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How would you handle this situation?


keggerz
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Yesterday we had a quarterly all-staff meeting...I got their about 10 minutes late because I was tied up with something...anyway, all I missed was the first 3 people that they gave "Outstanding Service Awards" to. I later found out that one guy got an award for raising revenue at our outdoor pools by 78%, yes, seventy eight...anyway, I am in charge of purchasing and merchandising for the store in one of our campgrounds and the point is that I am extremely familiar RecTrac (a recreational software with a point of sale system built in)...actually feel pretty safe saying no one knows the POS part of that program as well as I do...I say that because it took me months to fix the system so that I could pull reports properly for the store....because my store has been running right around 100% up this season I have been keeping a close eye on the pools (because we used to buy for them too, but the entire operational aspect changed so those duties as well as others fall on another guy (the one that won the award)...because the system was initially set up incorrectly I knew that more than likely whoever pulled the reports that showed 78% didn't know how to find all the items that were sold at the pools last year....so I went ahead and ran some numbers because I was genuinely interested to see just how much the pools were up....but in my gut I knew it couldn't be +78%...so I run the numbers....

 

The pool at my park is DOWN 4%

The pool at another park is up 16%

 

Overall pool sales are up 8% (eight, not seventy eight)...a far cry from 78%...and note that is sales, revenues would be even less.

 

Yes the people that should care have no clue how to pull the reports needed but then again it is County Government so they normally don't even care (don't get me started)...

 

so my question is, what do I do and how should I handle this? I mean it isn't just a couple of percentage points but is 70 of them.

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Ask the bossman how they came up with that number because your figures are much different.

 

This

 

 

my boss is sideways from someone that would matter, and i know that my boss will sweep it under the rug because he won't want to throw him under the bus.

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my boss is sideways from someone that would matter, and i know that my boss will sweep it under the rug because he won't want to throw him under the bus.

 

 

Not much you could do unless you go over the bossmans head (which you probably don't want to do) or send an unsigned report to the BIG GUY.

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I'm thinking of just doing a report showing how overall sales are and say I included the pools since I had to mine data from their sales blah blah blah and just provide my findings.

Edited by keggerz
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Is it your job to make them understand their mistake? What would you gain from showing them the mistake?

 

If you are just looking to provide information, do it in a matter of fact way and go about your business.

 

If you are looking to show everyone how smart you are, they might not care nor understand, so just walk away.

 

If you are looking to find some gain from this, let your boss see it, and his boss, and his boss....

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Is it your job to make them understand their mistake? What would you gain from showing them the mistake?

 

If you are just looking to provide information, do it in a matter of fact way and go about your business.

 

If you are looking to show everyone how smart you are, they might not care nor understand, so just walk away.

 

If you are looking to find some gain from this, let your boss see it, and his boss, and his boss....

 

 

This.

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Is it your job to make them understand their mistake? What would you gain from showing them the mistake?

 

 

My job, no...but they took money from my and other peoples budgets near the end of our FY to give him money because he said how well he was doing...in reality, he isn't doing that well and didn't need that money...the money I lost cost me merchandise I could have put in the store and my sales dropped from running in the mid +90% to only up +60%...since the new FY and having the ability to put stock levels back to where they should be, I am once again running in the mid +90% range...and yes, I let my boss know how well the store is doing...his response is always, we don't worry about how much we are up or down (seriously)

 

 

 

If you are just looking to provide information, do it in a matter of fact way and go about your business.

 

I think this is probably the best way to go about it...but the incompetence just makes me shake my head.

 

 

If you are looking to show everyone how smart you are, they might not care nor understand, so just walk away.

 

It isn't about how smart I am, it's about the truth, nothing more, nothing less

 

If you are looking to find some gain from this, let your boss see it, and his boss, and his boss....

 

It's County government, there is nothing to gain...raises and filling open positions are basically frozen.

as for hierarchy...me>my boss>parks superintendent>director of parks & rec>county administrator

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I am making an assumption that the big bossman has no idea what is going on.

 

Can he not put two and two together? If revenues are up only 8% but they are giving someone an award for 78% you would think that someone would wonder how can one area be up 78% but in total we are up/down X%. I am guessing that there is no way the total revenues could be what they ACTUALLY are if one area is off 70 points in the reporting???

 

But is government so understanding how a business works does not really matter.

Edited by gbpfan1231
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I am making an assumption that the big bossman has no idea what is going on.

 

Can he not put two and two together? If revenues are up only 8% but they are giving someone an award for 78% you would think that someone would wonder how can one area be up 78% but in total we are up/down X%. I am guessing that there is no way the total revenues could be what they ACTUALLY are if one area is off 70 points in the reporting???

 

But is government so understanding how a business works does not really matter.

 

The problem is that no one* really understands how to utilize the POS part of the recreation software, so they are taking the numbers they are given at face value....because trust me when I say they have no clue how to run the reports to get the numbers that they would need...doesn't help someone really fubared the set up of the system when it was installed.

 

*outside of myself there are really only like 2-3 others that understand how to utilize the POS system, and even those others don't have nearly the grasp of the system that I do.

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Was there a significant cash award? Does the guy have any idea the numbers are off? Maybe you could blackmail the guy, or plant dope in his locker.

 

No cash award...and he has zero idea, because he has no clue what he is looking at...sad but it's true...oh and he is a pretty nice guy
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No cash award...and he has zero idea, because he has no clue what he is looking at...sad but it's true...oh and he is a pretty nice guy

 

 

Another tactic if you aren't necessarily out to embarrass him is to show HIM how to properly read the reports. He may have the integrity to go and say "hey, the #s I gave you were incorrect" on his own (or not), saving you THAT part of the problem.

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Another tactic if you aren't necessarily out to embarrass him is to show HIM how to properly read the reports. He may have the integrity to go and say "hey, the #s I gave you were incorrect" on his own (or not), saving you THAT part of the problem.

 

I have thought about that, but i rarely see him and we are located miles apart...but that is something I am considering.
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You have the opportunity to be good government. Just be discreet. Take you immediate supervisor to lunch, explain the deal, stress that you aren't trying to hurt you co-worker, and that your only interested is helping the team do the right job. Then ask your supervisor for his/her thoughts are and follow their lead.

 

It's the right thing to do. Which means you'll probably get fired for doing it.

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You have the opportunity to be good government. Just be discreet. Take you immediate supervisor to lunch, explain the deal, stress that you aren't trying to hurt you co-worker, and that your only interested is helping the team do the right job. Then ask your supervisor for his/her thoughts are and follow their lead.

 

It's the right thing to do. Which means you'll probably get fired for doing it.

 

It sounds like his manager doesn't give a crap already. In a lot of state jobs, folks become complacent because they are going nowhere and getting released is next to nil.

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The problem is that no one* really understands how to utilize the POS part of the recreation software, so they are taking the numbers they are given at face value....because trust me when I say they have no clue how to run the reports to get the numbers that they would need...doesn't help someone really fubared the set up of the system when it was installed.

 

*outside of myself there are really only like 2-3 others that understand how to utilize the POS system, and even those others don't have nearly the grasp of the system that I do.

 

I guess what I was getting at is that there must be some sort of "report" that give the boss man or some "big wig" the total picture - I would assume it does not come from the POS system. How does someone look at this total picture and say "how the hell are we X on sales when Y is ahead by 78% - something does not jive.

 

I work with these kind of reports every day - the first thing we do when we do any detailed reports is make absolute sure that the sum off all the detail parts equals the total - not close to the total but to the penny - if it does not you don't release any detailed reports.

 

Sounds like a serious flaw in both reporting and management.

 

I also agree with Yo Mama on how to handle it.

 

Edit: Did not even realize it but I just did what I mentioned above - I have to load a weekly order/sale report into our corporate system every weekend - I take the data from a reporting tool that gets fed from SAP - I do not submit until I run the report format it a certain way and then run a seperate report directly from SAP and make 100% sure the total numbers agree from report to report. After I send our parent company also checks the numbers from different companies to make sure numbers reconcile before the final report gets sent out.

 

Sending out reports with bad data takes focus away from the meaning of the report and casts doubt on the numbers.

Edited by gbpfan1231
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