Boss is unorganized driving me crazy. What should I do?

Question

Our office help quit back in the summer. He won't hire anyone else. I work from home, 2 hours away from the office. I'm doing my regular job and office help job (what I can do via internet and phone). Also I tell my boss the status of projects via email (that's mainly how we communicate) and he doesn't read all of my emails and can't keep up with what's going on. Then a month later someting will come up about that project and nothing has been done. I would quit now, but I am pregnant and want to work from home when I have my baby. But he's driving me crazy.

We already have a "client list" of all the projects and what's needed for them. He never looks at it.

Yesterday I sent him one email about one project that had sub projects
ex. Project 005 -1, 005-2, etc
and today he asked me the status on them. I'm thinking...I just sent you an email about them yesterday!! ARRG

Answer 1

I used to work for a person like this. You can prepare all the e-mails and action lists you want, but it's very difficult to get the person to read them and make decisions.

My recommendation is to try and schedule time with this person, AWAY from his desk (so you'll get his full attention) and let him know that the office help position needs to be replaced. Try to give concrete examples of the times that projects have fallen through the cracks due to lack of support and project management. We all know it's HIS lack of project management, but you might use the passive voice here to avoid offending him.

Next you need to make up an action plan with him, on how he wishes to handle situations like that in the future. This way, you will not be blamed for mishandling things if you're following what you both agreed to. Try to write up a summary of what you decide at this meeting (bulleted, keep it brief!) so you can refer to it later if necessary, and give him a copy. Unfortunately, it is very unlikely this person will become organized in your lifetime, and if you can help bring a little structure and order to his office, he may appreciate you more than you know. Just talk to him to find out how you can be a better employee. This will guarantee your job, since you're showing a good "problem-solver" attitude instead of complaining. Good luck with this, I know it's difficult to work in this environment!

Answer 2

Working from home while pregnant? That is a REAL benefit. I would suggest that you give in your status reports (make them more formalized than now) a follow up every week. Take 15 minutes a week (maybe on a Thursday afternoon) and go over the actions of last week, the progress and any 'fallout'. If the boss is disorganized, this is a good way to keep on top of things while making an easy method of seeing where 'you' are with the projects.

Try and consolidate your emails. If the boss is disorganized, sending more emails isn't helping. Change the format of them - maybe talk with the boss to see if there's some format that would be easier to see the priority of the workload.

good luck!

Answer 3

Follow up with him. Keep your routine. Make a stack or list of things to follow up on with him. Do this once a week, before teh deadline. Get a calendar. Write EVERYTHING ON IT for work. He may just be incomprehensible and stupid enough not to do his own work, (like checking his email). I work under 6 male supers , and very few are organized.
You may just be overwhelmed from being pregnant. I wouldnt suggest hiring someone else to him though- good chance theyd take your place and you'd be without a job.
Start mailing stuff to him also and reminders. Snail mail works too.
But yeah id start with the calendar and write all deadlines on it - so you know when to get ahold of his -a---- and get him into gear.

Answer 4

One big email per day is a good idea. I'm an organized person and I work from home but I quickly feel overwhelmed if one person emails me several times in a day.

editing - save everything you send him so you can just re-send when he does that. No reason to make you write it all out again.

Answer 5

Communicating by phone once a day would be good in addition to the email u send.

Answer 6

while my peers stored bugging me to spend time with them rather of staying house by myself. i am via nature a loner. it drives me nuts because i fairly decide on to be on my own every now and then, however them bugging me suggests that they care approximately me. and i would not difference that for the arena.