Hey, all; Happy and Healthy Friday –
For around a year now, our backlog of calls from people wanting to apply and/or renew for our service had been consistently hovering in the 150 to 200 range. This was largely due not only to the pandemic changing up our booking system from what it’s been for nearly a decade, now, but also simply because we as a whole weren’t advocating enough manpower to it on a daily basis. Well, around a month ago, the muse of “Duh-doy” finally managed to reach our higher-ups, and they figured out that maybe the best solution was to, get ready for this: Add another person on to the log for returning calls! I know! Crazy, right?! Well, to be fair, there were a few other smaller adjustments to be made here and there, but that was the gist of it.
Fast forward to last week: The system seems to be working; our numbers are hovering close to a steady 30 in the log with a potential to drop. Seeing this, I must shamefacedly admit that I, as one of those regularly in charge of clearing the log, got a bit cocky; and didn’t work as fast or as efficiently as I could have. But hell, the numbers didn’t lie, right? Another week or two, and maybe we could even cut back the number of people on the log to what it was before. Well, Monday morning, I get a frantic text from our Assistant Manager: We’re down four coordinators (people who do the appointments) and two Administrators. (people who schedule the appointments) That alone would suck enough but, as luck would have it, that was also the day that our manager had a day off. Thus, the Assistant Manager and I, in addition to nominally being in charge of the regular office upkeep, now had several other balls in the air to juggle in terms of making and taking appointments.
Well, needless to say, by lunch, our numbers were back up past 100. We were able to whittle them down a bit but, well, we had a few more absences during the week , so by the end, it’s just come down to keeping our heads above water. In truth, I’m not even mad about our manpower issue. I passed being mad about that years ago; point-of-fact. We’ve all long since come to accept that there will never be any more than the exact number of people it takes to keep the office running, give or take a Temp or two. Thus, no matter how quickly, or how efficently we get our work done, we know in the back of our minds that all it will ever take is one or two bad days to send us shrieking back to square one. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some 90 people who are suddenly very interested in talking to me.
As ever, have a safe and productive rest of the day, safe trip home, if out, and great weekend. And remember: It just takes one.