Light Minds Think Alike : people

The CUBS and Teamwork in ETC Service

mmeskill — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 19:35:00 GMT

There is a yearly ritual that takes place in the ETC Service Department. It usually happens in late February and involves a great deal of planning, coordination and teamwork. The event: Trying to buy home game tickets for Chicago Cubs Baseball games. (Yes I know, we live in Middleton, WI)

Lisa Chapiewsky has been the Field Service Coordinator for ETC Inc for about 9 years and she is a rabid Cubs fan. For those of you that do not know, the Field Service Coordinator is the one person behind the scenes in Field Service that holds the fate of all installation and field service work in their hands. If you have a new ETC system and need to get it up and running, Lisa is the one that finds the right person for the job. I had the pleasure of being the one to hire Lisa back in 2000 and have missed the opportunity over the last 4 years to be involved in her quest to obtain Cubs tickets.

So how it works: On the morning of February 20th, Lisa shows up at work in her Cubs sweatshirt and a stack of paperwork. This paperwork details all her preferences for game days and seating areas. At around 9:00 am she solicits everyone in the Service department to log onto the ticket page for the Cubs. You basically log into a ‘waiting room’ and hope that the system randomly selects you to buy tickets. Over my first 3-years of doing this I never got to the screen to buy a ticket but was surprised to be the first person in the department to get in once selection started at 10:00 am CST. (I got in at 10:20). I was in a discussion with Matt Kerr from Phone Support when the window opened. I stopped talking mid-sentence, ran to my door and yelled “Lisa, I’m in!”…At this point Lisa runs over with paperwork and credit card in hand. She goes though the screens and gets tickets. She then logs me back into the waiting room. During the day you randomly hear people yelling “Lisa, I’m in!” followed by Lisa running through the department with her credit card.

This year seemed to be quite good as she got all her tickets by 1:00 pm. I was lucky enough to get into the system a second time and felt happy to be helping a former employee and current friend.

It’s all about the Teamwork!

Jetlagged and in Middleton for the week...Mike Meskill

I Don't Want to be a Downer...

mmeskill — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 15:08:00 GMT

It seems like there is always a good bit of talk about what a fun place ETC is to work but last night I was lying awake in bed obsessing over a number of different issue I need to deal with and felt that someone should address the fact that we do real work here J Now I’m defiantly of the belief that ETC is a great place to work but it is still work.

One must keep in mind that for everyone of us sometimes crazy theatre people that work in customer facing departments, there are countless others that are doing the day-to-day labor that actually leads to products getting shipped to customers. Remember, in real terms ETC is a manufacturing company. I often find myself envying these individuals in the ability to come to work, complete a quality task, and then go home with the feeling of a job well done. When I was a Factory Field Technician, I had that feeling on a regular basis as I spent the majority of my time installing new ETC Lighting Systems and was rewarded with a happy new ‘end user’ at the end of my efforts. Or I got to fly into a city in the 11^th hour, do some magic and save the day; usually with the assistance of a much smarter Phone Support Technician who did not get to see the smiling customers face or get the free beer after the show.

Now, as a manager of 10 years, I endeavor to ensure that the cogs in the machine run smooth for any employee or customer I come in contact with. Although I find the task enjoyable and rewarding, it is does not give the same degree of daily or weekly satisfaction I once had and thus it seems more like work and therefore less fun.

Then there are the fights and arguments that are the opposite of fun. Fights you say? Arguments? Well yes, but in the: ‘We all want to go for Chinese buffet but spend so much time debating which is the best place that we use up our lunch hour and have to order in pizza’ kind of way. Meaning that the people I work with are so committed to finding the best way to things that we often fight about what the absolute best course of action is and on the service side I have seen it spin out of control…always to the benefit of the customer. For example: A call might come into Phone Support and it is decided to that a RMA should be issued. A coffee break 10 minutes later leads to discussion about the problem and a manger decides that a new unit should be sent. Then a second manager is consulted and believes that a Field Tech should first be sent to site to investigate the problem. Now the fun begins. The cheapest thing would be to send a loaner and issue an RMA. Sending new equipment or a service tech to site is expensive. So we fight about the best way to resolve the issue and eventually end up sending new equipment and a service tech and some extra parts that we think maybe will be needed.

Finally there is the guilt that makes working in service at ETC un-fun. You see, I was raised Catholic but joined the Unitarian church 7 years ago…but I still suffer from “Catholic Guilt”. I also suffer from “Service Guilt”. Service Guilt happens when despite your best efforts and intentions you outright fail to fix the customers problems. In the case above, the best decision might have been to send a loaner and issue a RMA. But then the loaner does not work when it shows up at site. You send a service technician to investigate and the problem is with the loaner. You do a quick-turnaround on the repair and send it back right away. It breaks again 4 days later. You send a whole new unit. It shows up with a broken GM fader. These things happen and they are beyond my control but I end up with an extreme sense of guilt that I have just put some TD at the local community theatre through the worst service experience of their life. It is not a fun job on that day.

In the last month I have: Had a picnic for all my German employees at my house, gone to the ETC Inc Summer picnic in my Lederhosen, gone to the ETC GmbH Summer picnic on a large hill overlooking a beautiful valley, went to a ETC Professional Services potluck, and had countless after work outings with coworkers who are also loyal friends. Yes, there is the unhappy getting up and going to work every day thing but God help me, I love it so.

Mike’s Three and a Half Years in Europe

mmeskill — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:33:00 GMT

After three and a half years of living and working in Europe I have only come to grasp one thing with absolute certainty: Europe is not the U.S.A. and the European Union is not a single market place. Granted, it is very nice to have a single currency in the form of the EURO.

In my case, I left a nice comfortable job as the Field Service Manager with the ETC Mother-ship in Middleton, WI for the diverse, multi-level working environment of Europe. In principle the general idea of my job is the same as when I worked in Middleton: Provide the highest level of customer service and exceed the expectations of customers. But ETC’s European companies are small organizations when compared to our U.S. Headquarters. Because of this, working in Europe tends to remind me of the ETC I started at as an intern in 1995. Everyone is doing everything and anything to get the job done. Now this is not to say that employees in the U.S. are not doing what it takes to meet our customers’ needs but there is a distinct advantage to the economies of scale that a larger organization can offer in terms of available resources. I have no doubt that some of you believe that the large size of ETC often makes it more difficult to work with but I can give you my personal insurance that every time I’m in the U.S. I hear conversations about how to improve the customer experience. It remains an overriding force that drives the company forward. As a matter of fact, I have often said that as soon as I feel ETC has stopped caring, that it would be time for me to leave. So far I’m planning on retiring from here.

In the U.S. I had the luxury of sitting in my office and focusing on the needs of customers and ASC’s (Authorized Service Providers). Sure I was involved with ‘other stuff’ but in the end I just had my little piece of the service puzzle. Work in Europe is nowhere near so compartmentalized. I get to move freely between service, shipping, customs and duties, projects, and finance, all on levels that I would never have been exposed to in the U.S. And this hold true for almost all the employees here. We run around and stick our fingers in the holes of the dam and pray we do not run out of fingers. It is maddening….but at the same time; I never go home at the end of the day feeling that I did not accomplish anything!

Mike to Write Blog Posts

mmeskill — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 09:15:00 GMT

I spent just over four years in the United States NAVY as a Fire Control Technician. (Like missile firing not the hot red flames and smoke type of fire). It did not take me long to learn that the word NAVY was actually an acronym for Never Again Volunteer Yourself. But in the world of ETC you do not need to volunteer, you just need to show a little interest in any project that David Lincecum is involved with and you will quickly find yourself doing stuff you thought was kind of neat but were glad that others were working on. This is how I find myself writing a ‘Light Minds’ blog on the ETC forum. How it went down…mostly:

From: Mike Meskill
Sent: Wed 6/18/2008 3:05 PM
To: David Lincecum
Subject: Who are the special people?

David, who are the special people that actually get to create blogs? Am I special? Wait…don’t answer that. I have been thinking about an EU perspective but want to ensure I / we can stay committed to the task. I would see me / us sending things to you for review before posting. {I / we; me / us meaning that I would have the permission to post but would get inputs from ETC Ltd and GmbH}

25 hours latter:

From: John Kuehl
Sent: Thursday, June 19, 2008 3:53 PM
To: David North; Joe Kirschling; Mike Meskill
Cc: David Lincecum
Subject: welcome, new blog contributors

Each of you have been identified or self-identified as new contributors to our group blog, "Light Minds Think Alike", or, "Light Minds". I went ahead and gave you all the necessary permissions to begin posting.

So here I am adding my first post to this blog and with the help of the employees of ETC GmbH in Germany and ETC Ltd in the UK I hope to provide some interesting and timely updates.

Sincerely, (American English)

Cheers! (British English)

mit freundlichen Grüβen, (German)

Mike Meskill

European Service Manager, ETC