A Sunday Flower

Just recently, I was in Berlin for a conference. Aside from attending the meeting sessions, there was a little time to sightsee. The Botanical Garden was my favorite spot and this little flower in the huge greenhouse is my favorite picture out of all those I took at the garden.

Enjoy!

Travelling for Work

It's getting to be that time of the year again. Time to hit the road for the annual conference season - a high-tech dog and pony show where we show everyone how fine and dandy our web resource is and all the wonderful things that they can do with it.

Did I mention hitting the road? Yes, this means time away from the family. There is a certain appeal to the travel, if you don't count the actual time spent in the airports, cabs, planes and trains. I'm referring to those nights without being woken up by wails of "MAAMAAAAA!" or the ghostly specter of one of the two boys in the doorway, just standing there. From past experience, I do miss my guys but I'm usually way too busy to think and, before I know it, I'm back on a plane headed back home.

So now I'm flying for Chicago at the beginning of July and because I have to give a presentation on three separate days, which are spread out over four days, I have to be away for five nights. Grumble. I don't like being away that long.

Time to surf the airline webpages trying to find the ideal flight schedule/fare combination. Jeepers, wasn't this supposed to SAVE us time and effort by putting the information at our fingertips? I've just been the biggest waffler in the world for the past week because I can't decide whether I want to leave in the early afternoon so as to get to Chicago by early evening local time or whether I want to leave in the evening CA time so I can see the kids before I go to the airport - but this means I get to O'Hare at just past midnight and to the hotel at some godforsaken hour. Waffle, waffle, waffle. You know, sometimes it's really nice having three airports to choose from when flying in or out of the Bay Area but, this very second, the combinations are driving me batty! Fly out of Oakland but return to SFO. Fly out of San Jose and return to Oakland. Do I want to fly through Denver or fly direct? That's really a no-brainer - fly NONSTOP!

Thirty minutes later.... Done!

I've already checked out the hotel website and they do have FREE high-speed wireless. I hear there's also a nice big lake to run by/swim in close by :) and I'm positive that there's got to be an aikido dojo not too far away. I'm guessing my bag will be half full of work clothes and half full of running/swimming/aiki gear. Oh, and there is that matter of the conference, guess I'll have to slap together a presentation for that too.

This is going to fly by so quickly.

Butterflies

Got a presentation to give tomorrow. Just ran through it. My tongue is all twisted up and now I'm paranoid that it's going to be just awful! But what to do? I can't postpone it, I've just got to go and do it. I'm not normally nervous about getting up and talking but this is new stuff for me and I feel like I KNOW NOTHING! Argh.

Lessons in Problem Solving

Theoretical and practical.

This morning, I attended a one hour presentation on the benefits and practice of Total Quality Management. I figured that the fact that all the words were capitalized reflected some sort of stamp of approval or authenticity from management powers-that-be. Who knew it had been around since the 50s? That's what I get for not majoring in business. Lots and lots of bullet-point ridden slides. Lots of talk about root cause analysis, problem identification, solution deployment, results analysis, streamlining and metrics. I was awash in jargon. All the while, I was thinking "How will this work in the real world? It seems all well and good for a manufacturing type of company, but for our little outfit? We'll see."

The meeting finished and I hear from my friend T, one of our software engineers, that we've got a Big Real Life Work Problem on our hands. Aha! It's time for root cause analysis! Something is very wrong with the core of what's keeping our website up and running but we didn't have the slightest clue what is causing it. Right. Any minute now, we could have been dead in the water. With no time to do multiple solution design and testing, what happens next?

Would you still go after the root cause? Would you find a way around it? If you can't get around it from one step removed from the root cause, do you backtrack further? What do you spend time on? How do you prioritize? What's the backup plan? What's the worst case scenario and what would we do then? Would you know when to step away to gain some perspective? TQM, take that!

T had been wrestling with this beast for most of last night and most of the morning and sounded very, very pissed off. I'm not a software engineer so I couldn't contribute to the troubleshooting. But I could pull him away from his desk, away from the noxious cloud of frustration that surrounded him and get him into the fresh air. So we went for a 5 mi run. Maybe it helped to clear his mind, I don't know for sure. But when we got back, he went right back to work and about two and a half hours later, a solution was in place. It didn't address the root cause but it kept us up and running. It's a temporary solution that buys us more time to figure out the real fix.

What did I learn from all this?

• There's theory and there's practice and the two may or may not coincide.
  
• If you can't figure out the root of your problem, it's ok to have a stop-gap fix.
  
• Taking time out separate yourself from the problem at hand can help.
  
• Always have a backup plan.
  
• Running is a great stress reliever. (What? You thought this was going to be a totally serious post?)
  

Thank You is Free

Between M and me, we've seen a whole bunch of different workplaces and we've observed that the happiness quotient in the office or laboratory is directly proportional to stress levels of the worker bees. Similarly, the stress levels of the workers are directly proportional to the quality of their relationship with their supervisors. These are hardly unique observations. Bosses who are respected AND liked have the happiest employees. Happy workers = productive workers that stay. Sure, you can ratchet up productivity by micromanaging and hounding, but it's only a short term gain. Life is too short to waste in a workplace where you labor away and don't feel appreciated. Sooner or later, unhappy worker bees will leave.

Great bosses provide leadership and vision, give constructive criticism, can admit a mistake, know when to ask for help, and can say 'thank you'. The last quality may seem a little trivial but, you know, it's not. Showing appreciation to those you work with is utterly, completely and totally FREE and the returns are many. It lifts people's spirits, let's them know that they are not toiling in anonymity, and it makes the thanker feel good too. Of course, sincerity counts too. An empty 'thank you' is worth about as much as that expired cereal coupon in your kitchen drawer. I don't know why we don't hear it more often. Sure, a hike in salary would be great, but that's not always an option. Showing your appreciation with a few words? It's no skin off your back and it's an investment that pays forward.