What's the best way to ask your boss for help (and be heard?)

[WifeyB]

I'm in a bit of a pickle... Stressed, spread too thin at work, and working WAY too many hours. And drowning in workload.

 

Background: My role at my job is pretty technical/ analytical; no one else on my team has the training to do what I do. I'm running on empty. I've brought this up to my boss, and he's attempted to help. He tried to get other team members basic training to cover one-off projects, it helped very little. He also sent me to some project leadership/ time management training which was excellent, but not enough.  We don't have the capacity to hire another person. I would consider myself efficient and pretty level headed. I really don't think this is a case of "she's blowing it out of porportion" or a self-management issue. (When I was promoted to this role, they hired 2 people to take my place. Honest, not trying to prop myself up. Not at all. Just supplying some context around the situation, and provide evidence that I generally can handle quite a lot on my plate.)

 

I've looked around for another job with another company, but (and I say this with bottom-of-my-heart humility, knowing I'm so lucky and fortunate to have what I have) I can't find anything that would be comprable to how I'm compensated now that wouldn't require moving.

 

My husband is transitioning careers, so I'm carrying 100% of the financial load. Not the time to be rocking the boat or letting things fall through the cracks.

 

My questions are these... to all you nerds out there who manage people, or who have been in a similar situation:

 

- What's the best way to ask for help (again) from your boss, be heard, and still project confidence and the ability to handle your role?

 

- If you've been here, how'd you solve your situation?

 

- Are there alternitives I haven't thought of? (Like, letting things slip and risking it reflect in my performance reviews?)

 

It's bad. Really bad. Like influencing my relationship with my amazing husband kind of bad. Getting 3 hours of sleep, no time to work out, and forget having a weekend breed of nasty-bad. Any insight or thoughts would be much appreciated!

 

[Zorch]

I hear you.  I've got a few folks working for me(nominally.  I'm not an official "boss", but a senior engineer who provides direction to several technicians and one junior engineer on a daily basis), but it's not enough to manage everything that's going on in the timeframe that we're trying to finish it.  A few thoughts below?

 

-Are there opportunities to delegate some little things to people who don't officially report to you?  You mention other team members... one of the recommendations people have regarding time management is to delegate things that are trivial and frustrating to you - not critical tasks, but things that are time sinks.  Things like scheduling meetings and administrative tasks.

 

-If you go to your boss, try to come from a position of strength as much as possible, at least initially.  Focus on what the company has to gain from following your recommendations("dedicating resources to this problem/project would be beneficial to us") rather than "I'm stressed and overwhelmed"

 

-It sounds like a good angle to take is to discuss priorities with your boss - that you've got more to do than can realistically be done, so make sure you're working on the absolute most important tasks - get agreement with your boss as to what these are, and that these will be completed first.  I'm on a project now where we divided tasks/projects into "Urgent", "Important", and (Other) - the basic idea was that if someone needed help on an "Urgent" task, and others were not currently occupied with something that was "Urgent", it was acceptable to ask them for help, and that they should attempt to help out.  Basically a combination of the above - identify the highest priority tasks and get organizational agreement that folks should assist others as needed to ensure timely completion of the highest-priority tasks.

[cline]

Again, Zorch with the good good advice!

 

I'll add this:

 

Yeah, I hear you on the description of your current situation.  I think that's happening to a few people now.  Yeah, sucks.  But yea for being responsible!  ;-)

 

I also add the following re: boss:

 

Make a business plan and try to identify solutions.  But keep in mind what Zorch said about how you already contribute.  Being positive will go so much further.  I also really like his advice about other people to delegate to.

 

I'm in a similar situation AND then I found out that my salary was way out of line with other jobs here - my boss didn't do a good job setting up the salary lines for the the office when she established it. 

 

So what I did was establish a business case for adjusting my salary and responsibilities.  I used other staff members for delegation (not "this isn't my job" as much as I'm burdened and I can't get XYZ priority  projects done so why not let staff member Susie Q grow with opportunities for professional development?  I'll help....).  I listed what I contributed to the organization and how, if my productivity could improve on high priority projects, I  would improve the status of the office, my boss's rep, and the organization.  I also offered solutions for my productivity woes (like you - too much, over burdened). 

 

In the end, I got the salary adjustment and some responsibilities shifted to an admin asst who was happy for the opportunity to develop some skills.  Naturally, she eventually got fired and I got all those responsibilities back as boss decided to just eliminate the position and have me do the stuff again.  But for a few months, life was better.

 

Good luck.  Focus on the positive and on solutions.

[humanperson832]

This sounds like just the thing for askamanager.org! Really great job website I read. Submit your Q- maybe she'll answer it.

[WifeyB]

Thanks so much everyone! I'm going to be trying all of the above. Starting with submitting my question to askamanager.org (did that this evening.) Followed by a well put together case for support, phrased in the 'improving overall company productivity/ profitability' light... that includes delegating.

 

If anything, this has made me more confident that there are other options out there. That piece of mind is worth it's weight in gold!

 

I'll let you know how it turns out.

[MissMormie]

If you can't delegate down, delegate up. 

 

Talk to your boss about the things you do, asking for priorities. Make it clear that you cannot do all of it and that it's his or her responsibility to provide answers. This works best if you have a clear list of things you are (meant to be) working on and the amount of time this approximately takes. 

 

Understand it is not your responsibility to do everything, your responsibility is to do your job in (about) the time you're getting paid for. Also, it is not your responsibility to make a decision on priorities. It is your boss' responsibility to ensure there are enough people to get the job done. That doesn't mean you shouldn't be flexible or help out, but you should not make this your problem, especially if it's a structural problem. It is not your problem. So, delegate the problem to where it belongs, ie. your boss. 

 

Looking for another job seems like a bad solution, as you're not learning how to deal with this situation, but in stead are running away from it. 

 

--

So, be very clear that you're doing your best, you're using your time management & project management skills but that the workload is more than 1 person can do. Tell that you want do to a good job and the only way to keep delivering good quality is by setting priorities and dropping some. Then get your boss to make the decision.  You can use the project management training you had to explain a project (or job) can be done: cheap, fast or right. Pick two. The cheap option is not hiring extra people, the fast option refers to the amount of hours you're hired for and right obviously refers to the quality of your work. 

 

The nice thing is that if you tell this right it doesn't say 'i'm not able to do my job' in fact it says I'm able to draw realistic boundaries and I have thought this over (hence the list). I'm pro-actively handeling the situation before problems occur.' 

[WifeyB]

If you can't delegate down, delegate up. 

 

Talk to your boss about the things you do, asking for priorities. Make it clear that you cannot do all of it and that it's his or her responsibility to provide answers. This works best if you have a clear list of things you are (meant to be) working on and the amount of time this approximately takes. 

 

Understand it is not your responsibility to do everything, your responsibility is to do your job in (about) the time you're getting paid for. Also, it is not your responsibility to make a decision on priorities. It is your boss' responsibility to ensure there are enough people to get the job done. That doesn't mean you shouldn't be flexible or help out, but you should not make this your problem, especially if it's a structural problem. It is not your problem. So, delegate the problem to where it belongs, ie. your boss. 

 

Looking for another job seems like a bad solution, as you're not learning how to deal with this situation, but in stead are running away from it. 

 

--

So, be very clear that you're doing your best, you're using your time management & project management skills but that the workload is more than 1 person can do. Tell that you want do to a good job and the only way to keep delivering good quality is by setting priorities and dropping some. Then get your boss to make the decision.  You can use the project management training you had to explain a project (or job) can be done: cheap, fast or right. Pick two. The cheap option is not hiring extra people, the fast option refers to the amount of hours you're hired for and right obviously refers to the quality of your work. 

 

The nice thing is that if you tell this right it doesn't say 'i'm not able to do my job' in fact it says I'm able to draw realistic boundaries and I have thought this over (hence the list). I'm pro-actively handeling the situation before problems occur.'

Wow. You must be a wonderful boss/ manager yourself! Thank you so much. I'm making a list I rest thing in the morning.