Last week was pretty good. I had a couple days where I got fiercely protective of our analyst team. One day Baby Analyst got so frustrated about a process not working, she said, "I guess I am too dumb to follow step by step directions." That? Broke my freaking heart! Oh yeah sure, I say that to myself all the time but hearing Baby Analyst say it had me leaping into overprotective mom mode. I told her thinking that way sets her up for failure and she had done everything right, it was just the stupid program. Another day,we had our unit meeting where Super Boss had to admit he was falling really behind on a fiscal year process. He looked miserable, defeated, and small saying this. So our director proposed a way to break up the work between all of us. Super Boss got flustered saying that dividing it up would actually create more work for him. Then the director offered to run interference for us with other departments to create some room on our plates.
Literally the next morning I took him up on it. There is a clueless bint in our department who has wasted hours of our time asking us to create a report to help provide work for her intern. Work that doesn't even need to be done until 2016. I am unclear what unmet work need this intern is filling since there is no workload apparently. Super Boss and I had to revise this report multiple times and build queries. Guess what? We got a request for another revision. I know if Super Boss and I work on something together, it's stellar and yet this stupid report was not stellar. That was a red flag to me that we are worn too thin. So I raised the issue with the director.
Last Friday was seriously the pinnacle of my entire time at my workplace. For months, I have been cleaning up a billing process dating back years, at the same time designing a new process, and also drafting company wide communications. Last Friday was the big meeting between IT, my department, and the director. Every single thing I proposed was agreed upon! Even my design of an interface got a thumbs up from IT. The director joked, "Watch out, she's glowing." I was smiling that much.
This week was a bit more challenging. The billing process I cleaned up over 5 months stopped working for a day, I wasted half a day troubleshooting with IT and I needed to get the bills out. I had a sense of humor about it in the beginning but after hours of un-enrolling people which didn't fix anything, then finding out I needed to re-enroll everyone pushed me to tears (on the phone). A fix was found and bills got out just a day late. Then there was a reconciliation that hasn't been done in two years. Super Boss and I picked August to be the month to delve into it back in June. We met and tried to develop a process to automate the reconciliation this week. The file is such a horrible mess, Super Boss got very frustrated, and I felt overwhelmed because we can't automate anything. Basically we're checking the work of another department against an outside vendor. The other department is more than happy to tell us what to do and how to do it. Helping? Unheard of. Yet again this is a broken system going back years over thousands of records.
So I freaked the fuck out via email at Super Boss on my walk to South Station. I have no background in this discipline and was pissed that I was being saddled with so much. This other department has a job opening since I'm a mature woman, I emailed one sentence to Super Boss "Does X Coordinator Make More Than an HR Analyst?" Just savor that passive aggressiveness. This kicked off a back and forth about the kind of work I am being asked to do and whether it's appropriate and me pointing out that I can be an efficient good worker and also be so overworked I am close to breaking. All over email from my cell phone at South Station or on a train. I am even efficient in my breakdowns!
2 hours of crying and talking to my mom later, I realized something. I told Super Boss the realization this morning as we hashed things out face to face. I told him,"Here is my crazy. For the past five-ish months I have come into work terrified that you will give notice. So what have I done with that fear? I have done everything and have taken on more with a smile. I can't do this without you. But I can't keep taking on more work. I just don't want you to leave."
He pointed out that I am making myself miserable and listed every single thing I am currently working on. We also talked about my long work hours and the fact that I have been canceling doctors' appointments which he was very stern about how work does not trump my health. I also kept apologizing for taking up so much of his time and he shut that down. He said that since he has manager in his title, part of his job is supervising employees and I am part of his job (cue an awkward joke from me) so if he doesn't have time, he'll tell me. It was a very good talk I cried a couple times and he looked incredibly upset at a couple points. I think he feels like he's failing as a manager if I'm upset. This is his first time managing. So I made sure to tell him that he's doing a great job and is the best boss I've had. I also thanked him for taking my concerns seriously and listening.
Basically, all my realizations about work/life balance from a couple months ago, I am re-realizing and need to recommit to. I am taking next Wednesday off and hopefully it will be a beach day.
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