I seem to be doing a lot of problem solving for other people at the day job lately, and while I’m more than happy to help when needed, there comes a point where it feels like any decision or solution is deferred to me. I mean, sure, it’s partly because I’m at an ersatz managerial level to some degree. [I’m not part of the management team per se but I do occasionally have to play the role of floor manager in my area.] Having to solutionify so often, especially when it’s several times in one week, my mental and social batteries start to drain a bit.
And the downside to that is that I end up not having enough spoons to get any writing work done at any point that day.
So what do I do about this? I’ve been thinking about it over the last couple of weeks, which have been more mentally exhausting than usual for me. A lot of the situations I speak of don’t need a lot of hard thinking, really — most of these are just a quick bit of problem solving (such as ‘how do I give this customer a discount that should have worked on this register but didn’t?’). So I need to start doing two things: one, explain to these coworkers of mine that we do in fact have the ability and the permission to adjust on the fly (within reason, legality and regulation, of course). And two, coach them to make those moves without actually needing to ask my permission or handholding every time.
[A slightly unrelated third step I need to take is to explain that I might not be able to answer you right away if I’m speaking with someone, and especially if that someone is a customer. I’m not being rude, I just can’t handle multiple disparate threads of conversations at the same time like I used to.]
I’ve often said that my job can be a bit like playing 5D chess. Yes, even if I’m just packing your bag: I look at your purchase, make a mental note of how it could be bagged without making it too heavy, and maintaining a conversation with you at the same time. And on top of that, I’m usually thinking about what next bookkeeping things I need to do before lunch or punching out, or remembering to do a non-urgent something a manager asked me to take care of a while back. And lots of interruptions, white noise and solving several other peoples’ problems is not something I can or should keep doing. I end up getting overloaded and mentally exhausted.
And this is why I plan on doing two things during my upcoming weeklong vacation time off: catch up on sleep, and figure out a plan on how to adjust all of this to make it work a bit better.
