i am orange; orange am i
2011-Mar-03, Thursday 07:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mellowtiggerI've been working twice my usual hours for 3 months now. There's still no job posted for an addition to my team since we lost our supervisor 8 weeks ago. The situation is annoying me. Upper management seems to have developed the opinion that 2.0 FTEs is all we really need, and since I'm providing 1.0 FTEs (instead of 0.5) then they're all set.
Wrong. Even a year ago, I was saying to my old boss that we needed more heads in the department. Basically, I thought that we were each wearing "too many hats". While I was telling her this opinion, I didn't know at the time that upper management had begun forcing her to wear too many additional hats too. That's eventually why she quit. Now some of her "hats" have fallen to us in addition to what we were doing before.
To convince them that we need more than 2.0 FTEs, I gave up on my duties long enough one day to write a Powershell script that pulled statistics from our old email folders. We assign color codes to people as they take responsibility for items that are emailed to us. At least, I'm always up-to-date in coding my emails. I don't think they ever were quite as dedicated to the process. Emails are not a total view of our workload, because server projects usually don't generate emails and people frequently drop by our desks or call us for other issues. It's the closest to a department workload view that we have, though.
I am orange. My old boss is blue. My coworker is green. The other colors are miscellaneous assignments (networking, website, departmental, etc.). My new boss doesn't work assignments, so his contribution is irrelevant. The trend in increased workload over the years is obvious.
I started in the last few days of February 2008. I was surprised to see that I grew to take over more of the assignments than the others even while I was still in part-time status. Data is valuable, since it shows trends in timespans that humans just don't notice. (Science is good for this reason among others.) The totally unequal distribution since my boss left, however, leaves me thinking that there are "too many chiefs", to use an old phrase.
I'm the last oompa-loompa warrior left in my tribe. I started roaming websites last night to job hunt again. I really dislike job hunting, but it's the lesser of two evils at the moment. You have to avoid those vermicious knids wherever you find them.
Wrong. Even a year ago, I was saying to my old boss that we needed more heads in the department. Basically, I thought that we were each wearing "too many hats". While I was telling her this opinion, I didn't know at the time that upper management had begun forcing her to wear too many additional hats too. That's eventually why she quit. Now some of her "hats" have fallen to us in addition to what we were doing before.
To convince them that we need more than 2.0 FTEs, I gave up on my duties long enough one day to write a Powershell script that pulled statistics from our old email folders. We assign color codes to people as they take responsibility for items that are emailed to us. At least, I'm always up-to-date in coding my emails. I don't think they ever were quite as dedicated to the process. Emails are not a total view of our workload, because server projects usually don't generate emails and people frequently drop by our desks or call us for other issues. It's the closest to a department workload view that we have, though.
I am orange. My old boss is blue. My coworker is green. The other colors are miscellaneous assignments (networking, website, departmental, etc.). My new boss doesn't work assignments, so his contribution is irrelevant. The trend in increased workload over the years is obvious.I started in the last few days of February 2008. I was surprised to see that I grew to take over more of the assignments than the others even while I was still in part-time status. Data is valuable, since it shows trends in timespans that humans just don't notice. (Science is good for this reason among others.) The totally unequal distribution since my boss left, however, leaves me thinking that there are "too many chiefs", to use an old phrase.
I'm the last oompa-loompa warrior left in my tribe. I started roaming websites last night to job hunt again. I really dislike job hunting, but it's the lesser of two evils at the moment. You have to avoid those vermicious knids wherever you find them.
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Date: 2011-Mar-03, Thursday 04:12 pm (UTC)If you're interested (in that or any others on that page), let me know and I can pass along your resume. I even get a referral bonus.
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Date: 2011-Mar-03, Thursday 04:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-Mar-03, Thursday 08:12 pm (UTC)Well, at least their CEO isn't making an outlandish salary like some other non-profits I've seen.
But if they continue to lose revenue as they did from 2008 to 2009, I can see why they are having issues with hiring. Looks like in 2009 they brought in about half of what they did in 2008.
Doesn't help your bottom line but I can understand where they are coming from.
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Date: 2011-Mar-03, Thursday 11:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-Mar-04, Friday 12:10 am (UTC)I learned many long years ago from a former military man that he believed that when "We couldn't offer them salary, so we had to offer them other things like training and frequent days off even if they were unpaid." If money can't be directly given, then you'd think other incentives would follow. It seems that they don't, though. People (including me) are quite interested in "the mission" as a non-profit organization, but I do notice that certain job areas seem to burn out people faster than other areas.
It's a shame, too, because as a whole the place is filled with people who are happy to accept lower pay for a cause they care about. Count me among them. Burnout level in general, however, seems (in my very unexpert opinion) higher in the last 3 months than I've seen in it the last 3 years.
I'd guess (low confidence rating) that the reason is because the organization has pushed too fast for too many changes in too short a time. The whole organization needs a breather. All the changes are having a very good effect on the animals (see a post I intend to make tomorrow), but the humans are having a hard time keeping up with it all.
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Date: 2011-Mar-04, Friday 12:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-Mar-04, Friday 12:22 am (UTC)We absolutely do NOT earn most of our money from charges to customers. Instead, donations fund the greater part of our daily operations. I think the organization does a very good job of living up to the "not for profit" ideal. Money will certainly be down in this next reporting season because we lowered costs of adoptions while simultaneously reducing the number of animals that we take in. (See more on this concept in a post I intend to make tomorrow.)
There are still expenses that I think are pushed by higher ups making decisions that everyone else just has to live with. It seems to happen a lot less than at for-profit places that I've worked. I don't mean that comparison as high praise, of course. ;) Just sayin' it could be worse. *laugh*
I just really, really wish upper management would make the decision that their humans are just as important as their animals. The place should be committed to giving people more kinds of non-monetary compensation. Whether it's training or unpaid time off of their choice or... ? I don't know, but anything that would help reduce stress levels for people that we should want to retrain. We don't need to lose any more employees to slow burnout, fast-burnout angry-words incidents, or suicide. We've had all three while I've worked there.
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Date: 2011-Mar-04, Friday 04:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-Mar-07, Monday 01:59 pm (UTC)