Or should I just shut up at work?

[TalkLessSmileMorePlease]

I know that women are always told to be bold but I'm worrying that I'm annoying people. I've always been on to speak out, I guess it's my personality, I'm not loud but I find it hard to hide how I feel. When I was at primary school I tried to get a campaign going to ban meat in the cafeteria (this was the early 90's) and I started writing to my MP about overfishing when I was 11. I know, I sound exhausting.
I've been in my job about three years. I have no managerial responsibilities. I love where I work and what I do but there's loads of systems that just don't work well. I write emails to the management probably once a month or less. I speak out at team meetings. If others mention their concerns to me I sometimes raise it to someone but I never mention names. I do this because women (in admin especially) don't seem to like to being 'a bother.'
The way I see it I feel so passionately about wanting to find a solution that I can't not speak out. I get so frustrated with everyone moaning about things and never looking at solutions! Do they want a solution or do they just want something to moan about?
The downside is I always feel like the mouthy one. The mangers barely conceal their frustration when sending the 'this is just the way it is' emails. I then get frustrated because they're not the ones working with the shit, outdated systems. They don't understand the reality. I make it clear that I don't think I know it all or know better but I ask them if there are alternatives we can look into.
My direct line manager is supportive and tells me to keep raising stuff. However if everyone has issues with something and I raise it and no one backs me up or even speaks in team meetings, I look like an idiot. Sometimes I feel like some colleagues who do the bare minimum and regularly do less than me are actually more respected than me because they don't cause trouble.
I wish I wasn't like this and I could just file my nails and dream about what I was having for tea but I can't help it. Sorry I usually write more eloquently but this is rushed during a lunch break.

@TalkLessSmileMorePlease

Also I stand by my vegan primary school idea. There are specialist behavioural schools in the US that have seen a remarkable change in dissocial and challenging behaviour since making the change to plant based meals. I would like to hear some of your ideas at 10 and judge you on it now. I was 10!

I find it unusual that you mention it on here though. I write to my MP at that age, made posters, spoke to teachers etc about a local issue. I have only just remembered as this prompted me! I think you need to go further in your career and get in a place to make changes or accept that you can make suggestions but ultimately you haven’t got the power to make changes. Want to make changes then go into management but take on the boring, uninspiring side as well! We can all have ideas but you need to get into a position where you can do something about them.

@greatauntfanny already replied down thread hinny. It would be no different to the other spreadsheets we use to collate patient information in a safe way. The line manger said it was a great idea but as there were no other complaints about the current system it won't be implemented. So I'm leaving that one there.

Op, reading hour posts, it sounds like you think you know better than the managers, and that there is a resentment there that you feel. That you’re in a low level job and they aren’t, but you have this wealth of experience that they don’t respect of acknowledge. So you’re constantly striving to show this ability level. By pointing out how to do things better, or what’s wrong.

Yet, like the vegetarian school thought, you’ve not moved passed that self focused, slightly immature mindset that you are fundamentally wrong and your idea is unusable or poor.

@Breakingplaid I feel that way too. I'm not reassessing my personality nor what I feel I was put on this Earth to do. As John Candy said in Trains, Planes, ' I like me.'
I posted to enquire if I should change my approach at work. By the responses it seems I should. People find me annoying. I get it, I feel the eye rolls, I know the group chat ain't the only group chat.
Anyway it's a beautiful Friday and I'm off to Zumba in the sun.
Thanks for your responses all.

@Bluntness100 so immature not wanting to slaughter thousands of animals, god how embarrassing was I?

[quote TalkLessSmileMorePlease]@Bluntness100 so immature not wanting to slaughter thousands of animals, god how embarrassing was I?[/quote]
Is this how you react at work? Can you really not see the bigger picture, still as an adult, in terms of making young children vegetarian. Young children whose only meal may be the school one. About their parents beliefs, about their dietary requirements, can you really still not see it?

Because if this is how you behave at work, doggedly determined you’re right and you know best, then I would say your manager has the patience of a saint.

I’m a senior manager in a very large organisation. A few points:

• if you’re trying to be a change agent the absolute last idea for a change anyone wants to hear is, ‘let’s fill in this spreadsheet’! If you want to propose ideas for change you need to identify small win-wins for everyone, preferably that involve removing an onerous task from their list rather than adding one on. And it doesn’t matter if you see the spreadsheet as less onerous than calling if everyone else says they don’t.

• it sounds like your approach to personal development isn’t really very insightful. You assessed yourself as ‘annoying people’ and said that your seniors ‘barely conceal their frustration’ when responding to your ideas but then you became quite defensive and hostile when posters agreed that it sounds like you need to change your approach. It will also get people’s backs up if you believe that the reason they’re not lapping up your ideas is because you’re ‘too passionate’ if they see you as more ‘unboundaried and unable to see the big picture’.

• you generally sound quite disrespectful of your colleagues and both them and your manager will pick up on that and not appreciate it. There really is nothing worse than a team member (especially someone who isn’t a manager) clockwatching others.

[quote TalkLessSmileMorePlease]@Bluntness100 so immature not wanting to slaughter thousands of animals, god how embarrassing was I?[/quote]
No, immature to think your way is the only way, and the fact that you think that you have the right to inflict your views on everyone else.

Do you always react like that when people disagree with you?

God, what a depressing thread.

Keep your head below the parapet, don’t rock the boat, never try to change things or you will be sacked, you sound really irritating etc etc. Be quiet and know your place.

I think you sound fab. If you were an accountant I’d offer you a job. I’ve got loads of complicated problems to solve at my current employer, all related to inefficient working practices. Most businesses are crying out for problem solvers rather than people who sit around blindly following processes without asking why.

BTW, for everyone criticising the OP for her no meat campaign in the school canteen. She was ten years old. Ten! How would you react if your own ten year old started a campaign in school? I can guess. With great enthusiasm and boasting about how switched on your kid is even if you didn’t agree with the cause.

Depends what the problems you are flagging up are, but yes you do sound exhausting.

BTW, for everyone criticising the OP for her no meat campaign in the school canteen. She was ten years old. Ten! How would you react if your own ten year old started a campaign in school? I can guess. With great enthusiasm and boasting about how switched on your kid is even if you didn’t agree with the cause.

But she's not 10 anymore, and still thinks it's a good idea and would advocate for it today.

And no, I wouldn't support my 10yo if they had an idea like that. I would explain to them that some people like eating meat, and that it's not okay to force our beliefs on other people like that.

BTW, for everyone criticising the OP for her no meat campaign in the school canteen. She was ten years old. Ten! How would you react if your own ten year old started a campaign in school? I can guess. With great enthusiasm and boasting about how switched on your kid is even if you didn’t agree with the cause.

I can honestly say if my 10 year old started campaigning in school to have meat banned in the cafeteria I would tell them to wind their neck in and stop trying to dictate how other people eat.

Be one self-employed! No more tolerating other people’s BS!

Definitely look into becoming a union rep, I was thinking of suggesting that.
Unfortunately though you do come across very negatively, difficult to deal with and a bit bitter about the whole vegetarian thing. You say passionate others see bitter. Surely you can respect that everyone has the right to make a choice even if they dare disagree with yours.

@Iminaglasscaseofemotion

BTW, for everyone criticising the OP for her no meat campaign in the school canteen. She was ten years old. Ten! How would you react if your own ten year old started a campaign in school? I can guess. With great enthusiasm and boasting about how switched on your kid is even if you didn’t agree with the cause.

I can honestly say if my 10 year old started campaigning in school to have meat banned in the cafeteria I would tell them to wind their neck in and stop trying to dictate how other people eat.

Yep, same.

I would like to hear some of your ideas at 10 and judge you on it now. I was 10!

I'm pretty sure they didn't involve prescribing what others should be doing.

I don't think you having ideas or passionate beliefs is what people are picking on here, rather the way you seem to go about pushing for them. It gets people's backs up and makes them less likely to do, what you want! There's nothing wrong with that if you're if you're happy with it. Like you said, you like yourself - and so you should, but you did ask the question and people will give their opinions.

How would you react if your own ten year old started a campaign in school? I can guess. With great enthusiasm and boasting about how switched on your kid is even if you didn’t agree with the cause

Would you expect your adult child to still be boasting about what they did when they were 10 though?!

I'm sorry OP, but you DO sound exhausting.

I completely understand where you're coming from as I too feel much the same way when I see things being done badly or inefficiently. However, you're paid to do a job and not trouble shoot. Read the room - you've raised things previously, they ignore you, but yet you do it repeatedly month in, month out. Take the hint!

You're trying to be helpful, I see that, but instead you'll be coming across to them as a massive PITA. Just do what they pay you to do - you're in a great position with that if you love what you do - and stop trying to fix things. You're doing yourself no favours in the long run if you are raising issues with management every month.

Where is your union, why aren't you shop steward

*God, what a depressing thread.

Keep your head below the parapet, don’t rock the boat, never try to change things or you will be sacked, you sound really irritating etc etc. Be quiet and know your place.

I think you sound fab. If you were an accountant I’d offer you a job. I’ve got loads of complicated problems to solve at my current employer, all related to inefficient working practices. Most businesses are crying out for problem solvers rather than people who sit around blindly following processes without asking why.*

THIS ^
I am like you op, even in a Saturday job l wanted to do the best job in the shortest possible time and make things as efficient as possible, not many people are like this l find.
Hence l have been successfully self-employed most of my working life, the sheer frustration of a jobsworth culture drove me insane and l soon realised that l am not suited to most organisations.

Find your business idea op and you will fly.

[quote TalkLessSmileMorePlease]@CSIblonde we work with spreadsheets all the time and are all in the same company so I don't see why it couldn't be kept on the shared drive with all the others? The managers suggestion of 'call eachother to see who has done it' seems bonkers compared to having a spreadsheet to check who has done it? This also saves emails and phone calls between two part time admin.
Not nhs private btw.[/quote]
The thing that immediately strikes me is that you ought to have a proper IT system for this. People misusing spreadsheets for stuff like this is the thing that annoys me!
People setting up yet another shared spreadsheet for something that shouldn't even be in a spreadsheet in the first place is my pet hate.
Spreadsheets aren't a substitute for a proper system and they shouldn't be being used as if they are.

[quote TalkLessSmileMorePlease]@greatauntfanny already replied down thread hinny. It would be no different to the other spreadsheets we use to collate patient information in a safe way. The line manger said it was a great idea but as there were no other complaints about the current system it won't be implemented. So I'm leaving that one there.[/quote]
You said it would be the same as all the other shared spreadsheets.

It wouldn’t be the same, because it’s a different sheet, containing different data, used to meet a different business requirement.

To move from a system based on notification by phone calls to one using a spreadsheet is a change of business process. I agree with you that it does sound sensible to have all the information in one place where it can be referenced by anyone who requires it than having to make a phone call each time.

That said, there’s still so much information missing here. Firstly, are other members of staff are happy with the current system? How much time ie resource (in hours) would your system save? End to end, how would it work? Would staff have to maintain more or less data than they do now? How would you protect the spreadsheet (for GDPR purposes)? What is the process for granting access? Read only access or write access? So many questions.

I’m not saying it wasn’t a good idea, I’m just not convinced yet it wasn’t half baked.

If you are passionate about process improvement and you work somewhere where everyone is stuck in their ways, the sensible course of action is to move towards a change of career. And try not call people ‘hinny’.

@Iamthewombat

God, what a depressing thread.

Keep your head below the parapet, don’t rock the boat, never try to change things or you will be sacked, you sound really irritating etc etc. Be quiet and know your place.

I think you sound fab. If you were an accountant I’d offer you a job. I’ve got loads of complicated problems to solve at my current employer, all related to inefficient working practices. Most businesses are crying out for problem solvers rather than people who sit around blindly following processes without asking why.

BTW, for everyone criticising the OP for her no meat campaign in the school canteen. She was ten years old. Ten! How would you react if your own ten year old started a campaign in school? I can guess. With great enthusiasm and boasting about how switched on your kid is even if you didn’t agree with the cause.

Nailed it.

I know people find me irritating sometimes and I often look at others and wonder how they can be so determined to preserve the status quo rather than make an effort to improve life. I suppose it’s just different personality types.
But, the pita people get important things done. Like abolishing slavery, like votes for women, like legalising homosexuality, the list goes on and on. The world is a far, far better place for people who speak up and say “we can make this better”. We shouldn’t be afraid to rock the boat. Some boats need rocking.

Some boats absolutely need rocking, I agree. But if the OP is rocking different boats every 3/4 weeks, people will stop taking any notice.

I don't think she should just keep her head down and know her place at all. I just think she will have more impact if she chooses her battles more wisely.