My current work dynamic is unhealthy. I'd like things to change.
February 1, 2021 2:00 PM Subscribe
I was hired remotely last year for an entry-level data analyst job during the pandemic. While my team and I seem to have a good general rapport, I would also say there's a strong sense of being silo'd (which I think might be more a consequence of learning to work together remotely, and less of anyone's fault in particular). I've given a lot of thought to my job in the past (maybe honestly more than I should have), but lately I've more seriously considered how this job has made me feel and wondered if this something I should continue to put up with, and if so, how I can put up with it better.
What are the things about my current situation that I am not happy about?
1. The managerial style - I honestly have not felt comfortable communicating with my manager since almost the beginning of my tenure here. I know working from home inevitably makes communication challenging, an that everyone has a different communication style, both via IM and video calls (which I don't think have quite I felt that I was able to steer things in a more positive direction through the output of my work, and my general positivity and compliance. However, there appears to be a lingering fundamental disconnect in our communication styles, and I have increasingly felt less comfortable with the way that work and feedback has been delivered to me. Oftentimes, my manager's messages are primarily focused on highlighting mistakes/issues/errors without very specifically detailing what those are or how I can quickly address them. Her opinion is that by not specifically telling me where to look that I would get more comfortable actually finding those things on my own going forward. One example where this occurred was with a report I had to manually stitch together in Excel, where I had politely asked her if she could clarify where she was seeing missing data, and she wrote back in a roundabout way that she knows there's missing data but that I should look for it myself. I spent an additional hour looking through the work I did, as well as the websites I pulled the data from, and was unable to find out what the issue was. I pivoted the tables of the data I pulled, and compared to the websites, which showed the same results. When I had relayed this information back to her, she told me that there was 1 thing I was missing, but still wouldn't tell me what it was. When I finally figured out what she was referring to, I felt dumb for missing it, and frustrated for having devoted over an hour to re-check something that I previously felt sure I had already done correctly. I very much don't like this approach to management, which I understand is probably not done to intentionally throw me in for a loop, but nonetheless feels like a significant waste of my time and energy, and sets me back in the other work I have to do (which my manager also expects regular updates on and will IM me out of the blue to inquire on). Another example: she assigned me a report and verbally told me to follow two very simple instructions, which I followed to the tee and sent back to her once done. She called me soon after, and incorrectly blamed for things that she thought I had changed in other tabs of the report, which I pushed back on and said I did not do. She did not seem to care and said I had to make the updates anyway. The reality was that she had not explained to me what the final output of the report should look like; she had only asked me to complete 2 steps, which I did, double-checked, and sent back. It was only during the follow-up call that she further explained what the report should look like once done. I followed her instructions exactly, because in the past she had called me out on providing more than what was asked, so I agreed to only do what she said she wanted.
I have no problem with my manager (who I think is new to management, and was primarily an individual contributor prior to inheriting her position) as a person, nor do I have any problem with delivering the work that is requested of me. I do have a problem with the way the instructions / feedback / clarification are communicated to me - which I often find unclear, and occasionally patronizing. Most of my 1:1s with my manager are of the "delegation" variety (basically "I want you to do this"), but during one of my last meetings with my manager, I expressed to her that I would appreciate if she would not just point out all the things that were "incorrect" or "wrong" with the work I delivered, but also highlight the things I did well, so that I could feel like a valued member of the team, and that I could gauge my progress and know what to continue doing.
My manager seemed somewhat receptive to this feedback, but I don't know how much our dynamic will improve. During my tenure here, I oftentimes have felt that I've had to lead discussions that typically should be led by my manager (who won't go into discussions with organized agendas or outlines, and seems to have put the onus on me in a tacit way). Despite being proactive in documenting and describing the work I do, I am still called out for "not asking enough questions" or "never reaching out," as though none of the things I've written or said actually happened. Meanwhile, she seems to have an especially sharp memory when it comes to harping on a very isolated and specific error (like a formula that calculated something incorrectly), yet seems to be unaware of her own propensity for creating errors (like manually eye-balling tables for data to see if numbers line up, and once asking me to delete records from a report that I knew if I did would skew the totals and raise questions, so I disregarded, which ultimately turned out to be the right decision). This has all been very mentally taxing... I'm already trying really hard, yet it feels like I have to put in even more work to deal with all of this. I'm not really sure how to proceed without feeling like it's "damned if I do, damned if I don't."
I understand that accuracy is of the highest importance with regards to the work my team does (which, IMO, is overinflated in terms of both importance and urgency), and that my manager is ultimately responsible for ensuring that the work I provide is correct before it is rolled out. I acknowledge my own responsibility in delivering high-quality work in an expedient fashion, but really think my manager needs to provide both the guidance and communication I need to be most effective in my role. I work best in a mentor-mentee dynamic (which has sadly been sorely absent in my career - on a side note: is there any way I can find this? How would I go about this?), where I feel supported by my manager and it feels like we can actually talk and work together as a team, rather than the boss-subordinate relationship that seems to characterize most of my jobs.
2. The work itself - It feels like hardly any of my work as a data analyst is actually doing any real analysis; it feels like 90% of my work is manual data checking and 10% basic admin (calls/meetings/emails/IMs) - the ratio is obviously not exact but that's what it feels like. Many of our data processing workflows are riddled with manual inputs, poorly designed transformations, and exceptions - joiner nodes joining on random strings (instead of unique keys), rule engines with expressions comprising of multiple conditions to account for exceptions, and spaghetti-tied messes that make them difficult to follow in a clean and logical fashion. Moreover, these workflows are especially prone to human error and frequently cause data discrepancies by the time the transformed data is fully processed. The SQL queries used for our dashboards query the entire data sources in Tableau, which also make updating the data extremely slow, and the data auditing process even more tedious and error-prone than it already is. I know these are things that could be fixed at a more holistic level, and that I could probably earn major brownie points for doing so, but as the new kid on the block (especially with the way that I am managed), I am worried about being called out for making improvements in a team that is very conservative and inefficient in their ways of doing things. Still, I strongly believe there are much more effective ways of auditing data and correcting the systems/processes that ultimately funnel this information, and that leadership should be more involved in overseeing and outlining how best to address these issues, but I feel like nobody on my team above me has the expertise / time / interest in doing these things (which I guess I can kind of understand when things are in such a state of disrepair). In the end, I'm left strapped, and forced to work with things that continue to cause numerous errors and headaches. Does anybody know if this is a common scenario, or have any tips on dealing with kind of problems?
3. The work hours - both my schedule, and the amount of time I spend at work (and often on assignments that are sent back for review - sometimes unnecessary review). I have to be up at 6 AM every day (I work East Coast hours on the West Coast...), and I go straight to work after I wake up, which doesn't allow me to mentally prepare for the day in a healthy way. Furthermore, I have found that I have been putting a lot of hours well after I should be done with work (due in large part to the issues I described above). I beat myself over this, because I consciously remind myself to close out by 3 PM but have very infrequently done so since I started this job. This was a problem that cropped up even as early as my first month on the job, when I worked on fixing a report I just inherited without being given a whole lot of context or clarity, and ended up working an entire evening just to correct the report so that it would be ready the next day. Over the past several months, this practice has re-surfaced more times than I'm proud to admit. In fact, as recently as this week, I spent almost every evening this week re-checking and re-saving work that I had completed well in advance, which ended up putting me behind, and even worse, gave me a lot of stress, frustration, fatigue, and anxiety. This past week was arguably the worst week I've experienced at work since I started. There were times in the past I felt hope that things were improving, especially with my growing familiarity with some of the routine work, but this past week indicated to me that this was far from the case.
The way things are now make me wonder if the amount of time and energy I spend on work stuff is worth the stress at all. I've also thought about whether or not I'm even approaching the situation in the right manner, despite having made numerous changes on my end. So I guess the questions that follow here will be fairly desultory...
I. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can better manage my time throughout the workday and better communicate with my manager so that (1) this job doesn't take over my life, (2) my manager and I can work together more effectively, and most importantly (3) this job doesn't take over my life and work can stay at work? Ideally, I'd like to be able to devote a fraction of my workday towards actually learning and upgrading my skillset (which I understand are rarely a company's prerogative), as well as exploring other opportunities and networking with the right people. The reality is that even when meticulously planning out and logging what I work on, I am often saddled with assignments I completed but have to re-check and fix (rinse & repeat), and then I am left with no time and energy at all with which to do the things I most aspire to do. I know a lot of this is also on me - oftentimes I think that if I pulled myself away from my desk / spent some time actually strategizing smarter solutions (especially from a technical perspective) - that I would be able to solve many of the problems that arise. I am determined to find better ways of reacting and doing things, but I also don't want to be naive in thinking that all of the grievances I have will magically disappear if I just myopically focused on doing X, Y, and Z, especially given the way my manager seems to make everything I'm assigned feel urgent.
II. I've thought about shifting gears entirely: transferring to a different team, finding another job, or even going down a different path entirely (as I do not feel this is what I want to be doing right now, but also think there are areas I can leverage now as professional stepping stones - if I stay in this path). I'm grateful to have a job at all right now, but I also really don't like how I've felt having to put up with the stuff I described (bad management, tedious work -- which I don't know how much I can realistically influence in the next several months). Are there graceful ways of going about requesting an internal transfer? Do you think it would be smart/safe to approach my manager's supervisor (who I find fairly approachable) and explain what's going on? Go to HR? Alternative solutions?
I want to be proactive, deliver my best work, learn, and build good relationships, and am uncomfortable with the idea of sitting and waiting to see if things will improve ... but wonder if I should just stick it out and mentally steel myself from the things I have to put up with at work (which I try to remind myself could be worse). Am I making things out to be a bigger deal than they should be? Has anyone else been in a similar situation? What did you decide, and how did you feel?
Long story short: I feel like I'm between a rock and a hard place at work, and at a crossroads as to how to proceed. I know there's a lot to deconstruct here. I'd love it if any of you can share helpful suggestions / solutions on maneuvering my situation in a pragmatic and strategic way - especially if there's anything I might not be seeing. I'm really all ears!
Thanks, everyone.
What are the things about my current situation that I am not happy about?
1. The managerial style - I honestly have not felt comfortable communicating with my manager since almost the beginning of my tenure here. I know working from home inevitably makes communication challenging, an that everyone has a different communication style, both via IM and video calls (which I don't think have quite I felt that I was able to steer things in a more positive direction through the output of my work, and my general positivity and compliance. However, there appears to be a lingering fundamental disconnect in our communication styles, and I have increasingly felt less comfortable with the way that work and feedback has been delivered to me. Oftentimes, my manager's messages are primarily focused on highlighting mistakes/issues/errors without very specifically detailing what those are or how I can quickly address them. Her opinion is that by not specifically telling me where to look that I would get more comfortable actually finding those things on my own going forward. One example where this occurred was with a report I had to manually stitch together in Excel, where I had politely asked her if she could clarify where she was seeing missing data, and she wrote back in a roundabout way that she knows there's missing data but that I should look for it myself. I spent an additional hour looking through the work I did, as well as the websites I pulled the data from, and was unable to find out what the issue was. I pivoted the tables of the data I pulled, and compared to the websites, which showed the same results. When I had relayed this information back to her, she told me that there was 1 thing I was missing, but still wouldn't tell me what it was. When I finally figured out what she was referring to, I felt dumb for missing it, and frustrated for having devoted over an hour to re-check something that I previously felt sure I had already done correctly. I very much don't like this approach to management, which I understand is probably not done to intentionally throw me in for a loop, but nonetheless feels like a significant waste of my time and energy, and sets me back in the other work I have to do (which my manager also expects regular updates on and will IM me out of the blue to inquire on). Another example: she assigned me a report and verbally told me to follow two very simple instructions, which I followed to the tee and sent back to her once done. She called me soon after, and incorrectly blamed for things that she thought I had changed in other tabs of the report, which I pushed back on and said I did not do. She did not seem to care and said I had to make the updates anyway. The reality was that she had not explained to me what the final output of the report should look like; she had only asked me to complete 2 steps, which I did, double-checked, and sent back. It was only during the follow-up call that she further explained what the report should look like once done. I followed her instructions exactly, because in the past she had called me out on providing more than what was asked, so I agreed to only do what she said she wanted.
I have no problem with my manager (who I think is new to management, and was primarily an individual contributor prior to inheriting her position) as a person, nor do I have any problem with delivering the work that is requested of me. I do have a problem with the way the instructions / feedback / clarification are communicated to me - which I often find unclear, and occasionally patronizing. Most of my 1:1s with my manager are of the "delegation" variety (basically "I want you to do this"), but during one of my last meetings with my manager, I expressed to her that I would appreciate if she would not just point out all the things that were "incorrect" or "wrong" with the work I delivered, but also highlight the things I did well, so that I could feel like a valued member of the team, and that I could gauge my progress and know what to continue doing.
My manager seemed somewhat receptive to this feedback, but I don't know how much our dynamic will improve. During my tenure here, I oftentimes have felt that I've had to lead discussions that typically should be led by my manager (who won't go into discussions with organized agendas or outlines, and seems to have put the onus on me in a tacit way). Despite being proactive in documenting and describing the work I do, I am still called out for "not asking enough questions" or "never reaching out," as though none of the things I've written or said actually happened. Meanwhile, she seems to have an especially sharp memory when it comes to harping on a very isolated and specific error (like a formula that calculated something incorrectly), yet seems to be unaware of her own propensity for creating errors (like manually eye-balling tables for data to see if numbers line up, and once asking me to delete records from a report that I knew if I did would skew the totals and raise questions, so I disregarded, which ultimately turned out to be the right decision). This has all been very mentally taxing... I'm already trying really hard, yet it feels like I have to put in even more work to deal with all of this. I'm not really sure how to proceed without feeling like it's "damned if I do, damned if I don't."
I understand that accuracy is of the highest importance with regards to the work my team does (which, IMO, is overinflated in terms of both importance and urgency), and that my manager is ultimately responsible for ensuring that the work I provide is correct before it is rolled out. I acknowledge my own responsibility in delivering high-quality work in an expedient fashion, but really think my manager needs to provide both the guidance and communication I need to be most effective in my role. I work best in a mentor-mentee dynamic (which has sadly been sorely absent in my career - on a side note: is there any way I can find this? How would I go about this?), where I feel supported by my manager and it feels like we can actually talk and work together as a team, rather than the boss-subordinate relationship that seems to characterize most of my jobs.
2. The work itself - It feels like hardly any of my work as a data analyst is actually doing any real analysis; it feels like 90% of my work is manual data checking and 10% basic admin (calls/meetings/emails/IMs) - the ratio is obviously not exact but that's what it feels like. Many of our data processing workflows are riddled with manual inputs, poorly designed transformations, and exceptions - joiner nodes joining on random strings (instead of unique keys), rule engines with expressions comprising of multiple conditions to account for exceptions, and spaghetti-tied messes that make them difficult to follow in a clean and logical fashion. Moreover, these workflows are especially prone to human error and frequently cause data discrepancies by the time the transformed data is fully processed. The SQL queries used for our dashboards query the entire data sources in Tableau, which also make updating the data extremely slow, and the data auditing process even more tedious and error-prone than it already is. I know these are things that could be fixed at a more holistic level, and that I could probably earn major brownie points for doing so, but as the new kid on the block (especially with the way that I am managed), I am worried about being called out for making improvements in a team that is very conservative and inefficient in their ways of doing things. Still, I strongly believe there are much more effective ways of auditing data and correcting the systems/processes that ultimately funnel this information, and that leadership should be more involved in overseeing and outlining how best to address these issues, but I feel like nobody on my team above me has the expertise / time / interest in doing these things (which I guess I can kind of understand when things are in such a state of disrepair). In the end, I'm left strapped, and forced to work with things that continue to cause numerous errors and headaches. Does anybody know if this is a common scenario, or have any tips on dealing with kind of problems?
3. The work hours - both my schedule, and the amount of time I spend at work (and often on assignments that are sent back for review - sometimes unnecessary review). I have to be up at 6 AM every day (I work East Coast hours on the West Coast...), and I go straight to work after I wake up, which doesn't allow me to mentally prepare for the day in a healthy way. Furthermore, I have found that I have been putting a lot of hours well after I should be done with work (due in large part to the issues I described above). I beat myself over this, because I consciously remind myself to close out by 3 PM but have very infrequently done so since I started this job. This was a problem that cropped up even as early as my first month on the job, when I worked on fixing a report I just inherited without being given a whole lot of context or clarity, and ended up working an entire evening just to correct the report so that it would be ready the next day. Over the past several months, this practice has re-surfaced more times than I'm proud to admit. In fact, as recently as this week, I spent almost every evening this week re-checking and re-saving work that I had completed well in advance, which ended up putting me behind, and even worse, gave me a lot of stress, frustration, fatigue, and anxiety. This past week was arguably the worst week I've experienced at work since I started. There were times in the past I felt hope that things were improving, especially with my growing familiarity with some of the routine work, but this past week indicated to me that this was far from the case.
The way things are now make me wonder if the amount of time and energy I spend on work stuff is worth the stress at all. I've also thought about whether or not I'm even approaching the situation in the right manner, despite having made numerous changes on my end. So I guess the questions that follow here will be fairly desultory...
I. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can better manage my time throughout the workday and better communicate with my manager so that (1) this job doesn't take over my life, (2) my manager and I can work together more effectively, and most importantly (3) this job doesn't take over my life and work can stay at work? Ideally, I'd like to be able to devote a fraction of my workday towards actually learning and upgrading my skillset (which I understand are rarely a company's prerogative), as well as exploring other opportunities and networking with the right people. The reality is that even when meticulously planning out and logging what I work on, I am often saddled with assignments I completed but have to re-check and fix (rinse & repeat), and then I am left with no time and energy at all with which to do the things I most aspire to do. I know a lot of this is also on me - oftentimes I think that if I pulled myself away from my desk / spent some time actually strategizing smarter solutions (especially from a technical perspective) - that I would be able to solve many of the problems that arise. I am determined to find better ways of reacting and doing things, but I also don't want to be naive in thinking that all of the grievances I have will magically disappear if I just myopically focused on doing X, Y, and Z, especially given the way my manager seems to make everything I'm assigned feel urgent.
II. I've thought about shifting gears entirely: transferring to a different team, finding another job, or even going down a different path entirely (as I do not feel this is what I want to be doing right now, but also think there are areas I can leverage now as professional stepping stones - if I stay in this path). I'm grateful to have a job at all right now, but I also really don't like how I've felt having to put up with the stuff I described (bad management, tedious work -- which I don't know how much I can realistically influence in the next several months). Are there graceful ways of going about requesting an internal transfer? Do you think it would be smart/safe to approach my manager's supervisor (who I find fairly approachable) and explain what's going on? Go to HR? Alternative solutions?
I want to be proactive, deliver my best work, learn, and build good relationships, and am uncomfortable with the idea of sitting and waiting to see if things will improve ... but wonder if I should just stick it out and mentally steel myself from the things I have to put up with at work (which I try to remind myself could be worse). Am I making things out to be a bigger deal than they should be? Has anyone else been in a similar situation? What did you decide, and how did you feel?
Long story short: I feel like I'm between a rock and a hard place at work, and at a crossroads as to how to proceed. I know there's a lot to deconstruct here. I'd love it if any of you can share helpful suggestions / solutions on maneuvering my situation in a pragmatic and strategic way - especially if there's anything I might not be seeing. I'm really all ears!
Thanks, everyone.
You have a bad boss. Finding a new boss or a new job is the best advice I have for you. Someone who manages like this is really bad at it; you will become a worse employee working for her.
I can tell you really appreciate validation from your superiors and while you’re not always going to get it, it’s OK to want it. However, in a case where you’re clearly not going to get it, the best thing to do is give up on that pipe dream and look for the next thing. This boss will always manage out of a fundamental place of insecurity and small-minded bullshit.
posted by stoneandstar at 4:46 PM on February 1, 2021 [6 favorites]
I can tell you really appreciate validation from your superiors and while you’re not always going to get it, it’s OK to want it. However, in a case where you’re clearly not going to get it, the best thing to do is give up on that pipe dream and look for the next thing. This boss will always manage out of a fundamental place of insecurity and small-minded bullshit.
posted by stoneandstar at 4:46 PM on February 1, 2021 [6 favorites]
Sounds to me like you have a not great job with not great hours and a not great boss. There seems to be a decent demand for data analysts out there- I suggest you start looking for a new job in your time zone, and just do the best you can and avoid rocking the boat at your current job while you look. There are interesting jobs for data analysts out there, where you would actually get to utilize your specialized skills, and some of them will have better, more supportive bosses.
posted by emd3737 at 5:38 PM on February 1, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by emd3737 at 5:38 PM on February 1, 2021 [1 favorite]
I think you're being way too hard on yourself - and your boss. Yes, she sounds annoying and everything you describe about her style would make me want to strangle her. But, her foibles are the garden variety mistakes of new managers - micromanagement, contradictory instructions, failure to provide context and solicit input. You don't describe anything that would elevate her to truly evil boss status. There are those people and she doesn't seem to be one.
The work isn't interesting, the team/company is bogged down in that's-the-way-we've-always-done-it thinking, you're working longer hours than you want, and you can't even get a little breakfast and coffee before you're off to the races. This is a just a bad fit. It happens to everyone at least once in their careers and often more than once. No shame in that.
Update your resume and start applying for something new. When you're interviewing, be very intentional about what you are seeking. Find out how long your prospective manager has been managing, what they appreciate in their strongest performers, how they like to communicate with staff and how often. Really dig in to understand the manager's style, the nature of the work and if there's opportunity to do more than just churn out the same reports. Sometimes, managers will tell you upfront that they are looking to change things up, reconfigure the team, etc., and are looking for someone who will bring fresh perspective. These managers and these companies do exist.
In the meantime, be nicer to yourself. You're doing the best you can while working remotely during a pandemic. Starting a new job is stressful under any conditions but starting one in 2020 was a special kind of stressful. Ask me how I know. When I'm struggling with a difficult supervisor or leader - and I am right now, he'a miserable mug - I keep repeating, 'It's not personal, it's not personal' to myself over and over. Because it's not. She's working out her shit in real time and you're the unfortunate bystander. Just keep plugging away, roll your eyes internally when your boss is doing her Where's Waldo approach to finding spreadsheet mistakes, and honor your healthy limits like stopping work at 3:00 PM. Detach with professionalism until you find a better fit.
posted by MissPitts at 5:44 PM on February 1, 2021 [11 favorites]
The work isn't interesting, the team/company is bogged down in that's-the-way-we've-always-done-it thinking, you're working longer hours than you want, and you can't even get a little breakfast and coffee before you're off to the races. This is a just a bad fit. It happens to everyone at least once in their careers and often more than once. No shame in that.
Update your resume and start applying for something new. When you're interviewing, be very intentional about what you are seeking. Find out how long your prospective manager has been managing, what they appreciate in their strongest performers, how they like to communicate with staff and how often. Really dig in to understand the manager's style, the nature of the work and if there's opportunity to do more than just churn out the same reports. Sometimes, managers will tell you upfront that they are looking to change things up, reconfigure the team, etc., and are looking for someone who will bring fresh perspective. These managers and these companies do exist.
In the meantime, be nicer to yourself. You're doing the best you can while working remotely during a pandemic. Starting a new job is stressful under any conditions but starting one in 2020 was a special kind of stressful. Ask me how I know. When I'm struggling with a difficult supervisor or leader - and I am right now, he'a miserable mug - I keep repeating, 'It's not personal, it's not personal' to myself over and over. Because it's not. She's working out her shit in real time and you're the unfortunate bystander. Just keep plugging away, roll your eyes internally when your boss is doing her Where's Waldo approach to finding spreadsheet mistakes, and honor your healthy limits like stopping work at 3:00 PM. Detach with professionalism until you find a better fit.
posted by MissPitts at 5:44 PM on February 1, 2021 [11 favorites]
I agree with a lot of the above. I also want to say, I’d expect an entry level data analyst to be doing 80% data wrangling / cleaning, etc. At a senior level, add in a lot of negotiating between Stakeholders to make any changes, or access. Most of data work is rote - very little is building cool models.
posted by Valancy Rachel at 5:59 PM on February 1, 2021 [10 favorites]
posted by Valancy Rachel at 5:59 PM on February 1, 2021 [10 favorites]
You should cut yourself slack on mistakes auditing spreadsheets and data manually because NO human does that perfectly 100% of the time. No one is able to maintain that kind of focused attention especially on things they have seen before and your instinct that the process is the problem is completely correct but if you're entry level that means you just need to leave eventually because nothing will change at this place. Don't go above your boss, the whole org is hopeless and their process too far gone to do anything about. Do your job well enough to not get fired and find a new job ASAP.
You shouldn't ask her for praise but it is totally reasonable to ask to track your work, QA process and mistake rate more objectively as a means of showing your boss and yourself that you are actually performing normally enough. People in functional workplaces have goals, quotas, OKRs, whatever you want to call them - what is yours and are you hitting it? If she won't accept anything less than perfect on whatever she asks for then this exercise is a waste and she's completely hopeless, but if she acknowledges that 98% correct on XYZ routine report or whatever is reasonable in light of the manual nature of it then prove you are hitting 98% and let her terrible feedback style slide off. She has a point that you really do need to get good at checking yourself in this area of work, but she is trying to teach you that lesson in the shittiest way possible. The most productive thing she could do is not directly point out your mistakes but point out better checking strategies (like if I multiply field X by Y it should always be less than Z, etc.) and then write yourself some macros at the very least to automate some of it, and don't tell her about the macros if she complains about overreach, just do it as a favor to yourself so you can relax. Coming back to your work later with fresh eyes is a good habit but you shouldn't have to do it so it cuts into your own time and you should only check enough to meet an objective standard of some kind, not neurotically double check out of fear of her. See if a more sympathetic senior person would give you some help on this if she won't? That would put a tiny bandaid on this terrible system just long enough that you can move on to something else.
posted by slow graffiti at 8:33 PM on February 1, 2021 [3 favorites]
You shouldn't ask her for praise but it is totally reasonable to ask to track your work, QA process and mistake rate more objectively as a means of showing your boss and yourself that you are actually performing normally enough. People in functional workplaces have goals, quotas, OKRs, whatever you want to call them - what is yours and are you hitting it? If she won't accept anything less than perfect on whatever she asks for then this exercise is a waste and she's completely hopeless, but if she acknowledges that 98% correct on XYZ routine report or whatever is reasonable in light of the manual nature of it then prove you are hitting 98% and let her terrible feedback style slide off. She has a point that you really do need to get good at checking yourself in this area of work, but she is trying to teach you that lesson in the shittiest way possible. The most productive thing she could do is not directly point out your mistakes but point out better checking strategies (like if I multiply field X by Y it should always be less than Z, etc.) and then write yourself some macros at the very least to automate some of it, and don't tell her about the macros if she complains about overreach, just do it as a favor to yourself so you can relax. Coming back to your work later with fresh eyes is a good habit but you shouldn't have to do it so it cuts into your own time and you should only check enough to meet an objective standard of some kind, not neurotically double check out of fear of her. See if a more sympathetic senior person would give you some help on this if she won't? That would put a tiny bandaid on this terrible system just long enough that you can move on to something else.
posted by slow graffiti at 8:33 PM on February 1, 2021 [3 favorites]
also I speak from experience when I say take what you can quietly from this job whenever and however you can because places like this are never going to provide you with real structured opportunities of any kind and learning how to skill up as much as you can on your own is how you get out of this place into something better. For instance, the live connection in Tableau is terrible? of course it is. Do you have permission to play with the cache or offline dev mode options or tinker in some other way that won't get you in trouble and might make things a little easier or just give you a deeper understanding of why its so slow? Do it because then you're better at Tableau and you just invested in yourself for the next job. If you're going to put in extra effort, put it into stuff like this and not into trying to make your boss happier by putting your nose to the grindstone harder.
posted by slow graffiti at 8:54 PM on February 1, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by slow graffiti at 8:54 PM on February 1, 2021 [3 favorites]
I worked remotely pre pandemic and will confidently say working remote has changed as employers don’t know how to deal with it. Without knowing your personal financial situation do the minimum and look for another opportunity. Don’t try to overachieve, you’ll burn out and your boss won’t respect you.
posted by geoff. at 3:54 AM on February 2, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by geoff. at 3:54 AM on February 2, 2021 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
- don't complete work early if you're just going to be told to double check it
- half-ass review that you think is excessive
- figure out how to be more systematic in your processes to save time and avoid errors. make checklists.
- when your boss finds a relevant mistake, broach it to her that it could have been avoided with better/automated processes since you want to get assigned to that anyhow
- don't ask your boss for praise, that's what the money's for
- avoid "pushing back on" your boss, frame it more as you not understanding. manage up. you build a good relationship with your boss by making her life easier.
- yes, find another job if you can
- also try to find a mentor, this person is probably different from your (new) boss. join a professional association/meetup/forum and network
- try reaching out to peers to understand the lay of the land / why the systems are so awful
- it sounds like your boss will not take going over her head well, tread carefully re: grandboss. definitely don't directly criticize your boss to grandboss.
posted by momus_window at 4:14 PM on February 1, 2021 [5 favorites]