What the CIO Wants You to Know (Part II)

Do you feel like you're two phone calls and service request away from dropping all the balls you've been juggling...and then tripping over them as you try to raise a white flag of surrender? In this installment, the CIO responds to one of the most common and troubling aspects of our jobs in the IT business...

A coworker described the feeling of being overwhelmed by work with what we've come to refer to as The Frosty Analogy. [The "frosty" in question is a frozen, chocolate concoction sold by the fast food restaurant, Wendy’s. It's thicker than a milkshake and simply cannot be consumed with a straw unless you have powerful sucking-action and let it melt some first.]

The analogy goes something like this:

"You think you’re drinking tea from a cup with a straw…until you realize it's getting thicker, like a frosty, and no matter how hard you suck, you can't get any through the straw." Translation: The substance in the cup is work. When it comes in at a reasonable pace, it's manageable enough and can be processed with a straw. When there is too much of it, it's overwhelming and your efforts seem in vain.

What did the CIO have to say?

"When a straw won't work anymore, maybe it's time to look in the cup to see what's making it so thick, or to put a lid on the cup for a while. We shouldn't stew in our frustrations, but should ask "Why, why, why," and talk about it, seeking help and guidance."

"Don't you think some people in the IT business are just too proud to say, 'I can't do it all'?" I asked. "Maybe they think they *should* be able to do it all, or it's expected, or they wouldn't have been asked to do it if had been impossible. They may even think that their next promotion is dependent on being able to handle everything thrown their way."

"Could be," he said, "but I don't have that expectation. What I do expect is for the staff to ask for help...not wait so long that the problem exacerbates and we've frustrated our clients as well as our staff. Some of us have worked in environments where the expectation in IT was to work 50-80 hour weeks to get the job done, no matter what. You can sprint like that to get through a short crisis but you can't run long distance at that pace."

Still, we often believe if we just work harder, focus more, organize, and prioritize, we can some how 'catch up'. But the CIO said this:

"There will always be more work than you can do. Pace yourself."

He also reminded us that there is a positive spin on having more work than you can do: (1) It means our services are in demand and that may translate into job security. (2) If we track the quantity of work we're being asked to do, we may be able to use the extra volume as justification for additional head counts.

If we find ourselves working for a CIO who doesn't listen and demands sustained overtime to meet the high workload, we may discover he's sending us a valuable message after all: look for another job. But first we should make sure that we've communicated with management and aren't nurturing an imagined, self-imposed standard.