092 Regimentation Not

You Can't Regiment People!

As a boss, I was always disappointed when staff members did not follow the party line and would mess up.

We allowed quite a bit of variety but did not tolerate rudeness, incorrect information, or bad errors. One thing suggested by the more obsessive of us was a standard spiel that each person would use verbatim in various situations.

Needless to say, that did not work!

Now retired from my job a library director, I still enjoy watching and evaluating people in public-service jobs.

My husband Harry and I frequently eat subs from the Subway franchises. [Before I proceed further, I should state that the Winchester Subways seem to be well-managed, which gives me a good comparison as we visit other Subways around the country.]

Making subway after subway must be mind numbing, but should a manager hire a person with NO short-term memory:

   Me, "Two 12-inch honey oat buns, please."

   Subway person, "What kind?"

   "Honey oat."

Subway person then removed 1 six-inch honey oat bun from the case. There did not seem to be a hearing issue, and the rest of the construction of two subs followed a similar pattern. I caught on--when her hand hovered near the correct ingredient, I would quickly name it and so occasionally, I did not have to repeat the ingredient several times.

I can tell there is a standard for making Subway sandwiches. I have witnessed a few training sessions, in fact. The amount of each ingredient that workers are supposed to put on a sandwich seems pretty strictly defined. With sliced meat and cheese, there is little deviation.

Harry gets tuna fish most often on his sub. It is my favorite measure of quantity control. The standard appears to be four scoops of a small ice-cream-type scooper with each scoop carefully leveled by the edge of the container. 

I swear one shop along the Interstate substituted an even smaller scoop for the tuna. Some service folks at Interstate restaurants and gas stops know that you are passing through and don't seem to worry too much about customer service. There has to be really good owners and managers to find good service at such shops.

Back to the scooped tuna, my reactions as I watch the tuna get scooped vary:

   "Damn, they follow the training." This usually happens about 50 percent of the time.

   "Wow, that's some generous scoops--no leveling the scoop!" Then I wonder if they are deliberately ignoring the training because they disagree with the amount; their manager told them to give more (I doubt that); are mad at their manager; or no one can tell them how to operate. Or do they even remember the training? Did they have training?

Hey, you have to think about something during all that assembling!

We will keep on traveling and eating Subway, and I will continue to enjoy watching sandwich assemblers exert their creativity on the job!

Trish