Hannes between tastes and pleasures of the palate
The intensified marketing and acquisition efforts in Hannes' company are beginning to bear fruit. Not that the order situation has improved noticeably or that the sales figures are shooting through the roof. It is the interest of potential customers that has increased.
This is reported on the one hand by the busy IT boss based on the Monitoring studies on the clicks of the animated company video on Youtube. From 15 clicks in the past four weeks, the rate of visits in the current month, which is only halfway through, has increased to an unexplainable but fabulous 258 clicks, of which around 240 of the IP addresses come from eastern Russian and Chinese territory. "All highpotentials," trumpets the boss. On the other hand - and that's quite a size - the organized company tours followed by drinks and appetizers are extremely popular.
The wine selection Organizational
Until now, these visits have been carried out "by the way". Whoever invites organizes. Organized means: He makes sandwiches in homeor child labor and procures wine and non-alcoholic within the framework of the self-shrinking budgets in the common wholesalemarket. "The main thing is alcohol" comes before "full-bodied, fruity palate with a long-lasting, earthy finish" when it comes to wine selection.
Yesterday evening was another such occasion. A division from Hannes' production department organized a tour for guests and potential customers, followed by a stand-up drink. The CEO is still in the office, sees the group, joins them. After all, it's "his" company and a little networking never hurts.
Basically, the boss is already slightly sour because he knew nothing about the visit. The wine selection then catapults his Stimmung completely into the cellar. As the owner of his own private micro winery in Tuscany, he knows how to appreciate a fine dropzen. During the event, he asks the responsible area manager who would buy such "vinegar-like waste oil" in the first place. The mocked head of department says laconically, "where there's no budget, there's no fruity finish", and anyway: "Somewhere in the cellar there would have been better wine, but no one here has a key to it".
Now the situation is definitely escalating. In contrast, the self-inflicted production downtimes and over five percent rejects in the delivery to the last major customer were "peanuts" and more quickly dismissed with "That can happen". But this, a cheap wine for good customers and a cellar without a key - no, this is too much for the boss.
The responsible person
The CEO summons Hannes to his office. Hannes rejects the responsibility. After all, he is not responsible for the physical well-being of the customers, but for the quality of his products in the factory. The boss of the staff restaurant, who is also responsible for the physical well-being ex officio, has to be called in here.
On the other hand, the responsibility also lies with the inviting division manager. He would have had the possibility to examine the wine with nose and palate beforehand. But there is no time for that.
The CEO and Hannes stand together at the flipchart and draw the lines of responsibility - both with the clear goal in mind that their own name is not at the end of the line. After about an hour of discussion, Hannes makes a motion. They should regulate the catering after the site visits in a fundamental way and put this order in the organization chart. They fetch the organisation chart and get lost in the confusion of the subordination and matrix lines.
To cut a long story short - Hannes is a manager and makes decisions. He formulates an official request that this job be given to the head of working time control in HR. The reasoning behind this is that she is one of the few people capable of creating and, above all, monitoring the finest mathematical formulas. Admittedly, this is not about understepping working hours and overstretching project cost centers to three decimal places. It is about monitoring the European Regulation on the consumption of alcohol in the workplace. This stipulates that at least 18 percent of the quantity of drinks offered must be served in clearly declared, non-alcoholic seeds. And this can be relevant for an odd amount of wine bottles up to the third digit behind the decimal point.
The two gentlemen now confidently open a wine from the CEO's private fridge and reward themselves for their decisivenessfreedom in the form of a noble grape juice from Toscana...
