Dealing with the Pile of Email

As so often happens, when I got back from vacation I had a pile of email clogging my inbox. I thought that it would be a good idea to share some advice on how to deal with this backlog that is inevitably waiting for us when we return to work. I have become a master of dealing with such situations. Are you ready for this sage advice? Can you handle it? Here you go:

Throw it all out without reading it.

What? I can't be serious can I? I'm deadly serious.

It works because it functions under one important principle: If something is REALLY important, somebody else has kept a copy of it. I learned this lesson from one of the first bosses that I worked for who would routinely throw things out without reading them. When I asked him why did this, he explained: "If it's really important, it will show back up on my desk." . People keep copies of important documents/emails. Don't be a pack rat; let somebody else be a pack rat.

Is this a perfect system? No. It typically fails when you have a boss that likes to make unilateral decisions without your input. You know, when somebody sends out an email (copying you) asking your boss to make a decision on something where they SHOULD wait for your input, but choose not to do so.

So - as with many systems - it's only perfect in a perfect world . . . and we all know that the world isn't perfect. So use the advice at your own risk. Personally, I have my email setup so that my VIP's show up highlighted when the come to my inbox and truthfully, I read the VIP email and then toss the rest.

Hopefully this advice lightens your workload at least a little, or at least helps you cope with the fear of returning from vacation.

Working Like A Dog

Where did that phrase come from? I've rarely seen a dog work (dog sleds and seeing-eye dogs being the exceptions). Mostly, they just eat, sleep and evacuate.

Anyhow, our Project Team Leaders (which I'm a member of) agreed to have on-site Fridays. This doesn't affect me much, but it affects my work team. The on-site Fridays isn't too bad of a concept - it promotes cross-team working and keeps our team members productive on Fridays. The problem that I have with it is the enforcement of a 4pm end time on Fridays.

Though this doesn't affect me (I stay the whole day on Fridays because I'm "local"), it does affect some of my team members. I'm not too concerned about the ones that I suspect are less productive on Fridays. However, I know that I have a few team members that bust their butts when they are off-site and the only flights available to them are at 3:30pm. Their next available flight isn't until 9pm. Getting home at midnight on a Friday isn't a good way to reward your good workers. It's punishing all employees for the sins of the few.

The truth is that on a project of this size, you get plenty of productive people and a few unproductive people. The unproductive people need get their rears in gear or get off the project. Their manager needs to address the issue early and curb the behavior. If they don't, they end up in the situation that we're in now, punishing the whole for the sins of the few.

The last company I worked at put a policy in place that said that all Exempt employees needed to work 50 hour weeks. The reason for this policy was to address issues with a few employees who would show up at 10am, go to lunch at 11am, then leave work at 2pm and go to a Cubs game. All the policy did was piss off the people who were busting their butts. In other words the overachievers were being punished because some managers didn't have the backbone to tell their employees to work a decent working day.

That's what I'd call making your employees work like dogs, except dogs occassionally get a biscuit when they've done a good job. If we're going to ask our employees to work a little harder perhaps we should find a few more biscuits to hand out.

Missing In Action

I haven't posted since Sunday. Since I started blogging it is the longest I've gone without blogging. My apologies. Since Sunday, I've had an Anniversary (6 years) to celebrate, a transatlantic flight, and three solid days of work back here in Dublin with added responsibilities.

My increased responsibilities are thus: Not only am I in charge of data conversion for our project, I have also inherited the role of HR Functional Process Lead. I'll be filling in for my departing boss until they can find somebody else to pick up the duties. So, I'm now also in charge of the testing portion of the project. The new role comes with more meetings, which means I have less time to do more work.

On the bright side, I've booked a flight to Bristol tomorrow morning and will spend the weekend touring both Bristol and Bath in Western England. I look forward to posting a few more travel blogs. I hope that my absence hasn't deterred anybody from reading.

Oh yeah, I forgot something.

GO BLACKHAWKS!

Have you ever been lucky enough . . .

. . . to write your own job description? Two weeks ago, upon my return from the IHRIM Conference where I was graciously awarded with an Excellence Award, I was given that task. I sat down with my VP and she informed me that my new boss who was hired in February had given notice that he was leaving our company. My question: "What does that mean for me?"

She dropped two scenarios in front of me and honestly I don't remember the first because it wasn't very appealing. However, the second idea seemed to make sense: manage the company's HR systems globally. Neither of us really understood what the responsibilities were, so she tasked me with writing the job description and a transition plan to the new position.

I considered including things like: "Responsible for leading corporate wide nap efforts" or "Required to work in chocolate production facility as taste-tester" (yes we do produce chocolate at some of our facilities) or "In charge of making others accountable for their actions." Yet, in the end I put together something a little more professional which required only 25-33% travel (as a global systems manager, it would be hard to drive that down to 0%) as opposed to my current 100%. That means more time at home with Beth and RJ.

Tomorrow morning we're going over the draft of the job description that I wrote. Hopefully she hasn't marked it up too much with her red pen.

What would you put in your job description if you got to write it?

The Current Arrangement

It was absolutely wonderful to have Beth and RJ with me in Ireland. Oddly, that is the longest amount of consecutive time that I've been with my family since last summer. Today, my first full day back home, I'm having doubts about going back to Ireland.

Yes, I still have an apartment there. Also, I just told them that I would be willing to stay on for the Build phase of the project (we just completed the Design phase), which would keep the current arrangement going through September.

I'm not sure I can make it.

I'm continually amazed at how quickly RJ is learning things now. He's also gotten pretty attached to his Daddy . . . and his Daddy has gotten pretty attached to him. It's going to get harder and harder to return to Ireland without my family.

I'm accustomed to taking on too much. In fact, it is one of my (many) faults. I love to learn new things by taking on entirely too many of them. However, it's easy to say that I haven't found anything more enjoyable than this new experience of being a father. Over the next two weeks I'll be reevaluating my situation, discussing it with my wife and my VP to see what's really workable, because I don't think that the current arrangement (me in Ireland 100% of the time with Beth and RJ visiting about 50%) will work for me much longer.