Crashing Into Monday Morning

I crashed into a wall of stress when I walked into the office this morning. It arose out of a constellation of three things.

First, while I was out over the weekend a meeting was scheduled for early Monday morning. Because I had no idea the meeting was scheduled I was late for it and then I was unprepared for it. I am most decidedly not a fan of ambush meetings. One of the areas I think we do very poorly with at work is meetings. They tend to be unfocused and unproductive, with each individual in the meeting pursuing their own issues and items to the expense of the collective. If I had a related wish I'd wish that our entire directorate be sent to "Meeting 101" and learn three things - 1.) always have an agenda, 2.) always share the agenda prior to the meeting, and 3.) always stick to the agenda. Just those three things would increase the value of our meetings significantly. So, in short order - I dislike ambush meetings and I dislike unproductive meetings and this one managed to hit both of those buttons in one stroke.

Second, immediately on the heels of that meeting I went into another meeting where, of all things, the focused on one of the trendy management books, on discussing what they thought about it. First, I wasn't aware that I had joined a book club I had no interest in joining. Second - I've been in the working world for thirty years and I've been in supervision/management for twenty. I've seen dozens of trendy management books come and go. I've seen dozens of managers pay lip-service to the magic contents of these books, then turn right around and be a good manager (if they were already a good manager) or a bad manager (if they were already a bad manager). In short, I am highly skeptical when it comes to such books and their real impact on teams. The basics of management never change and success or failure as a manager depends entirely on whether or not you can do the basics. It really is that simple.

Third, I had a half-dozen issues escalated to me this morning that were not items I could do anything about. Technically, the specific support the customers were looking from has to come from another group. But, the issues keep coming to my desk because the responsible group has "dodging responsibility" down to an art form. I get badly frustrated by this because a.) it is not my area of responsibility and b.) there isn't anything I can do to help the customers. I am not sure which of the two irritates me more.

This constellation of events pretty much spun me into a very bad mood this morning. Once I made it through the meetings, I took a few minutes outside to breathe, to don my psychological armor, and to soak up a little sun. Then, I went back to work - one of the things I did was sit down and mentally work my way through root cause analysis and possible solutions for some of the problems I was facing. Fortunately, I like doing that. One part of my job that I still enjoy is productive trouble-shooting. I've always liked solving puzzles. It was very productive session - I managed to draw a six page root-cause analysis diagram and drill all the way down to the very bottom of one issue, coming up with three possible corrective actions.

Once I'd managed to reset the day by actually doing something productive I was able to salvage the rest of the day with productive work. I was definitely glad when the day ended though. I drove home, stopped at Sushi Totoro for a Golden California roll, a Philadelphia roll, and a bowl of Miso soup. I'm slowing winding my way into the evening by watching some SyFy, writing, and beginning the process of sorting my books. A rough start of the day but a gentle ending.