Good Deligator

This morning as any other morning. I reach the office, sat down, start-up my laptop, check the e-mail box for new mails then, log in to our intranet where we can see our other colleagues if they were online.

Then, one of my colleague (Mr. Onion) was online. I think he was waiting for me to come online. The moment my new mail pops up on the screen, his message immediately followed. Mr. Onion is now in Singapore for some site audit, which I think will not be fruitful. Anyway, that is not my call. He wanted me to help him do some proposal work for a sales team member which I am not very keen to work with due to his 'slimy' attitude.

The 'slimy' I define here is that this person (Mr. Dead Eel) is really good in claiming positive credits and push away negative comments. I think in his dictionary there is no such word as "wrong" defined. Anything or any work who face difficulties or not going well is never involved with him. He always pushes everything clean and wash his hands off. His down line or people around him will get all the blame.

So back to Mr. Onion. He message me over the chat space asking me to help him prepare the proposal for Mr. Dead Eel. Good thing that I am now looking after a different country which is beyond Mr. Onion's reach and the potential or prospect there is so hugh that just by doing that one country is enough to keep me occupied for the next few years. I easily excused myself from doing the proposal Mr. Onion wanted me to help him do.

This Mr. Onion is well know to delegate his work. For site surveys, normally we will just go alone. Me and another colleague of mine (Mr. Long) use to go to site alone, do the observation, measurement and then come back to the office to prepare the audit reports and proposal. However, Mr. Onion never do it alone. He always must bring some other colleagues together with him. He will go to site and do simple photographing, crack some jokes, relate with the customer etc. All that need not to get the hands dirty. Pity that person who need to go with him, he will need to run up, down, left, right center to map down the whole plant.

When the boss ask him to explain the reason he need 2 people to go for any audit, his reason is being, he want to be more comprehensive and leave no stone un-turned. As if me and Mr. Long was always leaving or missing details in our audits. Rubbish!!!

He is so good in delegating his work. So, the moment he asked me to help him prepare the proposal, I immediately show him my "Skip" card (as the card game - UNO). I think he must be 'cursing' me now for rejecting his request.

The other thing he is good at is to pretend to be busy and work late when the boss is around. This is very obvious. Whenever the boss is in the office, you can expect to see him at 0815am in the office and he will not leave until 7pm. However, the moment the boss is not in town, he will only come in at 9.30 or 10 am and leave at 4 pm for his tennis game at 5pm.

OK guys and gals. I am sure you all might also have such encounter or have such colleagues that is good in delegating work. Therefore, sometimes, we need to keep some "Skip" cards in our pocket and use it as necessary. However, be careful when using the card. Make sure your card is able to skip properly. Don't forget, good delegator will have patience to wait for you to be free one day and come back to delegate to you the same 'assignment'.

Good Luck!!