Frustrating coworker

[accountingsucks]

I am an accountant who works for a 5000 person company in the accounting/reporting department. It's a good job as I generally only work a bit of OT at year end and maybe on quarter ends. My past jobs had alot of OT so this is certainly a nice change. I am one of 3 supervisors in the department. About 5 months ago, one of the other leads went on mat leave. I really enjoyed working with her as she was my age (30), laid back and had the same attitude about work - work to live and not live to work type attitude and we would generally leave at 4:30 together.

I am busy at work and generally work non stop from 8 until 4:30 with an hour for lunch...I have very little downtime for the most part which is a good thing. They replaced the mat leave vacancy with someone who is totally opposite. She constantly questions everyone elses work, is extremely inefficient and often changes her mind on decisions she made hours or days before. She spends an inordinate amount of time on immaterial transactions (she once spent all day on a $300 transaction - our sales are over $1 billion per year by the way)...she kept flipflopping on how to handle the transaction. Needless to say with all this humming and hawing she works very long hours. From what I've heard from her and her analyst, they normally work until 7 at night (no weekends though). It really makes no sense to me because the other team lead worked on her own and had no analyst to help her....so in other words she is doing the same work as the girl on mat leave, AND has an assistant and is working all this OT. This makes me uncomfortable as it looks bad that I leave at 4:30 everyday and she is grinding out all this extra work. Has anyone every come across these types of people at work? My boss has never said anything bad about my hours and I recently got what I considered to be a good bonus (although my review was only "meets expectations"). My boss works from 8:30 to 5:30 so he will undoubtedly notice that I am gone when he goes home and she is still working...it just really bothers me.


One thing to note is that she is around 50 and this will likely be the peak position in her career, whereas for myself this is really just a stepping stone to another position as a controller, hopefully in the next couple of years. I really do not have any ambitions to climb the corporate ladder at a large company as I'm happy with my current pay - if anything I want to go to a 3 day work week at a smaller company. If she lost her current job I get the feeling that it would be hard for her to find something equivalent as she has never really supervised anyone before (we each look after 7 accounting techs).

[youbet]

I admire your work style and your career goals. I don't admire your apparent obcession with Ms. Long Hours.

Continue to do an excellent job in an efficient manner. Stop wasting your time and making yourself miserable over details of how another employee gets their work done.

Quote:

Originally Posted by accountingsucks it just really bothers me.

Do whatever you can to get past having this bother you. Venting/gossiping about it or seeking consenual validation that you're right and the other employee is wrong, isn't the answer.

As long as you are confident that your current work habits and performance levels are congruent with your desire to move on to controller, carry on and enjoy life............ without dwelling on issues over which currently have no control.

[Texas Proud]

I remember way back when I had people do the same thing... but I came in late and left about 5 to 5:30.... a few of the people would 'make jokes' about me coming in late all the time... but you knew they were not joking....

One day I went into my boss' office and asked him.... is there a problem with me coming in at 9?? He said "NO, why do you ask?"... all he wanted was for me to get my job done...

During one review, he did say something about timing of reports, so I thought that maybe it was having an effect on him... so I went back the three years I had been doing the report and one year prior to that (all the info I had)... I had improved the date that it was distributed every year AND had more information in the report... I showed this to him and he changed the review...

So, do what you do... BTW, it is hard to 'get ahead' if you do not show that you want to climb the ladder by being a a$$hole.. Most people hire the ones that are 'willing to put in the time'... Since they are usually inefficient, all they do is put in more time but do less work..

[Goonie]

Just keep doing what you're doing and froget about what the others do.

I used to get to w*rk 35-45 minutes before starting time everyday, and I'd punch-out right on time everyday. My early-start allowed me to get all of the lab equipment turned-on and ready to go, instead of waiting until the actual "starting time" and then standing around for 30 or 40 minutes doing nothing. Once the everything was turned on, I'd go into the break room and have my morning coffee and relax. (although I was there early, I wasn't "on the clock" until normal starting time....but the 5 minutes it took to prepare was worth way more than having to stay over) My (now former) co-w*rkers would have stay overtime to finish their jobs, and then they'd gripe because I NEVER w*rked over.

Of course they were NEVER early, they came in right at or slightly after starting time, and they would ALWAYS drop whatever they were doing and take their coffee break. I took my break whenever I'd get a chance between lab tests, usually about 10am for about 10 or 15 minutes. And then I didn't break in the afternoon, since lunch was normally over at 1pm and quitting time was at 3:30pm. Their breaks usually lasted about 35 to 40 minutes....twice a day......and their lunch lasted at least an hour or more. So since their breaks and lunch totaled about 3 hours a day.....it's no surprise that they couldn't finish their w*rk without OT.

They complained to the boss about me, however he knew I was there, everyday, long before they were, and that I actually started my w*rk earlier so I wouldn't HAVE to stay over. So their complaining did no good at all.

So as long as your boss knows that you're doing your job, and doing it well, don't worry....be happy! And enjoy your evenings like normal folks!

[farmerEd]

Quote:

Originally Posted by accountingsucks She constantly questions everyone elses work, is extremely inefficient and often changes her mind on decisions she made hours or days before. She spends an inordinate amount of time on immaterial transactions (she once spent all day on a $300 transaction - our sales are over $1 billion per year by the way)...she kept flipflopping on how to handle the transaction.

I once had a client that spent $40,000 of my time (consulting time) tracking down an $0.11 error on a reporting system I wrote for him....he also worked very, very long hours and often bragged to me about the hours he would get his staff to work per week - often over 100 during peak weeks...I was billing by the hour so I didn't care...bring it on...but those poor slobs on salary sure hated him.

Last I heard he was divorced with 4 small kids and took an apartment closer to the office....at least when I put in the 100 hour weeks I was in my home office.

[Enuff2Eat]

one suggestion

work for yourself. much less kissass, being an a**hole, and playing politics.

u get to control your time, effort and more important money.


enuff


btw, there is a chance that u can make more money too.

[chinaco]

One thing about accounting... that pesky comptroller (and the biz) expect those number to balance. But outside of things being done incorrectly, a manager need to exercise loose control. It is different if one is managing a bunch of clerks vs several CPAs. The more educated, the more autonomy that is expected.

This is the sign of either a new manager or a poor one. The only rational explanation is if real problems (or procedural flaws) are uncovered that need to be fixed.

On the other hand, it is common for managers to avoid tough situations that need to be fixed. I would say that that are fewer (poor) managers that micro-manage than the avoiders (avoid tough situations).

Both of these are the hallmark of poor mgmt and lack of leadership. Few managers are actually effective managers (no matter how high they rise in the org). The sign of an ineffective manager that is an avoider is one that just attends meetings and merely passes messages back an forth. There are many of them!

Effective Mgmt is a tough act... a little more mechanical. Leadership is rare much more an art form and require character, courage... many of those thing that Lee Iacocca wrote about. Leadership take time. One has to build trust yet get the tough things done.

Sorry for the rant... But most managers fool themselves about their ability and merely exercise their power of postion.

[Sandy]

If you are efficient and getting the j*b done during regular hours, why change? Do you get paid for OT? In that case, maybe drag things out if you need the $$ and if you think that the time/$$ tradeoff is a good deal.

If you are salaried, OT merely reduces your value. If you get paid X to work 40 hours then your rate is X/40. If you work 50 hours for the same pay, then your value is decreased to X/50. So, the closer you keep to your schedule to the routine, the more valuable you are.

[accountingsucks]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sandy If you are efficient and getting the j*b done during regular hours, why change? Do you get paid for OT? In that case, maybe drag things out if you need the $$ and if you think that the time/$$ tradeoff is a good deal. If you are salaried, OT merely reduces your value. If you get paid X to work 40 hours then your rate is X/40. If you work 50 hours for the same pay, then your value is decreased to X/50. So, the closer you keep to your schedule to the routine, the more valuable you are.

No we do not get paid OT at that level. I am very anti OT - I've never understood why blue collar workers get paid double time for any second of OT and professionals like myself get nothing for the extra time. It used to be that white collar guys made more than the blue collars. I live in oil country, and the average blue collar worker is easily making 200 - 300K per year here (welders, electricians, etc)....it's booming like crazy.