Wednesday, July 05, 2006
WHEW!!
I can’t believe that it is already July 5th 2006.
It seems like just yesterday I was making buttons for Sirius Kiosks.
I lost the whole month of May to making buttons and then I was thrown into the mix for the new Craftsman trailer exhibit. Then I lost the whole month of June and part of July. 60 days of non stop long hours and sleepless nights I think that I am finally out of the woods and will soon be back to making cold calls and handling the brunt of the sales calls.
Now why was last week worse then the previous 3? Simple. You should NEVER work with your spouse everyday, day in and day out on the road for 15-20 weeks in a row. John and Mary (not their real names) are in charge of the set up and tear down of the new exhibit. They had a HUGE fight the night after the third time this exhibit had seen the light of day. A fight so big there was a little violence involved and a “GET THE FUCK OUT OF THIS HOTEL ROOM” screaming match, followed by the escalation of “John’s” already high blood pressure resulting in him calling “Mary” from the road somewhere to tell her to tell his kids (not hers) that he loves them and is heading to the emergency room.
“Mary” freaked the fuck out and spent the rest of the morning and all of the next day crying and wondering which hospital he was headed to. She later found out that he was admitted to the hospital and a battery of tests were run to figure out if it was a heart attack of an anxiety attack or if he was just having chest pains because he was fighting with his wife and was overcome with guilt of being wrong.
Who fucking knows? I didn’t press the issue when she finally broke down and cried on my shoulder for 10 minutes saying how scared she was and that she had no idea what to do.
Naturally I didn’t find out about this mess until lunch time on day two of the set up.
Why was me and my team even there? Well it seems that the powers that be couldn’t get their shit together enough, early enough to give our tech team and our designer (whom as we all know quit 18 hours before this exhibit was supposed to ship out 3 weeks ago) enough time to work out all of the bugs in the design and the technology that makes this exhibit an award winning technology marvel. So Since I was still standing in front of the shit covered fan, and we were setting this up at the Kansas Speedway…our backyard, I with the help of some EXTREMELY cool and smart people were at the track for the third weekend in a row working like slaves in Egypt to erect this monstrosity.
So when I was at lunch and got the whole story from head bigwig at the promotions company, I, being the “Field Supervisor” (whatever the fuck that means) decide that since we are in our home town and that this was a pretty expansive race and the third time out of the box, we would pick up the slack of the two missing HNIC’s and one lazy assed driver who would rather argue about poor designed trailer and how funny he thought he was, and stay until the completion of the project.
I was a complete ball o’ stress. So I looked at my team, and told them what was going to happen and they looked at me like I just told them that the sky was blue. “No shit” was all one guy said. So we finished our lunch and picked up lunch for the crew, and headed back to the job site. It was then I realized why our temp labor was temp labor. They were the most worthless pile of standing around and doing fucking nothing that I have ever seen. Fucking worthless I tell you. About 3 o’clock that afternoon when we should have been close to finishing the project, based on timelines that we had established the previous two weeks…we hadn’t even come close.
My phone rang and it was my CEO. He told me that if I needed resources to let him know and he would get some shop guys to come out and lend a hand. Well I love our shop guys to death but if they don’t have a plan written in triplicate, and collated along with a planogram of the complete project, they really can’t think for themselves. I told the boss I didn’t need any more “temp” labor I needed one more smart guy that was a doer and a thinker, not just a doer OR a thinker!
2 hours later I got the CEO, a designer that was on an interview, another project manager and a guy who thinks he is a project manager(one for this job, who is basically a glorified shipping manager, and needs the same plans as the shop guys to get anything done) and some friends of the tech team. I was set.
Unlike any previous jobs I had worked on with my boss, he was different this time. Instead of showing up and barking orders and trying to take over everything, thinking he knows more than everyone else he got there walked around the exhibit once and walked up to me and said “ where do you want me?” I almost fainted. BUT! I then took full advantage of his generosity and promptly put him to work on some detail stuff I knew we would never get done if I needed temps to try and attempt it. The whole crew was like that as well and everyone fell into a work routine like they were part of this project from day one.
It was nice to have a team of people that you could set a task before them and they did it even though you gave them a very rudimentary set of instructions. I am VERY proud of my co-workers. Without them there would have been a seriously upset client, and even though it had very little to do with me and my crew, it still showed some great customer service and dedication to the project, not just the paycheck.
But the bonuses are coming in handy, not to mention that I lost almost two full pant sizes working like a field worker in the heat…and my hair looks like it did when I was a kid and lived 300 yards from the city pool. I am very tanned and blonde. And we all know a tanned fat guy looks better then a un-tanned fat guy!
BBQ anyone?
It seems like just yesterday I was making buttons for Sirius Kiosks.
I lost the whole month of May to making buttons and then I was thrown into the mix for the new Craftsman trailer exhibit. Then I lost the whole month of June and part of July. 60 days of non stop long hours and sleepless nights I think that I am finally out of the woods and will soon be back to making cold calls and handling the brunt of the sales calls.
Now why was last week worse then the previous 3? Simple. You should NEVER work with your spouse everyday, day in and day out on the road for 15-20 weeks in a row. John and Mary (not their real names) are in charge of the set up and tear down of the new exhibit. They had a HUGE fight the night after the third time this exhibit had seen the light of day. A fight so big there was a little violence involved and a “GET THE FUCK OUT OF THIS HOTEL ROOM” screaming match, followed by the escalation of “John’s” already high blood pressure resulting in him calling “Mary” from the road somewhere to tell her to tell his kids (not hers) that he loves them and is heading to the emergency room.
“Mary” freaked the fuck out and spent the rest of the morning and all of the next day crying and wondering which hospital he was headed to. She later found out that he was admitted to the hospital and a battery of tests were run to figure out if it was a heart attack of an anxiety attack or if he was just having chest pains because he was fighting with his wife and was overcome with guilt of being wrong.
Who fucking knows? I didn’t press the issue when she finally broke down and cried on my shoulder for 10 minutes saying how scared she was and that she had no idea what to do.
Naturally I didn’t find out about this mess until lunch time on day two of the set up.
Why was me and my team even there? Well it seems that the powers that be couldn’t get their shit together enough, early enough to give our tech team and our designer (whom as we all know quit 18 hours before this exhibit was supposed to ship out 3 weeks ago) enough time to work out all of the bugs in the design and the technology that makes this exhibit an award winning technology marvel. So Since I was still standing in front of the shit covered fan, and we were setting this up at the Kansas Speedway…our backyard, I with the help of some EXTREMELY cool and smart people were at the track for the third weekend in a row working like slaves in Egypt to erect this monstrosity.
So when I was at lunch and got the whole story from head bigwig at the promotions company, I, being the “Field Supervisor” (whatever the fuck that means) decide that since we are in our home town and that this was a pretty expansive race and the third time out of the box, we would pick up the slack of the two missing HNIC’s and one lazy assed driver who would rather argue about poor designed trailer and how funny he thought he was, and stay until the completion of the project.
I was a complete ball o’ stress. So I looked at my team, and told them what was going to happen and they looked at me like I just told them that the sky was blue. “No shit” was all one guy said. So we finished our lunch and picked up lunch for the crew, and headed back to the job site. It was then I realized why our temp labor was temp labor. They were the most worthless pile of standing around and doing fucking nothing that I have ever seen. Fucking worthless I tell you. About 3 o’clock that afternoon when we should have been close to finishing the project, based on timelines that we had established the previous two weeks…we hadn’t even come close.
My phone rang and it was my CEO. He told me that if I needed resources to let him know and he would get some shop guys to come out and lend a hand. Well I love our shop guys to death but if they don’t have a plan written in triplicate, and collated along with a planogram of the complete project, they really can’t think for themselves. I told the boss I didn’t need any more “temp” labor I needed one more smart guy that was a doer and a thinker, not just a doer OR a thinker!
2 hours later I got the CEO, a designer that was on an interview, another project manager and a guy who thinks he is a project manager(one for this job, who is basically a glorified shipping manager, and needs the same plans as the shop guys to get anything done) and some friends of the tech team. I was set.
Unlike any previous jobs I had worked on with my boss, he was different this time. Instead of showing up and barking orders and trying to take over everything, thinking he knows more than everyone else he got there walked around the exhibit once and walked up to me and said “ where do you want me?” I almost fainted. BUT! I then took full advantage of his generosity and promptly put him to work on some detail stuff I knew we would never get done if I needed temps to try and attempt it. The whole crew was like that as well and everyone fell into a work routine like they were part of this project from day one.
It was nice to have a team of people that you could set a task before them and they did it even though you gave them a very rudimentary set of instructions. I am VERY proud of my co-workers. Without them there would have been a seriously upset client, and even though it had very little to do with me and my crew, it still showed some great customer service and dedication to the project, not just the paycheck.
But the bonuses are coming in handy, not to mention that I lost almost two full pant sizes working like a field worker in the heat…and my hair looks like it did when I was a kid and lived 300 yards from the city pool. I am very tanned and blonde. And we all know a tanned fat guy looks better then a un-tanned fat guy!
BBQ anyone?
