Job Advice Needed

[Emmaline]

I know this is random advice, but I would like some answers if possible!

I currently work for a behavior therapy program and provide in-home care to special needs children. I have a direct supervisor, who is responsible for assigning my cases and setting me up with the families.

Here's the dilemma. My supervisor is probably one of the busiest people I know and seems to always be forgetting things; when he tells me he's going to send me case information, he doesn't- and I usually have to remind him. It's not that I remind him every hour, I'll even give him a day or two, but when the case is that day or the day before and I still haven't received anything, I have no choice but to remind him. He seems very cluttered and a couple employees and I have agreed he could use himself an assistant. When he's not deep into paperwork, he's on his phone with families and other employees, running meetings, training, etc.

My question: how much is too much? I don't want to seem like a pest. When I don't remind him, things don't get done and I don't receive the information I need. At one point, I had been approved 3 days off for vacation, and the day before I left, he called me and asked me if I'd be available for a case the next day. When I reminded him of my vacation, he said, "Oh, I'm sorry! I forgot". And I kid you not, he called me back that evening, asking me the same things about working a case. Before I even answered, he said, "Oh, yeah! I totally forgot. Sorry. I even have the information sitting on my calendar in front of me". This is just an example.

Sometimes I feel I may even be annoying him (he muttered a few swear words today trying to sort out an issue he said he'd take care of a week ago). I do my best to take as much as I can possible to make his job a little easier, but there are things he has to do himself, being the supervisor and all (like arranging the schedules, setting me up and contacting the families, sending me case information, etc). There have been times I've called the families myself and reported back to him and he was relieved and thanked me.

Anyway, how do I continue to do this without, well, annoying him?

Also, is it appropriate to thank him? After he's stressed himself out getting all the information last minute because he forgot again, I tell him thank you for taking the time to get it all ready. I feel like it's that kind of relationship- I remind him, he stresses out, gets everything together last minute, and I thank him.

Apologies for the length. But any advice would be great. Thanks!

Edited June 29, 2012 by Emmaline

[Just_A_Guy]

My boss was a lot like yours. We wound up adopting a web-based firm management program called Clio - it's designed for law firms, but might work for a company like yours as well. The transition was pretty rough--we had to re-discipline ourselves to get into the habit of writing EVERYTHING down--but it has saved us a lot of headaches in the long run.

[Guest]

I've been through this several times before. I'm a contractor who gets paid by the hour one project at a time. I get hired by a supervisor that gives me my tasks and oversees my work. There has been times when the supervisor assigned to me is so swamped by his tasks that he would forget to give me things I need to get my work done. Well, usually, this would be a benefit to me because the company gets to pay me money to twiddle my thumbs! But, for a contractor, this is a major pitfall because when the projects goes over-budget or gets delayed they're not going to blame it on the supervisor - they're going to blame the contractor. My reputation is the main reason I get steady work so I have to be pro-active to get a project sailing smoothly regardless of the inefficent processes in place.

So... I learned this technique called "Managing Up". Basically, instead of your supervisor managing you, you get to manage your supervisor while allowing him to take all the credit. A lot of people in my contracting company refuse to do this because they don't get paid extra for the extra responsibility. And a lot of times, Managing Up results in the contractor doing Administrative Assistant work which is "demeaning" to our level of expertise. This really doesn't bother me. If I have to empty garbage pails to get my project completed within budget and within schedule, I'm emptying garbage pails.

So, this is what Managing Up entails:

1.) Accept the fact that every person has their weaknesses and your supervisor just happens to have forgetfullness as his weakness. Don't fall into the trap of hating your supervisor for this weakness that would only end up hurting your reputation (one less person that will give you a glowing recommend for other jobs). Instead, take this weakness and turn it into an opportunity to add value to your resume.

2.) Establish trust and comraderie with your supervisor. It makes it easy for you to make suggestions, take on tasks that falls under your supervisor's jurisdiction, and offer constructive criticism.

3.) Know what you can do to help your supervisor that will end up helping you without adding to your stress level. After you figure out what you can do, then prioritize the tasks in order of importance. These could be simple things like giving your supervisor a desk calendar and checking it periodically to make sure the tasks you need done is marked in a specific bright color on that calendar. Or it could be major things like taking charge of one of his tasks completely - like volunteering to gather case information.

4.) Approach your supervisor in a very friendly manner to tell him about your plan to help him do a great job and be a great supervisor that will help him get that promotion... or some such.

5.) Take charge, do a good job, and let your supervisor take the credit for the improvement. You'll soon become indispensable and if you happen to set your sights on taking his job when the position opens up, you're a shoe-in.

One thing to remember, your job is to do YOUR job with excellence. Helping your boss with his job will only make sense if it results in you getting your job done with excellence. If helping your boss causes you to stress out and start sucking at your own job, then it's not working. I've been in a situation before where the supervisor abused my willingness to help him do his job...

Hope this helps.

Edited June 29, 2012 by anatess

[Vort]

How about establishing a twice-daily email routine? Twice a day, morning and afternoon, you send him a BRIEF email detailing what you need from him and what you're doing. The "what you're doing" part might be primarily a pretext for reminding him of the info you need.

[MorningStar]

I used to work for a bipolar psychiatrist who told me to remind him of things he needed to do, but then sometimes it made him mad. He had specifically told me, "Don't let me walk out of here before making these phone calls." He was in a super giddy mood and about to go out with his wife when I reminded him and he said, "Oh, I'll do it later." I said, "You told me I had to make you do it!" He wasn't happy.

Maybe just tell your boss you don't want to bother him, but you need to remind him of _______.

[Gwen]

He sounds ADHD, but I'm not sure you can go to your boss and recommend meds. lol

[Guest]

He sounds ADHD, but I'm not sure you can go to your boss and recommend meds. lol

My son is like this. Super dis-organized. The school tried to tell me to go to the guidance counsellor because he might have ADHD... I refused. I just have a bad vibe with public school guidance counsellor and ADHD in the same sentence.

He is doing a lot better now by just behavior training - well, what his dad considers discipline really. Just changing habits. So yeah, there is ADHD and then there's just plain habits. Good thing my son is the latter. Some people just have a much tougher time at learning these skills than others - kinda like how my other son has a harder time with math than my older son.

So yeah, if the boss has ADHD that would be a lot tougher than if he's just organizationally challenged.

[Mahone]

So... I learned this technique called "Managing Up". Basically, instead of your supervisor managing you, you get to manage your supervisor while allowing him to take all the credit. A lot of people in my contracting company refuse to do this because they don't get paid extra for the extra responsibility. And a lot of times, Managing Up results in the contractor doing Administrative Assistant work which is "demeaning" to our level of expertise. This really doesn't bother me. If I have to empty garbage pails to get my project completed within budget and within schedule, I'm emptying garbage pails.

So, this is what Managing Up entails:

1.) Accept the fact that every person has their weaknesses and your supervisor just happens to have forgetfullness as his weakness. Don't fall into the trap of hating your supervisor for this weakness that would only end up hurting your reputation (one less person that will give you a glowing recommend for other jobs). Instead, take this weakness and turn it into an opportunity to add value to your resume.

2.) Establish trust and comraderie with your supervisor. It makes it easy for you to make suggestions, take on tasks that falls under your supervisor's jurisdiction, and offer constructive criticism.

3.) Know what you can do to help your supervisor that will end up helping you without adding to your stress level. After you figure out what you can do, then prioritize the tasks in order of importance. These could be simple things like giving your supervisor a desk calendar and checking it periodically to make sure the tasks you need done is marked in a specific bright color on that calendar. Or it could be major things like taking charge of one of his tasks completely - like volunteering to gather case information.

4.) Approach your supervisor in a very friendly manner to tell him about your plan to help him do a great job and be a great supervisor that will help him get that promotion... or some such.

5.) Take charge, do a good job, and let your supervisor take the credit for the improvement. You'll soon become indispensable and if you happen to set your sights on taking his job when the position opens up, you're a shoe-in.

One thing to remember, your job is to do YOUR job with excellence. Helping your boss with his job will only make sense if it results in you getting your job done with excellence. If helping your boss causes you to stress out and start sucking at your own job, then it's not working. I've been in a situation before where the supervisor abused my willingness to help him do his job...

Hope this helps.

The tone of this implies that the manager is incapable of doing his job properly due to a fault of his own (i.e. in this case, forgetfulness), so need unofficial guidence and support from the contractor (i.e. yourself) to aid him in doing his job, which I think is a dangerous assumption to make.

It sounds very much to me like the manager in question in this instance is simply overwhelmed with work, probably due to no fault of his own. It can get to the point where no matter what work-management style you use, unless you can fit more than 24 hours in a day, there is always going to be jobs that needed to be done that day, still not done at the end of the day. Something has to give somewhere.

From the perspective of the contractor, the manager isn't giving them what they need to do the single project they are working on that day, so clearly the manager isn't doing their job.

From the perspective of the manager, that contractor that was bought in by their superiors, but without telling the manager this was happening until the contractor arrives, is one of 100 issues they are trying to deal with that day. Whilst they may successfully deal with 95 of the issues, the contractor is unfortunately one of those 5 that time simply didn't permit for.

Edited June 30, 2012 by Mahone

[Emmaline]

How about establishing a twice-daily email routine? Twice a day, morning and afternoon, you send him a BRIEF email detailing what you need from him and what you're doing. The "what you're doing" part might be primarily a pretext for reminding him of the info you need.

I like this and have been doing this now. It helps because I'm not getting responses 3 days later like before (or last minute).

Late response, but thank you all for your advice. He does have ADHD- he said so during a meeting while we were discussing different behavioral issues. He said it in a joking manner, but he was indeed telling the truth.