Day 32 – 17 February 2014
Take two one-to-ones with members of my team, two tier 4 managers and two heads of service. Add to this a couple of other meetings and that was my day. I started at Meadowfield, travelled to County Hall and ended up at Tanfield. Eight meetings in three locations was always going to make my head spin but it was the first day of the school half term and so at least the traffic wasn’t so bad once I got past the Team Valley.
If I take in travelling time and looking for a parking space at County Hall I calculated that this gave me a grand total of twenty minutes free time to have lunch and to do all of the administrative parts of my job. It’s my own fault for agreeing to pack so much in but I spend a lot of effort in trying to reduce the amount of time I spend on paperwork and maximise the time I am in front of people.
I’m ruthless when it comes to email. On a normal day I get between one and two hundred mails (I had thirty four over the weekend). I try to respond to each one as quickly as possible. Most require either a delete or a quick yes/no. Only around five per cent require something more in depth and I put these to one side until I have a little more thinking time. I use every opportunity to keep on top such as waiting outside someone’s office before going in. I am one of those annoying people you bump into in the corridor with their heads down staring at their smartphones. Sorry!
A wave of panic comes over me once my inbox has more than fifty mails in it. At the start of today I had twenty one and by the end it stood at twenty nine. I think I could do more to squeeze out efficiency as I still carry round a small amount of paper with me and have to sign the odd document. I need to think about going totally paperless.
Meadowfield wasn’t looking bad at all and is functioning nicely. Bob told me that he and his team have had more interaction with the people at Meadowfield in the last six weeks than he has had in the whole of his time at the Council. He’s also enjoying the Virginia Mason book.
The first of my tier 4 managers today was Norman, the County Fleet Manager. He’s the one who would go to jail if we messed up badly with our vehicles and lost our operating licence. Without it we couldn’t collect refuse, repair the highways and do anything that we do that relies on a vehicle of over 3.5 tonnes. Our overall fleet, which is the largest north of Manchester, has nearly five hundred vehicles of this weight and above.
The trick is to keep them well maintained, within their load allowance and replaced when appropriate. Small vans are the bane of his life as he doesn’t have the same level of control as over the larger vehicles.
The second was Marian who is the Business Support Manager in Neighbourhood Services with a team operating out of five different buildings. Sounds familiar? We talked a lot about modern apprentices and how they play an important role on her operation. Like most tier 4 managers, she loves what she does, particularly that every day is different and the support she gets from her own management team. She is also one of those not so rare people who has found romance within local government and married a colleague.
I had to rearrange my last meeting.
Learning points for today: We have 2,300 diggers (and other plant) in our fleet; The doors in the toilets in G62a, County Hall don’t have internal handles which leads to a feeling of mild panic when you feel you are locked in and; I’ve identified Heads of Service sponsors for Agile and Big Data.
Today’s enjoyment rating 9/10 – Lots of interesting conversations
Thoughts from a Guerrilla Worker 