Monday tiff

It’s work week on the Entry Level Female this week. I have to get to bed relatively early because I’m heading into my annual review tomorrow morning, but I managed to start the week off on the wrong foot by engaging with one of my coworkers in what can only be described as an office fight of the worst kind: misunderstanding coupled with lack of ownership tangled with irresponsibility. In the end, probably neither of us were 100% at fault, though I’d like to think I was in the minority!

What I can learn from my Monday tiff is that part of my job is filling in for other people and making sure that, at the end of the day, that everything is taken care of. But while stepping into other people’s shoes my be part of my job description, certainly covering for someone while he refuses to do work on a project so clearly in his domain is not.

Where can we draw the line as lower level employees therefore at what we will and will not do? I know that we should be happy to have jobs, and eager to move up in the world, but how many dues should I be paying? I do think that when I stepped in to handle the remnants of the Monday tiff project and managed to get it back on track and out the door in time (of course to end up having its presentation postponed- imagine that!), that I was the only one who cared about the project at the end of the day, and the leader of the project should care too!

All this being said, tomorrow in my review there are certainly many things to discuss, not the least of which is what my true responsibilities are in my position and to what extent other people are allowed to take advantage of my responsibility and use it to compensate for their lack of exertion. Everyone at every level of every company should be working hard to make it through these tough times; leaving things to other people will only leave you out in the cold.