I have observed the handling of visitors, deliveries, meeting rooms, and security in offices, and I have noticed that certain processes rely heavily on paperwork, Excel sheets, and “ask at reception.”
What workplace process have you observed that badly needs upgrading?
We have been able to break away from the old-fashioned paper visitor check-in book.
Actually, I had previously thought that a digital visitor system was merely an advancement in technology for the manual process; however, the change was so drastic.
The benefit we got out of not having to physically keep track of vendors, visitor badges, and employee check-ins in multiple locations was unbelievable.
I wonder how many of your sites have been able to go digital?
My friend was sharing with me the story of his discussion held last Monday.
The whole discussion took nearly an hour, during which they discussed the same issue. Some made some recommendations; all agreed on what to do and decided to “work on it.”
The discussion came to an end.
And I asked him what followed.
He replied: “Nothing!”
It seems like Monday has come around again, and the problem remains the same 😂
At this stage, I am now convinced that some discussions are just talks about another discussion.
Does your office have meetings like this too?
For a long time, I thought the dangerous employee is the one who avoids work.
Turns out, I'm wrong. The worst employee is the one who answers all questions.
Report due? Ask them.
Angry client? Ask them.
The system crashes? Ask them.
Staff quits? They will fill in for them.
Initially, everybody calls them a "rockstar."
After one year, the rockstar is exhausted. The vacation gets postponed — "Only you know how this system works." Promotions get postponed too, as there is no replacement for them.
Eventually, the rockstar leaves.
And then the company learns the truth: he wasn't a rockstar. He was duct tape to hold up systems that no one cared about.
The point is that this kind of behavior is highly appreciated in many companies. Employees are praised but quietly burnt out.
Good employees don't make themselves irreplaceable.
Good employees make themselves replaceable, through creating systems not requiring their personal presence.
Everything else doesn't scale well.
There is always a policy that makes everyone roll their eyes. It’s not hard, it’s just completely pointlessly stupid!
What’s yours?
When I got my first job, I believed that all that mattered was working hard.
So I accepted every task that was assigned to me. Worked overtime. Resolved any issues that came up. Did not complain once.
A year later, it turned out to be something else.
Those who had better chances were not always the most hardworking ones; they were the ones who voiced their opinions during the meeting, established connections with other departments, and made sure that everyone knew about the work they have done.
It was not that I went unnoticed because I did bad work.
It was simply because nobody knew about the work I did.
Too busy trying to do good work, I totally neglected its communication aspect.
I believe in the value of results, but I have found out that results often need to be explained.
What mistake would you have avoided at the very beginning of your career?
After five minutes, they delete it and pretend nothing ever happened.
Would you:
Act like you didn’t see it?
Immediately start looking for a new job?
Straight out ask them?
Wait and see?
What would you actually do?
I found some latest studies that have reported a decline in some cognitive abilities, like reading comprehension, attention, and numeracy in young generations compared to older ones.
They believe that this is due to increased screen time, reduced deep reading and effects of the pandemic on education. But they also claim that this does not automatically mean that the generation Z is less intelligent.
So, what is your opinion?
Are you a teacher? Do you notice any difference?
Do you belong to generation Z? Do you think these studies are unfair?
Are you an employer? Did you observe any change in skills at the workplace?
I am more concerned about real-life experiences than news.
I was speaking to a friend who informed me that his/her office has a policy where people working there are not allowed to come into the office from the main gate after 9 AM. Instead, they have to go around the whole office building to use the “late entry” gate, despite being only 2 minutes late.
This made me think…
What is the strangest, funniest, or most annoying workplace rule that you know of?
Most likely, mine will be signing the same registry multiple times on the same day for different departments.
Does it really enhance security or makes things more difficult?
I was speaking to a friend who informed me that his/her office has a policy where people working there are not allowed to come into the office from the main gate after 9 AM. Instead, they have to go around the whole office building to use the “late entry” gate, despite being only 2 minutes late.
This made me think…
What is the strangest, funniest, or most annoying workplace rule that you know of?
Most likely, mine will be signing the same registry multiple times on the same day for different departments.
Does it really enhance security or makes things more difficult?
I've been experimenting with AI automation over the last few months, and one thing surprised me.
Building the automation is often the easiest part. Understanding the client's workflow, handling edge cases, fixing unexpected issues, and maintaining everything takes much more time than I expected.
I'm curious how others here are handling this.
I'd love to learn from people who are already working with AI automation clients.
I've been experimenting with AI automation over the last few months, and one thing surprised me.
Building the automation is often the easiest part. Understanding the client's workflow, handling edge cases, fixing unexpected issues, and maintaining everything takes much more time than I expected.
I'm curious how others here are handling this.
I'd love to learn from people who are already working with AI automation clients.
Here's an observation that I made over the course of the past year.
It seems like the people who benefited the most from AI weren't necessarily developers and prompt engineers. Instead, they were people who asked themselves, "What's the most repetitive task that I perform on a daily basis?"
Some folks automated their meetings notes. Some created an end-to-end research pipeline. And some stopped writing the same emails over and over again.
This isn't fancy, but 30-60 minutes per day saved add up to hundreds of hours per year.
So, what's your repetitive task that you would like AI to eliminate for you entirely?
There was a customer who was willing to purchase, but they had requirements which would have led us down the wrong path.
We said no.
Rather than catering to one customer, we made changes that were beneficial to everyone. Support tickets decreased, onboarding was simplified, and sales became easier.
Lesson learned from this experience is this:
Not all customers are worth chasing. Sometimes the best way to grow is by protecting your focus.
There was a customer who was willing to purchase, but they had requirements which would have led us down the wrong path.
We said no.
Rather than catering to one customer, we made changes that were beneficial to everyone. Support tickets decreased, onboarding was simplified, and sales became easier.
Lesson learned from this experience is this:
Not all customers are worth chasing. Sometimes the best way to grow is by protecting your focus.
For years, every Monday meeting at our company started the same way:
"How do we grow faster?"
Get more leads.
Run more ads.
Add more features.
Do more outreach.
But nothing ever happened.
One week we asked ourselves a different question.
"What would fail if we got 100 new customers to sign up tomorrow?"
This was scary.
Customer support wouldn't be able to handle the load.
We did not document our onboarding process.
One employee ran three critical processes that no one else knew how to do.
Decisions were made based on outdated spreadsheets.
We weren't facing a growth problem.
We had an operations problem.
For a month we focused very little on marketing.
We documented our processes.
Automated the repetition.
Determined who is responsible for each recurring task.
Developed SOPs.
Eliminated bottlenecks.
Interestingly enough, growing the company became much easier since then.
It reminded me of something I see again and again:
Founders believe they are scaling their business.
In reality, they are just increasing the rate of chaos in their organization.
So I want to know:
What's one internal process you ignored for too long that eventually came back to hurt your business?
I'm interested in the mistakes, not the success stories.