Philoscifi

On the brink of destruction, the world desperately needs a Hero. Phil Safari, a reluctant Candidate, must prove himself worthy to the gods by completing a Heroic Task: change 1000 lives for the better… or else! The following is part of the Safaris – a collection of Phil’s misadventures in Heroism. Find out how it all started and what he has learned about love, life, and the pursuit of happiness.

I poked my head in the doorway. “You wanted to see me, Dr. Rhame?”

“Come in, Phil. Give me a few minutes to finish typing this email.”

As I sat shivering in my seat in the subzero office, I struggled to think of the best way to describe my boss. I guess you could say that Dr. Rhame was a bit like Santa Claus: same body type and love of the Arctic. But that is where the similarities stopped. He didn’t have a beard; was pretty intense; and doled out ticking time bombs rather than toys – projects that were guaranteed to blow up in your face, either because the standards were impossible to meet or because they required you to run the treacherous admin gauntlet at ludicrous speed.

But he was a good guy who genuinely cared about serving the citizens, so we all did our best to keep up with him without freaking out…too much.

My musings were cut short as he finished typing and looked up.

“You’ve been here a few months now. How is everything going?”

Lousy. This place is a disaster. Meh, I’ll try to be PC. “Okay. It’s been challenging, and I’ve learned a lot.”

“Oh, like what?”

Screw it; why lie? He knows all about this place anyway. “Like how few people are interested in improving the system and how 10% of the people do 90% of the work. Stuff like that.”

“That’s not right. Who are the people not doing their jobs?”

Oh great, I just activated Dr. R’s most admirable and annoying trait - his rigid, unrealistically high ethical standards. This just keeps getting better and better.

“Oh, just the usual suspects. Nothing to be too concerned with. No matter how much you yell at them, they’re not going to change anyway because they don’t care. They’ll just figure out that I told you, and my job will get that much harder.”

“But we are charged with the important tasks. How are we going to achieve our mission if people aren’t doing their jobs?”

“I agree, but this place is what it is. The broken record routine will do nothing to the bad folks and just alienate the good folks.”

“So what do you suggest?”

“They’re adults, not kids. It’s time to hold them accountable though the yearly evaluations. I know, I know - the evaluations are a joke right now, but someday, HR will get the bright idea of tying pay incentives to the evaluation scores. Money talks, and maybe some of these people will start shaping up.”

“That will takes years, and I can’t just let this slide until then. When something’s not right, I have to say something about it.”

I took a deep breath. “Dr. Rhame, you can’t fight every battle; it will kill you. You always complain about never getting any work done here and having to work from home. This is not only bad for your health and your family but for the office as well. As the leader here, which is better use of your time: chasing after people or making strategic decisions?”

He sighed. “You are probably right. I’ll think about it. The real solution though is to get some good people here. You know anyone?”

“No.” I would never subject anyone I knew to this god forsaken place. “Given the difficulty of getting new employees in here, maybe you should just make the most of the good people you have.”

“But they are mechanics. They are good at performing certain duties, but they rarely take initiative or have new ideas.”

LOL. I can’t believe I’m having this conversation with the boss. It was fascinating and freaky too; I used to be just as anal. Talking to Dr. R was like talking to my future self had the gods not hijacked my life.

“Well, none of them have all your abilities and knowledge, but they might show initiative if you let them.”

“What does this mean?”

“Well, initiative requires freedom, a sense of ownership. From what I’ve seen, your management style is very hands-on, which doesn’t encourage initiative. Think about it from their perspective - Why try something new when they’ll probably have to redo it if it doesn’t match your idea? To encourage initiative, one must be able to accept different ways of doing things.”

“You are saying that I don’t listen?”

“No, you do listen, but you have a clear vision of what you want, which almost always wins out in the end. I’m not trying to be critical. All I’m saying is that if you know that about yourself, then maybe what you need are competent people to execute your vision, not people to come up with new ideas that may clash with yours.”

Before he could reply, his phone rang. “Dr. Rhame, your next appointment is here.”

“OK, send him in.” Dr. R turn to me and said, “We’ll talk more about this later.”

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