The drivers were working flat out. Even so the work was building up - especially, they noticed, the really urgent work. Some of the longer term, routine jobs they could postpone for a while but some needed to be done pretty much straight away. However things had got to a stage where these urgent jobs were so frequent that they were displacing the routine work indefinitely and that was not good for the image of the company.
The drivers had got together to work out a way through this peak in work that had come about partly because of the holiday season when several were away. Doing some extra work on Saturday mornings seemed to be the only option in he short term, even though they recognised that carrying this on for any length of time would not be good for their collective health. However, in the interests of keeping things moving smoothly many were prepared to make this sacrifice.
They conferred with their booking clerk, who arranged their lists of job, and she confirmed that this was possible. There were sufficient car washers and fuel pump attendants to staff these extra sessions of work.
So they emailed Paul explaining the situation and asking him to authorise the scheme. They hoped for a quick response as Saturday was not that far away and plans needed to be made for setting up the various jobs. The customers needed to be notified.
Thy waited for a reply. And waited.
Then it came.
"I shall confer and get back to you."
Confer, they wondered? With whom? Wasn't he the manager?
So they waited some more, impatient to take steps to rectify their burgeoning waiting list. And Paul mulled it over, and thought about it from every angle, and mulled some more.
And the drivers waited.
Wednesday 27 July 2011
Wednesday 20 July 2011
Paul dreams of being world-class
One of the drivers was retiring. He had been unwell for some time and had therefore been unable to do much work. The other drivers tried their best to cover for him but it was quite a long time before Paul appointed a short term replacement to help with the workload. This new appointment however was a tremendous help and worked hard and within a very few months the drivers noticed that, with this extra capacity, the waiting times from customer inquiry to job completion had more than halved.
They were very pleased with this but acknowledged that even with this new bonus help they were still only just coping. They were delighted when one of Paul's assistant managers told them that they could convert this temporary post into a permanent one and so they spent some time considering what skills the new appointee should possess to best cope with current demands and to fit in with their strategy. The driver who was retiring had driven mostly Plymouths and the English Reliable Caravan Pulling vehicle for which there wasn't that much call these days; rather the drivers wanted help with the increasing demand for the Economy Mid Range car that was becoming very popular.
The other aspect of the departing driver's work had been time in the Research and Development workshop looking at ways to repair big ends and he had quite a reputation in this field. Many of the other drivers didn't quite see the point of this as once the big end was broken there wasn't much could be done to fix it and the car was generally consigned to the scrap heap.
Paul then had an idea.
"I know," he said to the assembled company. "We could use the money I had initially earmarked for your replacement to get a top class innovator in the field of big ends and recruit him to work here. We can then become a world-class big end centre. That would really put this branch of the National Hire Service on the map"
"But Paul," they lamented. " If you do that then the day to day service will crumble back to the shabby state it was in before we got our temporary replacement driver. You might end up with a world-class big end research centre but you'll also have a third class driving service. We'd struggle to be the best branch in this county, never mind the world."
"But the world-class big end man would help you," countered Paul.
"Nonsense Paul," they replied. "He'll be off taking big ends apart all day and then going to conferences to talk about it. We wouldn't get a shred of real work out of him - after all, that's not his job."
"But a part of my vision for this place is to make it world-class," sniffed Paul, clearly upset that yet again he might be thwarted.
"Walk before you can run, Paul," they soothed. "Walk before you can run."
They were very pleased with this but acknowledged that even with this new bonus help they were still only just coping. They were delighted when one of Paul's assistant managers told them that they could convert this temporary post into a permanent one and so they spent some time considering what skills the new appointee should possess to best cope with current demands and to fit in with their strategy. The driver who was retiring had driven mostly Plymouths and the English Reliable Caravan Pulling vehicle for which there wasn't that much call these days; rather the drivers wanted help with the increasing demand for the Economy Mid Range car that was becoming very popular.
The other aspect of the departing driver's work had been time in the Research and Development workshop looking at ways to repair big ends and he had quite a reputation in this field. Many of the other drivers didn't quite see the point of this as once the big end was broken there wasn't much could be done to fix it and the car was generally consigned to the scrap heap.
Paul then had an idea.
"I know," he said to the assembled company. "We could use the money I had initially earmarked for your replacement to get a top class innovator in the field of big ends and recruit him to work here. We can then become a world-class big end centre. That would really put this branch of the National Hire Service on the map"
"But Paul," they lamented. " If you do that then the day to day service will crumble back to the shabby state it was in before we got our temporary replacement driver. You might end up with a world-class big end research centre but you'll also have a third class driving service. We'd struggle to be the best branch in this county, never mind the world."
"But the world-class big end man would help you," countered Paul.
"Nonsense Paul," they replied. "He'll be off taking big ends apart all day and then going to conferences to talk about it. We wouldn't get a shred of real work out of him - after all, that's not his job."
"But a part of my vision for this place is to make it world-class," sniffed Paul, clearly upset that yet again he might be thwarted.
"Walk before you can run, Paul," they soothed. "Walk before you can run."
Wednesday 13 July 2011
Paul goes electronic
For every journey they undertook the drivers had to fill out a logbook of the trip detailing the various aspects - from number of miles driven to passengers carried to fuel consumption to any vehicle damage. These logbooks were as old as time and perfectly understood by everyone who worked in the company, and beyond. When going to a new National Hire Centre branch the drivers would know straight away how and where to enter the relevant information. The system worked well and no one had any complaints.
Paul however, had other ideas.
He saw an opportunity for cutting the staff who filed, stored and maintained these logbooks and using the savings to invest in some more vital management projects. He explained to the drivers that henceforth they would be entering all the information on a computer and dispense with all the paperwork. The drivers had their misgivings but were reassured that all would be well. They were shown the programme with which they could access all the data and enter their comments.
"But Paul," they said. "Using your programme we have to keep opening and closing sub-programmes to retrieve information from the different databases whereas currently there is a programme that skips effortlessly between them. Why are we regressing?"
Paul smiled. "There may be minor glitches but we will iron them out in time," he replied.
"What's the hurry?" they queried. "Why not wait until the existing system is at least as good as what we have rather than go backwards? Did you know for instance that in one of the sub-programmes the Return key doesn't work so everything we write comes out as a single line?"
Paul just smiled. "Oh yes, we know about that," he said.
"But you thought you'd go ahead and implement it anyway?" The drivers shook their heads. "What's being done about it?"
"Well..." Paul hesitated. "We're contacting the developers." The drivers' eyes rolled.
"Anyway, the main problem is that looking up all our information using these cumbersome routes rather than just flicking through the logbooks takes much more time. 12% more in fact: we've measured it."
Paul, who had no such data, grimaced. "Once you've got used to the system it will get quicker," he ventured.
"Quite possibly, Paul. But that doesn't explain why you're introducing an inferior system too soon, making us use it effectively as your unpaid beta testers whilst expecting us to work normally at the same time."
"Because it's progress," retorted Paul petulantly, and left.
Paul however, had other ideas.
He saw an opportunity for cutting the staff who filed, stored and maintained these logbooks and using the savings to invest in some more vital management projects. He explained to the drivers that henceforth they would be entering all the information on a computer and dispense with all the paperwork. The drivers had their misgivings but were reassured that all would be well. They were shown the programme with which they could access all the data and enter their comments.
"But Paul," they said. "Using your programme we have to keep opening and closing sub-programmes to retrieve information from the different databases whereas currently there is a programme that skips effortlessly between them. Why are we regressing?"
Paul smiled. "There may be minor glitches but we will iron them out in time," he replied.
"What's the hurry?" they queried. "Why not wait until the existing system is at least as good as what we have rather than go backwards? Did you know for instance that in one of the sub-programmes the Return key doesn't work so everything we write comes out as a single line?"
Paul just smiled. "Oh yes, we know about that," he said.
"But you thought you'd go ahead and implement it anyway?" The drivers shook their heads. "What's being done about it?"
"Well..." Paul hesitated. "We're contacting the developers." The drivers' eyes rolled.
"Anyway, the main problem is that looking up all our information using these cumbersome routes rather than just flicking through the logbooks takes much more time. 12% more in fact: we've measured it."
Paul, who had no such data, grimaced. "Once you've got used to the system it will get quicker," he ventured.
"Quite possibly, Paul. But that doesn't explain why you're introducing an inferior system too soon, making us use it effectively as your unpaid beta testers whilst expecting us to work normally at the same time."
"Because it's progress," retorted Paul petulantly, and left.
Wednesday 6 July 2011
Paul designs a survey
Back in March - while on attachment at the Department of Hire you will recall - Paul had used his unique knowledge of statistics to make all of the National Hire Service centres better than average. His plan to close the five worst performing (by his measures) had raised a storm of protest from the drivers and their families. Petitions were compiled; local radio stations were canvassed for support; even demonstrations in the centres of the affected towns were organised.
Paul, by now inured to people contesting his decisions, initially tried to ride the storm thinking that it would all blow over but, when it did not, he finally agreed to launch a national survey so that the views of employees, customers and the general public aloke could be collated. He designed it himself under the umbrella of his own survey company - rather egotistically called My Own Research Institute. Whether he would listen to or act on the results, he had not yet decided but he was certain that he would at least have an accurate picture of the true feelings related to the ten Hire Centres vying to avoid the threat of closure.
All the Managing Directors of the various centres went about urging their staff to fill out the surveys online with the idea that the centres with the most responses would be spared the axe. The hopeful survey responder was asked for his views on various aspects of the proposed closures and, to finish, Paul had inserted a compulsory field for the entering of their email address. This, he thought, would guard against people trying to respond more than once. The other safeguard was the entering of one half of the postcode but oddly, there was no further check of duplicity.
One of the drivers, hoping to help promote his particular branch and suspecting that anything designed by Paul would have a flaw, thought he would try entering a second reply - one from his work email address and one from his home one. No sign of an electronic block or reprimand sparked by his 'double-counting' appeared and so, as he could generate several more email addresses very easily, he tried his luck again. And again. And again.
After six attempts he became somewhat bored by the repetitive nature of the exercise but he reflected that if everyone did this it would skew the results of Paul's survey to the point of irrelevance but, knowing Paul, he also thought that pointing this out would do no good whatever so he held his counsel.
Paul looked at his little online world from his office and saw the survey responses roll on in, pleased that his project of gathering opinion was running so smoothly.
Paul, by now inured to people contesting his decisions, initially tried to ride the storm thinking that it would all blow over but, when it did not, he finally agreed to launch a national survey so that the views of employees, customers and the general public aloke could be collated. He designed it himself under the umbrella of his own survey company - rather egotistically called My Own Research Institute. Whether he would listen to or act on the results, he had not yet decided but he was certain that he would at least have an accurate picture of the true feelings related to the ten Hire Centres vying to avoid the threat of closure.
All the Managing Directors of the various centres went about urging their staff to fill out the surveys online with the idea that the centres with the most responses would be spared the axe. The hopeful survey responder was asked for his views on various aspects of the proposed closures and, to finish, Paul had inserted a compulsory field for the entering of their email address. This, he thought, would guard against people trying to respond more than once. The other safeguard was the entering of one half of the postcode but oddly, there was no further check of duplicity.
One of the drivers, hoping to help promote his particular branch and suspecting that anything designed by Paul would have a flaw, thought he would try entering a second reply - one from his work email address and one from his home one. No sign of an electronic block or reprimand sparked by his 'double-counting' appeared and so, as he could generate several more email addresses very easily, he tried his luck again. And again. And again.
After six attempts he became somewhat bored by the repetitive nature of the exercise but he reflected that if everyone did this it would skew the results of Paul's survey to the point of irrelevance but, knowing Paul, he also thought that pointing this out would do no good whatever so he held his counsel.
Paul looked at his little online world from his office and saw the survey responses roll on in, pleased that his project of gathering opinion was running so smoothly.
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