Where does the time go?

[morgan_dhu]

How did it get to be March already? I could have sworn it was just yesterday that I heard Christmas carols.

Oh, now I remember, I've been working. I do love my job, don't get me wrong, but sometimes there's just so much of it. I am sometimes amused by the sight of senior project directors fighting to have me working on their projects (I can't take on nearly as many projects as I'm asked to do, and when I tell them I'm booked, they start playing dirty among themselves to get their hands on me), but the amusement value kind of wears off over time when you find out that you said yes to what was scheduled as a week's worth of work and it turns out the size and complexity of the project has been enhanced and now it's going to take two weeks, only you're already booked to be doing something else next week so you try to do two things at once, and then there's a technical problem with the data collection one project and that means more time to fix things, and then the client on the project you did last week comes back and says "This is all wonderful, but we need more of X, which we didn't actually mention needing in the Statement of Work" and someone dumps a proposal for something two months down the line on you and says "we need to change the design to this, please redo the budget and get it to the client this afternoon, I can't because I'm flying to Whitehorse" and so it goes.

There is a downside to being very good at what you do.

There are probably upsides as well, but at the moment I'm having a little trouble remembering what they are.

Comments

[vito-excalibur.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes.

I would like to share with you what Mr. E has been patiently teaching me to say. "Yes, of course I can do this new thing which you suddenly need me to do! Which of the things you had previously asked me to do would you prefer that I not do so that I have time to give to this?"

[morgan-dhu.livejournal.com]

I've actually gotten reasonably good at saying that one (not perfect, but reasonably good.

The real problem comes when I have to say to X, "Please find out from Y and Z which of the things they have previously asked me to do they will now get someone else to do so that I have time to give to this thing for you." Because then X, Y and Z all get together and usually decide that I surely must have time to do everything they all need. And then I have to tell them all that no, someone has to yield something before I can add a new something from anybody to the list, and they all freak out and insist that no one can possibly help them but me, which is not true, because there are four other people in the company who, like me, are junior researchers whose job is at least in part to help out the seniors (although it is true that one of those people has pretty much been monopolised by the company's fearless leader to do all of his stuff, so she's rarely available).

At least it gives me some assurance of job security. ;-)