Busy Bee

As expected, the return to work has been a mess. Monday was a busy day but Tuesday was an absolute mess. I think a number of people took Monday as a vacation day and first returned to work yesterday. My team has been doing their best to respond but there was just such a flood of calls that we couldn't keep up. Serious problems, annoying problems, irritating problems, problems related to the project over break, and normal would-have-happened-anyway problems. Any body that could stay past their shift and work a bit longer was encouraged to do so.

Somewhere around two in the afternoon yesterday I retreated to my office as I realized that I'd yet to eat any lunch and it was no longer a task I could put off any further. I was hungry and tired and just needed a moment to think.

I had just barely sat down and begun to unwrap my sandwich when there came a knock upon my door, a nervous rapping at my chamber door. John, one of my interns, poked his head inside and started stammering about not wanting to interrupt me but he felt he had to do so. “Mr. Pedrina's on the phone and wants to talk to you.”

“Oofy?” You know how sometimes when the pressure is on that your mental filters don't work as well as they normally do? That's what happened to me and was the reason behind my question. The thought just slipped out. John started laughing immediately. This put me in an odd position, both pleased that I caused some amusement and a bit embarrassed as I'd said something I shouldn't have said.

As I tried to explain to John that he shouldn't repeat what I'd just said, John looked for further understanding. “Oofy? Why Oofy?”

“Well,” I had no good answer to this question, “he looks like an Oofy, doesn't he?”

In that John was forced to agree with me. I'm not sure that either of us could define an 'Oofy' if asked but Jeremiah Pedrina was clearly an 'Oofy'. I think, with time, you will agree.

I headed outside, hoping that taking the call in public would prevent me from further speaking without thinking. It also gave me an extra moment or two to get my brain ready for the conversation. Upon picking up the phone, I did my best to sound bright and cheerful instead of hungry and tired. “Yesh, ish thish the manager of the department?” asked Oofy. The man has a talent for not being able to recognize me, either on the phone or in person. Upon hearing me confirm my role, he continued. “I've been hearing of a number of computer related problemsh being experienced by the membersh of my department. When will they be resolved?”

The brevity of his question caught me off guard and we sat through a brief silence while I waited for him to say more. When it became clear that he was waiting for my response, I began to scramble. “I don't want to sound flippant but we always try to resolve open problems as soon as we can. Is there a specific situation on which you need an update?”

“No, no, I don't think so,” Oofy replied. “There just seemsh to be a lot of complaining going on in my department and I wanted a statush.”

My head began to hurt more. I wasn't sure what he wanted to hear or what information he was looking to obtain. It was difficult to respond. “We do have a high volume of existing problem tickets at the moment, which is not uncommon for the period after a break. We're doing our best to resolve them promptly as we know everyone has a great deal of preparation to do before next week. If you have a list of problem tickets that you want a specific update on, I'd be happy to provide you with that information.”

“Not right now. When is the AAR scheduled?” he checked.

“Currently the After Action Review is scheduled for Friday morning.” It's customary after a project like this to invite the affected department heads together to review how the project when from everyone's perspective. This can be rough.

The problem is that everyone that speaks their piece at one of these meetings can say something different, can even say things that sound contradictory, and yet everyone can be right. It can be a difficult thing to listen to someone expressing themselves and trying to turn your thought patterns over to their way of thinking, but that's what you have to do. The bulk of the work we do directly supports the customer and understanding how to help them is critical for success.

If you get lucky, no one will get chatty. You get up, point to a few slides, say a few words, everyone grunts in agreement, and I can scamper back to my office and relax. That's what I was really hoping would happen. Of course this call was guaranteeing that it wouldn't happen like that.

I heard him clicking around. “Ah yesh, I see it now. Thank you for your assistance.”

“We are always glad to help. Feel free to email me a list of ticket numbers for your group if you need detailed updates.”

“Thank you.” The call ground further to a halt at this point with us exchanging a few more pleasantries before actually terminating the call.

After it was done, I just leaned up against the cub wall and sighed, moving only when John coughed, indicating his need to return to his desk. “You start a ticket for that call?” John responded in the affirmative. “Good man. Close it, saying that I talked to him and answered his questions.” I sighed again and headed back to my office. “Can't wait for Friday.” I punctuated this with a weak and unenthusiastic 'Woo-hoo'.