Category: Work
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The Seven Swear-words of Successful Managers
We had a bit of a sketch at work, recently. The developers had made some code changes to add new functionality that our users desperately wanted. The change went in the night before a public holiday, which in retrospect wasn’t a great idea (especially as the programmer who made the change had flown back to Poland for the long weekend). On the off chance that there might be problems, I went into work the next day anyway. When I got in (at 7:00 am), I found out that the implementation hadn’t gone in cleanly, and now none of our retail sites… Read more
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Fear and More Fear in Central America
I’m in Honduras. Ostensibly to deliver a training course I developed, but I’m also taking advantage of the opportunity to witness the implementation of our new system at one of our convenience stores. What initial visions I had of seeing a bit of the country rapidly disappeared when my contact over here advised me (before I’d even set off on my 36-hour 4-flight trip to get here) that under no circumstances should I get a taxi from the airport to the hotel, and that a named driver (whose ID I sholuld check), holding a sign with a pre-defined codeword on… Read more
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“I have one word for you…plastic.”
Outside of my office block there are a couple of uncomfortable-looking, ugly, grey concrete benches that seem to have been provided for the sole purpose of giving the smokers somewhere to sit during their frequent company-sanctioned absences from work. Not being a smoker, I’ve never taken advantage of them, but now that the weather has warmed up a little, I thought I’d go and sun myself after lunch (and get skin-cancer at the same time I get lung-cancer from passive smoking…). As I sat down, however, I make a startling discovery – they are not concrete at all! They are… Read more
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Protect Me I’m Stupid
I work for a company that prides itself on its safety-conscious attitude. This is generally a good thing, but sometimes they can push it too far. Case in point: I recently had a run-in with one of their over-zealous, self-appointed ‘safety enforcers’. It was about 7am and I was just going into work. I crossed the car park, stepped over the grass verge, and cut across the road to the building. I’d barely reached the other side when a voice behind me boomed “Use the crossing!” Admittedly, the crossing was only 5 meters further up the road, but this is… Read more