insane in = Mee aa? A ere eae This week: Management gets a little refining ilton Jovial sat in his M office scanning a memo = drafted by Herby Squish, listening while Squish spoke to him about the details. "We have to make sure everyone understands... Everyone has the information they need," Squish explained enthusiastically. "They didn’t in the beginning and that’s what went wrong. "Skidmore charging aimlessly around the site on his skidder. Rhodes deciding he knows better than anyone where a landing should be built, and as a result, High Tower destroying perfectly good logs by dragging them off a cliff. None of that should have happened, None of it." "I agree,” Jovial responded. "What was it you said it was going to cost me? Fifty thousand... Something like that. But it’s not going to happen again. Right? This plan you outline in your meme is going to take care of everything. Right?" "I'll make sure of it," Squish said firmly. "I see you're suggesting we void all contracts and get everyone to sign new ones that bettter define chain of command and areas of responsibility," Jovial noted. "I like that. But can we do it? Will everyone agree to do it? Squish paused. "Well... They don’t have to," he said finally. "But the bottom line is that we don’t have to renew their contracts when they expire either. I think they’ Il all agree to sign." "Herby," Jovial smiled. "I like the way you think. A little black- mail never hurt anyone. If some of the tricks these guys have pulled became public... They’d never work again." "Well..." Squish decided not to respond, He hadn't intended his reasoning to be interpreted quite that way, but Jovial did have a point and any further explanation wouldn’t change anything. The air in Jovial’s office was a little tense. Jovial sat at one end of ihe board table, Squish sat at the. other. On Jovial’s left were High Tower and George Fairlead. On his right, Archie Skidmore, Rocky Rhodes and Willy Wheeler. The five contractors knew why they were there. A couple of things hadn’t gone quite as planned and Jovial was unhappy. The word was he was even thinking of tearing up a contract or two... or three. Jovial’s pretence of reading and te-reading Herby’s memo in silence was a technique he used after and always enjoyed. "Let them stew,” he thought to himself. "They're expecting the worst, and’ when they learn the truth they'll be Insights Terrace Review — Forestry 4 Wednesday, June 19, 1991 AZ by Tod Strachan, in consultation with Rod Arnold and Doug Davies more than happy to sign a new contract with a few teeth in it. Otherwise, they might be working at the SaveLittle Gas Bar in Ter- race for the rest of their lives." "Any of you ever consider working at SaveLittle," Jovial began. Eyes bulged, jaws hung... "Just joking," Jovial said after a well-timed pause. "But I want you guys to understand from the outset that we're here to deal with some serious business and I want your full attention." With the "SaveLittle" seed hav- ing been well planted, Jovial got down to business. "By now, all of you are probably aware of the fact that I have fired Plug Nicholl and hired Herby here as my full-time woods manager. It caused a few problems with Nicholl’s sister, my secretary Dot, but that’s been sorted out, and now I’m in the process of hiring a second pro- fessional forester to do the work Herby used to. "] didn’t make these changes for the fun of it. I made these changes See It... by Stephanie Wiebe I’m going to write a book — a sort of a rule book. It'll be a thick edition listing all the habits and rules of life that we've un- consciously adopted in North American society. We're really a strange group of mammals, full of odd behaviours, and it's high time somebody documents all our unwritten rules. Like the one about touching hair. Have you ever noticed that people don’t touch other people’s hair? You might tap friends on the shoulder, pat them on the back, shake their hand, or touch their arm, but you may not touch their hair, Think about the last person who touched your hair, other than a hairstylist. It was probably a family member, or some equivalent. Yet, nobody has ever publicly announced this to be a rule. Nobody says that our hair is: tivate. We just know. The only oncs allowed to break this rule are hairdressers or bar- bers, and those folks who know you well enough to have secn ~ you in your underwear. We’ve gol some dumb habits, too — the way we greet cach other, for examptc. Most of us say, "Hello, how are you?" And the usual reply is, "Fine, how are The Way I you?" The second "How are you" is rarely answered, and the answers are never heard. Yet we continually ask the question — proof that our society is polite, but not real swift at catching on. I’ve got my own rules for greet- ings. All my adult life, I have ‘nevet casually asked anyone, “"How are you?" as part of a greeting. It’s a stupid question. Ninety-nine percent of the time, the answer is “fine”, and I could’ve guessed that one. Not to say that I don’t ask the question at all. When I finally ask "How are you?" there’s an unspoken meaning behind the question, such as "How are you doing, considering that your pitiful rust- bucket of a car is falling apart, your already hidcous dog is bald- ing, and your money-grubbing children have made your life miscrable lately?" Fecling this way, I cannot bring * mysclf to answer the greeting qucstion "How are you?" with a simple "fine". I often fight the urge to reply with a Icngihy synopsis of my current life, from the status of my ingrown tocnail to my hopes for world peace. Sometimes [ chew my lip to keep | from saying, “Well, the doctors predict that my violent ’ax-mur- derer’ tendencies won’t recur unless I’m asked too many mean- ingless questions. Why do you - ask?" Another thing we do strangely, concems spontaneous applause. In an audience, when one person begins clapping hands, everybody else gradually joins in. But who is that first applauder? I’ve never been able to identify the leader of an applause. Docs that person know that he or she is the leader? How does everyone else know? Who told them? Or does the unwritten rule say that the fifth person in the eighth row will always lead the applause? This also applies to standing ovations. One or two audience leaders rise, and slowly an entire audience will follow — that is, most of the time. I’ve always felt that if I deliberately tried to lead a crowd in a standing ovation, everyone else would remain seated, whispering, “Why is that woman standing?" With most standing ovations, however, | suspect that many of the standers only stood because everyone else did. Like "How are you’s", I don’t do slanding ovations casually — nor do I touch hair. By the way, the "underwear rule" docsn’t apply here. For the test of the rules, well, you know them already, though you might not realize it yet. - You'll just have to wait for me to write the book. You see, I’m only allowed to write 20 column inches of text here. It’s sort of an unwritten rule. because I had to. Both the Pre- Harvest Silviculture Prescription and the Logging Plan have to be followed to the letter for two reasons. "Most important is the fact that it cost me more than fifty thousand dollars in the past week because a few of you decided not to follow the plan. And there's also the fact that these two documents are a part of my contract with the province and I’m expected to live up to that agreement. If I don’t, or you don’t, I pay the cost. "But all that’s going to change. From now until the end of time, if one of you doesn’t follow the plan, you'll pay the full cost of righting your wrong yourself. Herby is going to explain how things will work." There was some uneasy shuffling in the room. Just what Jovial had in mind was still unclear, but it didn’t look good. Pay the. cost? How would you pay your men? "Okay. I'll explain what’s going to happen in a moment," Squish began, “but first I want you to understand exactly why things necd to be changed. "Everyone should have learned some valuable lessons in the past week. If you have a plan, and that plan is a part of a contract, you don’t change your plan unless the other party in that contract agrees. More importantly, perhaps, if you are not a party in that contract, as you people are not, you never, never change the plan... Even if you think it’s wrong. You can voice your concerns, but the res- ponsibility for making changes is not yours. "This is where we ran into a problem. There was no communi- cation. No established chain of command. No one knew exactly what they were supposed to do and didn’t have a clue or didn’t care what ihe other contractors were doing. So everybody decided they were the one in charge, and decided that gave them the author- ity to make decisions. Obviously it didn’t work. No business can operate that way and succeed... Especially not this one." All five contractors had listencd like obedient children up to this point but they were becoming more nervous with every word spoken by Squish. Finally, Skid- more cracked. . “Look,” he interrupted. "I don’t ktiow just what it is your accusing us of, but if it’s incompcicnce, it’s simply nol truc. You're a foresicr. You know about things like bugs and soils and how trecs grow. But you know diddley about the real work that gocs on in the bush. I’ve been culting down trees for over forty years and I could teach you plenty." "Take it easy Skidalot.” Milton Jovial was visibly angry. "That's Skidmore," Skidmore said defensively. "Okay... Skidmore. You're talk- ing to my second in command and you best not forget it..." "It’s alright," Squish cut in. "Maybe it’s time we get down to brass tacks." Skidmore grunted his annoyance at the sound of authority in Her- by’s voice, but otherwise sat in silence. "First, what do we need? We need communication and a detailed chain of command. Communica- tion is extremely important. Every- one, right down to the very last worker, needs to understand who their boss is. They have to under- stand what a PHSP and Logging Plan are and why they’re so important... why they need to be followed to the letter. "So as far as communication is concerned, this is what’s going to happen. Before every new contract is signed, there will be a pre-work conference. This is where we discuss the plan and how it works. When the meeting is over, cach of you will meet with your. staff and explain the entire game plan in detail. "Once work begins, there will be a meeting with all of you, myself, and Mr. Jovial if he wishes to aitend. At these meetings, we will discuss each of your operations... What's going well. What's not. Any problems you’re having and how we might correct them. Any concems I have and how they might be corrected. “Furthermore. A secretary will record these meetings and you will all get a copy of what was said. - We will all agree to abide by any decisions that are made at these meetings and cach and everyone of you will inform your employees of any changes we make." Skidmore interrupted a second time. "How are we supposed to do our jobs if you have us sitting in - Meetings all the time? And where do you fit into the picture? I hope you don’t think you're going to start telling me how to cut down a tree. You'll regret it if you do." Squish was patient. He under- stood Skidmore’s old-school think- ing that rejected the idea of a university graduate telling a logger how to log. "These meetings will only take about one or two hours on a Fri- day afternoon," Squish told Skid- more. "Your men can handle the work for that period of time."