When Sharon cried wolf

Every workplace has one person who is a constant stream of complaints, it’s too hot, too cold, too noisy. Nothing is ever right and it’s only human nature that we tend to block these out, rather like the story ‘the boy who cried wolf’.

So when Sharon (anonymised) came to me and told me that her wrist hurt my face may have said that I was deeply concerned but inside I was wondering how to get the grime off my barbecue griddle.

I listened as Sharon told me how she was having to click 18 times to produce 1 invoice. I couldn’t see the problem, after all the system hadn’t changed. In the end I asked her to take me to her workstation and show me and sure enough she was clicking a huge amount of times whilst making no input or choices that I could see. I asked if the number of invoices had changed recently and it turned out that the company had started taking on many more smaller clients and so the number produced had rocketed from 50 a month to around 300 and they all got done during one week. No wonder her hand hurt!

So I rang the guys at the software company and asked if there was anything they could do. The voice down the phone sounded deeply concerned but I knew that at the other end he was googling ways to clean barbecue griddles. I realised that the only way it had become real for me was when I actually saw the operation in action and I needed to find a way for them to see it but, as the developers were in York and my client in Bournemouth, and because developers don’t like to travel (at least not during daylight) I was a bit stuck.

Then it occurred to me that if I videoed Sharon carrying out the operation I could send it to the developer guys and it may help them to see the issue. Being a camera geek I set up my DSLR on a tripod (using a 38 -150 lens if you’re interested) and got Sharon to run through the process, describing what she was doing whilst I recorded it. I packaged it up and then sent it off to York with a recommendation of brillo pads.

Two days later the guys came back to me with a brilliant 1 button solution that automatically accepted default choices that Sharon always made and reduced the amount of stress her wrist was feeling immensely. I think that they appreciated the fact that we’d made an effort to show them what was happening rather than just having a good old moan.

When I thought about it later I realised that sometimes, people might cry wolf a lot, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a wolf. At the same time it’s important to use new technology wherever we can to illustrate our point and make issues real for people who may be able to help.

In the future I’ll use this to ensure that I actually listen to the root cause of what people are saying rather than just the tone and I’ll always go and have a look for myself because seeing really is believing. Of course being a geek I’ll make sure that I keep abreast of new technology but now I’ll ensure that I look for ways to use it in a practical way in the workplace.