Health, Family and Work
Joyce was a firecracker! She was very passionate about her work and had been with the company for many years. Sometimes her enthusiasm could be perceived as complaining but it was hard to argue with her work ethic.
One Monday I walked over to her desk to see how things were going because I had heard there was a pretty severe production problem over the weekend. That was a pretty common occurance and since Joyce had been there so long, she was always getting pulled into these problems. She had just finished a conversation with her boss.
I could see her standing up behind her desk chair as I walked closer and could see she was using the chair to support herself. I asked her what was the matter and she said her back was a bit sore, I knew there was something more to it.
I suggested it would be a good idea for her to go home, she didn’t look good and odds are somebody else can figure out what was happening with the production problem. She said she “had to stay” and wouldn’t be able to rest at home anyway so she was going to stay. Read more
People Are Not Robots
People are doing the best they can with what they have. I have mentioned that in some of my older posts and it’s something I live by. I believe in the good in people and that people in general are not malicious. I have used this argument with many-a-manager that I’ve worked with either as a full time employee or consultant, usually in vain.
I remember working with a team in a company that had agreed to do their morning standup at 9.30am. Quickly afterwards a pattern had developed where a couple of team members would be a few minutes late, then they would arrive later and later to the point where some team members would start criticizing the late team members. ”Why can’t he just be on time? We said we would have the standup at 9.30, what’s wrong with him?” Read more
