loyalty

Background: my little organisation is about to be offered a contract from the UN to undertake a project in A Not-Very-Nice Place for six months. The discussions around this project have been going on for a while but the actual contract has yet to emerge, even though the project is due to start in about two weeks.

The details of this project require three staff, full time, throughout. One of these positions is a role that both I and a former colleague, B, are trained for, and there aren’t many who have attended that training course. Given this, boss2 who is in charge of the project, has provisionally offered the first three months to B and the second half to me. We both, provisionally, accepted.

B currently makes his living as a consultant, taking a string of such contracts. As interesting as this project is, there will always be better ones out there, and he isn’t in a position to be able to pass up those opportunities.  Quite apart from all other considerations, he is trying to shake off the shadow that numerous years here, under the influence of boss1, cast on him. [Boss1 is actively disliked by the decision-makers of our sector, and it appears this contamination spreads far...] B made it clear from the start that he will entertain other offers of work if they come through, right up until a contract is given to him.

B received a provisional offer of such an opportunity. He, dutifully, alerted boss2 that such an offer had been provisionally made. He included details of the various scenarios if the offer were to firm up and he was to take it, topmost of which was the most likely scenario that this new contract would be over prior to his expected involvement in our project.

Boss2 turns around and says ‘Well, I expect more loyalty than that’ and promptly indicates that B is very unlikely to be taken regardless of whether he takes the new contract or not. That's wonderful loyalty. 

an update specially for Miss Gone-Home

Specially because someone asked me to update:

So, I told my boss that I was looking to move on and was making applications. I also told him that my job is not feasible for just one person. This latter point I have been stressing to him for the last year. (He, incidently, recently made a comment along the lines of 'I wish we'd understood this earlier.') So, with the most cursory nod to asking me if it was suitable, he has decided that he is going to give the programme management part of my role to someone else in the office. This is the component of my job that I like. He's also got me developing a separate job description for the admin and treasurer roles so that I can advertise it. He's recruiting people to fill my job now, when current negotiations imply I might be around for another three months or so.

We have just been awarded a contract for a project I would very much like to contribute to, and have the skill sets to fill one of the three roles perfectly. 6 months, from October to March. A former colleague and I will split the role, with him doing the first three months and me taking over. This could be a wonderful opportunity for me. Equally, from the project proposal, this might mean I end up stuck in the middle of nowhere just preparing powerpoints, which seems frankly just as likely. Also, what do I do between now and January, since I really don't want to be in this office? Or do I just stick it out, and enjoy being paid a fortune even without anything to do because all my tasks have been given away?

Oh, and the other thing: my other boss and I were talking on Friday and she remarked how long my task list is (it's a whiteboard on the wall for all to see). I asked her for a couple of details for a deadline I had. I explained it was a piece of admin filing that had be delayed 9 months now, along with other parts of my task list. Then she said 'well, what about this other task I asked you to do a while ago. we have been discussing it since February, so I don't see why it's not been done yet.' Is this someone who respects my work, who I want to work for? (At least my other boss, the one who is usually in the office, finally understands that I have too much work to do. He also realises that I haven't been able to address even the most vital things on my task list for a long time because I keep having to prevent my task list getting longer, rather than making it shorter.) So even if I am promised three months on this new project, are they likely to turn around and say "well actually we don't have the budget for it anymore. You'll have to stay where you are doing what you're doing already?"

micromanagement from afar

[Found this one as a draft from a couple of months ago. Guess I forgot to actually post it.]

He's done it again. Less that two weeks after I walked out on him, because he didn't understand how much work I had to do whilst he is out of the office, he commits the office to producing six draft documents by the end of next week.

He pays me to understand what capacity there is in the office, and adjust that capacity to the deadlines we have. We have a particularly big project this week, which I am project managing - I'm not qualified to do it, but nor was I remotely qualified to do it the last time. This time, at least, I'm allowed to hire consultants for a day. So I plan, in detail, how to get this job done. I need all the capacity of the office to do it, and am anxious about the time I've been asked to devote to meetings for him and or him on Monday and Tuesday. The consultants will work Wednesday and Wednesday only, so unless we have all the materials ready for them, starting Monday morning, it'll be a waste of money. [Not that he seems to care about wasting office money, see previous two posts!]

He emails my colleague, the only other one with proper project management experience, saying 'can you please coordinate all those not involved in project X to develop the documents below]. The 'documents below' turn out to be a list of six different detained briefing notes that he promised by the end of the week. If this was a donor, and we might get funds out of it, then I might understand, but it's not! It's a private consultancy firm that we've agreed to do the work for, for free!

update to expenses

I can't believe this only occurred to me several days after I wrote the previous post.

My boss is English, as am I. In England, recently, there was a huge scandal about the expense accounts of our politicians, as well as those of BBC staff (the BBC is publicly funded by a tax on owning a TV). Our primary donor is DFID, so our funds come from the same taxpayers' pockets as those that fund politicians and the BBC.

At least all the BBC expenses all seemed to be legitmately work related, and I don't see the problem with them. Politicians' expense claims included moat-cleaning and a duck-island. Hardly work-related. The expenses of my boss appear to be more along these lines - a $600 watch because his broke (whilst in a sauna on holiday), as well as furniture for his flat "to be consistent with the office furniture, just in case the office needs more at some stage - it is sensible to have an extra supply". [When the office did need extra, of course, he got me to order some more, rather than volunteer the furniture of his flat. We now have two tables we have no use for, or space to put up!]

Today's anecdote: whilst in central Paris about to attend a meeting, he phones me to tell me he's at the venue. Can I please phone the lady he is supposed to be meeting to tell her that. When I can't get hold of her on her mobile he asks I call her direct line at the office - an hour outside the city - to try and get hold of her that. At no point does he think "I'm calling halfway round the world from my mobile, to get someone who is not supposed to be my PA to call someone who is probably 30 yards away from me"!

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.