How did you manage schedules, duties, and tasks daily when you were a full-time Superintendent? How did it compare to a lot of the systems used today?
Believe it or not, daily routines haven’t changed much since I started in this business in 1973. Equipment, communication, budgets, and expectations have been the game-changers. Interruptions come into play with those routines when there are weather extremes, expectation changes, personnel problems, irrigation breaks, power outages, etc. Basically, the unexpected things.
I kept diaries of what went on daily from 1986 until 2002 and the following are a few looks at some of them. You can see the routine things that usually happen every day, the unexpected, and I even kept track of things that members would say to me during the day.
After training your Assistant Superintendents on your daily expectations or routines, they run the crews doing most of the daily tasks - and Superintendents keep a keen eye on that and the results.
Expect something from the “Unexpected List” every day! Be prepared! (See attached – A Sunday in June 1998) See what is written on the yellow Post-It and above it. Just another Sunday… The others attached are from the same week, five different years.
The biggest game-changer in all of this is the speed of communication. Computers, Cell Phones, “The Cloud”, “Google Search”, A.I., weather apps, irrigation apps, computerized pump stations, etc., etc., etc.
It was nice in the old days when you couldn’t be found at times!
-Mark S. Merrick, CGCS Retired
Introducing ‘Merrick Mondays’, a segment where we hear from Mark Merrick, our resident brand Ambassador, Chief ‘Cool” Officer, and general source of wisdom and secrets of the universe, to spotlight a dose of interview-style content, weekly.