To be fed up of having to justify my existence??

[CurlyRover]

My line manager is obsessed with matrix, timings and justifying mine and his existence. We're a small team, there's me him and his manager. He expects me to document every single minute of my day and work out what percentage of my time I'm working on what. No other team in the company works that way, they just get on with whatever job they've been given. We see the owner of the company regularly and he doesn't care about justifying ourselves. If he can see the job is being done he's happy.

I can't work this way. It stresses me out so much! Every morning he asks me for percentages and it's draining and stressful. We have a daily meeting where I have to tell him exactly what I've done the day before and how long it took to do each task.

AIBU to think this is too much and to be fed up of having to justify my existence when nobody else has to?

I used to have to do this too so I just made it up. Took me five minutes a day to fill in some fake figures. Kept them happy.

We have to do this once a year (public sector). I just make up the numbers, as does everyone else. I know roughly what percentage of my time I spend on the different elements of my job so I divide it up by that.

Two words for your manager op - Fuck That.

Hasn't he heard of autonomy?

Sorry, I'd be heading straight to his manager about this. If there is genuinely no requirement then it's a massive waste of time. Fuck that.

Ask him to see the break/down of how he spends his time!!

This should be taking 5 mins - 10 mins max every day. I used to have to do it (and hated it), but no way should it take 1 hr per day!

Apparently it's not enough to say I spent x amount of time updating the spreadsheet you asked me to do and y amount of time updating the document you asked for. He wants to know how long each individual row of the spreadsheet took, how long each individual section of the document took.

Jesus Christ, is he on glue?! Seriously, that’s ridiculous. If he really asked that, l would honestly laugh in his face from sheer surprise. That’s completely stupid, pointless, time wasting.

I had similar from an old headteacher where I had to write exactly how long i spent completing certain tasks. For the whole department! Took me longer to complete than it did to do certain tasks.

You’re being micromanaged unnecessarily. Telling you you’re not stressed is extremely poor management. Can you let the boss know without it causing a huge fall out?

I had a manager like this last year a colleague made a nifty excel tool that had a preset list of activities and a timer, I'd pick the activity from the drop down, click strtart, do the activity and click stop. It recorded it all in a list on a different tab then had a summary page.

Hated doing it but I was very impressed with the spreadsheet

I'd ask for a copy of the company policy which states that this is a requirement. I'd also send a carefully worded email to explain how this is impacting you -start a paper trail.

Apparently it's not enough to say I spent x amount of time updating the spreadsheet you asked me to do and y amount of time updating the document you asked for. He wants to know how long each individual row of the spreadsheet took, how long each individual section of the document took.

Um.. what? God I would laugh

This reminds me of the time the Kohner (sp) report resulted in us having to do this in the NHS (late 80s). We had to account for our time in 5 minute increments (for absolutely no good reason). I quickly realised no-one was ever going to read these endless sheets of shite, so I did like heron98 and made them up every single day. Took me 10 minutes max. Everyone else wasted up to an hour on them. So far as I know, nothing was ever done with that information, so that's similar to your situation now. Don't get stressed, treat it with the derision it deserves.

I have had to complete similar daily matrix whilst in different jobs

When the workload increased, we stopped completing the matrix

The stats can be used to merge departments/work load or prove that more or less staff are required

I agree that it is time wasting. The detail that your boss is asking for seems completely irrelevant !

I've taken to detailing it as much as possible in the hope that it makes the point that it's a bloody waste of time!

He asked if I wanted to speak to HR and I said no (as they're completely useless). I told him I've arranged a meeting with a senior manager as I can't work like this and he got really pissy with me and stormed off.

In all fairness, surely I have the right to speak to somebody higher up if he's clearly not listening? I'm not BU for that am I?

They need one of those systems that pops up on your screen every three minutes so you can record what you are doing at that exact moment. Otherwise it's not going to be correct or efficient. It is very normal in many fields though, esp anything where a client is being billed. To be fair, he's not employing you for his own amusement, you are there to do a job.

I like toggl as a time-tracking app (I do it purely as a way of motivating myself and managing my work, as I'm entirely self-directed) - but with your latest update I don't think any software will help this! What he's asking for is ridiculous and will literally take you as long as the work does. You need to speak to someone more senior. Who will laugh, but then hopefully sort it!

Kit currently I'm recording when I start the task and when I finish the task and then work out the number of minutes/ hours from there. We don't have clients that are billed for my time. We bill clients for time on R&D projects (of which I am not part of) and then we bill the client per litre of material they buy from us - which is a fixed price per product.

I really hope senior management can sort it out Margaret. I've arranged a meeting (much to my managers disapproval) so hopefully it'll get sorted soon. If not I'll be more focused on the job hunt - outside working hours of course.

Lif is too short to do this for no reason.... (people who bill by minute increments excepted!)

Do you enjoy your job/is it well paid?

Unless the answer to one or both is a YES...

Why not look for alternatives??

minute by minute breakdown of how long each spreadsheet line takes!!?

This can't actually be useful information, so i can only think that he might be trying to demonstrate to the big boss that you're wasting time? (Which I'm sure you're not!) do you think he might want to get rid of you / reassign you?

Well she's wasting time having to document it all! Though obv not her fault.

I've had to do similar when my job was being part funded by several projects, but I could see the justification for that. This just sounds like he's either a micromanaging arse, or used to a similar environment and doesn't get the difference.

I don't think he does Jafinar especially as he says 30 mins for one type of task that I can do in 10 mins and others he says should take a day and I'm getting done in 2-3 hours.

Arch I do think he's just a micromanaging arse.

Iam yes I'm looking for alternatives. Thing is if he wasn't a micromanaging arse I'd really enjoy my job

Embarrassingly I have a gastro problem and spent the last half hour stuck on the loo. What on earth do I write on my time sheet?!

Curly I once bled through my dress (period started without me realising at first) then had to spend 30 mins into loo washing it out then going hell bent with the air dryer machine to get it dry

I had a meeting with my manager shortly afterwards and I felt nervous when I got up from my chair as I wondered if there was a wet patch and stood up then looked fixedly at my chair. I vaguely noticed her getting worried about my fixation with the chair out of the corner of my eye.

Hate time logs like that, just give a rough approximation.

Print all your time sheets and log the time spent on the time sheets

Then highlight the time taken to input time sheets and set up a spreadsheet - also include time taken to speak to manager about timesheet plus meeting with senior manage about timesheets

Can you lump it under admin or break or something? Or say you were working on the pie charts to break down the time you spend on work vs appeasing the micromanaging arse? Though there's probably a more tactful way to phrase that...

My guess is he doesn't know what he's doing and is instead hiding behind copious excel documents and micromanagement stats.

As opposed to setting priorities, tasks and motivating staff.

But what is he planning to do with all this information?! It really doesn’t sound necessary or sound as if it has or adds value to your role (or his).