The Work Thread 2 - Get back to work!

[Zilnad]

Hopefully playing Mario Kart tomorrow. I've told everyone I'll surely beat them all so I'm praying to Lakitu that I don't get a blue shell straight up the arse.

[Gemini73]

My usually obnoxious, gobshite boss has been particularly quiet of recent. Reason? There was a full investigation regarding bullying in the workplace with him front and centre. One of my colleagues resigned after a several years of working at the Trust. Pity to see him go as he was a nice lad.

NHS management do like to protect each other at all costs so at a guess I would say my boss received not much more than a slap on the wrist, however his quietness of late says to me that he's now being monitored. He's not so important that they'll cover his backside forever.


As for my new role as a waste porter? I'm enjoying it. It's good physical work and it keeps me away from all the bullshit politics as I'm pretty much left to my own devices.

[Errkal]

My usually obnoxious, gobshite boss has been particularly quiet of recent. Reason? There was a full investigation regarding bullying in the workplace with him front and centre. One of my colleagues resigned after a several years of working at the Trust. Pity to see him go as he was a nice lad.

NHS management do like to protect each other at all costs so at a guess I would say my boss received not much more than a slap on the wrist, however his quietness of late says to me that he's now being monitored. He's not so important that they'll cover his backside forever.


As for my new role as a waste porter? I'm enjoying it. It's good physical work and it keeps me away from all the bullshit politics as I'm pretty much left to my own devices.

Its the NHS, he will get promotoed out of the situation and into another one.

[Gemini73]

I wouldn't be at all surprised

[Bunni]

The last NHS consultant I worked with got kicked out of surgical rotation for shagging a nurse in the operating theatre and just went to psych instead.

If they're paid enough they get kept at all costs. Which is quite a strawberry floating lot usually

[Errkal]

Been told my manager that the head of development would like me to put in an application for an internal job posting as a Developer, currently am an Analyst Developer, so would be a promotion as is the next rung up which is cool.

I'm hoping due to the way it's been worded it's basically a do e deal but don't want to assume in case I'm being dim or something.

Fingers crossed!!

[Xeno]

Good Luck Errkal.

[Ste]

First say back in the office tomorrow since March last year. Don't feel too bad at the moment. Let's wait and see how I feel when my alarm goes off tomorrow

[Gemini73]

Looks like my boss got away with bullying someone to resign. As expected the upper management closed ranks and protected him. HR are spineless cowards.

Oh well, I'm keeping out of his way as his current demeanour suggests that the result has empowered him into believing he's untouchable and can do as he pleases. He's already acting the banana split toward another staff member who asked if he could change shift temporally to help his wife who is suffering from postnatal depression.

[Qikz]

One of the managers I've always complained about handed in their notice and is leaving next month. I got on with her outside of her being a manager so in a way I'm sad, but given we're super understaffed and the fact of the matter is her leaving is going to have absolutely no impact on my job at all I can't really say I care either way. If anything it just means there'll be less overbearing middle management for no reason.

[Gemini73]

One of the managers I've always complained about handed in their notice and is leaving next month. I got on with her outside of her being a manager so in a way I'm sad, but given we're super understaffed and the fact of the matter is her leaving is going to have absolutely no impact on my job at all I can't really say I care either way. If anything it just means there'll be less overbearing middle management for no reason.

I've had a few folk at work saying that our boss is okay outside of work, to which I swiftly remind them of one of the Christmas work-dos where he took drunken conversations about work and then weaponised them once back in the workplace.

"Oh, yeah.. forgot about that" they say...

Truth is he's not in the position of facilities manager because of his skill set, but because his wage banding couldn't be lowered when his prior position became untenable so typical of the public sector they just moved him sideways.

[LewisD]

So, picture the scene, a month ago my boss gets signed off with stress, high blood pressure, anxiety and all that.

That leaves me and a newish member of staff here doing the work of three people. It's busy enough with three.
Today my colleague upped and quit in tears after it got too stressful.

I am all alone. The lonesome truck parts guy.
If I didn't have children to feed I would probably also leave.

[Errkal]

So, picture the scene, a month ago my boss gets signed off with stress, high blood pressure, anxiety and all that.

That leaves me and a newish member of staff here doing the work of three people. It's busy enough with three.
Today my colleague upped and quit in tears after it got too stressful.

I am all alone. The lonesome truck parts guy.
If I didn't have children to feed I would probably also leave.

I guess you got to just keep on trucking.

[Jenuall]

Sounds tough Lewis. Is there a plan to get more people in to help?

[Rax]

Ive been voluntarily coming into the office a couple of days a week recently and Ive enjoyed it, its been nice to get out of the house and I feel I get more done in here than I do at home. Ill see how that changes next week when everyone is returning on a more permanent basis. Thankfully its being structured well here, with 2 days in the office and 3 to be worked from wherever you want, 1 of the 2 office dyas is the same for everyone in your team but the other can be any day of the week you want. They have also allowed a number of exceptions for people who arent yet comfortable coming back in so its good to see a sensible approach being taken and nobody being railroaded into being in an office setting theyre not comfy with.

[aayl1]

So, picture the scene, a month ago my boss gets signed off with stress, high blood pressure, anxiety and all that.

That leaves me and a newish member of staff here doing the work of three people. It's busy enough with three.
Today my colleague upped and quit in tears after it got too stressful.

I am all alone. The lonesome truck parts guy.
If I didn't have children to feed I would probably also leave.

I guess you got to just keep on trucking.

I'm sorry your boss had a breakdown

(Just to interrupt to pun chain briefly - anyway you can leverage this performance into a raise/promotion? They've obviously saved money on salaries for 2 people at this point).

[Qikz]

So, picture the scene, a month ago my boss gets signed off with stress, high blood pressure, anxiety and all that.

That leaves me and a newish member of staff here doing the work of three people. It's busy enough with three.
Today my colleague upped and quit in tears after it got too stressful.

I am all alone. The lonesome truck parts guy.
If I didn't have children to feed I would probably also leave.

I guess you got to just keep on trucking.

I'm sorry your boss had a breakdown

(Just to interrupt to pun chain briefly - anyway you can leverage this performance into a raise/promotion? They've obviously saved money on salaries for 2 people at this point).

Would not recommend, doesn't matter about a raise or a promotion if you're constantly stressed to gooseberry fool from being overworked.

The wheels really start to come off when you're overworked. You'll be very tyred before too long.

[aayl1]

Sounds like you're running on fumes, Lewis.

[Qikz]

Work have decided to completely ignore the problem of us not having enough first line people and hired yet another person above me in 2nd line. They have absolutely no idea what they're doing I'm fairly certain.

[That's not a growth]

Things are very mixed at work at the moment. A big project I'm heading up is going very well - we've developing a web app, and api and gui admin front-end to update content on the app. We showed our progress to the client the other day for the first time after a few months of work and he compared my ability to anticipate his needs for the project to that of an AI like HAL from 2001. Other comments we're 'expertly managed' and 'far more than I anticipated at this point'. Essentially, I was over the moon.

But things in the department are in a level of disarray never before seen. We barely break even, and they're wanting to restructure us, and wanting to take certain roles outside of the department and change the roles of those that remain. It sounds like they're trying to get me to be more of a sale/account management role. Some parts of it sound similar, get a customer project / sales lead and work with people in other areas to get it completed. But it'll be far more aimed at getting those other people to do the juicy interesting work, and I'll just facilitate and liaise and work to build a relationship with the client and provide them quotes. What I really like about this current project is getting really stuck into a problem, and really working closely with our devs to try different ideas, and figure out how we're going to solve a vague problem.

These last few years I've been loosely described as a 'project manager', but really things just aren't that tightly defined here. It feels more like the work I've been enjoying is maybe more similar to 'Product Manager' or something? I have no idea, and I don't think I'm going to find out here - there's no one else with these types of roles and I see them only trying to push me more towards an 'account manager' type of role basically because that's how they want to structure the department.

I've apparently got a 1-2-1 with my manager in a couple of weeks for the first time ever, but going by recent conversations I'm worried they'll make no attempts to find a way to make this work for me, and just want me to fit in their new structure.

But if I wanted to look for something else I don't really know how to approach it, and what kind of things I should look for - my concern is I'm basically making this all up as I go along with no guidance what so ever so would need to start low, but I just don't know what to aim for. I really need some advice, if anyone has any ideas.