I'm free on the seventh at seven
Been a couple days since I have blogged, as yesterday was a long day of travel. Starting early in the morning, I had to drive to Akron to pick up someone else who had spent the weekend at home, then to Nashville to pick her car up at the airport, then back to Clarksville. All in all it was about 700 miles and 11 hours of windshield time. Combine that, another personal issue I didn't want to have to deal with yesterday but was forced to do so none the less, and the arthritis in my foot flaring up, and I was ready for bed almost as soon as I got to the room last night.
As I look back on today's first day back, my visit home, and the last year and a half, I am reminded of the movie Bruce Almighty. Specifically, when Morgan Freeman looks at Jim Carey and says "No matter how dirty something gets, you can always clean it up." I suppose I have been doing that for awhile, though not always in the most graceful or dignified way. Many times I have come across self inflicted messes. And in my own way, I have cleaned them up. It wasn't always the way I would have liked to. But I came through each situation better for having gone through it. And each time I encounter some new issue, I handle it a little differently and better than the last.
So today's mess was a doozy. I arrived at my job site and the first thing I see is that our yard truck, a brand new (last week) Ford F-150 had been wrecked. Of course no one knew how it had happened. So I had to investigate. And that only made matters worse. I found that a series of safety and company policy violations led to the incident. And while I won't mention specifically the rules that were broken, they are the kinds of things that could lead to serious consequences, including termination for the people involved. The mistakes were stupid, non thinking errors in judgement. As I continued to investigate I found that while I was away, the work quality and quantity suffered greatly. But it's ok, because everyone had a good time and no one rocked the boat. That is, no one except for me.
I pulled my safety officers first into a meeting and went over procedure and asked them what had gone on. After obtaining the information, I then had a supervisors meeting. In no uncertain terms I let them know that, while I like being a nice guy on the job, I do not like being taken advantage of. Especially when my reputation with my client and company are compromised. My supervisors left that meeting with a little less of their rear ends than they came in with. Ok, a lot less. And apparently they got the message. Not only did we get more work done today than they did in the previous 5, to a man they each came up to me individually and apologized for putting me in the position of being the bad guy. They know me well enough to know they pushed me a little too far today.
No matter how dirty something gets, you can always clean it right up:) Mission accomplished I think.
In honor of the movie referenced in the blog tonight, and in honor of tomorrow being a new day and a new start (as is every day) I have decided to retire my tag line. No more Adios and vaya con Dios. I am not in Chile anymore. Because I am cleaning up messes all over the place in all areas of life, I am going to once again quote the movie. Night everyone
'SGOOD.............
As I look back on today's first day back, my visit home, and the last year and a half, I am reminded of the movie Bruce Almighty. Specifically, when Morgan Freeman looks at Jim Carey and says "No matter how dirty something gets, you can always clean it up." I suppose I have been doing that for awhile, though not always in the most graceful or dignified way. Many times I have come across self inflicted messes. And in my own way, I have cleaned them up. It wasn't always the way I would have liked to. But I came through each situation better for having gone through it. And each time I encounter some new issue, I handle it a little differently and better than the last.
So today's mess was a doozy. I arrived at my job site and the first thing I see is that our yard truck, a brand new (last week) Ford F-150 had been wrecked. Of course no one knew how it had happened. So I had to investigate. And that only made matters worse. I found that a series of safety and company policy violations led to the incident. And while I won't mention specifically the rules that were broken, they are the kinds of things that could lead to serious consequences, including termination for the people involved. The mistakes were stupid, non thinking errors in judgement. As I continued to investigate I found that while I was away, the work quality and quantity suffered greatly. But it's ok, because everyone had a good time and no one rocked the boat. That is, no one except for me.
I pulled my safety officers first into a meeting and went over procedure and asked them what had gone on. After obtaining the information, I then had a supervisors meeting. In no uncertain terms I let them know that, while I like being a nice guy on the job, I do not like being taken advantage of. Especially when my reputation with my client and company are compromised. My supervisors left that meeting with a little less of their rear ends than they came in with. Ok, a lot less. And apparently they got the message. Not only did we get more work done today than they did in the previous 5, to a man they each came up to me individually and apologized for putting me in the position of being the bad guy. They know me well enough to know they pushed me a little too far today.
No matter how dirty something gets, you can always clean it right up:) Mission accomplished I think.
In honor of the movie referenced in the blog tonight, and in honor of tomorrow being a new day and a new start (as is every day) I have decided to retire my tag line. No more Adios and vaya con Dios. I am not in Chile anymore. Because I am cleaning up messes all over the place in all areas of life, I am going to once again quote the movie. Night everyone
'SGOOD.............
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