The Day of Reckoning
Well, today was the day...
The much talked and posted about, terribly important day. The day on which I was to be fired. The day that's kept me awake and dreaming in technicolour for quite some time, the finale to a triptych of horrible events that occured within a 14 day window...
Here's the deal... Every Quarter, there are results announced, indicating performance / sales etc.
And so, there is naturally a huge amount of pressure for the results to be uniformly positive. And as is the way of these things, not all results are good and it is tremendously difficult to break a cycle of bad results.
There are always two parts to Quarterly Report day. Part one, is the anticipation, the grim, giddy, stomach churning inevitability of the moment when the Report is published.
That part is the anxiety, the twitches and tics, the moments that stretch into hours, the tense, tetchy corridor conversations that just serve to pass the time.
It's the faint glow of hope from colleagues and the terrible, tantalising scent of optimisim that is the worst part of Part 1.
Interestingly, whatever the Report shows, Part 1 is always the same. No matter how well your previous Quarter went, you find yourself clenched and grim faced, waiting for that rollercoaster to drop away from under you...
Part 2 though, is a different matter. This is where two roads diverge.
On the good days, the Miracle Quarters, you open the report and everything is good. Sales are up in all the right demographics, all of the product lines are more popular and best of all, it looks like the closest competitor has had a nightmare...
You bask, briefly, in a glow.
And then in the peculiar way of my industry, you move on. You don't really celebrate, you don't collect acclaim, you shrug and start to worry about the next Quarter.
Part 2 on a Bad Day. Not pretty. The grimness accelerates, the rollercoaster surges downwards and you bang your head on the support bar.
Now, everyone else is upset, they look sad, they look angry, they look at you...
And the real management, the distant and all knowing Higher Ups? Oh, they're on the phone, or they're coming in for a meeting and you, yes YOU, must instantly be able to do the following
1) Explain what happened
2) Explain why it happened (and ideally how it will never happen again)
3) Devise a cunning plan to fix everything immediately
4) Explain what happened.
5) Find a scapegoat
6) Explain what happened.
7) Promise that immediately after this meeting, the face of the company will change utterly, so that from this day forth, there will only be good results, preferably for less cost and with more revenue...
Those meetings are tricky.
Today?
More Bad than Good. Officialy, I'd be saying "flat" or "static"
In reality, one of my offices went up, one stayed where it was and the newest one did remarkably well...
In the weird world i live in, not good enough, more pressure than ever for the next Quarter...
Oh and... still not fired!
The much talked and posted about, terribly important day. The day on which I was to be fired. The day that's kept me awake and dreaming in technicolour for quite some time, the finale to a triptych of horrible events that occured within a 14 day window...
Here's the deal... Every Quarter, there are results announced, indicating performance / sales etc.
And so, there is naturally a huge amount of pressure for the results to be uniformly positive. And as is the way of these things, not all results are good and it is tremendously difficult to break a cycle of bad results.
There are always two parts to Quarterly Report day. Part one, is the anticipation, the grim, giddy, stomach churning inevitability of the moment when the Report is published.
That part is the anxiety, the twitches and tics, the moments that stretch into hours, the tense, tetchy corridor conversations that just serve to pass the time.
It's the faint glow of hope from colleagues and the terrible, tantalising scent of optimisim that is the worst part of Part 1.
Interestingly, whatever the Report shows, Part 1 is always the same. No matter how well your previous Quarter went, you find yourself clenched and grim faced, waiting for that rollercoaster to drop away from under you...
Part 2 though, is a different matter. This is where two roads diverge.
On the good days, the Miracle Quarters, you open the report and everything is good. Sales are up in all the right demographics, all of the product lines are more popular and best of all, it looks like the closest competitor has had a nightmare...
You bask, briefly, in a glow.
And then in the peculiar way of my industry, you move on. You don't really celebrate, you don't collect acclaim, you shrug and start to worry about the next Quarter.
Part 2 on a Bad Day. Not pretty. The grimness accelerates, the rollercoaster surges downwards and you bang your head on the support bar.
Now, everyone else is upset, they look sad, they look angry, they look at you...
And the real management, the distant and all knowing Higher Ups? Oh, they're on the phone, or they're coming in for a meeting and you, yes YOU, must instantly be able to do the following
1) Explain what happened
2) Explain why it happened (and ideally how it will never happen again)
3) Devise a cunning plan to fix everything immediately
4) Explain what happened.
5) Find a scapegoat
6) Explain what happened.
7) Promise that immediately after this meeting, the face of the company will change utterly, so that from this day forth, there will only be good results, preferably for less cost and with more revenue...
Those meetings are tricky.
Today?
More Bad than Good. Officialy, I'd be saying "flat" or "static"
In reality, one of my offices went up, one stayed where it was and the newest one did remarkably well...
In the weird world i live in, not good enough, more pressure than ever for the next Quarter...
Oh and... still not fired!
posted by Conformist No. 1 | 2:34 PM
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