Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

A text without a context is a pretext. Know the audience. Sorry, these are old basics but they still apply.

“Do you know who I am?”

That question is a biting indictment of a person who approaches another in ignorance and starts talking in grand fashion about what might be grand ideas, but probably are not. It is also a biting indictment of the person asking the question. “Surely, sir, if you recognized me and my importance you would not be speaking as you are.” Arrogance.

Enough questions. Now for some answers.

Context when attempting to convey information is important. Knowing the audience is important. Start talking without these, and it just won’t work.

Know the audience. Know what the audience knows. Don’t waste their time telling them something they already know. Put the information in context. It is possible to discuss matters already known by the audience if a new facet of the information is also discussed. “We all know that water boils at 212° F, but we have learned how to change that with new techniques and that brings us to a new perspective on our organization. Please, lend an ear.”

Context. Audience. Old concepts for communication, but they still apply.

by Dwayne Phillips

Most of us received many instructions in childhood. Now that we are in adulthood, are we still tying ourselves to instructions meant for children?

Here is something I was told as a child (and I have told many children): Look both ways before crossing the street.

I still recommend this instruction for adults.

How about this one: don’t talk to strangers.

I don’t recommend this one for adults. In the course of a job, I need to talk to many people I don’t know, i.e., strangers.

When I am doing something as an adult and having lots of difficulty from that, am I being childish? Am I following a rule told to me in childhood that I should discard as an adult? I can do many things after eating without waiting an hour. I don’t need a nap everyday (well, at this point I want a nap everyday, but some people frown on sleeping at work at my desk). I can see what I need to see, hear what I need to hear, and then decide if it is for me.

The list of childhood rules that I can discard as an adult is long. Let’s be aware of it.

by Dwayne Phillips

Bad things happen in the lives of employees. Other employees are asked to show consideration. This works for a short while. Managers need to act properly and quickly.

Many years ago, I went to a fellow employee to retrieve some information from an equipment inventory. It was a mess. The guy didn’t have the right information, wouldn’t correct his mistakes, and dismissed me to those places that folks are dismissed to when someone just doesn’t want to talk to them.

I explained what happened to another co-worker. “Oh,” said the other co-worker, “his wife died two weeks ago. They had been married 40 years. He is grieving. He hasn’t been the same since. Please consider his situation.”

Of course that was a tragedy. Of course the man was grieving. Of course he wasn’t doing his job as well as he had always done it. And, of course, I needed information from the inventory system so that I could satisfy the dozens of persons who also needed it. I needed this man or someone else to do his job.

Bad things happen in the lives of employees. Of course we need to consider their losses and their time of grieving. And of course, the job still has to be done. Sometimes I can make up for the other person’s loss and do their job for them. Sometimes I cannot.

Here is where we the managers do our jobs. Other employees can make up for the loss of work from a grieving person. That, however, has its limits. Those limits are smaller than most of us managers would like.

If managers want to allow a person to grieve, do something. (1) Put another person in the job for a while. (2) Continue to pay the grieving person while not charging them paid time off. Those things cost money. Some organizations have the money to afford such. Some organizations don’t.

If an organization is going to allow grieving, pay for it. No excuses. No, “Hey, please consider the situation and do more than you are required and continue to do more for a long time because we the managers won’t do our jobs.”

Bad things happen. Managing the work when bad things happen isn’t easy. It is, however, something managers are paid to do. Let’s do better.

by Dwayne Phillips

Sometimes it is worth the effort to identify the noun and the adjective.

This is an educated guess. The word “guess” is a noun. The word “educated” is an adjective. Nouns are usually facts (a tree is a tree). Adjectives are usually chosen by a person and are subjective (what is a majestic tree to one person is an overgrown tree to another person).

An educated guess is what one person chooses to describe a situation. Another person might call it a foolhardy guess. Still, we are all discussing a guess.

“A guess is a swift conclusion drawn from data directly at hand, and held as probable or tentative, while the person making the guess admittedly lacks material for a greater degree of certainty.” (Wikipedia)

We lack material to be certain, so we guess. Well, yes, I am guessing, but I am educated and I…

Nope, still guessing. Don’t have enough information to make a critical decision.

Let’s admit what we know and don’t know. That shouldn’t hurt much. We can do better.

by Dwayne Phillips

Sometimes we simply have to lower expectations when it comes to what other people will do. Too bad. We can do better.

It happened again the other day at work. I needed signatures on paper, or at least the digital equivalent of them. It was all set. Go to this building on this day, read this, sign that. Done.

Well, it didn’t work as planned. The folks who were supposed to be in the building on the appointed day were not. I had to drive an hour one way to another building.

Sigh, it seems like we are constantly “lowering the bar.” That is one expression of “lowering expectations.” Don’t expect others to do as they say, at least not on a consistent basis. Always have a backup plan. If those folks aren’t doing their job, have at least one other group of folks who might do the job for them.

It seems like we could do better. I know we can. Come one, let’s all try a little harder and do a little more. We should expect and receive better from one another.

by Dwayne Phillips

There are two essentials for an employee. Given the job market, it appears that the great majority of employers don’t understand these essentials.

I have been on both sides of the hiring and being hired world. I find two and only two essentials:

1. Job skills
2. Work ethic

Okay, that’s it. Next?

The trouble is, it is quite troublesome to determine these two in a job applicant.

There are “tests” that employers want to give to job applicants. It is unfortunate that some employers’ “tests” are actual work they need accomplished. The test is a way to have an applicant work for free. Most applicants don’t know this. Those who do understand how this works are happy to bribe employers to have a chance at a job.

The work ethic part is more difficult to determine. Yes, this person knows who to do the job, but do they arrive on time? Do they work a full day? Does it take them an hour to sit and start working? Do they spend most of the day running a football pool? There are many questions that attempt to measure work ethic.

Sigh. This ought to be easier. Sorry. It isn’t. Still, come back to these two things.

by Dwayne Phillips

Electric vehicles have some good qualities. They are still, however, not practical as the mass consumer market shows. Darn. Don’t you hate it when facts mug a good idea?

Sitting here in a coffee shop, typing blogs, sipping coffee and looking out the picture window at a clear sky, I note a person parking their Tesla in front of the coffee shop. Wow. What a cool car. It makes no noise; it burns no gasoline, and its a golf cart that goes 70 miles an hour for several hundred miles. Oh, and it costs a lot of money.

Hate to toss in that last sentence, but there we have it.

I see many Tesla’s in my wanderings about my neighborhoods. I live in Reston, Virginia. This is a planned community about 20 miles from Washington, D.C. High-paying jobs abound here. We live in $600,000 (or is it $700,000—I lose track) plastic sided houses with tiny bedrooms. Just the property taxes on my plastic house cost me more than a mortgage in many parts of the country.

All that is to say, “Rich folks live here.” It is no coincidence that this area has more Tesla vehicles running about than everywhere in the country save one or two other places inhabited by rich folks.

A Tesla is a neat toy for rich folks. A Tesla is a luxury vehicle. If you want one and can afford it, buy one. Good on you.

Still, a Tesla is a neat toy for rich folks. Most Americans are not “rich” (whatever rich is). A Vehicle is part of a mass-market market in America. The electric vehicle fits into a little niche of that market. There has always been a little luxury market in the vehicle market.

Well, given the luxury vehicles are electric, one day costs will come down and vehicles driven by everyday plain old folks will be electric as well. We shall see. Until then, a Tesla is a neat toy for rich folks.

by Dwayne Phillips

A partial list of boo boos I have seen in published documents over the years. If anyone had read these things, surely they would have found these things. Right?

I guess an editor or someone like that should have read this, but it appears that no one did. Here is a partial list (I cannot list them all, even a blog post wouldn’t hold that):

• Copyright notice on public domain information (especially on software)
• The same diagram put in 40 different figures instead of 40 different diagrams in 40 different figures
• One document containing different version numbers in the headings of different pages
• No dates
• No authors
• Redundant phrases redundantly used introducing redundancy

Did someone read this before hitting the Print button? Perhaps if someone had, these mistakes would have been corrected. Then again, these mistakes aren’t “critical” or some other adjective that means “we cannot possibly let people know we (don’t) care about these things.”

I think published documents should be correct. I have felt that way for years. It may be some type of birth defect. Is there a medicine for that malady? Let’s all try to do better.

by Dwayne Phillips

Once again, the world swings into yet another crisis. Many persons with good intentions intend to reduce the crisis by limiting what other persons can say and write about it. Nothing new here.

We used to have silly liars. The National Enquirer is one great example. Hillary Clinton had an alien baby and the like. Silly lies.

Now we have silly and not-so-silly liars. Those folks spread misinformation, i.e., stuff that isn’t true. The spreaders of such lies may not know the truth, so they merely repeat whatever they hear. Anyways, persons with good intentions react in horror at misinformation. The “masses” (I think I am part of the masses, but I’m not sure as I haven’t checked to see if I am paid up in my masses fees) should not be exposed to such misinformation as the masses will believe the misinformation and flock to where ever it is that Hillary Clinton keeps her alien baby.

And we also have mean liars. These people lie to hurt other people. The mean liars know they are lying, but that doesn’t matter as they will do whatever is required to hurt others. These liars spread disinformation (note it starts with “d” not “m”). Disinformation seeks to hurt. Disinformation creators and spreaders are mean liars.

Persons with good intentions react in horror at the disinformation creators. It seems that lying with great intent is more horrific than lying with small intent. Lying some lies is worse than lying some other lies. I think? Then again, I always thought a liar was a liar, but perhaps I was naive.

Hmmm, seems that don’t have anything new here. Some persons lie “little white lies;” some persons lie bigger lies, and some persons just downright hate others so they lie about them. Perhaps I need to update my dictionary of new words or something. Perhaps I should calibrate my reactions to horrible events and persons. I struggle to keep up with all this new stuff or stuff that isn’t new but some people act as if it is new.

Enough reactionary thoughts of a tired old man.

by Dwayne Phillips

The old saying about not having time to do it once still holds. Perhaps we will learn one day.

There is an old saying about not having the time to do something right, but always having the time to do it over and over and over and… I’m not sure who said that first. Perhaps someone in the BC era.

It is unfortunate, but this old saying is still common practice. Something must be completed by tomorrow, so let’s just do this. Perhaps the next person in line will accept what we hurriedly did and life will move on. Perhaps they will “kick it back” and we have to do it over. Doing it over means it will be completed a week from tomorrow. Wait, I thought it “had to be done tomorrow.”

Gosh. What are we doing? Something had to be done tomorrow, but then a week from tomorrow was okay. We knew we were doing a poor job. No one will notice poor quality, right? If no one notices poor quality, what are we doing? And why were we only given one day to do something that is important to someone? Questions and questions.

Yes. What are we doing? Does this thing really need to be done at all? Perhaps we could stop, call someone, and ask. Let’s be candid. Tomorrow’s product will be lousy. Do we have the time to do well? If tomorrow’s product is lousy, will we be given more time? Perhaps we could just have two days to do it well instead of a week to do it poorly and then do it well?

We can do better than this. Let’s all give it a try.