A DAO in the Life
By Todd Kilduff P.E., Deputy County Administrator for Hanover County
Stress!.....You Are Not Alone
Raise your hand if you are stressed! If you didn’t raise your hand, please submit your secret to the next “DAO in the life” article or do a TED talk. Seriously though, we have every right to be stressed at this moment in time. First, we are all having massive troubles hiring qualified candidates, assuming you even get an application. Even if you are lucky to have a qualified candidate, the salary requests are usually 25-40% higher than what you advertised and the benefits are almost impossible to match with private sector competition. What do I mean by benefits? I am not talking about health insurance; I’m talking about the “Thank you for your job offer, I really want to work for you, but I need 4 days per week of teleworking and I would like to randomly pick those days when I feel like it, I would also like to pick my hours because 8:30-5 isn’t going to work for me, I want a car, a phone, avocado toast every morning, my own suite with bathroom, stock options, and a private plane.” I exaggerated a little but I am sure you have had parallel requests. Stressful!
Piling on. The Great Resignation is creating vacancies at all levels which, when coupled with ‘lack of finding personnel’ from the first paragraph, means that the work that was done by many, is now being done by the few. If you wore 10 hats, you now wear 15 and that number doesn’t seem to be decreasing any time soon. The hard part of that is we are all in local government and the expectations from our residents will not change even though you now have to do your job and someone else’s. Stressful!
Yes, still piling on. The cost of construction is extremely unpredictable which is never a fun conversation with your Board or Council. “We allocated $12M for a new Fire Station, but bids just came back at $1.2B.” What?!?! It’s crazy. Supply chain issues, risk-adverse contractors, supplier cost swings, and many other factors contribute to that, but the added layer of stress caused by this doesn’t help us. Construction is stressful enough on its own but asking for more money and time extensions constantly, or, having to explain why a new building is complete but we just have to wait 6 months on the doors and windows, makes it look like you don’t know what you are doing; which is not true. You do know what you are doing! Take comfort in that. Have you tried ordering pipe for utility projects lately? You can, if you are willing to wait 9 months. Stressful!
Um, yeah, piling on. I already mentioned this but the expectations from our citizens are increasing and not all of us are able to adapt appropriately. “I want to pay all of my bills online.” Ok, for the larger localities this is an easier thing to fund and make happen (notice I didn’t say it was easy, I just said it was easier). Smaller localities might not even be able to afford a new $80,000 online billing system and at a minimum, it could take years for them to allocate the money. Then add 2 years for implementation and training. Should I go back to the ‘online’ portion of this paragraph? Why not. “When are you going to bring me broadband? You created an online bill pay but I live in a rural area without internet so I can even pay online!” We know and we are really trying Mr. and Mrs. Citizen! Stressful!
I will stop with the pessimism, but I could continue with development pressures, elected official expectations, after-hour meetings, budget constraints, and whatever else may be stressful to you.
So what do we do? I am an engineer, not a psychologist, so I don’t have those answers, but here are 2 things that work for me. First, take planned time off. This is not easy, as you know, and I am not talking about a 5 day vacation. Vacations are great but are harder to plan. I am talking about taking a Monday or Friday off for a longer weekend. Block out those days on your calendar a few weeks from now so no one schedules that horrible ‘4pm on a Friday’ meeting with you. Turn on your out-of-office reply the day before and enjoy your day off. I don’t know why but having that one workday off feels more therapeutic than a whole week. Maybe it’s because you are at work and I am home door dashing fast food while sipping Old Fashioned’s? The second thing that I find helpful is making a list of 2 things that I want to complete that day at work. That way when I leave for the day, I feel better know that at least they are complete which leaves me open to focus on the next 2 items. If your day is filled with craziness, scale back to 1 item, complete it, then plan out the next one. As they say, the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time.
Thank you for reading this and please know that you are not alone with your stress. The above items are just what I go through and have heard from other professionals. We are all on the same boat and are doing our best to keep it sailing forward, regardless of how turbulent the water is or how strong the winds are. Hang in there. You are all doing great work and should be proud of that!