Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Whack a Mole
A bit of sunshine this morning, now isn’t that what we all needed? I certainly did. It was indeed a hell of a day yesterday. A real whack a mole day. Remember whack a mole? That fairground game where you have a nice mushy mallet? In front of you is a bunch of holes out of which appear cute little stuffed moles who’s heads you proceed to whack. I loved that game.
That was my day. Hardware supplier not delivering to promised timelines? Whack! Call my mate Louie in NY who runs the global contract and get him to raise a fuss. Someone call in ill? Whack! Have a quiet chat with the supervisor to make sure an important task gets reassigned. He’d forgotten. Another supplier saying they can’t get an engineer in to apply a patch and my manager is scratching his head? Whack! Call the European CEO and threaten dire things. Some training going wrong? Whack! Talk to the trainers and figure out where their briefing went wrong, and make sure it gets corrected. CFO complaining about some of the five year plan revenue numbers? Whack! Spend a half hour writing up a justification. All this wrapped around 6 meetings where I have to make sure everyone plays nice and talks to each other.
It is more than a job to me. I get immense satisfaction out of seeing things work, helping teams achieve their goals, watch things get built. Its intense at the moment as we’re in the final stages of a massive product launch, hence my “woe is me” moan. Yet the boy jumps up and down inside when he thinks of the result. We’re going to rock the world, or at least a small insignificant part of it.
Another half hour until I’m in the office. Now where’s that mallet…
That was my day. Hardware supplier not delivering to promised timelines? Whack! Call my mate Louie in NY who runs the global contract and get him to raise a fuss. Someone call in ill? Whack! Have a quiet chat with the supervisor to make sure an important task gets reassigned. He’d forgotten. Another supplier saying they can’t get an engineer in to apply a patch and my manager is scratching his head? Whack! Call the European CEO and threaten dire things. Some training going wrong? Whack! Talk to the trainers and figure out where their briefing went wrong, and make sure it gets corrected. CFO complaining about some of the five year plan revenue numbers? Whack! Spend a half hour writing up a justification. All this wrapped around 6 meetings where I have to make sure everyone plays nice and talks to each other.
It is more than a job to me. I get immense satisfaction out of seeing things work, helping teams achieve their goals, watch things get built. Its intense at the moment as we’re in the final stages of a massive product launch, hence my “woe is me” moan. Yet the boy jumps up and down inside when he thinks of the result. We’re going to rock the world, or at least a small insignificant part of it.
Another half hour until I’m in the office. Now where’s that mallet…
