Are you sure you don't work for my boss??!
Seriously, though, I can understand why you are frustrated - a lot of the situations you describe are familiar.  There is nothing more likely to knock your confidence than to approach a task without any real guidance, do your best, and then be made to feel as though it's all completely wrong, or rather, it doesn't match up to the idea in his head which he conveniently forgot to tell you about....
I just try not to let it get me down too much....

Michelle,
You have just articulated all the things which have frustrated me today.

As Didface says, it would be great to print and circulate that to the people I work with, except that obviously they wouldn't bother to read it let alone actually do something in response!!!!

I hope that you feel a bit better for writing it down - I certainly feel better for knowing that it is possible that I don't have a problem sending clear instructions and the fault may lie with the recipients.

Let's all hope that next week is a better week!
Lucie

The way I try to tackle this problem is to do the 'handle it once' with quick items that I can get out of the way. Anything i'm not going to do straight away, I either put in relevant project file, or in 'pending', AND make a brief note on my 'to do' list.  That way, instead of searching through a full stack of papers each time, I can have a quick read through of the list each morning.  It's not perfect, but means I (hopefully) don't miss anything important.  The key is to find a system which works for you....

Tricky one.  There's a danger that once you take on too many of these jobs that 'nobody else will do', it gets assumed that anything under this category somehow becomes your task, and it's hard to get away from that.  On the other hand, it's not practical to refuse to do anything...  

I think Laura has a good point - it might be your responsibility to make sure that the room gets cleaned, in which case set up a rota or similar,  but not to always do it yourself.

Not where I work!!  We are a small office with good old fashioned windows, so plenty of fresh air.  I much prefer it to air conditioning.   Mind you, there's only been about a week when we've had particularly warm weather this summer anyway!

Just to say, I've found the information on that section really useful.  Just browsing through, had a look at the project management section,.  Lots of useful info and tips.

I have one which is a bit of a work in progress.  It's partly useful information if we have a temp to cover my job, and partly a good memory jogger for me (I keep various regularly referred to tables of info, phone numbers for people I ring all the time (can never remember any of them!!).  The idea being that there's one obvious place for things I'm going to need on a daily basis.

Being quite a sociable type,  I like the kind of meetings where my boss and a client / contact have agreed they should get together, and then hand over to me and whoever handles their diary to coordinate.  
I get to talk to all sorts of different people, and because they've requested the meeting, everyone's usually pretty good about finding space in the diary.  (Although often, it's only when I've finished setting something up and sent confirmation e-mails that someone suddenly 'remembers' that they've forgotten to put something in the diary, and actually they're elsewhere that day!!!)

I work part time, to fit with home commitments, but I think a full working week works out at 37 1/2 hours.  

I've never been in the position of supervising staff, and it is not something I would seek out.  I've worked under a variety of managers, some were great at managing people, others were not - and I think I've seen enough to know that I would fall into the latter category!

I think I would agree.  I like to be friendly to everyone at work, but keep that separate from friends I like to socialise with at home.  I think it's harder to keep things professional in the office if you are close outside of work, and it's more relaxing to leave everything connected with work in the office at the end of the day and mix with completely different people.

It is a relief to know that I 'm not the only person with a thing for stationery!  I don't really colour code at work, as there are standard folders etc, which are just labelled up, but after reading this post, I feel I must obtain some purple files!!

Think we must all recognise some of the above grumbles!!  

Have to say, my office is mostly fine, but I could do without the silly ringtones some people have on their mobiles!!

THANK YOU!  
I knew there was a way of doing that, but I couldn't think what it was.  I had exactly that problem the other day, and ended up retyping a couple of lines while grumbling that I'd forgotten how to change it!

I have only just caught up with this bit of the forum - what a great set of anecdotes.  Something to think about!
Thanks
Lucie