Managers can't have friends 07.31.17

                This work story is for anyone in management, and it is based on my own experiences as a manager.

                The title states, “Managers can’t have friends”, but that is not the complete statement. In a management position, “One should be friendly but not have friends”! To clarify, one should be friendly with all staff but should not have friends among the staff.

                As a young manager I had never been told to be friendly but do not have friends among the staff. Working at the Waco center I developed a friendship with one of the staff. We went fishing and hunting together. Occasionally we would have a meal at one or another’s home. I joined the volunteer fire department due to the encouragement of this staff member / friend.

                Honestly, I would never have treated this staff member differently than anyone else. I would occasionally sit at the same table during break or lunch, we talked and played dominos.

                As I later learned, others saw this friendship totally different than I did.

                At a later date, I terminated this friend for not following instructions. After that, I did not make friends among the staff although I did attempt to be friendly. It would have been nice if someone would have enlightened me about the problems of having friends among the staff.

                Sometimes, certain staff are seen as a manager’s friend even though the management person don’t see it that way. Often HR will receive a complaint from an employee, and they (HR) then alert the management team of these concerns. Occasionally, a member of the management team is alerted either by personal observation, or from a staff member, that another manager is showing preference to or is friends with an employee.

                When management staff are alerted to these concerns, they should take time to consider and discuss why these staff are seen as being friends. How should this discussion take place? There are a couple possibilities.

                The management team should get together and candidly discuss the matter. These discussions will only work if all managers (senior through junior) can honestly communicate openly. By that I mean, if all managers can discuss anything and everything without feeling threatened.

                I have known managers who thought their team would discuss anything, when those in the team felt the opposite!

                If the management team can’t communicate openly, they should meet with a third party such as HR or a VP.

                Things that may be seen by staff, as being friends with management.

                This can happen when a top producer gets what is seen as, “The good jobs”. A person who works productively in various positions will often be asked to take on special assignments. The reason for the special assignment may be seen by others as, “He / she is friends with a manager”.

                A newer staff member gets a job that is seen by others as, “A preferred position”. If seniority no longer matters when jobs are open, allowing management to place anyone in any position, this can be seen as, “He / she is the manager’s friend”. When staff do not understand why certain staff, or newer staff, get certain positions, this can lead them to believe the person is a friend of management.

                Management is not an easy job. Regardless how good one is as a manager, there will be those who think he /she is not performing in the job properly.

                I think all managers should clearly understand the difference between being a friend and being friendly!

Don Ford

Police called 07.26.17

                These work memories are from times when I was filling in as General Manager at the New York Center. There are two stories that involved the police.

                The first story was during my first time filling in at the New York center. The previous manager had been transferred to a new center being built in the State of Oregon. I was in the manager’s office when I decided to get rid of anything that would not be needed by a new manager. As I went through the drawers I would evaluate everything I found and tossed out anything that would not be needed by a new manager.

                The cabinet behind the desk was where I found a small plastic object that had a chain on it. The chain was large enough that one could wear it around their neck. I thought it might have had ear plugs in side and I tried to get it open. I squeezed it and twisted on it several times but it would not open. Finally I gave up and continued through the drawers.

                One of the office ladies called me and said the police are here. I said ok, and I went out to greet them. They were responding to a holdup alarm called in by our alarm company. I said I didn’t know of any hold up taking place, and then I thought of the item which I thought was a carrier for ear plugs. I showed the police and explained. They asked why I had pushed the button twice, I explained that I didn’t know it was an alarm button. I think they thought people from Texas (me) were stupid!

                Yes we had one of these in Texas but it was square, and bigger, with a chain.

                I was glad the police responded quickly.

                Another time the police were called to the New York center.

                There had been an incident in the center were one person pushed another. The fellow that was pushed came in and told me his story. I called the other fellow in and he told me his version. In fact he had pushed the other fellow. I, following company policy called HR and relayed the incident to them. They said they would consider and get back to me. HR had to review and then get approvals from higher ups in the company.

                As I was waiting for the decision to terminate, which I knew was coming, a person from out in the center called me and said, the fellow that had pushed the other person is telling everyone that you better have the police here if you are going to try and fire him.

                I again called HR and passed that info on.

                It wasn’t too long when I got the call from HR to terminate and they said get the police to be there when you terminate. I called the police and told them what was going on. They sent an officer over that was built like a walking mountain. The officer said he didn’t have a lot of time. I called the employee in to the manager’s office. The officer walked over to him and said this man has something to tell you, be quite and listen. The officer turned to me and said go ahead. I explained to the employee that he was being terminated and that we would send him the paper work in the mail. I explained that he was not to return to company property without calling and receiving approval.

                The officer walked over to the person and got in his face saying, do you understand what he has told you? The response was, yes sir. The officer asked, am I going to have to come back here? The response was no sir. The terminated employee cleaned out his locker and left the property.

                There is a little more to this story. After the termination I called the other person in to the office and we talked. I explained that I knew what he had done and it better never happen again. He knew what I was saying and he did not have a response.

                The inside scoop to this story, the fellow that was pushed knew what he was doing. He said the right things to get under the other fellow skin, assuming that he would push or hit him, and then he could report it and get the fellow fired.

                Even though I knew how this had happened, the one fellow had assaulted the other, and that is an offence for termination.

Don Ford

Entender el ingles 07.24.17

Understand English 07.24.17

                The title of this soon to be not only informative, but also well written article says it all. I had been sent to the New York center to temporarily fill in for a manager. I don’t remember if the manager had been transferred or if he had resigned. 

                In the office at that point in time, there was two female employees who normally worked there, and one female who was temporarily assigned to the office. She was temporarily placed in the office due to some type work injury that had occurred in the center. These temporary work assignments kept the center (aka warehouse) from having a lost time injury recorded against the center.  

                The front office also had sales staff in it. They had there cubicles which kept them separated from the Centers office staff. I always knew they did not like it when I would occasionally look into their cubicles and make comments about fire extinguishers, electric space heaters and clutter that they had under or near their desks.

                One of the regular office workers and the temporary office worker spoke both English and Spanish. I had noticed that these to ladies would communicate in Spanish often during the day. I suspected that they might be saying things that they did not want others to understand.

                One day I had walked into the front office to ask a question about something, these two ladies were standing at a table sorting some paper work, when one said in Spanish, “I don’t understand this”. Now I don’t speak or understand much Spanish, but I knew what she had said, and without thinking I said, “Come on, you know how to do that”. Both of these ladies appeared shocked! They looked at me very surprised that I understood what had been said!

                From that time on, there was very little Spanish, if any, spoken in the front office. I believe they thought I could understand what they were saying.

Don Ford

Working at Cape HWI 07.13.17

                Cape was always productive, even though the Waco Center kicked their butts later on.

                In hindsight, production was a word that should not have existed when Cape first started. The reason I make that statement is, “Capes production was based on Fort Wayne union workers, so called production”.

                I do not remember all the standards for production back in the day, but I remember one standard and that is the bin section, as it was one of my departments. Production was measured as, “Lines per hour”. Simply put, a filler has an order, and each line on the order counted toward that employee’s production. The bin section order fillers had to fill 60 lines per hour to meet production. (As I understand it, all centers have a bin section production of at least double that now.)

                The improved production I want to discuss has nothing to do with the bin section. I want to talk about heavy bulk production. The Cape Warehouse’s first expansion had been completed and heavy bulk was moved into the new building along with another department.

                Heavy bulk was located in the back of the new addition, while shipping was located in the front of the original building. The problem this caused was, the shipping carts loaded with merchandise (aka Ralph carts) had to be pulled to shipping by hand, and the empty carts had to be pulled back to the Bulk area by hand. Cape had no tugger, heck, we didn’t know what a tugger was!

                After a visit from someone out of the home office it was decided to send us a tugger. It was an old tugger, but it still worked. We decided to use it to pull full carts to shipping and empty carts back to the bulk area. This was a time saver and less strain on the person who had been pulling the carts by hand.

                We had the tugger a couple weeks when one of the bulk order fillers, began to use it not only to pull carts to and from shipping, he also used it while filling orders. His production doubled! I asked him to see how much he could improve production using the tugger and we would provide the info to Fort Wayne.

                Well, needless to say, the operator on the tugger was doubling the filling rate of those on foot. The Cape center soon received several more tuggers and that began a production revolution not only at Cape but also at other centers.

                An old piece of equipment designated for one job, applied to another job, soon led to improved production in several centers, and it made the day’s work easier on the employees.

Don Ford

First Termination 07.11.17

                This, as with all my work stories, is true.

                I was a new supervisor working at the Cape warehouse (they were called warehouse’s back in those days). There was a manager Jim, a senior supervisor Pete, and Pete’s wife Ann, who was the office manager. I do not recall if Lonnie was a supervisor at this time or not.

                All I knew about being a supervisor was what I had learned during my time at HWI. The Home office had sent us work books that we were studying weekly. These work books provided information about being a supervisor / manager.

                I was supervisor over Receiving and the Bin Section. There was a young lady whose production would go up when she was called into the office and in a week or two it would be back down.

                The manager Jim called me into his office and we reviewed her production of the past several months. As stated earlier, production would go up when we called her in and go down as soon as she felt we were not looking. Jim said, “Fire her today”!

                I had never fired anyone, and now he wants me to fire her. You would have thought the manager would have terminated the employee and allowed me to sit in, but nope, my instructions were, “Fire her today!”

                I left Jims office and went to my office. I got my work book and went to the chapter about terminating employees. I read this chapter and the main things I learned from the work book were, have the facts about the employee’s performance, state the facts, have the paper work ready, stay calm and be as empathetic as possible. The decision is made and we are not changing our mind.  

                I do not remember the young lady’s name but I do remember that she was very pretty and had those large blue eyes. I called her into the conference room and began stating the facts. At the same time she begin to cry. The termination was rough on both of us. She did not argue and signed the papers. I wished her good luck and she said she needed to call someone to get a ride home. She went to the front office and I headed for Jims office. I explained all that had transpired and he said I handled it properly. I got a call from the front office stating that she needed a ride home. I told Jim and he told me to take her home.

                I did what I was told and drove her home, but I would never do that again. The manager put me in a situation that after learning more about terminations, I would never do that again. 

               

Don Ford