Useless Joint Task Force

An email request was recently sent to the office soliciting associates to participate in a joint management/non management task force to improve departmental processes. Good idea, right? Maybe if the management team consists of a different group of people.

If that sounds mean I have reason, having been on the first task force of this kind our department created last year. It was a communication centered task force, where it’s easily assumed that the objective was to improve departmental communication. After one or two effective changes were made management became preoccupied with planning team building exercises for the department where many of the management group members, me being one of them, wanted to keep the focus on communication. Eventually us faithful few gave up the fight and let management do their thing.

After that experience I’ve had my feel of trying to work along side management. Ill provide my suggestions via a suggestion box–if they employ one–and keep my frustrations to a minimum.

Tact Goes a Long Way

“Team, please send me an email as to what you’re working on and what your progress is on what you’re working on. I will need this information every week for a meeting in which I have to disclose this information. I will need this information every week. Thank you.”

The above is an assimilation of an email my manager sent out to his team on Monday morning. Upon receipt of the message, I shake my head in disbelief concluding that, once again, my manager wants us to do the leg work for his meeting. Why do I say that? First of all, the managers assign the work! Second of all, the managers have a schedule as to what phase (1^st vs, 2^nd vs, etc.) the assigned work is in. So???  Apparently, keeping up with what he has assigned to his employees and referring to the schedule to retrieve what he needs for his meeting is too much work or too much like right!

Making matters worse, the following morning at approximately 9 A.M., he traipses around the office reminding us that he needs that information he requested for his 10 A.M. meeting TODAY! WTF!

“Seriously?” I want to ask indignantly! “Not only do you want us to do our job and your job, you don’t even have the courtesy to give us the timeframe for which you need the requested information so we can give it to you when you need it and NOT be rushed?” Give me a break!

What’s the best way to handle this situation?

1. Have a private meeting with your manager explaining how unprofessional you felt the email was and advise of a more appropriate and professional way that he could have retrieved the information he needed for his meeting.
2. Ignore the request.
3. Send an anonymous complaint to your manager’s manager.
4. Comply with the request while silently cursing your manager out in your head.  

Stay tuned for my next post to see what happened.

New Year, Same Sh&t, Apparently

I didn’t intentionally wait to take my first full week of vacation on the last week of 2011 but that’s how it played out. However I needed it even more than I realized. In the weeks–months, actually– prior to my much anticipated vacation week, I was frustrated to no end. After dropping my children off at school and making my way down the street where my office building sits, I noticed my spirits sinking little by little the closer I got so it’s not hard to imagine where my spirits were by the time I arrived at my desk!  In the perverbial toilet! Foolishly, I thought after over 10 days away from the office that I’d go back feeling revived, refreshed, pumped up. NOT! Instead,  the desolate feeling returned almost immediately upon my arrival at my desk on January 3, 2012. So much for happy new year. It was then that I realized that I can’t go on like this. Eight hours a day, five days a week is too much time to feel this way.  What am I going to do about it, you ask?  Until I can do something different–believe me, there are plans in the work–I’m going to do better with encouraging and motivating myself–others too–to hang in there with peace, joy, and happiness.  

Are you stuck in a your day job like me, or another area of your life where you need encouragement  to stay the course? Tell me all about it. Let’s help each other.