So our boss is really starting to come down on us for not taking our lunch. As our team grows, there seems to be an effort to standardize things like lunches and on-call work and coverage, and one of the things being pushed is that we need to walk away from our desks for 30 minutes every day. The problem is that our work environment is not very conducive to doing anything at a specific time. Without going into too much detail, our team gets requests throughout the day and it's our job to fulfill them. Often that means the first half of our day is busy rushing to take care of the logistics, get things under control and troubleshoot issues that came up overnight. If we don't take care of things immediately, then people start asking questions. If we leave stuff overnight then people start asking even more questions.
So there is a bit of cognitive dissonance here and I've tried pointing this out to my boss..
The other problem is that I'm spending 9-10 hours a day at work as I adjust to a new role and every minute counts. That means if I walk away for 30 minutes, that's an extra 30 minutes I'll have to spend at the end of the day, and quite frankly I don't want to be at work that long. My co-worker gets picked up at a specific time by her husband and she is constantly keeping him waiting, so she can't take lunch either. So the problem should be obvious. Give us less work and we will take lunch.
Yet the problem is that we're not "given work". It's not like it's delegated or handed out piecemeal. It comes in, and if we are assigned that role for the week, we handle it - no questions asked - and let me just say, there is A LOT of crap that comes in and it all has to be dealt with in a very specific way, and quickly - which is more cognitive dissonance and doublespeak because we're constantly being told to be thorough, proofread and do one thing at a time. Then if we do that, we are told we need to be faster. My co-worker constantly worries that she is going to get fired and it's not helping, because she keeps taking the blame and it makes both of us look bad, when she should be pointing to the fact that we are overworked for the hours we are there.
The problem is that my coworker and I are both new(ish), so neither of us are comfortable offloading work, and the older employees have made it clear that they don't want to take work off our hands, and it has become a spiraling race to the bottom to see which of us can screw ourselves the hardest. I want to go for drinks with her and get on the same page, because I think that neither of us are doing ourselves any favours here. I'm failing my classes, she is late picking up her kids from school, and both of us are feeling stressed all the time. To top it off, now we're given a pager, a cell phone and a laptop and we are expected to take turns being 24hr helpdesk. That means that we are expected to wake up multiple times in the middle of the night to see if any issues have come up. It's getting a little bit out of control.
Our boss is sensing our frustration and is trying to help (thus forcing us to take lunches) and has also hired another person, so things might get better. On the other hand, we may have endure months and months more of this. I'm considering switching to evening coverage in hopes of getting a more reasonable workload, but I haven't gotten approved for this yet. Also, working graveyard in this environment would almost certainly be a career-limiting move.
I don't think I'm going to get fired, but I do think that my worsening attitude is starting to be noticed. This is killing me because I want to keep a positive attitude but at the same time I don't want to constantly feel under the gun.
How do you stay positive in this environment? I've been told (warned in a nice way) a couple of times that I need to just tough it out and things will get better down the road. While I want to believe this is true, it doesn't do much good for me now.. because I'd personally love to take lunch. I just can't.
So there is a bit of cognitive dissonance here and I've tried pointing this out to my boss..
The other problem is that I'm spending 9-10 hours a day at work as I adjust to a new role and every minute counts. That means if I walk away for 30 minutes, that's an extra 30 minutes I'll have to spend at the end of the day, and quite frankly I don't want to be at work that long. My co-worker gets picked up at a specific time by her husband and she is constantly keeping him waiting, so she can't take lunch either. So the problem should be obvious. Give us less work and we will take lunch.
Yet the problem is that we're not "given work". It's not like it's delegated or handed out piecemeal. It comes in, and if we are assigned that role for the week, we handle it - no questions asked - and let me just say, there is A LOT of crap that comes in and it all has to be dealt with in a very specific way, and quickly - which is more cognitive dissonance and doublespeak because we're constantly being told to be thorough, proofread and do one thing at a time. Then if we do that, we are told we need to be faster. My co-worker constantly worries that she is going to get fired and it's not helping, because she keeps taking the blame and it makes both of us look bad, when she should be pointing to the fact that we are overworked for the hours we are there.
The problem is that my coworker and I are both new(ish), so neither of us are comfortable offloading work, and the older employees have made it clear that they don't want to take work off our hands, and it has become a spiraling race to the bottom to see which of us can screw ourselves the hardest. I want to go for drinks with her and get on the same page, because I think that neither of us are doing ourselves any favours here. I'm failing my classes, she is late picking up her kids from school, and both of us are feeling stressed all the time. To top it off, now we're given a pager, a cell phone and a laptop and we are expected to take turns being 24hr helpdesk. That means that we are expected to wake up multiple times in the middle of the night to see if any issues have come up. It's getting a little bit out of control.
Our boss is sensing our frustration and is trying to help (thus forcing us to take lunches) and has also hired another person, so things might get better. On the other hand, we may have endure months and months more of this. I'm considering switching to evening coverage in hopes of getting a more reasonable workload, but I haven't gotten approved for this yet. Also, working graveyard in this environment would almost certainly be a career-limiting move.
I don't think I'm going to get fired, but I do think that my worsening attitude is starting to be noticed. This is killing me because I want to keep a positive attitude but at the same time I don't want to constantly feel under the gun.
How do you stay positive in this environment? I've been told (warned in a nice way) a couple of times that I need to just tough it out and things will get better down the road. While I want to believe this is true, it doesn't do much good for me now.. because I'd personally love to take lunch. I just can't.
