Save the Soap!

This may seem like an out of place article for me, but I have this habit of analyzing things around me and attempting to find a way to improve them. Optimize, if you will. I do this all day at work, with computer issues and office policy. I also tend to do the same with things and even people in my life. (I have yet to break the "social interactions of people" code, but I will.) Like most of you out there, I hate wasting money. I'd much rather spend my money on what I want, not on what I deem as waste.

 

I noticed that the soap always has that little left over piece that always ends up going down the drain, or accumulating in the soap dish, making a mess. Nothing new here, many of you may have already noticed this, and dealt with it in your own way, but here's what I do.

Once the soap gets to be a smaller size, you can "glue" it to a new soap bar. To do this, I've noticed it works better when the old soap piece is still a useable size and not wait until it's a bunch of little chunks.

Fit the two together as closely as possible. Obviously, this works best for curved bars, but play around with it until you find the best fit. Now suds up the two pieces with them in place. (The more suds lathered up, the better.)

This will dry and the two pieces will be glued in place, so you never waste a piece of soap again. Now, there are a few more tactics to this trick. Once you have the two pieces suds up, use your finger to rub the suds on the edge of the smaller piece of soap until it smooth’s against the larger. If your old soap breaks before you get to combine it, or while attempting to combine it, just “glue” these two pieces in the same way.

A little excessive maybe, but then I hate inefficacy and waste. As I said before, many of you may have your own ideas on this. If so, or on any related topics, I’d love to hear them. Please leave your feedback in the comments below. 

Poor Economy and the Service Industry.

This economy has hit many sectors pretty hard. I'm constantly hearing about friends getting laid off from their jobs, friends of friends that got fired, significant others out of work, and employees getting no hours at an hourly job.

Today, we had to let a coworker go in my department. Not just a coworker, but a friend. Now, I know times are tough and this recession is making it difficult for most companies to get by, but in the service industry, "service" is key. If you don't offer the "service" to the client that they expect, you don't have a client.

The company I work for, and more specifically the department, offers IT technical support both on-site and remotely. Our client's are far from computer literate and take a great deal of hand holding to get through the simplest of tasks.

Today, the company had no choice in letting this coworker go. We are feeling the economical crunch, this employee was a recent hire, and the availability was not there. I understand these reasons, and agree that there was no other choice as of today. Having said that, I believe this could have been avoided if it was addressed before today.

As I said before, we offer on-site and remote tech support. When we are not on-site or billing for remote support, we are in the red. We have been slow the last few months, but we've kept our head above the water longer than most. This means we had time to better asess the situation and prepare for this. We knew it could happen, because it was happening all around us. I believe management completely dropped the ball. Rather than being proactive and calling clients to see how everything was going and if there was any service we might provide, they hoped for business to pick up. Hope is good, but it doesn't pay the bills.

Now, you may think that management would let the worst employee or the over paid employee go. Not in this case. This employee was neither of those and was in fact willing to work after hours, weekends, and showed a level of dedication that even management lacks. This employee could show the utmost level of patience with the clients, while completing other tasks. You never had to ask twice when you needed a task done, the clients never felt talked down to, and this individual also came up with ideas to improve and organize the company; thus saving money in a more substantial way than laying off a part time employee.

I guess I'm just ranting here, but I was hired at this company to turn things around. And now that we finally have most of the holes filled, like building a compitent staff, management turns around and starts doing things the old way. How can you fix something when the "powers that be" wont let you?

In the IT service industry, you have to keep on top of things. Otherwise, you get left behind. An IT company cannot run like it did 5 years ago (it can't even run like it did 2 years ago). If management doesn't get on the ball, we will be left behind.