learning

[seventhe]

I spent today noticing how I spend my energy and, notably, what drains me. And, not surprisingly, - lot of what drains me is human interaction. HA HA HA,IM IN MIDDLE/UPPER MANAGEMENT AND DEALING WITH PEOPLE MAKES ME TIRED, isn't it ironic.

So what I'm trying to do is differentiate which interactions I can't avoid, and which ones I could try better to delegate to other people. What I've learned so far:

• people coming to my door every 5 minutes when I'm clearly working on something and either asking me questions or giving me updates -- sadly that's part of the job, although I can try to get ppl not in my department better trained so they're not always asking me questions and/or asking my department to consider whether I really need to be updated -- but a certain part of this is inherent in the job and will never go away.

• visitors, vendor meetings, or other forced interpersonal interactions overtaking the usual workday -- there really is a small portion of this that's required. However. I could work to develop my engineering staff so that they could be the contact point for, say, people who visit from the plants to work on a project. Which leads me to:

• working intensely on something with other people -- this is actually the serial killer of my energy. So, this week we had a visitor from the plants to help us re-develop our MOC process and move to new software. She's incredibly knowledgeable and the whole three day visit was entirely amazingly productive. However, this sort of intense interpersonal work for hours at a time is an incredible drain on my reserves and accounts for a lot of the overcharging to my energy credit card. I put my brain into a very highly-functional state and generate incredible amounts of work, looking at big picture as well as small details - the forest and the trees - and I also watch the people I'm working with to figure out what their weaknesses are so that I know we're covering everything we need to. I'm always the one recording because I know for a fact I take the kind of notes we need to capture everything, and then I'm the one compiling what our results were and what conclusions we're going forward with. This constant, intense operation of my super smart*, psychasthenic brain leads to mental exhaustion, which translates into sapping my physical energy just to get through the day, which triggers the fibro feedback as well as the brain fog.

So -- I'm still collecting the data I need, but I'm trying to think of ways I can lessen the amount of my work time spent doing things like that. Technically managers should be leading and directing rather than doing the intense work -- not that I want to avoid doing it, but it's that kind of work ON TOP OF managerial responsibilities that's incompatible. So I obviously need a crew I can trust to do the same level of thinking. I do, so that they can conduct these development-type work meetings on their own and I just review final results.

But that's a lot to implement and I have to figure out other ways to reduce that kind of intensity -- so more thinking.

Also, this is just the first mental evaluation; I'm sure there are more serial killers to identify.

• not being arrogant -- I'm highly intelligent in many of the areas in which I work

Comments

[ukefied]

Is it feasible to appoint a team lead and/or administrative assistant? Someone to whom you can delegate in broad strokes and they can help funnel down to individual employees? Assistant could obviously help with vetting/announcing queries and paperwork shuffling. XD;

[owlmoose]

It's good that you are aware of what drains you and that you have thoughts on steps you can take to alleviate the issues, even when they can't be entirely removed.

I used to work at an interruption-prone job (when I was at the library), and I really hear you on how draining it is. The way I managed it was to draw up a schedule with the other library staff, where one of us would spend two hours being the primary contact for questions, and another would be free to sit in the office, door closed, and ignore what was going on at the front desk unless it was truly urgent and/or something only that person could handle. Obviously you can't adapt this directly, but I wonder if you could try something similar, like setting open-door office hours as well as a couple of hours where no one interrupts you unless the plant is literally on fire.

I also agree with the idea of asking for admin help. You might even be able to frame it as an accommodation issue.

[lassarina]

^ this is a wise suggestion for office hours.

[whitemage]

I am thirding looking into how feasible office hours are for you.

Even if you can only wall off short spans here and there, that is something.

[whitemage]

Oh, this is a great start.

I can definitely see all that.

I don't really have a lot I can offer on most of it, but on the visitor and being the recorder: I was once part of a team where my manager had each team member take their own intensive notes, then she had a team debriefing at the end and one of us played secretary and wrote up a version that synthesized the important points of everyone's into a single set that we all received. It seems a little redundant at first, but it kept any of us from missing something important for the others, and it kept our manager from having to do all the work of making sure we each individually had what we needed.

What you're doing is pretty great, though.

[crankyoldman]

I like a lot of the suggestions above, obviously you'll have to evaluate what works for you.

Enacting boundaries is important in all work and relationships. Most people won't notice they're sucking from your energy and crossing boundaries you want unless you set them. It's ok to set them, too. Especially for your health.