Always Make the Girl Feel Pretty

I’m not a sexist, I’m just making a point and sometimes it helps to get your attention. I’m not often accused of being professional; in the traditional sense. I do however believe in being polite. 

This example is purely allegorical: 

If you find yourself on a date what good would come from not making the girl feel pretty? Either end the date or make her feel pretty, no point in doing anything else. 

In other words if you are going to be partnered up with somebody or some company, make them feel pretty or end the date. 

Outages are like going to the prom, it’s been a while but what I remember about the prom is there’s lots of planning, lots of coordination, things to buy, things to rent and things to order. All of this before you even receive your boutonnière from your sweetie. Sounds like an outage to me. 

How easy it to change your date during the prom, or an outage?….. Not very. (I have actually have done both neither was pretty, I can assure you). 

The Point:

Once the outage has started you have only two choices: make the contractor successful or shoot them.  

There is no option to harass, complain, or moan about the contractor. 

So whatever needs to be done to make “your date” feel pretty should be your only focus. Anything else is a waste of time, energy and effort. Remember, every minute of none production costs you BIG! 

I’m not saying that you should accept poor performance but you should realize that you only have two options: fix’um or change’um, with each having their own price to pay. 

The fix’um process generally costs nothing or at worst some coffee and doughnuts. It’s a calm demeanor, a good morning handshake or a “How’s everything today,” again be polite. 

The change’um process is fraught with back charges, sabotage, bad blood and at least a two shift delay. Although I’ve done this before, it should only be done after much consideration. 

Once the decision has been made to “End the date” DO NOT LOOK BACK!!!! Look what happened to Lot’s wife when she did…no good can come of it. 

The Story: 

I was planning an outage, getting everyone ready to come to the dance, when I got to my sandblaster. I paused. The company I had been using was barley cutting it (let’s call them company X) and they had just lost their Foreman to another company (let’s call this company, company Y). I had another company (Company Z) calling me, asking to give them a chance to do our sandblast. 

The sandblast was a critical path activity in our outage so I had to pick right. 

I researched Company Y & Z, in the end Company Z seemed like they could do the job and was significantly cheaper than Company Y. I had made my decision. Now there was nothing to do now but make my girl feel pretty. 

We had pre-outage meetings; we got to know the Foreman that was going to run the job. We laid out their material lay down spots, sparing no detail including where to park their trucks. We even got a list of the people that were coming to the job and their sizes for their very own outage tee shirts. (Always make the girl feel pretty) 

When the outage started, everything was going according to plan, just like the prom. Contractors, like the limos, showed up on time and delivered their charges. The band began to play, and it was time for the sandblast solo. 

Company Z started the sandblasting on Saturday night at 2:00 am they were supposed to be done around 2:00 pm Sunday afternoon. They seemed to be off to a great start, all the guns were going and I was patting myself on the back for what a great decision I had made. 

Someone commented on one of the blogs and credited it to Reagan “Trust, but verify”. In line with this, nothing makes me more nervous during an outage then when I feel like I’m a genius. As soon as I feel that I know I’m generally missing something. 

So in mid pat, I went in to see how the blasters were doing. After a few hours, around 5:00 am, it was not good. There was no way they were going to finish by 2:00 pm at their current pace. I huddled up with the Foreman and asked what we could do to get back on track. He said they were just getting into it and would be much faster now that everything was rolling. He asked for a few more hours to show me it was all good. 

This is the point of this whole article right here, don’t miss it: 

I had planned, they had promised, none of this mattered at 5:00 am on a Sunday. I had no other sandblasters in my pocket to change them out with….so MAKE THE GIRL FEEL PRETTY. 

I told the Foreman, knock it out make me proud, I’m sure your right and I will be very happy in just a few hours. Off he went floating on air, determined to make me happy. 

Well at 8:00 am, I went back in and although it was better, it still wasn’t good. I called the owner of the company and expressed my dismay, all the while letting him know how much I appreciated his team’s efforts. He sent more men to the plant…supposedly better men, bigger, stronger; it was all going to be OK. 

At 11:00 am I started calling company Y and company X. Each one of them sent a crew into the plant by 6:00 pm. When they arrived, I had the wonderfully fun job of telling company Z they were out. 

There was crying, hand holding, pleading, just like Prom, but they had to go. I gave them my version of the “It’s not you, it’s me” speech and off they went. 

When it was all said and done we finished the sandblast at 2:00 am Sunday night, just 12 hours late which was a miracle. It wound up costing me about $70,000 to get the sandblasting complete; my original budget was $30,000.  This is the cost of picking the wrong date. When I switched my junior prom date, halfway through, the drama was much more, but the end was much better and the only cost was shattering people perceptions.