6 replies to this topic

[Lynx42]

Them: Hey!  We will pay you to tell us what to do with this SQF stuff.  

Me: Okay. (studies really hard, passes some classes/tests) 

Me: All right, we need to do this, then do this, then do this. (provides the SQF code they need to follow and some suggestions). 

Them: OK! When should we have this done by? 

Me: xxx (gives a reasonable target date and/or time).

Me: (closer to the target date and/or time) Hey, just a reminder this needs to be completed by xxx. 

Them:  Okay, I'm on it (or alternatively: crickets chirping quietly in the distance).

Me: Do you have any questions?  

Them: Nope (or alternatively crickets: chirping quietly in the distance).

Me: (on due date): Okay, today's the day send me what you've got. 

Them: Here you go! (Sends me the exact same document I sent them hours, days, weeks ago)

Me: Um...  This is what I sent you, can you please send me the updated version? 

Choose one:

Them: Well, I thought I just had to review it and it looks good (ignoring all the stuff I had highlighted that needed to be updated, verified, or added). 

Them: I thought we already had something like this done.  No, I don't know where it is. 

Them: I (totally ignoring all previous messages) forgot to do it or couldn't find it. 

 

How do you deal with people who will not do tasks assigned to them unless you are sitting there watching them do it, or have it pulled up so they can tell you what they want as you type it in and format it???  Dude, you could have done this is less time yourself and we wouldn't be wasting time in a meeting.    

 

This is more a rhetorical question as I am beyond frustrated sometimes and I'm changing my email signature to SQF Practitioner/Management Babysitter.  

 

[nwilson]

Yep, I've been in the same spot.  Had to pin people together and challenge them to get any progress, by essentially making it a competition that was publicly presented at manager meetings.  I would provide charts with percentage of completion on each department when reviews/updates were needed.  My VP would be in those meetings and was a fire cracker for getting things done, would micro manage you to death until you complied and got it done. May not work in every organization, however did in a prior company with a larger staff.  When folks got the point that I would present their shortcomings in an objective format I gained some traction.  

 

So many facepalm moments and I can relate to this entire scenario.  

Edited by nwilson, 07 February 2025 - 12:34 AM.

[SQFconsultant]

I take it you are employed by the same company that the ones you are attempting to extract information from... most certainly feel for you if that is the case.

 

Our situation is in effect the same, however we get what we want abd by such and such a date or it is the company ownership that suffers a major loss of $$$ out of what we were paid for their project and they must re-set the start date.

 

Frankly, the people that don't deliver to us by our cut off date (so we can begin their project on time according to a pre set date) may very well be of the same positions that you have to deal with... however they don't have to deal with us when the owner suffers a cancelation fee - they have to deal with their ownership.

 

Having this understanding up front during a zoom or other conference meeting with ownership and the ones that will be providing information, video. Etc to us and causing negative harm to ownship is paramount.

 

If you are an employee I would suggest working this out with ownership making the offending employees..  1. Having to tell ownership why they could not get on the team and having ownership make the offending employees pay for not doing what they were supposed to do.. demotions I have seen, etc with this bring noted upfront... I have also seen people get fired.

 

The seriousness to the project at hand must be applied in no uncertain terms and it seems to work (at least for us) 100% of the time.

Edited by SQFconsultant, 07 February 2025 - 12:57 AM.

[SQFconsultant]

Actually, I take that back..  we have had 2 projects that failed to fulfill agreements with us and both lost $$$ butcwere completed some months later with the other part credited to the future. 

Edited by SQFconsultant, 07 February 2025 - 01:04 AM.

[kingstudruler1]

Im not sure what you situation is.   However, sometimes handing out / over tasks (while it seams logicaly to us) doesnt make sense. 

 

The people that you are delegating to may not have any clue what is needed or how to do it.   Let alone the issue of time and the belief / feeling that it is your job and not thiers to complete the project.  

 

I was hired to fix three newly acquired facilities that could not make advancements of becoming GFSI certified.   The food safety manager would read code, tell them to create X.  They would turn in X.   The food safety manager would say X is not good enough.   They all got frustrated, wanted to fire each other, and  made no progress.   

 

The people that were expected to complete these task had NO idea what they were doing.   I really did have to sit with them and mentor, tech, explain,etc.   

 

Maybe your people have the neccesary skills and knowledge.   However, in general we need to be aware of the audience.   

[Lynx42]

This is all internal stuff.  Some from people who have worked here (in food warehousing) for over 15 years although SQF is new.  I've been with the company a while, but only 18 months on the food side.

 

I wrote an SOP to comply with SQF based on what we did at the other warehouse and gave it to a manager.  He was supposed to look it over, verify it was accurate, make sure it was what they were doing or updating staff on any changes to their procedure.  I highlighted a bunch of stuff I wasn't sure on or I thought should be different for the food side, but being new to food, wasn't sure.  Got the same document back with a "Looks good, " so I verbally asked about some of the specific things I had highlighted and guess what?  I right about me missing a bunch of steps.  So I gave it back and asked him to check with the people who did the task and correct it.  He printed it out and handwrote notes then gave that back to me.  Fine, whatever, typed up his changes, gave it back for him to review and 2 days later "looks good."  Great, please make sure everyone who does this task knows about the changes and the SQF requirements.  A couple months later I'm watching people do the job and notice they do something different so I ask about it and am told, "this is always how we've done it. No one told us of any changes."  Go back to the manager and yeah, it should say this instead of that (staff was doing it correctly, it was written wrong).  Well why didn't you say something when we were first doing this and how did no one at the point-of-use know anything was even written up about this???  

 

Another point of contention is the corrective action log.  We review it every month and every month I remind them to close out open items or to update why there is a delay.  I send out reminders a week before the management meeting to review the log and make sure it's updated.  One of our audit windows starts on Monday and after January's monthly meeting, the same 3 items from December and one from November are still open with nothing but the original notes (the Nov one has notes that were added in Dec) and only 2 items are on there for January (no notes) and the 2 other things I mentioned needed to be added (door gap an employee reported and missing records on the sanitation log) are still missing.  I was specifically told I was not to do anything with the corrective action log except review it because it was management responsibility (don't let them bully you into doing their job) and 18 months later we are still having the same issues over and over, so now we have a meeting this afternoon and guess who will be typing in everything while the 2 people responsible for this sites logs spend more time on their phones than paying attention?  Their boss sits in on the meetings and usually sighs heavily, but won't outright tell them to fill it out themselves or ban phones from meetings.  

 

Staff and maintenance come to me with some issues because they know I will follow through and bug managers until it is done or tell me it's not gonna happen.  For 2 of the sites it's usually me sitting at their desk staring at them until they send an email or make a call.  

 

The first example is when I first wished I had taken the severance package and moved on when changes were made, the last is just one of the things I'm trying to finish cleaning up before our audit window.  Crossing my fingers this year isn't like last year where all 5 buildings were audited in the first week.

 

Sorry for all the negativity, but I had to vent some frustrations and I don't personally know anyone outside my company that works in food so they just don't get it.    

[TimG]

Quality is a guard dog. You are guarding your customers and consumers from low quality or dangerous products. You are guarding your company from the litigation or bad reputation resulting from quality issues or recalls. Not to be overly dramatic, but you are also guarding that nice old lady or innocent young kid from dying from consuming adulterated food.

What kind of guard dog has your company set you up to be? What avenues of warning (bark) and escalation (bite) are available to you? At the end of the day, you could be the most loyal goodest boy ever, but if your bark can't be followed up with some bite (doesn't have to be you, but SOMEONE has to be able to bite), it's going to be hard to do your job.

 

It's Friday, I am waxing poetic.