You may find this hard to believe, but I really am a man of few words. Few complimentary words that is. I have a hard time telling people how good they are at different things. Which makes my management style in our office completely different from everyone elseÂ’s. Sure I tell my people when they do a good job, and give them a pat on the back. But I donÂ’t stroke their egos for doing the job that is expected.

ItÂ’s time for the annual reviews in my office and if you recall I worked from home last Wednesday to get them finished. Not that mine were long, maybe a paragraph or two. ItÂ’s just that I have a hard time coming up with long worded complimentary statements. I also donÂ’t like getting long ones. In fact I generally like them to just tell me what I do wrong and let me fix it. If you like what I do, show me were it counts.

And that’s exactly what I did. After a year and a half of having direct reports, this is the first time any of them are getting a review solely based on my observations. Thus it’s easier for me to actually rate, appraise and praise them. Tonight I gave my first employee their annual review and showed them the dollar amount of the raise they were getting. After going over the appraisal and rating they read the brief couple of paragraphs I wrote about them. Then I said, “I’m not good with telling people how much I appreciate them, I’d much rather show them.” I slid the paperwork for their raise across the table. Her hands covered her mouth while she started to cry in happiness. I know that the message came across loud and clear. They did a good job and I appreciate all they do for the company.

IÂ’m actually looking forward to giving the rest of my employees their reviews.

Posted by: Contagion at 07:19 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Over the last month I had been talking about bar-b-que at work. Either it was good bar-b-que I had eaten or stuff that I had made. When I was talking about some smoked sausages I made last week, a couple of my employees asked me when I was going to “shut up or put up” meaning, when was I going to stop talking about how good it was and let them sample what I was talking about. The problem is that it’s time intensive and hard to bring to work. That is until today.

We had a baby shower for one of my employees. To go with the baby shower we decided to have a potluck. Anyone that has ever worked or works for my company knows that they will have a potluck any chance they get. “Look it’s going to rain next week, we should have a potluck”. Anyway, since this was for an actual good reason I thought I could take the time to make a nice bar-b-que treat for all of them. Wednesday, while working from home, I made smoked sausages between reviews. Once they had smoked for a good 4 hours, I coated each link in sauce and let it crisp.

Last night after the sausages cooled, I sliced them into bite size bits and put the remainder of the sauce on them. Then over a low heat in the oven this morning I re-heated them. I didnÂ’t make a lot, just because it was kind of expensive and they were spicy. At work I placed them on the table, with a warning label, so that no one got a heated surprise.

The best was when my employee that had been the most vocal about my bringing these sausages in actually tried one; she about coughed up a lung. I told her repeatedly they were spicy. But she didn’t listen. She took one of the chunks popped it into her mouth and started eating. Her eyes started watering and she started coughing and gasping for air. I about fell over in laughter. But her review of them was what I was hoping for. “They taste really good…” Then she added, “But they are too spicy for me.” Not everyone felt the same way. A lot of people really liked them; they ate most of the bowl. Everyone that liked it stated it would taste better on bread.

For too many of the people I had made them way to spicy. Even one lady that I work with that loves hot and spicy food thought it was a little excessive. But she made the observation that “It’s not spicy hot just to be hot. It’s hot because the flavor dictates it needs to be hot.” Which she translated into IE if you made them any milder you would throw off the flavor combination that made them so good.

Hell, IÂ’m happy with that.

Posted by: Contagion at 05:33 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I have to do my annual review of my employees. Since it is something that needs a relative amount of privacy so others can't see what I'm writing about an individual, my company allows us to work from home for one day.

Today is my day.

It is a happy day.

I'll have my notification on all day in case I receive an e-mail. That's how I told my work to get a hold of me.

Update 11:23 AM: Holy cow! I'm about 3/4 the way done! this really is more efficient then doing it at work. I'm not constantly being interrupted. I'm going to go take a lunch break now.

Posted by: Contagion at 07:03 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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There are some things that one just isnÂ’t meant to understand. The meaning of life, what happens to socks in the dryer, why people in small vehicles like to pull out in front of my truck while IÂ’m doing 55 MPH. IÂ’ve just come to the conclusion that these things are just not meant for me to understand. These last couple of weeks at work, IÂ’ve added yet another thing to that list.

Why is there no logic to the decisions made by my peers and superiors?

Example. Last week I had 6 projects that had to be done by end of business Friday. One of them I had known about since the end of May, but due to the availability of certain data, I could not get started on it until Monday. On Tuesday they sent me to another office on business, effectively taking away 20% of my work time. After busting hump all week it looked like I was going to finish all 6 projects by the end of business on Friday. Then at 11:00AM on Friday I get hit with, “Contagion, I have a project I need you to handle.” After some prodding and asking, it too had to be done by the end of the day. After going over my list of other projects and the precarious deadline for them as well. I was told that THIS project takes precedence. Then I explained that according to other management my other projects take precedence… and to be honest the one that directly affected my employees was the one that I was going to finish first.

And before I could think I asked, “If it’s so important, why are you waiting until 11:00 AM on Friday to give it to me.” The response was that they had given it to someone else two weeks ago, but they didn’t have access to the right reports in order to get it done today. Okay… well fine but the reports they don’t have access to, neither do I. So it was “Okay, what’s the soonest you can get access?” Monday at the earliest, probably Wednesday was my best guess. Now, the logic of everything else that led up to this is escaping me and the more I learned the more confused I became. But it was after telling them Wednesday would be the most likely time to get the access when I’m told. “Well do it right away, we need you to get these reports done.” That I had the revelation that I will never, ever in my lifetime be able to understand how my superiors and peers come to the decisions they make.

See the reason I wasnÂ’t originally given the project was because I already have a heavier work load then my peers. My peer that was given the original project sat on it for a week before saying she didnÂ’t have access. Instead of giving it to me right away or trying to get her access, they waited until Friday to throw it on my load. Then when I didnÂ’t have access, I needed to get it right away so that I could do the project late. Why not have the original person that screwed up request the access that day? Maybe they should have given it to me right away so I could have tried to squeeze it in. Of course they could have given it back to the original person and told them to get the access so they could do it late.

The sad thing is that if they were trying to do something to make me look bad, this doesnÂ’t work. IÂ’ve got all the documentation that they waited until late in the day to give it to me and that I didnÂ’t have access. All out of my control, so IÂ’m not worried about it. My work philosophy plays in well with this situation.

A bad decision by you does not make an emergency for me.

Posted by: Contagion at 07:13 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Work is sending me to Naperville, IL this morning. I'm not sure what time this evening I'm going to be back. The reason I'm going to this other office really isn't for fun reasons. Couple that with with the fact that no one really knows what is going to happen should make for a long day. Oh, and probably some extremely unhappy people.

O'well, I guess I'm just doing my job.

Posted by: Contagion at 05:36 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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At my place of employment it is pretty common to see candy dishes or bowls set out for people to help themselves to a little treat. Heck, IÂ’m known in the office as the guy that has the good chocolate. (I work mainly with women, having chocolate at my desk keeps them mellower and me saner.) Yesterday was I was walking through my unit just talking to my employees about anything but work; I noticed one of them had a bowl with green, yellow and white Jelly Beans in it. Being as I am a Green Bay Packer fan, I couldnÂ’t help but notice it was their color scheme.

I asked her what was up with the “Packer” themed jelly beans. She advised that they are all flavors she didn’t like out of this bag of jelly beans she had bought. The green was pear, the yellow was lemon and the white was buttered popcorn. I figured I’d try one to see how bad it was. I started with a pear… and about lost my lunch. It was disgusting. They laughed at the face I made while finishing it off.

Opting not to try the yellow since I don’t like lemon, I grabbed a white one. Now, I love popcorn, and these weren’t bad. It didn’t taste exactly like buttered popcorn, but you could get the similarity. Since I liked them, she told me to take all the white ones… and I did. As I walked up and down the rows talking to my people one of them asked me what I was eating. “Its popcorn flavored jelly beans. They’re pretty good”, I tell her. She then asked me were I got them. So I told her that the other employee didn’t like them and gave them to me. She says to me, “Make sure you don’t eat too many, they are sugar free.”

At that point I had already eaten about 30 of the things, and I knew I was in for trouble. I go back to the employee I got them from and confirmed they were indeed sugar free. She even has the bag they came out of. Right on the back it states eating too many can cause “Gastric Distress”. The main sweetening ingredient in sugar-free candy is Maltitol. It’s also used as the active ingredient in laxatives. I had just finished eating a handful of these little gastric bombs. I knew was I going to be in trouble.

My employees are laughing, the one that gave it to me didnÂ’t think to warn me they were sugar-free, and found it even more amusing. After they all had a great laugh, and I explained that I was going to be able to spend some quality time in the bathroom, I went back to my desk. About 45 minutes later IÂ’m doing the duck walk to the bathroom as I feel a tightening in my bowel. This fun lasted for another couple of hours until it was finally out of my system.

Thanks to my employees, I think my colon is the cleanest itÂ’s been in years.

Posted by: Contagion at 05:44 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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