Focus On Me

Sometimes my life is not what I want it to be. :(

For a long while there things were going great at work – I had a boss who was awesome though strict and you always knew where you stood with her. And if you had a problem and took it to her, she sorted it out. Usually within a week of going to her with the issue, it was fixed.

Now I have a new boss whose performance has been.. wait let me find the right word.. Nonexistent? Imaginary? Ineffective?

I’ll give you a quick example of this. When she first took on the manager job, she had everyone into her office for a one on one chat. I raised an issue with her that I felt was a problem – we did not have a policy on how to deal with X situation. She agreed with me that this was a problem and said “Leave it with me, I’ll get a policy together”. That was in August. It is now December and absolutely nothing has happened, even though I have reminded her several times and she asked me to send her reminder emails about it.

This is not the only issue I have gone to her with only to have nothing happen. There have been several instances of inaction.

On top of that, she sends out these emails which are negative, uninspiring, unclear, and cause unpleasant gossip in the work place.

She’d sent out an email about the internet policy a few weeks ago – saying we had all signed this policy when we started working there, and we were not allowed to go to sites not work related. This ended up with

– a team leader going around monitoring screens and telling people they could not go to sites that *were* work related

– staff telling clients they could not look up information for them because they were not allowed to access the internet!

– a lot of upset people after one of the staff members recollected the policy we all signed included instant dismissal for looking at non work related sites

– the manager who sent out the email gave permission for people to play solitaire on the internet and that is the only non work related thing they can do

– the manager then had the team leader go around and tell people to hide the solitaire screens if any of the “management” people walked in.

So after a lot of whinging and whining and discussion, I decided to put my own neck on the line and go in to let the manager know what was going on. I mentioned all of the above things. The manager told me that she did not intend for people to take her email so literally and that how it was interpreted was not how it was meant.

She said the reason it was sent was because some people were posting things on Facebook from work. I told her that as far as I knew, people do that from their phones, on their breaks. I have never seen anyone access Facebook from their work computers.

She said and I quote “Why wouldn’t anyone else come to me and talk to me about this”. She told me to encourage others to come to her and discuss it, which I said I would do, and I did – because when I say I am going to do something, I actually do it.

She told me she would send out a clarifying email (she did not).

She told me she would talk to people one on one about this (she did not as far as I know).

It has been several weeks since this happened and nothing has happened.

I have struggled against this for a good couple of months now, this lack of action when issues are raised. After all this time, I have come to the following conclusion.

I officially give up. I surrender.

I go to work, do my job, then I leave. I’m not going to pay any further attention to the other stuff. I’m not going to try and improve things. I’m not going to go in for pointless meetings with someone who does nothing – and if I get pulled into the office for any kind of meeting, I am going to do one of two things – keep my mouth firmly shut, or let the manager know I think my saying anything is pointless and I’m not going to do it anymore.

I’m going to cut back to less hours after the holiday season, too.

My problem is that I grew up in a family business. I tend to take work a lot more seriously than other people do. I also think issues should be addressed head on, quickly, and things sorted so they do not fester.

I can’t keep fighting this like a fish caught in a net. It robs me of sleep. It exhausts me. I waste too much mental energy on things that I cannot control. No amount of my time is going to make anything different. I have tried and it has not worked.

It is time for me to focus on me.

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