Thursday, July 07, 2005
You're Fired (tm)
I still don't have much time to write. In fact, if I hadn't said I would write I wouldn't be making this post right now. I'm reading "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" again and it is almost too good to put down. But I guess I'll write, briefly, about almost getting fired.
I have less than a month to go working for the company I work for before I start my Ph.D. and maybe that is why I have the attitude I've had of late. The attitude? It goes something like: these are the things that are wrong with your company and you must fix all of them right now so that I can see it all work before I leave. Go!
The attitude has had mixed results. Both owners have been almost ready to quit due to their frustrations (note: starting your own company, while it can be fun and very rewarding, is very rarely ever easy). One of the owners has a lower stake in the company and was about ready to quit. Over the past couple of months though, I have been able to take this owner, show him some management techniques, show him how to take more responsibility, and watch him blossom into a much better leader. And a leader is what, under my guidance, he has become. I don't know if it will last once I am gone but, considering I am on the company's board of advisors, it just might. The other owner, on the other hand, has been an almost total flop. He has not been able to relinquish any control, has not been able to improve his time management techniques, does not take well to criticism, and has actually shown lower productivity over the course of the past few months.
Finally, a couple of weeks ago, I had all I could take of the lower performing owner's lower performance. I struck out. I thought I would be able to have a heart to heart with him since we have worked on other projects outside of work (though with little degree of success due to his lack of time management). It was, more or less, a flop. He got real mad at me. If I were going to stay with the company I would not have done what I did -- "you have to have job before you can have a career" -- but I'm going off to other things so I really didn't care. I found out from the other owner that he actually wanted to fire me after the conversation. The other boss, of course, defended me to the hilt, including attributing me with a new account he won that very day with a very prestigious client. In the end, my job was saved.
Both the lower performing owner and I went on vacation this past week and I hope it helped smooth some things over. The higher performing owner has really taken things over and, hopefully, over the next couple of months they will really see some improvements. We are actually seeing improvements already; even though we have the same dollar figure in sales this year as last year, as opposed to last year, this year we are making money. Combined with a break and seeing these kinds of numbers I hope the one owner will chill out a bit.
So yeah, with five weeks to go I almost got fired! I once had a boss tell me he knew I was doing a good job because I was making some people angry. His theory was that you really can't give everything to everyone. I drew my line in the sand and stuck by it. Of course, I tend to do high quality work and, even though I am sometimes over budget and don't always meet a ludicrous schedule someone else tries to develop for me, people are always happy that the work was performed correctly.
I have less than a month to go working for the company I work for before I start my Ph.D. and maybe that is why I have the attitude I've had of late. The attitude? It goes something like: these are the things that are wrong with your company and you must fix all of them right now so that I can see it all work before I leave. Go!
The attitude has had mixed results. Both owners have been almost ready to quit due to their frustrations (note: starting your own company, while it can be fun and very rewarding, is very rarely ever easy). One of the owners has a lower stake in the company and was about ready to quit. Over the past couple of months though, I have been able to take this owner, show him some management techniques, show him how to take more responsibility, and watch him blossom into a much better leader. And a leader is what, under my guidance, he has become. I don't know if it will last once I am gone but, considering I am on the company's board of advisors, it just might. The other owner, on the other hand, has been an almost total flop. He has not been able to relinquish any control, has not been able to improve his time management techniques, does not take well to criticism, and has actually shown lower productivity over the course of the past few months.
Finally, a couple of weeks ago, I had all I could take of the lower performing owner's lower performance. I struck out. I thought I would be able to have a heart to heart with him since we have worked on other projects outside of work (though with little degree of success due to his lack of time management). It was, more or less, a flop. He got real mad at me. If I were going to stay with the company I would not have done what I did -- "you have to have job before you can have a career" -- but I'm going off to other things so I really didn't care. I found out from the other owner that he actually wanted to fire me after the conversation. The other boss, of course, defended me to the hilt, including attributing me with a new account he won that very day with a very prestigious client. In the end, my job was saved.
Both the lower performing owner and I went on vacation this past week and I hope it helped smooth some things over. The higher performing owner has really taken things over and, hopefully, over the next couple of months they will really see some improvements. We are actually seeing improvements already; even though we have the same dollar figure in sales this year as last year, as opposed to last year, this year we are making money. Combined with a break and seeing these kinds of numbers I hope the one owner will chill out a bit.
So yeah, with five weeks to go I almost got fired! I once had a boss tell me he knew I was doing a good job because I was making some people angry. His theory was that you really can't give everything to everyone. I drew my line in the sand and stuck by it. Of course, I tend to do high quality work and, even though I am sometimes over budget and don't always meet a ludicrous schedule someone else tries to develop for me, people are always happy that the work was performed correctly.
# posted by chilort @ 10:53 PM 
