To hate collaborating with colleagues

[Elle989898]

Is this normal?! I have a good office job in an interesting, competitive industry. I always told myself that as I climbed the ranks I would get more control over my own projects, but this has never happened.

I generally get on well with people and OF COURSE I understand that colleagues are inevitable and different kinds of expertise are an asset. I welcome input from others, I really do. But so often it feels excessive, micromanaging, or even disrespectful.

For example, I do a task (perfectly well), then someone else redoes it to their own vision. I think a particular task is for me to do and someone else starts feeding in, changing it entirely. It is exhausting to keep up with the endless changes of tack and it’s demoralizing that so much of my work goes to waste. I find it intensely frustrating. I recently realized I like the idea of my job, but in practice I do not enjoy it the majority of the time. I feel no ownership over projects which are supposed to be ‘mine’.

However - I’ve now felt this way in two workplaces, not one. Which suggests the problem is with me, rather than eg one team just being overbearing and annoying. Right now I’m fantasizing about quitting and doing my own thing freelance, where I could have (in some ways) more control over what I do. For the usual reasons though, that’s not a gamble I would take right now.

Would welcome others opinions - do others get frustrated for these reasons too?! Or is this just office life and I need to get over it! Any tips?!

You sound a bit over invested.

May be I am 😅

If you're collaborating, you really shouldn't be doing a task then having it redone. Are you running ahead? Have you discussed a plan for the activity beforehand so all those contributing are on the same page?

I agree with your point that it’s all too excessive. I can do a task/piece of work and it can be done in a decent timeframe, but then we need to have a meeting about it, then another department has to review it, then we have to bring in John for his input… before you know it you’ve spent another 10hrs thinking about something that originally took you 2hrs to complete 2 weeks ago.

HOWEVER, I quickly realised I am not going to change a company or the working world. What I can change is my effort. I still do a decent job, and do things correctly. But I’m not going to ensure I have everything perfect when I know we’ll be reviewing and rethinking for the next month. Instead of spending an hour doing something to completion, I will spend 30 mins doing it to the point it can be reviewed at the pointless meeting, and then I will go make a coffee.

Maybe it would make a difference if you changed company, but you’ll never know for sure. If you have a decent wage, flexibility and generally get along with people, I would stay and adjust your own habits.

I can’t say this ever happened to me but I would hate it.

Why are other people looking at your work? Don’t they have their own to do? How do they access it? Are you over sharing stuff or making it too accessible on work systems?

How is your SPAG?

Because I once worked with someone whose grammar and wording was so awful I had to rewrite practically everything she'd ever done (think client's name spelt incorrectly, no capital letters at the start of sentences, incorrect grammar that completely changed the meaning and tone of the piece etc).

It was a complete ball ache for me and her; she was smart, but couldn't get her ideas down coherently and I didn't have time to teach her the nuances of the English grammar system.

If you're the kind of person that uses "they're, there and their" interchangeably, I can understand why they're rewriting your submissions.

But if your writing is of a high standard, can you challenge the need for it to be rewritten?

That doesn't sound like collaboration, that sounds like everyone bulldozing everyone else. I'm not surprised you don't enjoy team work in that sort of environment, it sounds dysfunctional.

Thanks for everyone’s comments! The issue is absolutely not my spelling and grammar.

It’s exhausting! Whenever I circulate something (which we all have to do) or mention something at a meeting, it gets reworked and goes round the houses entirely. It’s not just me this happens to - it’s a general way of working. It drives me maaaad. It’s so hard to keep up with all the tweaks. Why my boss and others feel the need to input, I just don’t know, but I don’t run the team so of course I have to go along with it.

May be I’m just not cut out for office work. I’ve done over a decade of it, may be I should make a change. But it seems sad to leave on a low rather than a high.

(and to reiterate - I don’t mean I hate feedback or collab work full stop - but to me this level of discussion and redoing things and having multiple people feeding in is excessive and tiring. But I think I’m the only one who feels this way)

Oh my god, this is exactly like my workplace and over the last couple of weeks I've realised that the only way to resolve it is for me to leave.

I have work which I should be solely responsible for but for some reason I must 'consult / engage' with people who know far less than me.

It means progress is painfully slow and I have to defend / justify every decision I make.

I now dream of going freelance / consulting but unfortunately I need a guaranteed wage.

Maybe ask for idea first up. If folks are changing it, I’m sorry but it means it either doesn’t meet the brief or isn’t good enough. No one reworks for fun. And if it has always happened to you then it indicates it’s the quality of the work.

my work gets redone sometimes, I see it has been improved or tweaked to fit the brief more, I’m ok with that.

This is just not true - at my work people input because a) they want to retain a level of control / influence b) they don't trust my judgement and c) have a very risk aversive culture.

It is rare that any of the suggested changes are actually implemented and my work always meets or exceeds targets but still I have to spend hours and hours pushing back or justifying my approach.

I work in an office and it's nothing like that.

Can you have a word with your manager about it? It sounds very demotivating and basically like your team don't know how to work together, and could probably do with a bit of development in that area.

Mmmm I’ve experienced cultures that sounds like yours and I feel like over time one learns how to ride them and (for me, even enjoy it). Is the feedback coming from people on a level with you (but just with an interest) or people from above?

one way to ease the frustration is see this as part of the communication around your work/area - ie it’s not a race to the end, this time can be really well spent in terms of building relationships (which you might need to call on in future)

you can also put a cover note with your work to explain why you’ve taken a certain approach or schedule in a 15min chat through to tackle any major points and outline the type of feedback that can be given at that stage?

If feedback is from seniors then Ive always found it helpful to look at the kind of changes they were making and learn from them - whether they are ‘right’ and have the only correct way isn’t the point but it probably means something about the preferred style of outputs in your org or area. Eg if it’s a risk averse area or manager maybe try to understand why?

With others, it can be worth working out which feedback you have to take on board or respond to and what’s just part of the engagement.

over time I think you can learn a lot from feedback and engagement with your work
i think there’s a knack to sort of taking it all in while setting a boundary.

Having work totally rewritten (by a manager?) is slightly different - I’d expect an explanation and maybe debrief on back of that - eg did they change their mind on brief, did you get brief wrong, or was there just not enough chat about what was needed early on.

Ps - presuming you use a shared drive and people track changes, what makes it hard to keep track of the changes? you could always insist people make ‘comments’ in doc instead if that’s easier?

Totally agree

Came back form holiday and have to take over some work from others

No information given, stuff that should have been fine hasn't been fine, etc etc

Frustrating

Your work system sounds really weird and inefficient. What’s the point of having someone do a job only for others (presumably on the same level/grade as you) pick over it? There should either be a joint approach from start to finish or it’s not really collaboration. In my job we collaborate/co work our cases, but it’s usually only two of us and we both have quite defined roles.
You could raise your concerns with management with a proposal for what might work better for you, but I suspect it’s pretty entrenched.