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This description of a very profitable grocery store in Spain makes my eyes well up with tears: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/rss/6440.html . Yes, i would grumble if Safeway was closed on Sunday, but would i miss all the "choice"? I'm not sure. I wonder if Mercadona has private label foods: that's what we often end up buying (after trying others to find the right match of quality to cost). The act of making employee's work life stable is so impressive: i've read others who have been jerked around by retail scheduling enough to know how disruptive and difficult that can be. I come back around to being closed on Sunday, though, and my thoughts in late 2008 as the economy limped along. What if places in these suburban sprawl zones closed more? It's not just the employees who benefit: public transit could be more efficient, traffic could reduce significantly, and if it were a cultural thing i wonder what patterns might develop.
I suppose i wonder what the larger cultural and societal costs are for a grocery store to be open to get that late night grocery run. I know it's can seem a godsend to the sick: having a place to get certain foodstuffs when one is not well is useful.
Anyhow. It's odd i was so receptive to the business description, although the management for long term stability instead of beating quarterly projections seems to be obvious and feed my hope that eventually MBAs will discover that their (great?)grandparents had sensible business practices. How long will it take to shift management away from a Olympian central control to putting it back in the hands of the folks doing the work?
Is there a Medievalist here? Did the feudal lords dictate much in the way of operations? Or did the peasants choose when to sow and how to breed their critters and so on?
--==∞==--
So back to work. Things i didn't do this vacation from a list in my phone: visit the De Young (Christine proposed that but then retracted her desire), clip Greycie Loo's claws (the creature is made of boing, she is Maid of Boing, but she's too often snagged by her talons), and i did walks some. I also "swam" a little. I didn't have on this list plan the next four months.
While i think my plan to write the twelve essays about my work life is a good plan (despite being many months behind), i think i need to move away from past to possibility to address the anxieties that really hit me. I think i should begin correspondence with people in the meeting in tech jobs -- slowly, one person at time -- and write briefly about my ten years working for the same manager/mentor and that the organizations i work for seems unique enough that i fear that it's hard to translate that ten years of work into a language that would be broadly understood. As my role has shifted and changed, it has been in the context of a need and people who knew me, so the fit was easy to understand. I realize if i needed to begin a job hunt, i'd not know what to look for nor how to explain myself. I'd like a chance to have a conversation about other tech companies in the area to understand how they're managed and structured before i'm under pressure.
That seems a reasonable outline. My second motive is to understand if the things that discomfit me at times are frying pan, fire, pot, kettle, or if it's just generally being in the kitchen. Objectively, i believe the things that bother me are to be expected in any organization larger than the hundred-person scale of the Minnow, and are likely more intense in those organizations when for profit. My suspicion is that other hundred-person scale companies in the valley are likely to be more volatile than the Minnow and have a higher risk and intensity than i'm likely to find.
Unfortunately, i don't know any folks who are at smaller tech firms. Well, maybe one person -- but i don't feel i know him. And as i tick off the names of folks i should target for this, it is entirely male.
I think we'll do baby steps though and first address large companies where i know folks in Meeting.
And PS, if you think i might find it useful to talk to someone you know or to you, please let me know.
--==∞==--
I've posted a regrets and invitation to my SIL and hope to see the nephews later in the week. Last night i posted very belated thanks to artist SG. (She has sent more gifts. After the two dozen yellow roses, a VHS movie and, for Christine, a bunch of lobster pastries. I hope the thanks will stop the gifts.) I sent apologies for not attending a potluck last night. I do have this lingering sense of "bad troglodyte," or perhaps that i am too good at being a troglodyte.
Must face day. Meeting stuff tonight, i guess. I'll dash off two quick notes before i go to hold a place for three of the four things (DE's cmte, wedding cmte, opening meeting -- leaving the laydown of the whatsit committee for R).
I suppose i wonder what the larger cultural and societal costs are for a grocery store to be open to get that late night grocery run. I know it's can seem a godsend to the sick: having a place to get certain foodstuffs when one is not well is useful.
Anyhow. It's odd i was so receptive to the business description, although the management for long term stability instead of beating quarterly projections seems to be obvious and feed my hope that eventually MBAs will discover that their (great?)grandparents had sensible business practices. How long will it take to shift management away from a Olympian central control to putting it back in the hands of the folks doing the work?
Is there a Medievalist here? Did the feudal lords dictate much in the way of operations? Or did the peasants choose when to sow and how to breed their critters and so on?
--==∞==--
So back to work. Things i didn't do this vacation from a list in my phone: visit the De Young (Christine proposed that but then retracted her desire), clip Greycie Loo's claws (the creature is made of boing, she is Maid of Boing, but she's too often snagged by her talons), and i did walks some. I also "swam" a little. I didn't have on this list plan the next four months.
While i think my plan to write the twelve essays about my work life is a good plan (despite being many months behind), i think i need to move away from past to possibility to address the anxieties that really hit me. I think i should begin correspondence with people in the meeting in tech jobs -- slowly, one person at time -- and write briefly about my ten years working for the same manager/mentor and that the organizations i work for seems unique enough that i fear that it's hard to translate that ten years of work into a language that would be broadly understood. As my role has shifted and changed, it has been in the context of a need and people who knew me, so the fit was easy to understand. I realize if i needed to begin a job hunt, i'd not know what to look for nor how to explain myself. I'd like a chance to have a conversation about other tech companies in the area to understand how they're managed and structured before i'm under pressure.
That seems a reasonable outline. My second motive is to understand if the things that discomfit me at times are frying pan, fire, pot, kettle, or if it's just generally being in the kitchen. Objectively, i believe the things that bother me are to be expected in any organization larger than the hundred-person scale of the Minnow, and are likely more intense in those organizations when for profit. My suspicion is that other hundred-person scale companies in the valley are likely to be more volatile than the Minnow and have a higher risk and intensity than i'm likely to find.
Unfortunately, i don't know any folks who are at smaller tech firms. Well, maybe one person -- but i don't feel i know him. And as i tick off the names of folks i should target for this, it is entirely male.
I think we'll do baby steps though and first address large companies where i know folks in Meeting.
And PS, if you think i might find it useful to talk to someone you know or to you, please let me know.
--==∞==--
I've posted a regrets and invitation to my SIL and hope to see the nephews later in the week. Last night i posted very belated thanks to artist SG. (She has sent more gifts. After the two dozen yellow roses, a VHS movie and, for Christine, a bunch of lobster pastries. I hope the thanks will stop the gifts.) I sent apologies for not attending a potluck last night. I do have this lingering sense of "bad troglodyte," or perhaps that i am too good at being a troglodyte.
Must face day. Meeting stuff tonight, i guess. I'll dash off two quick notes before i go to hold a place for three of the four things (DE's cmte, wedding cmte, opening meeting -- leaving the laydown of the whatsit committee for R).
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