not living up to your potential
In general I am really sick of telling people, here at work, that I am out of things to do. I feel like I am either being grossly underutilized or grossly over-efficient. Either way, I blow through the work I'm given and I am left twiddling my thumbs for hours on end.
Since we have "flex hours", all people - including my direct boss, can come and go as they please. Often times I arrive at 8 a.m. only to sit for 4 hours waiting for my boss to roll in at which point she comes in and goes into her office and closes the door. Now to me, a closed door = "do not disturb". So on those days, much like TO-day, I sit at my desk and try to look busy even though I literally have NOTHING to do.
Now truth be told, I have done a lot since I arrived here two months ago and since I am the first and only person to be in the marketing/communications/pr department, anything I do looks amazing because, well, it's never been done before. They have no idea how to measure my productivity because everything I do is innovative to them. I think their inexperience in my field is skewing their perception of what needs to get done and how long each item takes.
Do I let on that I am very, very unbusy and ask for more work? Or do I continue to look busy and relish in the fact that I have a lot of downtime? I'm not sure what the right answer is. But I do know that I am required to work 40 hours each week and I am so unbelievably bored most days that the 8 hours I am here seem more like 12. I would actually rather work than sit here doing nothing. And that's not out of guilt; I don't mind collecting a paycheck for doing nothing. I'd just rather have something to fill the time. Conversely, I don't want to keep begging for things to do. It's annoying and I feel like sometimes they just make sh*t up for the sake of keeping me busy.
In all honesty, I guess these are the woes of working for such a small company. I do often miss having the guidance and expectations that come along with having a department supervisor. I like being my own entity and all, but it's honestly a lot easier to just have someone tell you what needs to get done. Especially because I have all of these ideas about what to do, and I tell people them, and they like them but they are long-term things and not stuff to do in the here and now. So I sit here bored and wondering if I should tell anyone just how bored I really am.
