Burnout

I haven't posted in a long time. I was having a blogger identity crisis wherein I didn't know how I wanted That's the game! to be like. I mean, I'm randomly posting about music and such, so I had an idea of making a separate blog about that and keep this one strictly about journalizing.

I'm still inconclusive about that, because I've just started re-learning the guitar and have committed to ROCK! Long story there and I'd love to write about that here as well. In any case, that's not what I'm writing about today.

I didn't think it would happen to me, but I'm almost certain that I'm burning out. It's not because I'm buried in work or can't keep up with work. It's more like I feel that what I do makes less and less of a difference in the whole scheme of things here in the organization.

One does not practice organization development only to look out for a discreet corner of the organization. If there are people who do, then I haven't met them. What's more, I have observed (and a few others have as well) that I've shifted to a more reactive mode of working (as opposed to being proactive). I've started firefighting in my operations more and more - and frankly I'm still in this mode.

How can a practicioner of organization development, of planned change, be firefighting? I have made some naive assumptions about my work in this particular organization and now find myself as the process owner of systems I've designed for the organization.

This is peculiar and remarkable only in that a practitioner of organization development is normally not a process owner. The systems or interventions that lead to new systems or processer are owned by the departments or functioned served by the practicioner. It didn't quite happen here, and now I find myself as a regulator with too much (frankly) signatory powers (in relation to approval of employee movement).

Is this a rant or complaint? No. This is just an acknowledgment of what I've created or gotten myself into. The paradigm in the organization is that each employee's value is measured somehow in a business-as-usual deliverable in regular intervals. So if you don't have these, the members of the organization have trouble understanding the function of the employee and even justifying the existence of the employee in the payroll.

This becomes a problem for employees whose work load is composed primarily of projects. There are little, if any day to day regular activities. Sigh.

I've lost my initial train of thought, and it seems to me that I've lost my footing in my work. There's so much work to do, only that I feel that my resources are tied up somehow, and that the essential work isn't getting done.

I need a break, to think and plan and organize. I won't take a break primarily because I've been saving all my vacation leaves for my honeymoon in December. In the meantime, things are the way they are because that's how they are.