RAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It just started to drizzle a little while ago.  It is beautiful!

Ok.  So I changed the way my blog looks a little.  It is a little harder to read I think.  But it looks pretty.  If the font makes it difficult for you to read, let me know and I'll pick another.  There are lots to choose from.

On the work front:  L. said that the area manager is in charge of the flowerbeds.  I told her I needed to have guidelines so I know what my responsibilties are and what I'm not supposed to do.  She said she'd talk to the relevent people.  Of course, the area manager was on vacation this week.  So all the plants I bought are still waiting to be planted.  Deep Breath...

I had a meeting with the president.  You know what, I'm going to use names instead of titles.  The names are common enough I think.  I don't want to get myself or anyone in trouble.  So anyway.  I talked to Chris.  I said I needed some advice.  I didn't know what to do when the things Richard wants are different from the things he wants.  I gave him examples of issues we were having with each other.  He said in his experience, many of these sorts of problems disappear as the new supervisor becomes more comfortable.  He said in the beginning it seems like everything is coming at you really fast and you feel overwhelmed and you overeact to things.  He told me to try to understand Richard's point of view.  I was trying to do that already but I didn't really know all the different factors that new supervisors deal with.  But, armed with more information I think I have been able to work with him better.  Chris also said to give it a month and any problems that hadn't resolved by then could be delt with.  He really helped me to get a new perspective on things.  He would take a situation where I thought Richard and Chris felt very differently and he would help me look for ways that they were both right.  That was very helpful.  As a scientist, I feel that things are either correct or not correct.  It is difficult to grasp that two seemingly opposite points of view could both be correct.  He also pointed out that Richard is probably feeling a lot more overwhelmed and inadequate than he lets on.  When it seems like he's panicking or overeacting, it is probably that he's trying to prevent mistakes and other problems because he feels the pressure of everything being on his shoulders.

That evening Froggi came over to hang out and decorate cookies and I talked to her about Richard and my talk with Chris.  She added that his definition of teamwork is exactly the military's definition.  My definition is different than that but I think I understand his side a little more.  You do your job the best you can so that the next person can do their job.  I get that.  I guess I feel that we're beyond that.  Doing my job well is second nature to me.  It takes little effort.  I have a lot left over and I want to use it to help others do their jobs better and to anticipate the needs of others and my future needs.  I feel that teamwork means bettering the company as a whole by not only doing my job well, but assisting others to do their jobs well.  I think it will just take some time for Richard and I to be on the same page and for him to have confidence that I will do my job well without extra/outside motivation.  I think as I continue to prove myself by producing quality work and simultaneously reducing the workload of others, he'll relax.

The final realization came yesterday.  All this time I thought that he was upset with me all the time and was always questioning everything I did.  Around lunchtime there were two separate conversations where he said something, I thought I was in trouble, and he said I wasn't; he had an idea or he was just relaying information to me.  I had an epiphany!  He has the same tone of voice, the same facial expression, the same sentence structure, and the same intensity whether he's upset about something or not.  When he comes over and "accuses" me of doing something on a job, it's actually a simple question with no irritation attached.  It just seems like he's irritated.  When he brings a new job to my attention, he's not upset at me for not already doing it.  He's simply giving me information.  Talk about a light bulb moment.  The afternoon went better than the last few weeks have!

I already have practice with this sort of thing.  DH used to phrase his questions like commands.  Everyone always thought he was controlling and rude and abrasive but I knew it was a simple question.  No attitude or emotion was intended.  I have helped him learn to rephrase things to be less offensive and he gets along better with everyone, including me.  Because sometimes, even I would misinterpret him and we'd have to fight about it before realizing it was a misunderstanding.  That still happens a little but we are doing much better.  But anyway, I can use that experience with Richard and I think I can interpret him much better in the future.  It'll be very relieving to not be on the defensive all the time.  I knew I shouldn't automatically be defensive but it was a quick subconsious reaction to his (perceived) tone.  Happy days are ahead.

Now that I have Richard at least partially figured out, I have more confidence in my work and myself and I feel like I can tackle the flowerbed situation with confidence as well.  I think I can explain my need for guidelines and a list of responsibilities in a way that they'll understand and respect.

The only hurdle I forsee is trying to meet in the middle with Richard on the information debate.  He wants to be the one that recieves and communicates all the information.  But right now he's really stretched thin because he's trying to do bindery work like all of us (which he's only been doing for 6 months of his life and it takes much more time than that to be proficient at bindery work), make sure we don't screw anything up- which means he has to look at every job and work order that goes through the bindery and often go over the specifics with us, train a new girl, get used to the huge volume of work that we're expected to complete each day (and that volume has grown significantly in the last month), delegate jobs in the right order to the right people so they all get done by the due date/time, learn all the specific details about repeat jobs/customers that nobody bothers to write down anymore, learn all the little bits of random information that you can't really retain until you've been around a long time, make sure we're not getting distracted by something and not working fast enough, make sure we aren't doing a job that can wait instead of a rush job (communicate information), judging when we can get all the work done on time by ourselves or when we need to bring in help from other stores, dealing with our defensiveness and attitudes toward him because we don't understand him very well, and figure out how the company runs, like the personality of the company..or.. I don't know how to explain it.  Just the specific nature of the way things tend to happen.  At each company, things occur in a specific way, governed by lots of variables.  Over time, you can predict what is in the near future based on the rules.  Not like legal rules, but more like natural rules.  For instance, I know from experience that when I see a couple of envelopes that look like invitation envelopes, I can expect that pretty soon we'll get the insides for the job and we'll be stuffing and mailing those invitations, even though none of that information is on the work order.  I can expect that it won't go on the inserter because it's a funky size and/or there are too many pieces or whatever.  I know that about the week before the end of the month, the pressmen are going to be cutting a crapload of paper and I know that we're going to have lots of casino mailers on the last two days of the month.  I know that every other month, on the third week of the month, we're going to get a couple of pallets of a popular regional magazine and I know that I need to prepare for a lot of label sticking, sticker sticking, and mail sack filling.  I know that when we need more foam core to tell Matt, but when we need more double sided masking tape to tell Bart.  I know which drivers need to be reminded to pick up their posters in the back and which ones don't.

All that to say, I would like to take some of the pressure off of Richard so he can do his job effectively.  I would like him to be able to focus on delegating work, job timing, overall quality control, and perfecting his own skills on the machines, while I handle the little things like unwritten specifics for jobs, preparing for future jobs, gathering information from, and communicating with other managers about jobs, and handling all the random people who come through and have questions or need help running something through a machine.  He can't hardly get a machine set up without having to stop several times to investigate a new job that just came in, or help the new girl learn something, or put out one fire or another.  He is so overwhelmed by all the distractions that come that he makes a lot of mistakes on his own work.  I really feel for him.  I know that he has the ability to handle all of it eventually but he's really drowning right now and I'd like to be his water wings (lol!).  I don't want to be the supervisor or be in charge of any people.  I just want to ease the burden of the people who are in charge.  One of my sources of satisfaction comes from helping others excel.  Like, when I see Richard about to cut a postcard that will mail, I'll get some mail trays for him to put them in.  If someone's about to work on a job that I know has specific directions that aren't in the workorder, I want to go explain how to do the job and why we do it that way.  If someone is on the folder and is running out of boxes, I'll make a few more for them.  These kinds of things do not fall in Richard's idea of teamwork but I feel that they are important for keeping things running efficiently.

Also, if I have a question about something, I want to ask the person who has the answer.  Richard wants me to ask him and then he can decide if the question is important, ask said person, and relay the information back to me.  I feel that it is a very inefficient way to do things.  Not only does it take a lot longer, but the information can get degraded as it travels through the channels.  If Richard doesn't understand my question well enough, he won't know if the other manager has answered the question to my satisfaction.  Many times I have to rephrase a question before the manager knows what information I'm looking for.  All that time could be spent working on the job instead of waiting for the answer before proceeding.  Our company is all about getting things done faster than any other place can.  We strive to eliminate all inefficiency in the entire process, from the initial job request to the delivery of the product.  Chain of command works in many applications but I really feel that in the information relaying sense, it wastes too much time.  If I go over your head and ask Matt or Chris for information that you don't know (and have no way of knowing), it does not mean I don't respect your authority.  It means that I eliminated two steps in the process of getting my job done on time.

Well!  That was quite the rant, wasn't it!  I don't know that it was a rant spcifically, more of an explanation of my thoughts.

I've been at the company longer than any of the other bindery folk.  I have an intuitive sense about the jobs that come through.  I don't often get overwhelmed by the work volume because most of it is something I've done many times before.  When a new type of job comes, I'm excited for the diversity.  All the hundreds of individual things (jobs, events, etc.) of the workday seem like a flow of small particles and they seem easy to manage and prepare for.  But I know for Richard, each job or new event is more like a brick hitting him.  Because he hasn't had the time here that I have, each individual job is its own thing, its own problem, whereas for me, it is a small piece in a continuous flow.  I can view the work in the shop as a whole and I can recognize the individual pieces of the whole as just parts of the picture.  I'm not sure if Richard can see the whole picture because he keeps being bombarded by bricks in his face.  When I first started, every job was a brick, or a concrete block!  But over time I was able to conquer each brick and the bricks became smaller over time until they all became particles in a flow.  That view took at least two years to acheive.  At my 6 month anniversary I was still being pounded in the face all day!  I can't imagine being put in charge of all those bricks at 6 months!

Well.  Um...

I made sugar cookies.  I'm finally caught up on birthday baking and so I make cookies because I wanted to!  I made lots of spring shapes with lots of bright spring colors.  I increased my knowledge and skill in the cookie decorating area and I have lots of ideas I want to try the next time I use frosting.  Which will be tonight I think.  We're going to the inlaws for lunch tomorrow and I have extra frosting so I thought I'd make a cookie cake.  I should probably call them so they don't fix a dessert.

I think I'm going to take a walk in the park with my trowel and a bucket.  There are many escaped lansdcape plants in the park and I don't think anyone would mind if I removed a few.  Gotta love invasive species...

Sometime this weekend I plan to make a pictures post.  But for now, I want to be outside!!  It is cool and overcast and it smells like rain.  I haven't smelled rain in forever!