I’m still struggling to fit into my workplace and I don’t know what to do about it. I just don’t understand the work culture and find myself constantly frustrated because it feels like no one communicates, people never respond to emails, don’t answer the phone, never join meetings, etc. I have no choice but to call or email, I’m fully remote. I need people to make time for me. I’m also still learning the role. But I can’t collaborate with people who won’t talk to me. They’re all super nice and helpful one-on-one if I can get them, but coordinating a complex project with two or more people is like herding cats. I literally can’t figure out how they actually work together to cover all project requirements and I sure as fuck don’t feel like I fit in.
I swear, to get someone to read an email or sign something on the workflow, you have to personally ask via both text and verbally in a random meeting, because these grownass men don’t bother looking on their own. And yes, it’s all men.
I really want to like this job, it’s amazing for my career, everything “on paper” is great, but I’m feeling so outcast and isolated and heartbroken. I just don’t fit and I’m feeling lost.
I agree it might be very difficult to get them to change. It’s actually a small team, not a big corporate machine, change might not be impossible. I did speak up about it to my manager; he didn’t realize how this project was unraveling for me and he was very kind in agreeing it was difficult to work in the circumstances I was placed in by others.
I took the job in large part for a particular goal; an accreditation, of sorts. I intend to complete that for myself, as it would be very difficult to get elsewhere. I’m hoping to achieve that within the next year.
After that, we’ll see. I won’t put up with it forever, but I’m also very sad because they worked really, really hard to hire me due to my specialty and I thought I’d feel more valued. I don’t think it’s personal. This company is oddly stagnant in how they work. Super efficient with shitty, inefficient processes.
I went back to work in October, and got my back pay in February. Meanwhile, I kept my eyes peeled for another opportunity to attend that school. In the middle of March, they posted TWO openings, one that needed an ET on my shift, so I was the first one to sign up. The following week, it had been reposted without my signature, but with two signatures of guys who weren’t qualified for it (one guy was on a different shift, and he also signed up for the other one). I asked my steward to look into this, but I hadn’t heard anything before I went on leave for two weeks.
When I returned from leave, ONE class had been assigned (not to me), and I asked a different steward to look into that (the first steward is away at another class). Today, I found him to ask what was going on. He said he had spoken with the guy in charge of training and had been told that I don’t have the prerequisites to attend that class. Which is obviously bullshit.
A few posts above are peopole discussing what is and isn’t someone’s job and to whom to report something. My current employer is doing its best to be the platonic ideal of keeping the organization’s organization secret. I have been here a decade now and have yet to see an actual organization chart. Those are incredibly useful, informative, and let you know who’s what and what’s whose. I’m guessing the outfits concerned in the posts do not have such things.
We finally figured out that our org chart was long and flat. Just the boss, with everyone else on the same level below him. He was such a micro-manager that every single person was “supervised” by him, directly.
My local team’s org chart reflects management needs like timesheet and development plans, but largely has little to do with task assignments and responsibilities. There are two teams with a lot of overlap in terms of tasks (except some people do everything, some people do a subset, I don’t know what a few other people are doing as I’ve never met or interacted with them…). Job titles are also apparently random. In my team of 6 people there are 5 different job titles. I share a title with two people in the other team, but I do different functions, at least in part.
I don’t understand anything around here sometimes. People just do things but anything resembling “structure” or “organization” just doesn’t seem to exist.
My organizations director has some vision of how the structure is going to change. He’s had this vision for a few years. He won’t tell anyone what it is. I received a promotion based on this phantom organization structure. Good I guess? But I don’t know what my job duties are based on this promotion. I asked my direct manager for a position description. After much searching he said he found one but it is obviously wrong. It’s been almost 2 years since my promotion. I’m just continuing to do what I’ve always done until I’m told differently.
I’m pretty sure my boss wants to fire me. She wants everyone to think she’s the best, most amazing boss ever, and I don’t, so she doesn’t like me. Unfortunately for her, she doesn’t know what I do, and I’m the only person around who knows how to do some critical things. I’m trying to keep it professional and not give her any concrete reasons, but it’s hard to be perfect all the time.
I haven’t worked with her long enough to know her that well, but what I do know isn’t good. It does not give me hope for the future.
We use Pace laboratories for a bunch of our environmental samples. They suck. They bought up all the small labs until they were the only game in town and have now jacked up their prices 40% and laid off a large amount of their workforce. Based on the quality of what we receive from them I suspect the remaining employees are disgruntled at least.
Here’s an example. I collect river water for a number of analyses. Pace ships me bottles. Some of these bottles have preservatives in them - usually some kind of acid. Well frequently (like 50%) one of the bottles in the pack has not been sealed properly and has leaked acid all over the place. Now I’m stuck cleaning a bunch of bottles off so they can be handled and filled. Also, the bottle that leaked no longer has a preservative so the sample is compromised.
Also, getting the sample results from them has become a problem because their new electronic system doesn’t work right, and hasn’t for 6 months. The only thing that still works well is their billing department. Go figure.
The problem is the wide variety of samples we run. Hard to find a lab that can do them all. We are talking to state labs and have found them interested. I hope we can change soon.
that reminds me when I worked for DoD, someone did a Reply All response that other recipients (dumbly) also replied all; we’re talking 10’s of thousand people who couldn’t get any work done. It had to shut down system
I’ve seen it a few times over the years. I’ve always been of the opinion that reply all should be disabled by default unless the sender clicks the ‘allow reply all’ checkbox.
IT updates. They don’t work. They never work. There’s always a problem and no one knows how to fix it, and since I’m remote this needs a remote connection but it’s all very much harder when all attempts to connect remotely have failed.
What is up with Microsoft and their “your login was succesful but fuck you you can’t use Teams” message? If it doesn’t WORK, it’s not successful now, is it?
I hate inventory. 13 hour days starting way too early int he morning. Dust flying enverywhere, which I am allregic to. 5 days of 13 hour days and if we are relased at the end we then go back to our regular jobs.
Because I once demonstrated the ability to set up a computer, I’m now the go-to person in the office when it comes to setting up new peripherals. Last week, several coworkers ordered new mouse/keyboard sets while their boss was out of town, so this morning I was summoned to assist with setup. This also involved showing them how to remove the batteries from their old devices, and store the old USB receivers in the little cutouts in the old devices. I hope I did a decent job hiding my disgust at what I found when I removed the battery covers on the mice. Seriously, it’s like they’ve been mousing inside a potato chip bag or something.
It’s bad enough to have to hear “He called me Gam-maw!! He called me Gam-maw!!” over and over when trapped at your desk, but a busy commercial kitchen sounds like a very dangerous place for someone to initiate a one-sided conversation like that. I’m hoping that being in a kitchen spared you from having to look at photos and videos?
Seriously, it’s like they’ve been mousing inside a potato chip bag or something.