No, sir...This is work related.
Wednesday, April 28, 2004
hold on...last minute of the san jose/colorado hockey game...sweet...intermission before overtime...
good help is hard to find
let me fill you in on the latest sitch: i've been at work for 6 mos, and my boss decides to take me up on my offer to handle a few more product lines. he gives me two more, which in product line numbers bumps me up from 12 to 14, but in effect doubles my workload. these product lines are so dependent on hitting short deadlines with tons of changes and kabillions of unexpected problems. he also tells me that one of the prototype people and i will work as a team to tame this wild beast.
turns out i'm supposed to train the prototyper (think more art school, less engineering background) so i'll be able to completely pass the product line for her to run, and i'd in essence become a manager. after a few discussions with my boss about the recent acquisition of a floridian toy company (we'll now be the designers for the reintroduction of cabbage patch dolls to society), i'm supposed to demonstrate my ability to lead a team (currently consisting of two, me and her) successfully while simultaneously managing my original 12 product lines. piece of cake. no...really.
the only thing is she made a boo boo. an international boo boo. except it's really not her fault. but everyone is pointing fingers at us (because we're a team). and guess who gets to clean up the mess.......yup.
so i'm thinking my promotion stock just went down a little bit. but when the vice president of my department asked what i'd do about it, he found no fault in my solution and even commended me on the fact that i was handling myself better than most would be in my position after just six months into the job. so maybe i gained a point or two.
it's just that having to double check everything the new person is doing takes longer than if i were to do it myself. so when dates get pushed back because she's messing up, it looks bad on me. and if a mistake slides through, it looks bad on me. while, at the same time, i'm trying not to micromanage and give her space and let her learn instead of just doing everything for her.
it's a crazy double edged sword.
and overtime begins....
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