03.22.08
What’s with all this grease, anyway?
I am not much of a shopper. I enjoy going to certain stores (like Best Buy and…well, I’m sure there’s got to be another one), but even a leisurely stroll through the aisles usually takes me about 15 minutes, tops. The prospect of bumming around Wal-Mart for 1-2 hours while getting my oil changed is not a favorable one to me. So I changed my own oil this time, and instead of wasting an hour in a climate controled store listening to resonably, pleasant music, I spent three days in my dank, dusty basement. My victory is less satisfying when I think of it like that.
To be fair, I didn’t really spend three days just changing my oil. I had intended to change my oil, brake pads, and drive axle. I did the oil first, and then tried to tackle the hardest of the jobs, the axle. My CV joint has been announcing my turns with a steady click for some time now, and it’s a job that I’ve really needed to do (or “have done”, probably) for a while. I decided to buckle down to do it on Sunday. Naomi didn’t need the car on Monday, which was good to know just in case. I figured I could wrap things up Sunday evening, but it would be nice to not be rushed.
Well, Sunday came and went, and fortunately, Naomi didn’t have to have to car Tuesday either. She did need the car Wednesday morning, though, and at this point, that was starting to look more and more like an unreasonable deadline.
After all my progress (and regress) the first two and a half nights, I finally resigned myself to putting the pieces back together Tuesday night around 8:30 PM. Fortunately, I didn’t have too many extra pieces left-over, and I made it home from my midnight (well, 10:30, really) test drive through the neighborhood in one piece.
Four days later, my fingernails are still stained with grease, and I probably need a new tie rod end, since I managed to screw up the threading on my current one by beating it with a hammer. After all that, I probably did more harm than good. The one thing I did accomplish this week was a three-day oil change.
…Oh, and I think I also learned that I have a long way to go in learning to work on cars.
05.02.07
The Rest of Rowan’s Story
Some time back, a story was posted on the announcement board in our break room. This story was offered as an inspirational essay of hope and encouragement in the business world. Ironically, the first site I found hosting a write-up of this essay was blocked by our network police program (personal websites are apparently a no-no).
Anyway, I appreciated the intent of this message, and I believe it makes some interesting observations about modern employees, but I think it left out some important pieces. The essay is A Message To Garcia (found here), and it begins like this…
IN ALL THIS CUBAN BUSINESS there is one man stands out on the horizon of my memory like Mars at perihelion. When war broke out between Spain and the United States, it was very necessary to communicate quickly with the leader of the Insurgents. Garcia was somewhere in the mountain fastnesses of Cuba—no one knew where. No mail or telegraph could reach him. The President must secure his co-operation, and quickly.
What to do!
Someone said to the President, “There is a fellow by the name of Rowan will find Garcia for you, if anybody can.”
Rowan was sent for and given a letter to be delivered to Garcia. How “the fellow by name of Rowan” took the letter, sealed it up in an oil-skin pouch, strapped it over his heart, in four days landed by night off the coast of Cuba from an open boat, disappeared into the jungle, and in three weeks came out on the other side of the Island, having traversed a hostile country on foot, and having delivered his letter to Garcia—are things I have no special desire now to tell in detail
The point I wish to make is this: McKinley gave Rowan a letter to be delivered to Garcia; Rowan took the letter and did not ask, “Where is he at?”
By the Eternal! there is a man whose form should be cast in deathless bronze and the statue placed in every college of the land. It is not book-learning young men need, nor instruction about this or that, but a stiffening of the vertebrae which will cause them to be loyal to a trust, to act promptly, concentrate their energies: do the thing—”Carry a message to Garcia.”
Since the original author did not wish to dwell on the details of Rowan’s adventures, it is up to our imaginations to determine his course. Here’s my version…
Rowan was a resourceful man, and he knew Garcia’s role in the revolution, so he booked a ticket on the next vessel to Cuba. He docked on the coast in the dead of night, and began asking passer-bys about the whereabouts of Garcia.
As he slowly unraveled the (few) clues and eventually discarded the (many) red herrings, he migrated his way through the deadly jungle. Undeterred by the deafening cacophony of insects (who often dined on his blood), the necessity of perpetual watchfulness for deadly camouflaged snakes and spiders, and the mementos of sprained ankles and scratches, he wandered through the jungle in search of more hints to his final destination.
After three weeks of deprivation, Rowan finally made it to Garcia’s secret camp. He proudly handed the leader the message.
Garcia’s eyes bounced like a metronome as they hungrily devoured the words printed on the correspondence. But suddenly, His face contorted in confusion. He read and re-read the note, checking the back of the paper each time for something that might have been missed.
He handed the latter back to Rowan and explained that he had already heard all this…
You see, knowing that the letter was of utmost importance, the President had decided to make triplicate copies of the message. For additional assurance, he assigned the task of delivery to three different individuals: Rowan, Skippy, and Edgar.
Edgar was a timid and meticulous sort of fellow who was well-meaning yet distractible. Three weeks into the assignment, he was still in the States spending his time perusing the university libraries and Google maps (occasionally wandering over to the magazine section and EBay) for the exact whereabouts of Garcia…his time, that is, that wasn’t spent harassing the President with incessant and often irrelevant questions.
Rowan, as we saw, left immediately for Cuba with his suitcase of gumption, a carry-on bag stuffed with initiative, and little else. In three weeks, he had traversed the jungle (ala Family-Circus fashion) and had eventually tracked down the elusive Garcia.
Skippy, on the other hand, realized that like all assignments, this one surely had some specs, and he figured that some prior research had probably been conducted. Knowing the President was a busy man, he asked the President’s secretary for some contact information of people “in the know” for this particular task. No one knew exactly where Garcia was, but several folks had some educated ideas, and many knew where he was not. The committee also knew of some decent mule salesmen and ATV stores, so Skippy would not have to journey on foot. He asked all the right questions, and picked all the right brains, and a week and a half into the assignement, he delivered his copy of the letter…well before Rowan. He returned home much less scathed by the markings of jungle adventure, because his preparatory research had shown him that he should begin his adventure on the opposite coast from Rowan.
09.14.06
Service With a Smile…and a Vacuous Stare
This week, I am engaging in some self-improvement. My company has “encouraged” all of us to participate in a two-day training course to teach us to be more service oriented. Don’t get me wrong, I am all for a heightened focus on customer service. I have been a customer often enough to appreciate the value of good service. Most of my trips to Wal-Mart remind me that our culture is not nearly service-oriented enough. My complaint is not about the motive of the course, but rather the application, and the poor practices that we’re being taught.
For example, one group exercise challenged us to “think outside the box a bit”.So, join me now for a whimsical look at the business world as illustrated by a zany series of questions and answers centered on the animal kingdom
Q1: How do you get an elephant in a refrigerator?
A1: You open the door and put him in.
Moral: Look for the simple answers.
Ah, yes, the simple answers. Ignore those pesky concerns about possibility and plausibility. The rules of physics and the demeanor of wild animals just complicate things. Obviously, when trying to put an elephant in the refrigerator, all one has to do is merely open the door and put it in. How could anyone wish for a more complete solution?
Q2: How do you get a giraffe in the refrigerator?
A2: First, You take the elephant out…
Moral: There are consequences to your actions.
Okay, we have already violated rule one. I don’t want to nit-pick (well, maybe I do), but nothing like pre-existing limitations on space stopped us from hypothetically opening the door and putting the elephant in. Aren’t we complicating matters by insisting that the elephant be removed prior to the insertion of the giraffe? Oh well, moving right along
Q3: A meeting is called for all of the animal kingdom. Who doesn’t attend?
A3: The giraffe, because it’s in the refrigerator.
Moral: Use all available information.
Okay, now Im catching on; I’m starting to see the precedent. Each rule violates all of the previous rules. Obviously we had to save this one until after the first rule, because, otherwise, there would be no way we could have had the cutesy illustration (somehow I doubt all available information would have allowed us to merely open the fridge door and put the elephant in).
Q4: There is a river known to be inhabited by deadly crocodiles, but you need to get to the other side. How do you cross the river?
A4: You swim across, because the crocodiles are at the meeting.
Moral: This class is a complete waste of time.
The obvious and simplest solution would be to simply will yourself across the river (Just remember the acronym P.O.C.E.T.: physics only complicates easy things). Remembering the consequences of our actions, swimming will probably get you wet and potentially ruin your disposition; we should probably at least *look* to see if there’s a bridge. Using all available resources, I would probably check the schedule and attendance roster before simply assuming that the crocodiles were still in their important meeting.
After gleaning all of the useful tidbits I could from the animal illustration, I tried to force an attentive expression as I stared blankly into space until the next group exercise. For this exercise, we were given a series of facts concerning employees, airlines, destinations, and flight days. These factual statements were to be used to derive a summary of “who went where” for our hypothetical boss. Using every piece of information available, it was fairly simple to logically derive the information and fill in the nice chart provided with blanks for the names, airlines, destinations, and dates. The twist (you knew there had to be one) was that our boss only asked “Who went were?” If we filled out the other information, then we did too much. Of course, we couldn’t have gotten the answer without using all of the available information. They did make an important point though: Bosses HATE overachievers and complete pictures. I know my boss would be extremely upset (I would probably even get fired) if I handed him a report of Who/How/Where/When when all he asked was Who/Where. That is extremely unacceptable. We should probably all learn a thing or two from this illustration Destroy all superfluous information. Make your boss ask you for it, and then go to the trouble of re-creating it from scratch.
This will be quite applicable with one of my currently assignments I am supposed to research the feasibility of such-and-such to determine if it is a viable solutions for this-and-that After this terrific class, I not know that instead of risking my job by presenting a solution that explains the pros and cons, I need to simply send him an email with either “yes” or “no” in it. I will wait for him to ask for more (unlikely, I’m sure), and then I will try to tackle those assignments with a clean slate as they are asked of me.
So as I continue down the path of my career development, I will do my best to apply my new-found insight into the realm of customer support I will answer their concerns as simply (don’t get bogged down with the complexities of things like possibilities) and with as little information (Yes and No are ideal) as possible.< If they want me to put an elephant in their refrigerator, I will say no problem, as I open the door to first remove the deadly crocodiles.
