Slashdot Mirror
Learning to Say No in the Workplace?
Ummagumma asks: "I'm trying to find out how those of you who work in the IT service industry, tell customers 'no', when the requests are unreasonable for whatever reason. There is a culture here of 'piling-on' work with regards to IT - and, unfortunately, I've never learned the proper way to tell people 'no'. It may sound simple, but in this economy, where jobs are tough to come by, I don't want to be seen as the impediment to getting things done Any suggestions on telling people that their work request can wait? Especially in a way that won't jeopardize my future here? I've searched the web, but most of the sites that supposedly have information of this type just want you to sign up for their seminars. I'm looking for actual, real-world experiences, and how the people of Slashdot deal with this issue on a day-to-day basis."
"Here is my dilemma: I'm a relatively new employee (~2 months) at a software engineering shop. I am the sole IT person for a 100+ person company, with 50+ remote VPN users, 40+ developers, 30+ servers, firewalls, etc. I do it all, from desktop and application support, to security, to servers. In the past, the IT department has been seriously under-funded, and there is an absolute ton of catch-up work that needs to get done. At this point, I could work 70+ hour work weeks for a year, and still not be caught up, between project work, upgrade, documentation and day-to-day stuff.
I've inquired about more IT budgeting (staff, equipment, etc.), and that just is not going to happen for quite a while."
I will share with you a tidbit of wisdom from those of us in design: keep track of how you're spending your time. Keep a detailed record of what you are spending your time doing and who is asking you to do it. Show this document to your manager and have them prioritize your time so that there are some rules in place. Managers are there to make sure you can do your job, make them work for a change.
I'm reminded why I bill hourly now.
You probably already understand one of its key points (or will very soon): it's not sustainable for you or anyone else to work more than about 40 hours, week in, week out, without turning crispy. Work is different from time in front of keyboard or slumped in your chair. You can rack up a lot of hours north of 40/week, but in the long run will have almost nothing to show for them. Additionally, the book will tell you how to say no, as you requested.
One more thing. If you are supporting 100 people, then your days are unquestionably one series of interruptions crashing into each other. There's strong practical advice here about how to minimize interruptions, and work toward having an environment in which you can actually get something done without having to use "hiding" tricks. One of the stories in the book is about a developer who was so bugged by interruptions in his cubicle that he took to working in a toilet in the men's room for an hour at a time. I hope you aren't near that point yet.
Here's the book at Amazon: but you can get at the library, and probably faster.
yes, i will get a million geeks on my neck for saying this, and heck, before i became a corporate whore i was against this. But now i've seen the usefullness of this.
make up a system which includes procedures for change managment and incident managment. Everytime someone asks for something, ask them wether it is an incident or a change (or decide yourself), if its an incident (in which case you have break/fix situation), you know its a valid/urgent request and you can work on it. If its a change, you put it into a change managment system, together with the rest of the work you already have. Make this work visible (give out ticket numbers and such), so next time they want an update, you can refer them to your change managment webpage and they can see which project(s) are still to be fixed before theirs is started. This way, you dont come off as a sluggish worker AND you keep your customer happy.
ITSM, love it or hate it, but it sure is usefull.
I am a contractor doing freelance tech support, sound design, and web app programming. I've found that the best way to keep clients from taking advantage of me is to charge a lot.
Seriously! When clients have to feel their pocketbook getting lighter, they stop asking for piddling things and keep requests to important items.
Jory
If the root problem is that your line manager has ridiculous expectations (or hasn't the guts / seniority to stand up to unreasonable clients), you could take two approaches. You could escalate the workload issue up the management chain, or to your HR dept (as a health and safety issue). This risks getting you into your line manager's bad books.
The other approach is to exert pushback against your manager's unreasonable expectations.
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Get into the habit of giving your
boss written estimates of how long it will take
to do things, and keep a log of the actual time taken. If your boss knows you are doing this, he may think twice about overworking you.
- If your boss sets you unreasonable deadlines, don't be afraid to miss them.
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When your boss demands that you work excessive hours, don't. He cannot FORCE you to do this. Indeed, the chances are that he won't be in the office when you be leaving
... so leave earlier. If he asks why, tell him the truth; i.e. that you were too tired to work effectively.
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If you are overtired or stressed out because of overwork, take a sick day. If you can get a doctors certificate that says "work related stress" or "exhaustion", even better.
If your boss unreasonably threatens to sack you for not working hard enough, don't walk, or threaten to walk. Instead, bide your time while quietly start looking for a better job. Remember, if your boss actually sacks you, he / his business will take a big hit in a number of areas; time / money to recruit a new person, loss of productivity, loss of morale, etc. If he has half a brain, he will know this.It's called Negotiation and is one of the hardest things to get right in business.
:-
If it's a client, you have to politely inform them that while you may not be able to get the job done for the time they are requesting, you can certainly aim for 'x time' - never mention other projects that you are working on for a client as you always want them to get the impression that they are the most important.
Never say No to a client - if you no you can't do it, then outsource it.
If it's your boss, you have to negotiate more heavily, as the boss is certain to 'pull rank' to get his/her way. Again, you need to request more time, however at this point you can indicate all the other project that you are working on and set a priority list
Ok boss, if this job is so urgent, I'm afraid I'm going to have to put X job on the back-burner to get it done.
Finally, if it's a marketing person who said to the client "Sure, we can get that done by next week Tuesday easy !", you have to hunt that marketing person down and kill them - after all, marketing types are a dozen a dime and really have little use except for blood-sport...
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
PS If anyone knows an OSS MS Project replacement that can do all this stuff, please speak up. I've been dying to replace it for ages, but it's a really good fit for this particular problem space
DotProject is almost there, still in beta tho but ive been using it for a few weeks and its perfectly usable.
>>I've searched the web, but most of the sites that supposedly have information of this type just want you to sign up for their seminars.
There's a great book "Rapid Developemnt" by Steve McConnel, I recomment every developer/project manager to read it. I remember reading a good section on how to say 'No' in a professionl way.
He has a bunch of exerpts and articles here:
http://www.stevemcconnell.com/
Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated up.
Yeah, so've I. But what's the point? It's not maintainable over any real length of time. Personally, I prefer having a life outside of work, and that's never going to happen when you work that hard. And, what are the rewards for working stupid hours? Stress? Fatigue? More work? Effective pay cut?
In my experience, and observation of those around me, it's really hard increasing a 40 hour week to 50-55 hours. Adding 12 hours probably only adds a further 8-10 of real work. Beyond that it gets easier as most people are then unable to maintain a life outside work too. However, adding 10 hours more probably only adds a max of 5 hours real work, and it's gets worse as the hours pile up. Tired people are slow, mistake-prone and unproductive. Furthermore, once social life outside work stops, people start getting the social contact they need at work. They stop for more short chats, joke around more, etc. It's great for the work environment and back-slapping cliques, but it's not good for productivity.
What do you do? Work to live, or live to work? Do you work ridiculous hours just to make somebody else rich, or do you have your own business? Sorry, but this whole macho "I work more hours than you" routine is just stupid. It doesn't garner any respect from me - it means you have no life and are probably somebody else's whore.
I understand priorities; but changing a company's culture (as this person will need to do to be successful) is a difficult task. It's not about prioritizing: it's about changing the process. We (I.T.) struggle with it so much at my place of work. Trying to get upper management to work with us on setting priorities and sticking to them is terribly difficult when the owner and associated YES!-people have "shiny-thing" syndrome.
Injecting structure into a process that for the last 20 years has had little formality is (IMHO) a gargantuan task...
this response is good as far as it goes, but what if you are the boss?
a former manager of mine let me in on his favorite response: tell them just what it will cost.
"OK, i can do that. however, if i do that now, as you request, it will require [# of people] about [period of time] to address properly. that means [x], [y] and [z] projects will slide b/c there aren't enough appropriate resources, the ramifications of which are 1, 2 and 3. this puts me in conflict w/ [manager 1], [manager 2] and [manager 3], all of whom were waiting for [period of time] until this is done. perhaps we should all of us should discuss this so my staff's allocation can be budgeted more effectively."
more often than not, the querant cannot take on one or more of [manager 1], [manager 2] or [manager 3] and it addresses about 90-95% of the issues that cropped up. the remainder of the time however, a discussion was needed and sometimes, the querant's issue was addressed.
this means that you absolutely have to have that information at your fingertips, if not at the tip of your tongue.
ed
I don't get overtime. I'm on salary.
This is a very common misconception. It doesn't matter if you're on salary. It only matters if you're exempt or not. The kicker is that your employer doesn't get to choose whether you're exempt or not. The federal government does. Being a salaried employee is only one step of many, many steps that need to be taken so an employee doesn't get overtime. I've got a LOT more information, if anybody would like it. I'm currently involved in a lawsuit where I'm suing my former employer for unpaid overtime, willful violation of the FLSA (Fair Labor Standards Act), and retaliatory action (wrongful termination). If all goes well, I could end up fairly well-to-do.
"It's better to have a gun and not need it than need a gun and not have it." ~ Christian Slater, True Romance