Typical Day
Perry O'Sherry is driving through the industrial park with a determined look on his face. He tightly turns a corner and the two-story office complex comes into view. A wave of his badge at the security guard from afar gets the gate raised in time for Perry to enter the parking lot without stopping.
He parks in his reserved spot, which is wicked close to the front door, and hops out. Keeping a light jog, he makes it through the front door, slides the last four feet, and slaps his right hand on the reception desk.
"7:58AM" says Polly, the receptionist, and Perry fist-pumps with delight. He's arrived not just on time, but a full two minutes early. He's not competing with anyone or anything in particular; he's just really into his job.
Breathing a little harder than normal from the exercise, Perry makes his way to his office and turns on all of his equipment. Laptop, on. Printer, on. Music, on. By 8:15AM, he's going through the day's headlines and making sure he's up on all the latest CSR news.
As he takes in the updates, Perry shouts his hellos as he sees his team enter the office. With a staff of eleven hardworking employees (and two interns), he knows it's important to remain a part of the team, which includes greeting every last one of them.
At 9:00AM, it's meeting time. Today, they'll be discussing ongoing diversity and sustainability projects, as well as looking in-depth at the planned local youth outreach co-sponsorships for the next year. Managing the CSR team is all about juggling—there are always multiple projects and initiatives up in the air at the same time.
As each of the team members checks in with items ranging from beach clean-up to using cow dung as an energy source, Perry listens intently, speaking up only to ask questions or impart a small nugget of experience to the team. He prefers to let everyone be a part of the discussion and allow the conversation to develop naturally, although he's prepared to step in if Poppy starts cracking too many fertilizer jokes.
By 10:30AM, Perry is back in his office, ready to meet with the outside world. He spends the next few hours on the phone with the company's public relations office, the local school district rep, a newspaper reporter, and his mother (she wanted to know if September would be a good time to visit).
This continues all the way until Perry's 12:30PM lunch, which today is being provided by the organic vegan restaurant down the street. Perry isn't vegan himself, but he learned long ago that having the words "social responsibility" in his job title meant that bacon was a lot less common than kale.
By 1:30PM, Perry's back at his desk to conduct an interview. As manager, Perry is responsible not just for the work and professionalism of a team, but also recruiting new people.
Today's interview is with Penny, who has a fantastic résumé and great references. It's all going well until she gets into how much she prefers to work alone because she's not really great with people. That's not going to fly in the CSR business. Perry pats himself on the back for being able to hold his smile throughout the rest of the interview, even though he's now just watching the seconds tick away.
The interview is over at 3:30PM, which is when Perry needs to hold an interoffice CSR coordination meeting. It's a special meeting the company holds in which managers from various departments get together and discuss the goals and developments of the CSR department.
Perry methodically runs through the updates to the projects, and the accounting department complains (as usual) that the school outreach proposal will hurt the company's bottom line. Perry gets into a friendly-but-hand-wavy discussion (as usual) about the benefits of helping the client when they're young, so they remember it as they grow older. For once, accounting agrees with Perry (not usual) and decides to let the bottom line take a hit. Score one for the kids.
As 6:00PM hits and bags are being packed, Perry passes by three of the senior team members and congratulates them on the project they submitted. They thank him and invite him out for dinner. While Perry would normally be up for it, he has plans at 7:00PM.
Tonight is date number three with a girl he really likes—an FBI agent named Peggy. The team nods and wishes him luck. They know what three dates with their boss means: Perry's making fajitas.