walking out, and watches

So, a lot appears to have happened over the past few weeks.

With my boss away, I had two full weeks of work to do just to begin catching up on my task list. Some of the items there are actually rather important, and even a couple are six months overdue now.

All goes well for the first week. I take life a little easier than I have in quite a while and don't quite put in a full day's work each day, but I equally spend a significant amount of time supporting the rest of the office. It's part of my role, and the part I most enjoy, after all.

My boss, holidaying in Costa Rica, begins answering his phone and checking email after the first week. Shortly afterwards, one of the major organisations (in whose good books we need to remain) rings him and asks "We need to produce documents X, Y and Z, and haven't had time. They need to be completed in time of the meeting on Friday". Boss, instead of saying 'I'm sorry, I'm on holiday until then' replies 'Of course we can do your work for you. You don't even need to pay us. I'll phone the office now and brief them.'

Over that week, I spent several hours on the phone, receiving briefings to prepare documents on behalf of another organisation. Now, almost a week after his return, I've knocked five things off my task list, but added ten more. The six-month overdue activities remain outstanding.

It was also hilarious when he arrived back at the office. I had ensured interns drafted the documents, and they were sitting on my desk to review. I hadn't had time, despite working long hours that week. Other Work had interrupted. On realising this, Boss becomes so tense, so rude, that five minutes after he arrives at work I walk out. I had a wonderful day - went up the river to meet a friend for lunch, went swimming in the river in a thunderstorm in the afternoon, came back home to happy hour at the local cocktail bar.

It's promising, because I think doing that served as a wakeup call for him. For a long time now I've been saying that I have too much work, but I'm not sure he realised it until I cracked. Nothing ever changes in this office. I know that. But I am more optimistic now than I usually am that progress, however slight, might be made.

Not all of his erratic behaviour will disappear at once, though. Today, I am ordering a replacement watch for him on the company credit card. He acknowledges that it is 'a bit dodge' but still excuses it by saying it belongs to the charity and if anyone in the charity needs it, then he will happily lend it to them! We are a charity, funded by public money - of course buying watches for the directors is where that money should go. And anyway, it's only several hundred dollars - the New Yorker carried an article about Baselworld in Switzerland recently. $500 is absolutely nothing for a watch!

task management

So, when I was talking with my boss first thing this morning, he was complaining about the level of micromangement he feels the need to undertake in this office. 

Yet somehow, he managed to email later proposing a new task management system for the office. This system had no less than ten steps, including agreeing the task, confirming agreement of the task, developing a proposal for the undertaking of the task and confirmation of that proposal. Each time he makes a move to extract himself from the day to day management of the various staff and interns we have in this office, he counteracts that later that day. How am I supposed to help him move away from micromanagement in this case?

It is (part of) my job to act as the management for the office, act as a conduit between him and the others. What made it worse, therefore, is that he began this part of the email by asking if I was having difficulty keeping track of the tasks going on in the office. Well, yes, I am. 

• I have a whiteboard with 67 post-it notes sitting next to me. Most post-its have one task on, though some have up to ten or twelve.
• I have 87 emails in my inbox which are awaiting some form of action from me, and a further 101 emails marked for followup. Some of these correspond to the post-its on my whiteboard. Many, indeed most, do not.

Yes, I am having a little difficulty keeping track of everything going on in the office at the moment. I have no doubt, however, that this is because we keep hiring more people, yet never seem to have the funds to engage someone to help me, to take away the less interesting parts of my work such as the administration.