I'm feeling quite proactive today. The plumber is coming to replace the aging water heater.
After 40 odd years of home ownership, this will be the first time in recorded history that we have replaced a water heater before it leaked all over the basement floor.
Our current 40 gallon Ruud P40S has been on duty since about 1997 - and has served well. A brief ceremony to honor of it's steadfast reliability will be held in the driveway before it is consigned to its final resting place in the halls of rust. Beer will be served.
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During my days as a full time employee, I always got a little uneasy when I heard the word "proactive" being bandied about by the Boss. Please don't think that I was just some lazy lout, lounging around the break room, foraging for donuts, waiting for some brilliant management type to tell me what to do next. The way I remember it, I was a diligent team player whose get-r-done attitude often manifested itself in taking an leadership initiative that would take us in the direction we wanted to go.
Some of my old bosses saw it differently.
Usually, proactivity would start with a shadow across my computer screen. I'd look up and there would be the Boss, looking at his marked up version of the project plan.
"Looks like we are a bit behind on the invoicing module."
"Yeah, the code needed some tweaking after the tests we ran last week. Don't worry we'll get caught up."
"It's a tight schedule. We don't have time for the tests to fail." (This, of course, is the same manager who picked the delivery dates out of his butt despite our insistence that we allow for a reasonable time for each activity on the project.)
"Well, what are you suggesting?"
"We need to be more proactive..."
" Oh sure, why don't we just skip the testing and just fix any problems after implementation. That would save time!" I would say mockingly.
"Great. Let's get this thing moving!"
So for that manager proactive was just management speak for: "Go faster."
I wonder if things have changed out there....
After 40 odd years of home ownership, this will be the first time in recorded history that we have replaced a water heater before it leaked all over the basement floor.
Our current 40 gallon Ruud P40S has been on duty since about 1997 - and has served well. A brief ceremony to honor of it's steadfast reliability will be held in the driveway before it is consigned to its final resting place in the halls of rust. Beer will be served.
===
During my days as a full time employee, I always got a little uneasy when I heard the word "proactive" being bandied about by the Boss. Please don't think that I was just some lazy lout, lounging around the break room, foraging for donuts, waiting for some brilliant management type to tell me what to do next. The way I remember it, I was a diligent team player whose get-r-done attitude often manifested itself in taking an leadership initiative that would take us in the direction we wanted to go.
Some of my old bosses saw it differently.
Usually, proactivity would start with a shadow across my computer screen. I'd look up and there would be the Boss, looking at his marked up version of the project plan.
"Looks like we are a bit behind on the invoicing module."
"Yeah, the code needed some tweaking after the tests we ran last week. Don't worry we'll get caught up."
"It's a tight schedule. We don't have time for the tests to fail." (This, of course, is the same manager who picked the delivery dates out of his butt despite our insistence that we allow for a reasonable time for each activity on the project.)
"Well, what are you suggesting?"
"We need to be more proactive..."
" Oh sure, why don't we just skip the testing and just fix any problems after implementation. That would save time!" I would say mockingly.
"Great. Let's get this thing moving!"
So for that manager proactive was just management speak for: "Go faster."
I wonder if things have changed out there....
4 comments:
"I wonder if things have changed out there."
APPARENTLY NOT AT BRITISH PETROLEUM (BP)
Maybe you have had enough floods for one year!
Nana de quatro
What time is the proactive beer being served?
Kathy, sorry you missed the mid-day memorial ceremony. Mission St Blonde Ales were guzzled by the gathered crowd. There was a bagpipe and a riderless horse. We loved that water tank! We shall not see its like again...
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