Category: meeting hell

And That’s All She Had to Say About That

The scene: Tuesday evening in Opelika, Alabama at a delicious little restaurant called the Warehouse Bistro.

The people: Several of my coworkers, a large group of folks from the supplier we were visiting, and me.

The situation: We’d had a day long business meeting. It had been a full marathon session that was mostly good and occasionally heated. We ended the work day on a good note and headed off for drinks and good eats. We’d all started with a few mixed drinks, then beers and wine bottles were ordered, and delicious food was served. Near the end of the night as the servers cleared dessert plates the whole group was feeling quite convivial, there was a lot of good natured ribbing going back and forth.

I got a fair bit of grief for being from California. Things like “you buncha wine sniffing weirdos” and “You damn Californians!” I’m used to it, I get it back home in New Mexico too, so I know how to hold my own.

At the table were three guys who had driven over to Alabama from Daytona, Florida. It’s about a seven hour drive and they had seen the entire span of Georgia along the way. This one ol’ boy from Florida was the one leading the charge on giving people grief. He was dishing it out pretty hard to everyone at the table. Didn’t matter who you were or where you were from, you were gonna get your share. Even the guy from Australia.

So at one point he was talking about the drive over and saying, “geez, what is it with Georgia? All along the road all we saw were adult shops and fireworks stands. I mean all along I-10 that’s all there was. I couldn’t find a damn McDonalds but I could find all that crazy stuff. There’s gotta be something wrong with Georgia.”

Then he got an evil look in his eye.

He turned to the sweetest, quietest girl in the room who was sitting at the end of the table.

“Hey Cathy*, you’re from Georgia. What’s up with that? I mean, I thought this was the Bible Belt!”

She paused, took a sip of sweet tea, then said, very clearly so all could hear….”That’s because here in Georgia, we’re so good, when we’re done having a little fun we don’t smoke a cigarette, we light off a Roman candle.”

The room was quiet for one, two three beats….then came thunderous applause and laughter.

In the vernacular of our times, that ol’ boy from Florida just got served. In the most quiet, gentle and polite Southern way.

Loved it!






Image found at AnimalCapshunz.com


* Not her real name



What Tuesday Looked Like

Tuesday. It wasn’t pretty.

I’m going toe to toe with an obnoxious company who are being jerks simply for the pleasure of being jerks.

I’ve gone twelve rounds with these yabos and I’m e-x-h-a-u-s-t-e-d.

And so, this is the perfect representation of my Tuesday.

This photo, oddly enough, was taken while I was on an evening con call with a whole other clan of jerkwads.

The Good Man texted me from the living room to ask how I was doing and this was the reply he got.

Rawr face. Coming at you.

May Wednesday be nicer.







Photo Copyright 2012, Karen Fayeth, subject to the Creative Commons license in the far right column of this page, and taken with an iPhone4s and the Camera+ app.



Management By Latte

At the main campus where I work, we have a huge number of employees, so the company actually has five different cafeterias to handle the hungry hoards.

There is the “main” cafeteria that stays open through dinner time. All day long they have a full espresso coffee bar and a huge assortment of made-on-site pastries. It’s awesome!

The lady who works the espresso machine in the big cafeteria is a goddess. She can make cappuccino foam so firm, you can build a house on it. She’s fast and talented at this coffee game.

Needless to say, I adore this woman.

Recently the big cafeteria shut down for the month of June to make enhancements. That means the coffee lady and the pastries came over to do their thing in the small cafeteria on the first floor of my building.

Good news, right? The downside is that I now have to go to the cafeteria where all the workers are cranky. I mean, these folks look mad, beat down, and unhappy in there.

When I order my usual decaf latte at this small cafeteria they roll their eyes and sarcastically call out the order to the person pulling shots. That person then looks like they would rather do anything else in the whole wide world.

Since I’m usually in an all fire hurry at work and the big cafeteria is a bit of a hike away, I just endure the rolly eyes and play through.

But this past week, I noticed a change.

Subtle but important.

Here’s how it went down:

Me (to cashier): “Decaf double latte, please.”

Normally Surly Cashier: “Sure. : yelling : Mamita! Decaf doble latte, por favor!”

Coffee Goddess: “Claro, que si, mija” (with a sweet mom-like smile)

Now-not-so-surly cashier: (with a smile to me) “Three dollars please.”

Coffee Goddess then turns to see who ordered the decaf. “Oh! It’s you! Hello!”

Me: “Hi! You knew it had to be me, right? No one else orders decaf.”

Coffee Goddess: “Oh no, honey, I drink decaf too. Do you want two percent?”

Me: “Yes, please.”

And I smiled. And she smiled. And the cashier smiled. And everyone was smiling. And happy. And going about their jobs with a new sense of joy.

Could this complete change in attitude all be because of the wonderful, kind Coffee Goddess?

I watched all of this go down with my manager’s eyes and it really showed me something. Made me think about how one really negative person can make a whole work team unhappy.

That’s pretty well known, I think. The “poison apple” syndrome.

But here I saw firsthand that one really positive person can make the whole work team better. Happier. More productive.

Good stuff. And exceptionally good coffee.

When July begins and the Coffee Goddess goes back to the other cafeteria, I’ll miss her madly.

I imagine the formerly surly work team will too.







Coffee Goddess image found on Sodahead.



Back In The Swing of Things

So, I’m back in the office after a week in Costa Rica. UK Boss is in country. The pace is back to normal. Whatever that means.

Today I sat down with the boss for a much needed, long over due one-to-one session.

It was about halfway through our hour chat that Boss Man said the words that chilled my soul.

“Right, so I just got the schedule for annual reviews. You’ll need to communicate dates to your staff. Self assessments are due by mid-June.”

Just like that. That’s all he said. Easy, breezy and calm.

Meanwhile, the sound of screeching demons and terror howls echoed in my mind.

Yes, it’s that time of year: Performance reviews.

I’ve been doing this manager gig for most of a decade, and still, performance reviews are the hardest thing I have to do every year.

Mainly because I don’t just blow them off and write canned phrases. I actually put in a lot of work on my performance reviews for my team.

I give performance reviews the way I wish they were done for me.

But never are.

That said, just because I care about them. Just because I put in effort. Just because they matter does not mean I actually enjoy writing them.

It’s hard work. Add to that, since I am a middle of the pack manager and not the big boss, I don’t get the set the raises and bonuses. I give input on my team but someone else makes the budget.

So I get to convey raises and bonuses that someone else has decided.

And they so rarely match what my employees deserve.

So I have to write a performance review to match the budget and not the actual performance of the employee.

Often, this can be the least gratifying thing I do all year.

That said, performance reviews are one of the things that separate the wheat from the chaff, the men from the mice, the mangers from the dilettantes.

Writing and delivering a meaningful performance review is what makes me a better manager. I think.

Oh, and in other news, my boss attended some up with people type of training class last week. I said to him “Hey boss, I’m having a problem with this risk assessment.”

“No Karen, as I just learned in my training, there are no problems, only opportunities.”

The fact that I didn’t take that opportunity to kick him in the shins shows the power of my personal and professional growth over the last year.

I’m sure that will show up as a positive on my performance review this year.

Opportunities my ass…….





On The Road Again (Soon)

I’m just barely back from Singapore (in my mind anyway, it’s been two weeks today that my feet stepped off the plane in Cali) and now I’m gearing up and packing up for my next work adventure.

This time Boss Man is sending me off to a different part of the world. An area a little more in my wheelhouse.

In exactly one week I’ll be saying helllooooo Costa Rica.

Or, more properly, Holaaaaaa Costa Rica!

: cue a Latin beat :

Yup, that’s right folks, I’m headed to Central America.

Before you start imagining idyllic days by the blue-green sea, ratchet all of that back and imagine me in the middle of the densely populated capital city of San Jose.

While the trip to Singapore was all hand shaking and good food, Costa Rica is going to be some seriously hard work (and hopefully good food). I have an employee there who is still pretty new (yes, I hired her without ever meeting her in person) and she needs some back up.

Today I’m watching my calendar fill up with meetings for next week. Heads of Finance, IT, HR and the site director shall feel my steely wrath. Ok, less wrath and maybe more along the lines of “stop treating my employee like your hired hand or I’m gonna call in some really big boss types, and no one wants that.”

In Singapore I was there to make friends. In Costa Rica I’m there to have some pretty hard conversations. And try to make friends while I’m at it.

The good news is that most Costa Ricans (they call themselves Ticos) speak English, because my Spanish is Spanglish at best and I’m quite out of practice. I’m certain I can still easily order a beer and inquire as to the location of the bathroom, but beyond that I might stumble.

But I’m looking forward to trying!

And in other somewhat related news…file this under the World is Very Small and the World is Very Large:

Last week I had a one to one meeting with my employee in Costa Rica. She asked me about my trip to Singapore.

She said “Karen, I have something to confess. When you said you were going to Singapore, for some reason I thought that was located in Africa. I thought you were going to be out there with wild animals in the middle of the desert and I was really worried about you! I told my mom about how worried I was and she said “what is wrong with you?” So I Googled it and looked at photos. There’s all these big buildings. That’s nothing like what I thought.”

We had a good laugh because, well, geography can be a tricky thing.

Then I confessed that when I’d told a couple of my friends I was going to Costa Rica, they were like “now….that’s over by Brazil, right?” And I sighed and said “um. No. Central America. Nestled in there between Panama and Nicaragua.”

I say all this while admitting my own knowledge of geography is no great shakes.

We laughed again and agreed maybe I’m like a super secret spy and it’s better no one knows where I’m really going.

But really…

I’d like to buy the world a geography lesson, and teach them harmony.
.
.
.
I’m both excited and terrified about this trip. The Good Man isn’t coming along this time, so I’m on my own.

Courage! rawr.






Image from FreeWorldMaps.net.