Boss Life (28 page)

Well, this is why we make a prototype. The best solution would be to make each U out of three pieces, but that would blow the budget. I tell Bob Foote to ship the set to Brand Advantage and let them decide whether it's acceptable or not. I also say that he should ship the table assembled, and build supports under the folded tables to support the weight of the tops during transit.

It being the last day of July, I have our final build-and-ship numbers for the month. Jobs worth $115,337 have been built, a very low number that reflects the lack of incoming orders for the past three months. We shipped a little more than that: $141,659. My accountant says that I'm making a profit when I ship more than I spend each month. I achieved this goal in July, mostly by being very, very careful with cash flow. I've spent only $141,557. Theoretically, I've made a profit of $102. Woohoo! But my cash position continues to deteriorate. In July, I took in $126,489 and spent $141,557. I'm down $15,068 for the month. If I hadn't rolled over the credit card, I would be in worse shape. As it is, I'll have $82,942 in my accounts when August starts tomorrow.

D
ATE
: W
EDNESDAY
, A
UGUST 1
,
2012

B
ANK BALANCE
:
$82
,
941
.
70

C
ASH RELATIVE TO START OF YEAR
(“N
ET
C
ASH
”): -
$54
,
212
.
61

N
EW
-
CONTRACT VALUE
,
YEAR
-
TO
-
DATE
:
$1
,
010
,
615

Goodbye, July, good riddance. Hello, August, please be better. I start the month by distributing the pay stubs to everyone, except me. That task completed, I go out to Henry's school. The summer session is complete, and he's going to be home until September 1. As usual, when I pick him up, he's happy to see me. He really loves the car ride home, bopping to the loud music. I leave him with Nancy and return to work. She still won't leave the house with him. But starting tomorrow, he's got three weeks at a day camp for special needs kids.

It's been a good week for inquiries, fifteen so far. We also get a nice order, for $13,834, from a defense company in the D.C. suburbs. They've been sitting on our proposal since November and today they sent a purchase order, out of the blue.

Thursday I'm up early with Henry. He's awake at dawn, insisting on hearing his favorite Beatles album with the volume all the way up. Nancy and Hugh sleep through the din. I make his breakfast while he carefully listens to each song, loudly inhaling and exhaling in rhythm with the tune. And at track 14, which he doesn't like, he hurls the boom box across his room, then thumps down the stairs. I have his breakfast ready. Eating calms him down. A few minutes later, a van shows up at our door to take him to camp. Whew! Seven hours of peace. He'll be dropped off at home at four p.m.

I zoom over to sales training. Today's session leaves me cold. Bob Sinton is talking about prospecting, the techniques for finding people who might need your product. We don't do this; we wait for potential buyers to come to us. We don't have the resources for any kind of sustained outreach. We're stuck with Google. After I get back to the office, I start thinking about a CRM (customer relationship management) system. Bob's questions last week highlighted a big problem: we have good ways to administer jobs after they're sold, but nothing to track inquiries before we write a quote. I need to come up with one, or we might lose track of a potential buyer. And I want to be able to see what Dan and Nick are doing without having to ask them. I don't want to spend a lot of dough, and I don't want it to be complicated. No new software packages. It needs to be part of our FileMaker database. To save money and to minimize the learning curve, I'll do the programming myself.

This isn't the first time I've done this. In a tiny company like mine, it's up to the owner to invent the way the company operates and to design the systems that keep track of what is happening. Fortunately, I find this to be an interesting challenge. If I had wanted to build only furniture, I could have kept myself very busy, but the company would not have grown. Without a rational way to handle information, we would have descended into permanent chaos.

Thinking about information is different from ordinary work. The challenge is to find good ways, using data, to describe what's happening in the real world. It's aligning the description of the company with the activities of the company. My job as boss is to monitor both of these and to continually modify the description to fit the reality. My employees can't do it—they each work on their piece of the process. I'm the only one who sees everything. I decide what to keep track of, and how to do it.

I have two information systems. First, there's my subjective impressions of the state of the shop, the mood of the workers, the eagerness of the customers, drawn from my observations and conversations. The second is objective, actual data that lives in separate fiefdoms: the accounting system, in QuickBooks; the contract and productions system, in FileMaker; e-mails and customer folders sit on our server; AdWords data lives in the cloud. So do our shared Google Docs spreadsheets, which act as supplementary databases. There are also a bunch of Excel sheets, dating back to 1997, when I first computerized (twelve years after starting the company). None of these subsystems talk to one another. Information passes between them via the people who use it. I'm the only person in the company who knows how it all fits together.

This system is neither optimized nor rational. I have tacked it together over the years, and it has grown as my ability to handle the software has evolved and the computing environment has changed. Back in the mid-1980s, the most sophisticated instrument I had was a calculator. For more than ten years, I kept track of all my jobs with some 3-by-5 cards and a corkboard. Now we're using more than a dozen different software packages. It's been my responsibility to evaluate these, figure out how we will use them, and introduce them to my people. We're too small and poor to have someone below me do this.

I never abandon a program if it's useful. I'm constantly layering new capabilities on top of old ones. Most of the older programs do one or two things very well. There's no urgent need to replace them, so I don't. I just start using newer stuff that does different things. I don't know whether this is a good idea or bad, or whether someone has invented a single program that does everything a small custom woodshop would want (I suspect not). It's just how things have developed. And if it satisfies me, and seems to be working, then we'll continue. There's nobody over me to say otherwise.

I've mastered some programs and know just enough to do simple work in others. FileMaker, where I want to put my new sales tracking system, is a mystery. Our database was written by The Partner's daughter, Sasha, who worked for me from 2003 to 2009. It's a brilliant achievement and vital to our operations. I've been using it for years, but I don't really know how it works. I'm nervous about tinkering with it. What if I inadvertently cripple it while trying to add a feature? Disaster. So I start small. It takes some hours of Googling to even figure out where to begin, how to switch from just using the program to modifying it. Fortunately, FileMaker is designed to be easy to revise. After the first day, I've made some simple changes, like the color of fonts and the location of text boxes. Even after I've done these, the program is still functioning, on my own computer anyway. I check on Dan's and Emma's machines and see that my changes have propagated throughout the network. Cool. I'm in control. Now I can start work on a CRM system.

Later, I'm driving Henry, making a double circumnavigation of Philadelphia, when Peter calls from San Francisco. He's upset. “Something weird happened at work today. My boss called everyone together and told us that the investors don't think that the company is going to succeed.” That's strange. They publish e-books, and unlike many dot-coms, there's an actual revenue model. I ask Peter: “What, aren't they selling anything?” He replies that their only successful book is the one that inspired the founder to create his start-up, ironically titled
Making Money with Your First Start
-
up
. Revenue growth has leveled off and the investors have lost interest. They're going to lay off everyone and just let the site run on autopilot, taking in whatever money it can. Half the workers got canned this morning. The rest will take an immediate 30 percent pay cut and lose their health insurance. They'd like Peter to stay on for a couple of months to make sure the site is operational. He's already got $2,200 saved from his first six weeks working, so he can hang on for a while.

Then the question: “They chose me to stay out of all the others. Should I stay on and finish the job?” Or, I'm thinking, maybe you should come home. He has a month-to-month lease, so he can walk away when he wants. I tell him, “First of all, you don't owe your boss anything. He hasn't been loyal to you, don't waste your loyalty on him. I think they want you to stay because you're the cheapest guy who can do the work. If I was them, that's what I'd do. But forget those assholes. Do you want to come home?” Ummm, no. He's enjoying doing real work and he likes the city. He doesn't say it, but I think that he doesn't want to give up on his new adult life and be a kid again. My advice: “So how did you find this job in the first place? Whatever you did, do it again. Right now. Don't hesitate. You need to look out for yourself first. Keep your head up. If it doesn't work out, come home. You've learned a lot about the work world already. You've got your first shady boss story. But remember, I've got your back. If you need anything, just ask me.”

—

MONDAY
,
AUGUST 6
. During my pre-meeting shop stroll, I find Steve Maturin standing in front of a table that's ready to go into the finishing room. It's got sparkling flame cherry veneer on top, surrounded by a solid cherry edge. The base is mahogany. Wait. We never sell a table with this wood combination. There's no point—they look similar at first glance but have a different texture, so they end up looking a little strange when used together.

I ask Steve what happened. He turns and stares at me, then says, “That's what's on the plans.” Really? I take a look. There's a mock-up image of the table, taken from the initial proposal, with the woods clearly labeled: both top and base are cherry. But the cut list and notes, on the next page, call for mahogany.

I'm pretty sure I know what happened. Andy Stahl, the engineer, makes all our plan sets. He reuses portions of plans from previous projects. He regularly does this—it makes perfect sense—but he's supposed to update all the text with the correct species. This time, he didn't do it. I presume he was in a rush to get a plan sent out to the floor so that the shop guys wouldn't be held up.

When Andy started drawing, back in 1998, we did fifty projects a year. Since then, we've quadrupled that number and added the CNC machine, resulting in even more engineering work. Andy does all this. He's also in charge of ordering all the wood that the shop uses. Is it fair to have one guy try to keep up with that much work? Maybe not. But Andy seems to be keeping pace with the shop, especially since sales have been so slow. I know that errors like this happen, and I haven't seen his workload as a crisis. So I haven't tried to find help for him.

I ask Steve why he didn't catch the discrepancy. He shrugs. I try to control my anger. “You need to be on top of this stuff. It's your job to double-check those plans and make sure that everything makes sense. Andy has a lot on his plate, and there are going to be errors now and then. That's why
you
need to review the plans, to catch those problems and fix them before they get downstream. Is that clear?” He gives a tiny nod. I tell him to make another base. Out of cherry. Even though that's not on the plans.

I return to the office, still furious. That mistake cost at least a thousand dollars. I collect myself and start the meeting. Last week's numbers, for once, were all good. Three new jobs came in, totaling $48,812, from the defense contractor, my dot-com company, and a bank. The last two received our new sales treatment, and it didn't take months to close the deals. We've also had strong inquiries: twenty-three calls and e-mails, a mix of bosses and corporate buyers, the best so far this year. And we received more cash than we spent, despite payroll. Starting balance: $79,021. Income: $39,940. Outflow: $32,040. We're up $7,900 for the week, and I have $86,921 on hand. I'm still down more than $50,000 since January, but for once, all indicators are positive.

To close, I recap the error at Steve's bench and make a plea to stay alert for inconsistencies in the plans. “I think that we're going to get busier soon,” I say hopefully. “Everyone has to pay attention to what they're doing. Look at the plans and check that the woods match what's on the first page. If something seems odd, speak up. Tell Steve, or tell me, if he's not around. Errors are going to kill us, so let's sniff them out before we build the wrong thing. OK, does anybody have anything to add?” To my surprise, Steve speaks up.

“We wouldn't be having these problems if Andy didn't send out so many fucked-up plans.”

Stunned silence from everyone. Steve never addresses the group meetings unless I ask him a question. We all wait for Steve to clarify this statement, but he says nothing more. He's completed what he considers to be a useful contribution.

Andy's face is turning red. Uh-oh. Andy is a very calm, courteous guy, until the very rare occasion when he gets angry. Then it's an instant transformation into a volcano of rage. And there he goes. He's up and shouting at Steve, who gives it right back. The rest of the crew is watching this exchange with interest. This is even better than the donuts. I am appalled. I hate shouting, and I try to never do it myself. And I've never seen two of my people fighting, ever.

I intercede. “Hold it, hold it, hold it! This is not the way to solve this. Andy, clearly you made a mistake. Apologize. Steve, you should have caught the error. Next time, check with Andy to find out what is correct. The rest of you, this is not the way we interact with one another. When we have problems, I want to concentrate on fixing them, not blaming one another.” I look at Steve and Andy. They've both calmed down and look embarrassed. Should I make them apologize and shake hands? Can I turn this into an uplifting moment of renewed brotherhood? Probably not. “OK, time to get back to work. That's the meeting.”

I watch Steve walk away, then stop to see Andy, since his office is next to mine. “Are you OK?” He nods, then apologizes. “I shouldn't have done that. I don't know what comes over me. OK, I missed the mahogany notes when I pasted the cut list. He should have seen it.” I ask him if his workload is too much, but he says he can handle it. Now what? I can take him at his word or initiate a giant effort to increase our engineering capacity. Hire a trainee? Except Andy is the only one who knows how to do the drawings and program the CNC machine, and he's already overloaded, or close to it. Will the workload get back to normal, or shrink even more? Then what will I do? I can't see how instant action would make my life better, so I decide to trust Andy's judgment and do nothing.