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Back to work
Posted April 2nd 2016 at 09:32 PM by LlamaLlamaDuck
I went back to work on Wednesday this week. I finish at 3 on Fridays so it was a short week to ease into things again. Kate was absolutely brilliant. She arranged another workstation assessment for me to make sure I have everything I need at my desk, talked through what parts of my job I need to take it easy with (lifting heavy files or boxes and filing in the high up and floor level drawers), told me to take a walk around the town whenever I start feeling stiff, and she even suggested doing shorter days or 3 day weeks to begin with until I was back into things again. I'm doing okay so far and this week was fine so I'm going to work full time as normal and let her know if I need to reduce my hours for a couple of weeks and do a phased return.
It's the end of the financial year so it's super busy for everyone. It's appraisal time so I have to scan, upload, and file the 400+ appraisals that will show up on my desk, there will be letters going to all employees who started in the past 3 years because we all get incremental increases in salary for the first three years of employment with the charity. Thankfully there's no cost of living increase this year so I won't have to file letters for every single person who works for us. It's also time for Kate's annual equal ops report, which means compiling recruitment information for the last 12 months. She also has a quarterly absence review and annual absence review so I have to input all missing paperwork on the system to make sure those reports are as accurate as possible. This is all in addition to my day-to-day tasks. I also need to update the management structure for all our services since that gets done every 3 months too. I just can't believe how much I need to do. Dad finishes half an hour later than I do so I can use that time to get some extra work done, even though I won't get paid for it or anything. I could make a note of the days I work on and then claim the time back, but I'm not too bothered really. I like my job so I don't mind working on when I need to.
My appraisal is on Tuesday and Kate's implemented a rating system for each aspect of everyone's job. Their manager will rate them under "Needs Improvement", "Meets Expectations" and "Exceeds Expectations". Almost everyone will be on meets expectations for everything, and I'm fairly confident that I meet expectations for everything, but I know I'm going to be disappointed and feel like I'm not doing enough if I don't get exceeds expectations. I'm trying to tell myself that the fact you get 'meets expectations' for something means you're doing the job right and don't need to change, but it just feels kind of average and I want to do the best I possibly can at this job. I really enjoy HR, and while I want to go into forensic psychology, I haven't ruled out doing an HR course as well and looking at tackling mental health in the workplace. It'll take me another 4 or 5 years to finish my degree since I'm only doing one module at a time so I have plenty of time to decide what I want to do.
Tonight I'm chilling out and drinking the cocktails in my minifridge. I keep canned cocktails and mini cans of Sprite and Dr Pepper in there so it's a nice combination at the weekend if I feel like it. Tomorrow I'm doing some DIY, hopefully. I finally got a shelf in the size and colour I need so I'll borrow dad's drill and put that up and I have some Z shelves I bought ages ago so will put those up too. All that's left is to get a bar stool or something so I can sit a comfortable height to see in my mirror, and I want to get one of those photoframes that's lots of little photos. I want to get photos of my family, but also my gran and grandad and nanny and papa. I also might get some battery operated fairy lights to put around my mirror because my main light is behind me when I'm looking at my reflection so I can't see my face that well. Once all that's done I hope I'll be happy with my room and won't want to change anything else. In reality, nothing else actually needs changed. Everything is tidy and sorted and I'm pleased with it. But I've been sorting it out bit-by-bit and doing little bits every weekend for so long that I'm not sure what to do when I'm finished. I could always finish knitting my scarf, with any luck I might actually finish it in time for winter this year.
It's the end of the financial year so it's super busy for everyone. It's appraisal time so I have to scan, upload, and file the 400+ appraisals that will show up on my desk, there will be letters going to all employees who started in the past 3 years because we all get incremental increases in salary for the first three years of employment with the charity. Thankfully there's no cost of living increase this year so I won't have to file letters for every single person who works for us. It's also time for Kate's annual equal ops report, which means compiling recruitment information for the last 12 months. She also has a quarterly absence review and annual absence review so I have to input all missing paperwork on the system to make sure those reports are as accurate as possible. This is all in addition to my day-to-day tasks. I also need to update the management structure for all our services since that gets done every 3 months too. I just can't believe how much I need to do. Dad finishes half an hour later than I do so I can use that time to get some extra work done, even though I won't get paid for it or anything. I could make a note of the days I work on and then claim the time back, but I'm not too bothered really. I like my job so I don't mind working on when I need to.
My appraisal is on Tuesday and Kate's implemented a rating system for each aspect of everyone's job. Their manager will rate them under "Needs Improvement", "Meets Expectations" and "Exceeds Expectations". Almost everyone will be on meets expectations for everything, and I'm fairly confident that I meet expectations for everything, but I know I'm going to be disappointed and feel like I'm not doing enough if I don't get exceeds expectations. I'm trying to tell myself that the fact you get 'meets expectations' for something means you're doing the job right and don't need to change, but it just feels kind of average and I want to do the best I possibly can at this job. I really enjoy HR, and while I want to go into forensic psychology, I haven't ruled out doing an HR course as well and looking at tackling mental health in the workplace. It'll take me another 4 or 5 years to finish my degree since I'm only doing one module at a time so I have plenty of time to decide what I want to do.
Tonight I'm chilling out and drinking the cocktails in my minifridge. I keep canned cocktails and mini cans of Sprite and Dr Pepper in there so it's a nice combination at the weekend if I feel like it. Tomorrow I'm doing some DIY, hopefully. I finally got a shelf in the size and colour I need so I'll borrow dad's drill and put that up and I have some Z shelves I bought ages ago so will put those up too. All that's left is to get a bar stool or something so I can sit a comfortable height to see in my mirror, and I want to get one of those photoframes that's lots of little photos. I want to get photos of my family, but also my gran and grandad and nanny and papa. I also might get some battery operated fairy lights to put around my mirror because my main light is behind me when I'm looking at my reflection so I can't see my face that well. Once all that's done I hope I'll be happy with my room and won't want to change anything else. In reality, nothing else actually needs changed. Everything is tidy and sorted and I'm pleased with it. But I've been sorting it out bit-by-bit and doing little bits every weekend for so long that I'm not sure what to do when I'm finished. I could always finish knitting my scarf, with any luck I might actually finish it in time for winter this year.
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