Bits and pieces

[selenay]

Tonight I am going to a folk concert. This is important because it means
that I need to leave the office at 4pm in order to get home with enough time
to eat something before the concert. If I leave at 4.30 I should get home in
time to leave for the concert, but there will be no food for me. After 5pm
and it is unlikely that I will get to the concert in time. My contracted
finish time is...4pm. Never happens, but it means that evening plans
shouldn't be completely impossible if that's when I'm supposed to finish.

I have informed the Minion of this fact and that I will be killing anyone
who prevents me getting to my concert on time.

Why, then, is he spending so much time staring out of the window and
fiddling with papers on his desk and generally not doing his work?
Particularly when he's playing catch-up to do the work that he didn't manage
to do yesterday, nevermind getting today's stuff started! And I can't leave
until he's finished the big piece of analysis because I'm the one with the
accountability for it.

Grrr.

I'm starting to see my evening plans running away from me. And he's
sighing regularly, because he's either bored or tired. Although
considering the way that he just 'rested his head' on the desk for thirty
seconds...

Ack! I must remain calm and happy. Stressing out this early in the day over
my evening plans will not help. I've just had a peek and even at Minion
speed, there is only another hour of work remaining so he should get today's
work done on time as long as he, y'know, starts it at some stage today.
Unlike some weeks when he starts it at the time I should be walking out of
the door.

In other news, Doctor Who is back on Saturday (6.20pm for those keeping
track and have somehow missed the information) and I am going to the cinema
that afternoon. I am currently trying to ensure that we go to a showing that
gets me back in time :-) I want to be able to join the universall squee
moment. Must remember to set up Sky Box and DVD player (just in case) so
that there is no last minute panic on Saturday.

Comments

[gmul.livejournal.com]

Leave on time. Just do it. The world won't end if you do. Enjoy your evening. Who are you going to see?

[selenay]

I left on time and thankfully all the work had been done by then. Phew! So I got to the concert without any problem. I saw Feast of Fiddles and I can honestly recommend that you see them if they are ever playing anywhere near you. They were fab :-)

[historyterry.livejournal.com]

I know you're being lenient to this guy, what with him being a new graduate, but resting his head on the desk is not even pretending to get any work done. He obviously has no idea that that kind of behaviour is basically totally unacceptable in an office environment. Next time he does it, you *have* to say something, like 'how's my work doing? I need it in half an hour.' And maybe given our conversation last night, you should give him timescales of *half* what you've been giving him before - if he regularly takes twice the time to complete a job, but is also permanently slacking off.

At some point, you may just have to tell him that you're off. And explain to S exactly why the work hasn't been done. S has to know that you're having problems, and what these problems are. Grr. Terribly frustrated for you.

[selenay]

He got the work done, Monday's and Tuesday's, with over an hour to spare so I can't really crack down on him too much for this one. I think the head on desk moment was pure despair at the amount of stuff that needed to be investigated rather than true slacking off - I was just feeling rather pissy because I knew that I needed to leave on time and he seemed to have spent a lot of the morning working veeerry sloooowwwly.

The only time that I've detected real slacking off is in the root cause work. The rest of the time he's actually pretty good at getting the work done. Maybe not as fast as me, but I'd say that he usually works at normal speed. It's just the Monday/Tuesday stuff that he really struggles with and I suspect that's boredom as much as anything else. I know that when I was doing it, I'd take the odd five minutes to check emails to relieve the boredom (although I have never been the staring out of the window type).

I believe that he'll get there and this was a really bad week for the root cause work. He certainly, ah, knew that I wanted him to get the stuff finished on Tuesday :-)

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

Ooh, who are you going to see?

(and what they said about minion)

[selenay]

We went to see Feast of Fiddles and they are amazing. Definitely worth seeing if they ever play near you. Half a dozen of the best folk fiddlers in the country with a rock backing group, so they did everything from beautiful ballads to jigs and even the odd rock anthem. It was great and I'm not even resenting the absolute exhaustion from the incredibly late night :-)

Thanks for the Minion thoughts. He finished all the work with an hour to spare, so I might have been a little harsh. Or stressed. Or something.

[notsoshygirl.livejournal.com]

I sincerely hope that you left on time, had a grand time at the concert, and smacked the minion upside the head for being a lazy ass.

[selenay]

I had a wonderful time at the concert and I left on time because the Minion finished the work with an hour to spare. I suspect that it's because I glared and repeated my desire to leave on time because of the concert several times, but the motivation doesn't matter - he did it :-)

I don't think it's really laziness, more boredom with the big piece of analysis that has to be done on Monday/Tuesday. It's not really a thrilling task (I did it for two years, so I know!) and he works hard the rest of the time.