Sales & Marketing meetings, personnel reviews, legal employment tribunal meeting and then home with copious reading after the frustrations of employing mere humans
Nice warm day with competing anticyclones jousting for the upper hand. 10 mins late to the office and David Fear awaiting me as requested so that I could give him a hard time over administration. Sales Dept are always finding new ways to defeat the system and cause chaos in the wish to please customers. Their action often has the opposite effects. Also to insist on a three month unit forecast so that Production stands a chance. This tirade overruns the allocated time and we start an Export meeting late.
With John and David, I agree that we will target a few key territories and formulate a detailed market survey and marketing plan in each case. Then to scan the mail and a number of tasks before the first in a long series of personnel reviews. My role on the second/third Thursday of each month is to study the reviews and decide on the pay rises. A thankless task as the aspiration of each employee in the aggregate always exceeds the money we can afford. A clear desk and late home with more reading than I can manage. Proposed budgets for Comart, proposals for Comart Scotland, Sales Commission Plan – we have plans, plans for plans …. But each is important. I spent the last quarter of the working day in conference with a solicitor expert in employment law. An ex-employee who I fired is pursuing a case via an industrial tribunal and we have to prepare a good brief. I resolve to add disciplinary procedures to the employee handbook and teach all managers to make better notes. To bed and a restless night for its warmth and lightness. Start of the fishing season and the anglers are too inclined to feed our ducks.