Bad Operation
How To Run a Company Into The Ground
Earlier on in my working life, I worked as a mover. This job paid 15/hr, and as a broke college student, I thought I hit the lottery. What I did not anticipate was how exceptionally awful the operational system for the company was.
First, let’s define operations. Operations in nutshell is managing the inner-workings of a business so that it can run as efficiently as possible. As you’re reading, keep this definition in mind.
This moving company was still an early-stage startup mostly run by college students as a part-time gig.
After a couple of months on the job, I was named a captain of the area. Jargon for project coordinator. Which meant when a move was in progress, I was responsible for the team, coordination of the project, addressing customer concerns, and relaying information back to HQ
Now let’s jump back a little to the portion where I said college students mostly ran this company…
Let’s lay-out what an average move process would look like as captain.
I would get a call a couple of days before a move to notify me that I was officially assigned. Then they would send me a list of 4–6 contacts so that I would ensure they showed up. Forget the portion about being late; just show up… please?
The day of the move was here, typically at a crisp 8:00 am. I would show up about 15 minutes early to scan the premises and plan aspects of the move as I awaited my four crew members to show up. I did whatever I could to prepare the client and maintain communication. However, I typically could anticipate only three would make it. Two of them would be hungover from a night of binge drinking. One of them would show up 20 minutes late and had the strength of two toddlers.
I would then contact HQ to find our missing team member. My conversation with HQ would go something a little like this.
Me: “Hey, any luck finding our missing team member? I’ve tried calling!”
HQ: “Hey bro, no idea man, I’m gonna try and give some other guys a call, and I’ll get back to you.”
1 Hour Later
HQ: “Hey, we found someone! They should be there in half an hour!”
… Initially, this was supposed to be a simple two-hour move that now is running three hours. HQ promised the customers and employees that the job should take no more than two hours, and here we are going on hour three. Oh, and did I mention we get assigned to more jobs based on customer reviews? That’s right — all of these external factors that were out of our control had a direct effect on how much work we got as well!
Now, whose responsibility was it to inform the already irritable customer of the schedule delay? Ah, yes, mine! THE JOY!
It was picturesque; my two hungover crew members were taking more breaks than working, the other person who had shown up late could barely lift two boxes, and time was ticking.
This whole scenario happened more times than not. If anything, this taught me a lot about how not to conduct business.
I’ve had to speak with customers with clenched fists because my crew members had just broken multiple pieces of antique furniture worth thousands of dollars.
I’ve worked with crew members who were not capable of the job at hand. In one situation, a crew member pushed an entire refrigerator onto me as I was on the edge of a truck lift, causing me to fall off entirely — and the fridge. Mind you, this particular person has been reported to HQ 8 separate times for similar events.
And to top it off, I had to work with the far-reaching promises HQ gave to customers.
If you want your company to fail, and fail quickly this is a sure-shot way to do just that. If you want your company to succeed then do the opposite of my distasteful experience.
Operational excellence is the embodiment of a core set of values such as responsibility and accountability. It is the consistent act of owning every aspect of the process from top to bottom.
Takeaways
Hire the right people for the job! Hire the person who shows up on time, ready to work, and capable of doing the job right!
When you fail to plan, you plan to fail! Failing to coordinate appropriately shortchanges the customer and is essentially throwing business in the garbage.
Communication is key! Throughout this whole process as captain, I was practically thrown into a hornet’s nest of issues. By leaving employees out to dry, you fail to cultivate a work environment conducive to the business’s long-term success and customer relations.
