work/life mix

Being a very introverted person can be difficult at times, but luckily it is a defect that goes away with time.  To be specific, it is the very that makes it a problem, and age does change things, a bit.  For example, at work I am more willing to give a handout to others and help them along and to ask for help too; trust me on this, the last point is the hardest to do.  I am now a supervisor at work and so I have to help others that I work with to get them to be better workers, but I have to occasionally throw my Manager a call to let him know that I need help on something so that they feel useful.  Clearly here, this means I have no use for my manager—which is not true, but what is true is that he is at least as introverted as I was at his age and I feel that he is intimidated by me and there is some trust issues in this dynamic.  The Over Manager has made the decree that we are to work together as a team, but this is difficult for the reasons stated. 

I need his assistance to do my work, because I do not have the tools to do my work.  I need to order product for my division, but I do not have the capability to do any ordering, so I need to submit my requests to him to do the ordering.  Fine, that is the way things are.  Except, I feel that not every request that I make is being honoured.  If I only had access to the tools so I could order, then I would know if the request has been honoured or if the request is impossible to fulfill.  Except when I go into his inventory stockpile and see the product that I ordered weeks ago sitting there.  Luckily, I am older than he is, so I am better at not seeing things and not giving a fuck.   It is one of those things you learn as you age, not giving a fuck about the little things. 

But I must work with him to plan the next year.  I sit down and spend several hours researching the 2200 different products that we are allowed to order for the coming year, many of them are just one product offered in 20 different sizes, but some of them are only offered in one size, so it is not as bad as researching 2200 different things, it is more like researching 500 different things, but I believe I am not being thorough enough in doing quick research—that is I open up 2-4 different web pages and read the vital stats on the product checking the hardiness of the plant and what it looks like and the size of it and a few other things before putting a note down beside the entry and going to the next item.  I understand that 2-4 webpages is not anywhere as comprehensive as I need to be researching these products and what I am reading is not as detailed as it should be, but I said to myself, I will be working with someone who has done this at least once before and he will not trying to sink me or he will be looking to say in the least, “I stand by the choices that were made,” except I get there and begin the look through the database and start selecting stuff, and he is not contributing at all.  It is just me.  I get the feeling that he is just pausing in his life while I am in the room.

I work in a nursery.  I studied in university essentially Environmental Science with a greater focus on processes and plants and animals (there is more, a lot more essentially I say Environmental Science just so that people’s eyes don’t glaze over) and a Teaching Degree and a diploma in IT . . . yeah way too much school.  And then I went into Horticulture.  I have 7 years in one garden centre before the three I have in this garden centre and I have three more years in hard landscaping, but the first garden centre also included 7 years of soft landscaping.  Short answer I have skills.  Specifically, my direct boss has passion, he has worked the past 10 year in two garden centres and went away to school to focus on Garden Centre science and business and he is 24.  I am 48.  He is a manager and that is what he wants to be most, so power to him.  I am a supervisor and that is what I want to be until I have worked the kinks out of the job, I am in.  There have been 6 supervisors in 5 or 6 years, and I think that it is making the business unstable.  Each supervisor came into the job with a vision on how they were going to change the company and then left before their vision was brought to fruition.  Because the job was too demanding, because they did not have enough knowledge, because the customers were too demanding.  Reasons.  The reasons that I will leave this job will be because I can’t juggle home life and work life and off time life.  I mean the job requires a younger person, one without dependents, one without a life outside of work.  Natural20 wants to spend time with me.  I want to spend time with her.  I want to run a few games, D&D and play in one too.  I want to do a good job at work.  To do all that means giving something up.  Part of it is giving up some of my responsibilities at work—I want to give up the forklift driving.  Today I spent five of eight hours driving the forklift around doing things that were lightly connected or not at all connected with my duties, but since they cant seem to train more forklift drivers I am stuck doing this.  And that means I have to always work the late shift at work, which means that I cant be on time for any games I want to play or host—at best I can be just on time and at worst an hour late.  Maybe if I could not close as frequently, I would feel more competent to have my life and to have my job too. 

But then there is the introversion problem with my manager.  If I must do all the work when we are working “together”, and all the forklift driving and staying late every day I won’t be able to stay doing this work.  Or I won’t be able to continue to do the things I want to do in my spare time.  Or Natural20 will be my work widow.  Well I know which one I will have to give up if it ever comes to that.