Warren Rodgers

My Terrible Vacation

 

If neither manager had the slightest understanding of how serious this problem was, they sure as hell did by Wednesday morning. At 10 a.m. -- three hours before I called in -- they were summoned to an emergency meeting at the bank. Not only was it made clear to them that the bank blamed us for the fiasco, but officials there also expected CSI to reimburse them for their "PR damage control" effort. Plus we were to make financial concessions by way of apology. My managers' response? "We can't do anything about meeting those demands. The boss is on vacation and can't be reached." Oh, boy.

Pat and I did some quick soul-searching. The trip meant a lot to all of us, and we'd been looking forward to it for a long time. Furthermore, to cancel parts of it abruptly would mean some serious money down the drain. But what ultimately convinced us to keep traveling was our conviction that all the damage had already been done. Our programmer had been removed from the bank and her contract terminated (she immediately moved to a neighboring state and took another job there). Whatever had gone wrong with the bank's computer system had been easily fixed. The media were losing interest in the story. Our guy at the bank was on his way back. Why not enjoy the rest of the vacation and pick up all the pieces once we got home?

In retrospect, we might have made the wrong decision. What we didn't realize at the time -- largely because we never do business this way ourselves -- was that our chief competitors, all of whom we'd taken sales from, were seizing on every opportunity to run our name into the ground. Inside the bank and out, they were spreading the word that Computer Specialists was totally responsible for the systems problem. It finally got so out of hand that the bank told them to stop. Eventually this negative marketing produced a back-lash effect on them. Had I been there in the first place, though, I doubt it would have ever gotten rolling.

But I wasn't there. I was on vacation, and it was a completely depressing experience. My mind was everywhere but where it was supposed to be. Looking at snapshots of the trip weeks later, I realized there were whole sections of the journey -- a spectacular sunrise over Mount McKinley, for instance -- that I had no memory of seeing. Driving back across Canada, en route to Pittsburgh, my stomach was in knots.

So what happened when we got home? Four things I'm very proud of.

1) We held a meeting to announce that the only priority for CSI was rectifying this problem. New accounts, employee hassles -- they all took second place. As soon as the meeting ended, we were all down at the bank. We saturated the place. We became so visible around there, we practically became pains in the ass. I took people out for meals -- bank executives, CSI programmers, secretaries, everybody. If one of us was downtown on other business, he or she walked through the bank lobby, smiling and saying hello. Message to everyone: we will not duck the issue or hide our heads in shame.

2) I called a meeting with bank officials and told them they weren't getting a dime. Hard line? Maybe, but if our position was that the whole thing had been blown out of proportion -- which it was -- then giving them major concessions would only make it worse. Instead, I offered them a deal. One programmer free for six months. The next programmer at $7 per hour less than regular rates. The next one at $6 per hour discount, and so forth. Result? We wound up increasing our presence with that client. Good-bye, innuendos about our screwing up the account.

3) We overhauled our management structure. Our human resources director left shortly after we got back, for personal reasons. Our marketing director was gone within four months. Never again would we put someone in that position with no technical experience or training. In fact, we're committed to promoting manages solely from within. That way they have the requisite background, and we have the confidence they know how to react -- correct that, proact -- in a crisis mode.

4) We followed through on plans for a big Christmas party, as originally scheduled. It was risky at the time, given all that had happened to company morale. And it was expensive. But it also sent the right signal. Better to give a party no one comes to than to cancel it out of embarrassment. Attendance was huge, and it finally proved that our goal of putting the crisis behind us by year's end had been achieved. Pat and I were the last to leave. At 2 a.m., we were drinking champagne and reflecting on the fact that no one had mentioned Black Monday.

She and I have learned four things from all this. One, that you can run a business by the book, hiring qualified management to assume many of your duties, and still your problems aren't all behind you. Two, that even if major mistakes occur, it's never too late to take aggressive action toward correcting them, provided you give them your undivided attention. Three, that it's important to make sure your spread your business base adequately by not allowing one client to account for more than, say, 15% of your business.

Oh, yeah. And four: take that trip you've always wanted -- maybe hop a cruise shop bound for Acapulco, by way of the Panama Canal -- which is what Pat and I did in 1986. Only be sure you buy some cancellation insurance.'

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