Mensa's On the Loose

How many problems could be avoided if only instructions were followed the first time?
I try to give a lot of notice and a lot of detail to my people, so that there’s as little chance for error as possible.
Basically, if my people look good, I look good.
If my people screw up…

Daylight Saving Time impacts different businesses in different ways. The “additional hour” of light presents some unique opportunities for us: An additional hour to do business…and an additional hour to manage.

My boss’ solution was to ignore the change.
However, just “turning it off” is not an option.
Our Controller really dropped the ball, however, thinking that Sunday’s time change miraculously would not be in effect the following day. She failed to update critical systems to reflect that reality.

Brilliant!

So I get a phone call at home on Monday evening, wanting to know what to do to fix the problem. I was happy to give my recommendation for a manual fix, 90-minutes before the fact. But when the Controller started sassing back about how much trouble it was going to be, I snapped.

“It wouldn’t be a problem if you’d followed the directions I issued last week, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” I said. “You called for help, which I am happy to give, so let’s focus on that part for now,” I continued.

The CFO backed me, saying yes, the instructions I gave were pretty clear. She had had a week’s notice to get it right.

This is the same Mensa that ignored/repudiated/blew-off my instructions for a weekend project that has been a fiasco for the past three weeks. She even got another employee in on the gambit, and together they figured out a way to create a situation that was hopelessly FUBAR.

They disregarded specific instructions for structuring the project in such a way that if one machine failed, a second one would continue to run. She cut corners and copied an operational template from one machine to another--without adjusting the configurations for that specific machine.
No wonder it didn't work.

I had it fixed in about 20-minutes.

The real irony in today's fiasco is that this beyotch last week sent to my staff an e-mail--almost in an end-run around me--reminding them of the time change, and asking whether they had their act together.

Busybody...fallow mind.