{"id":8236,"date":"2006-01-13T13:01:07","date_gmt":"2006-01-13T20:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2006\/01\/13\/a-tough-call.html"},"modified":"2006-01-13T13:01:07","modified_gmt":"2006-01-13T20:01:07","slug":"a_tough_call","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/01\/13\/a_tough_call.html","title":{"rendered":"A tough call"},"content":{"rendered":"

So you may have been noticing an increased volume of bitching here about workload and so forth. I’ve been (and will remain) discreet about a lot of work-related stuff, just because that’s the ethical thing to do (not to mention the smart thing)*, but I think I’ve clearly been feeling a lot of … pressure, lately.<\/p>\n

Now as an over-achiever with a fear of being found out as an inadequate imposter (yeah, yeah, enough with the armchair psychology, Dave), I dread failure. Which makes doing something like going to my boss and telling him how I’ve felt really overwhelmed with my workload of late (i.e., “I can’t hack it!” if that’s how someone would want to interpret it) just seriously insane, as well as exhaustingly daunting to even consider.<\/p>\n

But it is, perhaps, a sign of said overwhelming, that I did just that.<\/p>\n

I actually typed out an outline of stuff that was troubling me, and couched it (honestly) not as a bitch session about how much work was being dumped on my poor little head, but my concern that I was not keeping up with things, or keeping up with them well enough, and that my clients, staff, and management were going to suffer for it.<\/p>\n

I noted (just to give an example) my realization from a week or two back that my informal metric as to whether I was “keeping up” was whether, when I went home at the end of the day, I’d opened all my e-mail. Not that I’d actually done whatever critical things were called for in same. But if I’d read it all, replied to things that needed immediate replies, and put the rest on my to-do list (whether I was able to-do it or not), I was feeling … well, not successful, but at least not a failure. At least I was paying off the interest, even if the principle wasn’t going down much, right?<\/p>\n

In reality, that feels to me like a pretty pathetic metric, and that it was what I was reduced to was part of what led me to take this step.<\/p>\n

I am not going to go into much detail (obviously) in the conversation, but his response was:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Gladness that I’d called (i.e., that I’d acted on a concern like this, whether accurate or not).\n
  2. Recognition of the mongo workload I was carrying.\n
  3. Advanced notification of some future things likely to happen that would assist in the problems I was facing.\n
  4. Some immediate advice on things I could be doing better.\n
  5. An assurance that he had no problems with the quality of my work, and that he had complete confidence in me.**<\/ol>\n

    Which, in sum, doesn’t make my job any easier come Monday. But it was … gratifying. And a relief. And a, “I’m glad he didn’t say, yeah, Dave, I’m sorely disappointed in you and I plan on demoting you to second assistant code scrubber, with a 90% reduction in pay.” And a sense that, yeah, I was really glad I’d called him, too.<\/p>\n

    Then I sat back and took many, many deep breaths. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

    “You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.” <\/em> — Eleanor Roosevelt<\/p>\n

    <\/p>\n

    <\/p>\n

    \n

    * For those who care, I vet these sorts of job-related posts for three things:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Am I disclosing any company information that competitors would find of value or clients would find disturbing?\n
    2. Am I disclosing anything identifiable about any staff member, especially anyone who works for me?\n
    3. Am I disclosing anything that my present or future employer would find troubling (either that it happened or that I talked about it)?<\/ol>\n

      I try to err on the side of caution in all of those — for #2, for example, I triple-scrub identifying factors and occurrences to the point where readers can still get the point I’m making, but no principal involved would ever have a beef with me, or possibly even recognize themselves.<\/p>\n

      ** And I’m not trolling for compliments here, by any means — Margie keeps me well-supplied with them, for one thing. I’m only discussing this because, well, it’s part of my life, and this here blog serves as a diary\/journal as much as a broadcast — but, since it is also a broadcast and I’ve been kvetching about this stuff for a while, all y’all have a certain right to hear “the rest of the story.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      So you may have been noticing an increased volume of bitching here about workload and so forth. I’ve been (and will remain) discreet about a lot of work-related stuff, just…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-job-jollies"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":16098,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/10\/30\/a-missed-event.html","url_meta":{"origin":8236,"position":0},"title":"A missed event","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 30-Oct-09 3:02pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Let's see, what did I miss blogging about whilst I was sick? 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Oh, we had a foot or two of snow\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Love & Marriage"","block_context":{"text":"Love & Marriage","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/personal\/love-and-marriage"},"img":{"alt_text":"birthday_cake_clip_art","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/birthday_cake_clip_art.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4024,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/02\/25\/uk03_film_at_11.html","url_meta":{"origin":8236,"position":1},"title":"UK03 – Film at 11","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 25-Feb-03 9:44pm","format":false,"excerpt":"We got back the \"real\" film, along with CDs for each roll, so I should have those pics up in the next day or so (depending on other workload, ahem)....","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","block_context":{"text":"Travel","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/travel"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10252,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/03\/07\/nature_and_work_abhors_a.html","url_meta":{"origin":8236,"position":2},"title":"Nature (and Work) abhors a vacuum","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 7-Mar-07 9:47am","format":false,"excerpt":"If there's one thing more annoying about being out sick than that you don't actually feel well enough to enjoy the time off, it's that the work just stacks up...","rel":"","context":"In "Health"","block_context":{"text":"Health","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/health"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13452,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/12\/09\/snow_9.html","url_meta":{"origin":8236,"position":3},"title":"Snow","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 9-Dec-08 9:43am","format":false,"excerpt":"Started coming down last night, and had 2-3 inches on the deck this morning, with temps in the 20s when Katherine had to leave (school opening delayed by half...","rel":"","context":"In "Job Jollies"","block_context":{"text":"Job Jollies","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/job-jollies"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/penguins.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":14819,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/05\/18\/tweets-from-three_star_dave-on-2009-05-18.html","url_meta":{"origin":8236,"position":4},"title":"Tweets from @Three_Star_Dave on 2009-05-18","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 18-May-09 11:30pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Short week, too many long assignments, even without usual pre-vacation workload. Bleah. # Just saw that urban fox from the train again, this time across the yard from the Osage station. Trot, trot, trot. # When the Boss asks me COB why I'm not done with that urgent project, I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~Tweets"","block_context":{"text":"~Tweets","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/tweets"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9627,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/05\/23\/busy_busy_busy.html","url_meta":{"origin":8236,"position":5},"title":"Busy busy busy busy …","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 23-May-06 11:07am","format":false,"excerpt":"Work would be keeping me hopping even if I weren't trying to clear my plate for our upcoming trip. 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