Workflow in the skies

As an all too frequent flyer, I am constantly amazed at the stupidity of other travelers. Here’s a recent example. After a lengthy delay in Montreal, we finally boarded. With status, I got on third. THe first guy on, in first class, immediately held up EVERYBODY ELSE by stopping to pull out of his bag everything he wanted at his seat before he shoved his stuff into the overhead. He took his sweet time about it. Then he decided to pull his bag back out to retrieve another item. I strongly suggested he do this off to the side, that he was preventing the many other passengers from getting on, thereby delaying our pulling away from the gate. When he decided to ignore me, I decided to not let him do so, and within two seconds, he was off to the side. I’m getting cranky in my old age. I also suggested to him that next time he get his crap out BEFORE he got on the plane.

Workflow. It’s all about workflow. In this case, I was the workflow engine. Things must be accomplished according to policy. You can’t get your permissions in E-Business Suite unless your attributes or business roles say you can. And if you have a task, such as approving a request, or manually provisioning a request that’s been approved, or getting your crap out of the way so the rest of the passengers can board, then the workflow engine will either take care of it, according to policy, or send out the notifications, in the form of an email or the pushy guy who’s boarding third, and you will be nagged and possibly threatened with further action if you don’t comply.

Things happen according to POLICY. And if there are exceptions, if things do NOT happen according to policy, then there’s a POLICY for that. If you DON’T fulfill an assigned task, an escalation will be automatically performed, and perhaps your manager will be notified. Or perhaps the guy who boards third will offer to shove your crap in the overhead for you, and you along with it. Escalation. Policy.

There, I feel much better.