Day: January 27, 2019

Swing

~ osasuoviawe ~ Leave a comment

When I started work as a Shift Manager (Brewing), it was an unwritten rule that when a Maintenance Engineer tells you a task will take 1 hour, double it. If you plan with 1 hour, you will be disappointed. If you plan with 2 hours, you will most likely be okay.
However, this did not stop Process Owners from holding Maintenance Engineers to their 1 hour and giving them the full length of their tongue.

The Maintenance Engineers were optimistic, Process Owners were pessimistic.

Maintenance Engineers then got scared of giving any time commitments to Process Owners. Their favourite reply to, “How long will the task take?”, became, “I don’t know, until I open the machine up.”
Really funny, because the optimists were now conditioned to play safe and preserve their sanity.
This frustrated Process Owners and made them jettison any stops for planned maintenance. Breakdown maintenance prevailed.

Then the Process Owners and Maintenance Engineers realised that breakdown maintenance was expensive, unpredictable, mutually draining and counterproductive. Without meeting, they decided to pursue planned maintenance again, this time unwittingly changing roles.

Now, when a task is to be done, if the Maintenance Engineers tell you 2 hours, halve it. If you plan with 2 hours you will be naively impressed, but if you stand with the Maintenance Engineers during the task, you will come to see that a very healthy buffer (margin of safety) has been built in.

The Maintenance Engineers are now pessimistic and Process Owners optimistic.

The pendulum will swing again, as Process Owners challenge and shrink the buffer, that Maintenance Engineers include in task completion time.

– Osasu Oviawe

One body

~ osasuoviawe

1 Corinthians 12:12-30
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 
For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body — Jews or Greeks, slaves or free — and all were made to drink of one Spirit. 
For the body does not consist of one member but of many. 
If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 
And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 
If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? 
But as it is, God arranged the organs in the body, each one of them, as he chose. 
If all were a single organ, where would the body be? 
As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. 
The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” 
On the contrary, the parts of the body which seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those parts of the body which we think less honorable we invest with the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior part, that there may be no discord in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. 
If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. 
Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. 
And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, then healers, helpers, administrators, speakers in various kinds of tongues. 
Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? 
Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? 

Homily:
Pay attention to your role in the body of Christ.

Ignore the distraction of comparison – the need to be like others or others to be like you.

Ignore the distraction of competition – the need to outdo others or others outwitting you.

We are one body in Christ, we are not whole until we work together – apostles, prophets, teachers, miracle workers, healers, helpers, administrators, speakers in various kinds of tongues.

Let those who see, show us.
Let those who hear, guide us.
Let those who speak, counsel us.
Let those who sense, alert us.
Let those who walk, lead us.
Let those who hold, shape us.
Let those who think, enlighten us.
Let those who feel, instruct us.

We are one body, we need all parts, to be whole.

Lord Jesus, help me to understand my role and to be at peace with it.