Keep your numbers to yourself

Every Tuesday morning there are weekly staff meetings. I used to hate Tuesday mornings because of these meetings. The meetings were spent with each person updating the group on what they were working on (even if it was part of their job description that they always did) but in the form of numbers. “We issued out 105 packages this week. On Monday we issued out 22, Tuesday, 34, etc., etc.” As someone that generally hates meetings, I could not understand why everything was broken down into numbers. I know the front desk staff work, I know the students work, I know that packages come in and packages go out. I necessarily do not need to know how many come and go, nor do I care. If we are going to talk about it, then at least present a problem that maybe we should discuss as a group or tell me a story about a lost package. Other than that, keep your numbers to yourself.

Due to a busy week a few weeks ago, I was allowed to come to the meeting late so I could update….you guessed it, so I could update our numbers. I had the opportunity to work on our wait list numbers during the meeting so I could update them during the meeting. I walked in and made my weekly update of how many applications we had received, how many contracts I had received and how many people were still on the wait list. A few minutes later, someone was updating the team on their numbers when the director interrupted them to tell me “Oh, you can go back to your desk.” WOW. I was insulted but pleasantly pleased at the same time. You could have told me before “just come in to announce the numbers and then you can get back to work.” But he did not need to basically dismiss me in front of everyone while interrupting someone else. I just found that to be petty and unprofessional. 

The director and I did not get along. I was in favor of not replicating the work that I had already done and throwing out/shredding the things that I no longer needed. The director was very particular apparently on how things were handled in the office. Once I received a contract in the mail, I was told to keep the empty envelopes and that they would also be filed away with the contracts. WHY? Those files are packed so full in the filing cabinet that not only do I rip my cuticles but so do the student staff that are in and out of them much more often than I am. Once the students checked the envelopes, I double checked them to make sure a check wasn’t left behind before I moved it in a bin to be thrown out. Too bad they notified me of this policy a couple days after I started tossing the envelopes out. I apologized and said, “of course. I’ll keep them here (pointing to a box on the floor of the ones I was about to throw out) and take care of them later.” They are still in a couple of boxes under my desk to be filed. 

The next Tuesday I heard the two ladies outside my office getting ready to go to the meeting 10 minutes early. The meeting is about 25 feet away so I thought it was odd that they were leaving so early. But then I dismissed it thinking that maybe they were going to get coffee or maybe they were going to set up something for the meeting. “Oh well,” I thought to myself, “I’ll finish this then go.” With my coffee in hand, I walked into the conference room to find it completely empty. I asked the student staff “are we not meeting?” And they replied “oh, everyone went to the student union center for the meeting.” And sure enough behind me, everyone BUT me was signed out of the building as going to the student union center.  They all ditched me. In an office of adults that are all respectively older than me, I was ditched and no one cared to tell me. I used that time to catch up with everything I needed to do so I was grateful.

The week after that, before the meeting I asked my immediate supervisor, (not the director that had dismissed me the first time) if I had to still go to the meetings. He told me “the consensus is that your time would be better spent than doing contracts.” Well sir, I agree with you there and can catch up on a lot during the meetings. So while everyone is out of the office, I sneak around the office like James Bond moving the envelopes that the contracts were mailed in to the bin to be shredded. Now I look forward to Tuesday morning meetings. Peaking around corners and tip toeing around to throw out envelopes makes my Tuesday mornings more interesting and still allows me to yes take care of those envelopes under my desk.