Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Once again, we observe that physics—notably gravity—wins.

Sometimes I venture outside the suburbs of Federal Virginia go into “downtown” Washington D.C. I see them, those funny-colored little skateboards with handles. These are the eScooters or whatever we choose to call them this week. They have little electric motors and speed pedestrians (I guess we can’t call them pedestrians if they are riding a motor-moved vehicle) about the sidewalks faster than they could otherwise walk.

Evil wears a disguise.

These “scooters” can’t fool me. They are skateboards.

Two of my sons used to ride skateboards. I tried those things a little, but gave up. My balance isn’t what it once was as a kid, or maybe I don’t bounce off the pavement as I did as a kid.

Trouble with the scooters in the city is that kids don’t ride them. Adults ride them; at least the birth certificates of these riders indicate they are “adults.” Their activities causes me to wonder.

Now to physics. The wheels on the scooters are small. There is something, I can’t recall if it is angular momentum or something, in physics that screams CAUTION if the wheels are small. Then there is center of gravity. When an adult stands, the center of gravity is a couple of feet above the pavement. This is a large number compared to the diameter of the wheel when it is only a couple of inches.

Physics tells us that this is a bad combination.

Then there is gravity. It is still 32 feet per second per second. An adult requires about one second to fall to the pavement. So, five miles per hour forward velocity combined with 32 feet per second downward velocity and the adult hits the pavement really really hard.

Adults don’t bounce. Adults go to the hospital.

News reports confirm the predictions from physics.

Why is it we doubt physics?

by Dwayne Phillips

Perhaps we all grew up at age 12 and have been coasting ever since

A few years ago I noticed something about teenagers in high school

They do what they have to so they can do what they want.

If they want to play sports, they study enough to get the grades required to play sports. If they want to dance in the halls, they recruit friends to be look outs.

And then we consider adults. Uh, we do what we have to so we can do what we want.

Why go to a boring job everyday? The paycheck buys food, shelter, and clothing. What’s more, it pays for the cups of coffee I drink at a coffee shop on my way to and from the office.

Why do I drive a boring car? It costs less. The money I saved lets me go to a nicer hotel and a nicer vacation.

Why do I… Same as teenagers. Perhaps we don’t grow up. Perhaps we grew up at age 12 and have been coasting since then.

by Dwayne Phillips

No new materials. A simple pressing. Structure appears. Value from almost nothing. This is a primary task of a manager (and the rest of us).

Fold something. Press the fold. It becomes a crease.

And now there is a structure that has strength and increased utility.

And how did that happen? A simple fold.

And now we…go on in life looking for places where we can make a crease and expand utility with a little effort and nothing more. And is there anything more important a manager can do than making a crease?

by Dwayne Phillips

We have moved from “everyone is a censor” to “everyone is a reporter.” All these reporters work for me, and the rest of us, for free.

In our not-too-distance past, we entered the age of “everyone is a censor.” Everyone had a camera in their pocket. Everyone had a thermometer in their pocket. Everyone had…and so on. We were all collecting information and eventually putting it in a place where we could access it later.

We are now in the time where everyone is a reporter. We easily report the information we collect and we report it right now

I don’t need a weatherman. Someone on Twitter just posted that the wind shifted from the North and the temperature is dropping. I don’t need SportsCenter or whatever. Someone just posted the final score of the game (including the local high school game that the national folks don’t report). And someone posted the closing numbers on Wall Street, the new clothes at Kohl’s, the stores that closed at the mall, and everything else.

It goes on. Read the newspaper? Why?

And now we come to the hard stuff. Pay graduates of journalism school to, uh, er, what would they do? Expert opinions? How much of an expert do you have to be to tell me that it is raining?

But what about analysis and insight and those really difficult things that take time to consider and explain? I read those at no charge on the blogs of the experts.

Sorry. Everyone is a reporter. And they work for me for free.

by Dwayne Phillips

Experts are far more productive than the average. But if we eliminate the average, how will anyone become an expert?

Expert managers can manage 10 times the work of the average manager. Expert fill-in-the-blank can do 10 times the work of the average fill-in-the-blank.

But how will the expert become an expert without the time in the average job?

Consider the recent partial government shutdown—do so cautiously. One person could replace eight or ten. But how would that one person learn to do so? Where and when does the learning and growing occur?

by Dwayne Phillips

All things don’t happen automatically by automaton. Some special person does the work.

Someone has to type the words

Someone has to stand in front of the classroom

Someone has to carry champagne to the table

Someone has to crack the eggs

As much as we wish it to be different in this world of 2019, some person has to actually do something for all this wonderful-ness to happen. Cherish that person. They aren’t a cog in the machine. They show up everyday, smile, and do the work.

by Dwayne Phillips

One of the reasons I write (there are many) is that persons simply grow weary of the sound of my voice.

I like to tell stories—some true, some not so. There are a few people in my life, see, e.g., my wife of 35+ years, who have already heard most of them. The same is true for my adult children. (This is one of the great things about having grandchildren: they haven’t heard all the stories yet.)

These kind persons are tired of hearing my voice and my stories. Hence, I write. Sometimes I write the old stories; sometimes I write variations of the stories. The page, the computer screen, whatever, never tires of the same stories and their variations.

One bonus: writing the stories or talking to the page allows other persons to hear them. Some of these other persons even pay me a little money (25¢ or so) for the stories.

by Dwayne Phillips

The expertise of the expert judgers is never in question. That is because they are usually wrong. Nevertheless, they never stop judging.

Microsoft recently announced that they are ending support for the Microsoft Windows Phone operating system. The what? Does anyone remember that? Does any one have one of those phones that still works? I guess there are a few out there.

Back in 2007, the senior executives where I worked constantly told us engineers, who weren’t executives even though many of us were “senior,” that we needed to learn everything there was to know about the Microsoft Windows phone thing. Microsoft was never wrong. Microsoft’s phones would be a major player in everything, and we needed to be with it. That, what was it called, oh, yes, “Android” thing was yet another Google experiment to be ignored as it would quickly pass away.

Well, ahem, history shows that the senior executives were wrong. And, oh, by the way, those same senior executives judged the judgment and expertise of us engineers.

Hmm, not a good track record of judgment. Hmm, still judging everyone else. The results were predictable and predicted.

Fast forward to 2019, we have this company called Neo (neo.com). That bunch of expert judgers is going to look at high school students—yes 13 to 18 years of age—and decide who among them will be expert engineers. Neo will then connect those young-but-one-day experts to current experts for grooming or something.

Of course some of these identified-at-13 folks will become successful engineers. Why not? They will be groomed by current experts who will open doors, impart wisdom, and do all sorts of things that help a youngster grow.

Yet still, who makes Neo a good judge of young talent? Machine learning?

No, the expert judgment of expert judgers is never questioned. The expert judgment of expert judgers will continue to fail the vast majority of the time in spectacular fashion.

Those youngsters—especially the ones like me who went to the wrong high school in the wrong place at the wrong time—will move through life on the more difficult path. Some will persevere and become “good engineers” whose abilities are judged by the expert judgers who will tell them that Company X is never wrong and Company Y is just fiddling around and…

by Dwayne Phillips

I read that some “young people” don’t stay in their jobs long. They don’t want to waste their life in something they dislike. Enjoyment often requires time.

No job is enjoyable the first month. Or day or week or six months.

When in a new job, I don’t understand what is really happening.
I don’t understand how I can do something that makes a difference. Nothing makes sense. I am wasting my life, and there is no use doing something I don’t enjoy.

Really?

If I don’t stay long enough, I will never have a “good job,” i.e., one where I make a difference daily and want to “go to work” in the morning.

Funny, in my experience at least, how I learn what is happening, what difference anything makes, and how I can change things for the better. Funny, at least for me, how this takes time. Sometimes six or nine months of time to learn these things.

Perhaps if I were smarter, I would be able to understand all this the first day and decide if I am to leave or how I am to make a difference. For me, at least, I ain’t that smart.

by Dwayne Phillips

We tend to allow others to use us freely. A simple example.

About every ten years I buy a new automobile. Yes, I am “cheap,” and yes, today’s automobiles are built well enough to drive efficiently for ten years or more. After buying my last automobile, I arrived at home and noticed a sticker permanently adhered to the rear end of the car. How did that happen?

What I should have done: noticed the sticker on my car advertising the dealership before driving away in the car. Then had a conversation:

Me: Excuse me, please remove your advertisement sticker from my car.

Dealer: Oh, we put that on all the vehicles we sell.

Me: Excuse me, I looked at the bill of sale, our contract. I don’t see anything in the contract where I agree to advertise your dealership.

Dealer: (silence)

Me: Now, if you would like me to be a rolling advertisement for you, let’s have that discussion as I am interested in you paying me, let’s start the discussion at, $100 a month for the years I drive this car.

Dealer: (more silence)

We use social media—no cost. Then we are surprised to learn that the social media company monitors our viewing to sell ads. We buy products, at low prices, that sit in our homes and listen and watch what happens. That collected information is sold. We are surprised. We have a newspaper subscription. We are surprised to learn that the newspaper sells our information to … the stories continue.

Let’s look at the contract—all of it, especially the little print in the user’s agreement. We don’t have to let others use us at no charge. We can sell, or not, our services.