This starts a series of office signs I’ve made for my work area….
SWOT Analysis:
Strengths=I work here.
Weaknesses=All these other people work here too.
Opportunities=Figure out how to clone me.
Threats=Eventually I’ll be offered more money.
~Laura White-Richie
Sue Darby
BS Business Management & Information Technology
Chocolate Manager
Changes can be small and subtle or massive in scope and impact. Having a plan for some of the larger changes in life can help make change not as overwhelming. A project plan can help by giving you a place to write up a task list and give yourself due dates and the option to delegate to someone else. It can also track costs and time requirements.
Project plans can be large and cumbersome as in large projects for work or they can be simple as in a simple task list with names and due dates next to each item.The tools for larger projects such as building something, moving or large group projects can be managed by a large list of programs from Project 2007 (Microsoft) to Planner (Open Source) along with a wide variety of online tools in between. It depends on how many people you have involved in the project as to what kind of system you might need.
Most of the projects I do are along the lines of task lists with due dates and potential delegation names. For this I use a form I created in Excel in various sizes. It depends on the project as to what size I use. I have a half page planner that I use in my purse for short term projects that I just hand write what is needed. I also have a full size planner I type up formal plans into for work projects so I can hang them on the wall and see what I have going on visually. For me the benefit of a simple project planner is that I can see what is going on at a glance and I know what is next on that project’s list even if the list is not in date order. Build a project plan for anything and everything that is more complex than a good dinner! It’s worth the time and effort to know the details of cost, time and resources needed!
Do you create a plan for projects?
Sue Darby
BS Business Management & Information Technology
Chocolate Manager
Very cool marketing idea… I let someone go in front of me at Costco since he only had 2 huge things of Styrofoam to go boxes…. before he left he ducked back to hand me a business card which was also a coupon for his restaurant… turns out the kindness I did in Costco was to one of the owners… but the coupon/business card for a kindness was a VERY good marketing trick. The next time I’m at the mall I’ll be looking for that restaurant for sure. Thought I’d pass on the tip for others tho… if you do business cards do some that are coupons for kindness as random than yous to strangers! The lesson is two fold tho, be kind to others as you never know when or how a kindness will come back to you! Pay it forward!
Sue Darby
BS Business Management & Information Technology
Chocolate Manager
I love my day job. Really, I do and especially when I manage to clear my task list for the week. I only manage to clear the list about once a month so really the list is a monthly list that honestly never ends since some of the stuff repeats ad nauseum!
I have 2 days out of the office this week for some supervisor training. Yipeeee! I might know what I’m doing after this as a “Team Lead” for some volunteers. We’re going to have a new team member shortly too so I’ll get to try what I learn in the next few days too!
The class will be good for me. I may have a degree in Business Management but that does NOT mean I can supervise people effectively. I’ve read books but never had the chance to really apply what I’ve read. I’m hoping the class will give me ideas for how to deal with everything in a more hands on way.
So far, my boss has been VERY patient in supporting me learning how to handle situations. Some very sticky issues that most people don’t get the first time they supervise either, a language barrier and a cognitive disability…. both HUGE challenges for me. I’m doing much better with my third hire as she’s just WONDERFUL and there’s a great rapport and feedback loop we have. So I will have to see how the next person goes since that person will be interviewed and I’ll know who it is when I get back to the office on Thursday!
Anyway I’m excited about the class and wondering what the “homework” will be tomorrow!
Sue Darby
BS Business Management & Information Technology
Chocolate Manager
I’m the clerk for QA. I support about half the unit constantly and am attached to half of it according to the org chart but I do stuff for the rest of QA too and sometimes other units or other managers. I do all the ordering of supplies and was asked to order a voice recorder… no biggie the first on didn’t have the USB feature tho so I had to try again…I’m reading through the catalog and great there’s one that’s not too bad for price that does what we want. I’m a comparison shopper tho and read through the rest to see what else is there. I found one that is the USB version we want but also comes with speech to text recognition software. I get to thinking and drag the catalog down to the boss and pitch the idea….pointing out that the computer can transcribe the notes and we do the editing thus saving time so we can do other things. The idea flies high with the boss and she snags my catalog to go talk with her boss about the idea… sadly can’t find her so on Monday my boss makes the decision.. order one of each. Yipeeee! Now it’s on to the fight with IT to get the software put in. LOL
My other brilliant brainstorm was an informal survey of our providers about how we’re doing… looks like I’ll be monitoring some surveys soon… online.. no paper for me! I was just full of ideas this week!
Sue Darby
BS Business Management & Information Technology
Chocolate Manager
I work in government that should say it all but this applies to private sector too. Adequate equipment for the number of employees ratios! Recently one of our network printers died completely after spending the last year faltering and sputtering and acting seriously pathetic. This poor multi-function printer was so bad that it has no side car for paper, one working paper tray out of four and the finisher had to be disconnected and cardboard boxes stacked to “catch” printouts! Forget anything more than a 3-5 page document unless you wanted to waste time sorting the pages that came out upside down, backwards or rolled!
I just spent 10 minutes running around 2 floors of this building trying to find a multifunction network printer that could scan to email which technically all of them SHOULD do… nope first one only to folder, next one just started a big scan job, next one is down to being nothing more than an over rated fax machine, upstairs to another machine that is in the middle of a big copy job….. grrrrrrrrrrrrrr FINALLY I had to use the director’s machine but it took way too long to find a WORKING machine to do a simple task.
Told you this was a rant. Adequate equipment to worker ratios are VITAL to businesses functioning smoothly. It makes no difference government or private sector operations. My last job had exactly 2 machines in the entire building of 50 people and if one went down we were dead in the water until it was functional again! Sure there were desktop printers for certain upper management but the rest of us had to go from machine to machine to do simple tasks!
The answer in my current case… senior management FINALLY after 2 years of complaints about the machines has authorized replacement… only 3 directors later! Now the trick is finding a machine… one brand for a machine that would work is a 3-6 month back order…. unacceptable we needed a functional machine 3 months ago! So now it’s time to get quotes on 3 other machines of a different brand…. still waiting to hear back on that…*SIGH* Perhaps Monday will give us some good news.
Ok down off the soap box for the day!
Sue Darby
BS Business Management & Information Technology
Chocolate Manager
Laughter is one of the best ways to keep a workplace fun, yet productive and pleasant to be in. Viewing your job as something funny or looking for the fun side of what you do daily helps reduce burn out… at least it has for me. Silly little things like making monkey faces at a boss in the hall. Warning co-workers to “beware of the clerk bearing truffles… she usually wants something!” Or having small signs on the desk or door “Warning clerk on edge of boredom!” or “Chocolate is so much quieter than a screaming fit”. Most amusing is the mass exodus at 8am, 10am and about 2 or 3pm of state workers headed to get coffee and the teasing that goes on with getting our “fix”. I rarely go out for coffee preferring to keep a hot water heater, fresh ground coffee and a French Press in my office….I’ve been known to take the whole setup to a meeting too and share! I’m also known for “dual wielding mugs” one with the last of my coffee and the other with tea to keep me going during a meeting!
My whole point is if you don’t laugh at work at least once a day then work is, well, W*rk and just plain drudgery! So make a face at someone in the hall, do something silly just because and don’t take life so seriously!
To quote a former boss of mine “If you’re happy and ya know it clap your hands!” He started workshops like this some days and annoyed some people by doing it at 9am BC aka before coffee! The best thing about him was that he always had a smile no matter how stressed out the staff was or how much upper management was putting pressure on him for whatever reason. His sunny disposition was contagious. I’m not that cheerful at work but I have my days I think I do annoy people and others where I simply amuse them and make them smile.
Share a smile for the fun of it today and see how contagious smiles and giggles can be!
Sue Darby
BS Business Management & Information Technology
Chocolate Manager
Tonight I have no motivation. The days are getting longer by about 4 minutes a day and there was just a dim version of sunset as I pulled into the driveway but it’s tough. I get up in the dark, go to work in the dark, have windowless interior office all day and come home in the near dark. I should feel really good with everything I got done today and heck this week… I caught up a 2 month back load of screenings and am down to the last 3! My boss LOVES that. Yesterday she treated me to a mocha which she rarely goes out to get coffee. Today I went with her for a mocha and I rarely buy coffee since I have great coffee from home every morning!
SAD or Seasonal Affective Disorder is a very common and prevalent variation of depression. I tend to treat it with natural stuff. Light therapy is my main one after coffee and chocolate. I just realized however that the last thing I use to combat it is vitamins and I’ve missed a week’s worth. A-Zinc literally is what I use. So now that I know what I missed and have realized what I need to do I’m just going to go do it. Heh just realizing that got me to write which is what I was unmotivated to do!
Sue Darby
BS Business Management & Information Technology
Chocolate Manager
It barfed! During one of many ginormous copy jobs the printer went berzerk and luckily I had a camera to capture it…..poor printer… it feels better now since we do very few ginormous print jobs … it’s scanner gets the workout now!
Hint: look closely at what I was printing at the time….
BTW this printer was named well before I was hired there are 3 HP9500′s in the building and one is named Harry Potter, the second is Harry Potter’s Evil Twin and the last is Voldimort….I’m still not sure which one is which… they all look the same!
Sue Darby
BS Business Management & Information Technology
Chocolate Manager
You know it’s a normal Alaska winter day when you get to work and it’s still dark. It’s an abnormal day when the boss stops and stares out the window at the building across the street during a 10 am meeting… My boss paused a couple weeks ago during the first meeting of the new year to point out the beauty of the sunrise reflected in the building across from us. While the photo below was taken a year ago and from one floor up in my old office in the same building the beauty of the sunrise had the same heart stopping effect. Below are a few of the shots I took out my window last winter (2009) of Anchorage, Alaska.
Keep in mind some of the photos were nothing more than me hanging on to the camera shooting blindly out my barely open window. Sadly, I now have a dungeon for an office with no windows. As soon as I figure out how to take photos off my phone I have some from the summer riding home at sunset on the bus too.
Sue Darby
BS Business Management & Information Technology
Chocolate Manager
