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The New Guy
by: Robert Stalnaker
Okay... you walk into work on Monday morning, the weather is nice, not too much traffic on the drive, the ASM’s are sitting at their desks drinking coffee, a couple of Techs are just walking in, and you notice that it is fifteen minutes later than they SHOULD be just walking in, so you make a couple of joking comments about their tardiness, then you head to your office. What a surprise! There’s the boss, and your boss’s boss, and some other person sitting at your desk talking, all relaxed and joking over coffee.
This is usually not a good sign, so you get a little nervous. You quickly remember your first day on this job. You had already come in for the interviews, testing, drug screen, more interviews, and then you remember that Monday morning when they had you come to the dealership early so they could show you around. In fact, they had you sit in that same chair, drinking coffee when the “current” manager came into work. They introduced you to the “current” manager, and informed them that NOW they were the “previous” manager, and you were “The New Guy”.
They assured the “previous” manager that everything was okay, and that they had a spot for him as soon as he had you settled into the new job. One and a half days later, you find out that the other “spot” that they had for him didn’t fit his aptitude, or financial needs, so he just quit.
Remembering all of this, you walk into the office, say your hellos, shake hands with the BIG boss, and don’t even make eye contact with the “other” guy. Your boss asks you how you think things are going, and asks what your plan is to fix the slow down, or drop off, or unnecessary increase, or whatever other problem exists that you have been too busy to focus on, because you were busy focusing on other stuff. Your answer to what your plan is, goes something like: “Well we are just going to keep after ‘em’ or, “I’m just going to get their heads back in the game”, or “We’ve been on top of that already”, or what you really feel like saying is: “Oh, you noticed that huh? I guess it’s pretty hard to pay attention to the REAL problems in running a business in the REAL world when all you ever do is look at reports and talk to a couple of people who you just HAPPEN to remember their names, once every other month when you come back here!!!”
You don’t really say what you want, but after you give your cliché answer, the boss surprises you with a simple question; “What does that mean?” and now you are stumped. Now all you can really say is, “Well, Boss, I don’t have a plan. Everything has been going along pretty steady, and you’ve never asked about this stuff before, so I figured it wasn’t that big of a deal, so I never worried about it either. I’ve been staying busy with ‘Tech of the Month’ for morale, policy adjustment control, mailing out coupons, handling mad customers, going to lunch with happy customers, checking on broken equipment, reordering new tools, fighting with the parts department over maintenance prices, and arguing with the accounting office about how much of the billboard ads I get charged for.” The boss takes all this in, looks at his boss, and the other guy, and tells you how much he appreciates all your hard work, and says that he understands how busy you have been, because Lord knows how hard it is to pack two hours worth of work into a six hour day, and just when you are starting to digest this last comment, he ends the remark with, “Let me just introduce you to your REPLACEMENT”.
Actually, you aren’t very surprised by this, to be honest. You had kind of been wondering in the back of your mind how long this gravy train would continue.
You come in when you want, leave when you want, get along with everyone, hardly ever have disagreements with the employees, have a good relationship with most of the people in the other departments; in fact, you actually felt pretty secure as if you were a true value to the organization. But you knew somewhere in the dim recesses of your mind that you were missing something; what was it?... oh yeah, that’s what it is: DRIVE; the drive to take your department to the next level, the drive to try something new, the drive to increase market share, the drive to increase profitability more than the status quo, the drive to increase your employee’s productivity and their paychecks more than enough to keep up with inflation, the DRIVE to GROW your business. But you really did not have any new ideas on how to do this, nothing that was a quick fix anyway; and, quite frankly, you were just not energetic enough to start to work that hard, because up until this point, no one really expected you to.
While you are mulling this over, your boss asks you to meet the new guy, and for the first time, you turn to meet him. Now you are surprised. You look in to the face of the new guy and realize that it really isn’t a new guy after all. It is a more energetic, more motivated, more loyal, more dedicated version of YOU!! Your boss tells you that the new guy and he have been talking for some time, and he really listens. He has ideas, he does research, he shops the market, he motivates employees, he has VISION for the future, and the boss thinks that this new guy is really what this store needs to get the kick in the pants that it really needs. You are shocked and amazed, how can this be happening? You know everything that this new guy does, you have as much experience as this new guy, you CAN have as much drive as this new guy... the new guy... the new guy...
The alarm goes off, and you wake up. Five thirty in the morning, and this time you decide not to hit the snooze alarm eleven times like you usually do. THIS time you decide to get out of bed, get ready for work, and you mean REALLY get ready for work, and make sure that the nightmare that you just had doesn’t come true.
How many of us fall into this trap? I feel that the hardest time to gain relative improvement is when you don’t think you need to improve. Mr. Moore used to say: “If you’re just coasting, you’re slowing down”, and I really believe it. My challenge to you is: Go to work, look over your potential, look over your qualifications, and FIRE yourself, interview some “new guys”, and find someone that can do a better job than you. After you have found one to hire, make a list of the new tasks that you want the “new guy” to accomplish, and set him or her on the way to success. Then go talk to your boss. Tell them what you are planning, ask for input, and LISTEN!! I can promise you that if you don’t fire yourself, and find someone new, someone else will eventually do it for you, and it is much more rewarding if you do it first. One more thing I might add is, that when you are talking to your boss, you might leave out the part about talking to yourself, especially if it got into a heated argument (with yourself)...just to be safe.
Good luck; and good success!!
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