life after it all

Today was my first Justice Policy forum.  For myself and my co worker, it reiterated that we really are lost in the jungle that is Alberta Justice.  But it also showed us that everyone is kind of in this situation.  WE realized that we are further up the food chain than we thought - even if our work environment doesn't always show it.  To be invited to sit at this forum was an indication that we are the policy makers/analysts for Court Services - the largest division of Alberta Justice.  And to be invited to sit on the IPPC (Integrated Policy Planning Committee) for Justice, we realized we are Court Services own little Policy Secretariat.  But as I said, out work environment does not reflect this.  We really should have an assistant (doing it all ourselves is not a recipe for food policy development) and we need a manager.  This last part is top of our wish list, as we would like to report to one person who can filter what comes our way instead of being yes-men for everyone.  We dread friday afternoons, since this is when last minutes orders come down the line and often have a monday deadline.  Instructions for which are never as simple as "edit this".  It always entails calling everyone under the sun to track down the SME (subject matter expert) and then soliciting a response or a direction before we have to go home - cause over time is not something that is approved lightly.

I'm excited at what the job entails.  I enjoy stress and pressure and I often find my best work comes out of pressured positions.  but I'm not looking forward to constant reliance on others to help me.  I have always lived by the adage "if you want a job done, you do it yourself".