I truly have been blessed by working with my boss. She is the epitome of professional grace. She certainly has a discerning spirit. And she is a talented communicator, be it in oral or written form. I am thankful for the opportunity to have worked with her for the past ten months.

This organization is remarkable in its mission. An affordable housing developer that is more interested in also developing the lives of the residents than making as great a profit as possible. In 1995, they were wiring affordable housing for broadband Internet access. In short, the program staff are visionaries and the real estate staff are creative masters at complex deals involving renovation-in-place.

But…I am worn down by the uphill battle this place is.

All I am trying to do is bring consistency, create marketing and promotional materials, and establish standards, boilerplate text, and policies that will help staff. Yet it seems as if I constantly have to defend my position, remind people of my responsibilities, and beg them to supply information about their work.

Everyone wants the webpage done, wants our contact list cleaned up, wants brochures to pass out, wants, wants, wants…but they do not really want to help with gathering the background information and reviewing the drafts for accuracy. I constantly learn about press requests after the fact. When I remind them that they should have funneled the request through me, I am viewed as egocentric.

A lot of what I do, by creating new materials or editing others sometimes ends up highlighting what someone else did not do or did without regard to quality. I do not speak the words, but the message is said simply by my labors.

When I ask to review material so that I can establish consistency and edit for grammar and spelling, I am viewed as judgmental. My emails are seen as rude. And I have the reputation of being unwilling to help other, expecting them to do my work for them.

I know that this is not true. It is not who I am. But I find myself second-guessing every thing I do and constantly asking for advice as if I were a child rather than a competent manager.

I do not like the person I have become here, and I worry that any witness I might have had has been destroyed by the tension my position has brought to the organization.