Monday, October 01, 2012

Saying Fair Well to Diana

The times they are a changin’ at Harbor. We’ve enjoyed a long period of stability in employee retention with Ted at nearly 10 years and Diana 8. We’ve been a cohesive team completely jelled in our thinking and actions. We’ve added a couple of new people at the beginning of this year due in part to the anticipation of this transition and in part because you are keeping us so busy.

It is important to me that we maintain the cohesion that is Harbor. That we all work and approach problems in the same way; that we all have the same depth of training. That’s why we started the new guys at the top of the year. This stuff takes time and a big investment to achieve. I sometimes get scoffed at by my peers in the industry for not running a McDonald’s type operation where just anyone can be plugged in off the street with minimal knowledge but I think that the results speak for themselves. Yes, it means I have to plan way in advanced and train hard but unless you work hard you can’t stand out from the crowd. To all of us at Harbor, your business comes first and we strive to make technology work for you, your way.

Diana and her husband are moving to Malaysia for at least 12 months and possibly longer. As a consequence she’ll be leaving Harbor on October 23rd. It’s a grand adventure in living abroad in a new melting pot and area of bustling international businesses. I’d be as excited as she is.

When Diana came to work for us she was a Chinese citizen. Today she’s an American citizen. She used to get lost all of the time and now she’s got GPS. clip_image001 She used to have a tough time with quotes and purchases and using credit cards – well, she has that mastered. I’ve watched her grow from a quiet IT person who prefers to work in the background into someone completely comfortable at the helm. I’ve always had complete confidence in her.

On October 17th from 5-8pm at Ike’s Restaurant in Sterling Heights (on VanDyke) we’ll be having a going away cocktail hour. I hope that you’ll be able to join us in wishing her well on this new adventure. I’ll be sending out an invitation but if you’d like to RSVP early, that would be great too.

Between now and October 23rd, we will complete the transition that began a while back. Those of you that are still Diana’s clients today will have a new Harbor technician. You will get a personal introduction. This person won’t be anything like Diana, but that’s because there’s only one Diana. We understand that. Rest assured that we’ve already begun to make the transition internally and Diana’s been working with her replacements for last several months to make sure that they are up to speed. In addition to that though you should know that Ted and I are going to be keeping a very close eye on how things are going. You might even see us, though we are going to try to stay in the background so as not to confuse anyone about who the point person is. So in short, we’ve got a group effort going to make this transition as smooth as it can be.

Meanwhile, please block off October 17th Happy Hour and plan to join us over at Ike’s to see Diana off properly.

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