One of my goals for 2009 was to spend less of my time working unpaid overtime. There is this lovely little aspect of my employer where we are not actually allowed to be paid for overtime. I mean in the official/legal sense we are, but in the reality sense we are not. Thus, while overtime is kinda general status at the DNR you can't actually get paid for it, or even take comp time unless you are law enforcement (who do far more comp time than me, so don't take this as complaining against them).
Point being that as I was looking at what I wanted to do with my year I determined that I have plenty of things that I could use my evenings and weekends for that does not involve work. I've got scrapbooking to do, a quilt I've been working on for 3 years that really should be finished at some point, books to read, cooking to do (and actually enjoy if I have the time to devote to it), a family I'd like to spend time with... you get my point.
Last year on average I'd say I did a good 5-10 hours overtime. That is a lot of time each week that I could devote to something non-work related. So, I decided the only way to deal with that was to limit the amount of unpaid overtime I worked each week. I realized this would cause a bit of stress in the beginning, but in the end would be a good thing. I decided that I would start by making myself leave on time (by the way, biking to work when it gets dark at 5:30 is a good way to accomplish this) and not bring work home on weekend.
I did very well last week. Came right in at 39 hours (37.5 is what is required of a state employee). Although I didn't really take lunch at any point during the week, I did leave on time and did not do work on the weekend (instead I had an allergy attack due to cleaning..whether I fared better or worse is up for debate).
This week...not starting off well. I just finished up working and counted up my hours. As of Tuesday night I am at 20.5...yeah, pretty likely that I'm going WAY over this week. Based on the fact that tomorrow I have two all day meetings (how, you may ask does one go to two all day meetings? good question, I'll let you know), Thursday I have a major conference call, and Friday I have three separate meetings. That does not bode well for me only putting in another 17 hours, thus I think I'm just calling this week a wash and trying again next week.
I've determined the problem is between actually doing my job and justifying my job you really have two more than part time jobs. Take tomorrow for instance. One of the all day meetings is about a topic which I should learn more about to do my job better. The other is a meeting I need to attend in which I have to justify the goals and objectives of my program to someone so that I don't get put on the 'maybe consider cutting' section of the state budget. Which is more important - doing my job, or making sure I have a job to do next year? Right. So, instead what I did was stay up late tonight to write up all the papers for the justifying meeting tomorrow so that hopefully my portion of it would be nice and quick and then I can get over to the learning about things I need to know for my job meeting and hopefully learn some things before I need to go back to the office and respond to the likely 60 e-mails and 5 voicemails (not to mention the 40 e-mails and 5 voicemails I have from today that I missed during an all day meeting...which followed up yesterday's 2 meetings and a conference call).
I think I will close by saying. I vote for less meetings. And stop making my justify my program to 18 different people in different ways with different forms when you are all asking the same question - do I do my job. If you weren't having me justify it, perhaps I could.
Thank you, and good night :)
Oh, I am with you! Here we nominally work 38 hours, but as at every other science institution I have been at, that really only "applies" to the administrative staff...all the scientists work more. And we have SO MANY USELESS MEETINGS - I guess that is normal for lots of people and lots of businesses, but I have not experienced it before because all my previous science bosses have been too busy to waste time on unneccessary meetings, and so I am used to necessary and productive ones.
ReplyDeleteI am always feeling guilty because I don't spend much more than 45 hours a week working AT WORK, and I feel like people are eyeing me when I leave before 6...although, in fact, this is France and chances are they are NOT. All anyone cares about is whether I get my stuff done, but the problem is how exactly I define that, eh?