Work Moods

Feeling uber moody about work today.

The meeting with my new supervisor was less than encouraging. Not because of her, I think she’s going to be a good fit as a whole. More so because I had hoped using that meeting as an opportunity to get some of my questions answered gave me the answers I didn’t want to hear.

Let me state, once again for the record that I wasn’t offered this position. I was not asked if I wanted to change career directions completely. It was presented to me more as a “this is what the team needs right now and you are a good fit so this is what you’ll be doing” type of situation and I chose to look at as a step forward, because regardless of title or pay or any of that, I am and have learned a great deal and have realized some strengths I did not know existed within little ole me.

Back to the meeting with R, from what I gather, she was completely unaware of this. Apparently, she was under the impression that “development was not my passion anyway” and that I had applied for the new position. When I mentioned that my title (and associated pay scale) still hadn’t formally changed (which was my way of asking WTF, it’s been almost 6 months) and a job description for this new position hasn’t been identified, I received the standard non-committal manager response: “let’s give it a few more months and make decisions then.”

Nice. De ja vue all over again.

I also asked how my work will be measured this year because my 2009 employee evaluation has goals and a job description on it for 2010 that was for my “developer” skin, not my “build/configuration manager” self and since we have no job description to base my performance on for this year, what will be used as a measuring tool? She said “We’ll evaluate you from this point on” meaning since her start date. Which is not only completely unfair, but doesn’t even make any sense? Does this imply that all of my hard work from the past 6 months, which included a major issue tracking software configuration/migration, a new wiki config/migration and learning how to manage the builds don’t matter? That is complete bullshit. I have to believe that can’t be true, that these things MUST be taken into consideration because they are HUGE for our department. And not once, not even once did I complain about the long hours or the constant bitching and moaning from all staff (trust me, these new apps are not kitten like when it comes to configuration, talking to other applications and not at all intuitive when it comes to end user product) and having to chase down the project managers on a regular basis to get them to follow up with what they say they are going to do so we can get a damn build put together. Or having to train, remind, and generally babysit most of the staff with regards to this process over and over and over again.

I sure as hell am not getting paid like a manager, why should I have to behave like one?

Sorry…..that was childish. I am feeling childish today, like I want to throw a tantrum.

Not to mention I was told that development would be completely taken off my plate?

Huh? WHAT?

*chirp chirp*

I expected this to some degree, but completely 100%? Excuse me? Does anyone give a flying EFF about what I think or how I might feel about the last 10 years of my career being completely null and void at this point because I’ve been taken SO far out of the development loop by this transition in my position that if I wanted to return to development, I would have to go back to school and hello, if you don’t use it, you loose it. Programming is very much like that, you forget syntax and formulas and standards. This is a big deal to me, even if my company could give a crap.

RAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWR

That said, let me allow my more diplomatic, team player side take over for a minute and put the selfish, impatient child on the back burner for a minute…..

1) This position needed to be filled for the sake of the team and I do work with a solid group of people, so when you are called on, you step up to the plate. I am not the first or last to take one for the team in this group.

2) I am gaining valuable experience and in theory, I am being groomed to be a manager in some capacity.

3) These things take time. Of course the company wants to see how it all fits because such a change in my title will be reflected in my paycheck as clearly the increase in responsibility is significant. Let’s not forget, this is Corporate America people, what matters first and foremost is their bottom line and they have to be cautious.

4) Doing development on top of my current job duties would be not only distracting but I’m not sure how realistic it is to expect this position to turn over issues in a timely manner. As it stands, this position is very demanding.

5) The training and all that, it’s part of the deal and there are worse things then being the knowledge bank for a specific aspect of your team’s process. I am replaceable yes, but they would be hard-pressed to fill the position as quickly as it would need to be in order to continue functioning normally.

6) I am good at this. It is a fact. My technical background that has spanned 15 years or so now gives me the background I need to do this job well. I am attentive to detail. I play well with others. I am a task master that is comfortable chasing people down to get what I need from them to do my job, which in turn keeps everyone involved accountable. I can see the big picture and am becoming very adept at managing the micro to the macro and back again in relation to how this company operates and what the needs of its customers are. I am loyal, I work hard and I care about the quality of my work and my team-members. Blah blah blah.

I think the question now is how do I navigate this effectively? Right now, I am totally pissed off. Pissed off at the company for putting me in this position. Pissed of that my new manager and I have to stumble through this together. The uncertainty makes me crazy. The feeling like there is no acknowledgement of any kind, one way or the other. I have days where I know I should probably be updating my resume and looking and others where I feel like I’d be a fool to leave the company over something that is probably resolveable. I just don’t know how to go about resolving it.

First, I probably need to identify what the real issue is here. I can’t just go to my superiors and say “Hey, I feel like I am being totally jacked around here, wtf!”

I’ll think on that for a while. Suggestions, are more than welcome.