Day 233 - Good Enough For A Pencil

Image of pencils by hownowdesign,
via Flickr.com

On her last day in the office, Beth, a secretary in the political section, handed out pencils with the embossed message "Don't forget me. Beth." It was a clever departure touch and I thought the idea of pencils with a message might be useful elsewhere.

I ordered a batch of pencils with the phrase "One of the B&F Favorites." B&F or Budget and Fiscal is what the financial management office was called in those days. I gave each of the members of the staff five pencils and told them to look for opportunities to give them away when one of their customers did or said something that pleased them. I had noticed that Bajan staff responded to those who came to them for help as if they were looking in a mirror. If Americans approached a Bajan staff member with a smile, they got a smile in return. If Americans approached with a frown, they got a frown in return. I thought I might be able to encourage a higher percentage of smiles by challenging the staff to look for good behavior. The only requirement was that they had to explain the reason they were giving the person a pencil.

The first pencil went to Tim*, an American who came for help because he just realized that he hadn't been paid for the previous three months. This was a very unusual situation, fitting his very unusual circumstances. He had originally been assigned to a country in South America after his previous assignment in Pakistan. He returned to Washington for six months of language training, during which time his previous post had responsibility for reporting his time and attendance. But somewhere during his language training, his assignment was changed to Barbados. When that happened, he had other training to complete and the hand off between his post in Pakistan and the office in Washington that should have handled the change in assignments was dropped. As a result, no office was reporting his hours and the checks stopped going into his bank account. There was nothing he did - or didn't do - that caused the problem. And until he learned from his bank that he was about to go into overdraft, he had no way of knowing a problem had occurred. He explained these details, smiling the whole time. Given the circumstances, laughing was about the only response for Tim. When he finished his story, there were three members of the B&F staff ready to hand him a pencil for his positive attitude.

Presentation of the framed pencils

The rest of the pencils eventually were given away, and then I began serving as the acting management officer (known then as Joint Administrative Officer or JAO). Now the general services office staff, the personnel office staff, the information office staff, and the community liaison office staff all reported to me, so I ordered up some more pencils with "One of the GSO Favorites," "One of the Personnel Favorites," "One of the IMO Favorites," "One of the JAO Favorites," and "One of the CLO Favorites" on them and gave the staff of those offices the same assignment. Pencils started being handed out all over the building.

We had learned as a result of the cultural orientation after the fight how important it was to the Bajan staff that we all greet everyone each day. But that lesson wasn't adopted by everyone. The embassy was located on the third and fourth floors of a bank building in downtown Bridgetown. The Bajan staff, as well as those Americans in the management function, worked on the third floor. The ambassador's and DCM's offices, the security, political, and economic offices were on the fourth floor.  The ambassador and DCM would come down often to the third floor and walk through the space to greet the staff. The chief of the political office never did. When he was named the acting DCM, the ambassador reminded him that he should also make regular walks through the third floor to talk with the Bajan staff. He did.

My farewell gift from the embassy

One day as I was walking with Brenda, one of the Bajan B&F staff, the acting DCM came through and after he passed us, Brenda commented on how much he had changed since being named acting DCM. But then she added, "but not enough for a pencil."

My farewell gift from the staff of the embassy was a framed page with signatures from most of the staff of the embassy. Also on that sheet were four pencils, from the B&F, GSO, JAO, and Personnel offices. Nothing could have pleased me more.

*a name, not necessarily the right one