I guess I have one of those faces. When it comes time to hand out responsibility, I must just look like somebody who either will handle it well or, more likely, will take it without complaining too much. Its happened to me a number of times throughout my life, and sometimes I don't mind it because I can be a bit of control freak and want to get in there and do it myself. But a lot of times, I'd like to just be another one of the grunts, you know? Responsibility brings a lot of stress with it that I could do without. Especially when it does not bring along extra pay with it.
Allow me to explain myself. As regular readers of my blog will already be aware, I got a new job a couple of months ago doing vague, inexplicable work known only as “taxonomy.” It's been a pretty good job, I really don't mind it. The work itself can be tedious, yet mentally engaging in its way and, since I can listen to the BBC or music from my personal collection all day and chat with friends online, the hours fly by. The pay isn't bad, my coworkers are fun, the atmosphere is relaxed and casual, and I can wear jeans. All in all, I feel pretty lucky.
Before this week, that is. It all started a few weeks ago. You see, for the first month or so of the project, all of us were new and learning and on equal footing. There was talk from the very beginning, however, that one person should be selected to be kind of “in charge,” which would mean auditing everybody else's work and being the point of contact with our partner company on this project. Somehow, there was always this assumption, almost from the first day, that this “auditor” would be me, despite the fact that, as we got into the work, I was hardly the most productive or most knowledgeable member of the team. And, lo and behold, this is exactly what came to pass. It became my responsibility to review my coworkers performances, motivate them to meet our deadlines, and work with the other company when the program isn't working (which is pretty often). No raise, though. Don't be silly.
OK, I thought, I can handle this. Its not that bad. Its not really more work, just work of a different kind. I do less of the actual taxonomy now, though I try to do my fair share of that, because my time is taken up by my auditor duties. I still have lots of time to myself with my headphones and my favorite British comedies, so its not all that bad.
Things started to go down hill when, after a review of our company goals, it was determined that we did not have enough employees working on taxonomy to meet our deadlines. There was discussion about hiring and training up to five new people for our project. I knew I would likely be involved in that training process, but it was discussed in the abstract sense and I assumed I'd have advance warning once they had actually hired somebody.
Before continuing let me also interject that the first week of January is some kind of big company meeting in Florida. That means all the people who are actually in charge of anything are gone this week. The guy who usually runs the project server gave me a few notes and left me in charge, calming me by saying something like, “Don't worry, I'm sure nothing will go wrong.” You know a disaster is waiting to happen when somebody uses that ominous phrase.
On Monday, somebody dropped by my cubicle to ask if I was expecting a new employee today, because one was here asking for me so I could train him. I certainly was not expecting anything of the sort, but there he was. I tried to improvise the training, but I only confused him. If I don't prepare my thoughts I can't form logical sentences. I know it may seem like I'm quite adept at communicating clearly, but when it comes to extemporizing orally on a subject that is quite complex and that I'm still figuring out myself, all you are going to get is gibberish. I asked him to come back the next day so I could prepare a proper training course.
I then discovered that the powers that be had hired not just the one but three additional employees all of whom would be showing up at some point during the week to be trained. To be fair, none of my superiors have the slightest clue what it is we do so they assumed that the training process would be as easy as having the new people just look over the shoulder of somebody else and pick it by diffusion, as it were. (People often talk of learning by “osmosis,” but, though I am no scientific expert by any means, I believe that this analogy is incorrect. Osmosis, while it may be a really cool word, applies specifically to water passing through some sort of membrane. “Diffusion” is the process of things moving from a place of high concentration to a place of low concentration, which is a much clearer fit to the metaphor of knowledge transference. But I digress.) Unfortunately, in order for a new employee to make any sense of what we are doing as we work, they need to have a bit more of a formal introduction and explanation of the all the various words and concepts that make up the glorious thing that is taxonomy. I was able to throw something together, and, with the assistance of my wonderful coworkers, started training the new people as they arrived.
I had never really been on the teaching side of job training before, and let me tell you its more difficult than it seems. Imparting information in a clear and efficient matter is draining. It requires constant effort and determination. At least our trainees are all smart people who seem to be picking it up pretty quickly, when they are awake (one of them must be narcoleptic, I swear). Anyway, of course nobody bothered to set up a computer or anything in anticipation of the incoming employees they hadn't told anybody about and now everyone who could is in Florida, so training these people and also figuring out what to have them do all day has been quite a task, taking almost all of my attention.
Until the server crashed, of course. Now I had the task of figuring out why it was taking us up to two hours to save our work to the database and why many of the program functions were not working correctly. I have half of the team helping out new people step by step, slowly feeling their way through the process, and the other half sitting around twiddling their thumbs while waiting for their work to save, and we have an already impossible-to-meet deadline coming up at the end of the month! I was on the phone with the other company, running back and forth in a panic from one computer to the other, stopping only momentarily to cry on a shoulder of my patient and very helpful coworkers before dashing off to fiddle with things that produced no real result. All the while, the new people are asking “What should I do now?” which is a perfectly reasonable question and one to which I do not really have an answer.
It was a bad day. Ironically, I came in this morning expecting to continue my battle with the server only to find that suddenly most everything is working correctly, and what is still broken can't be fixed until a guy at the other company comes in to work this afternoon. Most of the new people aren't here or have been given something rather permanent to do under the care of some of the other employees and I was actually able to catch up on my work. I've done that and, unbelievably, find myself without anything to do until after lunch. Hence I'm writing this.
I think I've figured out the key to this responsibility thing, actually. I'll let you in on the secret: Delegation is a wonderful thing! You should try it sometime. The best part of responsibility is giving it somebody else, even if its only temporary. I get a moment to take a deep breath, then I'll get to go home and have a nutritious and healthy lunch (I'm eating carefully again) before I have to come back and tackle my personal giants.
I just want to go on record that I never asked for this.
Allow me to explain myself. As regular readers of my blog will already be aware, I got a new job a couple of months ago doing vague, inexplicable work known only as “taxonomy.” It's been a pretty good job, I really don't mind it. The work itself can be tedious, yet mentally engaging in its way and, since I can listen to the BBC or music from my personal collection all day and chat with friends online, the hours fly by. The pay isn't bad, my coworkers are fun, the atmosphere is relaxed and casual, and I can wear jeans. All in all, I feel pretty lucky.
Before this week, that is. It all started a few weeks ago. You see, for the first month or so of the project, all of us were new and learning and on equal footing. There was talk from the very beginning, however, that one person should be selected to be kind of “in charge,” which would mean auditing everybody else's work and being the point of contact with our partner company on this project. Somehow, there was always this assumption, almost from the first day, that this “auditor” would be me, despite the fact that, as we got into the work, I was hardly the most productive or most knowledgeable member of the team. And, lo and behold, this is exactly what came to pass. It became my responsibility to review my coworkers performances, motivate them to meet our deadlines, and work with the other company when the program isn't working (which is pretty often). No raise, though. Don't be silly.
OK, I thought, I can handle this. Its not that bad. Its not really more work, just work of a different kind. I do less of the actual taxonomy now, though I try to do my fair share of that, because my time is taken up by my auditor duties. I still have lots of time to myself with my headphones and my favorite British comedies, so its not all that bad.
Things started to go down hill when, after a review of our company goals, it was determined that we did not have enough employees working on taxonomy to meet our deadlines. There was discussion about hiring and training up to five new people for our project. I knew I would likely be involved in that training process, but it was discussed in the abstract sense and I assumed I'd have advance warning once they had actually hired somebody.
Before continuing let me also interject that the first week of January is some kind of big company meeting in Florida. That means all the people who are actually in charge of anything are gone this week. The guy who usually runs the project server gave me a few notes and left me in charge, calming me by saying something like, “Don't worry, I'm sure nothing will go wrong.” You know a disaster is waiting to happen when somebody uses that ominous phrase.
On Monday, somebody dropped by my cubicle to ask if I was expecting a new employee today, because one was here asking for me so I could train him. I certainly was not expecting anything of the sort, but there he was. I tried to improvise the training, but I only confused him. If I don't prepare my thoughts I can't form logical sentences. I know it may seem like I'm quite adept at communicating clearly, but when it comes to extemporizing orally on a subject that is quite complex and that I'm still figuring out myself, all you are going to get is gibberish. I asked him to come back the next day so I could prepare a proper training course.
I then discovered that the powers that be had hired not just the one but three additional employees all of whom would be showing up at some point during the week to be trained. To be fair, none of my superiors have the slightest clue what it is we do so they assumed that the training process would be as easy as having the new people just look over the shoulder of somebody else and pick it by diffusion, as it were. (People often talk of learning by “osmosis,” but, though I am no scientific expert by any means, I believe that this analogy is incorrect. Osmosis, while it may be a really cool word, applies specifically to water passing through some sort of membrane. “Diffusion” is the process of things moving from a place of high concentration to a place of low concentration, which is a much clearer fit to the metaphor of knowledge transference. But I digress.) Unfortunately, in order for a new employee to make any sense of what we are doing as we work, they need to have a bit more of a formal introduction and explanation of the all the various words and concepts that make up the glorious thing that is taxonomy. I was able to throw something together, and, with the assistance of my wonderful coworkers, started training the new people as they arrived.
I had never really been on the teaching side of job training before, and let me tell you its more difficult than it seems. Imparting information in a clear and efficient matter is draining. It requires constant effort and determination. At least our trainees are all smart people who seem to be picking it up pretty quickly, when they are awake (one of them must be narcoleptic, I swear). Anyway, of course nobody bothered to set up a computer or anything in anticipation of the incoming employees they hadn't told anybody about and now everyone who could is in Florida, so training these people and also figuring out what to have them do all day has been quite a task, taking almost all of my attention.
Until the server crashed, of course. Now I had the task of figuring out why it was taking us up to two hours to save our work to the database and why many of the program functions were not working correctly. I have half of the team helping out new people step by step, slowly feeling their way through the process, and the other half sitting around twiddling their thumbs while waiting for their work to save, and we have an already impossible-to-meet deadline coming up at the end of the month! I was on the phone with the other company, running back and forth in a panic from one computer to the other, stopping only momentarily to cry on a shoulder of my patient and very helpful coworkers before dashing off to fiddle with things that produced no real result. All the while, the new people are asking “What should I do now?” which is a perfectly reasonable question and one to which I do not really have an answer.
It was a bad day. Ironically, I came in this morning expecting to continue my battle with the server only to find that suddenly most everything is working correctly, and what is still broken can't be fixed until a guy at the other company comes in to work this afternoon. Most of the new people aren't here or have been given something rather permanent to do under the care of some of the other employees and I was actually able to catch up on my work. I've done that and, unbelievably, find myself without anything to do until after lunch. Hence I'm writing this.
I think I've figured out the key to this responsibility thing, actually. I'll let you in on the secret: Delegation is a wonderful thing! You should try it sometime. The best part of responsibility is giving it somebody else, even if its only temporary. I get a moment to take a deep breath, then I'll get to go home and have a nutritious and healthy lunch (I'm eating carefully again) before I have to come back and tackle my personal giants.
I just want to go on record that I never asked for this.
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