Black Friday doesn’t just include killer deals and blow outs. It also brings an awareness that families need to reach everyone with a “Happy Holidays” greeting card. It brings awareness to…a lot…of people. Needless to say (although I’m saying it) volume is growing and our team is adjusting. I’m learning you can count on 4 things in life: death, taxes, temps leaving & Indigos needing a maintenance call. As production gets busier there are more and more moving parts which require attention.

Charlie is heading up the night temp labor and production of the products and is doing a great job. Each night he has to tackle training new workers to accurately and efficiently play their role in reaching our common goal of, well, getting the job done. I’ve been there before with frequent training of new hires and it gets old very quickly but it has to be done. He’s doing a solid job so far is absolutely making the most with with what we’re working with. I (If you remember from an earlier post I’m the QB) have been busy managing the file loads on the presses and making sure we’re producing the products as efficiently as possible. Producing the product isn’t bad, except when you’re some technical difficulties when volume is ramping up. I’m suggesting a HP tech rep have a make shift living arrangement (i.e. cot, space under the stairs, under the meeting room table, RV?) to be available for as much as we’re about to be calling him in. Our operators are very well trained but there are still times that require heavy maintenance that require a certified tech.

What can I take from this?

• Nothing ever works perfectly
• Be malleable
• Hold composure
• Know your service contracts
• Be proactive, as well as appropriately reactive
• Apply Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy theme: “Don’t Panic”
• Coffee + Monster = Quick shift
• Communication is critical
• Acceptance & execution of your role
• IT’s first recommendation to fixing an issue “Reboot your system”

It’s now 8:15am which means I need to get to sleep. Granted I won’t post this till I get into work this evening at 6pm but it means I’m done here for today. I’m going to try not to let this happen but the 12 hours-a-day at 7 days-a-week have effectively kicked in so the energy levels may be minimal. I’ll draft on my “lunch” breaks.

Sometimes Charlie and I have found that some procedures are not being followed as they should. We needed to find an effective way to approach this since both of us are somewhat new in managing a staff and procedures. The approach we’ve found to work so far is the Good Cop, Bad Cop method. Here’s how it works.

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