Avoiding Work Creep - The Details

Those of you who have been reading my blog may have already read my entry on Work Creep.  Here, I continue the topic with some specific suggestions that have worked for me in cutting the creep out of my day.

1) IF YOU DO WORK on the weekend or late at night, let your boss know what you're working on and let those who asked you to do the work (even if it is your boss) know that you took your personal time to do the work and you didn't get to do something else instead.  For example, if you weren't able to attend your best friend's baby shower, let those folks know what you missed out on in order to help them.

2) PITCH ITERATIVE DELIVERABLES - the word iterative means to repeat and a deliverable is an end-product you provide to your customer.  This is the divide and conquer technique.  If you are a mechanic, you deliver repairs, if you are a hair-stylist, you deliver beauty treatments.  If you are an IT worker, you probably already know that your deliverables can be an email, a file, or a whole chain of tasks.  Why not bargain to break up what is due and when it is due for you?  You may be surprised by the results of this conversation if you just try it.

3) TAKE A NUMBER - Most workplaces have a way to number requests in the order they are received, or at least they have an appointment system.  If you have both where you work, make full use of them both.  Don't let people do "drive-by's" for immediate assistance.  I learned this by working with our Tech Support department at work.  IT tech support is usually organized in tiers 1,2,3... and so on.  When the guys on the first tier are unable to solve an issue on their own, they are NOT ALLOWED to walk over to their buddies in tier 2 for a life-line.  Why?  Because the company makes more money when they escalate to the higher tier.  Why would you let someone else do that to you without paying you more money?

4) REPORT YOUR TIME - Some people are surprised when they see the work they do in a statistical format.  For example the free application Manic Time runs in the background of your Windows session and keeps track of the applications, documents, and away time on  your laptop, if that's how you work.  Other applications like Harvest for the iPhone can be used by folks like home contractors to record their time on the job.

5) PAY UP - When I owned my own maid service in Dallas, TX, I was faced with a seemingly insurmountable problem.  I had to find a nice way to tell clients with seriously dirty places that I just didn't have the man power for their mess.  I asked my maternal grandmother what she did as a seamstress the past 30 years when she faced a customer in her small-town shop that she just didn't want to help.  Think about it...if my grandma was rude to a customer, the whole town would know about it in a day or two.  She said simply price your service out of their reach.  If it is at all possible for you to increase your bill rate some how, then do so.

6) CURRENT RESPONSE TIME IS - It helps to give your customers as much information as possible, even if it is bad information.  The reason why is that folks get frustrated when they are left baffled because they are unable to make a decision about what to do with their time.  Your customers may also have others' deadlines waiting on their success.  If anything, if your response time is a week or more, it tells others that you are genuinely busy and they will have to wait.

Avoiding Work Creep - The Basics

Those of you who have been reading my blog may have already read my entry on Creeps at Work, but this entry is about the opposite...when work creeps into your private time.  It's a growing problem these days, no matter what field you work in.  Managers are trying to do more with less, and the more blood (work) they can squeeze out of the turnip (you), then the more they will keep squeezing.  Rest assured there is no shortage of work to go around these days.

I made up the term "Work Creep" after becoming familiar with a Software Development Life Cycle term called Scope Creep.  For those of you who do not know, scope changes can make a software design project larger or smaller.  Scope changes can affect the timeline of the project and the cost of the project.  These changes in scope are more commonly referred by the term scope creep.  In the same way, work creep can be thought of as something similar.  Work creep can make your workload smaller or larger, without any increase in pay or decrease in days off from work. Work creep can affect the timeline of your own personal life as in, your bed time, meal times, but in the end, it affects how much work you are responsible for at your office at the end of the day.

As babies, we cry when we don't get our basic needs: sleep, food, potty and shelter.  As humans, we don't outgrow these needs.  We have an instinct to cry for these things as a child because not to do so would put us at an evolutionary disadvantage to survive.  As adults, you still need the same things, but I wouldn't try crying about it.  Instead I have a few other suggestions.

After spending nearly 10 years at one job, I've learned to practice a number of tactics to keep the work from infiltrating my personal time without being looked upon as a "passer of the buck".  Often my tactics work.  I'd like to share with you what I've learned.

1) Practice saying, "No," BUT always spin your decision to avoid work after hours in a way that benefits the company.  Nobody needs to know your personal business, but I’d be willing to bet if you dig in to what’s being asked of you, you’ll find out someone else forgot to do something in time. For example, your boss asks you to work after-hours to complete a report at the last minute.  Perhaps you could find out exactly what information she needs from the report and provide that component during business hours, then complete the rest of the report the next day?  I think you’ll be surprised how willing people will be to work with you if you just find out what they really need.

2) Don't make yourself easily available for work after hours.  Think about the guy on Office Space who tries to sneak out of the office on Friday afternoon.  I mean, you probably don't want to make it THAT obvious, but DO make it more work for someone to ASK you to do extra work than it takes to actually get the work done.  If you have a calendar that others can view your Free/Busy data from, then require folks to schedule time with you.  If they ask why, just remind them that that is the best way to make sure you can address their concern.

4) SET BOUNDARIES - this goes for personal as well as work life.  If you don't know what your boundary issues are, you should really stop and think about how much personal processing space and down time you need to take care of your life and those you love and NOT the other way around.  Don't regularly agree to do work inside your boundary space.  Others are going to take the lead from what you say YES to.  If  you find yourself saying, “No, it’s OK,” a lot then that’s a red flag that it is probably not.

Me, really? You *really* want my opinion on the food here?

Got this email today....

"You’ve been randomly selected to participate in a research project involving the café service and offerings at your company.  We are interested in your feedback about your usage of the café, attitudes and your dining habits at work.

Please complete the survey regardless of how frequently you use the onsite café. Because a limited number of employees are receiving this survey, your response is very important. Our food service partner is leading this study in partnership with us. The survey will only take about 8 minutes to complete.  Please respond by ..."


If it is at all possible to laugh an evil laugh in a joyful way, I did it when I read this email.  Although, I'm pretty sure my responses will get tossed out as outliers, ever hopeful, I went at the survey with a critical capability only surpassed by my friend, Jayme Von Cupcake, on her blog, The Confection Confessions...


Here were my main praises about our company café:

1. My girl Miss V.  She's the best cook ever because she puts up with me.
2. Baked desserts are made from scratch and quite good.  You get cream cheese frosting instead of cheap whipping.  Cookies taste like home made.
3. Fresh baked breads are always good.
4. Freshly-made seasoned potato chips are to-die-for
5. Availability of fresh take away snacks, premium soft drinks, coffees, and teas
6. Availability of healthy snacks, including lower fat and carb alternatives

Now here's where I let them have it...

1. Provide basic government nutritional information for your food.  
2. Pay attention to your to-go items. I have gotten one of your over-priced spoiled drinks in the refrigerated case more than twice.
3. STOP putting PORK in the vegetables and soup.  Have you noticed how many people are from India and the Middle East that work here?  Have you noticed how overweight some of the locals are that work here?  It's a bad idea and I think it sucks.
4. Do you really have to make a soup every day that either uses meat stock or a cream base?  They're really greasy.  I bet everyone would enjoy a nice vegetable or tomato soup once in a bit.  It would be a healthier soup choice.
5. Offer low-fat sour cream and cheese.  I know you can because you offer low-fat salad dressing and mayo.
6. Offer low-fat breakfast items that aren't loaded with sugar
7. Keep to-go portion of the cafe open til at least 5pm.  It's not fair to keep an ice cream freezer in that gets locked at 1:30