Do they want me here?
There are times when I feel completely alone at work.
No support.
No power.
No nothing.
Don't get me wrong. I have a big and great team. I'd happily spend time with any of them outside work.
But at work, things are a little different.
There is always someone who doesn't want to do something.
"I don't wanna."
Fair enough.
Then someone else doesn't want to either.
And Mr Boss tells me that they don't want to.
Apparently, not wanting to do something is a perfectly valid reason for not doing it.
So I work alone.
No one really wants to do what I do, so no one does.
There are tasks that somehow belong to everyone until they need to be done.
Then, quite mysteriously, they belong to me.
Problems have a similar habit.
They travel around for a while, looking for a home, until eventually they arrive at my desk.
I'm trusted to solve them.
Which sounds nice.
Trust is a lovely thing.
Although sometimes I wonder if there is a very fine line between being trusted and simply being left to deal with things.
Mr Boss doesn't offer much support, if any.
I ask questions.
Sometimes I get answers.
Most of the time I don't.
Eventually I have to make a decision anyway, so I do what I think is right.
Nobody stops me.
Nobody particularly encourages me either.
I guess that's one way to have autonomy.
Then there are our one-to-one meetings.
Mr Boss comes late.
Sometimes very late.
Sometimes he doesn't appear at all.
I've learnt not to take it personally.
Mostly.
And the funny thing is, I keep things moving.
I solve the problems.
I make the decisions.
I figure things out.
I do the work that apparently no one else wants to do.
And most of the time, I'm pretty good at it.
But every now and then I look around and wonder what would happen if I stopped.
Would anyone notice?
Would someone pick things up?
Would someone ask where I went?
It makes me wonder.
Do they want me here?
Or have they simply got used to me being here?
There is a difference.
Well.
Someday.
I'll be found.
✨☕🩷