Thursday Thoughts

I had another post for today (concerning how to reverse the trend of outsourcing), but recent events led me to make a new post. I'm sure I'll get the other one up sometime soon.
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Human beings have a split personality when it comes to other human beings. We want to think of ourselves as unique even though most of us are more similar than different.

An “emergency” came up at work today. Because someone did not follow the procedures, a few needed documents fell through the cracks and a client was complaining. I had to stop working on my existing projects, change gears, find out what was wrong, address it to everyone’s satisfaction, and then go back to what I had been working on. No one could see that this “10 minute change” would take me a lot longer because of when it was occurring, how long it would take me to figure out where the task was, get it fixed, then go back to my previous job and figure out where I was, and what I was doing before I was interrupted. When I asked one of the participants how long it takes her to “make a 10 minute change,” she replied “About an hour, when all’s said and done.” I then asked her why she thought it would somehow take me LESS time than her to shift all of my priorities around to do a similar task. Her response was a simple, “Oh, I hadn’t thought of that.” Most people don’t. I imagine it is the same for ANY person in ANY job—yet most of us don’t consider that.

This isn’t just true in modern day life. I am frequently amused when I watch or read about archeological finds or sociological breakthroughs concerning ancient man. A boiled-down version of Occam’s Razor says the simplest explanation is most often the correct one. Yet, when these academics are viewing ancient rock chips, you frequently hear the most complex rationalizations of how ancient man probably used it. I always smile and think to myself, “Well, what would WE use them for today?” Because, in the end, ancient man and modern man still have the same basic needs, desires, and outlooks. We have overcomplicated our lives with a bunch of technology, jargon, and useless knowledge and trivia with which we then overcomplicate our ideas on how ancient man came at things.

I was watching a PBS science special on Native Americans. We recently discovered a new burial mound with lots of flints in some unusual shapes. Two of the anthropologists came up with the most complicated reasons for why the stones were in the shapes they were and why each had multiple sharp sides to them. Then one scientist came on and basically said, “That doesn’t make sense. If I’m using a good stone that makes sharp edges, I keep using it.” He then sat down and took a similar rock and broke it so it had a cutting surface. He then explained, “Once this cutting surface is no longer sharp enough, I either sharpen it again by breaking it off some more, or I shift the rock around and break a new cutting surface from another side of the stone.” He then suited action to words. He went on to say, “If I’ve found a really good stone, I may even have multiple uses for it, having a broader blade on one side and a smaller, sharper blade on the other side.” Again he suited action to words. After only a few minutes, he had created a nearly identical rock to those that had been found at the site. The other two anthropologists looked a little sick to their stomachs as they realized all their overly complicated ideas had just been neatly squashed by a no-nonsense approach. The third scientist had looked at it from a perspective of “What would I do, if this was my only tool?” And, of course, modern man does the same. We don’t go buy a new axe at Sears just because our existing axe is dull. We get a metal file or other sharpening tool and make the blade sharp again or pay someone else to do it. Why wouldn’t ancient man do and think the same?

I hate hearing how my friends and family can’t reply to emails “because I’m so busy.” Yes, so? I’m remarkably busy too. We have only two people in our department and we are currently supporting four product lines. Our metrics show we have enough work for four to five people. Yet, I made the time to send you the email, to reply to your emails. Is your “busy” somehow busier than my “busy?” Of course not. The difference is I make it a priority to send and respond to these and you do not. Your priorities are different. That is fine. But don’t denigrate me by suggesting you and your time are somehow more important than me and my time simply because we have a difference in priorities.

I had a similar problem with my doctor once. My appointment was for 3 pm. I wasn’t shown back into a room until about 3:20 and then the doctor didn’t arrive to see me until about 3:40. He apologized for running late and I said, “Do you realize that my time is more valuable to me than your time is to me?” This stopped him cold, as he had never heard it put that way. I further explained that, by making an appointment, we had a tacit agreement that we would both stop what we were doing and meet at a specific time. I felt he was showing disdain for me and my time by being late. His actions implied that his time was more important—I had put my life on hold (leaving work, driving over, and sitting in his lobby and exam room) and he had taken advantage of that. And we all have friends, family, and acquaintances who have done this to us. Or we have done it to them. It is a very egotistical thing, as you are somehow setting yourself up as the better person in the relationship. It is somehow okay for the other person to wait, but how do you feel when you are the one waiting?

In my days as a manager at Blockbuster, through my days at QSI managing client expectations for software requests, and in my current job, I have learned that most people believe that they must say yes to a client and agree with every timeline that a client puts before them. Somehow, they think that saying no to the client will be a catastrophic failure and the client will leave and take his money elsewhere. Yet, few of these people ever step back and say, “If I were the client and this was about my car being fixed, would I want to be told this?” The answer, quite frequently, is no. People would rather have honest conversation and realistic expectations than to have the sales person say yes to everything and then have the support or account management person come back a month later with some sort of apology or explanation why the company couldn’t do it exactly as agreed or in the agreed to time frame. What I found specifically at QSI was that the clients we had were so used to the people in my position lying to them that they were shocked when I reset their expectations, explained the real timelines, and gave them valid reasons for why something costs so much or would take so long. By the time I left, most clients were quite happy with those realistic expectations and phoned me for more than they should have because they knew I wouldn’t BS them.

The point I’m wandering slowly toward is that the next time you are in line and you are getting angry at the person to whom you are discussing your issue, take a step back and say to yourself, “Is this any different than when I have too many clients to deal with and not enough time in which to deal with the issues?” You might find the anger dissipating and your ability to reach a compromise increases as you relate the situation to your own life. If you don’t like it in your life, it’s very likely that the person with whom you are dealing will not like it his.
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Aside:
I went to get lunch today and the KFC had screwed up my order. Rather than get upset, I thought about my own post and how it applied to the situation and was able to reach a happy compromise with the KFC staff person with whom I was dealing.