Boss loves to assign work, but refuses to manage

[NotKelly]

I'm pretty much convinced at this point that if my boss suddenly dropped dead, I'd probably enjoy working at my job. I have zero respect for him and find him kind of pathetic. He's been in his job too long and seems to have developed a superiority complex wherein he fancies himself a mover and a shaker and a font of all things creative, which means he's constantly coming up with new projects and spinoffs of projects and doesn't even stop to consider that we just don't have the resources to do them very well. He never follows up on anything: he just says "Let's do this and this" and micromanages it in the beginning stages but then dumps it all on one employee (usually me) and never follows up to see if other people are doing their part. Any time someone else doesn't pull their weight and he notices it, he sends out an e-mail to everyone in the department to the effect of "Let's not let that happen again everyone" (meanwhile, the person who was assigned the task gets off the hook and never gets called on the carpet).

 

Managing for results is a completely foreign concept to him. He just likes directing people and cooking up projects for them.

 

What's pathetic is that he's very isolated in the company and very much out of the loop. Our department is very unimportant. Nobody important in the company cares about his projects. HE'S unimportant, but is a legend in his own mind. We never get any new staff or resources that we need; it's been this way for years. People higher above him make decisions without consulting him and he gets offended, but is too wimpy to stand up for himself, so he whines about it in e-mails to me.

 

Nothing is ever good enough for him and he leans on me HEAVILY to get things done. I have not gotten a raise in 2 years and while I am really managing our most important projects, I am still stuck with a lowly **** title ("assistant") while other people who sit around and play Solitaire all day are "Managers."

 

I really need to leave this job but I have been in it for a long time myself, a lot of personal instability in my life kept me from being able to focus on a career change, and now I feel I'm stuck with this Energizer bunny from hell and don't have the energy to get out. Help.

[OpenBook]

I really need to leave this job but I have been in it for a long time myself, a lot of personal instability in my life kept me from being able to focus on a career change, and now I feel I'm stuck with this Energizer bunny from hell and don't have the energy to get out. Help.

 

My advice? Suck it in, for now. The economy and job market is just too shaky right now to take a lot of risks. You're lucky to even HAVE a job. So keep doing your job well, don't complain, and definitely DO NOT share your disdain for your boss with ANYONE... and quietly start looking for another position. i.e., when you go home at night, start looking at job postings on Indeed dot com (it's a fabulous search engine that monitors all job boards) - but DON'T do this at work!!! Be very careful to preserve your current employment status. It's just too rough out there right now.

[dunstable]

So you don't respect your department or your boss? You think the department's work is unimportant. You think your boss doesn't know how to manage? You think you are the only person there doing a decent job but others get the credit? It's not possible to judge from the information you give whether you are justified in those opinions. You may be, or you may be being arrogant (employees often are because they don't know the big picture). But given that you feel that way, you should appy for a transfer to another department or leave the company as soon as you can. It's not realistic to think that you can influence the company to restructure itself, remove your boss, and promote you to a position commensurate with what you think you deserve. By and large, people advance themselves by changing company. So I suggest you start making applications.

[NotKelly]

Unfortunately, I think it's not just arrogance: I can never go one weekend or even go out of town on vacation without being called back in to do something that no one else can do. Personally, I think that's a lousy way to run a department. What if I get hit by a bus?

[RA1]

I grant that you do seem vital to the functioning of the department. But do you think you might be able to influence the company to do things differently? Don't you think it might be very risky to express your views to your boss or his superiors? Would it not be prudent to at least have another job offer before saying anything?

[Trialbyfire]

NotKelly, the question is, why do you go in? It's very easy to become the essential "go to person". The only problem is when this happens, everything gets dumped onto you. So you have to ask yourself, how much is too much and why am I packratting responsibilities?

 

As an assistant, perhaps there's a way to suggest to your boss when he starts to dump more things onto you, that you have too much on your plate. Make sure you've got an alternative employee, for him to dump this onto. You have to be careful how much you push back, getting a happy and productive balance between showing your abilities and being a doormat.

[dunstable]

Unfortunately, I think it's not just arrogance: I can never go one weekend or even go out of town on vacation without being called back in to do something that no one else can do.

I hope my blunt remarks didn't offend you. Trialbyfire made some good suggestions, in my opinion, for making your job more congenial. I just think you have to be careful not to be too frank about what a lousy job you think others are making of running the company.

[NotKelly]

I grant that you do seem vital to the functioning of the department. But do you think you might be able to influence the company to do things differently? Don't you think it might be very risky to express your views to your boss or his superiors? Would it not be prudent to at least have another job offer before saying anything?

 

Oh, probably.

 

The problem I've found is this: Nobody else on staff wants to learn anything new, and my boss doesn't make them learn. I'm continually in the position of having to take on work assigned to others because they can't figure it out. If I seem unfriendly and cranky, it's because no one on staff is actually able to help me do my job (and it wasn't a job I was hired for, it's stuff that was slowly unofficially added to my duties) and no one lays down the law that they too have to learn how to do it. When I help people do stuff, they seem to take that as a sign that I'm going to do it FOR them from now on. When I make suggestions about setting up new ways of doing things, somehow it always all devolves back on to me. Not being a manager or supervisor, I don't know how I'm supposed to lay down the law. That's not my job - that's my manager's job. And he's not doing it.

 

Showing people how to do stuff usually results in it being delegated to me. Since I'm not in a supervisory position, I can't exactly order people what to do or delegate it to others. The rare departmental meetings we have, I dread, because they always result in more work being put on my plate. What's worse, my job skills and duties have evolved far beyond my meaningless job title, and I don't know how to put all this on a resume because no one would ever believe I do so many different crucial things and still have such a lame job title. I've also had only one job in the last 10 years which is my fault... I've been exhausting myself trying to do well here, and only lately realizing that I will never get a real promotion. The stuff I do requires intense attention to detail, concentration and planning, not to mention a lot of figuring out stuff and learning on the fly. There is hardly a moment in the work day when I do not have to be "on." Some days I barely have time for bathroom breaks. I don't have time to chat with people. It is utterly exhausting to do this day after day after day and then watching other people not working as hard.

 

How can you run a department where one person has to be in the office all the time (or within reach of a computer) to make it work? I have been literally called back from on the road vacations, meanwhile everyone else is going on maternity leave and the world apparently functions without them OK.

 

Very clearly I have a problem with fending off "creeping assignments" - I admit I do have that problem but all I can think of is to never check my email or not respond to requests, but then, the requests will still be there. If I don't be proactive, things will slide and then **I** will be called on to fix them at a time when I'm trying to get something else done. I just wish I could find a place to work where I didn't have to CONSTANTLY play defense against my co-workers. I think a so-called "team effort" has to be fair and not just relying excessively on one person's expertise, particularly if that person is still nominally a "lower" employee.

 

This happened to me before on a previous job. When other people announce they are going off to new jobs, they get a pleasant Bon Voyage. When I say I'm leaving, some people just seem annoyed and angry, as if I've let them down. On the previous job, one of my "users" (I won't call her a supervisor, she wasn't my boss, just someone who was allowed to dump work on me) bitched and berated me when I gave my 2-week notice, like I'd stabbed her in the back or something. I guess I don't have co-workers... just users. I don't want to be liked; I want to be left in peace, and I guess I think, if I do all the work really fast, people will leave me alone. But they never do.

 

One last thing: I'll bet this comes off like I'm a real cold know it all bitch... probably my co-workers don't like me either because I do so much stuff (because I'm expected to!) This just goes to show that my boss is not leading or doing his job. You don't make one person do all the advanced work, particularly not someone lower on the totem pole or it totally screws up the team dynamic.