Quick quiz!

[gridlore]

What do The Last Dangerous Visions, Chinese Democracy, and my interview for the Dispatch Manager position have in common?



Tomorrow. He swears tomorrow.

But I was tested today. We had two drivers out (one was expected, from what I gleaned, one was a no-call/no-show) and at first were going to have our one relief driver do both the MidPen (covering for the regular driver who does Santa Cruz/Monterey Mondays and Wednesdays) and West Bay (San Francisco) routes since both were very light. However, more and more got piled on both routes until it became clear that it needed to be separate runs. I happened to be standing at the counter when Adam was dealing with this; and he asked me "OK, Mr. Dispatcher, what do you do?" I answered almost immediately, sending one of the warehouse guys who used to drive to SF. He'd done the route before, it was still a light day, and he could be spared.

Said person was right behind me when I said this, and evidently if looks could kill, I'd look like JFK in frame 313 of the Zapruder film. But my solution was used. Guess that's one in my favor.

Comments

[melchar.livejournal.com]

My phrasing would be 'all are said to exist, but are lies' ^_^

But here's hoping you actually -do- get interviewed sometime this calendar month.

[capplor.livejournal.com]

Using available resources to their best advantage is good management, despite what the MBA schools say. You done good. Now recommend that they need to hire one more driver than they believe they need to fill in for no shows, & who can fork lift around the warehouse on other days (but not DURING the interview) & the place might actually start getting efficient.

[kengr]

alas, far too many business types seem to think that they only have to staff for the "average".

They need to have it *forcibly* pointed out to them that doing so means that 50% of the time they'll be understaffed.

Instead, they need to spenfd a few bucks to get some data on number of customer or deliveries or whatever it is they need staff for. And then pick a percentage of the time they can live with being understaffed. With those two things anybody who is at all good with stats can tell them the staffing level they *actually* need to meet the availability goals.

Yeah, that means they'll have folks standing around twiddling their thumbs sometimes. But that's generally cheaper than overtime and pissed off employees and customers.

[capplor.livejournal.com]

That's part of what I meant by "despite what the MBA schools say." I've seen more good companies despoiled by MBA trained management than for any other reason.

Good luck today, Doug. You've got minions pulling for ya!

[jarlsberg71.livejournal.com]

Well good thoughts are still coming from NY