Ngtjyty

I work as an administrator in a company with about 30 employees. In my position I have insight into many processes and I see many things my colleagues are doing wrong. This annoys me a lot and I always try to show my colleagues the right way. That's not my job, but if things aren't done right from the start, they have to be corrected later. Sometimes by me. But so far almost all my efforts to change something have been unsuccessful.

Here are a few things that I have noticed so far:

• eMail with customer inquiries will not be answered for weeks.


• Customer data is entered incorrectly or incompletely into our CRM
  database.


• Ongoing processes are not completely documented.


• Appointments are not communicated to colleagues in time.


• Tasks are simply given to someone instead of the right person.


• Colleagues sleep at work or are lazy.


• Invoices return to us because wrong addresses were stored.


• And many more. Believe me!

As I said, changing all this is not my job, but apparently I am the only person who is bothered by it. I have also spoken to the management, but nothing has changed. A colleague told me I shouldn't take it too seriously and ignore things. He is probably right, but I am not succeeding. Every day I have to get upset about things that I think would be self-evident and would be part of the normal work of colleagues. They just don't. It seems that I am the only one in companies who sees these problems and is disturbed by them. That is my problem. How can I learn to worry less about these things and care less about problems that I have nothing to do with?

Note: I have had tinnitus in my left ear for a few weeks now. The doctor asks me if I have stress and I say "No". I have nothing that I would call stress. My work is manageable and I have no deadlines. But maybe my attempt to solve the problems of the whole company is my stress.

You are jumbling up at least 3 categories of problems: those you can help with, those that you should advocate for someone to do better at, and those you need to just accept and stop worrying about, because it's making you sick. Exactly which is which depends on your company, but I can take a stab at some of them.

My suggestion to you is that next time you meet one of these irritants, you ask yourself "can I fix this myself?". For example, you're in the CRM system and you see an incorrect address. I don't know how you know the correct one, but I'll believe that you do. Do you have permission to fix it? If not, you can ask for it, explaining that you can fix these little things when you see them. You can perhaps point it out while holding a returned invoice in your hand: that's likely to motivate the boss to get you the required authorization.

For emails going unanswered or appointments not getting to the person who is supposed to keep them, I doubt you can fix it. However, when you find out about it because the person calls to ask why their email hasn't been answered or the rep missed the appointment, you can report on the call to someone who is likely to care, cc-ing others along the way. Perhaps someone will change things. Perhaps someone will tell you that these appointments or emails aren't important. For example, I get emails every day from people who want to bring me new customers, or show me exciting technology that will save me money. I don't answer these and wouldn't appreciate someone in my own firm reminding me to do so. If you think you can fix it (for example, if you can set up some "form letter" answers and do a first pass on a busy person's email for them) that might be appreciated by whoever you offer it to.

When it comes to people flat out sleeping on the job or otherwise neglecting their work, if this is not new, apparently the company is managing to stay afloat despite that. As long as your paycheque clears, let it be. This is one you should let go of for your health. Some people don't care about the places they work. You do. That's great. Give them as much of your skills as you can. Your organizational skill, your observation skill, your commitment to doing things right. Be terrific at your job and as much of other people's jobs as they will let you. But don't feel that you need to save the company the salary they pay the sleeper: nobody will thank you for that and there may be a part of the story you don't know. Let go of that: it's not your burden, you have enough to do.

It seems that I am the only one in companies who sees these problems and is disturbed by them.

Everybody who has been active professionally for a few years has come across this type of person who knows how to fix everything. Normally, it's a problem of university graduates in their first jobs, but it's not limited to them. These are employees who believe to see what is wrong in their companies and have solutions to all its problems.

Now, don't get me wrong. There's nothing wrong with trying to improve things. The problem is, these employees normally don't understand the existing processes well enough to understand the rationale behind them. They don't know that for example, managers receive plenty of contact requests from random people trying to sell them everything possible to them and that if they wanted to reply to them, priority tasks would need to remain undone. They don't know that the optimization of some processes would cost the company so much that a decision has been taken in the past to stay with an imperfect, but 90% cheaper process.

The things you listed - with exception of sleeping in the office maybe - sound simply incredibly common. They existed to different extents in all the offices I've ever worked in. (And honestly, I currently work more than 60h a week. If someone told me not to sleep in the office, I would tell them "Great!" and then leave after what I'm paid for - 8 h Monday to Friday).

As an admin you normally can't understand the rationale behind them. Nor is it your job to try to change them.

If you think your current employer is exceptional in terms of chaos, search for a new job.

If you want to be proactive and propose solutions, try to be understanding towards others and ask your bosses why processes look like that first. Otherwise, you risk coming across as very naive.

You are apparently a perfectionist person and there's nothing wrong about it, in fact it's very likely that your colleagues (among others) appreciate you for it. But it's important for you to realize that not everyone is like this. Currently you are hoping that everybody would be as careful as you (consciously or not): that's not going to happen and that's where your stress comes from, this feeling of being powerless.

You are not powerless if you target your efforts towards things which depend on you. You already started doing it: talking to your colleagues, talking to management are in the realm of your power (if not your responsibility).

If you want, an additional step would be to focus on the processes rather than the persons: what measures can be taken to work around human mistakes? You could suggest some ideas to the management: for example, having a ticket system with automatic reminders about emails left unanswered, or introducing some form of evaluation of customer service. There's a chance that people will listen to you more carefully if you come not only with a problem but with a solution as well.

But even if this doesn't work, keep in mind that you are already doing your job "perfectly": you do your own job and additionally you help others do theirs and suggest improvements. There's simply nothing more that you could do yourself. If this is not satisfying, then direct your focus elsewhere: what would you like to improve in your personal life? Maybe you have a hobby? These are things in which you have full control, as opposed to your professional environment.

Repeat five times a day or get a coffee mug or poster with this mantra:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/not_my_circus,_not_my_monkeys

It seems your company is run quite badly - the result is that nobody (except you and maybe a few others) gives a damn about what happens. In the long term, your company will hurt, but THAT IS NOT YOUR PROBLEM. It's common sense in a badly run company that you should have your CV ready, and have an eye on the job market and jump ship if you have a better opportunity, but what should you do in your job?

I would advice you to do your job so that nobody else can blame you if something goes wrong. If someone else does something wrong, count to three (or initially to ten), and while counting you say to yourself "this is a problem, but this is NOT MY problem", and then you happily let them make whatever mistake they are making.

To you, the most important person that you need to look after is YOURSELF. The stress of taking on all that is going wrong is already causing you severe health problems. Tinnitus is no joke. Go back to your doctor and tell him that you have severe stress, because you do. Stress isn't only what other people cause us, but you can produce stress yourself and you seem to do a very good job at it. You know yourself that you need to stop this.

Summary: If you see anything that you think needs your intervention, you count to ten and say to yourself "THIS IS NOT MY PROBLEM". And then you walk away. If you think this is hard, then maybe you should start a diary. Every time you see anything that you think needs your intervention, you first write it down in your diary. And then you write down what you did. And that second column should contain the word "NOTHING" and nothing else. Like "John sent invoice to the wrong address". What did you do? "NOTHING". The diary will help you to verify your progress.

(To anyone who disagrees: You are at a shitty company. They don't deserve anything from you other than you doing YOUR job, and taking their money. If you were the new CEO, you would change things, and you would have the power to change things. You are not the CEO. Trying to change things only makes you sick, so don't try).