they finally get it

I had a meeting today with my boss and her boss to talk about my job and the need for a coordinator to take over part of it so that I can do what they hired me to do - write. During the first half hour, my boss and I were discouraged. Her boss said that based on what he'd seen and heard, it didn't sound like it was asking too much to expect me to write and edit and coordinate and do admin stuff and that it was an inefficient process that was the problem. My boss was a little miffed at that because she and I had instituted a process that had actually eliminated a lot of problems and inefficiencies.

Then we figured out that he's a numbers/statistics/percentages person. Once we put it in those terms, he got the idea:

He asked me, "How much time do you spend doing QA?"

I said, "50 percent."

He asked, "What do you do with the other 50 percent?"

I said, "Create and update spreadsheets, create process flowcharts, track people down and find out where they are with what we need them to do."

He said, "So you're not doing much writing, then, are you?"

I said, "Nope."

He said, "What are you supposed to be writing?"

I said, "I'm supposed to be writing all the patient messages, working with the Harvard people to write and edit the expanded patient messages, and create the Web files for them."

He said, "And you're not doing any of that now?"

I said, "Nope."

Then my boss jumped in, "We'll need her to write the provider messages at some point too, and the wellness campaigns, and the wellness messages for the new brochures, and re-do all the messages if we decide to go with the new presentation format, and go back and revise all the Harvard messages that were written before she got here."

He said, "Oh. I get it now."

My boss also pointed out that every other department was being allowed to hire people right and left, but Communications was just her and me.

Sigh. Keep your fingers crossed that they do work this out and get someone in here to help me soon. In the meantime, I at least have a screenwriting class that lets me get my writing binge taken care of. Small mercies.