Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Sometimes the better thing to do is accept whatever the situation and move to the next step.

Person A: It’s not my fault.

Person B: It’s not my fault, either.

Person A: Whose fault is it?

Person B: Let’s accept that it isn’t either one of our faults and move to the next step.

Sometimes, that is the better thing to do. None of us (whoever “us” might be) did anything to cause this situation. Not much use in thinking about cause, fault, and those types of things. The better thing to do is accept whatever the situation and move to the next step.

Person A and Person B: Any ideas on what to do next?

by Dwayne Phillips

There are times when a good thing to do is put one or both hands in my pockets before doing something else.

In the late 1970s (yes, I am that old), a college professor was working with us know-nothing students in an electrical engineering lab. The experiment of the week involved a little higher-than-normal voltage. As usual, we students didn’t know what we were doing, so the professor intervened. We noted that he first put one hand deep into a pants pocket before reaching out with the other hand.

We later learned that one-hand-in-the-pocket was a safety measure. If one hand became hung up in an electrical circuit, the other hand would be safe and useful in calming the emergency.

We later learned that sometimes you put both hands deeply in your pockets before entering a situation. There are times when I shouldn’t touch anything. Such as with high-voltage rooms, guns, and other possibly life-threatening items. Both hands deeply in your pockets. There, no possibility of touching something that I shouldn’t touch. Both hands deeply in your pockets also prevents touching something of great temptation that I shouldn’t touch (someone else’s super cute baby is one such situation).

The hand or hands in the pockets rule has saved me many times. I recall one was Christmas Day of 1982 when a technician was showing me an electrical fault that was deadly. The technician neglected to warn me ahead of time. Having both hands in my pockets prevented me from touching a piece of equipment that was “hot,” i.e., would have knocked me out on the floor had I put my hand on it.

Remember the one or both hands in the pocket idea. Use it more often than you think you should. It could save you.

by Dwayne Phillips

We have emotions. That is fine. Feel fill-in-the-blank fully and deeply for ten minutes. Get over it and move on.

About ten years ago I was writing proposals for a company. The day before I had finished a couple of pages for a proposal. New orders came down. “We decided to change our approach. Revise those pages to a new approach.”

I sat in a person’s office when we heard the news. Well, what to do? I told the other person “I will be mad for ten minutes and then rewrite the pages. I should be done in a couple of hours.”

I wish I could claim the origin of this idea, but once again someone else taught me what I am passing along in this little blog post.

We have emotions. Many of us engineers and others of the same ilk deny such, but it is true. It is okay to admit and have emotions. Do it. Do it full force. Do it for ten minutes and move on.

Angry? Be as angry as you can without destroying things or others for ten minutes. Move on.

Disappointed? Be as disappointed as you can without destroying things or others for ten minutes. Move on.

Add to the list as appropriate.

Feel fill-in-the-blank as hard as you can for ten minutes. Move on.

We can do this.

by Dwayne Phillips

There are many ways to show respect. One is simply to be one time for interviews and other meetings.

I hope to be employed by an employers by the time this post is posted. I have interviewed with many people these last six months. Some folks are courteous and respectful. Some, well, not so much.

One way to show respect is the be punctual, i.e., simply show up on time.

Sometimes that isn’t possible. Sometimes the previous engagement spills overtime into this one. Sometimes there are some times when stuff happens and all that. Then there are the rest of the times. Be on time the rest of the times.

People all have the same amount of time. Some meetings, like job interviews for unemployed persons, are important and filled with anxiety and expectation. If you don’t show up on time, you crush hopes. That is a bad thing to do to other persons.

Show some respect. Be on time. Please. We can do better.

by Dwayne Phillips

It is Christmas again. Let’s make the most of it.

This is to be posted two days before Christmas. I write it a month earlier than that. I have looked back at a few Christmas blog posts and repeat some of the words from some of the prior ones. Funny how they still are true.

Fifty-one percent of the country is happy about the recent election. Fifty percent of the country isn’t so happy. What to do?

It is a holiday.

• Celebrate as much as you can.
• Help others as much as you can.
• If you can’t be with someone, call them and tell them you wish you could see them and hug them.
• Wish well for others.
• Show kindness.

And on the day after Christmas…do the same. And the day after that…do the same. Repeat daily.

Give it a try.

by Dwayne Phillips

Sometimes the good ideas are lurking in the wrong places.

Looking for good ideas? Look at bad sources.

Read a crummy book. In it I will find, “Now that sentence there is a good idea for a book or something. Why didn’t this person write the book about that instead of the junk they wrote about?”

Crummy magazine article, same thing, “That is an interesting point. The rest of this is junk.”

Look at:

• Any movie
• Any TV show episode
• Any speech
• Any sermon
• and so on

Buried in a crummy source is a good idea. That is one reason the crummy source is so crummy. The creator went the wrong way with the wrong idea. The right way and the good idea are lurking in all that crummy material. Use the good idea.

by Dwayne Phillips

This week’s world-wide excuse for not doing your job continues.

Due to an excuse, I will no longer be doing all of my job. I will continue to receive all of my salary (good for me), but don’t expect all of my efforts. It is pretty nice receiving all of my salary and not having to do all of my job, but hey, that’s what excuses are for, right? Excusing less-than-admirable behavior.

Okay, COVID is rough on some occupations. So are the election results, the outcome of the Super Bowl, being rejected at the prom, etc. Okay, you can’t do all of your job. Fine, I receive less than all of my salary. But that isn’t fair or something. Well, too bad. We all chose to follow whatever, so we all have to do with less during these times. Uh, what? I don’t want to suffer that much? I want all I had and expect to do less? Oh, that’s nice. Okay, why not? I mean, I didn’t cause this problem, so why suffer from it? Oh, that’s part of being a adult? Oh, that silly notion. No, I can have all we want all of the time in all situations. Welcome to the 21st century.

Okay, this little post has a nasty old mean streak to it. Well, some folks have had to work harder for the same pay during the current “crisis.” Too bad for them. Some of us rich folks got to stay home and receive full pay. I didn’t have to give back the money I saved on gas and time while commuting. Lucky me. And too bad for those folks who had to work just as hard and harder than normal. Thank them for their service. That will soothe it all. No, it won’t.

by Dwayne Phillips

An age-old method of writing long pieces comes from writing short pieces without a plan or outline. The “outline” comes later.

I recently stumbled across a description of writers as Story Quilters. This is not a method of planning or outlining a large piece before writing anything. This is not a method of writing with no aim and discovering what it is that I want to write (some call this “pants-ing” for writing by the seat of your pants).

Consider writing a novel (this method can work with other types of writing including nonfiction). I have a few characters in mind. I have a few settings in mind. I have some ideas. I write a scene with these ideas, characters, settings, etc. I write another scene and another and another.

I have a dozen or so scenes. I piece together these scenes as a person would piece together patches of cloth in a quilt. I adjust the scenes here and there so that they flow into a novel.

This is similar to patching together blog posts into a larger piece.

This quilting is not new. For centuries, writers have sketched pictures, written poems, written speeches, and many other short pieces over time. These short pieces, using lots of hard work, were placed together into a novel.

This works.

Yes, this can be done poorly. Many methods can be used poorly. This is, however, something that has been done quite well in the past and is worth trying.

by Dwayne Phillips

I have been experimenting with Google’s NotebookLLM. I like is using it to remind me of what I have written in fifteen years of this blog.

I have been experimenting with Google’s NotebookLLM. I’m still not sure what NotebookLLM is or what it is intended to do. I guess there is value in experimenting before drawing conclusions.

One thing I have found useful is reminding me of what I have written. I have been writing this blog for about fifteen years. I fail to remember everything I have written. I fail to understand the themes of my writing. If a really smart person read all my blog posts, how would they describe me and my writings?

The NotebookLLM takes the place of that really smart person—well, sort of, maybe.

I downloaded all my blog posts (WordPress export to XML). I ran a utility program I wrote that strips enough of the XML away so that I have an HTML that I can read in a browser. I then paste all that into MS Word and save it as a PDF. This is all approximately good enough for this purpose.

I pushed the PDF of fifteen years of blog posts into NotebookLLM. I can “ask questions of” NotebookLLM based on these 1,600 blog posts. Viola’. There are answers.

Privacy? I am sending Google this great big PDF of blog posts. Well, I’ve already sent the whole world all these blog posts, so someone already has copies. Privacy is not an issue in this use case.

Perfection? Nope. This is, however, pretty good and good enough for this use at this time for me.

by Dwayne Phillips

Non-fiction books should be useful and recommendable. It is easy to lose sight of these qualities. A book by Rob Fitzpatrick is full of these qualities.

I recently finished reading a book of simple fundamentals for writing non-fiction. “Write Useful Books. A modern approach to designing and refining recommendable nonfiction,” Rob Fitzpatrick, 2021, ISBN-10: 1919621601, ISBN-13: 978-1919621609.

The two key words in the title are useful and recommendable. Consider when two persons are talking. One has a vexing problem. The other says, “I had that problem. I read a book and learned how to solve it. You have to read that book and follow its advice.” Useful and recommendable.

Okay, nice qualities. How do you do that. Fitzpatrick’s book is a pretty good place to start.

Consider the nonfiction book NOT as a book, but as a product.

Consider this product example: A Shower Valve Socket Wrench Set is a product. You have to work on a leaky faucet in your shower? GET THIS. It is useful and I am recommending it.

Front load the nonfiction book, i.e., put the most useful things first. People may read the first ten pages. Make them the most useful.

The Table of Contents is the proposal for the book. Chapter, section, subsection titles should be long and descriptive and full of action.

Teach the topic before writing the book.

Test the book with beta testers early before you put a lot of work into it.

The list goes on. Most of those above sentences are in the Table of Contents.

Cheesy? Maybe. Overly optimistic? Maybe.

Fresh and to the point? Absolutely.

Useful and recommendable? Absolutely.