Red Light, Green Light

I remember playing Red Light, Green Light  when I was a kid. The purpose of the game is to reach the 'stop light' without being caught in a moving violation (red light).

The corporate work place is somewhat similar. We are all heading for the same goal, but the journey there is fraught with obstacles, lights and diversions.

While the game is often a singular event, in the corporate environment the employee is seldom alone.  We should be working together to obtain the goals and projects given us.  Checks and balances exist to help us keep moving along.

Sometimes, we hit the Red Light.  The key to surviving the sudden stop is to be paying attention to everything around you so you are not benched.

Telephonic Imbeciles

Admin Gal walked into a conference room the other day to set up for a meeting.  To her horror the previous occupants hadn't hung up the telephone, disconnecting the conference bridge.

People from the other side hadn't left their conference room, nor had they disconnected the teleconference bridge on their side.  Admin Gal walked into a serious discussion on...



Shoes.  Specifically, the new season of Loubitans.


Fortunately, this was an inter-company conference call.  Clearing her throat, Admin Gal signaled her presence and her preference for the classic platform pump.

Nothing sensitive was being discussed - this time.

But for the love of all things sane!  Make sure all the technology, that makes our meetings run smoothly, is disconnected and put away at the end of each meeting.

Grazers Beware!

They wait outside a catered meeting, hovering around the door like moths to a flame.  The subtle smell of food slips out from underneath the closed door.  As the appointed end time approaches, the jockeying around the door takes on a frenzied pitch as people try to figure out how to get into the room while not running down the exiting participants.


The meeting is over.  The door opens.  The first person out the door is met by a crazed crowd of food poachers. They throw up their padfolios in a defensive posture, bulldozing their way through the stampeding throng.  The chaos in the doorway between the entrants and exitants is tense.


A hew and cry of torment is given when the poachers realize that the much anticipated free meal has been eaten by the intended party.  Not a crumb to spare.  The hapless  meeting attendees have already scurried back to their various desks, safe.


For the moment.


You can't tell me it doesn't exist in your company the professional grazer, that goes from event to event. Uninvited, ever poaching what is not theirs.  The really bold ones, actually walk into the meeting helping themselves to food that hasn't included them in the count.

The ever vigilant admin has to watch the food like a hawk for the catered meeting.  Making sure that the intended audience received the meal.  Catered meals do not come cheap.  There are budgets and head counts involved.  When people start poaching, they start wreaking havoc on carefully laid plans.

Thus, invoking the wrath of the Admin!  And frankly? It can't end well.

Summer Madness

A good Admin tracks calendars, meetings and the occasional UFO through out the course of her duties. During the summer months the added stress of tracking the dates of the executives vacation schedules can be enough to send one around the bend.

The purpose of a good calendar system is to use it to block out vacation days. Not to let everyone guess where you might be when you disappear. On top of that people feel it necessary to guard the contents of their calendars like they are national secrets, privy only to the President himself. REALLY?

Look, I don’t care if you are having lunch with the Dali Lama or your girlfriend. If the boss is asking where you are and I can see if you are on vacation or in a meeting there are problems.
Do me a favor, as your Admin and let me when you are out of the office.

Meeting Hierarchy

As an admin, I find myself juggling calendars to arrange meetings of varying importance.  When arranging them, I have to take into account the attendees and their rank within the corporation.  I support a CIO, president of a business unit, a couple of Vice Presidents and various Directors.  Often my meeting notices include managers and other people whose presences are required but whose schedules are in conflict with my executives.

So here is a lesson to be learned.  When in the hierarchy of the business world, if your boss tells you that you are required to attend a meeting and the only time HE or SHE can hold it (according to their schedule) is at a specific time that does not jibe with your schedule -- you need to be there.  So please don't call me, telling me to reschedule a meeting that has people who rank higher than you in the company.  You won't win.

In the grand scheme of things, you need to move your schedule to accommodate their schedule.  As an admin, I have done everything in my power to find a time that will work for everyone.  Failing that, the executives schedule win every time.

A Jury of My Peers

A good friend of the Admin Gal recently pointed out  her frustration of meetings that run over their allotted time.  Admin Gal realizes this is a common theme in this blog.  But with so much material and so many people to help, how can this topic not be revisited regularly?

Meetings are an opportunity for people to come together for a common purpose to come to a decision. Or realize that they won’t come to a mutual desired outcome.  Normally, attendees come prepared ready to make the needed decision or touch base on the current milestone.  All of this can be done with in the allotted meeting time.

Here is when things can go terribly, terribly wrong.  Sometimes, when an attendee feels slighted, for what ever reason, they decide to hold the meeting hostage.  If you will, a meeting filibuster.  Not letting anyone get a word in until they’ve made their pointless point.

5, 10, 30 minutes later.  Everyone’s schedules are in disarray,  other meetings have been held up because of this person’s axe to grind. AND no decision has been reached.

This is where you wonder if a jury of your peers would truly understand if you went postal?

Oh, the Humanity!

There are some day you just can’t when in the game of calendaring.  Seriously.  If it isn’t vacation for one person, it’s an anniversary for another, OR maybe it’s that obscure hop-scotch pebble throwing day only celebrated every 4th year on a full moon when there is a Chinese-American President in Office.

Really?  When an admin is trying to wrangle 20+ people together for an executive that isn’t even one I regularly support and all I get is grief.  Well, the gloves come off!

Here are the rules of the road!

1. Take what you get! If meeting making were as easy as they thought they would have done it themselves.
2. Meeting times only change if the meeting presenters actually haven’t kept their calendars up to date.  Then that is a whole other conversation.
3. Food?  You want to be feed?  You let me know 15 minutes before the meeting your want food?  That falls under the category of miracles and really, really good bribes.
4. If said meeting people make the admin mad, the admin will stop managing the calendar and their world will collapse in a chaotic sea of, well you get the picture.

I’m not saying I’m unwilling to help.  But, usually there is a reason that the meeting got put in the initial time-slot or moved to the next.

Just be grateful it’s actually on your calendar at all!

Time's Up!

As an admin, there are many things I tolerate in the commission of my duties.  Cluelessness, Obliviots, etc.  Normally I can manage around all of this, but there are a couple of things that tend to send me over the edge.  One of those things is meeting management.
The reality is when facility resources are limited keeping meetings on time it ABSOLUTELY essential.
The situation that I find myself in is difficult. I don't like being a bad gal.  But I can be a spectacular Bad Gal if the situation calls for it.  Sometimes I need to knock on doors and remind people that they are running over and delaying other meetings.  I give them a  2 minute high sign.  If they can't wrap things up in that time, they will then need to adjourn and table the discussion for another time.
When the meeting run past the allotted 2 minute mark, well then I get mean.  I'll leave the rest to your imagination.
Here are a few helpful hints when running a meeting:

1. Be aware of your subject matter - Are you scheduling enough time? Do you have an agenda to keep everyone on task?
2. Know your people - Are they talkers?  Do you need to account extra time to accommodate?
3. Is the conference room you've scheduled booked immediately after?  - Be courteous to the next group.  They are on equally tight schedules.

If you can at least follow these few strategies when planning your meetings, you will have successful meetings.
More importantly, you won't have me knocking on your door saying 'Time's up!'

Timeliness is Next to...

If a contractor says they are going to be doing work at 1:30 pm, knowing full well that the people they need to see are leaving at 2 pm.

DO NOT Show up 15 minutes past the deadline thinking that all will be well. It won't be.  You will have a very cranky, non-cooperative  individual on your hands.  Whose time has been wasted.

Just because as a corporation we choose to pay extreme amounts of money to be told how to manage ourselves, a little courtesy goes a long way.  Makes the sting of cutting those very large checks less painful.  So, respecting the various calendars, appointments and just the individuals time is a sign of respect.  When a consultant stops extending those common courtesies, well contracts can be broken.

If you set a time, stick to it.  It makes a better impression and the world a brighter place.

Consultant vs. Vendor

There are many types of relationships in the business world.  Some more permanent than others.  Over the years, I have found the relationships that I develop with my preferred vendors have seen me through thick and thin.

Unfortunately, those relationships can be threatened by the introduction of a new player in town.  The Consultant.

Consultants are people that are paid by the company to tell us how to do things.  Yes, that’s right, we pay them to tell us what to do.  That means the consultant generally comes already equipped with a healthy ego and a sense of entitlement.

They invade the work place like ants at a picnic.  Sticking their noses everywhere, playing merry-hob with calendars and demanding resources like they were executives.

Here is a warning to my fly-by-night consultants. MESS NOT WITH MY VENDOR RELATIONSHIP, LEST YE FEEL THE WRATH OF THE ASSISTANT!


You, the consultant, are here for only a short time.  Your demands are petty and short-lived.  I have to live with the mess you leave behind.

I know where your monies are sent.  I know the admins at your headquarters. I am not afraid to make your collective lives miserable!

RESPECT THE MEETING NOTICE!

MEETING - an assembly or conference of persons for a specific purpose or event.

There is nothing more frustrating than having set up a meeting 45 days ago, then finding out the day of the meeting that two of the principle players couldn’t be bothered to participate.  They accepted, but never chose to change their status so that alternative arrangements could be made.

This particular meeting had already been rescheduled 4 times.  All participants tell me it is imperative to have said meeting.  My boss, who was at the right time at the right place, was made to look bad.  Which in turn made me feel crappy.

I get it, plans change.  People get busy.

For Pete Sakes! Check your calendar and be courteous.  Decline the meeting if you aren’t coming.

Experiments in Software

Like all companies, in these hard economic times, mine is on the look out for the best deal on anything.  Recently we started taking a hard look at our email delivery system.  We currently use a system that is so half-a#$$ed backwards that no reputable hacker would want to be known for hacking it.  I break the email system on a regular basis. I'm not doing anything special.  Just using it.  But then I am an Admin...
I'm on a first name basis with the third-tier tech support for this software.  In fact, when my name comes up I'm pretty sure the conversation goes like this:

Expert #1: OH NO! It's HER!  I'm not picking up the phone!

Expert #2: I took her call last time. It's YOUR turn!

(Picture me on hold, tapping my fingers on my desk!)

The argument continues, fisticuffs erupt. 

FINALLY! Someone picks up the line.

Expert #3:  (who had to break up the fight, answers breathlessly) Hello XXXX, how can we help you today?

But I digress.  We are currently in the beginning of a email pilot.  I and an intrepid group of Executive Admins have been carefully selected to push this system to its limits and beyond.  I've spent the last week in training.  I'm bleeding Blue, Red, Orange, Blue, Green, and Red.
The pilot hasn't even started AND, I've already broken the calendar.  The next thirty days are going to be fun!

Flexibility!

I’m so flexible, I’m a pretzel! 

So, I spend a week and a half setting up 90 minute high-level executive meetings over a three week period. Juggling schedules, begging for meetings to move to accommodate said meetings, bribing where I can, to get all the meetings scheduled. 

One phone call destroys my hours and days of hard work.  The admin who made the call gets my frustration, but the executive who made the decision has no clue how hard it was to arrange all the meetings.  He just said ‘Make it so’. 

Instead he wants one mega meeting, which was the original idea.  Two weeks ago this meeting would have been easy to arrange.  Now, putting this meeting together for tomorrow is a logistical nightmare.  But, since the company officers attending the meeting are high enough up in the company, everyone can clear their schedules and make due.

Hierarchy is a double-edge sword.