The Staff Meeting

I’ve been back from vacation for a week now and felt the need to call a staff meeting.  This seemingly simple task always meets with problems.  There are three main departments – Book, Blog and Maintenance.  All department heads are required to attend the meeting.  I also have a consultant who is welcome to attend if available, but he has a full-time job, and since he funds all of my projects I am happy to have him drop by after hours.  He is wonderful about being on call 24/7, for which I am so appreciative.  He could never be replaced.

The meeting was scheduled for 10:00 sharp and (no surprise here) the Book and Maintenance Managers were late.  The Blog Manager was early, as usual.  She loves to work overtime and can monopolize the meetings.  She is hard to control and has a habit of mocking the other department heads – she things she’s so darn funny.

The Maintenance Manager rushed in ten minutes late, apologizing and muttering about all the chores she has to do and saying “somebody has to take care of the rest of you – clean clothes just don’t appear out of nothing, you know.”

“Yeah, yeah,” replied the Blog Manager.  Those two are are always getting into it.  At last at 10:20 the Book Manager decided to poke her head in and asked if it was really necessary that she come to the meeting.  She drives me crazy.  She likes to act like she prefers the other two, but deep down I know she is the worst procrastinator of the group.  I try not to be too hard on her, because I know that once she gets going she works like the other departments don’t even exist and plows forward.  It’s just getting her going that’s the problem, and her plow needs constant attention.  She is very needy.

End result:  The Book Department gets the entire day off but must work all day tomorrow.  Blog Department is not even allowed on the premises tomorrow.  Maintenance had several things to do today that couldn’t wait, including a trip to my father-in-law’s bank (the one at which he banks not the one he owns – he does not own a bank).  Since my mother-in-law passed away in January, Bob (my husband) has been taking care of his dad’s finances.  His father though very sharp mentally is practically blind.  Today I had to go to the bank and make a deposit for him.  The teller asked me if the funds were needed right away.  When I asked her if they were putting a hold on the check she looked at her records and said, “He’s had this account since 1959, so I don’t think we need to worry about that.”  I imagine several of you reading this were not even born when this bank account was opened.

Anyway, I wanted to clear something up for you in case you are lost in the details of my staff.  They are always in conflict with each other though they can and should work together.  They all love their jobs and that makes it hard to get everything done, or at times anything done.  I think it’s time to call in my consultant again.