(IMPORTANT: As this is third in a three-part series, the herb recommends first viewing part one "Scanning Fish With JC" and part two "The Onside Kick" before continuing here. Your HerbNation HOMEPAGE is here.)
Not that I'm the perfect manager--or even close--but the numbers my charges and I consistently rack up compare favorably to the numbers of almost all our other departments.
That said, there's more to this business than putting salt on tables.
I'm talking about livability. We Acme employees have to be here forty to sixty hours a week: we're living quite a few moments of our lives here. And since this is our home away from home, I try to make this place more livable for not just me but everybody, I reward those underlings who do likewise, and I cozy up to like-minded co-equals.
Indubitably, that bottom line is crucial, critical, No. 1, etc., but it's not the only consideration. In my far-flung travels I've witnessed time and again better results from teams allowed to fraternize; while teams scrutinized and time-motion-studied until they're blue in the face just hap happen to frequently and nearly inexplicably come up short in their numbers and long in their whoopsies and "accidents." I say "nearly inexplicably" because I think I've hit upon a fairly righteous explanation.
Now, no matter how much of the following eventually gets taken out of context and, say, wielded to justify rampant idling, I maintain the health of all employer/employee relations revolves around respect.
That's right: respect.
A manager who allows those under him or her a limited amount of non-productive, on the clock "bonding-behavior" for the sole reason of eventually reaping a greater net might appear to be respectful of these employees (as humans), but is this manager truly respectful of these people?
"Who cares? It's a job," said one manager friend of mine upon reading the above.
Well, I'll tell you who should care: you. Even if you're not a manager.
Here's why.
Recently, moments after clocking in, my first cup of joe still steaming, I watched in mild disgust as a fellow manager upbraided those he was hired to guide. He executed this via the "glower": repeatedly tapping his watch and glaring menacingly at the men and women of Acme while they prepped their salimeters and axes for a "day in the hole."
Admittedly, boots were being shuffled, but everybody's gotta shake the dew off. The trick is to assist, not attack. At the very least, such watch-tapping's gonna precipitate somebody forgetting something, followed by a 2200 foot rise to the surface, a shocking discovery of the accoutrement in question sitting plain as day on a co-worker's bench, another 2200 foot journey, this time a descent, and then finally the toiling can begin in earnest--with only a half hour of production time lost.
With a crew his size and if he keeps it up, I'd say at least once a week some tool* will be left behind.
Needless to say, tip o' the iceberg with this guy, and even though my regs are well aware of my distaste for shop talk, I have to add one more fact: his division and mine are not in competition with each other in any way, shape or form.
My concern here is literally about the stability of this organization. Plain and simple: "Trevor" (not his real name) and people like him are bringing this plant to its knees.
But rather than waxing melodramatically, could this be a case of differing yet equally-effective management styles? Or is this problem indeed one of Trevor stepping to orders issued from a much Higher Command than those located here at 1600 Palookaville Way?
Recall if you will the verse, "Suffer the wee ones to come unto Me, and forbid them not." It's reported these words were uttered by Jesus Himself, and this in reference to His being encouraged by His disciples to forgo any further interacting with the children of those He was to speak to that day.
Yes, the handlers of Christ knew that those who donated to their ministry were the adults, not the children.
And these handlers were mindful of a time schedule. So even though they weren't hip to today's scientific formulae (E=mc˛, Time=Money, etc.), they still attempted to hasten The Son Of God's progression toward that day's slated meeting place. And this to ensure a bountiful--nay, a more bountiful--harvest of donations.
And He would have for none of it.
Or Woody?
The answer appears below, but first a brief sidebar. Trevor has repeatedly trumpeted the diligence of his church attendance here at Acme headquarters... and even in HerbQuarters (i.e. my office). On the one hand parsing so exactingly the less-than-perfect behavior of a typical modern follower of The Lord is akin to and as easily accomplished as poking fun at the developmentally disabled.
Which certainly sounds not quite honorable.
But on the other hand I've heard and seen some of the richest, most powerful people in the world reveal with straight faces that they regularly confer and even strategize with The Supreme Being (or his dead Son) before deciding issues of state... like if we should go to war.
So is the purpose of this update to make fun of an easy-to-make-fun-of person or group? Or am I sounding a battle-alarm against an extant, formidable and encroaching regime, a regime that has stated goals of molding everybody into their image?
I suppose it's situation specific: sometimes the mentally ill can be plied with lollipops, other times they ruin whole nations.
Oh well.
Which sounds fatalistic, but is there anything that can be done about these people?
I think there's hope: that's why this post continues. You think there's hope: that's why you're still reading.
I brought my co-equal into this for a reason: to ask and answer the question: have the Trevors of this country truly hijacked or co-opted Christ's original movement? Here, "truly" is italicized because the major thrust of "Scanning Fish With JC" was exactly that: Christ and his early followers were after something different than what it appears today's Christians are after.
But were they?
Did Jesus really care whether or not He ministered to donating adults or penniless children?
How about a better question: did Jesus care that His reputation grew that He really wasn't in it for the money, that He'd just as soon hang out with kids, kids who couldn't give Him a cent 'cause they didn't have a cent?
And, after His "in it for love, not money" reputation flowered and even began to precede Him, how about the adults would then contribute more and more?
Trevor abusing his chronometer while glowering at his underlings reminded me of this Holy Verse; at first I likened Trev's behavior to Christ's sundial-tapping disciples: I thought Trevor's actions went against the grain of the intentions of The Lord.
But perhaps Trevor's moves are in fact carbon copies of the moves orchestrated by Christ and His disciples. Perhaps Christ's whole movement--then and now--has always been about screwing your neighbor.
So when a Christian manager attempts to humiliate those he's been hired to assist maybe he's just being another tool of The Lord.
FORWARD to what happened next
BACK to "Scanning Fish With JC"
BACK to where this whole Wal~Mart movement began
OVER to HerbNation HOMEPAGE
*See the "Left Behind" series, where a lotta tools think that, during the rapture, they won't be left behind.