I don’t write much about work. Generally speaking it is probably not a good idea for anyone to start letting the world know the specifics of what goes on at work. They emphasize that in the little ethics videos we are periodically required by my employer to watch. Of course they are talking about trade secrets and financial secrets and unethical behavior and I understand that.
But every once in a while you have a week that knocks you in the head and makes you realize that the relationships we have at work are very human and real. The fact is that we spend a tremendous amount of time at work, often interacting with a relatively small group of coworkers or customers. We develop relationships, often over the course of many years.
I write a lot about the importance of healthy families in supporting the individual family members. The truth is that our work “family” can be very important to us as well.
My week started with my usual trip to Jefferson City to visit my customer there and plan our conversion to our latest product. I have developed a routine where I talk to key people and check their process and when you talk to people on a regular basis you get to know them personally. Each has a story to tell and on each visit we pick up the story where we left off the last time.
After my visit I drove to St. Louis to the airport to get on an airplane to fly to Texas. They have changed our territories around again and hired a new guy in Texas and it makes sense to get him up to speed with an account that is much closer to him than it is to me. The new guy (I am leaving out all names on purpose) and I have already met and worked together on another project. He will be a good fit for this customer.
But I am torn. I have a long history with the folks in the little town of Cleburne. We brought their paint system over from a customer I used to call on in Winters, Texas that moved to Mexico. Since then we have been through a lot and learned a lot and today they run very well. But along the way those relationships developed and friendships that I value came to be with these people.
But I have also learned to embrace change over the years, and so I reviewed my notes and what I wanted to cover on this visit and what the new guy may need to know. My thoughts were interrupted by a phone call. It was the lab. Specifically, it was OUR lab, our paint lab. It was my good friend and one of my very closest coworkers.
I had missed his call heading through security and I had just enough time to call him back before my plane took off. “Hey man, what’s up?” I will omit the details, but he is leaving to take another job. We all have people we rely upon at work, and then there are people we REALLY rely on at work. My friend is one of the people I rely on most. And he is moving on.
I congratulated him of course and I am sincerely happy that he is going to be in a better position. But I am going to miss more than technical expertise. I will miss having someone who understands some things because he lived through them with me. It saves a lot of time explaining things. I remember when we were both at a plant startup in Mexico and found ourselves walking back to our car after dinner through a dark alley in Mexicali. We both suddenly realized where we were and it was an interesting walk. Fortunately it turned out ok and we can laugh about it now.
It is not the first time this has happened. Anyone who is around long enough will experience the loss of key people in the organization. It is at times like that that you realize that although everyone can be replaced it will not necessarily be with the same level of quality. And each time you see the organization lose a little “tribal knowledge”. On the other hand after the chaos subsides we sometimes end up stronger.
I boarded my plane for Texas with a lot on my mind. I picked up my rental car and made the hour drive from Love Field to Cleburne. In the morning I met my two coworkers and started introducing them to the customer and paint system. Going in I knew that the person that had been running the paint system was no longer with the company. I don’t like to press about matters involving personnel and so I did not ask and they did not offer an explanation.
Then I found out that there had been other changes in management, with some moving up and others moving down. The same thing recently happened to my customer in Jefferson City. It seems as though there is a periodic “round robin” game of musical chairs in organizations of all types. And sometimes the music stops and people find themselves with no place to sit.
I spent some time thinking about all of the people that used to work at each of my customers over the years that are no longer there and it is staggering. And that does not include plants that have closed like Fedders in Effingham and Maytag in Herrin and Waterloo in Pocahontas. Or the Selkirk plant in Winters where we brought this old paint system from.
And then I started a mental list of all of my coworkers that were no longer with the company and that was also staggering. Talk about making yourself feel old! Any organization changes a great deal over 20 years, and ours is no different. In my role of technical service and application engineering we have a large number of very experienced people, so many of those I have known for a great many years.
Ordinarily each of us interacts mainly with our customers and a few sales people. But occasionally we work on startups or trials or particularly tough problems as a team. It is always interesting to witness firsthand the knowledge and experience of some of these people who have been literally solving paint problems for well over three decades. We each deal with all types of paints and application methods but we also each have areas of expertise. There is so much to soak up and learn.
We had a good visit and after lunch we said our goodbyes and I flew back to Missouri. I had to visit my customer in Jeff City again and met up with another of my old work buddies there. He had solved a problem for them which freed me up to move on. Later that day there was a hastily called mandatory conference call. Those are rarely good. This one was no exception. One of our group had succumbed to a heart attack.
Shock and sadness. We had not worked closely together, but I had known him for a number of years. The level of expertise lost is astounding, but that seems like the most trivial of things at a time like this. You think about his family, of course; and then you think about what would happen to your family should something happen to you. I worry about my coworkers. I understand the loss of someone you have worked closely with for years.
We spend a tremendous amount of time at work. For many of us the circle of people we work with includes a very small number of people and we may work with them for many years. Considering overtime and weekends you may very well see more of your coworkers than anyone else you ever know. We should not lightly dismiss these relationships or the effect of losing a coworker.
Obviously a sudden departure of a key coworker affects your organization but it also affects us personally. There is a need to grieve and to acknowledge not just the loss but our own personal sadness. And then as we go back and put our nose to the grindstone it is important to remember that the people on the other end of the conference call or email are human beings, and valuable ones.
And sometimes we need to acknowledge more than just a valuable coworker. Sometimes we need to take the time to reach out to those we see every day or week and let them know that we value their friendship. That we gain more from them than just their performance at work. Because some day you may not be able to.
No comments:
Post a Comment