In contrast to my last post, I was somewhat surprisingly thrust into the role as lead data entry operator for the company I have been working for as a temp worker. In just one week, it's been highs and lows already. After starting the first day strongly, because of me I was able to identify that throughout the entire three months of this project, there hasn't even been any form of quality control for the data we are entering.
We've since realized that the information we were shown/taught at the start of this project was really only half of what was needed to perform the job accurately. So, of course, now three months into this we're performing quality control and essentially re-doing everything. Spectacularly, much of this is now on my shoulders in orchestrating four other people, getting them to break their habits of what they were entering incorrectly and misunderstanding, panning out the issues with the technical supervisor from Laos who speaks broken English (who is seemingly a good guy, but it's admittedly been a project of its own just to get a few questions answered).
One data entry operator was literally getting about 15 issues wrong every single one of her completed pieces of work. It's one thing to enter data, but in this position, it involves science and some application/learning of such which, when you take 5 people from different backgrounds, can be a struggle to teach depending on the person.
Therefore, on a spreadsheet of 2,000 completed pieces of work, each one having taken 10 minutes on average to complete, we're now performing QC which also includes documenting the original errors in columns that were added adjacently to the completed work. I will be surprised if I'm not bald by my 30th birthday in February.
It doesn't help that I am attracted to my supervisor. She frightens me and I hate that I love it. She was pissed today because of the situation and it certainly hasn't been easy for me, either. There were probably 30 times today in which I needed to announce and orchestrate the group for the next ever-changing matter that would effect how we were QC-ing the work. At one point, it just seemed like we were QC-ing the QC'd QC'd.
Not sure if anyone in particular is to blame, but it's hard for me to not blame myself. It's a character flaw of mine. Just seems like they could have been more prepared at the start and possibly provided us with a better understanding of just how wide the scope is of the data we are entering so that we would be so much more limited in backtracking.
I'm doing what I can. It's been a challenge and one I've been forcing myself to meet and overcome on multiple levels. It works your brain due to the science, it works your coordination due to the data entry, it works your social and temperamental skills as I've had to both direct others and be directed pretty consistently.
Doesn't help that the male tech supervisor from Laos was out of office Friday through Tuesday. If I knew it would blow up like this, I'd have probably refrained from texting my immediate female supervisor over the weekend putting myself out there as available to grab coffee if she ever wanted to talk about work. Certainly doesn't reflect well on me now given all of the other circumstances even though the text message was also to express how I was stressed about the impending QC process of which she did help alleviate and express that the situation would not reflect negatively on me. Of course, I also would not have even thought of the text had I not felt that there was at least some mutual interest. Or maybe I'm just a business pawn and someone she felt she could use to make herself look good.
I'm not sure and don't want to speculate and be critical. Even through all of this, I'm blessed to have a job and make respectable wages while learning quite a bit. After things hit the wall today, I eventually just had the group skip down 10% of the spreadsheet and find a new starting point and revisit the mess that was the first 10% at a later time. I'm hoping we can continue to move forward and this will be a blip on the radar after the fact. I'll absolutely need to meet with the tech supervisor from Laos well in advance for the following spreadsheet we will be performing quality control on so that we can avoid this next time.
lionsmane