Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Much of what we pass off as complicated issues comes from something simple, the desire to be missed.

I like to listen to the podcast of former Washington Post writer Tony Kornheiser. I laugh a lot while listening.

Mr. Kornheiser is a big movie fan and follows the culture as he was a Style writer for the Post. He lamented during the COVID shutdown as he stopped going to movie theaters. After the pandemic, he wasn’t going to return out of concern of catching something that would kill him (he is in his 70s).

Mr. Kornheiser’s lament was not that he was not returning to theaters; his lament was that no one would note his absence and miss him.

I frequent a few coffee shops in my community every morning. I have done this for 15 years. During that time, some regular faces have disappeared. They died of old age. I miss them. I miss what they brought with them each day. Their absence hurts my heart.

Will anyone miss me? The lack of my patronage will not break any of these coffee shops. Will my time and presence be missed? I wish so. Still, why would anyone miss me?

Perhaps I can bring something with me each day that is miss-able. Perhaps I can do better.

by Dwayne Phillips

Along with the sage advice, “listen more, talk less,” I add, “nap more, talk less.”

“People who nap in the day are lazy.” My mother told me that countless times. Sometimes I disagree with things my mother told me.

Now to the title of the post: before opening mouth, rest.

Fatigue always wins. I claim credit for that expression, although I am sure someone said it before me. Fatigue has something to do with the amount of oxygen and other essential goodness in short supply in the brain. History is full of wise persons who rested, beat back fatigue, AND THEN spoke or wrote.

Toss in a good meal along with a nap. Then talk. Please remember the order of actions. In my life, when I follow this advice, I seem to have better outcomes.

by Dwayne Phillips

Why do we wonder why middle managers don’t seem to do anything useful. That is the definition of “middle.”

We disdain the “man in the middle.” He or she doesn’t seem to do anything but cause greater expense.

We disdain the middle managers. They don’t do anything but add levels to the bureaucracy and raise prices.

Well, what do we expect? Middle managers manage the work in the middle. They aren’t at the working level directly influencing the products and services. They aren’t at the high level affecting the overall direction of an organization and its products and services.

They are in the middle because they aren’t good at the other levels. If they were brilliant in some other way, they would be working in some other way in some other job.

Don’t be surprised if those occupying the middle tier aren’t great. That is why they are in the middle tier. They can’t do the work any longer and they don’t have the vision, spark, or personal influence as those at the top.

They are probably good people. They are probably good neighbors, good siblings, good spouses, etc. They just aren’t brilliant at other jobs. Let’s live with that.

by Dwayne Phillips

There was a time when a local phone call was special. Today, we have social media. Same thing, but we tend to use it differently. We don’t have to.

Many years ago there was such a thing as a long-distance phone call and a local phone call. The long-distance call was charged by the minute. Talk an hour? Not on long distance! An hour cost ten times as much as a six-minute call.

The local phone call was different. That was paid on a “flat rate.” The monthly phone bill was set, and you could talk on a local call all you wanted. An hour cost the same as six minutes. My mother loved to talk with a few people for long periods of time. It was a local phone call, flat rate, good stuff.

And now we have social media. Flat rate. My Internet service bill is the same regardless of how long I am on XFaceTokTube or whatever. Reading about high school buddies a thousand miles away is on a flat rate. Reading about activities just around the corner is on a flat rate.

Watch this, ignore than, pay a flat rate. Just like my mother—talk for a long period of time with only a few persons. On XFaceTokTube, look at my buddies and ignore the rest. I never read ads on any of these places. I don’t read stuff about Hillary Clinton’s alien baby or how the Russians are the most brilliant advertisers in history.

by Dwayne Phillips

Yet another statement about what happens in meetings shows itself to be something to toss away.

For some reason, meetings tend to have many statements that are supposed to be proven by time and such but are nothing but folly. I have written about some of these before such as “silence means agreement” and “what happens here stays here.”

Yet another silly statement about meetings is something like, “The majority is smarter than any individual.”

Consider a meeting of eleven persons. Ten are brain surgeons and one is a truck driver. The decision of the meeting regards truck maintenance. The ten brain surgeons vote one way while the truck driver votes another way. The brain surgeons are wiser than the truck driver.

Silly example, huh? Surely the ten brain surgeons will listen to the truck driver. Right? Probably not. They are highly educated and skilled persons. They are all in the same field and they all see things the same way. And they are so smart that they know they have to be careful about trucks. Still, they vote one way, and they are (not) smarter or wiser or more competent or something than the truck driver.

There have been countless studies on synergy and the wisdom of the crowd and all that. Still, we seem to disregard all common sense sometimes and go with the crowd that is going in the wrong direction. We are an odd lot. Let’s try to do better.

by Dwayne Phillips

There are many aspects to working from home or at the office. One is simply the time wasted commuting.

Folks are returning to the office after the pandemic. They are? Are they saying they are, but not really?

One simple aspect of the question is commuting. I live in he Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C. These suburbs stretch for dozens of miles to the west and south of the District of Columbia. While a few of us have offices in “the District,” most are now working from offices in Virginia. A few of us work from offices in Maryland across the Potomac River. Those commutes are just as bad as commuting into the District.

The commute is bad. One hour to work. One hour home. People are paid for eight hours work and work eleven hours. That is a 25% cut in pay.

Well, what do you want? This is America. This is chasing the American dream. This is just the way it is and just do it.

Then we had a pandemic. We worked from home over the Internet with those ZoomerTeams meetings. Get stuff done happened as we got stuff done. More or less productive? Are you kidding? The fact is, no one knows how to measure productivity for these office (and especially these government-related) jobs. Hence, claims of greater or lesser productivity are just that—claims. Nothing was measured before, during, or after the pandemic.

What was measurable and measured was the time of day. Those two hours of commute time were easy to measure. What was measurable and measured were the expense. The credit card bill showing gasoline bought at the station was easy to measure. The money spent at the lunch place at work was easy to measure.

Worried about productivity? In Washington, D.C.? Are you kidding?

This aspect of work from home is pretty simple. If employees are spending hours a day commuting, they will want to work from home most of the time.

There are other aspects of the discussion that are more complicated. More to come on those.

by Dwayne Phillips

Sometimes we meet someone who lacks the ability to do something. How do we react?

As I write this post, I am having one of those weeks when I have the inability to do something simple. For some reason, I woke one day this week with a sore left knee. The next day, that knee was swollen and it hurt like the dickens to bend it. I could not put a sock on my left foot without tears of pain rolling down my face. Tying the shoelace on the left shoe was unthinkable.

I had an inability.

Go to work. See someone hobble in on crutches, and we immediately offer to carry their cup of coffee for them. Of course we do; that is how a nice person reacts when another person has an inability. Right?

And then I see someone who cannot write the first sentence they are supposed to write. Do I immediately grab another one of their jobs so they can concentrate on that one sentence? Do I immediately offer to work around their inability? Well, uh, er…

Too often I scoff or complain or something. Would I complain if they hobbled in on crutches after a weekend auto accident? Of course not. But in this case…

We all have inabilities from time to time. I see inabilities in others. How do I react? I can do better. We all can.

by Dwayne Phillips

One key to learning how to juggle is to know how to drop something. The same is true for managing competing priorities and tasks.

Just about every “Help Wanted” ad I see has something in it about managing competing priorities or managing multiple tasks. I guess they want someone who can decide when to work on this instead of work on that.

Consider juggling, you know, tossing three or more balls in the air and catching them and so on. One of the keys to juggling is dropping a ball or just letting it fall to the ground and continue juggling the rest. If the juggler makes an extraordinary effort to retrieve an errant toss, everything falls apart. The extraordinary effort disturbs the balance and makes it impossible to continue to juggle the other balls.

Just let the ball fall to the ground and keep the other balls going.

The same lesson applies to juggling or managing tasks. Sometimes you just let a task fall to the ground. Using extraordinary efforts to keep that falling task going throws all the other tasks into chaos. Soon, all the tasks fail. Let one of them drop and keep the rest moving.

The same concept applies to many endeavors. Too many bills to pay? Let one of them drop to keep the others paid on time. Too many of anything? Let one drop to keep the others in good stead.

I hate this advice. I only tackle things that I can handle. I don’t admit failure and let something drop. Silly me. I have to get over that perfection rule and live in the real world. Let a ball fall to the ground.

by Dwayne Phillips

Three generations ago, an eight-year-old told us the reason for the season.

The most-heard sermon of all time was delivered by an 8-year-old boy voicing a cartoon in 1965. Christopher Shea spoke the words below in A Charlie Brown Christmas. That sermon has been heard by millions or hundreds of millions of persons in the sixty years since. It isn’t a long sermon. It is a profound sermon.

The sermon follows.

Linus: “And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”

Here is the sermon:

by Dwayne Phillips

Let us mean what we say and say what we mean. Sometimes that requires too much effort. The effort is worth it if we want others to take us seriously.

You know what I mean, huh? You get my drift, right? Just go along with me on this one.

And then one day, someone else makes a face when I say something. They turn their back on me and walk away never to return. Huh? Don’t they get it?

No, the other person doesn’t “get it.” There has been to much hem and haw (do people still use that expression?) and arm waving and funny looks on my face in an attempt to convey information. I have repeatedly not meant what I said and said what I meant. I just sort of gave impressions for a long time.

Clear thought and speech are not easy. Clear thought and speech just don’t fit with some persons. “Be in this specific place at this specific time with these specific things in at hand.” Gosh, that is a lot of effort. Isn’t close enough good enough?

Sometimes close enough is good enough. Often, close enough is good enough. There is, however, a point when close enough is tiresome—tiresome enough to end a relationship (the old, “flip the bozo bit” expression).

We have a dire situation. Specific measures will solve the situation. Close enough won’t be good enough.

Let’s do better. Clear thought and speech require effort. We can do that. We can mean what we say and say what we mean.