In my previous job I was an engineer that spent my first few years doing drawing review and design work. It was engaging enough for my first job out of college but after multiple departures of other engineers and management shifts I found myself in what was known as the worst position in my department.
It was basically a data entry and analysis position. Physical boxes of data would come in and it needed to be entered into a database. No real engineering involved, just days of entering data and a few papers documenting the findings. Every single person to do it prior felt it was too much for one person, it was boring, and left the company. I didn’t exactly enter with high hopes but figured maybe it wasn’t as soul crushing as it seemed.
I stuck with it for about a year but I was wrong.. Nobody even trained me, and I had to figure it out alone. The day I took it over my desk was already buried in boxes from data from years ago and it was only getting worse. The data was coming in significantly faster than it could be entered. Way too much for just me. I pleaded multiple times to management about how I needed help and was initially told they couldn’t afford another hire. Then they opened it up to the department as “volunteer” work but because of the soul crushing nature only a few people stepped forward and promptly stopped after just a few hours. This cycle would repeat throughout my year with it but I ended up coming up with a good process to at least make some headway on it. I had a consistent system that would eventually catch it up and maintain it so it wouldn’t fall behind again. It would still take years to get there but it was a start.
I had my performance review and was basically told I wasn’t making enough headway on it. I would need to consider working overtime and coming into the office (hybrid schedule) so I could focus on it more. That I was to be done with “half” of it by October. I asked if they could quantify “half” since I knew they didn’t understand how much data there was and they couldn’t.
Unfortunately for them I had been the interview process with a better job for some time and quickly received my start date. I gave them more than a 2 weeks notice to help transition. (Which they spent complaining about how it wasn’t a good time for me to leave and I was inconveniencing them). When they sat me down to transition the work they realized how much work I was really doing (even though I had told them before) and moved around 4 people from other groups for me to train to replace me. Management said they wished I had told them sooner I needed help so they wouldn’t lose me (even though I did). Anyways it’s almost October so I’m wondering if they managed to get through “half”
TLDR: Job put me on the least desirable position in my company. A position that is ungodly overworked, unorganized, and boring. I ask for help to get it back on track and get told to stick it. I figure out how to fix it all and do about a years worth of work on it. I put in my notice and they realize it takes about 4 people to do what I was doing.