There is something quite nice about waking up early on a Saturday morning, feeling rested, albeit with mild irritation that you weren't able to sleep longer. But, what can you do? I tend to make myself a coffee and enjoy the opportunity to just let my mind wander. Sometimes the peace and quiet helps me to concentrate the thoughts and apply a bit of perspective.
Over the past couple of years, I have become more and more frustrated with my situation at work. I am not referring the normal ups and downs that come with the job, nor am I talking about the high level of stress that accompanies my position, although this past February was a bit of an eye opener. My frustrations come from the fact that I really like what I do for a living, and I do my job very well, but I am disillusioned with the industry, the company, and at times, some of my colleagues. I have to choose my words carefully when I describe this frustration; although I do have an ego, I remain very humble. It is far more important to me that our company be successful rather than my individual performance. Of course, I want my performance to be strong so as to help the company achieve the success.
Perhaps I am naive in thinking that my colleagues feel the same way, and focus on improving their contributions to our collective effort. Last month, the board hired a new president of our company, which makes the third president inside of two years. Whenever there is a management change, I notice that people go out of their way to try and highlight how "valuable" they are. This is disconcerting not only because it conflicts with my own style, but because to a certain extent (at least short term), some of these "valuable" people get promotions that perhaps they don't really deserve.
I do not have real aspirations to become a c-level executive, but respect that this is a goal for many people. I prefer to work for an organization where management earns the respect of its employees not because of their title, but because of their actions and efforts. The other day, I got into a little pickle because the hotel booking that I made for my upcoming trip to Madrid was 15 euros higher than our travel company allows as a booking rate. I had to explain that I chose a hotel that was slightly more expensive because of it's proximity to the repair supplier I would be visiting. Staying at a cheaper hotel further away would mean that I would have to travel further with a taxi, which would result in higher expenses. The fact that I had to justify this to management (who approve all travel) was a little annoying, considering they always fly with business class. I found myself wondering if these are the type of people I want to work for.
In fairness, that is a rather trivial example, but sometimes it's the little things that become significant. Last summer, we started using some new metric reporting software. The software is pretty cool, and management loves it. The summary page provides a map of all the countries in our region, and color codes the country in accordance with the metrics. If the metrics are on (or above) target, the country shows as green. In the event that the metrics are not on target, then the country shows red. Green good, Red bad.
For an executive level, the color coding is helpful, but it doesn't always tell the real story. The other week, when one of my countries showed up as red on the performance charts, management flipped out and wanted to organize a task force to go off and investigate the problem. That wasn't necessary, I explained, as there was no problem. The country showed up red on the metric because of the way the metrics are calculated. We deal in repair volume, and for those countries where the volume is very low, the impact is more significant. For example, to measure quality, we have a metric that calculates the number of repeat repairs. If a repair partner does 1000 repairs, and 100 of them come back for repeat service, you have a 10% bounce rate. But what happens if you only did 2 repairs, and one of them came back? You'd have a 50% bounce rate and your country shows up as red on the metric chart. Unfortunately, not every manager wants to accept this kind of logic, especially those who only want to have graphs that look perfect (green). Again, are these the kind of people I want to work with, to work for?
So, here on Saturday morning I am thinking about me. Do I need to switch industries, or change companies? Would that even make a difference? Or, is it time for a different career altogether? If so, which one should I consider?
The answers won't all come today, but soon. Meanwhile, I will reread a little Dr. Seuss.
"Oh, the places you'll go!"
see you out there
bryan
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