by Nominal Parenting
Today’s post is not going to be about parenting. It’s about my job, and the stupid work stuff I have to deal with. I am on vacation with my family, and it’s fun to destress by documenting some of the crazy stuff that I’ve had to deal with instead of trying to optimize SEO analytics on my post title.
For legal reasons, I will not be naming where I work and will be changing the names of the people involved, although it is probably unnecessary since no one reads this. I will mention that I work at a large Aerospace and Defense company, and I work as an engineering director for a small high performing team. My team is responsible for implementing new technology and capabilities within the company to meet customer demands and contractual requirements.
So, I’ve not been at the company for long, about a year now. I was brought in to start up this new team, and get the new tech in place. The problem is, the tech is very niche. It is not popular yet. Like before AI blew up niche. Because it is niche it is high-risk and therefore requires executive-level approval for funding. You would think as someone who reports directly to a senior VP it wouldn’t be hard. You. Would. Think.
But, noooooo. 3 weeks ago during our regular staff meeting, my boss explicitly said that he wanted to meet for 2 hours in a couple of weeks to get a deep dive on my niche area and how we plan to grow it next year. This is pretty run of the mill work, and I was ready to have the discussion right then and there. I reached out to his admin, who is a gem and he is lucky to have her as his admin. She set it up, and in typical fashion over the next couple of weeks, as the meeting was approaching it got shorter and it got moved. From 2 hours to 1 hour. From 1 hour to 45 minute, and the day before I left for vacation, when the meeting was supposed to take place, I got a last minute update that it would be 30 minutes. He never showed, and I still don’t have direction on my spending plan.
As if that is not enough of a bummer, I am already overspending. That is a fun corporate term for the fact that I am spending more than I told them I would spend and they agreed to let me spend. That is where the petty gossip gets interesting….