Sunday is my quiet day. Made more so today, by the fact that our kids (all four of them) went to my parent’s house yesterday for an overnight visit. I set aside Sundays to be a relaxed, stress free day that allows me to recharge. Lately, here at Puget, I have been recommending that practice to everyone on our team.
“Why now, in particular?” you may ask.
It’s been nuts.
We have seen explosive growth in the last 6 months. In fact, at the beginning of the year, we set out a revenue goal that seemed like a pipe dream. Well, at this point, I just hope we don’t go much further past that goal. Like I said, it’s been busy, but we really feel blessed by all of you.
It is such a compliment to be selected by you, our customers and colleagues, for your next computer. Knowing that our systems are being used to run businesses, engineering, scientific research or to bring new things to life on the screen, it makes our work very meaningful.
Any venture has its challenges, and our situation is no exception. We are happy to be dealing with the “problems” of this recent growth. If you have been part of a business that was in the opposite position we are in, you know real pain. We are grateful for our situation.
What are we doing to keep up with this growth? Most noticeably to you, the change in our build times to 10-14 days. This is strictly a temporary move, a reflection of the reality of the volume, in comparison to our current capacity to produce. We are making aggressive investments to get our build times back down to our traditional 5-7 days.
The biggest investment we are making is in new, full time staff. We had five really fantastic people accept offers in the last month. We have already started training three of them, with our next two starting tomorrow. We still have at least one more hire to make in the coming weeks.
If you are familiar with Puget Systems, you can probably guess that new hires are not an immediate relief. Our people are not “plug and play.” We are a company focused on the experience, the handcrafted quality of a computer built by people who do things the right way. As such, we invest in a lengthy training process. A build craftsman may take several months before they are given the green light to take on a complex build without the immediate supervision of a more experienced builder. Samyntha, who recently joined us as a support technician, did 64 hours of training, BEFORE she sat down to train in her own group.
How long will it take to get people up to speed? When will we bring the build times back down? I hesitate to guess, but sooner, rather than later. Our training isn’t cookie cutter, because our product isn’t cookie cutter. Each person who comes to our team has a training program designed for them, as an individual. What I can say is, we do not want to head into the holidays with extended build times. Extended build times reflect extended work days, and the holidays are a busy enough season for us. We want our people home with their families during this time.
Well, I hope you enjoy the rest of your Sunday. I am going to pour this second cup of coffee and get ready to head to the last barbecue of the summer. Tomorrow, we get back to work for you. Thank you for making our work so worthwhile.