Career Advice: I Can't Keep My Head Down

In reply to pheller :

You have outlined several strengths you have. 

You have said you can’t stay on task, and jump around in other people’s work, and that you like to “improve the processes”. 

You have not said you are a manager, and you have not said improving processes is ever part of your job. 

Your job title says “Utilities Analyst”. That sounds very task oriented. Inability to stay on task could be a real problem. 

Is a job change an option?  Are those skills valuable in your role?  Is improving the processes actually your job?

Many of us are making a lot of assumptions. 

If your job is task oriented, and there are no opportunities for changing jobs to one that better suits your personality, you’d better start sucking it up and keeping your head down. 

Making your supervisor feel threatened is not a path to winning allies. 

But if a change is possible, then by all means!

I had an employee like you.

I'm easy going and I saw him as an asset for the most part.

But when 'the problem du jour' was 'solved' and there was quantity 100+ parts to make; he would muddle through and was easily distracted. He would take any opportunity to come over and inspect the next problem and offer advice.

When the "good idea fairy" comes to visit multiple times a day she wears out her welcome.

Everything, everyday, can be done better, improved upon, be done more efficiently, etc. but sometimes the job just has to be done even if it's the old way or the old inefficient backwards way.

(We parted on good terms, it didn't work out for him on his next job because of the above though.)

In reply to jamscal :

Noted. Thanks. 

SVreX said:

You have said you can’t stay on task, and jump around in other people’s work, and that you like to “improve the processes”. 

You have not said you are a manager, and you have not said improving processes is ever part of your job. 

Is a job change an option?  Are those skills valuable in your role?  Is improving the processes actually your job?

Kind of. I was hired at a more advanced level because I came with another companies knowledge behind me. My boss liked that I wasn't afraid to reach out to other supervisors to get opinions on how processes might be improved. I think as time has gone by, he wants less of that, mostly because organizational changes have absolutely wrecked some of our ways of doing things, both old and new. He's frustrated by the backsliding, and doesn't want us pissing anyone off. 

It's hard to tell what he wants now. What he sees in my professional improvement. I think it's hard for him to see past the traditional measures of professionalism when considering what to task someone with. He sees tardiness, a loose mouth, someone who loses focus. To him, that's not someone to promote or give more responsibility. As a result, he's backing down on giving me new, more interesting tasks, things that might compliment my skills. 

If your job is task oriented, and there are no opportunities for changing jobs to one that better suits your personality, you’d better start sucking it up and keeping your head down. 

But if a change is possible, then by all means!

The company does do training, and we have about 6 positions who do that, with fairly regular turnover in those positions. The downside is they are more operationally focused. Training on how to do fittings, weld pipe, dig trenches, deal with emergencies, etc. They prefer folks with a construction background. Unfortunately, there is far more training that needs to be done on financial and business related systems. How to use a computer, write an email, navigate a work management system. Our company is slow to adopt "office technology" and even slower to train people on it. The stuff I would be best suited to train and give instruction we don't giving training and instruction on. 

My dilemma is this: if I leave my current position but move to another higher position in the company, very little of my skills would transfer. Instead, my knowledge after 7 years in the industry would transfer. My boss has no incentive to "push" for me to move up to one of those roles, because he'd lose an employee, and one he wouldn't be quick to recommend to other supervisors. 

There is one lateral position for me, but it's not commonly open, and only two of those positions exist. 

Everything else is down (into union positions) or up, to positions my boss may not give recommendations to those hiring me. 

Another dynamic is that my boss has got a daughter who has got 7 years left of grade school, and he has no intentions of leaving this company before then. Unfortunately, he also has little ability to grow in the company, because aside from the top spot, they want either an engineer or someone with operational experience he lacks. 

I think my best option is to rebuild the relationship and bail on the best terms possible. 

pheller said:

I think my best option is to rebuild the relationship and bail on the best terms possible. 

This seems like an extreme conclusion at this point, or worse you're just running from an uncomfortable situation rather than having a difficult discussion with your boss or actually trying to change/better yourself.

Consider what you said here:

pheller said:

"It's hard to tell what he wants now. What he sees in my professional improvement. I think it's hard for him to see past the traditional measures of professionalism when considering what to task someone with. He sees tardiness, a loose mouth, someone who loses focus. To him, that's not someone to promote or give more responsibility. As a result, he's backing down on giving me new, more interesting tasks, things that might compliment my skills."

^^^^That's a lack of communication between you and your boss. You don't know where he stands, and you seem to think that he's not being completely honest with you. Have an honest discussion with your supervisor and tell them what you've just typed there. Trying to get on the same page can only help you.

I also find it interesting that you make no mention of trying to address your struggles in the "traditional measures of professionalism" that are negatively impacting you. Maybe I missed it, but are you trying to improve the tardiness, loose mouth and loss of focus? We're all human, and most employers and supervisors will understand slipping up in these areas from time to time. But doing any of them frequently can reflect poorly on you and cause you to be seen as unreliable or uncaring. It seems like those hurdles will need to be overcome in order to find the success that you desire no matter who your boss is, or where you work.

“Tardiness, loose mouth, and loss of focus...”  I’m having a really hard time seeing those as positive attributes. 

You may think those things are old fashioned, but frankly, nobody cares. They are important in the workplace. 

My job is pretty independent. I don’t punch a clock. And I am highly qualified at having a loose mouth. But I can guarantee that if I ever let it loose, my neck would be on the chopping block. 

Some of these things are things you are gonna have to train yourself to be better at.  Don’t use the fact that they are strong character traits to excuse them as positive. 

Some of my greatest strengths are things that work for me at work, but I can’t use at home.  They are a big part of me, but would damage relationships that are important to me if I did not keep them in check at home. 

We all live in multiple environments. Some of our characteristics are useful in some places, but not others. We all need to learn how to tone them down at times. 

Gotta tell you, a chronically tardy employee won't be my employee for very long. That's something that's easily in your control and easy to change.  Wake up and leave your house 30 minutes earlier than you are.

To be fair, he did say occasionally, not chronically.

I think the real issue is that he seems to be constantly unhappy in nearly every job and job location he has ever mentioned on the forum.

No offense, but we have seen many threads with those two themes. Don't like your job, want to move out west, then you do and want to move back, etc.

jamscal said:

I had an employee like you.

I'm easy going and I saw him as an asset for the most part.

But when 'the problem du jour' was 'solved' and there was quantity 100+ parts to make; he would muddle through and was easily distracted. He would take any opportunity to come over and inspect the next problem and offer advice.

When the "good idea fairy" comes to visit multiple times a day she wears out her welcome.

Everything, everyday, can be done better, improved upon, be done more efficiently, etc. but sometimes the job just has to be done even if it's the old way or the old inefficient backwards way.

(We parted on good terms, it didn't work out for him on his next job because of the above though.)

We had a guy that we called The Ambassador of Good Will that would literally do just that ("good day, the way i would do that would be this...but its not me ") Incredibly. berkeleying. Annoying but mostly because 50% of his ideas were wrong and the other half he had watched someone do on the jobsite 5 min before 

SVreX said:

“Tardiness, loose mouth, and loss of focus...”  I’m having a really hard time seeing those as positive attributes. 

You may think those things are old fashioned, but frankly, nobody cares. They are important in the workplace. 

My job is pretty independent. I don’t punch a clock. And I am highly qualified at having a loose mouth. But I can guarantee that if I ever let it loose, my neck would be on the chopping block. 

Some of these things are things you are gonna have to train yourself to be better at.  Don’t use the fact that they are strong character traits to excuse them as positive. 

Some of my greatest strengths are things that work for me at work, but I can’t use at home.  They are a big part of me, but would damage relationships that are important to me if I did not keep them in check at home. 

We all live in multiple environments. Some of our characteristics are useful in some places, but not others. We all need to learn how to tone them down at times. 

This, a lot of this. Im pretty lax about tardiness because my jobsites are everywhere, google sucks, and some are 95 miles away but.....i also employ people that ive now worked with for many years and know their strengths and weaknesses.Loose mouth would get you gone from my company very fast, if you cant control yourself enough to be decent to work around you are holding everyone back around you. Loss of focus is usually seen as lack of experience in my field

z31maniac said:

To be fair, he did say occasionally, not chronically.

 

I think the real issue is that he seems to be constantly unhappy in nearly every job and job location he has ever mentioned on the forum.

No offense, but we have seen many threads with those two themes. Don't like your job, want to move out west, then you do and want to move back, etc.

What's the answer to that, honestly? 

When did I say I was unhappy with my job? I'm unhappy making my boss unhappy due to traits I believe are inherent to my personality. I'm unhappy with my limited room for growth within my current company. My day to day is actually pretty sweet. Doesn't mean I want to do it forever. 

I don't think I've mentioned moving back in this thread. I only ever mention that because living 2000 miles away from family when you've got a 9 month old and a wife with a broken hip kinda sucks. 

I'll post occasionally about career paths because I'm still searching at 34 years old. What's the problem with that? 15 years ago I was a college dropout. 7 year ago I graduate with a near worthless Bachelors. 2 years ago I bought a $300k house with 20% down and no other debt. We're savings boatloads and will continue to do so with my wife working part-time.

By all measures I'm an averagely successful 34 year old dude. What's the problem with wanting to further tailor my life towards the ideal? What's the problem with the goal post moving? Some people call that ambition. You're calling that...what? Chronic Dissatisfaction? 

If I was depressed, or diagnosed with clinical depression, would you just tell me to take more meds? Meet with my shrink some more? Maybe I should just load up on amphetamines and dumb myself up as much as possible to survive in corporate America, in a society that believes we should just shut up, consume more, and stay in one place? 

I got the advice I need from this thread. Thanks all. 

(If the mods want to delete this post I'd be happy for it.) 

In reply to pheller :

Easy Clarence...

z31maniac said:

To be fair, he did say occasionally, not chronically.

 

I think the real issue is that he seems to be constantly unhappy in nearly every job and job location he has ever mentioned on the forum.

No offense, but we have seen many threads with those two themes. Don't like your job, want to move out west, then you do and want to move back, etc.

I don’t get that impression at all from his posts. Quite the opposite in fact I’ve been very impressed with the growth he’s shown and the success he’s enjoyed. I think you might be filtering them through a certain lens or something. Over his years here he’s gone from a single college student to a married career man to a father all with positive changes each time. We all have problems in our day to day but he doesn’t seem to get wrapped up in them.  If he can’t ever discuss problems then what’s the point of the community we’ve built here??

In reply to dculberson :

Thanks. 

I started this thread thinking I'd get responses from folks who struggle with the same things I do, or at least struggled with them in the past, but made changes (career or routine) that helped them overcome them.

Instead, I got the opposite side, I got the supervisors and managers who deal with people like me, which is equally beneficial. 

When it comes down to it, I can talk about my faults as much as I like, and I can list the way in which my job isn't changing as quickly as I'd like. In the end, I need to keep this job for the foreseeable future, so I need grin and bare it. No amount of discussion in a "traditional" 2018 workplace will convince a successful supervisor that he should overlook my professionalism in favor of my enthusiasm. 

In reply to pheller :

That’s a wise perspective. 

For what it’s worth, I share dculberson’s viewpoint. You’ve gone through a lot of changes and growth, and appear to have used the advice you’ve gotten here well over the years. 

Ever worked for a startup? I've primarily been in what I would call "late phase" startups through my career - companies that don't have much existential risk but have not existed long enough for typical management structures to take hold. In my experience, it's companies like this that value employees that act in the ways you describe yourself - it has actually been a little bit of a struggle for me, because I tend to keep my head down more and don't connect with people in other groups as easily. 

I would look around for a company that's been around for 4-5 years and has shown steady growth, see if there are opportunities locally.