The Wisdom of Teams

I’m on a blogging marathon tonight. LOL.

Anyway, so I’ve been promoted at work… again. From Special Payments Analyst, I become one of 4 Benefits Processing Team Coordinators, a semi-experimental blend of quality control and unofficial junior management roles. This is my second move up in about seven months. The main downside is that I no longer have anywhere to go except into management itself. I knew that if I took the job that I would lose my current work involving QDROs, but it turned out may have happened either with or without the promotion.

In the back of my mind, I was also concerned that my age and relative inexperience (I hit 3 years at the Funds in 10 days) would be a problem. Fortunately, two of the newest employees in the department also were given these promotions – so the resentment is focused on those two. Especially poor, well-meaning John – he’s been here two months and is even younger than I am, and he is going to be coordinating work of people who have been at the Funds longer than he’s been alive.

Some of my employees are filing grievances (and as grievance chairman I’d oversee the dealings with management on them) regarding the tests for these new positions. The department saw all 4 of its clerks, who were supposed to be promoted to assistant processors, being laid-off or chosing to be laid-off because of the tests. And of 4 EQC specialists they hopes would just slide into these coordinator roles, only 1 actually will.

There’s a lot of fireworks going off in my department right now. A coworker described our ordeal as watching the Titanic crash as the captain fiddles with chairs on the deck.

But on the plus side, most of us are getting a second, large monitor to put on our desk as the department tries to move to using the PDF image of a document instead of paper files. Maybe this will help, but I just saw the iceberg…