Let Me Finish ONE Thing, Okay?????

[Yarnspinner]

AIGH!!!!  I'm on my break and I can't even get five minutes alone here.

I love my boss.  No, really.  Outside of work we are friends (a recipe for disaster, I know) and we were buds at work for years before she became my boss.  But some days...and this is one of them...she gives me a migraine SO BIG both my eyes start dancing in my sinuses.

Take today for example.  I'm not even in the door when I hear "Where are the review journals?"  I responded that I had them with me and was just about done--had a few more pages to go.  "I want you to finish them so I can have them."
Fine, good, dandy.  But before I can get the last journal open she says "I think you'd better spend the day doing X so that when Library Volunteer comes in today, she'll have something to do."  (The project is one that creates make work for Volunteer.)  "Okay.  Let me finish reading and I will get right to it."  Not ten minutes later she's back "I want you to get in touch with S to find out about [Another Make Work Project] since you are going on vacation next week and won't be here to do it then."  I get in touch with S and before I am off the phone I am hearing "Stop anything you are doing in order to get to Z".

It is now 4 p.m., I am going on vacation next week and NOTHING has been accomplished.  Not by me, anyway.  And she keeps popping out of her office every five minutes to comment on something funny she just read or to ask what I thought of so and so's e-mail.  I figured since I couldn't do anything anyway, I would take a break and vent!

A few years ago she drove me INSANE about Christmas decorations.  We worked a day when the library was closed in order to get some paper work done.  My job was to weed out and put away the Christmas decor.  Great.  I love throwing things away and organizing more than doing a good story hour.  No, really.  I set up a CD player and went to it.  SHE had to write several reports.  And then she kept leaving her office every six seconds to tell me she was sorry she couldn't help me.  I kept saying I was fine and to go get her reports done.  But, nooooooo, she kept trotting in like a bird in a cuckoo clock to say "Are you SURE yoiu don't mind?"  "What I MIND," I said finally "is that you keep coming in here asking me if I mind.  You KNOW I enjoy weeding, but if you are afraid I'll throw something away you want to keep, maybe you should do this and I will write the report."  "Oh, don't get your panties in a bunch!" 

That went on all day.  What should have been a two hour job took me six hours.  And she didn't finish a one of her reports and claimed it was because she spent too much time with me.  (Whose fault was that again???)

This happens at least once a month.  I would say she has ADD except I'm the one who reaps the rewards  of it.  I know she's tired (plans to retire next year) but some days, she makes me so tired, I wish she would retire yesterday.

Ah well, a glass of wine and cuddly kitty await me at home.  The cat doesn't care what I accomplish as long as most of it involves petting her....

[EvilAlice]

I can totally sympathize.  I have the same situation, right down to my boss being a friend.

He bounces from one thing to the other.  I admire his enthusiasm, and I'm good at juggling a lot of things at once but after awhile it gets ridiculous.  Eventually I have to stop him and say, "OK you've just given me 5 things to do, and said to make all of them top priority.  Obviously this isn't going to work.  You need to decide which one is REALLY the top priority and I'll jump right on it.  But EVERYTHING can't be top priority.  Something is going to have to be 2nd and 3rd etc."

He's good about getting it once I tell him that.  He'll even laugh at himself, then usually he's satisfied that I know that he's very hyper about ALL of these things and I'll get to them quickly.  He just has no ability to focus.  Well, I do, so he needs to go away and let me do it!

[Alida]

Can you tell her not to worry, that it will all be done by the time you leave.  Isn't what she's doing now micromanaging?

Enjoy the wine and cuddly kitty!

[Lizmo]

My boss at one of my jobs is a good friend, yet she knows how to push buttons in me that I didn't even know I HAD!  I'm sort of her "assistant", so we work opposite shifts during the season, yet she still finds ways to annoy the heck out of me! In the off season we get along great and are really close.  During the season we both get so stressed out it can get really dirty.  It's funny you mention coming home and cuddling with kitty...I always found that coming home to be aorund my animals is a great destresser, too!  Gotta love the pets!

[Lisbeth]

I'd keep a to-do list where she can see it, and each time she tells you to do something new, put it on the list.  Once the list reaches the point where you feel too overwhelmed, show her the list and say, "These are all the things you've asked me to do in the last [24 hours]; I'm still at [task].  Can you help me reprioritize and if necessary relieve me of some of these tasks so the list is manageable?  Thanks."

[MerryRaven]

I work in a library too. 

Last week right after New Years Day I came in to find a new security system installed while I had taken vacation between Christmas and New Years.

Great.  I have been designated the 'expert'.  I was handed 3 manuals (one short of what I needed) a whole bunch of materials including videos and told to present it and train the staff on it in one week.

Oh, and by the way there is a new project I want you to head up.  And of course budget crunch time.  And is there anyway you can re-arrange and entire section of the library this week. 

I am glad he thinks I am so competant.  I almost wish I wasn't. 

And by the way I love volunteers.  I would like more if I had any time to ever train them.

[LadyDyani]

I don't know how to handle someone like that, so I'll just say:

*hugs*

[bopper]

I think I would do what somebody already mentioned...right now, make a list of all the things she has asked for and ask for her to prioritize them. 

Then ask, in the future, how would she like you to handle it when she keeps adding new things before you finish the one you have just been assigned?  Because for you, you can get them all done faster if you can finish each task without having to stop it to do another one and then get back to the first one.  But if the new task is more important, you can certainly reprioritize...however, if every new task is the highest priority, then your efficiency is lower.    That way she may realize what she is doing and may think about it.