First of all, I’m not entirely sure I’m right or wrong, so feel free to slap me.
The situation:
Company I presently work for is odd. Management consists of about three people, and the connection is squirly (meaning, squirly) so I’m not sure it’s possible to go above anyone’s head or anything like that.
Fact: I’m a reporter and work for peanuts. So much so that I buy 90% of my own supplies.
Back to the situation:
Our computer equipment is horrible – I literally spend about 3 hours a day getting kicked off the network and trying to get back on (so does everyone else). I work out of my home most days because it’s more efficient. My direct manager’s (not part of the three squirly people) answer to this is that we should keep a log of how much time we waste. I’ve been doing this for about a month with no end in sight.
In addition, we’ve been given a directive to do something on a weekly basis that’s just flat-out impossible, time-wise. My direct manager agrees that it’s an unreasonable request but, once again, encourages us to PROVE that it’s an unreasonable request by documenting how much time it will take to do said request. This response or advice, however you look at it, frosts my froot loops for two reasons: 1) I think it’s idiotic and 2) I think it’s idiotic and by the time we “prove” that it can’t be done, we’ll waste five hours (not doing it, mind you, that would take 20 hours, just proving that it’s going to take 20 hours will take five hours).
I’m seeing a pattern that just seems backwards, but I don’t know if I’ve been out of the work loop for so long that it’s actually normal to keep asking your employees to document stuff they can’t do.
I also feel that there is a real lack of understanding about our market from the three squirly managers (they are based in a more rural area and we are based in a more metro area but only about 50 miles apart).
I’ve thought about saying to one of the squirrels that I don’t feel like we’re on the same team. I’m just really at a loss on how to handle this. My other option is doing nothing and polishing my resume but I feel like I need more time at this paper to improve my skills.
I’ve been in the same boat. The reality is that when management says “document it,” or “keep a log,” or anything along those lines, it really means that they have no understanding of the problem and no intention of doing anything about it, but want to appear as if they know what they’re doing. If their people report a problem that is interfering with their ability to get the job at hand done, and management does nothing about it for a month or more, management has its collective head up its ass.
If you can get out, do it. In my experience, your situation isn’t going to get any better.
Big picture time - You’re in this to get experienced and move on. Put your head down, do as much as you can and get your recommendation and move on. If you still feel the burning need to help them with advice do it well after you have moved on.
I’ve also been in a similar situation, and management just didn’t “get” it. Believe it or not, the best way I fixed my problems at the old job was to get a new job where those problems didn’t exist.
I’d just like to add that “what frosts my fruitloops” is the best saying I’ve heard in a long time.
By documenting what you cannot do, they may need the proof that they have to hire more people/purchase more up-to-date product etc to the higher ups. Recently my department was asked to do more work, but we were not given the approval to hire more personnel. We encouraged the hourly employees to work overtime, so we could prove we needed to hire another body.
Now, keep in mind, we knew we were going to get another body eventually, but we didn’t want to be so efficient that the higher-ups could look at our timesheets and say, “Ah-ha! They can do more work with the same amount of people! No new employee for you!”
Well, explaining why something isn’t going to happen sounds perfectly reasonable. But since this problem’s going on forever, they should know, and if they don’t, it’s probably not going to care. My advice, with very limited experience, is suck it up until you find somewhere better.
<optimism>If you want a change, you could try preparing a brief report on “Out of an X hr day, we can get online for less than Y hr, and to do W we need takes at least Z hr. What would be necessary to fix this would be $A, which would save the company $B per week.” and try to find someone who actually cares about this getting done with the power to change things. However, there can easily be no such person. And even if there is, it can still backfire horribly. </optimism>