Oddities

Last Saturday, my dad asked me to bring our 10 year old Mazda to have the Clutch Master Cylinder checked. For some reason, when you step on the clutch, it does not engage the gear. My dad, being the engineer that he is, suspected that the Clutch Master Cylinder needs to be replaced; the ENTIRE kit. He figured that the kit would cost, roughly, P250. Boy, was he dead wrong. After inspection, the entire repair cost P2,050. He was obviously a ZERO (0) short.

Anyway, that's not the point of this blog. At the shop; MGA Auto Repairs at Merville. Beside DMCI Homes along the service road is where I took our car to have the damn thing inspected and replaced. Mel, the owner was pretty much on top of things. Knowing where everything was; knowing where all of his mechanics were. Though he was not directly handling my car, he was up and about at 6:30 in the morning (take note that I still lacked sleep because Peter and I met and discussed a business we were thinking of getting ourselves into -- that's another blog altogether.)

The fun thing about the entire setup was the relationship Mel had with his mechanics. It was not the usual boss-employee thing. Sure, he is the boss but he was more of the friend than he was the dictator. One guy was sweeping the floor when his friend ran to him and informed him that his wife just gave birth that very instant. Without batting an eyelash, Mel simply waved him off and told him to tend to his wife. In the corporate world, you cannot even breathe without filing the necessary paperwork.

So the dude sped off and it was business as usual.

The next thing I noticed was that amidst all the hustle and bustle in the repair shop, there was a short dude; a midget; walking around the place. Turns out that this guy has been working there for a year now as their jester, their errand boy because he simply needed a job. Boy, if all employers had that kind of heart, then no one would be unemployed.

An hour and half later, the car was fixed and running like... well... it was running nonetheless.

I admired how Mel dealt with his team. Makes me look at myself and see how I am as a Leader. Wish I could be as kind as him but still get the respect and loyalty from my members. Hey, they don't earn much but they stayed. What more with my team?

My Frustrations Bottled Up

I so wanted to move up. But I just had to get a memo over a petty thing which I believe could have been avoided. Still, I think that was uncalled for.

Now that that's out of the way. Lemme say a few things to Implementation Managers in general. Think hard on who you are getting. How can you be sure that that person is better than I am? To put everybody up to speed with things. I was eying for a promotion where in I was turned down because I did'nt have the experience they were looking for. Now, is that why people call it "promotion"? Don't they have things called "trainings" for that?? What makes an L1 going to a Team Lead or a Team Lead going to a manegerial role differ from a Fresh Grad going to L1? Nothing!!! But why do you guys prefer laterrals over new blood?? How stupid it is when you ask someone if they have experience over something they don't normally do. Of course the general answer would be NO.

The reason why I stayed in this company is because I was led to believe that "if you stay long enough and work hard enough, you can get promoted". But that isnot what we are seeingnow are we? You would rather get someone who has been in and out of the company three times in the last 3 years over someone who has never left the company at all.

Another thing that bugs me is the fact that they "NEED" the person badly that they threat us on not getting the candidate if we don't release them earlier than we can. Then at the end of it all, you extend the deadline. Stupid. Just stupid.