Week 2: Day 3-4

On Wednesday, my teammates and I met with our supervisor to discuss our priorities for process mapping. She told us that we needed to conduct several interviews in order to properly construct the maps. I found her insight and experience very helpful. We then spent the rest of our day scheduling interviews with the key contacts that we needed. Our first interview was with a two-person team. Greg and Stacy were responsible for creating a system, called Status of Funds, to update the Director of ASD on the amount of money remaining in the BEA budget. It was our responsibility to document what Greg and Stacy do in order to make their process more understandable for a new person.
The best word to describe our interview with Gary and Stacy is awkward. The awkwardness of the interview was apparent from the start. We could tell that Gary and Stacy were nervous, but it took us several minutes to discover why. The truth behind their nervousness was revealed when Laura told the two of them that our process maps were not going to be used for hire/fire decisions and that we were only trying to help them. I smiled as Stacy playfully popped Gary on the arm, quietly whispering to him, “See, I told you so.” It was odd to me that two entrenched government employees would be intimidated by three barely paid interns who lack their age, knowledge, connections, and experience. It is not until I did the mental calculus that I realized that their fear was completely logical. Who better to replace an aging employee than one who is half their age, gets paid less, and can complete a task twice as quickly? I began to sympathize with them as I documented not only what they do, but also how it could be done better. I hope that they will utilize the lessons delineated in our process maps. If not, I fear that their replacement is only a matter of time.