Good or bad, who knows?

I think I mentioned, a few blogs ago, that I decided that I had to take what might be called 'positive action' about my careering career if you were being generous or a rash and ultimately doomed decision if you weren't. 'Good or bad, who knows?' as the old saw goes.

I needed to meet my two new line managers for my annual review. Now I know a lot about annual reviews, PDRs, PDPs and employment law. I have been in many, I have undertaken many.They don't/they haven't so that gives me a considerable moral advantage. I'd rather have a tactical advantage and be armed to the teeth but you gotta go with what you have. Why I have two line managers is still a mystery to me but I'm very scary so that might answer that. I don't, in the Uni, have to have an annual review. It's the law, well Uni policy. 

So I declined to have one. 

15 love

They wanted to discuss my annual objectives. I hadn't been set any, I haven't had a boss for 18 months.

30 love

They wanted to discuss the context of my role - no I don't know what they meant either, so I said we'll discuss something else

40 love

I told them, candidly, I had a non job, I was bored, disillusioned, demotivated plus lots of other words beginning with D and (oh it's soooooo exciting to use this word) 'stressed' as a consequence.

I thought if that doesn't get some action then I'm a jolly Dutchman. Use the 'S' word in work and people are meant to run around doing stuff so you don't sue them.

Set (but not Game, yet) to Eyes on the Prize. Do you know I don't actually know the rules for tennis and have no idea why I'm using a sport related metaphor.

Three meetings later we are no closer to a resolution and I'm living in Amsterdam, wearing clogs and singing 'I saw a mouse, where, there on the stair.'

Last Friday we went, blow by blow, through my job description and they agreed with me that, actually, I don't appear to have much to do after all. This came as no surprise to me but as a considerable surprise to them despite me having told them exactly that two months ago. I mentioned 'stress' again, the third time now. No change. Of course in any other private sector business I'd have been out/moved on or have an urgent appointment with the company psychiatrist and so on but here, with this admittedly high risk strategy of fessing up that I've got very little to do, I still am. I'm working on it. I have tactics in place e.g. I rang up an extremely high up head honcho in the 'Centre' the administrative hub, a  name that rather gives the game away in terms of how they see themselves, and asked to see him. He agreed. On a clear day you can see right across his office. Anyway we had a jolly good chat about how an aspiring and talented young man with oodles of private sector experience could make a name for himself in the Uni. We then talked about me. Thing is, I said, the feedback I've had so far is that 'You can only have this job if you've done the exact same one before'. He stroked his white cat and said 'I've been expecting you Mr Bond.' No he said 'Hmmmm go and talk to these people.' So I am. Talking to them. And so far not in the redundancy process. So far.

So here I am. Still. I don't hold my breath, unless actually under water, as I really don't know how this will play out now.

Good or bad, who knows?

Not so objective objectives

So...

You tell your line manager that you have not got enough work to do during the day, that the work you have is vastly below your capabilities, that the role underload is so stressful it is making you feel ill and contributing to mood changes, that you cannot wait to go home at the end of the day and that you get absolutely no satisfaction from the job at all. In fact, you go on to say, as if any further emphasis is needed, that this is the worst job you've ever had.

What might you reasonably expect to happen and when?

I can tell you what happened here.

Nothing. No really, nothing. 

6 weeks later, following this meeting, a tad high risk I thought admitting to the daily workload of very little, we had a follow up meeting. In that follow up meeting no solution was offered to the predicament except the vague opportunity to definitely, possibly, maybe contributing to a small paper on the output of clogs in Lithuania or something similarly obscure. I was still reflecting on the 'so there's nothing you can suggest' line of discussion we'd had when the said line manager suggested we meet in a further. Further as in 6 weeks. We are going to discuss objectives for the coming year.

Well that won't take long - that involves me getting the hell out of there, though that is taking so much longer than I anticipated. Or wanted. Or need. However as we haven't even thought of what those objectives might be then it will be an interesting conversation. Well it won't be because there will have been little thought put into it except the 'we need to fill in a form' so can we finish this process.

And it's this that ticks me off. Not the 'we have a problem with an employee how can we resolve it?' it's a 'OMG we have to carry out a process that some HR elf has constructed and that no one takes the blindest bit of notice of so we can get back to our own lovely cosey wosey world.'

Tell me world, is there anyone else out there having this problem?

Come, on be objective

Applied knowledge, not this college

I've been away on holiday for a week. I felt great. 
Now I don't feel so great.
What has changed?
I'm back at work that's what.
So two images for you to start with.

1. A fly hitting it's self repeatedly against a window pane to get out.
2. A small village in Wales.

What connects these two images. I'm waiting. No? OK I'll tell you.

The first is how I see myself trying to get out of this role I'm in. My strategy so far, to hurl myself at the window of HR in HE repeatedly in the hope of smashing through has singularly failed to get me any positive results. I'm still here, still bored, still ignored.

If you are a newcomer to a village in Wales it will take you a very, very long time before the other local residents stop referring to you as the newcomers.

You can do several things as a fly to escape, and I'm not including being swatted by the weekend paper at this point. However I do seem to vaguely remember that no one has ever trained a fly to do anything, though what a trained fly might usefully do escapes me at the moment. Still the fly might buzz around at random until it finds an alternative to the solid air it seems to have encountered and fly off to a new source of rotting food to land on and eat, it can rest for a while think up a new strategy (buzz, buzz buzz, buzz?) then start on the head banging thing again or it can die and be found feet up in the air on the carpet. I like to think that my career is the solid wall rather than the carpet of death and that I'm slightly cleverer than a fly and can come up with an escape plan. A veritable tunnel of escape. I'm working on that although all I can, figuratively, find to dig with is a wooden spoon and try and break through the reinforced concrete. 

HE is not an easy place to work. I went and asked for feedback for my CV today, for a job I failed to even get an interview for. I am calm, deep breaths, stay calm. The feed back was 'you are being too subtle in your approach'. Subtle? So what was meant was to knife and fork the CV. If they ask for evidence of a competency then type the competency and evidence it - a sort of glorified list and don't be so bleedin' stupid and even think of trying to categorise the evidence under grouped headings. Too subtle. 'Makes the reviewer of the CV a little irritated' I'm told. Poor dears. Well I accept that piece of advice - if that's how they want it then so be it. However there was no answer to the 'but I got an interview from that style CV just a few weeks ago.' I'm still not convinced that there is a 'CV' - depends on the person on the day. Got to play the game. I think the game is like a very early version of football as they seem to be playing with my head today.

I think the important thing is to listen. However it seems glaringly obvious that HE is not a meritocracy as an institution, more of a waiting game and lots of background politicking. 'We don't like brash and pushy' I was told. Or putting people who are 'not one of us' in positions of management either.

And that sequeways me neatly to, it does there's no point in complaining, to the village in Wales. To stop being a newcomer there you have to live in the village for a mere 60 years. Then and only then will you be accepted as 'one of us.' And you can refer to other newcomers as 'the newcomers.' 

So what have we learned today about progressing in HE?

It's not a meritocracy.
You have to be patient, very, very patient.
You have to not stand out, be pushy or brash.
If you are not one of us you are one of them. If you are one of them you can't become one of us.

I'm not one of them - so is that it then?

Speaka da lingo?

You have to understand the rules. You have to know there are rules to understand. You have to speak the language.

Organisations have ways of speaking, a language that shows you are 'one of them' or an outsider. This language has rules but, of course, they are not written down. You learn them, slowly, through repetition and habit until, one day, you find that you are now part of the tribe, accepted in to the group. Then they show you where the coffee is kept and a short cut to the toilets that you never knew about plus a great wheeze to park for free. And you can then talk in the secret language about the outsiders.

How long this assimilation takes depends on the size, scale and psychotic nature of the organisation. If you were to live in a Welsh village, for example, it would take over 60 years for the locals to stop calling you 'the newcomer.' So it depends. I've been in my current role for 18 months and still appear to be speaking in Ferengi. 

Why is this important? It's important so that you are not bundled into a large wicker man and set alight for one. It's also important in that you haven't got a hope in hell in making any progress through an organisation's hierarchy if you speak the equivalent of Vulcan and it's a case of speak to the hand every time you open your mouth. And it's useful knowing that short cut to the toilet.

Let me give you an example. Let me give you several until I run out of them or get bored.

A senior IT manager, with an exclusive private sector background, is being interviewed by a Higher Education establishment. He gives a blinding presentation, he understands the problems, demonstrates how he would overcome the issues facing the HE college and evidences his competencies to do the job. He seeks feedback afterwards. 'Brilliant' he is told 'Except none of the academics on the recruitment panel had a clue what you were talking about.' Had he been talking about arcane IT architecture, about mysterious electronic components or long term strategies involving nascent technology? Nope, he'd been talking about churn, profit, bottom line, ROI and the normal (now there's judgmental for you, 'normal') business concepts that are taken for granted in the private sector. Academics are not used to such ideas - they are spenders of funds, not profit motivated, they are interested in the purity of research and peer recognition, not ROCE. The mistake the IT manager made was to monetize the issues and not talk in their language. No doubt if he had this would have included such words as paradigm, interventions, pedagogical and how can I spend my discretionary fund on a trip to the States?

Example 2 (because my quest is to make your world substantially better and brighten up your day) involves an HE administrator who wished to move to the private sector. He too made the penetrating presentation to the employer of his dreams but was met with the 'but you are a spender of funds, not a profit taker, you employ more and more people and do not seek operational efficiencies, you believe in organisational transparency and therefore get bogged down in multi-layered meetings. Plus you have so many holidays and we don't like that.' He had to turn it around so that it showed performance against budget, output in terms of graduates per head employed and quality of employment and so on.' All in the presentation. Same facts different spin.

Example 3 (this is a good one because I made the mistake). I presented a way of saving £500,000 annually to a public sector employer. I made the presentation in terms of efficiencies, productivity, outputs, reduction in heads, ROI and used lots of statistics to back up my assessment. I did this in an objective, dispassionate way. I thought I did well, achieving the objectives set of me. Until...I ran into the biggest flak storm of my business life because I hadn't understood the language. The language of the organisation was based on care of its employees, viewing  the staff in a very patriarchal way. That's not meant to be demeaning because that's the way they worked. If I had presented the same facts in a way that focused on the staff, the improvements for them, the way they could redeploy them into other more productive positions I'd have been in a much stronger position. And been able to walk when I left the meeting. As it happened I felt battered and bruised and severely worked over at the end. Mind you the outcome was still the same - they accepted my findings. Well to be accurate they accepted someone else's findings that were based exactly on mine. After that public attack they couldn't really accept mine straight away could they? Bastards.

So what can we learn from this? Good question. I've learnt that to make progress you have to present yourself in a way that can be recognised. I'm taking advice where I work now because I feel like a fly just bumping up against a window when it comes to getting interviews and being offered promotion. My CV, which worked very well for me in the private sector and got me interviews and good jobs, is being assessed for HE speak. At the moment it's full of objectives and quantitative outcomes e.g. I did this and 100% improvement was seen in 1 hour, I kicked serious ass and the customer was delighted. This is how the outplacement company told me to present my self as brand EOTP. I fully expect to have to say that 'I can now hold strokey beard meetings that last six days where no decision is made without referring it to sub committees and that lots of chocolate biscuits are eaten.' Or am I wrong? I'm reasonably confident that my aggressive CV is scaring the doodads of HR resulting in an early paper-shift rejection. Though I suppose I might just be crap. No I'm not, they just do not recognise my wonderfullness yet but they will do. Or I'll leave. So there.

There is one other thing. Sexism. Everywhere I've applied so far is staffed entirely by women and the successful candidate is always a woman. Coincidence? That's for another blog.

At the public expense

Higher Education. The public sector. Expenses
This is a different land, they do things differently here.

When I worked in the private sector (oh happy days, can I please come back I've sat in the naughty chair for long enough now) I claimed expenses. No problems, I claimed each month and, providing I was prompt with my submission at the beginning of the month, would usually be paid by the end of the same month. Sometimes I would have to wait 8 weeks if I missed the submission date so I had to be willing to effectively subsidise the value of the total amount for that time but, as the expense values were generous, I was making quite a lot of money on legitimate claims. At one point I had a float from my company of £500 to cover this regular outstanding value but I put it in the building society and earned some interest as I put all my expenses on one credit card (on which I also earned Airmiles). I was usually paid back before I had to pay my credit card bill. I did this for so long that I came to believe that this was how the world worked.

Then I began work for the public sector. I'm in HE now but for two years worked in another part of the public sector. Here's an example of how it's different. Some employees would often have to travel to London by rail, possibly once a month. The cost was about £35 return including tube fares depending on the time of day they travelled. Rather than pay for the ticket themselves at the station they would order them from a travel agent employed by the organisation beforehand who would charge £12 for the booking fee. In other words upping the cost by about 35%. I was amazed. 'Why' I asked 'do you not pay at the station, claim back the expenses and save the organisation huge sums of necessary expense?'
They were equally astonished at my naive question.' 'But we'd have to pay out our own money to do that and we would be poor and the children would starve and not have shoes for their feet.' 'But it's on a credit card and you'd be paid back before you have to pay out.' I countered. But they were adamant, they were not going to pay out their money to save the organisation money even though they never actually had to pay out their money. I put my wacky idea of abandoning the travel agent and their booking fees, except for exceptionally large amounts, in the suggestion box. I'm now on a witness protection scheme in the USA. Oddly that idea ended up in the round file. In about 30 secs after submission

And now for HE.

Here's some examples of how our money is spent.;
A professor two weeks ago; 'I had £2000 left in my budget at the end of the year so I went to a conference in Hawaii. Not to give a paper but because I thought it would be nice to go there.'

A lecturer; 'I was not allowed to travel 1st class by train to London, even though on a special saver fare it was 50% less than the usual 2nd class fare, because policy says we cannot travel 1st class.'

'I had to claim mileage for a 30 mile round trip to a town 6 miles away because we have to use the AA web site to determine mileage and that's how far it said it was. The finance department told me this is what I had to claim.'

'We get charged a £15 booking fee. I've just bought a £12 return fare rail ticket that cost an additional £15.It happens all the time.'

We have three free Christmas lunches year, a departmental one, a section one and funding from the University for a further one.

And so it goes.

I thank all of you not in the public sector for your great generosity and public spirited nature. I need a coffee after all this typing. Oh didn't I say - that's free too. And the bicuits.

Bored survivor

Survivor role.


Is there an uglier term to describe a job? Possibly a redundant job would be up there along with 'The enemy  upon us. Hands up those who want to join the forlorn hope - where do you think you are going Private eotp?' Comes from the Dutch vorloren hoop meaning lost heap (though heap of what isn't specified. Who goes round losing heaps?) See, a blog on life's silliness and education as the same time. EOTP - double benefit. Buy one get one free.


Here's some definitions from the web

• A survivor is a person who copes with a bad situation or affliction and who gets through.
• To remain alive or in existence.

Glad we got that sorted out then. I think the second one best sums up the excitement of taking a job cos you just gotta eat, you just got to pay the bills. All the rest is way down the priority list.To remain in existence. And that is largely what you have to do, survive.

What are the pros of a survivor role then?

Money

Money

and money

That's it as far as I can tell, oh and getting away from your partner for a few hours every day so that everyone's sanity is preserved. Mainly. There is a philosophy that says potential employers prefer those already in jobs as it shows grit and determination to turn an honest hand to to goodly toil in times of adversity. I say does it cocoa. It seems to me that potential employers no longer regard you as a higher paid employee once you enter survival mode but as someone who has failed in your career and cannot therefore be paid any more or allowed to progress once again. Let me give you an example from the wacky world of higher education.

I was taken on in my role even though I am vastly over-experienced for the position. I know it, they know it. I needed the money, I'd been unemployed for four months and the other candidates were dire I was told. Makes you feel good doesn't it? No wonder I have self-esteem issues these days. Now, I want to apply for higher graded posts to escape this hell of boredom. But I'm not allowed to apply for jobs that are more than one grade above that I'm on even though I may be the best qualified candidate because 'it's not policy. This is how the conversation went;

'So even though you agree I'm the most experienced candidate and meet the role competencies you will take on someone who is less capable than me because he/she is already on a higher grade than me?'

'Yes.'

'This is an HE establishment, don't you subscribe to the philosophy of applied knowledge?'

'What, oh look a squirrel.'

'We work for a reputable, well known business school that promotes the concept of talent management and having the right people in the right job.'

'Tra la la la la tum te tum.'

I give up. How do you deal with this mindset? Them is the rules. No actually they are not rules but policy but you might as well walk to your car, get in and scream at the top of your voice for all the difference it makes. How do I know that? Because I do it regularly that's why and nothing changes.

I'm here, I'm bored, I'm a survivor. I don't know where I am but I know the name of the creek.

1 hour 36 minutes and 10 seconds before I can go home. 

Not that I'm counting.

Defining moment

Remember the final few seconds of 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.?'
The shoot out, the many Mexican soldiers, fading to sepia? Heroic and yet ultimately doomed.


I felt like that last Friday with my 'annual review.'


I've been working in the HE sector for 20 months. In all that time I've never been set any objectives, weekly, monthly, annually or otherwise.


I pointed out, within two months of starting, to my then line manager that my workload was a tad light and that I didn't really know what it was I was meant to be doing.


Her answer? There was none. She left two months later citing the bonkers organisation (and the lure of a much better job of course) as the reason. So there I am adrift in the large, lonely sea of 'what do I do now?' and discovering what already had started to dawn on me, that there wasn't very much to this position. There never was and there never would be. Goodness knows how my line manager had managed to blag her way through the various committees to creating this new position. I guess that's why I never got an answer. A little embarrassing to admit that the logic to the argument for the position would not stand the scrutiny of an average 10 year old. Anyhow, initially not deterred by lack of direction and thriving in ambiguity I stayed calm and carried on. As Confucius said 'If there is no wind then row.'


OK Confucius, that's all OK until someone takes your paddles, stops you putting your hands in the water and then the sea fret comes down and you can't see where you are and which way you are going. 


So it's a slightly embittered, mauled, disillusioned, demotivated, disconsolate employee who comes to the meeting with his two line managers. Two, yes. I've undertaken 23 annual performance reviews so far this year with my small direct team here where I (allegedly) work and with the rather larger volunteer team I manage outside work. I did them all by myself. And they need two here. 
For me. 
Must be a public sector thing, possibly an academic trait. Why use one committee when you can use two?


I decided to have it all out. It is a dangerous manoeuvre to admit that you don't have anything to do - could go very badly wrong. But this was a day that things changed. It would be a positive day, a day of resolution. I would declare all the issues, the lack of motivation, the lack of work and so on. They would work with me to help achieve the promotion I crave, ensure at least I had enough work to get me through the day or implement the redundancy process. Whatever. One way or another things would change.


Or so I thought.


I explained my senior management background (a complete surprise to them, so much for background research). I was open, candid, said I viewed the job as a survivor role but, even though it was not my ideal place to by to a long shot, I wanted to add value whilst I did it. 


I was asked about my objectives as an opening gambit. Actually I was asked to 'contextualise the role.' I had no idea what that meant.
I asked to stop it right there and said there were two fundamental problems.
1. I'm suffering quite a lot of stress from role underload
2. The position is a non job.


The response, from two academics who teach business management, was 'What's that?'


I realised, at that point, this wasn't going to be a very positive meeting if they weren't even aware of basic concepts and could only utter business school speak.


The Wikipedia definintion of a non job is;


'A non job is an allegedly pointless paid position which has few or no worthwhile outcomes, duplicates other work or positions, or is substantially overpaid for the responsibilities. Positions described as 'non-jobs' are allegedly found in abundance the in UK public sector.'


Blackwell Online defines role underload as;


'Role underload is the condition in which the individual has very few role demands, or the demands are very easily accomplished. Both overload and underload are job stressors.'


Spot on.


We didn't achieve much. 
I didn't achieve anything.


I think back to the Butch Cassidy movie ending and envision a revised one. 
'For a moment I thought we were in trouble.'
Run through the door guns drawn.
Everyone's gone home.


My meeting; heroic but ultimately doomed.