Are you a Grumpy Supply Chain Professional?

Apr 24 2016, 12:54 PM3 min read

Are you a grumpy supply chain professional? Do you regularly go home unhappy from your day job? Then you need an imaginary rubbish bin…

Going home unhappy again?

It all started this morning. Someone forgot to get bread yesterday, and the anticipated tasty tuna on nice crusty bread for lunch today, turned into tuna on stale Saladas. The first reason to be annoyed!

You’ve just missed the 06.40 into the city for that big logistics presentation and the next train is 13 minutes away. The crowd of commuters is getting bigger by the minute, and guess who’s going to be standing all the way into the city.

To annoy you further, someone who forgot to manage their body hygiene is standing up close and personal to you. Starting to get Irritable?

And what about that teenager who “shares” the latest Justin Bieber contribution to the world through her scratchy sounding iPhone speaker?

You eventually get to work, and the office prankster has pinched your chair, and replaced it with the one with the dodgy wheels. The phone is already screaming at you, and the operations managers is heading your way, looking like he’s just got a parking ticket.

Now it’s anxiety that’s kicking in.

And your office nemesis is giving you an evil smirk. Just another day in your supply chain organisation.

What to do?

But what can you do to help this, particularly when the working day is over? A couple of choices can be made. The ones you usually make…

expect a re-run of the morning commute,
get home, walk in and start yelling “because the bins are not out for collection”, and the TV is too loud!
the kids have heard you, and bolted from the house into the backyard or bedrooms,
the dog is under the table trembling and your partner has lost that “glad to see you look”.

Or you can start to practice some new skills and rituals to prepare yourself for “home reintegration” – a fancy term for getting your head in the right space!

So when you walk into what is meant to be your sanctuary with people you love and care about, it becomes exactly that. You could also call it managing your stress levels!

How to do this

At work, just before you leave your cubicle or exit the building, go through a process of “shaking off” all the bad stuff that has stuck to you over the day.

If you have ever seen a wet dog at the beach shake itself, that’s what you do! Now, if you’re feeling a little self-conscious, just imagine it, but make the process as real as possible.

Some people find that before leaving their desk that figuratively throwing that imaginary rubbish into the office bin works well too.

You can have specific landmarks on the way home from work, like a particular roundabout on the road, or the “Myki touch on pad” at the train station.

Get creative and make it a powerful daily routine.

And of course, use the breathing technique, on the train back home or just before you get out of the car.