Miasmatic Review

I guess I am good.

It’s funny how someone goes from zero to hero when they are no longer going to be around. For the last 3 months I’ve been told that I suck at my job, which was one of the major motivators to put in for the position change. When it was announced that I had received the position, the manager I reported to suddenly became concerned “whether or not they could find someone capable of replacing me.” Her words, not mine. When they told her last Thursday that this Friday, the 17th was going to be my last day she flew into a panic.

An emergency meeting was called between her and my peers to go over… can you guess? Reports of all things! That’s right, the same crap we’ve been going over for the last 3 months we have an emergency meeting to discuss. Why? Because I’m leaving and they want them universal for when they find my replacement. We were all supposed to bring in a print out of each report we do and discuss how we use them. Then she was going to decide which reports she wanted us to use.

I went first, showed my examples, explained how they where used and where the data came from. Only one report that I use, the other office uses and they got it from me. When it was the turn of my counterpart from the other office to go over hers, she made the comment, “After looking at (Contagion’s) reports, I’m switching to those. They are quicker, they are easier to read and they have better data.” She then went on to explain that while mine take about 15-20 minutes to run, hers takes 1 to 2 hours. My one report system does the work that equates 4 of her reports.

Then we started going over one of her reports to track productivity. I was listening carefully, even though I’m leaving, because this has always been something that is annoying to track. While my counterpart was going over her report, I couldn’t help but ask questions and get clarification, make suggestions and in general improve the way it works. The manager was impressed because this was a problem they have had for 6 months and couldn’t resolve. 30 minutes of my looking at it, I had pinpointed their problem areas, corrected it and solved a majority of their problems, including making sure they have the correct information.

This meeting that was supposed to last an hour, ended up going on for two hours. Now this week they want to pick my brain some more before I leave. It feels good to finally be appreciated for the roll that I had in the company, even if it is too late to change anything. They want to schedule more meetings this week to go over some other things, but I don’t have a lot of time. It’s too bad they didn’t take me up on my offer of helping them with these back in December, or ever couple of weeks since.