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