Mood: Exasperated.
Music: Life's What You Make It, Talk Talk
Game: World of Warcraft (60 Rogue, 15 Priest, 9 Warrior (PvP))
Book: Malcolm X - As They Knew Him, Various Authors.
Muffin: Cherry-Mango.
Punchline: I still work here.
Last night, after a partner's meeting, my boss explained to me that I needed to come up with "evidence" that I'm providing positive value to the company.
My company has three partners, and, as in any company with three partners, they don't see eye to eye on everything. One partner believes I provide value (or can...), one believes that I probably provide value, and one feels outright that I am stealing my paycheck.
Now, this isn't exactly an unfamiliar scenario for me. I'm used to people, especially financial people, not being able to see the value I bring to the table. Financial people, in my mind, are all about counting things. They count money. They count people. They count profits. They count losses. If the thing isn't concrete and in front of them, they can't count it.
My frustration is that, for some reason, this partner seems to be driving my priorities. Instead of forwarding the various projects I'm chewing through, while picking up IT responsibilities for the IT guy I hired, and they stole for service work, while handling other varying things that needed to be done RIGHT NOW...I now have to document everything that I've done, and the reason why I've done it, and the value it has to the company.
This is normal. Normal, insofar as instead of spending time with me to plan then execute, they say "You know what needs to be done" then when I ask for input, they don't get back to me...and months later, I get criticized for doing it wrong, incomplete, or get accused of not being able to finish anything.
Whatever. I am going to get this Process bound, slam it on his desk, and forget about it. I'm tired of "proving" I'm providing value. They don't remember what it was like before I got here. They're more than happy to point out that they could have done any of the things I've done...except that they didn't, or didn't have time, or there were other things more important, or...excuses.
If my job is so fucking useless, why am I so busy? Why do I spend time putting together plans and status reports...that they don't even read?
Frustrated? Yup.
Posted by Glenn at March 18, 2005 09:51 AM