Cog

There is nothing more dispiriting than being reminded that you are a cog in a machine.

Such a reminder came crashing down on me yesterday as I went to my day.  Being 25% reduced in effective labor status (with no real end in sight) means that work has rapidly begun piling up and suddenly the concept of "working manager" becomes all too clear:  what to do first (five things, of course) and what to let slip.  It all has to be done, of course - nobody particular cares how or where it is done or truly how much more there is to do than what is there - but that is not their problem, of course.  It is yours.  You are the cog that makes it happen.

Then, of course, one gets smacked with the politics of office.  No matter how carefully I have attempted to cultivate changes in how reporting structures work I continue to discover that mine remains the same.  My job, in my reporting structure, is essentially to be responsible for all aspects of what my department is while being carefully denied the title and recognition of actually being responsible for it all - in other words, "Set everything up, make sure you come by to bow at the altar of Senior Management to bask in the warm glow of their ideas, and then go off and do the work.  And oh - please be sure that you credit the Great Manager with all that has gone well and direct all credit our way.  If you fail, of course, you are own your own."

I have diligently worked to try to find to do what was asked, to make things better, to get over that hump of doing all but not being the person recognized for it.  Instead, I find that although so many people are sympathetic to the problem, no-one really wants to do anything.  The cost of challenging the status quo - the thing that employees are so often enjoined to do to move companies forward - does not pan out when you reach a higher playing field. 

And so I find myself exactly where I have told recruiters two years ago, three years ago that I would be:  doing the same thing again and again with little chance for advancement or growth - or even a change in how thing work.  Because ultimate the concern is simply that the work gets done - and the work, theoretically, could be done by anyone.

As long as they understand that they are simply a cog.