Reliability in the Office

As I’ve mentioned in many of my previous entries, I have a very different relationship with her than my fellow intern, and as I’ve really started noticing more recently, what seems like the entire office. I initially didn’t notice but as I began to think of it, I realized she has had several different arguments with coworkers, some of them stemming from her own lack of reliability. She is in the office extremely infrequently and, in my experience, has not been able to be someone to count on. There have been multiple times just in the past two weeks where she has asked one of us to set up a meeting with her so she can teach us how to do the work she wants us to assist her with, and then not followed through. Usually this happens because she ends up inexplicably absent from work that day, or because she is just so bogged down by her work that she doesn’t have the time to teach us how to help her. This doesn’t just happen with us though. I work in a small bay area directly across from her office. People often come by to ask me if she’s in the office and 95% of the time that answer is no. Once the Division Director (DD) came by looking for her. When the DD realized she wasn’t in the office, she had to let a coworker know so that they knew they had to fill in for my boss in her random absence. This is also inconvenient because I cannot even make time to go to her to see what she thinks of me as a worker, making it more difficult for me to pinpoint areas where I can improve.

Also, there have been arguments with people where, because she has been absent, people get mad at her for being behind on work. There are also a surprising amount of arguments stemming from lapses or gaps in communication. This usually doesn’t seem to be her fault, but I feel like she could deal with in a less confrontational way. To be fair, I think she has a legitimate reason for being so absent all summer, but I feel as though this is something that could’ve easily been explained to others, especially the other employees in the office who I believe are with me in that we have no idea what is going on with her. Something I believe would help her tremendously would be bringing in more workers, but the DDDP struggles with getting people to stay in the department due to these communication issues. I feel as though the stress in the office has helped fuel conflict brought in by minor communication errors, creating an occasionally negative work environment. I feel as though bringing in more people would be able to help lift a load from everyone in the office, making things flow much easier and increasing efficiency.