Here we can all be heard for a little while. Part 3

tea_lover

I did actually say something to him that time. He'd also made a comment pretty much implying that as my outlook calendar wasn't full that meant I wasn't doing much. I tend to put travel, meetings, etc in the calendar but if I'm sat at my own desk just getting on with stuff I don't put anything in the calendar. It never occurred to me that anyone would look at it and think that if I wasn't travelling somewhere I wasn't working! I've childishly filled in every minute of my time up till Christmas

When he made the comments about my 'empty calendar' and about stuff outside work I was fuming and did say something, but he clearly doesn't have a life outside work so he genuinely doesn't get it.

40hrs a week of a job I hate seems enough to me.... but they want all the free overtime too.

codemonkey

((tea)) I definitely think you need to find a new job. That doesn't sound healthy. Just because the last move didn't work out, it doesn't mean that the next one won't, at least that's what I tell myself. I'm really hoping 2017 is better.

I just got a delivery of a soft toy I bought for someone for Christmas. I made the mistake of taking a proper look at it and now I want to keep it. It's an adorable cuddly pug and it's called Reggie and I keep cuddling it.

elsien

I'm with code on this one, except I learned the hard way by becoming ill.
Now if I finish late, I log the time and make sure the toil is in my outlook calendar for the following week.
Your manager is a poor manager tea, if that's what he really thinks. However I also think that until you draw a line, the expectation will continue to be there.
Of course there are some job roles where the long work hours to finish projects etc are an expectation. But there's generally a stupidly high salary to go along with it, and while I'm being paid below national average wage they can take a running jump.

Pyxis

onomatopoeia99 wrote: »

Heard part of a programme on Radio 4 on the way home yesterday (didn't hear the beginning or end so don't know what it was called unfortunately). It was about sleep disorders and they were talking to various people that had them. While the effects on the people they talked to were much worse than I have, many times I thought "yes, that's exactly how I feel."

Need to try to find it on iPlayer so I can listen to all of it.

If it was between 9pm and 9.30, it was probably this one. (I have Radio Times). It also has a section on ADHD, so I shall listen to that.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b084bmn7#play

It's being repeated today at 3.30pm on Radio4.

There was also a prog on yesterday, on Radio 4 called The Life
Scientific, which was about a research group seeking to understand the making, keeping and losing of memory, and how that challenges modern neuroscience.,might listen to that, too.

codemonkey

How are you feeling today Pyxis?

Pyxis

codemonkey wrote: »

How are you feeling today Pyxis?

Better, not 100%, and very tired.
So still haven't started the Three Things to prevent the lightning bolt, but I will.
Tomorrow.

tea_lover

Get your feet up Pyxis, you need to recover properly.

codemonkey

No Zumba or diets until you feel better Pyxis.

I have had about 20 deliveries today. I'm so tired from answering the door.

onomatopoeia99

tea_lover wrote: »

Have come to the conclusion that it's too much responsibility for me and I'd happier with a step backwards.

I've singled out this bit as your post made me think about my attitude to responsibility, and maybe my musings will be helpful.

I tend to avoid responsibility because it brings the possibility for confrontation which is something I will go so far out of my way to avoid you won't be able to see me, and because I can't deal with the "It's down to me, I have to deal with it, there's no-one to turn to" cast adrift feeling. Yet, in my hobby I took on a role and qualified for it that placed me in overall charge of events, with responsibility for the whole thing, from the beginning of planning a year before through safety of all participants (that one is a really big deal), to making sure everything was wrapped up and properly dealt with afterward. The reason I was able to take it on was that I could put in place a team of people to do specific roles that I trusted to perform them and that I knew I would have support from other people in the sport with extensive experience, so I could draw on that at any point. Without knowing I had that support, I wouldn't have been able to do it, but just having people involved that I was able to talk things through with and knew I could get advice from made it possible.

It sounds like (and I apologise if I am reading way more into your posts than is really there) you are not getting the backup and support that you should be from management or colleagues. That's inevitably going to make the situation untenable and hugely stressful.


The business with your hours is the company taking the proverbial. I'm salaried, not paid per hour, so overtime is not a thing where I work, so I keep roughly to my contracted hours but will do extra hours in an emergency and don't generally claim it back in TOIL. Emergencies are proper emergencies though, not "a customer wants it tomorrow" so-called emergencies, but more like "the database server is offline and everyone's system wordwide will go down if we don't fix it" or "the mail server is in a loop and has accidentally fired off 40,000 emails in the last few hours so has fallen over", type emergencies, which are thankfully extremely rare. The mail server one was a couple of months back and partly my fault as something I was doing to be helpful indirectly caused it :rotfl:. Routinely expecting 14 hour days as part of your normal work with nothing to compensate for it is simply not on. I suggest you fill up your outlook calendar with "TOIL" to balance all the extra time spent travelling etc for remote sites and just don't come in . Would be an interesting test of management reaction, anyway.

It really may well be that changing jobs is the right thing though. If you had a better manager that could understand your concerns I'd say talk to them, but it's clear that you don't and if there's no other channel for you to pursue them then finding something else looks to be the only option. The tenor of your posts is such that it seems the whole attitude of the company to its workers stinks.


BTW, had you said in advance you were coming, I could have suggested tea and cake in a cafe somewhere for an opportunity to moan about rubbish stuff at work. My rubbish stuff is, like me, very nerdy though!

Pyxis

tea_lover wrote: »

Get your feet up Pyxis, you need to recover properly.

codemonkey wrote: »

No Zumba or diets until you feel better Pyxis.

I have had about 20 deliveries today. I'm so tired from answering the door.

Yup, am resting in bed and eating cheese and tomato toasties in rye bread.

Am aiming for paperwork tomorrow, Zumba on Friday, and play it by ear with the 5:2. That might be Friday too, after Zumba.
They'll think I'm a ghost....they haven't seen me for so long! I will have forgotten all the routines! :rotfl:

onomatopoeia99 wrote: »

BTW, had you said in advance you were coming, I could have suggested tea and cake in a cafe somewhere for an opportunity to moan about rubbish stuff at work. My rubbish stuff is, like me, very nerdy though!

:eek: Don't let Whitewing see that! She'll be buying an 'at! :rotfl: