Wowzy Wowzy Woo Woo, Incorporated

I'm a manager at my place of employment, something I have aggressively tried not to be in my last several positions, and not just because those I manage do not respond positively to my (extremely effective) general management philosophy:

I plan to write a book and begin a seminar series centered around this concept.
Move over, Steven Covey!

I've also tried to avoid management because I find it basically entails keeping track of a trillion crises that seem to occur only on work days and in a disproportionate amount to the general population. Call me cynical, but I find these sorts of things never seem to interrupt a vacation or day off.

I was explaining this to a friend who could totally relate and who shared with me, without exaggeration, a list of work-missing issues that affected her own team (of just a few people) in the past couple of months (she honestly pulled this list from her emails):

• running into the garage door while trying to exit the garage
• getting into a car accident 
• getting a flat tire
• having a car broken into
• having general car trouble
• having a check engine light come on
• having computer trouble 
• having a sick cat
• having a sick dog
• having a sick kid
• having a kid break a bone
• having a kid get braces
• having a sinus headache
• having a migraine
• having a regular headache
• having a colonoscopy
• having food poisoning
• having general malaise
• oversleeping/running late
• being snowed in (along with everyone else in the area)
• being snowed in (when no one else in the area was)
• being delayed due to transportation planning issues for an upcoming trip
• being delayed due to sitting behind an accident on the way into work
• needing to take a relative to the airport
• needing to be home for a renovation project
• forgetting a laptop at home

Wowzy Wowzy Woo Woo...it's the schleprock-ification of the workforce.

Forget the management seminars, I'm going to develop a screening tool for people to apply to potential new hires to determine the risk to their productivity. 

Step 1: those with a rain cloud over their shoulder don't get a second interview.