I earned my brownie today
SO glad it's Friday.
We have a major client meeting happening on Wednesday. As my boss is not known for general cleanliness around the business, this means he and his mom are undertaking a frantic cleaning effort between both buildings. Given that we're just getting out of the busy season, there's a lot to clean. If only they had decent habits, this wouldn't be a bad thing, but they're scatterbrained and things get set down all over the place, and then piles form, and the next thing you know, you're randomly finding your grandfather's prayer card from two years ago on someone's desk. But I digress.
Of course, this maelstrom of cleaning is occurring while the rest of us are trying to conduct business, and with one season of work over with, so to speak, another season begins, meaning the rearranging of equipment. My boss' timing is excellent, because of course today would be the day for me to do this, when I do not have a minion at my disposal and have to do it all myself. My newest coworker comes from the same anal-retentive tree I do, just a different branch, and this is the sort of thing she'd be good at…if she was here. Which she was not. With two of us on it, we could've gotten it done in a couple hours. Just me? Four. And as it inched closer to three o'clock, I realized I was not going to make it out by three, which sucked, since it's Friday and all and I've been able to get out at three the rest of the week. Sucks to be me. Really, the whole thing is that I have stuff to do, and if not I can find stuff to do, but she doesn't and she can't and she needs to be given tasks. Now that we're out of the busy season, it's slow enough that, truthfully, I don't really need her. (My boss needs to learn to hire properly, but that's another story.)
Another coworker was attempting to help with the cleaning and even came in a good two hours early to do so. This is the distant relative of the owner. Since it's family, she doesn't mind helping out most of the time, and she does have ideas to help improve the business (whether or not they're actually feasible, that's another story)…but she has to work on her timing, and on realizing when it's a good time to bring something up or not. This is not something she's picked up on in the past year. We've mostly had her doing filing and some reorganizing, so she's not doing regular day-to-day business stuff, which is part of it. Otherwise, perhaps she'd realize that if a certain person is not at his desk but at the adjacent desk, it means he's doing some heavy-duty accounting or financial work and shouldn't be bothered with silly questions. Whatever it is, it can wait. Since she doesn't know better, she was asking him things (though I think he was at his regular desk at the time, hmm), and he got cranky and went off on her a bit. And the owner and his mom did the same thing, though in the other building so I didn't see it at the time. All I know is that she came by me really upset at one point, like basically crying, and I've never seen her like that. She's tough. I don't see her as a crier. So that…was upsetting to me.
Part of it goes back to timing. She did this earlier, during the busy season, where during a very tense time she was saying, oh, we should do this instead of that! Like, we're under a tremendous time crunch and just need to get this finished; now is NOT the time to be making suggestions. Yes, your suggestion is a good one. Yes, it makes perfect sense. But we'd need far more time than we currently have to implement it. So…stifle it and just keep working. (She tends to start talking and doesn't stop. I like her, but I can either listen to her or do my job. Guess which I get paid to do. Go on, guess.) I should find a nice way to say this to her. Those of us who have been around for a while realize that it's not our name on the business, and therefore we know that certain ideas aren't going to go anywhere, or that there are better times than others to bring them up (like, probably not when we're trying to clean for an important meeting), and you'd best just make a note to bring it up later.
It felt like a really long day. My boss' mom had brought in brownies, half covered in nuts, half plain, and I succumbed and had a piece from the middle in lieu of having my regular lunchtime snack. I'd had to put something together for my project today, and it basically took a degree in engineering to do, so I figured this would afford me the energy to deal with it. Yeah, kind of.
We have a major client meeting happening on Wednesday. As my boss is not known for general cleanliness around the business, this means he and his mom are undertaking a frantic cleaning effort between both buildings. Given that we're just getting out of the busy season, there's a lot to clean. If only they had decent habits, this wouldn't be a bad thing, but they're scatterbrained and things get set down all over the place, and then piles form, and the next thing you know, you're randomly finding your grandfather's prayer card from two years ago on someone's desk. But I digress.
Of course, this maelstrom of cleaning is occurring while the rest of us are trying to conduct business, and with one season of work over with, so to speak, another season begins, meaning the rearranging of equipment. My boss' timing is excellent, because of course today would be the day for me to do this, when I do not have a minion at my disposal and have to do it all myself. My newest coworker comes from the same anal-retentive tree I do, just a different branch, and this is the sort of thing she'd be good at…if she was here. Which she was not. With two of us on it, we could've gotten it done in a couple hours. Just me? Four. And as it inched closer to three o'clock, I realized I was not going to make it out by three, which sucked, since it's Friday and all and I've been able to get out at three the rest of the week. Sucks to be me. Really, the whole thing is that I have stuff to do, and if not I can find stuff to do, but she doesn't and she can't and she needs to be given tasks. Now that we're out of the busy season, it's slow enough that, truthfully, I don't really need her. (My boss needs to learn to hire properly, but that's another story.)
Another coworker was attempting to help with the cleaning and even came in a good two hours early to do so. This is the distant relative of the owner. Since it's family, she doesn't mind helping out most of the time, and she does have ideas to help improve the business (whether or not they're actually feasible, that's another story)…but she has to work on her timing, and on realizing when it's a good time to bring something up or not. This is not something she's picked up on in the past year. We've mostly had her doing filing and some reorganizing, so she's not doing regular day-to-day business stuff, which is part of it. Otherwise, perhaps she'd realize that if a certain person is not at his desk but at the adjacent desk, it means he's doing some heavy-duty accounting or financial work and shouldn't be bothered with silly questions. Whatever it is, it can wait. Since she doesn't know better, she was asking him things (though I think he was at his regular desk at the time, hmm), and he got cranky and went off on her a bit. And the owner and his mom did the same thing, though in the other building so I didn't see it at the time. All I know is that she came by me really upset at one point, like basically crying, and I've never seen her like that. She's tough. I don't see her as a crier. So that…was upsetting to me.
Part of it goes back to timing. She did this earlier, during the busy season, where during a very tense time she was saying, oh, we should do this instead of that! Like, we're under a tremendous time crunch and just need to get this finished; now is NOT the time to be making suggestions. Yes, your suggestion is a good one. Yes, it makes perfect sense. But we'd need far more time than we currently have to implement it. So…stifle it and just keep working. (She tends to start talking and doesn't stop. I like her, but I can either listen to her or do my job. Guess which I get paid to do. Go on, guess.) I should find a nice way to say this to her. Those of us who have been around for a while realize that it's not our name on the business, and therefore we know that certain ideas aren't going to go anywhere, or that there are better times than others to bring them up (like, probably not when we're trying to clean for an important meeting), and you'd best just make a note to bring it up later.
It felt like a really long day. My boss' mom had brought in brownies, half covered in nuts, half plain, and I succumbed and had a piece from the middle in lieu of having my regular lunchtime snack. I'd had to put something together for my project today, and it basically took a degree in engineering to do, so I figured this would afford me the energy to deal with it. Yeah, kind of.