The GirlAlive Blog

Post offices

Okay, so I’ve gotten used to a lot of British stuff. Raisins in every dessert seem normal now. I’ve gotten used to men drinking tea. I’ve even gotten used to just automatically expecting every British male under thirty to be an asshole (and to being pleasantly surprised when I encounter the rare ones who aren’t). But the one thing I cannot get used to is the post office.

If you’re American, you have a certain idea of what a post office does. It is a place you go to mail things. When I go to the USPS web site, I’m greeted with headings like “plan a shipment”, “find a zip code”. Under “products and services” there are headings like, “mailing & shipping”, “postage & options” and “receiving mail”. They do a few other things, like selective service registration and passport renewal. But getting letters and packages from one place to another is the main thing. When you go there, there are things for sale, like stamps and packing supplies, and sometimes they get fancy and sell postcards.

By contrast, if you go to the British Post Office web site, the heading of the page is, “Savings, Life Insurance, Foreign Currency”. The headings on that page are “Money & Insurance”, “Broadband & Phone”, “Travel”, and then as almost an afterthought, “Letters and Parcels”. The post office does everything. If you want foreign currency, go to the post office. If you want insurance, go to the post office. If you want to pay your gas bill or top up your mobile phone, go to the post office. And on top of all that, they sell all manner of crap there. There are the usual post office things like packing supplies, but there are also greeting cards, wrapping paper, toys, knitting and sewing supplies, costume jewelry, handbags, and calendars.

On the surface, you might be thinking, “That’s great, being able to do all those things in one place.” But keep in mind that you have to stand in line with everyone who is doing any of those things. I’ve had to go to the post office two days in a row and the line stretches out the door every time you go there. Yesterday I was in line between a man who was paying his gas bill and buying socks, and a woman who was collecting her pension payment and shopping for birthday cards. I was the only one there who was actually mailing something.

I have really come to hate and dread the post office here, because I know from living in America that going to the post office doesn’t have to be that horrible. It can be a clean and efficient process involving sending and recieving of packages only. I think I miss American post offices almost as much as I miss American peanut butter. (And by the way, thanks for the jars of Skippy for my birthday David and Nikki and Kris.)

Alana

2008: The Bits I Remember

2008 has been one of those “Best of times, worst of times” kind of years. Let’s briefly look back.

In January, my hamster Binky died. He was a sweet little hamster and I missed him a lot. His death led to the later purchase of two Chinese dwarf hamsters (Dru and Fred) and a Syrian named Jayne. It says a lot about Binky that we ended up with three hamsters to replace him.

From January until April I worked at a hospital. It was one of the worst jobs I ever had, and I’ve been a telemarketer, and I used to scrub my laxative-addicted grandmother’s toilet for cash. In April I stopped going to that job. Some of the crappy jobs I’ve had, I look back and think, “The work was crap, but I really do miss the people I worked with.” This was not one of those jobs. There are maybe 3 people from that office that I don’t actively hate. I considered sending them all a gift-wrapped box of fresh dog poop for Christmas, but in the end decided that they are not worth the postage, the gift wrap, or the dog crap.

In June my grandfather’s girlfriend (or whatever he prefers to call her) passed away from breast cancer. She was the second companion he lost to breast cancer, and it has been a hard blow to him and the family.

In late June, my favorite guinea pig Homer got sick. Well, sicker. He had some kind of chronic kidney problems, probably for about 6 to 9 months before that. I brought him to the vet and did all I could, but in early July he passed away. On the same day, a close family friend, Don Granholm, lost his long hard battle with colon cancer. Maybe Don is taking care of Homer up in heaven.

In later July, I had the first unsuccessful attempt to extract my broken molar. It was unpleasant.

In August, I started my new job. The work is terribly boring, but I love my co-workers. They are all fantastic, bright, clever and intelligent. They accept me for the slightly odd person that I am. Whenever it reaches the time that I leave this job, I genuinely will miss them all. They are the main reason I’ve even stayed in this country all the way to the end of this year. They have shown me that there are decent people here. They give me hope that someday I might actually feel at home on this damp frigid island.

In September, I went to Minnesota and visited my family and friends. I got to see most of the people I love and miss, like my friends (Sara and Sharla and Mark) and my family (even my cousin Raeanne who came all the way from Louisiana to see me). I finally got to meet my brother’s twin babies, Zach and Rissa. They are cute on my brother’s blog, but they are way cuter in person. My mom threw me a great party, with the help of my cousin Pedro. It was fun, but there was a bit if a Don-shaped hole missing from it. When I saw his family, I really missed him. I had a great time in general, in spite of having to enter the hell that is the Amsterdam airport. I didn’t want to come home.

Upon my return, my tooth was finally successfully extracted. Thus proving that my dentist is incompetent, but not all British dentists are.

The year ended, as they so often do, with Christmas. I got some cool stuff. Neil’s family got us Need For Speed Undercover. I got a fabulous cookbook and a knitting pattern book. We had steaks and pumpkin cheesecake, but the cheesecake recipe needs some work. I think more cheese and a more solid crust.

My husband got me a sweater for my birthday, and we had chocolate cake and Chinese food.

Yeah, there was an election in America. Celebrities did things and looked stupid. It was a year, and there is bound to be another one any time now. And I still miss Homer.

Alana

Christmas

At work, some of the international offices have been sending holiday messages to the other offices. In the UK and the US we are encouraged to say Happy Holidays and Seasons Greetings, so we don’t offend anyone who is Jewish or Muslim or whatever. So which office was the first to break that unwritten rule and wish everyone Merry Christmas? The office in Jerusalem. That’s awesome.

I’m not particularly into Christmas this year. After going back home for a visit a few months back, Christmas just seems like a shiny tinsel-covered reminder of all the people I wish I could see at Christmas. And just after Christmas is my birthday. I’m going to be 32. It feels like I’m crossing that line from “you’re still young and you’ve still got time” into “if you want to have kids you’d better get working on it now.” It’s gone from all my brother’s friends who are a few years older than me having kids to all my friends who are 5 years younger than me having kids. I’m getting old.

I’ve been trying to get into the Christmas spirit. I loaded my mp3 player with Christmas music, only to find that half of it is deeply depressing and the other half is boring or annoying.

At least I’ve got some time off work. I have some projects I need to work on around here.

Alana

The Basics of Employee Morale For Managers

Morale is an abstract idea that is difficult to grasp or define. But at the same time, we all know when morale has declined. Turnover rates sky-rocket. Sick leave increases. In some cases, people even end up taking time off for mental illness. Everyone can tell when a team is disgruntled, but most of the time managers have no idea why. They see that staff are angry and leaving for other jobs, and are quick to blame the workers for being “disloyal”.

The first reaction of most managers when morale has declined is to try to do something to raise morale. This is not the right reaction because it does not address the root of the morale decline. Morale did not decline because of something management didn’t do. Your team didn’t become surly because you haven’t brought them paintballing lately. The fact is, 9 times out of 10, a decline in morale is due to something management did.

What new policies have you enacted lately? What do these policies communicate to your team? These are the questions you need to answer to address a decline in morale. In every work situation I have seen that had a serious decline in morale — the kind that leads to high turnover rates and the remaining staff doing only the “bare minimum” to get by — the key to improving morale is asking the staff to complete this statement: “I would have worked harder if you hadn’t…”

You see, most lower level staff like data entry clerks and data processors have dead-end jobs. Managers may not see it that way, but the employees do. There are few places to go from there, and only one in ten of them will ever rise into management. Therefore, the only motivation they have to put in extra work and go the extra mile to get things done beyond the bare minimum necessary to stay employed is if they genuinely like and respect their manager and they want to see their manager succeed. And most managers would be surprised at how quickly they can destroy that respect and trust.

So let’s look at some of the answers to the statement I mentioned. These are all real examples from real jobs where I or someone I know has worked.

I would have worked harder if you hadn’t:

* waited until the last minute to give me an assignment you knew about for months.
* stood behind me and nit-picked while I worked.
* banned food/coffee at my desk, without any attempt at logical compromise.
* ignored your own rules while expecting me to follow them.
* talked to me like I was a 5-year-old, including the phrase, “That’s a no-no.”
* yelled at me for visiting the company’s own web site.
* banned talking during certain hours.
* forced me to work overtime, without giving the option of doing it voluntarily.
* timed my tea breaks to the minute.
* monitored my toilet breaks.
* refused vacation requests for no reason.
* paid me less than the new trainees, after I had worked there for two years.
* given me unrealistic goals and quotas.
* refused to listen when I told you an idea wouldn’t work.
* yelled at me for “being late” when I work flexi-time.

What do all these policies and actions have in common? They show a lack of respect and understanding for the employees. They are managers showing off how important they are and how they can be pro-active with new policies, without any regard for their staff as people. Remember, if staff isn’t happy and isn’t producing good work, their manager will fail much harder because of it than the staff will. At the end of the day a manager will be judged by the productivity of the staff. Enacting policies that disrespect staff may look like a way of increasing productivity on the surface, but in the end, if morale falls, productivity falls. Policies that respect your staff as the intelligent adults that they are is the best way to increase productivity.

If you’re a line manager, you’re probably thinking, “That’s not fair. I’m just passing down the policies and instructions I’ve been given.” It doesn’t matter to the people under you. If you tell them that you are only passing down instructions from above, they will not respect your manager for coming up with the idea, and they will not respect you for failing to stand up for them against a bad idea.

At the end of the day, the “golden rule” applies in the office as much as anywhere. Do to your employees only what you would want your boss to do to you. Do you want to be monitored like a prison inmate? Do you want to be scolded like a school child? Then do not do those things to your staff.

Before you enact a new rule or a new office policy, ask yourself what that policy communicates to your staff. Does it communicate trust and respect? Or does it just communicate that you want them to know that you are the boss? Keeping these things in mind are key to morale and productivity. Remember that you cannot get the best quality of work from a team that hates working under you. When you abuse your staff, you are sabotaging your own career, and reducing the value of your stock options. Nice managers are successful managers.

ridiculous morning

As I’ve mentioned before, I live in the town of Penicuik, which is about 10 miles outside Edinburgh, normally 45 minutes to the city by bus. My usual commute is considerably shorter. I catch the bus outside my house and it takes five minutes to go to the town center, then five more minutes back to the area where I live. (About a 10-minute walk from my house. When I’ve missed the bus, I’ve been able to walk around to the main road and meet the bus on its way out of town.) Then it’s another 5 minutes down the road to where I get off to walk to my office. Not so much this morning.

I got on my usual bus at 7:40. It took the usual five minutes to get to the town center. Then it stopped. There was an accident or something because of the two inches of snow on the ground. There is really only one road from Penicuik to Edinburgh. There is noplace to re-direct the traffic until you get out to where I usually get off the bus. I stayed on the bus for two hours. That got me to where the bus was still in Penicuik, and a ten minute walk from my house. Two hours, to get a ten minute walk from home. A distance that should have taken five minutes on the bus. If I stayed on the bus, at that rate I wouldn’t get to work until noon. And I had to pee. It there were only four people on the bus, so it was freezing cold. My toes were going numb.

So I got off and went home. I called in and took a day of unpaid leave because it is just not worth it today. It seemed like a “know when to fold ‘em” kind of start to the day. I’ll try again tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow I’ll just walk to work.

Alana