Danger zone
I know from past bad experiences to avoid end of the day confrontations. That’s the danger zone where people are tired and ready to go home. They might also be wet from heavy rain or annoyed by their under-performing colleagues. It’s best to make some mental or paper notes and bail.
A few months ago I couldn’t hold my tongue at the end of the day. I was on site to help out and I, too, was ready to go home. My son had soccer practice as usual and I knew traffic would be bad.
Stand-up comedy
What I didn’t expect was to witness an experienced landscaper blow a remnant pile of some leaves and a few pebbles into yet another remnant pile for us to pick up. That must be the worst case of overtime ever. Pushing the entire crew past exit time over a few leaves and some pebbles is unacceptable.
So, I told the dude to stop playing around and blast the remnants out of sight. This could be into the nearby lawn or, better still, into neighboring shrubbery. That’s it. Aggressive, direct and no overtime.
If you catch yourself blowing a remnant pile of a remnant pile, something went wrong. Perhaps the original pile was just a standard pile.
This is how you do it
Let’s see how I put a remnant pile to bed quickly and aggressively.
Unless you have a broom handy and extra time, blast the remnants into your lawn or nearby shrubbery. Discreetly pushing the dust into a neighboring strata complex is best. Just do it quickly. No more piles.
The lesson
Remnant pile management seems obvious to some and mysterious to others. Blowing remnant piles into more piles is ridiculous. Because this is a family blog, I can’t use stronger language. But I did on site.
This is why staff training never really ends. I want my workers to be sharp and aggressive with small tasks like remnant piles.
