Thought Picnic: Villa Bellagio - a case of a manager beyond her depth

A bad manager

When  I consider the issues I have with Villa Bellagio, the hotel I have stayed in for 2 weeks now that has failed to resolve the 10 day loss of wireless internet service, I see a serious deficit in problem management that I put down mainly to the manager at first and then to the brand.

The hotel in advertsiements clearly touts that it offers free Wi-Fi, it is part of the product set and like I have said before, one of the things people check for when booking a hotel is the availability of Internet connectivity, either wired or wireless. It is also becoming uncompetitive to charge for that service and this trend was started by hotels with the Radisson brand name and it has extended to the group and now beyond that.

The lies are many

The manager had a story as regards the loss of this service for the first 4 days which was far from the truth when she blamed it on Swisscom saying other hotels were having the same problem when our own independent investigation determined that the hotel or possibly the hotel chain itself had cancelled their contract with Swisscom.

Apparently she was not aware of that situation until I informed her of the situation. What amazed me was how such a unique selling point in the hospitality industry could have been missed by a manager running a hotel with about 100 rooms.

I accept the fact that we are unusual clientele for the fact that we have spent more the typical average stay of less than 3 nights such that the story that might have worked for short-stayers will not work for us, but it makes the issue nonetheless urgent.

No problem ownership

She never once owned the problem from the very start, everything else was to blame, Swisscom first, then her head office and now probably us for being a nuisance demanding the service be restored.

She no doubt must have had a discussion with her staff because I first heard of the “it is a complementary service” line came from one of the desk clerks, but she was missing a fundamental point which was, complementary or not, this was part of hotel service just as much as one will expect to have one’s room cleaned, clean bed linen, a television and even a fridge, if not a mini-bar.

No re-mediation steps

Between the hotel group and the hotel, they cannot have been unaware of the pending loss of this service and facilitated a replacement, first with immediate re-mediation pending the installation of the new service with presumably the service provider I am told they have signed up with, but I am nowhere near believing that she has told the truth here either.

In fact, I have come to the conclusion she will manufacture any story to get her out of a sticky confrontation with me that I will need to contact the head office myself and remonstrate about this dissimulating manager.

Beyond her depth

Beyond the being a hotel desk clerk able to check-in and check-out middle-aged to retired Far-East Asian guests, this lady who has been promoted well beyond her capabilities cannot really manage a hotel, she by terms looks no different from her staff and lacks the requisite aptitude to manage even the simplest situation of giving priority to rooms that clearly have “Please Make Up My Room” door signs over other non-urgent rooms. [See earlier blogs on this.]

That it has taken this exceptional situation to recognise a fundamental flaw is both unfortunate and careless, she has not grown to the challenge and by that, she might well destroy both her job and the brand too just because 6 people came to stay 3 long weeks at the hotel and got a good feel of how it really is being run.

Abandon hope

So, once again, I was at the desk this morning, we had extended our stay for another 2 nights; at this stage there really was no reason to change hotels even though we had another week to run. Our patience has been tested, our endurance of the incomprehensible has been tried, and life goes on.

There. I learnt that new phone lines have to be put in on Monday and then the wireless connectivity will be restored thereafter. I did not believe one word of what she said apart from understanding we might not get the service restored before we leave and that is if ever the service will be restored at all, it has gone on too long to hold that prospect.

When I asked for a contact at their head office, she said she will call up for me and then connect the person to my room. Trust had broken down to the level that I just told her, I will find out myself and make my own call.

Thought Picnic: Use your heads more than your hands

Cross, really cross

Miffed does not begin to describe my feeling a few days ago when a good week after I had asked agents to sort out the issues of my proof of address, I got another email asking for the same. I covered that issue in an earlier blog.

It simply highlighted they are done nothing since then and I was not ready to stand for any nonsense. Immediately, I despatched an email to those who matter and asked that the recommended agency be dropped from handling my business for their lack of initiative and understanding of my situation.

Sorted in stride

I was quite pleased that the matter was resolved within the hour as all the parties immediately communicated with each other and appeared to reach some sort of compromise.

My premise was that it had become an inconvenient distraction and it could begin to interfere with my ability to concentrate on what I had to do.

Besides assurances I got from my employer, the agency sent me two emails, one from my first contact apologising for the misunderstanding and putting it down to chaser emails and the other also apologising but adopting a line of defence I will deal with below.

Now, because I have always worked in Information Technology, I rarely buy the idea that computers are to blame for problems created by poorly implemented algorithms without the requisite simulation of human interaction but that is the problem with processes, they sometimes take away initiative when the process is not fit for purpose.

As for the other email, I was told I was granted a month of leniency to produce some proof of residence, it was a statement that made me all the more irksome.

Understanding not leniency

Why I would want leniency is beyond me, I have committed no offence nor have I been criminal; I have just returned to the UK and within 6 days gotten a job that has me travelling around Europe – is that a crime? There literally will be no time to set up and proof residence for the foreseeable future.

If anything, rather than understand the exceptional circumstances I presented them, I was left to run the gauntlet of a rote-serf devoid of the ability to as it were think outside the box and where incapable, escalate to better equipped and informed persons in the hierarchy they report to.

Nothing annoys me more than being offered the excuse, “I am only doing my job” don’t even get me going because it implicitly means, “I do not know how to think through the problems I am given, I have to be told what to do.”

Managers and others

That again was a situation I met at my hotel this morning after a night without wireless internet connectivity. I let it rest thinking someone will address the matter with urgency only to be met by a desk clerk who suggested the service was offered by another company and that they were not responsible, then crowning the nonchalance with the fact that the service is free.

O God, I am blessed beyond what words can describe that I will rarely be gainsaid, if ever. Thank you.

I made it clear that it was because of that free service that my team had considered booking 5 rooms and then an additional 3 rooms in his hotel. It was a critical service component that gave them the competitive advantage that he should not ignore or we will take our business and the remaining 12 days of stay elsewhere.

I then said if he could do nothing about it, I would rather speak to someone senior like the manager to which he responded he was the manager. Nothing could be further from the truth because no decent manager shirks responsibility to ensuring a critical though free service component remains unavailable without showing a sense urgency to resolve the same.

And then this too

Desk clerks are not all like that, the one I met earlier in the day allowed me to use their computer to send an urgent email to the office.

This afternoon before I left to find a café from where I wrote this, I did meet the manager and what a difference there is between a manager and desk clerk.

That same difference was evidenced at the office between managers who asked having seen us in a room before locking the door and cleaners who after cleaning the rooms and seeing us move in and out of the room still locked the doors without asking and disappeared. If people will just use their heads before their hands.

Exasperation! Breathe, Akin breathe.

Getting Adam's apple but missing Eve's bite

Not a job for machines

I have many a time been at loggerheads with management at the workplace where they have refused to manage and tried to use technology to do the job they should be doing as managers.

I could very well remember once when I was asked to monitor the traffic of a particular employee because his manager thought he was not being productive.

My candid view was that the manager should call the person in for a chat and involve Human Resources if required but this was not a job for technology to do.

It is unfortunate that many organisations tend to inject technology into what should be effective interaction with people; it gets so bad that people sitting next to each other spam each other with unnecessarily cumbersome emails to the point that they begin to misunderstand each other and conflict brews.

Bosses using SMS messages to convey serious life-impact decisions because they have no nerve to address the matter face-to-face.

Who says what is?

However, the most amusing development of this kind of abstraction is exemplified in the patent that Apple was granted [1] to censure “age-inappropriate” messages between youngsters on iPhones.

I found that quite amusing because it infers that technology would identify all so-called “age-inappropriate” language with missing the context of the usage of multi-purpose and multi-contextual words like virgin (new, green, immature) cock (bird, prime), sex (gender, spruce), pussy (cat), kiss (proximity, give-up) to give just a few examples.

False security

Obviously, with this patent which is a sop to the angst-ridden parents or guardians and do-gooder child-protection activists there is the assumption that youngsters cannot develop their own parlance and communication to convey meanings uncommon to adults.

One good example of this variation of meaning was given by a commentator a few months ago, “My step-mother is wicked” would traditionally mean she is bad but could well mean that she is fantastic – I see a patent to confusion giving a sense of false security and protection where once the youngsters realise the censorship they’ll either switch phones or extend their vocabulary.

Shirking the right deed

What is required to good education about healthy communication to develop commendable habits not a filter of communication that would no doubt have big holes in to soon even if the filter is adapt to catch changes in usage and context over time.

It could well be used to prevent communication altogether and what is to say in American someone would not challenge the curtailment of free speech because some decency police squad is sat in Apple’s Cupertino Headquarters getting titillated with youngster expression of adult intent.

Apple might well offer a “freedom from porn” guarantee but I am not as convinced that having gotten Adam’s apple they have prevented Eve’s bite.

Source

[1] Apple awarded 'sexting' patent - Telegraph

The managers that damage your health

Bosses stamping on hearts

When I read the news story on the BBC that Bad bosses damage your heart [1], I thought, finally, someone has invested in some serious research to confirm what many already know but could not find an acceptable term for.

In fact, terms would probably be high blood pressure, stress or heart problems, but the causative issues which are work-related emanating from the bad managers at work never really factors into the ameliorating remedy.

Working for a sociopath

I had a nasty experience with that kind of manager just over 4 years ago when the sociopath who presented a most advanced multiple personality façade as he was able to convince his bosses that he was the best thing since sliced-bread whilst he treated his staff to being sliced like bread; he was a big fat bully.

In general, I am able to control my circumstances at work such that I refuse to allow the machinations of rotten managers to affect me beyond what I am able to endure as simply uncivilized behaviour.

In this case, I was hamstrung, my expert opinions were challenged without better views than the ability to bark out expletives; anytime he wanted to get anything done, he briefed the project managers against me; and when I asked for a reference to further my studies, he first suggested I did not have the aptitude for study and then specifically stated in the reference that no help financially or through giving time off would be offered by the company with regards to my study.

After the meeting where expletives were rained upon me, I decided I had had enough, obviously, my manager thought because I had a mortgage and some other responsibilities including with his being privy to certain sensitive aspects of my health I would be unable to make the bold move and leave the company.

Leaving and stressed

Sometimes, I fail to realise how fortunate, blessed and resourceful I have been, I fail to give myself enough credit for the things I have done – recently, I noticed that I have really been self-employed as an IT Consultant for 11 of the last 13 years, I suspect I might have been doing something right.

Well, I found a job and when I submitted my resignation, I was told anyone else could do my job and suffered even more horrible treatment that I took a whole week off before I lost my sanity. I could not understand how if I was leaving a job in weeks I could be under so much stress.

In fact, I had to complain to the CIO, the HR director and copy in the CEO to get some sort of behavioural adjustment from my manager.

These are managers of human beings

The core of the matter is that the culture of management is geared towards visions and missions, products and productivity gains without necessarily considering the humanity that brings about the success to the company.

The people are pushed, laboured and under extreme duress and in fear of their livelihoods that they yield to every direction bordering on slavery whilst allowing the atmosphere to affect them beyond the job into their lives and health.

These are supposed to be managers of human-beings first who happen to have goals to reach for the organisation which hopefully knows that it employs human-beings – flesh and blood who have feelings, goals, ideas, ambitions, loyalties and concerns.

A companionless manager

During that year, five of my colleagues in long term relationships broke up with their partners; my manager thought they were coping well because they buried themselves in their jobs. My view was that if things were so bad at home they would bring those problems to work and could mess things up further, especially in the completely de-motivating atmosphere they were working in.

However, for a manager who might only have been able to have a relationship if the partner wanted someone powerful rather than someone beautiful on the inside and outside, he probably was full of glee that many were becoming single.

Assess managers better

Managers have their purposes in organisations but I fear that there are not enough success assessment methodologies that review the manager beyond the ability to deliver regardless of how his underlings have been abused.

In the months after I left the company, 6 people resigned and even more moved on afterwards, one would have though the HR department would become suspicious as to why there was such attrition in a critical operational department but managers in that company were autonomous, infallible and almost omnipotent – rarely had a manager been sanctioned through internal grievance procedures.

I believe organisations have a duty to their workforce to foster healthy working environments and relationships whilst having a better assessment of their managers beyond their ability to meet some shareholder-dictated goals – if the people are your best asset then they should be managed by people who get the best out of those assets not ones who grind the assets into life-threatening conditions that make then eventually useless to the organisation.

It would appear, the staff have to start to document systematic managerial abuse against how it affects their health and chart how things deteriorate if they cannot walk away from their jobs for all sorts of reasons – eventually, they should be meant to prove or allude certain conditions to work-related stress and possibly particular managers.

No job is worth the stress

In the end, no job is worth the deterioration of my health caused by someone who cares not one iota for my well-being apart from being able to sadistically lord it over me with the feeling that I am trapped and have no other choices than be a slave of my circumstances.

Sources

[1] BBC NEWS | Health | Bad bosses may damage your heart

Other workplace stress related articles

BBC NEWS | Business | Bullying bosses 'rife across UK'

BBC NEWS | Business | Bullied workers suffer 'battle stress'

BBC NEWS | Health | Unfair bosses raise blood pressure

BBC NEWS | Health | 'Stress code' for firms launched

BBC NEWS | Business | Workplaces 'getting more stressful'

BBC NEWS | Business | Blood boils in UK workplaces

Gosh! I am quite pissed off

As irritable as itch

Wow! There is a possibility that I am getting quite irritable for all sorts of reasons but mostly to do with work.

No doubt, there is a lot to do and it could be ground-breaking and rather interesting work but for some of the people I have to deal with to get things done.

Only yesterday we had a chat with the people that matter about my clearly stated intention to leave, I had come to the conclusion I could not get things done the way I want if there was not a root and branch realignment of perspectives of many of the people I need to fulfil my contracted goals.

I do understand that if the solutions were easy they would have been put in place easily, however, maybe a radical shake-up is required such that the fossils who have congealed into nay-sayer back-stoppers who cannot see beyond the noses of their perspective of things regardless of the business requirements can be given the heave-ho for fresh air to aerate our determined purpose.

In the end, I intimated that my decision about continuance would be revealed when I return from Barcelona.

Many bulls one china shop

One would expect that the project manager appreciates the precariousness of the moment and he would be a bit tactful so as not to push me off the edge, but therein is my naivety.

As I tried to conclude activities to close for my break, a call came from our man with suggestions that our product which meets the required security standards must be deprecated because some regional office has been caught in the unfavourable situation of having written code that now fails the security test.

I was having none of it, you do not change the sea because your boat would not float, you sort out your boat; but no matter how forcefully I stated that position I was getting this monotone of angst.

Basically, it would have involved undoing a good-month’s work to accommodate a situation that would be forcefully changed in weeks to meet the setup being rejected.

I tell you, I was having none of it; I would not have someone rubbishing my deliverables in order to shoehorn a flailing project into an atrocious schedule.

I’m done with this

Anyway, the emotion of anger gained traction and the conversation ended with my offer to walk out with immediate effect and my returning Monday-week to clear my desk.

I tell you, this man just knows how to push my irrational, uncompromising, completely fed-up, annoy-me-seriously buttons like he has spent 1,000 hours in an Akin-simulator looking for the bugs.

Courtesy however requires that I inform the big boss of these expletive throwing developments as he calms me down for a cup of Espresso-Choc and we decide that a talk is required when I return – I sure believe I am just as much as done with this job, sadly, it would have been a job that could have been completed better but for …

Now to pack my bags and probably seek succour in the Sagrada Familia tomorrow evening.

Don't piss me off

Between Early and Late

I could be utterly irrational at times because it takes just that little thing to piss me off - BIG TIME!.

Whilst I might be up around 7:30 or earlier in the morning, I just find it ever so convenient to get to work somewhere between 10:00 and 11:00. I do strive to make it closer to 10:00 but I do not run the public transportation systems.

Besides, leaving early means I probably would not get a seat on the Metro for the first 20 minutes as able and fit university students travel like old people needing support and occupying more space then necessary.

Now, getting to work early is really moot in my case except when I really have to attend meetings, my work is not in anyway operational, it is project and strategy driven, so what is important is that I put in my 8 hours per day, regardless of what end of the clock the 8 hours sits in.

A few weeks ago, the project manager I work with brought up this issue of arriving earlier; I strove to accommodate this “inconvenience” till I relapsed to type. I had hardly walked in this morning when an email arrived about this “so-called” agreement – that quite set me off.

Two days to the end

We have been vacillating on the terms and conditions of a contract tenure and status towards a renewal to start in July without much progress and as it stands, I really do not have a contract after the 30^th of June 2007.

So, I told him, since I only really have two days to run of my contract, I would endeavour to see that agreement through for those two days.

Frankly, I hate being micro-managed by petty tyrants exercising undue influence, it is really not necessary for me to be in before 10:00AM, but it is essential for me to fulfil 8 hours of work each day.

This whole thing then set the stage for a meeting with the director of my team who is trying to persuade me to take a permanent contract – Fat Chance! If I have to endure this kind of organisational annoyance and managerial aggro.

Punctuality and attendance are two different things for different types of people in a workforce; my situation is more about attendance than punctuality.

I have a month to make up my mind about this whole thing after meeting the director; having clearly highlighted my non-negotiable terms – I will not work in an operations team even though I am providing them solutions; I would not report to anyone below VP or the contract is off; I would not take on financial privation for the benefit of the company; basically, HR would have the runs because of the distinct things I would require in my contract.

I might yet again disappoint him if someone else does not take time to learn to walk on eggshells, I think I need a long holiday and the lack of rest is making me a tad irritable – must be that time of the year. Do I need to get sun-burnt? You bet, I do.

The long Sabbath of English football

Crinkled at cricket

One is now sometimes at a loss at describing England as a sporting nation that excels at any team sport.

As we compete in the West Indies in the Cricket World Cup Kevin Petersen is now top of the world rankings of one-day batsmen, but how does that reflect on the performance of the team as a whole?

We started off with results of being beaten by New Zealand then got the better of Canada and then Kenya - hardly world class competition but we scraped through.

The first game became serious when the vice-Captain (the vice of drunkenness) was rescued off a pedallo at sea, having been out drinking like fish with other mates of disrepute, even some coaches were fined for indiscipline, this is no winning team, this is an apology to cricket.

Now, Duncan Fletcher, the England coach believes we can win the Cricket World Cup, well, that would mean that a few teams would have to rollover and play their legs in the air like happily tickled dogs. Sometimes aspiration over reality makes certain commentary just too laughable to hear a second time.

Uninspired to perform

Then football where the last time we won something big, I was just a few months old, that was 1966, people born then would probably have kids just finishing secondary school.

We were away in Israel to redeem the flagging England performance that has left us with no wins for at least 4 matches and third in a table that would only let the first two into the next round.

One could just say that every footballing prowess England had evident in the individuals when they play for their clubs went on Sabbath that we had a goalless draw with Israel.

A boy in a man's job

Steve McLaren who for years was assistant to Sven Goran Erikson before he got promoted to head coach after the German World Cup of 2006 has been unable to fox me with his ever-present smile either with his enthusiasm before matches or his excuses after failure to perform.

The Telegraph has probably been too kind in suggesting that a natural No. 2 has be assigned a No. 1 position or a complimentary drill sergeant now has a general's duties.

The clamour that he should now go is not loud enough in my view, despite the fact that he negotiated a fine deal that would cost the Football Association (FA) GBP 2.5million if the contract is severed before it reaches full term.

This would mean that Steve McLaren would also be leaving with the scalp of the chief executive of the FA - Brian Barwick, both of whom would have done our great footballing country a great service in being voluntarily pensioned off, the money is not too high to pay for our football integrity.

Managing to fail as expected

The rumours that the team manager has fallen out with the star striker Wayne Rooney does not bode well just as despite the jealousy the team had for the currently locked-out David Beckham, he was still able to inspire them to great things - though not great enough to satisfy the dearth of silverware.

To end it all, after the poor showing in Israel, McLaren says of our qualification - "At the end of the day, however you get there, you get there." Methinks Fletcher and McLaren have been drinking from the trough of stupid optimism, if he expects Croatia and Russia to rollover and be walked over, he is in for a rude shock.

England has to go out there to win those games by playing inspired football that yields results and brings back worthy praise, if not, we might as well be supporting another country - guess what - Scotland is top of Group B and Northern Ireland is second in Group F, we could not suffer a fate worse than football death if we end up cheering other good and performing UK teams.

I am beginning to look forward to the European Championships of 2012, and that should not be hard, I had enough practice with the Netherlands out of World Cup 2002 and then Nigeria out of World Cup 2006, England out of Euro 2008 should not hurt too much - get me a pain pill.

Utterly Spiteful Sower

The Sin of Resigning

You would have learnt over the last few weeks that I resigned my appointment from a cable company in early June and in previous blogs I highlighted reasons why I had to go.

This is all documented the listed blogs

The man and his institutions
Resignation?
No Sir! We would not take the rap
The psychology of resignation
The context of career development

However, I will entertain you to a commentary of events that took place after my last review of the situation in the next few blogs.

Meanwhile, it transpired that my boss who did nothing in the spirit and letter of developing his team decidedly held me to the letter of my notice period, details of our exchanged correspondence and the unfortunate impotence of our Human Resources department in conflict resolution would appear hereafter.

So yesterday, after so much angst expressed by colleagues who felt concerned that a replacement was not being found for my role, I called them into a meeting to help me decide the best way to address this issue.

We finally decided on clearly delineating what is left to be done and highlighting that fact to my boss. I reproduce the complete communication below, you might recognise some of the jargon or even the company this pertains to, if you do, you at least know what enquiries you have to make before joining that department.

My Concern about Handover issues

Sir,

For all intents and purposes, I think I need to address the following basically for your information.

My last working day is the 30^th of July 2004 and there are quite a number of projects and activities that I am involved in and trying to complete, especially those just recently raised.

These activities concern the following:

• The EuroPC for ECC – Completion of the application repackaging set to be deployed on the client – Remedy, Contivity VPN Client testing and refining other applications after the first testing is performed, hopefully soon.
• Repackaging of the Q.mail client, configured for the replacement of the existing server and a client version upgrade.
• Repackaging of the Clarify eFrontOffice client SR1.8 – this would deal with outstanding Derby issues, remove the development tools and conduct the cache cleaning in a better managed way.

Furthermore, I had ideas for the SC&D which would have been in the pipeline execution in the next few months.

• Working on Mozart 2.0 – refining the image, Java Runtime and Acrobat Reader updates, probable Office 2003 upgrade.
• Upgrade to SMS 2003

Whilst, I would strive to complete these outstanding issues, I am not aware of anyone who would carry on any of these functions after I have left, it would be unfortunate that after having given what is effectively 7 weeks notice, this issue has yet to be properly addressed. It is unlikely that I can fulfil the outstanding issues, conduct a handover and fully document SC&D by the time I leave.

The functions PEBO covers are just the operation of the SMS environment.

Finally, considering how understanding and favourable you have been towards my departure, I have now taken the liberty to withdraw the offer made in my resignation letter to help out whoever takes over my role after I have left.

I trust I have duly acquainted you with the situation at hand.

Thanks and regards.

His reply

Hi Akin,

Thanks for sharing your concern for SC&D after your departure, I am sure the company will survive.

Best regards

My response

Sir,

That is fine with me, I never considered myself indispensable. It has been a pleasure working for you.

My best regards

His final response

Akin,

All the best wishes.

Best regards

Commentary

I did forward this to HR just to highlight the fact that our relationship had deteriorated to such a level that one would really wonder what might have gone on before now.

The whole episode speaks volumes, but hey! I only have 8 more days of working for a man who in not coming to terms that I had resigned has mismanaged what could have been the most amicable parting and it only shows that my 2 years of service to him amounted to nothing when the reckoning was made.

It is a good thing I jumped; I wonder what would have happened if I was pushed, I probably would not be here to tell the tale.