2018! Phew! What a year! Hectic!
This was another year in which we went really deep. Trying our hardest to do things better and more efficient. Honing our internal workflows, refining our services and delivering higher quality than before. From new mobile apps to refactoring old code, to planning and meticulously building and eventually rolling out some brand spanking new features.
2018 was also a year filled with strategic and long term challenges, exciting ideas and surprising opportunities.
Things are going well and we are finding joy and success in helping our clients move forward in the face of ever increasing business complexities and challenging times. It still is great fun doing what we do, connecting with people, and getting things done.
Although the systems we build and supply have been in use for quite a while now and have grown into mature, widely-used business solutions, we still find ourselves being extremely busy with development projects. As our clients’ business environments and priorities continually evolve, the systems constantly need expansion, refining, and customization. Most of our time and energy are devoted to this.
Times like these – albeit exciting – also bring some tough days. Change and growth – especially when building business systems – brings risk and complexities. No matter how careful the planning or how many hours of hard work being invested: things sometimes go wrong. Which means a tough day can quickly get bad.
And then the tough should get going! (As the saying goes.)
Which reminds me of an incident almost two decades ago. We were still doing municipal systems and I was visiting a municipal office in a quaint little town in Namakwaland to upgrade their financial module. I knew the staff at this municipality – we had been servicing their systems for some years. Good people – honest and hard working. On that day, I noticed the municipal manager (aka the boss) – also a decent, well-mannered man – was not around, and the second-in-charge was having a bit of a busy day on the phone. Upon asking, it transpired that the town was having a water crisis that day: the big pump on the hill had packed up. Apparently this was something that happened now and then. And whenever a crisis happened, the boss disappeared. Gone!
Nowhere to be found!
For up to a day or two. Until the crisis dissolved.
Apparently he could not face all the phone calls of disgruntled town folk, nor muster the courage to motivate his staff and coordinate efforts in order to fix the problem quickly. But… and here’s the thing: no-one seemed to care that he was gone. It was sort of expected. And accepted. People were used to it that the second-in-charge would step in and handle affairs. Bizarre!
I sometimes also feel the urge to disappear and lie down on a couch with a damp cloth on my forehead. And perhaps a cold beer with that! But operating in the fruit export industry, that would clearly not suffice!
Anyway… so I was thinking about how we at the office individually handle rough patches. Some of us withdraw and go silent, others freak out and make noise and perhaps lose their tempers (or some tears), some start calling crisis meetings, and some take it in their stride and go pour a glass of wine in the kitchen.
But without fail, it seems that the best outcome always happens when colleagues start relying on each other, helping out and sharing the load. And also sharing the emotional stress and concern for a client’s dilemma.
Personally I still find it amazing when I notice someone has stepped in to help out – without being asked – when a colleague is on the edge. Perhaps making that difficult phone call on her behalf, or putting in extra effort to help troubleshoot a piece of complex code that is misbehaving, or supporting and helping a client while the technical wizzes focus in the background to recover data after a ransomware attack or some system failure.
And I think that might exactly be the point: it’s all about PEOPLE again. During a bad day, we should not fall on our faces. We should FALL BACKWARDS. Into the arms of trusting and caring teammates. When people turn to each other to GET HELP, but also TO HELP, it works! Guaranteed! There’s just nothing like good teamwork.
After all: it’s not a bad life. Just a bad day.
(A special salute to those brave people running a consultancy or one-person small firm on their own. Perhaps one of the loneliest ways to make a living. Who do they turn to when despair sets in? In whose arms do they fall backwards? If you are one of these solo entrepeneurs, here’s a tip: find others like yourself. They understand. It works! Guaranteed)
So at the end of another year…
…a huge THANK YOU to those of you who have worked with us on projects and shown grit and determination to see things through – sometimes at uncomfortable times of day and under impossible deadlines. May you reap the benefits of streamlined work flows, higher data visibility and quicker decision making for many years to come.
Also a thank you to our new clients who have joined the ViTrax community this year: thank you for believing in us. We’re not perfect, but we will do our best – and better – to knock your socks off with service and product quality. And to our long-standing clients – an even bigger THANK YOU! It is a most humbling experience to be your service provider season after season. You are at the core of what we do every day.
If you’re not a client, but a friend or business associate – many thanks for your time and interest in us.
Here’s to wishing you all of the very best for the approaching festive season. May you have a meaningful Christmas and experience lots of love. Let’s hope our world is much better next year, and that 2019 brings more good days than bad.
All the best.
Freddie Roux
