This blog will investigate the conflicts, empowering moments, and hassles as work and life intersect. As I get some time over the holidays, I'll frame the issue more explicitly to guide any entries you might want to leave.

Also, I plan to put an excerpt of my Knol in this blog to give you a taste of where that is headed.

12/22/2007

Below is the first few paragraphs of my Knol. This is a first draft and the whole article is far from done. But here's a sample of where the Knol is headed....

Work As Art

Technical Customer Service in a High Volume P&L Setting

This article is all about making work a satisfying experience even when you are surrounded by “Dilbert” moments, a challenging market place, and chaotically changing departmental work rules.

The focus here will be the tiny brush strokes and seemingly minor color mixing that are the building blocks of a work masterpiece. I’ll be writing from the realm of customer service in the operations segment of durable goods manufacturing. That’s what I know. But I’ll try not to slip and talk about the products I manage so I don’t get in the way of your thoughts as you adapt what I describe to your own situation.

I will wax philosophically later about the art you are creating every day, but take a close look at my canvas first.

You’ll notice those colorful 1.5 x 2 inch post-it notes stuck to my active order. I am about to walk out of my cube to the fax machine and an important, but very small moment of management savvy just took place. I wrote a reminder on a little sticky note about what my next step with the order will be when I get back to my desk. I don’t want to waste time remembering where to re-start my desk time. I want to stay on task and efficiently get back to work. The sticky notes are the place where I have a management conversation with myself.

I have just a part of the workload for the customer service group in which I work. Since I’m one of seven order managers, I don’t have the luxury of a co-worker who has the time to listen to my work musings. My stick notes are my admin, reminding me what’s next. The sticky notes keep me directed while my mind is trying to process other communications that have been interrupting the flow, my random thoughts about my family, and the latest trade the Milwaukee Brewers just made.

The use of the sticky notes is a very small thing, but it’s a brush stroke that today’s work of art needs to be a complete painting.

More Small Things

I can’t concentrate if I don’t do something about every new communication that lands by phone, email, instant message, or personal cube visit by a colleague. I’m not saying I stop to do resolve immediately each new communication. But I do pause to put it in a queue. And that queue is very visual. In very busy times, I’ll even add a tip-up to get some requests staged over my desk. But I usually just use the deepest part of my desk to prioritize requests mixing orders to enter, return requests, sales research tasks, and emails I have to answer into a fanned out trail of work facing me. You would think that such a visual reminder of what has to be done would be depressing. But I find it comforting to know that what I need to do is right there. If I queue it up as it comes in, I won’t forget anything. It all gets managed in a timely way.

How you arrange the work on your desk, place your phone, store your SOPs, stage the orders that are unclean and waiting for client updating, and leave the broken orders waiting for system fixes is a small, but significant brush stroke in your masterpiece.

We’ll come back to some of this later as we look at the key functions of a Client Service Representative. But it’s time to try to describe the whole scope of the job.

Bob: When it's time for the whole Knol to be entered on Knolstuff, I'll make sure there is a link here so you can see the final project.