August 23, 2013
Dear Everyone:
Last month I mentioned that I spent a couple of nights in a hotel aboard
the historic
Queen Mary, a
retired ocean liner docked in
Long Beach, California.
What I didn’t mention is that, at approximately 1:25 in the
morning, the fire alarm came on.
Now, 1:25 in the morning is not
the time to start thinking, “What were those hotel fire safety tips
again? Something about
knowing where all the emergency exits are?…how many doors between my
room and the next exit?...Should I stay in my room or go out?...”
For the record, I knew exactly
where I was in the ship, exactly
how many doors between my “stateroom” and the nearest emergency exit,
plus the next exit in case the first one was blocked, to use only stairs
and never take the elevator, and so on.
I’ve stayed in plenty of hotels over the years and had the
“rules” drummed into me at various “safety meetings”, something they
have regularly at work.
In fact, this will make a nice, little “OE Moment” for some upcoming
meeting. It always pays to
have a few “OE Moments” in your pocket, just in case.
What does “OE” mean? It
means “Operational Excellence”, a business buzzword used to mean
whatever Management wants it to mean.
In this case, “safety” falls into the category of Operational
Excellence. So every meeting
has to have a “safety moment”, which has been “upgraded” to “OE Moment”.
As for the fire alarm aboard the aforementioned “hotel”, it took them
only about ten minutes to announce that “the situation has been
resolved. It is now safe to
re-board the ship.”
Regrettably the hotel staff did not seem to know how to turn the fire
alarm OFF, so it blared for over an hour, interspersed every ten minutes
with, “the situation has been resolved.
It is now safe to re-board the ship.”
A lot of us didn’t get much sleep that night.
As for the “OE Moment”, almost anything can qualify as long as it has
something to do with “safety” and can be applied to one of ten “tenets
of operation”. The trick is
to list all ten, highlighting one or more that might pertain to the
subject at hand.
In the case of hotel fires, I prefer tenet number eight:
“Always address abnormal conditions.”
Since very few people live in hotels all year round, that might
qualify. Also, one
hopes that fires in a hotel
are not considered “normal”.
It doesn’t really matter.
Someone is bound to disagree with you; and that sparks a “discussion”,
which also counts as an “OE Moment”.
It’s what business calls a “Win-Win”.
Love, as always,
Pete
Programming Note: “Jeannie”
and I are getting ready to head off to
North Carolina for The Great
Wedding Reception Weekend, also known as
Labor Day Weekend, so there
will be no Letter next week.
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