“Can you get me their job scopes?”
Upon hearing that, Amy looked at Miranda, with a little mind-pause moment.
(That is something odd for her to ask for this at this time of the year.) Amy processed this in her mind. (It’s either… for pay raise review? But at a time like this? When the company isn’t performing well as budgeted? Nah! Or… potential headcount cutting is coming…?)
“Job scopes?” Amy acted blur and repeated Miranda’s request.
“Yeah, can you send me their current job scopes? Each of them, please. I don’t understand why a company with operation capacity such as this would need so many headcounts in finance.” She explained.
(Oh… So, it’s the latter.) Alarm rang in Amy’s mind.
(The whole team has been busy working over here (at Singapore); and, still, you, who sits at Overseas office, thinking of cutting the scarce headcount that we have!) Amy’s facial expression started to tense a little but she tried to control her anger as she was still in a weekly catch-up meeting with Miranda, her manager.
“Thanks, chat again.” Amy forced a fake smile and said to the other party, who was at the other end of the messenger line, through that tiny camera on her laptop.
Their meeting ended. That alone, has taken away one-hour of Amy’s Monday morning.
“Hmm…” Amy let out a heavy sigh and turned to her right to stare at the view outside of her office window.
(What is this…) She threw her weight and leaned onto her ergonomic chair.
In the same week, as requested by her direct-report manager, Amy arranged 1:1 meeting with her team members and told them about this new task.
“Last time, we did the job scope file, once. Remember or not? Now, you can just recycle that file and add in whatever new jobs that you have tasked to do since then. Indicate the frequency of preparing each report; be it weekly, monthly or yearly. And, the time you would spend on completing it as well.” Amy explained to Angie, one of her team members.
“Need to do that again?” Angie grumbled a little.
Angie has been the quietest person in the team but after the encouragement from Amy and the supports from the other team members, she has started to open up, little-by-little, and voiced up her thoughts. Although, she still speak in soft voice but that has been a huge development in her work attitude.
“Yeah, Miranda asked for it. So, this time, you guys update and edit your job scopes and I would review if anything to edit further. No matter how big or small of a task you do, list all into the file.”
“Huh? All?” Angie’s frown eye brows went down by a degree or two when she imagined the long list of jobs that she needs to update into her Job Scope file.
“Hey, those small tasks take up your time too. But most of the time, people can’t see that. They thought those ‘easy-to-do’ jobs get done just like magic ‘poof’, just like that.” Amy added with fingers snapped.
“Okay…”
“Once you’ve updated it, I’d edit (if needed); then we go through the file together before I send it to Miranda.” Amy stated clearly the process flow for this task.
“Sure.” Amy nodded and left Amy’s office.
Amy patiently went through the same with the other four members.
Amy led this team since she joined the company three years ago. She has seen each of her team members’ efforts and the speed of growth they went through. From the basis accounting tasks assigned on them back then until today’s ability of multi-tasking. Their patience and willing to learn mindset can be easily seen through the work attitude they demonstrated and their work deliveries.
(How can Miranda can’t see our work?)
“She’s, literally, blind, isn’t she?” Amy looked up to the space in front of her and murmured.
(Time has really proved it. After nearly two years, was it? She still can’t understand what local finance’s works and the basic local regulations are. Even though I have explained to her, shared detailed information with her, showed her our work records… Still, she, the head of finance, shamelessly, claimed that our works were non-value added and our team were idle employees of the company (at some level), to her opinion. I solved the daily work issues with the local team and what you see is the final product where issues have been solved. So, with not much issues brought to your desk, means that we do nothing?)
(She kept comparing overseas office that has been well-established for n-years to our local office that has just been bought over by the company five years ago. The finance team at overseas office has double the headcount numbers we have and each of their job scopes were clearly segmented; no one was multi-taking.)
(The work achievements that the team has done, you would now wipe it off as it never happened? Is that it? Then, my question to my manager and Head Quarter – What the trouble of attracting, training and retaining talents? If one is only needed for a particular task and then get rid of them once the task is done; call it a part-time job then. Why lying to interview candidates and employees that this is a permanent role? You are not ‘Walk the Talk’, are you?)
(What else could I do about it, Gods? There’s nothing much I could do, I think… That’s a self-reflection homework that she needs to go inward and fix for herself and for her own good.)
“Jeez…” Amy released her grip on the black-inked fountain pen, let it make a few rolling until it bumped into the edge of her laptop, and stopped. Amy took a sip of the green tea that has turned warm and no longer steamy hot.
(Okay, zipped file sent.) After gathered the file from team members, Amy compressed them into zipped file and email it to Miranda.
Within ten-minutes, a replying email from Miranda arrived. “Thanks for the file. Can you also send yours?” She wrote in her email.
“…” Amy stared at that sentence, speechless!
(YOU DON’T KNOW MY WORK?!?)
(Are you telling me that you have no clue about what I have been doing and what my jobs are, until now? When we had quarterly and yearly performance reviews? When I have been attending to your Weekly Catch-up Meetings? Are you not only blind but deaf as well?!?)
Amy’s short temper exploded.
Amy held herself back from sending an angry reply via email to Miranda. Her grips were so tight. She wanted to smack on the table but there were other colleagues sitting nearby.
(Shxt!!)
About ten to fifteen minutes has passed, Amy couldn’t do any work, at all. Her main focus was to calm herself down…
(‘Double-D’. Not ‘Dance and Dinner’ but ‘Demotivating and Disappointing’…) Those negative emotions overwhelmed Amy.
“Jeez…” She locked her laptop and jumped on colleague’s car, went out for lunch. She needed to let herself ‘forgot’ about this ‘Double-D’ manager that so happened to be the Head of the finance team.
Two weeks passed. Amy was so busy to finish a bunch of urgent tasks.
“Can you send me you job scope as well? I need to see if any of your and John’s job scopes being overlapped or double work.” Miranda reminded Amy during their weekly meeting.
“Also, for budgeting, you please contact Kanna (the finance manager based at overseas office) to ask him how he coordinates the budget process flow and discussion with other department heads. As Finance Manager, this is your role. I’d want you to do that, going forward.” Miranda added.
Amy’s face must have turned to poker-face after she heard those ridiculous accusation from her manager.
“You didn’t see it, doesn’t mean that I didn’t do it. All those processes that you have just mentioned, I had done those, just that you can’t see it. I had several discussions with local management team as well, before submitting the budget n. Just that I didn’t involve you in those local meetings.” Amy’s annoyance at Miranda was permeated through her monotoned-reply.
Miranda didn’t reply afterward.
(She looks shocked, a little…? But I don’t care anymore. Your words pissed me off, manager. There’s a limit to endurance at work. Don’t cross my boundaries. When I pay my respect to my manager and colleagues at work, you too, should hold at least the basic respect to all of your team members.)
“I’d prepare the file and send it you soon, after the urgent tax computation review work.” Amy quickly added with the intention to lighten the conversation atmosphere and to end that meeting as well.
“Okay, thanks. Chat again.” Miranda replied.
(Great! The meeting ended, there and then.)
Amy only started to type her detailed job scopes on Friday, after office hour. She was working late, again, at the office.
(Finally, I have rushed out all the urgent tasks on hand. Now, I can start to work on this ‘Job Scope’ thingy.)
It took her nearly one-hour to properly list out in detailed her daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly and even ad hoc jobs. Amy rearranged and tidied up the file before sending it to Miranda.
(With this, should be enough to show her that John helps me on preparing the groundwork and data compilation; and I would be reviewing and summarizing the findings and advice accordingly to each subject matter. Our jobs are not really over-lapping as she claimed to be.)
(Was it… actually due to my way of doing things?) Amy paused a little when her monkey mind brought her this ‘find out the root cause’ topic.
(The whole tedious process of getting the work done, I would not involve her or keep her in email cc loop unless necessary. Everything that I could cope or handle at my end, I would work on it with my team and handle it to the end. Only those topics or tasks that require Miranda’s review or advice, I would then reach out to her via email. I would also notify her when the task has been completed or an outcome has been reached and/or ready to be presented to the Head Quarter.) That was Amy’s working style that she has built up through her career life, till-date.
(Was it my fault then that she can’t see my work; that she can’t see the team’s work?) Amy felt guilty if that was the root cause to this ‘Double-D’ situation.
“Alright, then I have to change my working style then since she can’t see our work… This shouldn’t be the case.” Amy murmured and her voice echo in her office.
No one else was left in the company, she was, literally, the last one that was still working on Friday evening.
‘Here you go. Please find my job scope file attached. If you think there’s new tasks that I need to take up as Finance Manager, let’s discuss again. But I don’t take your comment that I didn’t carry out my duty as Finance Manager. Perhaps, my way of doing things where I would only keep my manager in email cc loop when advice is needed, has misled your view on my work deliveries. I would keep you in most of my email cc loop, going forward. I would adjust my work plan to see how to best fit into work needs. Thank you.’
Email sent out by Amy to Miranda, at 9 p.m., on that Friday evening.
Miranda, the Head of Finance, who has taken up this post, already demonstrated her way of doing things, in just a month. Miranda never asked if there’s any jobs that Amy was backing up for the former Head of Finance. Amy has been continued working on those tasks.
(Do I have a choice?)
(The first thing she said to me during the introduction meeting via messenger was “I don’t need an Assistant.” Miranda said it loud and clear to me and that she was referring to the suggestion she received from the local director who intended to upskill Amy to be the Assistant of Miranda.)
“Let me share with you, these were my job scopes when I joined as Finance Manager; and these were the additional jobs that I had to take up when the former Head of Finance left… If you have no intension to take back any of those tasks, then I would like to request for a new headcount to assist me. This is more than a person’s job.” That blunt message that Amy voiced out to Miranda, face-to-face, through a video conference call, has successfully gotten John (Amy’s best assistant) on board. He has been supporting Amy on lots of ad hoc or urgent tasks and worked well among the team members.
(Without John’s assistance, I don’t know I have to work until what time, every day…)
Amy shut down her laptop, switched off all the lights, and left the office.
(The public bus will arrive in ten-minute…)
Amy walked towards the bus stop, under the dark sky that was decorated by the tiny blinking stars.
