GBS: What the Heck Happened in L.A.

 GBS:    What the Heck Happened in L.A.

Bob came into the office one Monday and said there was a problem down in the LA office and he wanted me to fly down with him the next day to check it out. The LA office generally had a staff of 15 to 20 people. When we got there we discovered that there were only 4 people in the office. There was one sales guy, one installer (someone who knew how to install, train, and use the applications but knew nothing about programming), one programmer and a receptionist. There were no managers. The place was empty.

What happened? I don't rightly know. The Software Manager and the Branch Manager had both walked out but never told anyone. Bob went into the Sales Manager's office and I walked into the Software Manager's office. Bob found a large stack of unanswered messages on the Sales Manager's desk and I found an even larger stack on the Software Manager's.

To make matters worse both the receptionist and the one remaining programmer were just waiting for someone to show up so they could resign. The receptionist resigned on the spot and informed us it would be her last day. We managed to get someone in to handle the front desk from a temp agency to answer the phone starting the next day.

We found out that the Software Manager had taken a job with another company and had been working with that company for weeks. Even so, he was still collecting his paycheck from GBS. We tried to get a hold of him but failed as he evidently not only stopped coming in but also changed his phone number and address. We ended up nabbing him when he came into the office to collect this week's paycheck. Bob grabbed him as soon as he came through the door and took him into his office. I pretty sure Bob presented him with an appropriate goodbye talk after which he walked him out the door.

I met with the 2 remaining software staff trying to determine just how bad things were. I then asked the programmer who let me know he wanted to resign to come with me and meet with Bob. He told us he wanted to start his new job ASAP as he had been waiting for more than a week for someone to show up. Well at least he didn't just walk out like some of the others. Bob and I immediately tried to talk him into staying. We talked with him for quite some time offering him a sizable raise with a promise of future advancement. He eventually indicated he'd think about it and he sounded like he would probably be staying. I really thought we had managed to talk him into staying but the next day he met with us and said after talking with his wife he decided to move on. We asked him if we could talk with his wife. She was adamant that he leave after what he had just been through at GBS. I couldn't blame her. He generously agreed to stay till the end of the week as a favor to me and Bob.

The pile of un-returned messages on the Software Manager's desk looked like it was over 2 inches high. I spent most of the rest of the week returning phone messages. Some of the messages were a couple of weeks old. As you would expect, my return calls were less than pleasant. Everyone was justifiably upset and for many calls I had to listen to 15 or 20 minutes of frustrated venting before we could discuss their problem. A number of people did not want to let me off the call as they feared they would never hear from me again. To make matters worse in most cases I could not immediately resolve most of their issues and I couldn't start to work on them because I had like 25 more calls to return and more calls coming all the time. I needed to assess where we stood in all of this so I spent the day on the phone until closing time. Then I sifted through the problems from the days calls, prioritized the problems and then worked on fixing what I could that evening. A few problems my lone installer could handle and a few I handed off to my sole but lame-duck programmer. The next day I sent my installer out to install all the fixes the programmer and I resolved. I again spent most of the day on the phone until the evening when I could work on the issues themselves. I was spending most of the hours between 8 and 5 handling all the phone calls and then working from 6 till 11 or 12 on fixing the problems. It was a grueling week. Thursday I gave my programmer his last fix and told him he could leave when he was done and could take Friday off. I was grateful he had stayed and continued to work hard when he really didn't have to. I was even more grateful to the installer who ended up staying with us through the whole process. Bob flew out Thursday afternoon so by Thursday afternoon we were down to three in the office, not counting the temp, and I was now the only programmer and due to the call volume I was limited to programming in the evenings.

I stayed down for the weekend attempting to gain a little control. I had tried to get the corporate office to send me some help but they told me they had their own issues. Monday I called the Sacramento office and Bruce called back and told me he was coming down to help me. I had no Tech staff so this was extremely good news for me. Bruce spent a week with me and resolved all the outstanding hardware issues. Bob had advertised to fill the empty positions and he flew in Monday with Bruce. I continued to plug along, phone calls during the day, programming fixes in the evening and sending my lone installer all over L.A. to install the changes I'd made. Some clients would call me everyday. Usually it was for an update but mostly I think it was just to make sure I was there. I again tried calling corporate for help and was initially turned down again. Bob again stayed for most of the week.

Bob called and talked with the customers trying to both calm and reassure them. Together we did interviews, mostly in the evenings. I told Bob I was not getting any response from HQ and he got on the phone to Larry and Phil (President and VP of GBS). HQ called me and said they'd loan me 2 programmers for a week starting next Monday.

At the end of the 2^nd week I planned to fly back to Sacramento for the weekend. I had a Friday evening flight and had to leave for the airport by 6. At 5:30 I got a call from a woman who had been patiently waiting for help with her system. She said she desperately needed some information from her system and she was unable to access it. I told her I couldn't help her until next week. She said that would be too late and started to cry. I talked to her for 20 minutes trying to help her but then had to tell her I needed to leave. I was a bit desperate myself. I needed a break. I hadn't seen Kathy in two weeks. The woman said she understood but she was still sniffling. I hung up and left. I felt terrible and I still feel badly about it to this day.

Week 3 things began to get easier and turn around. Bob came down for a couple of days. We started to get the office staffed. We had to hire new two managers and we had to do it quickly. We found a couple of programmers, a new tech guy a few days in but they all needed to give notice at their current job so nobody was going to be able to start for at least a week. I wasn't sold on our top Software Manager candidate but Bob then put it in context for me. His persuasive argument was “It's either him or you get to keep doing it.”. That guy suddenly looked like a much stronger candidate.

After 4 weeks I was able to return to Sacramento for good. I flew back from LA with Bob. He and I were the first to fly down there at the beginning of all this and now that it was all over we were flying back together. I remember Bob trying to put a positive spin on the whole experience. As we got off the plane and were walking to get our bags he said: “Backus, that was wild. There's not many people who can successfully get through a situation like you did. That was exhilarating!” I just said something like “I guess so” but what I was thinking was “Exhilarating is not even close to the adjective I'd use”. The LA experience is something I will never forget and have no desire to repeat, but I did learn that people need to be heard and what they mostly need from me is honesty.