Steel can be broken

Very rarely do I blog about work.

The blog is about things I like/love:

Ken
The Dogs
The Cats
The very weird crabs we introduced to the home aquarium
Knitting
Astronomy
you get the picture.

Now don't get me wrong. I adore my job and most days I think I'm good at it. Other days, like today, I'm just wondering how much more I can take before I break. Just decide the heck with it and bail and try to get Ken to let me stay home and bury my head in the sand everyday.

Thankfully we all know that I'd bore myself silly in about 3 to 5 days. I know this for a fact. Hence the reason I went back to work a week early after surgery last year. Boy did the boss and hubby get mad at me for that.

People that know me, know I'm OCD and a huge control freak. In recent months, I have become the lead on two parts of our products with what feels (very important word here) like not a lot of back up. Granted, our staffing rate for our department is the highest it's ever been. But our product is complicated enough that it takes a newbie a good 6 to 9 months to come up to speed enough to venture out into the 'queue' without any major hand holding. So while we have a bunch of people, I feel more and more like 'the go to person' for a number of issues, whether they are in my components or not.

Some of this is my fault. I don't know how to NOT help a co-worker. I don't know how to say they need to take it up with their designated mentor. I don't know that I ever will be able to do so, because helping them helps me learn new areas of the application so that I can broaden the scope of issues I can help with. To say nothing of the fact that knowing more areas of the application will help me get the next title I am pursuing within the company.

I also fully admit to not wanting to share certain areas of my components. Or at least not fully let go of the reins because they are areas that I AM the go to person for. No one else in the department knows as much about it as I do, and I like that.

But I too am learning. Learning that my colleagues want to learn this stuff and to help take some of the burden off. Learning to not take my temper out on my colleagues when all you can do is simply decide that no amount of yelling and cursing and desk banging is EVER going to make that one problem client (or two or ten) actually listen to what you are telling them. Because no matter how right you are, you are still not telling them what they want to hear.

On the flip side though, what does it say when your boss asks you to take a case because they need 'steel' behind the response? Someone that won't back down, but can be firm in a diplomatic manner? Essentially some that knows how to put a spin on the bad news while getting the client to back off.

Most days I don't care as long as they understand that steel can be broken.

Let's hope it isn't anytime soon, because, trust me, it won't be pretty. It never is when steel gives way.