Slum Enterprise - Chapter 5
CHAPTER 5
What does middle lab management do at Green Earth Solutions? Lee considers the job title to be the punching bag from both ends. Ten direct reports under him that he must force to move the testing backlogs through while trying to keep their respect intact.
Six other senior managers, directors, and senior directors, vice presidents all standing at the shiny vector point on the top of the pyramid hovering above, untouchable, dropping shit bombs and waiting to pounce and tear you to shreds and blame you for their mistakes. No support from the top and no coordination from the bottom creating an unwinnable scenario. Lee is left second guessing every single action and decision he makes. When Lee tries to make a proactive decision, the uppers will change or say that the plan is too aggressive and will never work, and the bottom will be defiant about the change and won't do what they are told.
Lee has sympathy for his direct reports, he truly wants to make their jobs less soul crushing. Lee wanted to ease the load of testing work on massive unsupportive test systems by building proper tools to get the job done more efficiently. Lee only feels good when one of the “tools” he creates actually solves a problem or improves the test output of a particular tech or test bench. He likes to track these accomplishments and present them to his boss for quarter reviews hoping for a raise or a promotion (he's been stuck at the same level for 3 years). His boss always deflects and starts looking at the company's organization verticals which lay out all the employees and cogs in a novel family tree diagram.
They review this together in Lee's boss’s closed sliding glass door office and he says that the higher positions were taken already. Lee notes that executives keep adding ladder legs in the tree diagram, there's always a new fluffy manager job that gets placed between him and the CEO. “The addition of legs already filled” Lee thinks. The Execs love to keep a spacious buffer between middle management and the “good ol boys” club in the upper echelon of corporate excellence. It's all a club and Lee will never be in it. Lab manager will be the highest he will ever get.
Lee’s laboratory is called Liquid Lab, it specializes in liquid filtration products for hydraulic, lube, and fuel systems. The lab's ceiling is 20 ft high with exposed wiring, plumbing and HVAC ducting, gas lines, and shop lights that produce white sterile light onto the test benches and workers below. “Heavens workshop” Chester Scott calls it. Lee’s main responsibility is to make sure the test benches are running at all times. The process is this:
Engineers from different departments who specialize in different product verticals (most applications and development) submit written test requests. The requests are procedural instructions on what to test on what bench they desire. Efficiency of a filter system, structural integrity, load capacity, pressure vs flow sweeps, etc. A big stack of new submissions are always found in Lee's drop box when he arrives at work. Lee grabs the stack of paper and reviews all the requirements and sorts them all out to his team of technicians to run on their assigned benches. Parts and samples for testing should already be dropped on the incoming part shelves in the back of the lab.
Flow rates, temperature, pressures, contaminations are all important parameters to watch for in the decision of which test bench it can run on (each test bench has different capabilities in terms of these descriptors).
The technicians set up the testing samples and gather data from the test bench software. The techs swap the raw data files over to their work laptops for further analysis. They work and turn the raw data files into readable looking graphs that customers tend to like and understand.
The engineers use the tech reports and compare with other competitors or filtration products in the same verticals. If the data produced from Green Earth Solutions is better in comparison, then sales and marketing gets involved to sell the product to devoted customers, thus money and profit roll in.
Important facts to consider, data is king , data is the key to understanding, it’s the one tool you can’t disagree with because it's based in fact, it’s not the opinion of some sleazy sales man cold calling. Without data, nothing at the corporation would move, no money would be made. Given this fact, it still baffles Lee that the labs are treated so poorly here and how many decisions aren't driven by truth or data.
All the data his lab and other campus labs produce gets funneled into Executive metric dashboards which are reviewed weekly by the higher ups.
The labs are watched closely. Whenever a metric drops below an established red line an alert gets sent to the CEO. The person responsible that manages the team that directly affects the low metric will be placed into a conference room and get sternly talked to or completely roasted and fired. Lee’s main tactic was to never go to one of those conferences over at the CEO’s building. To keep safe from the powers that dictate everything, keep pumping tests and boosting metrics.
In order to keep 18 test benches with only 10 techs, Lee needs to be extremely flexible and willing to sacrifice body during late night hour rushes from the failing of manufacturing plant product lines, and the senior engineering project lead to send in quality control projects requests to decided if they need to scrap 3 million dollars worth of finish prodcut or spin the rhetoric that the defects ratio is low enough to say “ah fuck it” and sell it to the customer and hope the corrective actions from failed diesel engines doesnt come back to the quality control departments inbox 3 months later.
On top of managing the lab and producing data consistently, there are planning meetings and project update meetings with lab engineering senior management. Most of the time they are looking for backlog information and wondering how long a test will take if they submit it to the lab's incoming parts shelves. Or, complain about the backlogs and why they are so long and what Lee is doing to solve this conundrum to ensure that data can be received in a timely manner.
They like to add that they are being pressured by sales and customers, it's not their fault they are so high strung at the moment, it's just so much pressure that their hairlines are getting worse. Lee puts on a nice guy persona and explains that he will place high focus on the incoming test project and make sure to place it on “High Priority" status and that he is doing everything he can to come up with continuous improvement projects to increase lab output efficiency.
Throw in safety reviews, weekly cleaning maintenance task assigning, budget management, and conflict resolution to round out the job title. Don't forget the added bonus of being blamed for every problem, if something goes wrong and a test system goes down, it doesn't matter if a lightning bolt hits it, it's still Lee’s fault. Upper management would say, “why haven't you foreseen this potential pitfall in lightning protection.” Lee is here to lead the team and if any of his technicians make a mistake, it's still Lee’s fault. “Why didn't you train them well enough, I thought you wrote the SOP’s?” It's all hate, all blame and no backing or support from his soft indecisive boss Joe Fisher.
A 40 year old man who has worked in the same lab since he graduated college as his first job as a technician. Joe is now the Senior lab manager that is responsible for overseeing high level operations with Lee and Murphy Oxey (along with the lab engineers) reporting to him. His main job is to ask very dumb questions and get caught up on day to day operations and try to plan 2-3 years into the future. This doesn't make sense to Lee because he’s always so behind on current reports and lab status that it seems impossible to be able to plan for something that so far in advance. Very pale, taller and recently put on some extra weight around the mid section, Joe Fischer is the common clean cut senior manager who talks in fluffy terms and is exceedingly nice. He is so nice that it affects his decision making process. He is unable to make a proper decision on anything in a timely manner. It takes 15 meetings just to decide what type of lab coats the techs need to wear.
Lee in the first meeting presented options and expressed his favorite choice (due to price and comfort). Joe was hesitant on the choice and needed 15 more meetings to fully spec out and understand all the lab coat options. Finally, Joe decided on the one that Lee presented in the first meeting.
Joe considers himself a family man. With three daughters,he talks to his direct reports as if they were 10-16 year old girls with lower IQ’s who just barely got into the standard classes at school. Lee thinks he can see that the lab has taken its toll. It had made him soft and pliable. He pinpointed that Joe Fisher's main philosophy must be to coast to retirement and live in suburban bliss with a semi decently almost good looking wife who in the last few years had also gained weight (but it made her butt and tits bigger so Joe was on board). 20 long fucking years to only get to senior manager. Lee would think that he should have been a director by now. It just showed that Joe’s ambition and ability to stand up for himself and advocate was never instilled in him as a child. Joe took twenty long years of getting fucked in the ass by executive leadership with smile on his face asking for more mid thrust. Joe still thinks he has technical prowess but that was lost 15 years ago after he went from tech to lab supervisor. He never touched a hand tool since then and now needs to call his speed dial handy man just to turn on the furnace when October comes storming in.
“I'm a technical guy, I don't know a lot, just enough to be dangerous,” Joe always said when he felt intimidated during the technical project meeting on new testing apparatus designs that Lee now leads with the machinists down in the basement metal shop.
The biggest curse of Joe Fisher is that he is so well known and established within Green Earth Solutions. He will likely not leave the position and will ride it out for as long as he can. Lee has no hope of his exit so he has to place a smile on his face and nod and laugh at his jokes purely aimed to make a 10 year old laugh. It has been a complete nightmare working under Joe Fisher, but Lee needed to count his blessings. He could pretty much do anything if you knew how to work the Joe Fisher game. All you had to do was overwhelm him with multiple options about some novel decision and he would become so distracted that Lee wouldn't hear from him for the next 3 days while he went through 5-10 meetings to hash out the details. This allowed Lee to manage the lab how he liked it while getting to come in and leave the office whenever he wanted. It wasn't like Lee was stealing hours, he just made a schedule as he pleased.
Lee never wanted this job in the first place. He was thrusted into it 3 years ago after a global wide layoff and company restructure. Before this he was just a normal project engineer doing technical drawing modifications and manufacturing projects. It wasn't a bad gig besides it being dreadfully boring. Lee was actually excited to find out that he was not laid off, but promoted to Lab Manager of the Liquid Lab. He made his bones in another Green Earth Solutions lab before the project engineering role. The laboratory director that oversees all labs must have liked Lee's work ethic and plucked him back over when the time was ripe. Learning the lab was difficult because he wasn't used to the liquid filtration product or testing methods. After about a year he got the hang of the technical aspect, after about another year he got hold of the managerial aspect and team respect, the past year he has been honing his corporate skills to get raises quicker and maybe make the upper ranks so he can fund his many creative hobbies.
After one meeting is adjourned, another is scheduled right after. Topic: Update call and continued planning on a 5 million dollar venture project. Lee needed to report on the new testing methods for a non standard filter system that was going to have a hard time attaching to one of the test benches without some fancy engineering. Joe Fisher goes back and forth with the sales and marketing directors saying how great the potential markets are if only the lab can successfully test it. They have no idea what they are saying to eachother… Lee thinks it's a big dick sucking competition.
Called the “Frequent Meeting Curse of the Corporate Gods”, as soon as your title warrants perceived importance from the other senior managers,directors, and Exces, your name gets carved into the sacred stone tablet found behind the bullet proof glass case in the CEO’s building. The tablets look like the ten commandments, they each have a spotlight shining on the smooth face and rest against a velvet support bracket. Lee’s name was carved during the monthly ritual ceremony located in the basement of the shipping dock building.
He remembered his first week in the new lab. While he was setting up options on his new work laptop, Lee’s vision turned to black as a thick canvas bag was wrapped around his head. He was forcibly led across the campus blind, down into the ritual grounds.
It smelled damp and faintly of cheap dollar store candles. The bag was ripped off his head and he was in the center facing a wooden altar the shape of the company logo (a Giant capital “G”) with the ritual MC standing behind it holding a singular stone tablet lit only by the dim candle light. Lee’s eyes moved back and forth and saw other robed men and women with masks on.
“What the hell is this, a Stanley Kubrick Production?” Lee said to the ritual MC. The MC went into speech of long drawn out poems and biblical seances and finally asked Lee to stand and walk to the altar.
“Now, to complete the ritual, Lee Collins, carve your name into the tablet. The MC placed the stone tablet on top of the giant letter “G” altar and someone from behind approached and handed him a chisel and hammer. Lee took the hammer and held it firmly in his hands.
“Alright, the sooner I can leave this fucking whack show the better.” Lee started to strike the letters into an open section of the tablet. It was very tedious and Lee found that this was super annoying. Why couldn't they have a big paper scroll with a giant feather fountain pen instead he thought. It took 10 minutes to carve out “Lee Collins".
“God, it looks like kid scribbles.” Lee said. He heard some chuckles from the spooky crowd surrounding him.
“Lee Collins, RISE.” The MC shouted and lifted his hands into the air. “The Corporate gods have granted you the power of endless meetings… may you go forth and carve a path of excellence in presentation skills and fluid speech.”
Then all the people in the damp hazy basement begin to scream and chant Latin folk tunes and run towards Lee. They grab him and pick him up into the air. They brought him to a side room behind a rotten wood door that had silver beer kegs and a sad looking bartender in the back corner pouring little plastic cups of brown liquor. Another sleazy looking man in a black trench coat with slicked back hair and dark sunglasses stood adjacent in the other corner waiting for a deal. “HAPPY HOUR,” they all yelled. Proceeded was a massive drinking party all in green robes and masquerade masks. Anything could go since you didn't know who anyone was.