Well, our version of summer, anyway. We have a new series of customer service startups in the first week of July, and I spent most--no, all--of my morning entering data. This is the data that the service reps need for their process and for everyone to know who is doing what to whom and where and when and for how long. No one knows why, of course. It's just there and we do it.

Not all of the decisions have been made regarding new formats and so forth--not by a long shot--but editing the data, once the massive input stage is over, is easy. And I'm hoping that by being the first I can encourage management to provide us some guidelines.

When I spoke to the manager in charge of this process, she had not a single clue as to what we were doing (because she was promoted up from the bottom of the supervisory ladder straight to manager) and was surprised that I was inputting data and organizing the structure for the part I'm responsible for. I got the feeling when I was talking to her--she covered up quickly and tried to sound knowledgeable--her replies were so off-base that she didn't know what I was talking about. At all.

Since she doesn't know what to do, I thought if I started early and asked her to check my work she could learn a bit about what goes on before we're too busy to breathe and before we're so committed that revisions would mean a complete do-over. Whether or not I like her is irrelevant--if she can learn to do her job well, it makes it easier for all of us.

It's about separating personal opinion from professional concerns.