Another "It's been a day and it's not over yet" entries

Well, I'm doing that thing that I always thought amusing in grad school - quoting oneself in another document. It seemed like a lot of experts started doing that perhaps to further solidify belief in their own unique idea. But, I did write a blog entry a while ago about a bad day - http://rebeckeronline.blogspot.com/2008/01/one-of-those-days-and-its-not-over-yet.html and I have had another bad day. Or, shall we say, another bad week.

Tomorrow I become a fully vested employee at my job and so I'm being all the more open with my feelings about it. The past year I've really spent a lot of time and effort in gathering all of the past and current project information and creating a taxonomy with surrounding processes for a content management system, a database that will feed information to another massive database and a project request website. All of these things basically put my entire job into an electronic, paperless set of systems that are easy to maintain while also providing tons of information to all of these people that want to have data about every little thing all the time.


I've tried to do what is best for all the users of the systems and more importantly - provide realistic solutions that people can learn quickly.


Unfortunately, what trumps this is politics and turf. So, now instead of gratitude for all the work that has gone into taking a bunch of information/documentation/etc. from multiple servers, emails and "My Docs" folders, I'm getting major push back for taking initiative, utilizing resources effectively, and completing this over a span of 200-300 hours with little complaint. My new boss and my old boss are starting to "protect their territory" and instead of enabling some of us to move forward and do what people are hired to do (work smart, contribute, innovate, etc.) they are pushing back on anything that looks like a solution. It is frustrating and most importantly - discouraging. I had to take a walk after my last meeting today because the tears should not be seen in the building, but must be shed.


I've been dealing with push back for a few weeks. Most of the time, I move forward regardless because I do feel like what I am doing is right for the organization and for those that I work with, but there are these moments where the inner strength has exhausted and the will to continue with the task just isn't there. It doesn't help that it is raining and dreary outside. I'm sure that adds to the drama. However, I'm not the only person experiencing this and so it has impact on entire teams of people.


I will make sure to complete everything possible before I leave. I will make sure the status of every project is documented, that there is a "job description" tutorial for the next person, and that there is adequate information for the next person to come in and manage all of the people, politics and projects that are involved in this program. But, there comes a time when the learning experience is complete and it's time to move on. I think my time has come.

One of those days and ... it's not over yet!

So, it's been "one of those days."

I cancelled a doctor's appointment scheduled for 8:20 a.m. this morning because I had an 8:30 a.m. meeting that was supposed to go until 10:00 a.m. Plus, I had to go at 10:00 a.m. to a meeting that actually started at 9:00 a.m. and ran through 11:00 a.m. Problem was that I got to work at 6:30 a.m. to make sure I had all my documents copied and presentable only to find that one document was an old version! I save things every few minutes and so I'm not sure how the final version (which I had worked on perfecting with another co-worker) got lost. This happens to me about once a year and it's always on very important documents.

Anyway, got to the first meeting and talked about doing the "leaning" of processes, process improvement, etc. The meeting wasn't very productive from my perspective and that's important considering the subject matter. I then went to the next meeting that had about 12 people at a big conference table and 1/2 of us were necessary for any given discussion. My blackberry fell out of my coat pocket after my grand entry and made a loud banging noise on the chair. We presented our information, argued about next steps and then I left back to my office only to find I was missing my government access card (CAC) which means that I can't log onto my computer (or get through the gates to work for that matter) without it. So, I went back to the room and found it on the floor under an obscure part of the conference table.

I tried to work when I got back to the office, but found my emails weren't going through so no one had received documents they needed to present at their meetings. Yikes. A little later I went down to the bathroom and noticed a coat that looked similar to mine laying on a couch and realized that it was mine. Right beside it were my car keys. (I'm sure any of my family members or ex-roommates are wondering what is up because I'm fairly possessive of my stuff and know where all personal items are at all times.)

Well, let's just say...that was it. 2:00 p.m. and it was time to go home. I was going to write on this to let off steam while I was at work, but the government installation where I work blocks all "social networking and dating" sites. Not sure how this site relates to dating, but whatever.

Figured it would be best to leave the situation before there was calateral damage. The funny thing is that I'm actually in a good mood.