One of the mails I regularly get from a colleague contains a signature quote at the end. One of which struck me about Quality from William A. Foster who understands how to achieve a quality output.

Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives.

I am reading this argument by Matt disagreeing on a post made at livedev on refraining from checking your mail at night and avoiding it as your first read of the day. The reasons presented on “why you don’t put your mail as your top priority” is lame and unacceptable. Matt summarizes it as:

To summarize, the author describes the perils of checking your e-mail at night or first thing in the morning. The core argument is that mail can take a while to get through, with messages like funny videos making it very easy to become derailed for 2 hours just surfing the net. Instead of being productive by checking your mail regularly you are burning up the most precious working hours or staying up too late and not get enough sleep.

I heard so many times over how a superior or manager got so pissed off when a staff missed something on a simple reason of not being able to check the mail right away. It is a lame excuse that reflects basic skills you ought to have mastered already.

Part II - How to Create or stay as a Business Juggernaut

THE BUSINESS PROCESS

I never liked processes and have experienced in working in a number of companies that did not have good business processes in place. It’s typical for a small company to have a Just do it style of command where people and departments function independently of each other. Working for a CMMI Level 5 company right now gives me a different perspective of things. Business processes when put in place and implemented correctly becomes an efficient weapon in delivering the highest quality in time while maintaining the lowest cost possible. Though I disagree on some items, I still believe that overall it is good for a business.

During my first eight months in the workforce I worked in one of the top consulting firms in the world and was handled by a team of highly competitive superiors who taught me during orientation their philosophy within the organization—Sink or Swim. My manager Jojo Lugartos explained to me that I was given a couple of months to adjust and make mistakes, after that, I have to swim together with the experienced people or I am looking at being counseled out which he did with a number of people in the past.

I was surprised that after decades of scientific debate and argument, I heard in the radio yesterday morning that Pluto is no longer a planet which immediately brought sadness as it was one of those planets I could easily remember and answer correctly which position it belongs in the solar system when I was in elementary along with Planet Mercury.

I would not go over the long list of scientific arguments explaining it’s demotion from the solar system but instead look at one of the simple explanations handed out by scientists—It’s too small to be considered a planet.

You have been working the whole year like there’s no tomorrow. You sacrificed a lot of things including your loved ones for the sake of work explaining to them that it is for their future. You were a very good soldier diligently following your manager and putting up through all his shortcomings and mistakes.

The end of the fiscal year or calendar year has come and it is the time for performance appraisals and ratings where you felt good about it knowing you’ll get very good results.

Kaboom! That’s not what happened; instead as your manager went through your ratings, you can’t help but feel crap about what he’s saying. You realized he saw things differently and gave you a rating exactly the opposite of what you expected.