Bringing another employee on staff so soon after hiring the first was a decision made under the influence. Not the influence of mind-altering substances, but the influence of a happy, productive little employee with a limited, though extremely charming skill set: K.Lo wasn't even walking when we decided to bring N.Lo on board. Our office is thrilled with our new employee, wouldn't think of hiring anyone else for the job, but the entire Managerial Staff admits that training two new-hires at once can often be... difficult.

Particularly on company excursions, our staff draws questions and comments regarding how we do it. How do we get out of the office. How do we maintain a productive, at-all efficient environment within the office. How do we even function, period. The short response is, I have no idea. The longer, true response is that it takes an enormous amount of managerial preparation.

As a manager, I tend to do a lot of this preparation in my head, which quickly becomes a juggling act, and a tiresome one at that. Although I may appear calm, cool, and collected on the exterior (or at least, that's the goal), internally, I am constantly organizing, adjusting, editing, sifting, sorting, and mainly just trying to keep all those balls in the air. Often, a ball gets dropped, to which I have to say, what can you do. You just pick it up, if you can, and add it back into the mix. When managing such a young company, I have found it's wiser not to worry so much about the dropping.

I also make a lot of lists. I would be lost without lists. Office supply lists, upcoming function lists, to-do lists. My Personal Assistant's main function is to make lists.

As for company excursions, the basic, physical act of it has to be broken down into amazingly small steps. Negotiating myself and our two employees from the office to the company car, for instance, not to mention everything we need for the trip, is a process that demands pause, followed by careful consideration, and then (finally) action:

Step 1. Prepare self for excursion, i.e. change of clothes, trip to employee rest room, and gathering of all excursion materials for self, such as water, phone, briefcase, office supply list.
Step 2. Gather all excursion materials for employees, such as juice, blankets, burp cloths, hats, company car toy, snack, jackets, pacifier.
Step 3. Clothe, diaper, and feed employees.
Step 4. Rally employees for excursion, attempt to garner enthusiasm, i.e. "We're going to COSTCO!"
Step 5. Secure new employee in company car seat.
Step 6. Gather as many excursion materials as humanly possible, take older employee by hand to company car, deposit excursion materials, buckle employee into car seat.
Step 7. Return to house for new employee, install car seat in company car.
Step 8. Return to house for inevitable missing/forgotten excursion items.
Step 9. Remember Managerial Snack, weigh possibility of starvation with inconvenience of returning to office for third time. Curse a little, return to office, and retrieve Managerial Snack.
Step 10. GO.

A detailed procedure such as this is required for every company excursion, and is only the first procedure of many on the actual excursion itself, as The Manager must then oversee all-company travel from the car to the store, navigation of the store itself, travel from the store back into the car, and travel from the car back into the office--with newly purchased office supplies in tow. And the implications are weighty; if not carefully thought out, a manager might find herself chasing an overly-ambitious employee into traffic, while leaving the other screaming in the rain.