For Thursday, June 8, 2000                                        Drummer Column, Gibbs, 737 words

 

 

High inventory

 

     Three women applied for the same job as plant manager at Do Right Fuels, the Gas-To-Liquid refinery in the fictitious town of Propicia. The applicants -- Robin Banks, Barb Wyer, and Sharon Guys -- were all professionals with prior experience at other GTL plants around the world.

     The owner of  Do Right Fuels, Willie Dooright, needed only one plant manager to replace the one he'd flown in to fire for being lackluster. However, Willie was impressed with all the applicants' resumes. With the possibility of expanding his operation once sulfur-free diesel became popular, he decided to give them all a try.

     He put Robin in charge of feedstock procurement, Barb in charge of syngas production, and Sharon in charge of sales. "Do things right, ladies," said Willie. "Make this company grow. Now I have to go." With that, Willie flew his Lear back to his regular duties as CEO of a large fiber-optic concern on the far side of the country. The women were left completely in charge of the operation.

     Robin arrived at work on Monday, put her lunch and coat on her desk, and called a meeting to introduce herself to her staff of 30 engineers, geologists, field agents, accountants, secretaries. She told a few stories about her past and said she was happy to be there. Robin then spent the day with her hands behind her back, walking the plant. She inspected holding tanks, pipelines, reactors, distillers, wax and naphtha storage facilities.

     She invited employees to walk with her, picking up new ones along the way and releasing others to go back to work. She asked them a couple of questions about plant, like what works and what doesn't? Mostly she asked about their families, their hobbies. She learned about the plant softball team and the birthday party coming up for Ralph in the lab. She learned that Edith, her secretary, had twin sons living in Kansas City. One of them raised bloodhounds. She learned that the employees liked Mr. Dooright. He was generous at Christmas. Robin took the jokes about her name with a laugh.

     Barb came to work on Monday carrying boxes of files and books. She called in her secretary, Anne, and together they spent the morning organizing Barb's new office. She lined her bookshelves with reference books, put her files in order, personalized her computer desktop, filled her speed-dialer with important numbers, and hung a few pictures of mountain tops. Barb then took Anne to breakfast. That afternoon Barb called a meeting and introduced herself to her staff of 30 engineers, scientists, mechanics, supervisors, laborers. She said she was happy to be there, and expected them to do their best. She ticked off a series of meetings she had planned over the next week with each division leader, advised them that her door was always open, then excused herself as having a lot of catching up to do. She gave a quick, tight-lipped grin to a joke about her name, then stayed well into the night reading plant reports.

     Sharon arrived at work and nodded and grinned her way to her office. She carried a briefcase, a laptop, a cell phone, and a beeper. She closed herself in her office for two hours, during which time she printed out a list from her computer. It was a list of duties and responsibilities that she had used to run a plant in South Africa. She made 30 copies, then called her staff of salesmen, marketing strategists, publicists, distribution agents, secretaries, and laborers together and gave them all work to do from her list. She started with whomever was furthest to her right. She gave them all deadlines. She called for a series of one-on-one meetings to begin immediately. People were told to bring printouts of their phone bills, expense vouchers, and sales performances. She got a beep and made a cell-phone call that lasted 12 minutes. When she hung up, she dismissed everyone to go back to work. She frowned at a joke about her name. That afternoon she had carpenters come in and move the conference room and the lunch room next to her office.

     Do Right Fuels bought natural gas cheap that year. Suppliers were beating down their door. They won a Clean Air Award from Propicia. They won an Excellence Award for their high-grade naphtha.  However, sales were poor, until Mr. Dooright flew back into town.