Time pressure at work

[LongingForLight]

I’m having a bit of a problem at work, and am wondering if anyone can suggest a good tactic to deal with it. I’m a contractor currently working for a major software company. I get paid an hourly wage for up to 40 hours a week of work. I am also currently being paid at a pretty lousy rate for my field, qualifications, and experience.

Lately, my manager has been putting a lot of pressure on me to get a project done. The problem is that this project has to get done after a lot of our other work is done, and often I just run out of time. In theory I have two days a week to work on this. In practice, things come up that are higher priority every week. At the time my boss understands and agrees that these things are more important. However, a few days later he’s frustrated and upset that I haven’t made progress on the other project yet.

I am more than willing to work extra hours, but there isn’t enough budget apparently. In the meantime, my boss goes back and forth between understanding that there really isn’t enough time, and then implying that I am wasting time that we can’t afford to lose and asking me to justify every hour that I’ve worked so far that day. How can I make it clear that I am doing my best, working my hardest, and very capable and the problem is just that there is a lot of work to do and I don’t have enough hours?

The stress is starting to get to me, and I’m worried that the pressure really will affect my ability to do my job.

I’m also 32 weeks pregnant, so finding another job is not a realistic option until after the baby is born. This job will end anyways in mid-March, so I’ll be job-hunting soon enough as it is. However, I’d really like to come out of this job with a good recommendation. I’m doing a great job with what’s available. How can I help my manager see that, and get him to start insisting that his managers either reduce the pressure on our team or give us more resources?

 

[chevalier]

That’s no way to live or work and I would point out to the manager respectfully that priorities were his decision and that there’s only so much one person can do (regardless who it is and what qualifications, you can’t e.g. hammer in 500 lines of code every single hour). You can tell him you aren’t complaining and it shouldn’t be taken this way, but you don’t want to be held responsible for something you don’t have any power over. Don’t allow the possible impression that you may be having performance problems to persist - if you allow it to, it will. This is a sensitive area and you need to be diplomatic, but at the same time being shy or apologetic may be read as being unsure of what you’re telling them, which is bad. All in all, I’d be brief, concise, up to the point, but non-confrontational and very respectful. You can throw in some “airbag” in the form of acknowledgement that times are rough, work is plenty and it’s difficult for everybody or something of that kind. I would avoid implying that the manager is losing control or forgetting what he said because that kind of thing generally is liable to provoking resistance in people.

*Don’t *allow them to tell you it’s your fault or intimidate/discourage you from seeking to solve the problem. And avoid excessive stress. Nothing at work is as important as your baby.

 

[LongingForLight]

To be clear - my manager is trying to be fair. I think what’s happening is that he is under a lot of pressure that I don’t know about, and is feeling vulnerable because his reputation is so dependent on the work that I do.

His wife is also expecting later this month, and he might be feeling pressured to get everything tied up before then.

I can’t tell if he really thinks I am the problem or not. However, the way he’s analyzing my hours suggests that either (a) he thinks I’m the problem or (b) he’s desperately hoping that if he looks at the problem with me enough, the solution to our time pressure problems will appear.

ETA: I suspect it’s (b) more than (a).

 

[SMHW]

I’m having a bit of a problem at work, and am wondering if anyone can suggest a good tactic to deal with it. I’m a contractor currently working for a major software company.
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How can I help my manager see that, and get him to start insisting that his managers either reduce the pressure on our team or give us more resources?

I hate to be the bearer of bad news… but based on my past experience as a software engineer this is usually one of one of those no win situations.

Your manager already knows you are doing a fantastic job given the circumstances. But I have never personally known of a software job that could be done within the allotted time and $$$. Whatever pressure you are feeling… your manager is probably getting more. You are in the unenviable position of being an hourly contractor doing what’s probably a 60 hour a week job. It’s also been my experience that the contractors, testers, and quality inspectors have the unwritten job responsibility of being the “fall guys” for projects that are over budget.

My only suggestion is to give daily written status reports --detailing where and how you are spending your time-- to your manager so that he has the tools necessary to advocate for his team. …and you may have to write those reports on your own time.

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Oh, and make sure you schedule time to put up your feet and time to take short walks —no matter what the time pressure. Happy pregnancy!

 

[1ke]

Just like a lawyer with billable hours, make a tracking log and record everything your boss asks you to do and every time he gives you something “more important” than the project.

Do a simple spreadsheet with some categories you can quickly select from a drop-down, the # minutes or hours spent, the date, and a comment field where you can enter who asked you for it and by when.

Just make it your habit to record the work in the spreadsheet. You should be able to set it up quick quickly with the main tasks you do each day and one for “other.”

Then, when he complains you aren’t doing what needs doing, you can pull out our spreadsheet and remind him what you were asked to do.

 

[LongingForLight]

Thanks to SMHW - I really appreciate the context.

1ke - for the spreadsheet: Any suggestion about how to handle multi-tasking? I am frequently working on two things at once, since much of my work requires me to wait until a computer finishes a task before I can continue on that piece of work - so I work on something else while I wait. Often I spend 2 minutes on (a), 3 minutes on (b), 5 minutes on (a), 4 minutes on (c), 3 minutes on (a), 2 minutes on (b), 5 minutes on (d), etc. for hours on end.

This is my biggest difficulty when my boss asks me how I spent my time - I really don’t know, and if I don’t multi-task I will easily double the hours it takes me to do my job.

 

[1ke]

Thanks to SMHW - I really appreciate the context.

1ke - for the spreadsheet: Any suggestion about how to handle multi-tasking? I am frequently working on two things at once, since much of my work requires me to wait until a computer finishes a task before I can continue on that piece of work - so I work on something else while I wait. Often I spend 2 minutes on (a), 3 minutes on (b), 5 minutes on (a), 4 minutes on (c), 3 minutes on (a), 2 minutes on (b), 5 minutes on (d), etc. for hours on end.

This is my biggest difficulty when my boss asks me how I spent my time - I really don’t know, and if I don’t multi-task I will easily double the hours it takes me to do my job.

Well, try to chunk it into bigger time blocks but basically just keep the spreadsheet open all day.

Maybe do it by the hour, tally it on a scrap paper as you go and then just enter on the hour what you’ve done that hour by category and minutes. I mean, it may not be exact if you are literally sending 3 and 2 minutes on items. But, if you do it as you go, you’ll have a sense of how you are spending that hour, proportionally.

So you’d make one entry per category for that hour and would enter 10 on (a) and 5 on (b) and 3 on (c) and 5 on (d) for the example. So in this time tracking method you’d have 4 entries for that hour.

Or you could set it up to have each row by 1 hour of time, and then across the columns have your categories and then you fill in a % or actual minutes in each category. So, 30% of that hour was coding, 20% phone call, 30% running debug, 10% boss comes by to talk… Just a thought of another way to account for the time.

 

[LongingForLight]

Well, try to chunk it into bigger time blocks but basically just keep the spreadsheet open all day. Maybe do it by the hour, tally it on a scrap paper as you go and then just enter on the hour what you’ve done that hour by category.

Thanks, this makes sense. I’ll set up an Outlook reminder or scheduled task to ping me each hour to update my spreadsheet. I think my boss will really appreciate this. I’ll try to get this set up this evening once I’m done with today’s work.

 

[1ke]

Thanks, this makes sense. I’ll set up an Outlook reminder or scheduled task to ping me each hour to update my spreadsheet. I think my boss will really appreciate this. I’ll try to get this set up this evening once I’m done with today’s work.

I edited, I thought of some alternate ways to do the spreadsheet.

I think the main thing is to have something quantifable that you can show your boss and he can show others.

You can even do graphs of your % time on various things!