Category: work

First-World, Any-World: Trials and Joy

On By jeff ludlumIn Attitude, family, Happy, Insight, leadership, workLeave a comment

Often things don’t go as planned; and certainly, they don’t always go as we’d like. That’s a common theme in life.

A few First-World samples below that teach Any-World lessons.

1/ Adapt and overcome obstacles at work (and anywhere); don’t get frazzled. Pause, take a deep breath, take the next step.

2/ If your path to where you want to go gets bogged down, even to the extreme of Route Closed…don’t give up; find another way.

3/ Find joy with those that matter most. Find it in the simplest things, like music, like a little play time, like a welcome pause to the day.

The “Blue Screen of Death” always gives the user pause.
Not the usual, not most direct route home from work.

Then we get a simple joy we should always celebrate (if you’re a parent) – a little quality time with our kid. Then, especially then, be reminded.

Listening to a little Pokemon during bath time.

Let the joy, not the schedule, win the day.

My Office Today & a Little Lemonade from Lemons

On By jeff ludlumIn Attitude, leadership, parenting, workLeave a comment

Saw it coming if I was paying attention. Very runny nose, increasingly frequent cough, growing crankiness (for him and me), and BOOM, my son got sick. Aren’t they always sick this time of year, little kids?

Never mind.

He’s gotta stay home sick, and today ok for me to work from home (Thankful!), so here I am cranking away.

My son’s asleep for now, so ticking off task after task.

Sip tea, stretch, keep going.

Drink water, another spreadsheet, another stretch, a couple emails, what’s next?

More good, making the best out of the lemons of the day, that’s the trick, that’s the schtick, that’s my game.

In that way, I got game. And lemonade.

And the glass is Half Full.

Standing Desk.
Energy Hydration Station

BATCHUSR

On By jeff ludlumIn Attitude, business, workLeave a comment

There are lots of benefits to an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system in a manufacturing environment. One of the more fundamental ways I’ve experienced it being helpful to is with reporting.

Massive amounts of data exist when a company runs their processes and related data through an ERP system. It follows then that business people in various disciplines within the organization can use the data to (hopefully) optimize their work efforts for the good of the business.

“BATCHUSR” is the generic, automated entity within the system that generates reports that have been set up.

There’s the rub.

If the report is set-up properly, it can be a super-big help. If the report isn’t set-up properly, or of the data capture parameters are forgotten or otherwise of no use any longer, it’s just another data set.

Garbage In, Garbage Out.

What data you put in, the validity and thoroughness of said information, that reflects on the value of the reporting you’re able to generate from such a system.

Another example? There’s a large data set that has been historically created in the system in a manner that includes an arbitrary entry.; it was thought previously that the entry in that field in the system was not important.

We recently decided, for the good of overall and more accurate evaluation of the information, we decided we had to update the entry for this particular field, a specific date entry, for each line item.

There are several hundred line items that need to therefore be updated. Manually. One by one. Let me say that again. ONE. BY. ONE. You might guess I’m the one who’s doing that updating? If you did, you would be correct.

In the end it’s still the humans that evaluate the data and enter that data and determine if it’s helpful. And if it’s not? It’s the human that spends the time making the corrections. It’s the humans that decide. And then it’s the human that has to hunker down, take a few deep breaths, and do focused entry of line item data to complete the project.

It’s the humans that are responsible.

That said, I need another coffee.

: – )

Addendum Lesson:

What is an ERP system?

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SOX Wants: An Audit Sample

On By jeff ludlumIn Attitude, business, examples, workLeave a comment

Funny what an audit inspires…

“It begins, it begins, with a friendly request; let’s see a sample of your documentation for your orders of work.

Everybody does it, gotta do it too.

Let’s see the work order document itself.

Let’s see the Goods Issue documents.

Let’s see the Goods Receipt documents.

In the system, it is, in the sytem it is, isn’t that enough?

No, No, on paper so we can hold it, study it.

So into SAP we go, to figure how to print. Tryin’ t’save trees, so we don’t normally print.

M B 90, that’s the place to start. Get your order data from the CO Bucket.

Then command, command, and fields must be right. Must be right with the year and the checks or your lose.

Lose out, gotta ask, gotta ask for help. One person, two person, maybe three in fact, everyone a different bit to share, try, do.

Finally, finally, we make it through, through to the end.

Gather docs, kill a tree, done with that task. SOX wants, SOX asks, we do, done. We do, DONE.

SOX asks, we do, we do, DONE.“