5 Minute Freewrite: Tuesday - Prompt: excuses

superdavey (52)in #freewrite • 6 years ago (edited)

5 minute free writing challenge. Ready, Set, GO

I have been saying this since I first started writing (most days) #freewriting; there is not excuse for me not carving out 5 minutes a day to knock out a freewrite story. After that is only another 5-10 minutes of editing. Once I have the story on paper I know that the hard part is over!

In sales we used to have a saying, “You can either make money or excuses. Not both”.
This has stuck with me since day one! I love it and it is one of my favorite sayings. I work with a couple of guys who like to make excuses pretty regularly. I am always the bad guy when I tell them, “figure it out”. Sometimes I think people thrive on confusion, drama, excuses, and enablement. All 4 of these are interconnected I believe.
Drama and confusion allow subpar performers to cover themselves in a veil of conflict that would make the average boss too tired to try to comprehend what is actually going on. One man in particular, who works for me, is the only person assigned to his warehouse and he is alone responsible for all activities (receiving and shipping) that happen there. When he first started there he took over from another older gentleman who also was not too bright and didn’t have much sense of urgency about him. When Old Guy 1 trained Old Guy 2 to do the 1 person job he taught him exactly how he had been trained.

5 minutes up

Needless to say it was not the most efficient way to do the job. After I became leadman over my area and his, Old Guy 2 trained me to do the job….. almost. He trained me just enough to know how to do it but made excuses as to why or how he couldn’t teach me how to do the rest. Through my own efforts I taught myself to do his job as my bosses were leaning on me to have a backup for this employee should he get sick or want to take extended vacation.
The employee never knew that I had went behind his back and learned the job. I reported back to my boss that I knew a few things that could make that job more efficient. The employee found out and got upset that I was trying to change what he had going over by himself. He honestly thought that that was his job security at risk because he was not the only person trained to do the job. I tried to assure him that that was not the case and that he had nothing to worry about.
That was almost 4 years ago and still to this day I have to get firm with him to get something fixed that needs fixed. A recent example of this: his printer is giving him problems from time to time. He uses this excuse to get out of work for the day. So far it has worked 1.5 days! Finally when I told him he had to call the help desk and get it fixed he came with excuse after excuse. I knew the tactic he was using already; he figures that if he rambles in circles long enough that I would have to leave and move on with my day. I cannot possibly listen to his problems for very long. I had finally had enough and shut down the conversation when I told him,

“FIGURE IT OUT! We cannot keep telling people that we cannot do our jobs because the printer is down. Call the help desk and tell them what the issue is. If it is that complicated that you cannot explain it to a Non-Native English speaker then ask them to send a technician to take a look. This is getting out of hand that we cannot work because of simple issues.”

I think he realized that I have had enough of listening to half-assed excuses!