Better Days to Come

As the week progresses, the pressure felt by my negative coworker to mount final attacks increases. This last week has been one of missing items. Where an item needed to perform customer service was nowhere to be found, while I was dealing with the customer, the customer became distressed. I searched for that item a total of four times, over a period of days, once during my break, and the item was not there. Then, after my negative coworker had been on duty by herself following the incident, the item was suddenly there and my negative coworker “rescued” the customer from my seeming ineptitude in having been unable to locate the item sitting “right in front of me”. Very tiring game that. The second item was part of an inventory I was asked to check. The item wasn’t there and then, again, after my negative coworker had been on duty by herself following the incident, the item was suddenly there. Of course either incident might have been my own error; I’m certain the first one wasn’t, the second one might have been. I am aware that when the supervisor is onsite this sort of thing simply stops happening. The supervisor’s comment on any discussion describing these sorts of incidences is, “I wasn’t there”. It is a sad situation all around. I am reminded of the movie, Gaslight.

Such is employment in the modern corporate world; I am extrapolating from my own experience.

These last three days will be her last opportunity to inflict herself upon my work directly. She will have the means to afflict me after I’ve left, but a direct hit becomes more complicated and dangerous to her own interests once my relocation has gone into effect. I am hoping my replacement, who is much younger than I am, will have the energy and the predisposition to keep her otherwise occupied for years to come. Although I feel rather battered at this point, I am holding strong; I continue to meet the barrage of head games with faith in better days to come and to offer the best customer service I can under the circumstances.

I need to keep a record of this experience, so that I do not question my decision to leave this office for a more positive work environment with fewer hours. From the logical and financial perspective, this is a step backwards. From an employment perspective it is a step sideways. From a personal perspective it is a big step up. Hopefully the reduction in work and income can be accommodated by a slight alteration to our lifestyle.

The weather has been relatively balmy, making it clearly evident that spring is on its way. A blanket of snow still covers the forest floor, and our yard, but its boundaries are retreating fast. Two modest firings a day in the masonry heater are keeping the house cozy.

Although our television service will be let go, we are well entertained by Netflix. Their roster of programs may be somewhat dated, but since most of the programs and movies are new to us we care not. We have just finished viewing the first series of The Duchess of Duke Street, which we thoroughly enjoyed. There is a second series, but Netflix does not offer it, we are sorry to find.

Luna and Janus are in the process of purchasing a house in a distant town. They will be far away from Terra and Lares, and our little house in the city, but closer to our house in the country. Their new place looks like a jolly house though, a place where the grand babies will thrive.

Attila and I are now able to plan regular visits to our little house in the city. We look forward to an upcoming two-day weekend in April! It will be a good time for getting out and working in our gardens, doing a spring clean up around the place.

A friend posted this on Facebook, enjoy!

Worldly Distractions

Weather

0 °C
Condition: Cloudy
Pressure: 101.2 kPa
Visibility: 16 km
Temperature: 0.0°C
Dewpoint: -8.2°C
Humidity: 54 %
Wind: SSE 5 km/h
Wind Chill: -2

Quote

“So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work.”
Peter Drucker
1909 – 2005

Notes

Peter Drucker

“Basic ideas
Several ideas run through most of Drucker’s writings:
Decentralization and simplification. Drucker discounted the command and control model and asserted that companies work best when they are decentralized. According to Drucker, corporations tend to produce too many products, hire employees they don’t need (when a better solution would be outsourcing), and expand into economic sectors that they should avoid.
A profound skepticism of macroeconomic theory. Drucker contended that economists of all schools fail to explain significant aspects of modern economies.
Respect of the worker. Drucker believed that employees are assets and not liabilities. He taught that knowledgeable workers are the essential ingredients of the modern economy. Central to this philosophy is the view that people are an organization’s most valuable resource and that a manager’s job is to prepare and free people to perform.
A belief in what he called “the sickness of government.” Drucker made nonpartisan claims that government is often unable or unwilling to provide new services that people need or want, though he believed that this condition is not inherent to the form of government. The chapter “The Sickness of Government” in his book The Age of Discontinuity formed the basis of the New Public Management, a theory of public administration that dominated the discipline in the 1980s and 1990s.
The need for “planned abandonment”. Businesses and governments have a natural human tendency to cling to “yesterday’s successes” rather than seeing when they are no longer useful.
A belief that taking action without thinking is the cause of every failure.
The need for community. Early in his career, Drucker predicted the “end of economic man” and advocated the creation of a “plant community” where individuals’ social needs could be met. He later acknowledged that the plant community never materialized, and by the 1980s, suggested that volunteering in the nonprofit sector was the key to fostering a healthy society where people found a sense of belonging and civic pride.
The need to manage business by balancing a variety of needs and goals, rather than subordinating an institution to a single value. This concept of management by objectives forms the keynote of his 1954 landmark The Practice of Management.
A company’s primary responsibility is to serve its customers. Profit is not the primary goal, but rather an essential condition for the company’s continued existence.
An organization should have a proper way of executing all its business processes.
A belief in the notion that great companies could stand among humankind’s noblest inventions.”
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Drucker
[Although not in agreement with all of the concepts put forth by Drucker, he does provide food for thought.]

Gaslighting

“From the film’s title, “gaslighting” acquired the meaning of ruthlessly manipulating an individual, for nefarious reasons, into believing something other than the truth.”
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslight_(1944_film)