Oppressed

I am feeling very oppressed. Crushed by the authority... I love where I work for many reasons. I worked hard to get the job I have and I enjoy what I do. No, I love what I do. I have worked for 9 years doing it.

I love it so much that I have worked far more than the 40 hours a week that I was paid to work when I was full-time. In the first 5 years (before kids), I worked at least 20 extra hours a week. Every week. Since kids, I only work 1/2 time, but I probably work an extra 3-5 hours a week more than I'm paid.

Today, a colleague and I went to talk to someone about a new idea we have been working on for the last few months on our own time that we've been hoping to turn into a project. The person we discussed it with doesn't know how to make it fit where we work. It could fit. I know it could.

My colleague and I haven't ever led projects by ourselves in this organization. I have a lot of experience doing a lot of things, but I haven't done what is needed to take this new idea to the level of a project. That's why we went to this person (aka big authority person). So we could get some help from our organization. The big authority person we went to said something that angered me so much that I burst into tears.

The big authority person said that we (us and our organization) didn't have the qualifications to do the project we want to do. The big authority person also compared us to someone in the organization who lacks a lot of substance, but has been very successful. (This made me very mad.)

This successful person is successful because she doesn't take no for an answer and because she complains a lot. She is also successful because she works all the time on her own agenda. She is married but doesn't have children so she has a lot more time than my colleague and me. (I actually have grown to like this successful person and I now enjoy working with her. Last year I was ready to strangle her, but that's another story.)

I'm annoyed that I cried, but most of it was just frustration that I have put so much in to this organization (see first two paragraphs) to make the projects I work on successful and now I feel as if there isn't a mechanism to help me do what I want to do. (Part of the crying was that I was just exhausted.)

If my colleague's and my idea wasn't so new and novel, it would be easier to promote, but it is in a very different area than we typical work in, but it is related. Another one of the authority figures in our organization might have been more encouraging, though in reality, we probably still wouldn't have the official blessing.

The other frustrating thing today was that big authority person hadn't actually read our 5 pages that we'd written about our idea. She'd skimmed it. Thank you for making our work (that we've done on our OWN time) feel important and valuable. (That was sarcasm in case you couldn't tell.)

The other thing was that thebig authority person didn't give any credit to the qualifications that my colleague and I do have. We both have degrees in a very relevant area. (But people want to see the work you've done and not just the degrees you have.)

So what's next? Well, my colleague and I are going to keep working on our own time on this project and idea on our own time. We're going to "network, network, network" to make contacts with people who might be on our team and try to "think out of the box" to create new partnerships to make this project happen. It will be a lot of work on our own and then the place we work will get the glory of another new project.

The authority figures at our organization have to be strategic and they do a good job of that, but I wish there was more of a mechanism for risk taking and new ideas to get supported. Especially to help people grow. But there isn't.

I also really wished I hadn't cried like a big baby.

I feel confident that we will make something happen if we want to do it. In a way, this process that makes it so difficult to do new things weeds out projects that people only have slight interests in...

You have to really be committed to an idea to make it happen. If it's a project related to work we're already doing, you can see how it's not as necessary to make people jump through as many hoops... But if it's a new project that is unrelated to our core business (at a strategic level) you can see why it's important to make sure that the people involved are actually willing to put their money where their mouth is... However, it doesn't seem fair to not have any way to support* people financially for people who want to develop new ideas.

(*There's a teeny tiny bit of support, but not a lot. When all is said and done, I can get paid about 1 hour a week on average to think and work on this new idea. That's not much at all and if I only work 1 hour per week on this project, NOTHING WILL EVER HAPPEN.)