Vacation - The Great Dichotomy

Have you ever gone on vacation and wondered if you really went when you got back? I just did. I went to see my girlfriend (Yes, I, Eric Roa actually have a girlfriend now, more on that later) in Des Moines, Iowa. It was great. We got to relax and hang out and go out to a nice dinner. The typical stuff a vacation is made of. I left on Saturday July, 22 and returned on Wednesday July, 26. Not the longest vacation ever but one none the less. I received 17 phone calls on my cell phone while I was gone. Most of which were questions which could have been answered by other people. When I got back to my office the shop was a train wreck and I had 123 e-mails. arrrgh. It felt like I had never even gone on vacation by the end of my first day back in the office. Oh well. I guess that is the life of a manager.

So, about my girlfriend. Her name is Britni Nation. We have known each other for 7 years. We went to college together and have been very good friends ever since we first met. She came out to Denver to visit me back in January. We had a good time and we started talking more and more frequently. About a six weeks ago I asked her if she wanted to turn our friendship into a dating relationship. She said yes. We have been talking non-stop since then. There is a lot going on. I will post more as I can.

_E_

High Speeds and Brick Walls

There are days, weeks, even months where I feel like life is going entirely too fast. I feel like I am headed straight for a brick wall all because I can't slow things down on my own. Life has been like that for a couple of months now.

I started out at Richter Scale Productions on June 1, 2005 as an audio tech. Here I am one year and five weeks later as the director of operations. I went from the bottom of the totem pole to pretty darn near the top in a little over one year. I know it sounds like bragging but it is more like admitting I am completely overwhelmed and don't know which way is up right now. The course of events and how I got to where I am is quite strange really. Mike (the director of staging and transportation) left on his own accord. He said he was burned out on production work and was ready to move on. Fair enough. A week later I was promoted to be the director of staging and transportation. Great, I can handle this. Then the real stuff started happening. I was finding things out about the way Rick (formerly my boss and now my colleague in management) worked and things he had done that were not in the best interest of the company or the team. I called him on it. The more I called him on it the more he shrank back in to his shell and did nothing. He was afraid of making a mistake and would not listen to correction. The biggest key to not making mistakes is to admit that you made one and learn from it. The biggest mistake in the workplace is to think that nobody makes mistakes. Take it from me, it happens. As a result of Rick's turtle shelling and lack of managerial drive, he was fired about two weeks after Mike left and I was promoted. The day that Rick was fired I was promoted to the position of Director of Operations.

I have eight people working under me. All of which have been at Richter Scale for seven months or less. Half of them have been here for less than four months. There is a lot of training and learning that needs to happen. Both for myself and for the eight people under me. We all need to learn how to work better together instead of all of us trying to attack projects in our own little world. I need to learn to work more efficiently. I am spending entirely to much time behind the 8 ball and I hate it. I am used to having all of my ducks in a row long before we start shooting at them. arrgh.

We have two new sales people who are really good at selling. That is a good thing, almost. They are selling so fast that I can not keep up. I feel like there is just way to much going on in any given day to even make an attempt at reducing the list of things that absolutely need to get done. I have almost reached the point of just doing the things that are sink or swim and dealing with improvements and non imperatives later. That really really SUCKS.

The worst part about it is that Harold and Judy are on vacation for the next week and I am leaving on vacation on Saturday. I get back on Wednesday night and I don't know how many things I am going to have to deal with. I am hoping that some of the guys step up and get a crash course on operations just like I have been so that they can start handling some of these things on their own.

That is life for now.

Holly Monkeys

Wow, it has been almost two months since my last post. That is entirely unacceptable. I have been working my tail off. Things at Richter Scale have turned right side up. I am now the Director of Operations. The bad apples have been culled out of the company and we are starting to rebuild our team. I am leading the team as the director and it is a large task. I have to train at least seven people and get them all operating at the level of expectations that we have here at RSP. Things are going well so far but every time we turn around we find something else that has to be addressed. I am glad that we have people who want to be a part of the team now though. It really sucks when you have to work with people who want nothing but a paycheck and their own egos inflated. Oh well. Things are better now but we have a long way to go. Keep on truckin'.

I know this was breif and I promise to post more soon.