I'm a calming presence

That's what I was told this week. A bunch of stores in my district took inventory under the new system (which limits the kind of research a store can do after the fact) and most of them went poorly for one reason or another. Once again I was called on put on my white hat and jump on my white horse.


Mind you, I had already been running around the prior week. While I was on lunch about two weeks ago, my boss came into the break room and asked when I would be back from lunch.

"Fifteen minutes," I replied. "Why, what's up?"
"The supervisor at Store HHB has gone awol. They called the GM (who was on leave of absence at the time) to see about getting you over there as soon as possible."

The supervisor they were speaking of hold's the same position that I do, and HHB was 5 days out from inventory.

"When do I go over there?" I was figuring the following day.
"As soon as you get back from lunch."

This last Tuesday was when the preliminary results from all of those inventories posted. I had a trainee working with me who asked how many calls a day I get because my cell phone kept ringing. Then the General Manager from HHB called. The results were bad and the manager in charge of inventory hadn't slept in two days. If at all possible he needed me to come over there. I told him what reports to print off and that I would come over in the afternoon. Then the Field Support Manager called. They needed me there ASAP.

As soon as my boss got in the door I was back on my horse. Fortunately I have a strong team that steps up when I get yoinked out like this.

Once at HHB, the GM and the supervisor (no longer awol), were up to their elbows in research. I found a report that hadn't been worked in four months because the position of the person who had worked it was eliminated. The manager who hadn't slept (thus was strung out) showed up.

I sat in the conference room most of the time waiting for someone to have a question or wanting to verify something with me. My knowledge of the company systems is fairly extensive and I know a lot of old systems that can still yield useful info for this kind of research, plus when it comes to this stuff I have a head for it and put pieces together.

I mentioned that I felt a little guilty sitting around collecting overtime.

"It's worth it Oz. You are a calming presence."

Time and a half calming at that. :)