Nothing makes my heart sink more than the email from you saying: “can you just pop through?”
Entering your office, I know I’m about to be regaled with a blow-by-blow account of your weekend, or a piece of ancient gossip I’ve heard before. I dread receiving this email even more when I’m up against a deadline, which you know about because you’re the one waiting for the work I’m doing.
What we need to discuss could almost always be dealt with in five minutes, but it can take as long as an hour and a half before I escape your office.
I’ve tried not responding to your emails, to the point of rudeness. I’ve tried ostentatiously checking my watch and making obvious attempts to stand up and walk out of your office. I’ve even stood with my hand on the door handle for quarter of an hour while you prattle on obliviously.
Thankfully, everybody in the office knows what you’re like because you do the same to all of us. But I’m the one who bears the brunt of it because we work very closely together, so there’s always an excuse to summon me through to your office. And it’s because we work so closely I can’t afford to lose my temper with you or complain about you. If our working relationship turns sour my job will be hell.
I’ve worked for you for more than a decade and in many ways you’re an excellent boss – appreciative, supportive, forgiving, open to suggestions, accommodating of sudden absences for family reasons.
I love the product we work on and believe in what you are trying to do with it. Most of the time we are on the same wavelength, which makes it even more of a shame that the days when you are working from home, or in a long meeting, or on holiday, come as a huge relief.
You don’t fall behind because you work long hours and rarely take breaks – it seems as though you build time into your schedule for the chats, subconsciously or not. But the fact that everyone knows you spend so much time chatting makes a mockery of your claims that you’re busy.
Our budgets are under serious pressure and I’m worried that future cuts will hit our entire team; the fact it’s general knowledge that you spend so much time talking puts us in a weak position if we try to claim we’re too busy to absorb job losses.
It won’t be you who loses your job or finds your position reduced to part-time; and it won’t be you who takes on the subsequent extra work.
You’ve had problems with stress and anxiety and I’m flattered that you feel able to confide in me; I’ve always regarded it as part of my role to support you however I can. But I’m not, and can’t be, your therapist.
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