Читать книгу Making It Happen - Kyle Mackenzie - Страница 9

With those words ringing in my ears, I took my leave and headed back to my office. The more I thought about the whole thing, the more unhappy I was. Not only was this project important for the company, Stu’s hopes of promotion were riding on it too. It wasn’t that I minded pressure, it was just that projects always seemed to turn out poorly, or with mixed results at best. Hard as I had tried, I had never figured out a way to improve the result.

If my budget was $1 million, Marketing would probably have nearly that amount too. Recreational products are very marketing intensive. Two million dollars was a lot of money for Hyler to invest, and that didn’t take into account the increase in operating expenses that would result from this product. Head office would never let Hyler go under, but it would let people’s careers get into serious trouble. If things didn’t go well, not only would Stu not be getting his promotion, but I would probably want to dust off my resume. All of this hanging on a project. I felt something funny happening in my stomach.

My loyal department staff were not much help, either for my stomach or my lack of knowledge about projects.

“Better dust off the old resume,” said Amanda Payton after I told her about my meeting with Stu. Amanda is my second in command in Information Systems, and one of my favorite people at Hyler.

“It sounds like one of those projects that can really go down in flames!” She smiled encouragingly. To reduce her smugness to a more bearable level, I said, “Yes, no question it will be a challenge. But thank God I have you around to help! The project is going to take up a lot of my time over the next ten months, so I’ll be needing you to take over my responsibilities on a regular basis. Of course, we won’t be getting any extra people to help us here in IS, so you will still have your own stuff to look after.” I paused, and then because it didn’t sound like enough I added, “And I think I’ll be needing your expertise on the project “team” as well. Looks like we’ll be spending a few late nights together.” I gave her my best “team” smile.

Her smugness transformed into minor depression and I felt a little better. When I told her Ralph had assigned Al Burton to the team, Amanda was not impressed. “Al is going to be a major burden. He does everything by the book. And half the time he has the wrong book!”

I wished that everyone else’s opinion of Al was not quite as dismal as mine.

“When are you getting started?” Amanda asked.

I looked at my watch. “I want to schedule the first team meeting for tomorrow morning at 10. Want to come along?”

“I wouldn’t miss it,” she said, although I got the feeling she was only interested in the entertainment the meeting would surely provide. I would definitely have to find a lot of work for her to do.