea that anything about my work life right now is normal. I'm carrying my workload and my manager's, trying to cover as much of the department as I can and still not covering everything that I want to, the zero-error project is failing miserably (we've had multiple errors already this month and are sure to get angry emails at the month-end evaluation); I regularly put in 13- or 14-hour workdays and still cannot finish the daily tasks in my email, let alone the other ones that I receive via verbal message - "Oh, we found something, will you look into it?". To ask me to put anything more on my plate would be to mean I had to give decreased attention to everything else - which of course is no solution, as that will certainly merely increase the number of fires I need to run around putting out - or to move something off of my plate and onto somebody else's.
And that's my next self-assigned project. I'll need to list out everything my department does, and then list out who is authorised and capable of performing each individual task. I suspect it will be a very long list. I also, depressingly, suspect that a great many tasks will be me- or manager-only - things like approving various forms or double-checking reports or writing emails... maybe I will be proven happily wrong and my plate will be found to actually be manageably empty, which may indicate something about my time-management habits.
(I recently started a cashflow tracker and was shocked to find I spent nearly RM300 last week.)
And as for the GM's push... it's probably the clash in personalities. He's an extrovert and his entire philosophy seems to revolve around competition and conflict - managing information, offering additional services, proving naysayers wrong - or else that's how he thinks I am and that's the kind of motivation he expects me to respond to. I on the other hand - I'm semi-reliably informed that I am an ISTJ, and at any rate I don't like competition very much. I think I've mentioned that before. And while the offer sounds interesting, I have reservations mostly revolving around my ability to add extra things-to-do into my daily list and to perform them well. Which may be what he thinks is normal, but is what I think is abnormal; I see so many people who don't seem to care enough about doing their work properly.
I had a number of strange dreams last week. In no particular order:
1. I was in a place where there were two rooms. One room was dark and filled with sleeping people; one room was bright and empty. The two rooms were connected by a long, straight corridor, where I was. I walked to the dark room and woke somebody up, who told me that I shouldn't be there.
2. I was sitting in a sort of diner, but there was no food. I was talking to a vague group of people that I don't know, when a man sat down opposite me (though he later moved to be beside me). The entire rest of the night he flirted with me, eventually reaching the extent of deliberately face-planting into my crotch, while I attempted to go on as if nothing were happening.
3. I was at some kind of gathering where it was chaos and people were attempting to form into some semblance of order. I tried to help, but made the situation worsen until at some point somebody yelled at me to stop helping them. The dream continued in this vein.
I haven't had any dreams this week so far, though, which I'm grateful for; my remembered dreams are almost always disturbing ones.
At any rate there's work tomorrow and I should sleep; my body is sore from the morning run yesterday with people from church and from the swim just now (where I discovered that I can apparently swim 200 meters in 5 minutes now - roughly 2.4kmh, which is still about half my walking speed but not too shabby).
Well, let us begin where I left off. That incident with the car led to a bit of recrimination - I still haven't taken it in for a servicing of the front wheel, which is squeaking a bit, but nobody is worse for wear. The workload on the other hand is still there, and hasn't abated a bit - if anything it's only increased.
It's having an effect on me, of course. People have started pointing out how I rarely if ever smile anymore - it's particularly evident because my scan-card photo was taken awhile ago and is all a-beam with happiness - and how I answer the phone as if it weighed a tonne, even when it's first thing in the morning. I mildly disagree: I do still smile, but only with the right half of my mouth. I suppose that makes it more a smirk than a smile. But then I don't really have anything to smile about when it comes to work.
I've already mentioned how my manager was called to a new project and I've been having to cover his duties as much as I can since then. But it's only gotten worse since.
I don't think it's a breach of the NDA to describe the way my department is structured - but just in case, I've just spent a bit of time removing personal information from the easiest-to-access parts of this blog. The Paranoid Parrot in me now assuaged, let me proceed. On paper, the organisation chart is topped by the GM. There are two branches downwards - one leads to the manager, and one leads to the "Lead QA Auditor". Under the LQAA is the Document Controller; under the manager, there are three branches - one leads to my beaming face, one leads to our Assistant, and one leads to the Team Leader. Under me there are two inspectors; under the Team Leader are a whole bunch of inspectors. That is, of course, on paper. In practice? The Team Leader absconded last week, but even before that she was new; what it really looks like, under the section under my manager, is just one line leading to me. And under me is everybody. (The LQAA is also apparently feeling herself over everybody, because I receive reports that she steps in and complains about the things my people do, but she doesn't address these complaints to me ever.)
It's a petrifying situation - I'm suddenly responsible for absolutely everything because, after all, in the near-absence of my manager (not that I blame him in the least, he's insanely busy and every time I see him he's exhausted and practically falling over), I'm the highest-up in the department, and I don't think I'm ready for it at all. It's also a tiring situation, since I haven't even gotten used to day-to-day operations but we already have three projects running and consuming a heap of time and mental power. It's times like these that make me feel horribly limited...
...last week the GM came to see me, and gave me a long speech about how I'm normal and need to be abnormal. It mostly went entirely over my head, apart from the bits where I was a bit flattered that he thought I was being normal when it's barely a month since the car incident. But then he's an extrovert and these overstatements are part and parcel of the way he communicates. I was very lackluster in my responses, which I think disappointed him, so he ended it by telling me to think it over and go to find him when I had an answer.
I suppose he was disappointed because in the past I've agreed to plenty of the ideas he's come up with and maybe this is the first time I've dissented, even if only by silence and cautious answers. But I think I have an answer now, and I also think he won't like it. Maybe I'm over-thinking, or I'm going at it from a different angle, but...
I have to respectfully disagree with the idea that anything about my work life right now is normal. I'm carrying my workload and my manager's, trying to cover as much of the department as I can and still not covering everything that I want to, the zero-error project is failing miserably (we've had multiple errors already this month and are sure to get angry emails at the month-end evaluation); I regularly put in 13- or 14-hour workdays and still cannot finish the daily tasks in my email, let alone the other ones that I receive via verbal message - "Oh, we found something, will you look into it?". To ask me to put anything more on my plate would be to mean I had to give decreased attention to everything else - which of course is no solution, as that will certainly merely increase the number of fires I need to run around putting out - or to move something off of my plate and onto somebody else's.
And that's my next self-assigned project. I'll need to list out everything my department does, and then list out who is authorised and capable of performing each individual task. I suspect it will be a very long list. I also, depressingly, suspect that a great many tasks will be me- or manager-only - things like approving various forms or double-checking reports or writing emails... maybe I will be proven happily wrong and my plate will be found to actually be manageably empty, which may indicate something about my time-management habits.
(I recently started a cashflow tracker and was shocked to find I spent nearly RM300 last week.)
And as for the GM's push... it's probably the clash in personalities. He's an extrovert and his entire philosophy seems to revolve around competition and conflict - managing information, offering additional services, proving naysayers wrong - or else that's how he thinks I am and that's the kind of motivation he expects me to respond to. I on the other hand - I'm semi-reliably informed that I am an ISTJ, and at any rate I don't like competition very much. I think I've mentioned that before. And while the offer sounds interesting, I have reservations mostly revolving around my ability to add extra things-to-do into my daily list and to perform them well. Which may be what he thinks is normal, but is what I think is abnormal; I see so many people who don't seem to care enough about doing their work properly.
I had a number of strange dreams last week. In no particular order:
1. I was in a place where there were two rooms. One room was dark and filled with sleeping people; one room was bright and empty. The two rooms were connected by a long, straight corridor, where I was. I walked to the dark room and woke somebody up, who told me that I shouldn't be there.
2. I was sitting in a sort of diner, but there was no food. I was talking to a vague group of people that I don't know, when a man sat down opposite me (though he later moved to be beside me). The entire rest of the night he flirted with me, eventually reaching the extent of deliberately face-planting into my crotch, while I attempted to go on as if nothing were happening.
3. I was at some kind of gathering where it was chaos and people were attempting to form into some semblance of order. I tried to help, but made the situation worsen until at some point somebody yelled at me to stop helping them. The dream continued in this vein.
I haven't had any dreams this week so far, though, which I'm grateful for; my remembered dreams are almost always disturbing ones.
At any rate there's work tomorrow and I should sleep; my body is sore from the morning run yesterday with people from church and from the swim just now (where I discovered that I can apparently swim 200 meters in 5 minutes now - roughly 2.4kmh, which is still about half my walking speed but not too shabby).
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