“Sorry I’m late.. it was another late day in the office…”
Once again.
Kids were long in bed.
He left before they got up for school and came home long after bedtime.
Just as he would not see the sun again until Saturday, he hoped to catch a glimpse, perhaps a quick bite to eat with the children at the weekend.
His wife…. Silent and resigned.
It was a long day.
And it didn’t help how much time it took to get the tracking down on his 3 employees in the remote office.
Each one took easily an hour and a half to track their keystrokes and see where and what they were spending time on.
In 45 minutes he found out that his mail guy Bob had visited an amazon site and bought some school books for his children.
And then there was Jane in Finance, who sent the reporting for the day but still found time to book a flight for her Christmas holiday.
And he couldn’t forget Thomas in Customer Service. Between managing calls and upselling a few products, he spent some time in his fantasy football league.
What should he do?
Fire all three of them or just one?
How about cut off all internet access?
But then they have phones and would just go on there and he wouldn’t be able to track what they were doing.
He pulled out a spreadsheet and made a table, then started entering the minutes each employee spent on non-work activities.
His wife turned off the light in the bedroom. She had gone to bed without a word.
He put in more data and created some formulas.
He would deduct pay. That would send the message and wouldn’t be as disruptive.
An hour later he was happy with his masterpiece.
Until..
The Whats App from one of his top customers.
He had been fired.
They were tired of waiting for his solution to their critical issue he had promised to personally deliver today.
Which he could have finished and sent hours ago.
But he was busy on other things.
And so the $265,350 contract was off the table.
And that is how his wife found him passed out in his chair the next morning. A beautiful spreadsheet in multi colours on his screen and a broken phone on the floor.
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Delegating effectively, “cloning oneself” and creating a growth culture are just some of the topics in my republished “Roadblocks You Can’t Ignore..”.
And which we touch on in our Owners Table, where fellow business owners get together and discuss the roadblocks they face and the solutions they made.
To Attend the next Owners Table, sign up here.