crisis. management.

i do a lot of crisis management around here. i've learned to expect the unexpected or at least fake that i expected it to be coming. doesn't matter how ludicrous it is, someone will undoubtedly ask for it and you have to be on your toes. it makes for an awesome day.

take last week for instance. darwin decided that he wanted to be beach bum and leave me in charge of the company. -that rat bastard - so naturally, i said whatever and went right back to what i was doing. fast forward to the middle of the week, when darwin then tells me that i am in charge of this huge order that has to go out friday, and if it doesn't then we've lost a huge potential client. no pressure or anything....after wrestling with the freight company and finally getting that straight i figured i was in the clear. WRONG. they screwed up the pick-up date and thought it was the day that i started scheduling everything, not friday. son of a...we moved onto round three with the freight company. dot: 0 freight: 2. not good odds. i did however bully my way to a victory. it wasn't pretty and i was almost in tears, but i won.

friday rolls around and everything goes according to plan. so i am sitting pretty. i have managed to get all the ducks in a row and darwin isn't even town. amazing. i log out of work early, because i mean darwin is at the beach, so there is absolutely no reason for me to be there, and proceed on with my weekend. monday comes and everything is still kosher, the delivery is on time. tuesday hits.....cue impending doom music....i am at darwin's house (my new home office...pretty swanky) and i get a frantic phone call from the people who are receiving the material...uh oh...

the freight carrier decided that they weren't going to actually deliver it on time and were holding the material hostage. PHENOMENAL! so i race to work. call the freight company, get passed to about 80 gajillion people before anyone figures out what the heck i am talking about. i have to make up a release form - no, if you are wondering, there is no standard release form from the freight company, go figure...- and fax it off to the world of faxes and hope for the best. made for an exciting day and it was only 930.

the problem with crisis management is that once you solve one, it's then a waiting game for the next one. the other problem is that you can't hunker down and wait for the crisis - that would be a terrible existence - so instead you mosey along with your day/week/month/life and then wham blindsided by another crisis. i unfortunately don't usually get the month long respite, or even the week long for that matter....

ciao.