Frustration

Well today I hit the culmination of frustration at work. 

The minor frustration is that management feels they have to roll out something entirely new, breaking me out of an important meeting to do so.  I had to step out for the 30 minute conference call (and the only reason it was 30 minutes was because I had another conference call then, a quick one for the Duty Officer change). 

The big frustration was the changes brought forth during the call.  Now I'm the first one to admit that there are times that change is necessary and this is one of those times.  I just don't like the change they're making.  When I promoted to my current work position, I was given a Position Duty Statement.  I liked it.  It's a great document of what I should be doing.  However only parts of the document was used but those parts were fine.  I wished the whole document was used but you don't always get what you wish for.  And now that document has no relation to what my job is.

One of the things I love best about my job is working with my counties.  It can be hard work, especially when things are hot and heavy, but its fun work and very rewarding.  I feel like I'm making a difference and that I am wanted.  Another thing I love about my job is mentoring people, watching them develop into great workers with a lot of knowledge.  I did this even before my promotion.  New people like information and, unfortunately, our internal training is lacking.

So we had someone retire in my job class and we don't know if we will be able to replace her, and if we can, it's going to take months.  This means that the two of us left in the job class have to split the work two ways instead of three.  Somewhere, something has to give.  What management has decided to do is to have us be leads only and no longer work with a county(ies) - not that the other current lead ever had a county, it was just me and the now-retired lead with counties.  They are reassigning the counties I have.  And the lead work they want us to do is project management - the projects and programs that are currently the responsibility of those under us are now our responsibility.  The others will still work them but we have the responsibility of making sure they do.  I think of leads as mentors, providing guidance, checking up on the work, giving input both up and down the ladder but the actual responsibility for the work of others I believe is a supervisory function.  Of the five people I have, four are 100 miles away and one is over 400 miles away.  It's tough to get to most of their meetings, monitor them during the meetings, make sure they're doing their job correctly - to me, that's supervisory.  And my job class isn't supervisory.  Maybe I'm wrong, management certainly doesn't think that the work assignments given us are supervisory.  At any rate, my Position Duty Statement that I signed and agreed to what my job is no longer has any relation to what my job is now.

They are rolling out the new assignments to the rest of the staff Monday afternoon.  Now I have a decision to make.  Do I want to demote and hope things go back to where they were before my promotion?  I'm thinking that I do.  And I'm thinking that it would best to make that known to management prior to Monday afternoon so that duties aren't assigned to staff (especially our new staff that started four months ago) and then reassessed or taken away. 

Yes, I know I could try to fight this through the union (or rather, association).  I might win.  But what would that accomplish and how long would that take?  And what would be the repercussions?  (And believe me, this management team is really good at repercussions, in an oh-so subtle way.)

I don't like being lied to.  I've caught my manager in four lies in a week.  Most of them have been items that wouldn't be discussed if I demoted.  Maybe demoting would give her less to lie about.  My blood pressure is up, my blood sugars are up and I'm getting a lot of headaches (and those of you who know me well know that I would rarely get a headache before this, no matter what the stress, and I've always had a high stress job). 

Bottom line(s):  would I happy with the job as they have changed it to?  No.  Do I really need the $139 a month pay difference?  I can work on that, I did it before the promotion. 

Demotion is looking better and better...