Category: business is business

Management…hamburger style

Currently, at the building across the way, there are some gentlemen hard at work putting a new roof on the two-story structure.

Roofing has got to be some grueling, backbreaking work, and they’ve been toiling at this for a few days now.

About an hour ago, all work went quiet over there. I thought maybe they were on a break. They weren’t on a break.

It appears they were having a little conference. What they’d call in the corporate world, a “root cause analysis”.

I suspect they discovered what, or rather, whom was at the center of the mistake, because I could then hear the supervisor of this project having a one-on-one mentoring conversation, loudly, with his employee.

Let’s keep this a family friendly post…for all the instances of the eff word, I will substitute a more appropriate word.

Oh let’s have fun with it, let’s use the word “hamburger.”

Here we go, a faithful recounting of this clearly very hands on and empathetic manager as he guides his employee through a big error.

Remember: hamburger = eff word

“You hamburgered up. You hamburgered this whole thing up. I didn’t hamburger up. All the rest of these hamburgering guys didn’t hamburger this thing up. What in the hamburgering hell were you thinking? You weren’t thinking and you hamburgered this hamburgering thing all to hell. What the hamburger, man?! What the hamburger happened?”

: sound of employee mumbling, trying to explain his reason for hamburgering everything up :

“You what? You what? Who the hamburger told you to do that? I sure as hell didn’t hamburgering tell you to do that! Now this whole hamburgering project is running behind and that costs hamburgering money? Do you get that? Do get that you’ve cost every hamburgering one of us some hamburgering time and some hamburgering money?”

: more mumbling :

“Aw man, what the hamburger. Get back to work!”

And with that, all the machines started up again, the smell of tar once again filled the air, and the team of folks got back to roofing.

This, among the many reasons why I feel so fortunate to be able to work a white collar gig. I’m pretty hamburgering sure that if my boss ever talked to me that way, I’d have a pretty good hamburgering lawsuit I’d think about.

Cost Savings Euphoria!

So despite the media chirruping that the “economic crisis is OVER”, really, folks, it’s not over. Not by a long shot. Recovery is a long and arduous process.

Like, you know, gaining weight is easy, losing the weight takes work.

And so, as we continue to deal with life, and money and everything that entails, The Good Man and I have been taking a look at expenses.

How freaking grown up of us. *sigh*

The first focus of our ire is Comcast. We have only the most basic of analog packages. It’s been fine. Cable goes right into the back of the TV and there you go. But recently, Comcast required us to get a box so we can receive digital channels. (they keep deleting analog channels as a way to force us over)

Trouble is, the box screws up the signal. It pops and pixilates and blacks out. If we unplug the box and plug back into the TV, no issue. The box is a piece of #$%^.

And really, we don’t watch that much regular TV anyway, other than baseball games, and the SF Giants season is ovah.

Soooo.

We ordered a digital converter for regular rabbit eared signal, and we are cancelling Comcast.

Oooh man, I can hardly wait to make that call.

As a primer, I called AT&T yesterday. I have a long and colorful history with AT&T. (work related…long story)

We hardly use our landline phone anymore, so I whacked all extra services, left just local on our line (for 911 calls or emergency use, we can still get incoming calls) and also got assurances they’ll keep our DSL rates flat.

I cut $53 a month from the bill! That is more than HALF of what we were paying!

Woooooo! Really, it was heady, adrenaline rushing fun!

Now I’m looking at everything trying to figure out how we can save.

Can we use a smaller trashcan? That would cut the trash bill.

Can we wear extra layers and set the heater at a lower temp?

Can we reduce water use?

Should be buy a generator and go off the grid?

Should we live in a shack with no running water and an outhouse and I’ll wear a hooded sweatshirt and write my manifesto?

Wait. Back the truck up.

Let’s not get carried away.

Update: I called up Sirius radio, I love my Sirius radio, and got them to knock over $70 off my annual renewal. Amazing what “I’d like to cancel” caused them to do! Yay!

Office Archeology: An Update

Each blogger, in the course of their writing and rambling, has one post that they might call their favorite. It may or may not be a fan favorite, but it’s one that sticks out the most in the blogger’s mind.

I have one of those.

Waaaay back, lo’ these many…uh..months ago, I prepared and posted what has become my favorite blog post ever.

Yes, my explorations of this Officine Era, this epoch in my history, the importance of documenting my findings!

And, it can become a living record, because there are some changes…some *updates* to the research and analysis!

My travels have taken me past those relics discussed time and again, and I feel, in the interest of scientific accuracy, it is vital to update the records.

So here we go, the latest understanding of the artifacts, as we know them.

First, recall the lonely and homeless set of keys? Those which secure a laptop from theft, but these, cast mercilessly aside?

Well. They are gone now. Extinct. Disappeared without a forwarding address.

What might have become of these sad, homeless keys? We may never know….

Folks, let’s have a moment in remembrance…

However, all is not bad news! Remember the lowly and lonely industrial strength stapler?

There he was, far from any stapling opportunities. Lost and alone. Unused. Unloved.

But look! He found friends!

Hi Mister Highlighter! Hey Miss Piece of Paper! Welcome to my expanse of file cabinets right outside the conference room. Wanna play flag football?

I’m so happy the stapler was able to make friends. His story doesn’t end tragically, like those keys…

And how about this? Remember that bit o’ Heath bar wrapper that was careless dropped and left abandoned on the stairs for some months?

It’s STILL there! And has adapted camouflage capabilities! It has moved over to the side and has flipped over….behold!

We are seeing evolution in progress, people! Amazing, fascinating stuff.

And, I saved the best for last! We have a new artifact to introduce to the world. It’s amazing. Phenomenal! Fantasmagorical!

Ladies and Gents, I introduce you to…Big Ass Box Of Binder Clips!

This box of clips, located near the broken copy machine that no one uses, and is *SO* important that someone named Jon has demanded we not remove it!

I don’t even know who Jon is or why I would obey him, and yet, I do!

The exclamation mark on his sign coerces me to abide! And so, I don’t remove. Not a one. And neither does anyone else! No one uses these binder clips. So there they sit! Useless and unused! Shiny, taunting, but out of reach.

Damn that Jon and his demanding posted sign!

Ok, well, this is all good stuff. Much to consider. I encourage all to go out and explore their own Officine Surroundings. What you find might surprise you!

Things that they don’t teach in manager training

I’ve been a manager at my job for quite some time now. I think seven years at last count. So I’ve been through a lot. And yet, sometimes, I’m still a bit thrown by the curveballs lobbed by the folks who have the grand misfortune to report to me.

On Friday, one of my employees, a very hardworking and rather quiet girl came tearing into my office. I swear, if she was a car, she would have left black marks on my industrial carpet.

The employee looked at me with wide eyes.

“Is it ok if I go home?” she said, and paused…then tacked on…”I don’t want to barf here at work.”

I happen to know she’s three months pregnant and having a rough time of it, so I said, quickly, “Go. Now.”

She turned and peeled out of the building.

This got me thinking about back when I was first made a manager, and the anemic training course they sent me to.

They discussed “things you shouldn’t say” and “things you should say” and “what to do if you have to fire someone.” But never, never did they discuss “when it’s ok to let someone go home early because they are gonna blow chunks.”

I guess that’s where you have to rely on that ol’ manager gut instinct, hey?

Other oddball things I have experienced and was never properly prepared for:

Male employee spent all of our one-on-one session telling me, in detail, that he and his wife were trying to get pregnant and, to their dismay, had ended up having to resort to IVF. TMI. But wait, there’s more. We haven’t begun to TMI yet.

About a week later, he comes running into my office…”My wife just called, she’s at the doctor, she’s fertile right now, so I have to go give a…um….sample. I’ll be back in about an hour.”

Ugh.

“Just go!” I said, and to his retreating back, tacked on, “If this happens again, please just tell me you have to go to the dentist!”

Or the really, really good employee, like top notch worker, who felt the need to tell me that the only way she could deal with the stress of her job was that she and her husband would smoke a bowl as they commuted home from work every day.

“I’m thinking about smoking one at lunch too, this job is crazy.”

Well. Ok. *Technically* she’s doing this on her own time and off company property. And my employer at the time was pretty lenient about such things.

But still. Things I don’t need to know. Especially as the manager!

Also important to mention that managing isn’t just about direct reports, it’s about managing your own manager too.

So, in that same vein, at that same employer, I had a boss who delighted in telling me how much cocaine she did at her wedding. “It was the only way to get through it, I never really loved my husband. Still don’t.”

Oooohkaaaay. She only lasted a year at the job. Freak.

And the best was, not long after starting this newest gig, one of the ladies on my team had been out sick for a few days. I assumed the flu, a migraine, tummy upset. Whatever. I didn’t need to know. Upon her return, I simply inquired, “hey, are you feeling better?”

What followed was a long, detailed and gory description. Let’s just say…you can have a colon polyp burst and leave it there, mmkay?

You can’t unhear something, no matter how hard you try.

But, when all is said and done, I haven’t had to have the granddaddy of all uncomfortable manager situations. My dear brother-in-law has been subjected to this more than once. Poor guy.

We call it…the Stinky Conversation.

The one where you have to ask your employee to please shower…and use soap…because their coworkers are complaining.

Double ugh!

I’m telling ya, those fancy politically correct manager’s training classes do nuthin’ to prepare you for the real world!

There’s an art to it

One of my coworkers, a friend, actually, has been on an epic year-long journey to launch a new, company wide system. This is huge stuff…stressful, hours of work, and it went live yesterday.

That meant he had to stay at work very, very late last night to see this thing through with all the IT folks. A long night.

Being the kind, supportive coworker that I am, on my way out the door at 5:00, I stopped by and said, “Hey, *you* have fun tonight! Me? In about a half an hour I’m going to be drinking Sangria over a really good dinner.”

My coworker looked up from his computer, and, peering over his glasses said, succinctly, “up yours,” then turned back to work.

You know, you don’t really hear a good “up yours” anymore these days.

In those two words, he told me off, steered clear of HR violations, and conveyed months of exhaustion.

Well done!

I think people have lost the talent of telling someone off. You get too many rambling diatribes (“you know what you are? You are a bunch of……”), too much eff word use (“effing muther effer eff eff eff”), too many attempts to make it into a deep insult (“yo mamma!”)….it’s all just unoriginal work.

I feel like the tell off is a lost art.

A clean, simple, well spoken “up yours!” conveys quite a bit.

As with many things, simplicity is elegant.