What Does a Sump Pump Have to Do with HR?

by Lea Ann Gabbert

When I bought my house 1-1/2 years ago, I followed the advice of my realtor and had a home inspection conducted.  During the inspection, the inspector told me that I should consider adding tubing to extend the sump pump drainage out further away from my home.   I knew this was probably a good idea (consequences could be devastating – a basement full of water!) but I didn’t really know how to do it, I didn’t have time to do it, and it wasn’t raining, so I didn’t have any urgent need to do it.

Occasionally, we would get rainfall, and I would think to myself, “I really should get that sump pump drainage extender,” but again, I put it off.

Fast forward to the past few weeks where we’ve had more rain than we have had during the month of July in over 100 years and I’ve now got a small pond around the backside of my house. I can no longer put this off; I MUST do something about this sump pump!

Nothing has changed, I still don’t know HOW to do it, but I know it needs to be done. So, off I go to Lowe’s home improvement store. With the help of a “consultant,” I get all of the equipment needed for the task, get it home and it doesn’t fit.  I failed to measure the PVC pipe and took the comment a friend made, “Looks like a 2 inch PVC.” When I took it back (after measuring) and got the correct size, it was a 2 minute job to hook up. My kids and I went and got ice cream and when we returned home an hour later the water had receded!

Have you ever had a situation in your credit union that you knew needed attention, but the pain it caused wasn’t great enough to address it yet? Perhaps, you have a problem employee that needs to be cut loose, but you procrastinate until their antics rise to a dangerous level causing performance and morale to suffer. After you tackle the problem, you realize it took mere minutes to resolve the problem and terminate their employment.

Will it take a complaint or lawsuit against your credit union to force your hand to update policies, train your employees about harassment, or simply create a solid performance management process? The list goes on! All of us have to learn to prioritize and not procrastinate the important things that could devastate our credit union with productivity or monetary loss. Sometimes we realize that having the right tools and a little time investment on our part will pay off big in the end. Just like the extender for the sump pump took little time and effort, but went a long way to protect my investment and give me peace of mind!