Stunned into a mumbled mess.

I've been a "Manager" of people for a few years. On reflection a lot of people.



Some days it's like herding cats.  If you manage people you'll get what I mean.

Different people, different ages, different goals, different ambitions, different lifestyles.

Same work. Same outcome expectations. A high standard, high pressure to be 100% accurate, high knowledge base. All the time.

I've always  known what that they did and why, but I couldn't do it. I know what they need to know, I just couldn't do it or have the capacity to know it. But I knew what it was and they knew I knew.

Some days it was the worst of times, some days the best of times. Some days I came home exhausted. Some days I had to be encouraged into the car to go to work. Some days I did skipping lessons and we had ice-cream and marshmallow eating competitions. Some days.

Each and every one of the people I employed  or managed, I love as either a friend, colleague or in the way a parent sees a child, I've advised on things that you wouldn't believe, and I've saved more than one thing from going wrong, I hope.

I saw a lot of people either promoted up, or promoted out and into better external jobs,  and even when it went wrong,  good reasons why both parties understood why it wasn't ever going to work out.

But end of day i did it because I wanted to, I liked it and ultimately because I got paid a coin to do it.

I recently got assigned to a new business function that calls upon my skill set in a different way, and that meant leaving my office and reporting line in to a new office and new reports. 15 whole meters of distance.

It was for me both the best of times and worst of times. For I love each and everyone of my old team, as I mentioned  in many ways, but it released me from the "herding cats" inwards and "capacity" thinking into a more thinking and forward looking job.

It was and is a hard transition.

Today, Friday, about 7 weeks into the hand-over change, all of my earlier reports storm into my  office,  a mass show of force,  that caused a few comments, by all accounts among the other work-groups,  as they stomped from one end of the office to the other.

Wherin they gave me a "leaving card" and having had a collection a significant amount of money in beer tokens at an online beer store,

I cried. Proper tears cried.

To me they are people, friends, colleagues, family and my children. No one will ever take advantage of them if I have my say, and I hope they knew that they always, without reservation, had my backing, support, admiration,  and trust, to be the best they could be, with what they had in front of them, and that if it had could have been better they would have had it better.

Hey wait...... this is another of those "look at me" posts "how good am I" things  " you can do it" posts......

Not at all. I was paid to do a job, and I did it the way that sometimes worked out, sometimes went all a bit pear shaped. I passed through in an upward direction some very successful people in our organisation.  I moved along some people in to alternative careers :-) and I let a few people go.

I hope that each and everyone of them got a little something out of it, I know I did.

So to ( in no order) Corey, Mark, Jess, Linda, Medge, Natalia, and Rachel who today made an old man very happy,

And it would be remiss of me  not to mention  current people still in the organisation who I've in someway had a "management" thing with;  Jenny, Josh, Ritchie, Vanessa, Dave K, Dave H, Elena, Derek,  Charlene, Vasa, and Tepa, all of who have great futures and careers in front of them, and past participle people who've made a big thing in the "outside" world", particularly Joe (take me to Huntly), other Dave, Troy, Kirtsi, Laura and Troy  a really big thank you.

Without you it's a just a thing. With you it's an experience. It's been emotional.

And with that it's... to the beer store...

The 12 ways of Christmas - Secret Santa

It's that time again, we spend 10 months hoping it gets here, one month preparing and then the whole of December questioning the sense of it all.

I'm going to start with Secret Santa. This year over half the people in the #Cubefarm decided that they'd like to do a #SecretSanta.

I have some ideas why the other less than half opted out, the stress of finding a $10 trinket, or for a couple of course the obvious religious reluctance.

I managed to persuade one of the non participants to draw the random name thing for everyone, much easier than going desk to desk, person to person, get everyone signed up and then get them a name. Hopefully the person drawing the names made some common sense decisions about pairing people up, despite everything there are people that wouldn't match well with others.

In previous years I've managed to accrue some really tacky things, things that aren't even remotely funny or even vaguely related to my own sense of humour or interaction, the comedy computer mouse with boobs as buttons for instance.

Perhaps someone should have got me a funny bone instead.

To be fair I kept this in my office cupboard for ages before it suddenly made its way into oblivion.

There is, at least for me, at least a little bit of skill required to get something that's at least pertinent to the person you're buying for. But there are always the obvious and desperate box of chocolate gifts that are just thoughtless, at least they're trying though.

But and also, I've been part of the #NZTwitterSecretSanta thing, whereby @Websam for the second year mashed together a webs site and a random pairing generator to connect nearly 800 people together for a similar process.

The obvious drawbacks, some of the twitter accounts turned out not really to exist, some of them were locked or protected accounts, some of the participants are not regular tweeters. Of course there is always a percentage that will receive and not give.

I've given, and wait patiently for reciprocated love, and I'm aware a few people in the same boat, waiting for both the receiver to acknowledge the gift, and to receive their random thing.

Last time up I received a water pistol. Like I said random, and not always thoughtful or pertinent.

Related articles

• Secret Santa Gift Idea (the-stuff-i-like.com)


• My Reddit Secret Santa is the Best! (be-lured.com)


• A Universal Secret Santa Gift (dangerouslee.biz)


• A Christmas Poem for Your Secret Santa (secretpalteachers.wordpress.com)

 

Industry, Profession, Job?

in part as response to nonsense like this "Twitter is one that can be difficult to understand the benefit of sometimes - for the recruitment industry simply rolling out job after job is incredibly boring"  Rectruitment is NOT an industry

Twitter is not an Industy....

or this

The Social Media industry is growing in New Zealand. We might be a few years behind the rest of the world... Social Media is not an Industry (although like most of the not industry industries you need to be industrious).
Real Estate - not an industry
Car Sales - not an industry
Working in a Recruitment - not an industry

Banking - Industry
Insurance - Industry
Tourism - Industry
Film and TV - Industry
Music - Industry
Building - Industry
Advertising - Industry

Teaching - Profession
Lawyer - Profession - the 'legal system' however an Industry
Television presenter - Profession
Musiscian - Profession

Job
Working in a warehouse
working in the #cubefarm
Working on a helpdesk.
Working in bank.
Working at an advertising agency.
Working in a store.

Christmas Cheer

In corporate world this becomes a couple of things

1. The customer party - where we open our cheque book, book a venue and ply the punters with drinking and nibbles for a few hours in the summer evening.




2. The customers party - where we go along and partake of their drinks and nibbles for a bit

The sending of gift baskets - how else would the world stock of quince paste ever get used? All manner of foul and disgusting things wrapped in tinsel - tinned cheese FFS.

The calendar. Varying sizes and shapes. This seems to be bi-annual, one year none, the next six or seven. Some are even gasped at in awe due to them being the size of small hoardings.

'Thank you' lunches, sort of like the old days but without the drinking, and only 90 minutes long and not all afternoon - although I guess it depends who or where you work.

and cake. Cake appears sometimes, this year it migh still be biscuits, but they still arrive.

Bonus this year I got a  gift box of a vendor badged tie and cuff-links - for those special occasions - I think I may have been #4 on the list as #1-3 didn't want them.

It's hard in the #cubefarm with the lollies and pastries, this year the speedo's are going to be tighty, tightier than usual

Christmas Cheer

In corporate world this becomes a couple of things

1. The customer party - where we open our cheque book, book a venue and ply the punters with drinking and nibbles for a few hours in the summer evening.

2. The customers party - where we go along and partake of their drinks and nibbles for a bit

The sending of gift baskets - how else would the world stock of quince paste ever get used? All manner of foul and disgusting things wrapped in tinsel - tinned cheese FFS.

The calendar. Varying sizes and shapes. This seems to be bi-annual, one year none, the next six or seven. Some are even gasped at in awe due to them being the size of small hoardings.

'Thank you' lunches, sort of like the old days but without the drinking, and only 90 minutes long and not all afternoon - although I guess it depends who or where you work.

and cake. Cake appears sometimes, this year it migh still be biscuits, but they still arrive.

Bonus this year I got a  gift box of a vendor badged tie and cuff-links - for those special occassions - I think I may have been #4 on the list as #1-3 didn't want them.

It's hard in the #cubefarm with the lollies and pastries, this year the speedo's are going to be tighty, tightier than usual

Truthing on Twitter

One of my followers is also my boss. This is problematic of course because there are days when all I want to say is how much of a doofus he is. 'cept that he will read it and then it could go badly.

There are peeps I follow that seem to be angry all the time, and it's like a stream of bad-tempered bursts of 140 character railing against the world, everything, men, pets, makes me annoyed because among them there are people I know, and like, in an internetty kind of way.

How important is the number of followers, what vanity is it to outwardly say that all you want really is x number of followers. We can all get those. But it must be quality rather than quantity. Do you think that your whole follower list actually reads your 140 character bursts ? What all of them ? Get on with you .

I could of course address my angst by making yet another twitter account- one which I can be anonymous in, but anonymity is not my strong thing. I'm a serial user of my own name as user-name and blogname places.

And Twitter- is it for marketing or presence ? Who are all these "experts" who actually don't tell you anything or impart knowledge but pass the story from person to person like a parcel of truth. Am I having a pop at SM experts now? I guess I am.

Which leads me to the other bit. Of course I look after an account that is our corporate presence. 'cept my boss thinks that he needs to follows x number of social media experts on our follow list, wherein I go and unfollow most of them as not appropriate. I've got away with it so far.

Social media then, tricky on the field as well as off it. I'll get he hang of it one day.

More than my jobsworth

I've always been a fan of encouraging people to know as much about their particular job as possible. Firstly to get them to understand what they are doing, and what effect it has on them and others, Secondly because it makes the job more enjoyable. If you understand what you are doing, why you are doing and why what you do does what it does then you have a better understanding and ability to change things.

So it comes as a disappointment that a long time staff person is really struggling to understand the basics of what they do. They are reaching for a promotion to take on more responsibility and to be a "player" however it's clear they are pretty clueless.

So then for him doing this new stuff means a lot of people who can do this stuff are doing the stuff for him, and that means they are back to pushing a button and waiting for a response. Clueless as to how A gets to B.

And they ask four different people the same question.

And yes this bothers me, because despite the rhetoric and always promoting themselves they are a disappointment to me. Setting themselves aside as not needing any mentoring/training/motivation and talking up their always being early (and yet not doing anything) they are a clock-watcher.

We call then Levi. as in 5:01

What's possibly worse is that they work in a square of "my job" and that anything else is a chore, believing that seniority grants them immunity or respect from criticism.

I'm glad they are not on my team. I'm mifffed that they will want an inordinate amount of my team's time, well heck they will want a lot of time from everyone and I am so looking forward to the day when one of two things happen. Either they have to work late to resolve something, or they find someone else to do the work as part of a core responsibility set. Oh and I know that the demands for equipment are pending "now I'm doing X I need Y"

Bring it.

I also find that this is a bit unlike me, then I justify it by saying that there are doers and sayers. I know what I think I am and I know what I think they are not.

Overhaulin'

When you spend as much time as I do looking at performance based statistics it throws up some interesting things.

Most importantly it shows up that you need to be nimble and ready to accept and process on a new idea, no matter how left-field it seems or appears to be.

Changing your focus, or changing the status quo can have a knock on effect, and changing to a non-measurable metric is always a difficult choice.

As is giving people an optional choice. My thinking (belief) is that if you make something optional then likely as not it does not get done. So the challenge is to come up with a non-optional option. Cunning that.

Implementing change without reason is difficult so it's a matter of spinning this into something that those that have to do the work think its a great idea. Cunning that.

Will it change the world? I have no idea, if I can't measure it by empirical data I'm back to "I feel" kind of things, which is something I shy away from.

We'll see where this goes, and it might be that we get back to the "I feel" metric based on pop-surveys and sat-survey techniques, which is something to look forward to and a good way to measure your trust and love quotient amongst those that you are there to be nice to.

The importance of self-importance

" Hey I know my rights!" which is what someone who generally doesn't says when they are clearly wrong. Just an observation and generalization.

But we're shuffling desks at work, and there are some people who will gather around them a new shiny job title. Different in some way to their old one. Newer.

Scary.

But some people find this type of change challenging. They don't want to change desks, and they don't want a new job title. They prefer "Assistant to the Manager" to "Team Leader". Some of them anyway. Some are looking forward to a new title. It'll empower them with enthusiasm and a new outlook.

But that's what some people are like, those that missed the meaning of the communication or the reason for the shuffle and re-focus. The "I know my rights" people who now need a "new contract" since this is a different job. Not Quite right.

But as a beneficiary of the reshuffle I have a bigger quandary, that of what promises were made to the new team members - those changing from the window seat to the hub. I guess we'll find out on the 1st

Related articles

• Job Titles are Important, Just not that Important (inspiredm.com)

Customer Service

The Mantra for my staff, for my company, is “Legendary Customer Service”. That’s our mission. Not our 5 year mission, the whole mission, not going where people have never been, just doing the right thing first time every time. Legends.

So I have two things

1. It’s annoying to find shop oiks who don’t seem to care. Granted usually minimal wage earners but don’t congregate at the back of the shopping gabbing on when you can be serving someone and making someone else happy.


2. When you get good customer service it’s often a surprise and
   2(a) It’s not usually as good as I believe that my team delivers

Now I may be biased, and they may be rubbish at it. But I believe “Legendary Customer Service” Exists.

Recently I had to buy a spare part for a fridge. The Door shelf thingy that holds jars. Being as how I can I bent down wrote the model number of the fridge down and hopped on the good old interweb to F&P

Naturally the bit I wanted wasn’t describes, but then I didn’t expect it to be really, but there was a handy “email me” option which I sent off.

The reply came, asked be a question, I replied, it came back giving me the part #, price and where I could go collect it, or If I wanted to have it shipped how to place an order.

I went to the factory to pick it up. Seemed like a great way to spend some time at lunch. I knew what I wanted bish bosh bash done!

When I get to the Customer Service desk however it was occupied by an oaf. A lummox with scraggly hair, cascading down from under his leather hat. Beard that looked like it had mice in it. Ginger too! Trousers that could not have been hitched higher if he tried.

“I want the bit that goes in the freezer for the shelf” he said “This is the model number, BUT I want it for the “elegance” model instead”
“What’s that model number?” said little old small lady behind the counter

“well it’s this model BUT for the Elegance model instead” said oafy man
“What’s that model number?” said little old small lady behind the counter

“well it’s this model BUT for the Elegance model instead” said oafy man

It could have gone on. She hefted ring-binders onto the counter turning pages and pointing to line diagrams of freezers “is it this bit?”
"well it’s this model BUT for the Elegance model instead” said oafy man

Eventually she had to go get yet another book. Oafy turn around looks at me and the other chap patiently waiting and says “can you believe the poor customer service you get?”

I looked at him like you do, with that puzzled look, he turned away muttering.
The helpful lady turned back up with some more books which they proceeded to look through with much the same conversation.

For me? Someone from the back room came up to help at the counter, luck or re-enforcements? Who knows. I asked for the bits I needed by part number, she toddled off, and within 5 minutes done!

I wonder if the oaf and the very helpful staff member are still going at it.

Twitter in the workplace Pt4

The one where we get Blogged down

I am kidding the only thing we’re stuck with is motion towards, that is finding a blogging service that will ultimately suit our needs. And as I think we’re leading this from the from in NZ it’s going to be imperative that we get it right first time.
The project sponsor has a site host in mind – SquareSpace – so the next thing to do is sign-up for one of those on a limited basis as an individual and try-it and see.
As mentioned though it’s going to be a challenge to have enough things to post – no use starting with a hiss and a roar if after a week you’ve used your best stuff and get writers block or cramp.

Some of the criteria we are looking for include the use of tagging, so that we can identify an article in a number of ways, say for instance we have 5 key topics that drive our marketing and our vendors, call them 1,2,3,4 and 5. We need to be able to tag an article so that it can appear in 1,3,5 or 1,2,3 depending on its content.
What are the fabulous 5? Security, Virtulisation, Storage, Collaboration and Networking.

Like a said, quantity and quality of words, and a place to display your wares.