19 May 2007 - 5:30 p.m.
Part 2 - work

My work is quite interesting at the moment - well more so than it has been at other times. Other people at my work just all do the same thing, getting the work done. I have been put in charge of managing a specific group of our clients, who need more specialised attention than the majority.

The whole thing is still rather new, so as well as helping develop the processes needed (I'm such a pioneer!) and doing the work, I make all the correspondence, generic note templates to use when leaving notes in their files and training material as well. That means that I can spend most of a day doing things which don't look like the work the rest of the building is doing. This hasn't been much of a big deal so far, because my manager understands the way it all happens.

Apparently other people (managers I guess) have been asking questions about what I do all day, due to the small amount of 'numbers completed' next to my name in the system. So for the next few days at work I have to fill in a sheet with what I spend my time on, in blocks of 15 mins. It sucks, but it means that I can actually see what I spend my time on as well and when I have work left over or feel like I'm getting a bit behind I can check and realise "Oh, I actually lost an extra two hours out of my day from meetings" so I'm not worried.

I like being able to do up training guides and that sort of thing, it's more interesting than the work and of course you can spend as long as you like fiddling around with it. And because things were made at different times when the process was slightly different, there are little inconsistencies sprinkled throughout. So if I don't have much to do, I can just read through and correct things.

If I had a fortnight where all I had to do was sort it out, I'm pretty sure I could get it all done. But at the moment I can only do a little bit here, a little bit there and hope it all turns out ok in the end. It's a bit strange having everything labelled as a 'work in progress' and probably doesn't make it look too good either.

I really do have to try and get more of it done, because at the moment I have mostly completed the training guide for the position I'm in (apart from the very latest changes..) but the staff in our call centre don't have any one place that they can find clear information to give out to these people. They probably hate it and I know they have given out incorrect information in the past. I think my manager will release a memo about one of the new changes this week, but I really want to get a section put on our intranet where I can upload to, so everything is in one place. That means I'll have to make sure I have all the documents to be uploaded ready so they can be done at once, otherwise people won't bother to check back once new things are added. More work! Yay!

At least I get to use my brain to do this stuff. A little bit of practice at thinking and initiative helps me keep from feeling too much like a robot.