Blue chip and bored

["Geoff Hart (by way of \"Eric J. Ray\" <ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com>)" <ght -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>]

Anonymous has been <<...working at a blue chip company on a Web
team... for almost 2 months.  I'm making great money but am bored to
death because nobody gives me assignments (even when I tell people
I'm bored and available and need work to do).>>

I had exactly the same problem in my first job, at IBM. They hired
me, then brought me in right between projects. So instead of doing
what I'd been hired to do, I played gopher for everyone else. I spent
the first week reading the manuals for all the software we were using
and getting up to speed. When I was done and no work had
materialized, I went door to door until I found someone who was
overwhelmed with work and offered to help. Within a week, I was doing
editing and fact-checking, such as chasing after the SMEs. (In fact,
I liked it so much that it's what I now do for a living.) I made
myself so useful to that first person that everyone else started
dumping their excess work on me; within a few weeks, I was fully up
to speed on the project, and had ingratiated myself to all my
colleagues.

To me, it sounds like your real problem is that you're simply not
communicating well with the rest of the team. Solution? Sit down with
some of your colleagues or your manager over lunch, and ask them to
tell you what's going on. Buy someone lunch, if necessary; you
shouldn't have to go that far, but if the communication is that bad,
it'll be a great investment in figuring out what's going on. I'd also
take a long, hard look at just why you've been there for 2 months and
still haven't established the kind of working relationship with your
colleagues that will let you just sit down and ask them what's going
on. You may just be too shy to establish the relationships,
or maybe you need to bathe more often... I've got no idea
what's really going on, but something's rotten in Denmark, and it's
not the cheese.

<<We have these weekly meetings that I go to and I am clueless
throughout the entire meeting because nobody ever clued me in on the
ongoing project that is the discussion of the meetings.>>

Been there, done that. First meeting at IBM, right after reading
the section of the manual that said "no acronyms", I was buried in
more acronyms than you can shake a stick at. I was so far out
of the loop that the meeting was a complete waste of time for me.
How did I solve it? I held up my hand rather boldly and said "I'm
sorry, I'm new here... could you explain that?" If that won't
work, two other suggestions: First, you may be lucky enough to obtain
a functional requirements document (or some other design document) if
you ask your manager really nicely. Even if no such beast exists,
somebody somewhere has to have the original set of memos that
launched the project, unless you're living in a Dilbertesque
nightmare. (If that's the case, run, don't walk, for the door.)
Again, this comes down to communication: Ask yourself why they
haven't provided this information to you already... then ask for it.
Second suggestion: If it's a Web project, fire up your Web browser,
load the files, and do some reading. If you still can't figure out
what the project is about, you're in some kind of trouble. See my
previous comments re. taking someone to lunch.

<<I ask for work and I get bits and pieces at a time.  I work slowly
to make that little bit of work last because I know its gonna be a
while before I get anymore.>>

If you're really that underemployed, there's a good chance that
you're going to suddenly find yourself out of work when the budget
people realize that they're paying you for nothing. I'd suggest
creating your own work to add value to the team. For example, if you
can't create anything yourself (logical, given that you don't know
what you're supposed to be creating), spend your days editing the
existing text (another good way to learn what you're supposed to be
doing), checking hypertext links, confirming the legibility of the
pages, etc. etc. etc. If something looks wrong, make sure someone
else knows it... and fixes it. Document all this (i.e., deliver your
reports verbally, but leave a printed copy on file with the person).
This serves two functions: you get to establish personal contacts
with your colleagues, and you've got a paper trail to prove you've
been doing something useful.

Final advice: Get talking to people and find out what's going on.
--Geoff Hart @8^{)}
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca

"Microsoft Word: It grows on you... but with a little fungicide,
you'll be feeling much better real soon now!"--GH


 From ??? -at- ??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000=