Suspended During Grievance

kelly_borntoshop

miduck wrote: »

When you say "endless", do you mean "open ended"?

Will it really take you four weeks solid to redesign the brochure?

maybe that is an over estimation - say 50 pages @ 4 pages per day, having all the info and images prior and working solid without interuption - ok 2 working weeks so does 80 hrs sound better?

and yup - open ended is much better (its just the way i am feeling i think, its endless)

kelly_borntoshop

zzzLazyDaisy wrote: »

Firstly, is the Factory Manager your immediate supervisor , and does he have the authority to change your work load?

No he isnt but has been aware of my drowning for months, has noticed my headaches, he brought it up with Company Director prior to her outburst at me before xmas. Company Director is my immediate unfortunately, well, they all are to be honest but Company Director hired me originally to assist her. I am not sure about authority to change my workload but he does have a lot of pull and has been there the longest, even longer than the current directors.

Secondly, if he is properly prepared, he will be the person conducting the meeting. That doesn't mean that you won't get a chance to speak, far from it, but he will dictate the way the meeting is run.

ok. so just go with his flow.

Going back to my first question. If he does not have the authority to resolve the issue of you having too much work to do for the hours you are working, then I would suggest that you approach this in a more general way - there is no point in him acting as a go-between if you are going to do this all again with one of the directors.

And even if he does have the authority to make significant changes to your workload and job, this meeting may not be the best time to go into that amount of detail.

to be honest i dont think it will be appreciated either - last time i did a list it was labelled as petty by CD. but yes, it definately needs addressed.

If that appears to be the case, you might start with points 1 -3 of your notes above, and then say that you have come to this meeting prepared to discuss the details of your workload in detail, to see if you and he can agree some changes to make the role more manageable - and ask him if he wishes to discuss those matters now, or if he would prefer to schedule another meeting to talk about your role in more detail.

ok good plan. the way the hearing letter has been written to me it suggests they want to gather facts about the breach of trust and confidence/duty of care. ok i will rewrite.

He might be happy to take away the list you have prepared, or he might choose to discuss these things with you at the meeting, but the point is that you have raised the issue of your workload as a factor contributing to what happened as you were very stressed trying to do everything and never having enough time.

Then let him run the meeting.

ok

Hope this helps.

Dx

very much so thank you. i will rewrite the points and seperate them from the list.

kelly_borntoshop

should i leave the time bits on the list?

kelly_borntoshop

so it goes like this?


1.
Thank you for this meeting, I appreciate your time.
2.
I have had time to think about the whole situation and I accept that I have
over-reacted.
I have been stressed without realising how much it was affecting me.
I understand that you might find it hard to trust me now but I am prepared to work with you. I love my job and I appreciate that you are a good employer.
I would like to start again and I will work on my attitude, if something is bothering me I will try to resolve it first, but if it doesn’t, I will come and speak to you.
3.
I really appreciate the opportunity to talk through the issues around my workload; I really want to stay and I want to do well for you. I have come to this meeting prepared to discuss the details of my workload in detail, to see if we can agree some changes to make the role more manageable – would you like to discuss those matters now, or would you prefer to schedule another meeting to talk about my role in more detail.

Sambucus_Nigra

Would you be better off requesting a meeting to discuss your time management and taking the 7 habits time management grid in - with post it notes for all the tasks and the times that you estimate each week you spend on them. Then you can prioritise your time with your manager and batt out anything that takes you over your agreed weekly schedule and that's not in the right quadrant.

http://www.information-management.com/issues/20040701/1005673-1.html

kelly_borntoshop

and as for eliminating quadrant 4 lol - this is where CD thinks i belong, i eliminate - because i am bottom of the pile

kelly_borntoshop

mt CD does not and would not like me being "independant" to much. she gets hacked off if i dont put everything in front of her. i am only there to assist here (oh and "do" the marketing).

zzzLazyDaisy

Kelly, I am a bit hesitant to say this, and I hope you won't take offence, as none is intended.

But you do come across as being very focussed on the details of things.

The reason I am saying this is because when I was in practice I mentored young solicitors and saw this a lot. What I used to say to them is what my own mentor said to me...

Very often, 90% of the work is done in the first 10% of the time. The rest is tidying up and perfecting - and you have to know when to stop, because the chances are that other people won't even notice the difference, they will just notice that the other jobs don't get done.

I do realise it is easier to say than to do, and I apologise if I have misread what is going on here. But if I haven't, you need to learn to have fewer calendars and white boards, and to do less finishing and perfecting, and spend more time getting the mundane jobs done - not done perfectly - just done. In admin, a lot of the time people see the quantity of the work (and the back log of work that isn't done) rather than the quality of the work that is.

If any of this rings a bell, then you owe it to yourself and your children to do the job you are paid to do - not the one that you can see needs doing, not the one that you know you could do given a fair chance, just the one that you are paid to do. It might not stretch you or use your talents, but it won't stress you as much either. They can't see what you have to offer - that's their loss, but maybe that's just the way it is.

As I say, if I am way off beam, apologies and just ignore what I have just said.

Dx

Sambucus_Nigra

kelly_borntoshop wrote: »

this is interesting, my factory manager would love this.

he has suggested as much in the past, telling me what should be important and what shouldnt be - however, the CD has different ideas (or you could say no idea) as to what should be important, as do my other bosses - and thats where i find the pressure.

should i really be doing this sort of thing on £18,000 a year? or am i just ungrateful

What do you mean - should you be doing this on £18k? If everyone ditched Q4, and worked on Q2 - the urgent stuff that takes the time would rarely happen.

The first thing to ask is - if it's not important then why do it?

The second thing to ask is - what can I do to stop things being urgent?

Then - work in Q2 forever and enjoy your job.

smartpicture

kelly_borntoshop wrote: »

if i have got this wrong, as before, i am sure you can put me right - but i dont really get this. you think i do detail too much? perfect too much? who else will polish? only me and so i believe that last lick of polish when it goes to media is "in the important urgent pile" coss that is profile.

so i should do the filing and miss the deadlines? loose the company money in favour of a clean tray.

I'm afraid I'm another one who thinks you fall into the detailed-perfectionist camp, judging by your posts. And I am one of them myself, so this isn't a criticism. Details and perfection are fantastic if you have the time to do this and no other pressing business. That clearly isn't the case for you.

You can't put everything in the urgent important pile. What you call polish, other people might call overkill. I worry that if you were indeed given a junior, you would be unable to let go and let them do the job because it wouldn't be done exactly how you think it should be done.

Read LazyDaisy's key point again: "Very often, 90% of the work is done in the first 10% of the time. The rest is tidying up and perfecting - and you have to know when to stop, because the chances are that other people won't even notice the difference, they will just notice that the other jobs don't get done." Try and repeat this to yourself every day when you feel overwhelmed by the level of your work.