I was hired as a Municipal Accounting Assistant last fall. We are county-level government and provide services to several small towns. There are four of us on the team, two accountants and two assistants. I have a master's in corporate accounting and my boss has been encouraging, providing extra municipal training, and has been telling me she has great hopes of me achieving my municipal accounting certification and being responsible for towns of my own. As the new fiscal year starts July 1st, the plan was for me to double my hours. She said July would be even busier with fiscal-year-end, so I arranged childcare for my three children, rescheduled another part-time job, and was all set to meet this new challenge. Great, right?
The boss finally hammered out the summer schedule and surprise - I was left out of all the extra July work, but would start my new schedule in August. OK, I was surprised after the build up about July, but on the bright side, I could do more stuff with the kids in July.
Then one of the new towns we were supposed to start providing services to had a problem creep up so they wouldn't be able to hire us after all. The boss called and said not only was I losing the hours I would have had for that town, one of the other accountants would be taking my hours from another town so she could maintain a full work week. So I wouldn't be getting any extra hours after all, but I wouldn't be doing less than I have been. I was very disappointed, but understood that I was low man on the totem pole and it wasn't a reflection of my work, just how much work was now available.
But when she emailed me the schedule, I was down to half of what I am doing now.
I ran the whole gamut from disbelief, to anger, to apathy. I told myself all things happen for a reason, that I'm not so financially strapped that I needed the extra hours, that maybe I didn't really want to do this as a career, that it's good to have the time to spend with the kids this summer and I can look for more work in the fall if I need it...yadda yadda.
So I replied to the email saying I was surprised and disappointed by the schedule but I understood why it was that way, I wasn't mad at anyone, and I'd be fine with whatever happened. I felt better. I felt like I took a little control back from a situation I had no control over.
So when the boss called and asked if I'd come in to discuss the schedule today, I didn't know what to expect. More hours, less, none at all, different days? What she said was "I still don't think you understand the schedule." And she proceeded to explain everyone's new schedule and say they had all taken some reduction in hours and I actually lost less than the others. She still hoped I'd be a full accountant on the team someday - that day was just a little further off now. And she had planned on giving me a token raise, which they could no longer do, but she had wanted to.
I'm afraid I didn't give her the reaction she wanted. In hindsight I think she actually wanted me to thank her. Instead I said the other's shouldn't have to take any cuts - she could give them the rest of my hours if she wanted, I'd be okay. I probably just shot myself in the foot. I had been eager and willing and thankful for her confidence and expectation of advancement in the past, and she probably needed to hear that I was as gung-ho as ever, but I'm not. I'd rather take it one day at a time, then believe what she says, get my hopes up, then get let down again.
I'm like that in many other areas of my life as well. It makes sense to me, but I feel out of sync with the rest of the world. My boss was clearly confused by my email in addition to our in-person talk today. Is the way I view the world so off from the way everyone else functions?
Stress at work = not having control.
Relief = finding ways to get some control back.
Stress = questioning yourself when others don't understand you!
