Gusto

My Dear Princess and Dear Friends,

Today it was Organisational Improvement Day at Kāinga Ora. It was in a conference room in Te Papa, so I met Fazzi early and we walked there together.

As a result today's blip is a Fazzi/Symon selfie which Fazzi - as is now traditional - sent to Caro.

"FFS. Do some f*cking work," Caro texted back.

She loves us really.

As for Operational Improvement Day. It was entirely as painful as you might expect. It was one of those "we will read PowerPoint slides to you" days. 

Fortunately, I was with Fazzi, who always makes everything fun. Occasionally I would steal a glance at her, sighing or yawning or pulling cross-eyed faces at me. 

She also stole all the chocolate out of the sweetie dish on our table.

She also stole all the chocolate out of all the sweetie dishes on everyone else's table. I saw her do it, like a naughty sparrow at an outside restaurant.

However, the day was brightened a little by an exuberant Irishman who came to deliver a motivational talk on... errrrr... something. 

Okay. So maybe I wasn't giving it my full attention. The point is this, he made some good jokes and at least he didn't read effing PowerPoint slides to us. 

He did make us do exercises in groups though. Fortunately, Fazzi and me decided to be a group on our own and ignore everyone else. We were supposed to come up with adjectives on how people with "open minds" come at things, like challenges, or the success of others. Then we had to come up with how CLOSED minds approached the same thing.

For example, the first sentence was: "In the closed mind, learning is BLANK". 

"Thwarted?" I said.

Fazzi pulled a face.

"Squashed?"

She wrinkled her nose.

"Stifled. Stunted. Subdued. Undermined. Crushed. Defeated. Denied. Downtrodden. Downgraded. Inhibited."

"Inhibited," said Fazzi. And filled the box.

The next sentence read, "The open mind approaches effort with BLANK."

"Gusto," I said.

"Gusto?" said Fazzi. 

"Gusto, definitely gusto," I repeated.

She shook her head.

"Panache? Flair? Good-humour? Gusto? Oh go on, gusto."

"I'm NOT writing gusto."

"Gusto - gusto - gusto - gusto," I chanted.

"Fine," said Fazzi. "But you have to read it out loud."

Fine with me.

The Irishman started doing his round the table thing. "The open mind approaches effort with..." he prompted.

"They approach it with GUSTO," Fazzi volunteered.

"Good! Yes!" said the Irishman. "They approach it with GUSTO."

The little minx! She totally STOLE my adjective!

Then it was time for lunch. 

"Guys, guys," said Kāinga Ora Amboubou*. "Can I JUST REMIND YOU, that if you DIDN'T specify special dietary requirements please DO NOT eat the special dietary requirement food?"

Fazzi and I headed to the table. She immediately spotted some gluten free cake.

"Hey, hey," I said. "Didn't you hear Amboubou? You don't have coeliac. You'll get in trouble!"

"Yes... but... hmmm...." she said, looking at the little cake from all angles. She had forgotten all about the "GF" part. All she could see was CAKE. 

"There are only TWO gluten free treats there!" I hissed. 

But I was too late. She had scooped it up and scoffed it. 

"Ugh!" she hissed. "It's VILE!" 

She still had about half left. "Well you have to eat it NOW," I said. "You can't just put it back!"

But she was already folding it into her napkin and looking for a bin. 

Such a troublemaker.

The day was dull from there, although Fazzi and I tried very hard to make it fun. The presenter - who is some head effing honcho or other, I don't know - w@nked on and on and ON through slide after slide.

I looked over at Fazzi. Checking her watch. Doodling. Yawning. Sighing. And for a moment it was like working with Princess Normal again. 

The talk was entitled Something Something Operational Excellence Something Something. I'm not sure. But there were a lot of slides. You know the ones. Arrows that go in a circle with words on them that the presenter then explains at length for those us of who do not read good.

Then Amboubou came around with a microphone to get questions from the audience. There were - as always - some people who asked questions purely to prove that they were not yet in a coma. But there was also a lot of awkward silence. And so Amboubou stalked the room, picking on randoms, which I thought was jolly unfair. I decided to think of a question just in case she picked on me.

"I have my question ready," I told Fazzi. 

"Oooh, tell me," she said.

"Well, it is in the nature of a three-part question Fazlyn," I said, warming to my theme. "First of all, how do we recognise operational excellence when we see it? Secondly, how do we reward it? And finally - how do we promulgate and disseminate it?"

"What does that have to do with what Head Honcho is talking about??" asked Fazzi.

"Very little," I conceded. "But it's so vague and pointless he can interpret it any way he likes."

It was at this point I explained, "That would be an ecumenical matter," to Fazzi. Who has never seen "Father Ted"**.

But Fazzi did not appreciate that this was just my Emergency Question in case I got pounced upon by Amboubou. And so at the next break for questions she started POINTING at me and VOLUNTEERING me!

"We'll have another coffee break in a second but... ah.... question at the front here," said Head Honcho. 

I declined. I didn't want the rest of the room to hate me for delaying their coffee. But it did put the thought in my head that there was an opportunity here.

And for you to understand what happened next, it is at this point I need to drop in the Salient Fact of the Day: 

Head Honcho is a key ally of Toolspank who has been making life miserable for Shenée.

So when everyone went for coffee, I collared Head Honcho. "Actually I did have a question," I said. "But it IS rather long..."

Fazzi, troublemaker that she is, followed me. 

I asked my big question and Head Honcho said things. But I wasn't really listening. "BECAUSE," I went on, "some of those things you were saying REALLY RESONATED with me Andy. And I'll tell you why. I'm a BA working for Shenée and I have to say a lot of the Best Practices you listed earlier, she has already instituted, and - you know what - you're absolutely right - they make a HUGE difference in the way we work."

"That's right," said Fazzi, who is even better at this than me. "Shenée empowers us to go outside our functions and as a result the level of effective collaboration in our team is amazing."

Andy tried to speak, but first I wanted to give him some examples. And this I did. At length.

This guy is NOT GETTING COFFEE until I'm finished with him, I thought.

"And, you know, the result is that we're getting great results and the team works together really well," I added. "I think people think it's because it's an easy project, but it so IS NOT."

"It's a really complex project," agreed Fazzi. "People have NO idea."

Fazzi and I make EXCELLENT tag-team partners. We kept him there, listening to Gromit-Propaganda for FIVE EFFING MINUTES.

Head Honcho said some more stuff to us but I wasn't really listening. The point was, we had done our job. Shenée was not with us today because of all the drama earlier in the week. But we made sure she was RIGHT THERE. IN HIS FACE.

For the rest of the presentation, I made sure to nod knowingly when Honcho said anything that sounded important. And occasionally I'd point to Fazzi and mouth, "Oh yes, we do that already."

Did I mention we were right at the front? Right in front of his podium? And we were SO engaged and SO the ideal audience. 

This effer needs to get the EFFING MESSAGE, I thought. And apparently he did. 

He wrapped up by saying he'd had some great feedback about examples of terrific work already being done and we should expect to hear from the people in the Continuous Improvement area shortly.

Finally, we were asked to write some thoughts on stickies. So I wrote some about how rubbish the department that has been pestering Shenée is and stuck them to the wall. I doubt it will result in anything, but it was cathartic. 

And then the day was over. I went to the railway station where I bumped into Tanvi.

Do you even REMEMBER Tanvi? She worked with me at MPI with Smock and she was just lovely. She quit for a job in Christchurch so I was surprised to see her. 

It turns out she didn't like the new job and so she's BACK. Back at MPI and EVERYTHING. So we're going to meet up for lunch in a couple of weeks. 

I'm glad she's back. I like Tanvi. But I need to find a way to get her into Kāinga Ora. If you've got an open mind, their strategic enterprise operational excellence initiative will fill you with gusto.

S.

* In case you were wondering, Amboubou was a Standard Life BA who apparently did no actual BA work other than to elect herself onto committees and then boss the rest of us around on subjects such as sustainability, workstation assessments and not drawing willies on the whiteboard. 

** I mean. Seriously. WTF.