Monday. Bleh. Why must one dread the Monday so? Is it the screaming of the alarm clock that does it to us? I think it must be. Who says work needs to start at 8 a.m. on Monday? Why is that relevant? OH WAIT! It's NOT!!!
While on a conference call today, I heard the most disgusting thing I think I've heard in a very long time. From the mouth of a prospective customer, "Unless I have a mandated deadline from the Board, I just don't stay on track with these types of projects very well. So YOU will need to stay on top of me to get this deal done." What? Are you kidding me? Did that prospect just ask us to babysit him? I'm not a babysitter, thank you though. That's ridiculous. I'm sure that increasing the profitability of their company is always on the mind of the Board - and I'm pretty certain they want it achieved ASAP. But it made me wonder how many people on our team feel that way - that unless they have a specific deadline they just don't get things done. I bet quite a few of them are like that. Sad. Very sad. But I think we can change that attitude - no - I KNOW we can change that attitude!
Good day today. The boss is still on track for ROWE. He's pretty excited about it also, which excites me quite a bit! He is even keeping my book one more night because he's taking notes from it. So he not only read it, but it appears he has been studying it also! Tomorrow, I'm going to give him Cali's proposal in hopes that he approves having her team come in and help us to implement this! Should be a great management meeting!
Departmental meeting today was good - continued to go over our lists of tasks/activities and identify value in those items. So far, the ONLY activity that adds no value (which we eliminated after the meeting last week) was the time tracking item. Interesting. But yet today, I kept hearing complaints of certain things taking too much time. Too much time from what? What is the purpose/goal of the task? Does it add value? If it results in the rentention of $16,000/yr fee from that one customer - is it really too much time? I wonder if, when we move to ROWE, they will continue to think of some tasks as too time consuming? I'll be interested to see how it unfolds. I wonder if they will start to think differently and realize it wasn't the customer that was taking their time and too much of it - but instead it was being chained to that desk that was taking their time and controlling their lives. I also wonder, if it is THEIR time at stake - if they won't get creative on their own in terms of finding new ways to achieve the same results that take less time. I would think they would.
We have a staff member who spends hours on the phone with a specific customer. Literally hours and hours on the phone - and then stays at the office VERY late and works tons of hours to meet her deadlines. She says she can't get the customer off the phone. But I'm wondering - if she doesn't have 40 hours a week of our time to fill up - and instead is on her time - if she just won't find a polite, but direct way to communicate to the customer the need to end the incessant conference calling. I'd bet a paycheck that she does!!
There were some sideline emails going around today that were not productive, or professional, or even civil. They were just plain nasty for the sake of being nasty. And I wondered, "I bet when it's no longer OUR time to fill, but instead his/her time - they won't waste a minute of their freedom to shoot off nasty-grams like this and I'd bet this crap comes to a screeching hault." I mean - why would I take 5 minutes out of MY time to say something nasty about someone else when it has no impact on reaching the goal? I wouldn't. I hope the others see it the same way.
So many wonderful positive things that I can foresee coming our way!
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