Typical Human + (Finite Time x Impossible Workload) = Unavoidable Failure

I have been playing a shell game at work. Today I admitted it to two managers, which gave them pause. What I said was, "Every time the yearly review comes and I'm asked to improve on a different item, I have to drop something else." This made one of them highly annoyed. See, he's asked me to work on different things, things he believes are important, without doing worse elsewhere. How is this possible? My workload has been overloaded for years.

So...we're being audited on our business practices. You know the things someone high up believes we should do with the lawyer-ese to back it up. Then these high ideals get shuffled down the line until they end up on an assistant's desk. Then that assistant is expected to do all these things, so, get this, the company and managers look good. Whatever it is the managers are actually doing, they are not managing my time or workload with any finesse.

After quitting time I was asked into one of the offices to go over an audit item that if we fail, we get "dinged" on pretty badly. Guess what, it's what I had to fail at the last two years to get any semblance of work done. Now that one of my immediate managers knows the extent of a) what I've let slide and b) what I will have to do before July, the concern is that I won't be able to do it all in time. They are understandably worried. All our collective rears are on the line for work I'm unable to accomplish. Whose brilliant idea was that?!?

Once we looked over the list of items for that manager, I pointed to the other part of the combined spreadsheet for my second immediate manager which was the same type of work I am expected to do before *that* audit in June. His jaw figuratively dropped and he's going to ask someone to help me get all that work done.

And yet, the powers that be feel we're overstaffed.

It's funny when people who are in charge of you really have no idea what you do. They see the piles of work on my desk and think I'm just unorganized, not the obvious thing that I have too much to accomplish in too little time. I get sent to a class on time organization. By the way, that was a class for managers, not admins. It was a waste of my time and didn't apply to me at all. I have to be available to our clients whenever they need something, so I am constantly reading my new emails. Apparently, to organize your time better you are to ignore your emails except for maybe twice a day in the hopes that when someone didn't get an answer from you that they'll have gone elsewhere or figured it out themselves. Hmmmm.

Another time I'm told my priorities are out of whack, so I sit down in long meetings to prioritize my time (which could be better used by not being in a meeting) and, guess what, ALL of it is important and it all needs to be done and I'm not allowed overtime. I'm told it's okay and work will be there tomorrow and get done what you can. Until the audit and reviews come around. Then I'm lambasted for not doing enough.

Because I actually care about the quality of my work, all of these things stress me out. I'm starting to joke that my job is killing me, but I think it may be true. The more admins and managers that don't get replaced add to my workload by the "spread the work around" method. How, if I have more work than ever before, am I expected to get anything done beyond the basics? I will say this for the manager who wants to get me help, when I mentioned that I do, in fact, care about the work and I don't like disappointing people, he said I haven't disappointed anyone.

I know that's not entirely accurate, but it will have to do. And the fact that I've dedicated an entire blog post to what transpired specifically today for half an hour, but has been coming on for years, just shows how concerned *I* am about it.

Though now I'm also concerned because the same suggestions are coming out of this manager's mouth of "set aside a certain amount of time to accomplish this." Yes, it's on my calendar weekly and it's been pushed aside by other "urgent" things every week. Also, "when you find some time" (HA!) please write down your typical week so we know how much you're doing. I could do that if I had time. Unless he has the ability to get me a time turner like Hermione Granger had in Harry Potter, I don't see anything changing about anything, except now I will be even more stressed about it. This assistant needs an assistant (or three).