Had a big day today. The first meeting of the review I’ve been asked to lead. Got in early for it. Brought a brand new notebook I’d been saving for something important. It has a nice thick hardback. Wrote REVIEW across the first page in capitals and underlined it twice.
I’d booked one of the glass rooms on the nineteenth for it. I got there first and took the seat at the end of the table. Put my new notebook in front of me, uncapped my pen, and arranged a glass of water slightly to the right.
Messaged Jadyn on Slack while I waited for everyone to arrive. Not heard from her since the date.
Leading the overhaul of the review process today. Will try not to make your job redundant!
She replied with a thumbs-up and:
Try not to frighten them.
Funny. But I’m not here to hold any hands.
People drifted in over the next few minutes. Eight of us altogether. I knew most of them. Vaguely. A woman from Finance whose name I always forget. A beefy guy from Ops whose shirts are always too tight. A few other randos.
I was about to start when some cunt called Martin walked in and sat opposite me.
“Right,” he said. “Thanks, everyone. I’ll run through where we are.”
Fine. Someone has to do the admin. He put a slide up with the objectives. Most of them were obvious. Should I have made a slide? He spoke for a while. I corrected him only when it was needed. When he got to the bit about customer feedback, I asked whether anyone had actually spoken to customers.
Silence. Good question.
Finance woman said there was survey data, but none of us are customer-facing. So what, I said. Surveys aren’t the same thing as talking to people. We need to get them on the blower. Martin nodded and wrote it down. We moved on to the delays next. Everyone had excuses: Systems. Approvals. Lack of resources.
I said, “What if we stop looking at where the process slows down and look at where people start working around it?”
That got everyone talking. For about twenty minutes, the meeting was actually quite good. People stopped reading from slides and started saying what they thought. People were pointing fingers and shouting. Glorious. I made another great observation about duplicated approvals and how nobody knows who owns the final decision.
Martin wrote it all down. I suggested we map the full process end to end. Interview people at each stage. Compare the official process with what actually happens. Beefy said that sounded like quite a lot of work.
“Better to do it properly,” I said.
Everyone agreed. I volunteered to have the first version ready by Friday. Martin looked at me.
“This Friday?”
“No point fucking around,” I told him.
He stared for a second. “OK. Friday.”
That’s proper leadership. Be the guy that gets things moving. We divided up the work. I took on customer interviews, the process map, and the final recommendations. Martin took the project plan and stakeholder list. I could’ve done those too, but delegation is important.
The meeting finished about forty-three minutes later than it should’ve. I stood and shook hands with everyone as they left. Gave them all some encouragement.
“Great job. Thanks for coming. Really useful.”
I was smashing it. Martin lingered around after the others.
“Good input today, Jolon.”
Cheeky sod. I ran the bloody thing. “Any time.”
“We’ll probably need you up here quite a bit this week,” he said.
“Happy to sit by the rudder and steer.”
He looked like he was going to say something more, but I walked off before he could.
Checked Slack when I got back to my desk. Nothing from Jadyn. Not that I was expecting anything. We both have important jobs. We’re both busy. Set my status to DND and created a new Sheet called Jolon’s Review Taskforce. Went to grab a black coffee before I got down to it.
Got chatting with my boss in the pantry. He said he’d heard the meeting went well. We spoke for a while. Friendly. I think we can safely put the formal warning behind us.
Checked Slack again when I got back to my desk. Needed to message someone about something else. No messages from Jadyn. Did some actual work. Quite a lot, in fact. Had two more black coffees.
At 3:17, Jadyn messaged. It was a picture of her patio. My cactus sat in the corner.
Your cactus was glaring at me this morning. Put me off my coffee.
Then:
Work is mental today. Had to have lunch at my desk. Made my own sandwich. It was terrible.
I asked what she’d put in it. She sent a picture. It looked very sorry. Completely collapsed in the middle.
I could make you a better one than that.
I bet you could!
I’ll bring you one tomorrow. I’ve got to go up and pick my new desk anyway.
You’re moving up here? Permanently?
Martin wants me up there while I lead this project. You’ll get to see a lot more of me!
Ok, Jolon. See you tomorrow.
Things are looking up. Decided the project can wait till tomorrow. Left early to get sandwich ingredients.