Another year, another average rating at work. This year, I agree with the rating. I moved to a new program and have been working a lot of tasks that I haven't done before. Given my inexperience with some of these things, I didn't do a wonderful outstanding job on them, but I did pretty good. I think I'm getting better.
But dadgummit, what do I have to do?
And why do I stay where I am?
The second answer is that I want the chance to work on the kind of projects that aerospace engineers work on. It's still exciting to me to know that what I work on will be launched into space and work up there for years doing whatever, and to know that I helped build it. So that's the biggest reason I put up with all the crap that goes along with working for my employer.
Also, there's the pension. Now, will that pension be there in 25 years for me to collect on it?
The first answer? I have no f-ing idea. No matter what I've done, how I've been recognized by the customer, how many people I've replaced in doing a job, or how vital my work was to getting the thing (whatever it was) to work, all I ever am is a "Successful Contributor".
They say they want "results". I give them results. They say they want this, they say they want that. I give them those things. They give me a crap sandwich and send me back to my cubicle.
I take it because they pay me every Friday and thanks to the tropical storm ten years ago and some medical expenses since then, I'm in debt and trying to get out. We're making progress but I'm not there yet. And, "AT LEAST I HAVE A JOB".
Screw it. I have got to figure out something else to do.
3 comments:
"AT LEAST I HAVE A JOB".
You have more than that. You are working in a field that you chose doing work that you trained for and find interesting. As long as you're in that position you have a chance of finding more rewarding work.
Your kids have the things they need. Your wife gets to be a stay at home mom. You are blessed with being able to home school. The things in life that are truly important, you have.
You could be working in a coal mine, doing manual labor, flipping burgers, working customer service or using up your savings to support your family. The easiest path to learning gratitude is to lose the things you once took for granted. Be glad you haven't had to take that path.
That's true, Res. Though I have definitely learned from seeing others take the harder paths. My sister is one of those. She's an RN now and has an interesting job, but she took a VERY hard path to get where she is. I'm proud of her.
What I'm thinking about is doing something on the side, not totally leaving where I am yet, or ever.
Another thing...
Yes, my work has been often rewarding from a "boy that was fun and important work to have done" perspective but hardly ever has it been rewarding from a "management recognizes that Astro did a great job on X, Y, and Z" perspective.
That's what galls me and pisses me off. Why? Because the latter is what potentially puts more money in my checkbook, which pays my bills and puts my kids thru college and keeps Mrs. Astro and I comfortable in retirement.
I hope I didn't come off as preachy. I don't think I could do the type of work you do, not because of education, which I don't have, but because of my temperament.
In the work set up you deal with, management has no incentive to promote or elevate the worker drones. If they did, someone over them might see that the drone is a better choice for their job than they are. The manager knows this, and being unable to lead or innovate a situation where he would be more valuable to the organization, he simply stalls, and demotivates those under him.
This kind of manager is in a pickle at employee evaluation time. He can't give out too many "below expectations" because upper management will question his inability to command and control his people. If he gives out too many "exceeds expectations" then he risks drawing positive attention to his underlings at his expense. So he chooses safe comments like "Successful Contributor". After all the numbers got crunched, the benchmarks were met, and it looks like he has a happy little department rolling along making money and otherwise "doing a good job". Its called playing it safe and going along to get along.
He assumes your happy with the arrangement because he was happy with the arrangement when he filled your slot. More importantly, he assumes your motivation for you being at your job is the same one he has for doing his. He probably thinks you enjoy the result of the little game and are pleased with a 2% raise and an extra week off after 10 years etc.
If he was a leader he'd be giving you concrete ways to do extra to gain recognition and move ahead.
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