Office politics

In our first shift meeting today, we talked about how the program is evolving as we move residents from the institutional personal care home into apartments. The supervisor in charge of "the flow of the shift" asked us to give her input on how to change the shift sheet (where the shift leader assigns counselors and nurses their tasks for the shift).

Then she very politely, nicely told me not to make any forms myself. Since I've worked at CRR, and different ideas have come up for improving communication and tracking information, I play on Excel and make forms. Since most of my coworkers aren't computer savvy, this activity is usually met with gratitude and awe.

I enjoy making forms. It's disturbing and strange, but true. I've always loved worksheets.

This supervisor is a bit controlling, has a tendency to decline help. Since taking her current position, I've given her several ideas for forms. Some have been edited and adopted, some never used. I can't help doing it; it's compulsive. Also, these are forms we have to use; I'd rather they be as user friendly as possible. Some forms generated by non-computer fans (this supervisor is most definitely not a computer lover) are horrible to use because people don't know how to resize fonts and blank spaces, how to widen margins, how to format to divide different sections.

She made a point of saying we all needed to work on forms together. Maybe my forms are designed according to my taste, but I've never submitted any without showing as many coworkers as possible to see what they think, get ideas for tweaking.

It hurt my feelings a bit. It's one of the few areas that I feel I've made any sort of meaningful contribution at work, trying to make things consistent, easier; get information out.

I know lots of people think it's pointless, a nuisance; the paperwork is annoying. Done properly, though, it helps us do a better job by giving us information about who is responsible for which task, the history of a resident, assessments of a resident's skill level, what's happened to the resident in recent days.

And I've gotten the feeling before that some people think I am dicking around on the computer when I should be working with residents. Sometimes that's true -when I get overwhelmed or upset, organizing information calms me down, and maybe that does take too much of my time. I've gotten better about stopping myself and getting redirected.

But why not use my skill? Give me all the ideas and have me organize it, since lots of folks can't do that part. And I can't really provide ideas without playing around on a rough draft - that's how I think, brainstorm, process.

So here's what's likely going to happen: I'll have a secret, superior form saved on my shared drive that no one will ever see. It seems stupid.

This is a petty thing to waste so much mental energy. It's symptomatic of how, in the last year, I've started to feel more and more I don't and can't do a good job at the facility.