Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

What do you write on Christmas Eve that hasn’t already been written and read?

I wish for you today the same things I wish for you everyday. Some of them are:

• You are rested so you can enjoy just about everything else to its fullest
• The same goes for being fed, clothed, and having access to shelter from the elements
• You are with someone with whom you can converse, because all this is easier if there is a fellow passenger

Not very complicated, is it? Sometimes we make it needlessly so.

by Dwayne Phillips

It isn’t easy to admit that I lack knowledge for something that “I should know.” Most people are like me in this respect. How can I “help” without looking over their shoulder?

“Maybe if you did it that way instead of this way,” said the eager, wanting-to-be-helpful person standing behind me and looking over my shoulder.

Why can’t these people simply go away. Don’t they know that I don’t want them standing behind me, looking over my shoulder, and telling me how the world should be?

The situation is completely different, however, when I am trying to “help” someone else do whatever it is they are doing. They simply don’t have the benefit of my experience and I am happy to share and all things will be better in the world when they listen to me and …

and I am looking over their shoulder and I don’t understand it when they react the same way I react

Yet, there is a point when we all need someone to show us a better way. How can we do that without looking over their shoulder.

Some things to avoid saying:

• Let me HELP you
• Why are you doing that?
• I know how to do this (it’s obvious you don’t)

Some things that are a little more acceptable:

• I was stuck on this a few days ago, it was frustrating
• I never understood this and I still don’t really understand it now, but I saw something that worked
• I hate it when that happens, too.

Shift from YOU (you’re obviously wrong and you obviously need HELP)

to

I (I don’t know it all, I stumbled lots of times, I was blessed to find something that worked better for me).

by Dwayne Phillips

“I always seem to break the machine.” I hear students say this…frequently.

Reframe: I am earnestly doing my job. I try harder than most other persons. I am not sleep-walking through the day. I push the performance of my tools.

I want to work with these persons, the ones who always seem to break the machine.

by Dwayne Phillips

Some of the best advice I ever heard and heeded is simply, “Don’t try too hard.”

Writing. Studying. Researching. Don’t try too hard.

Writing: let it come out of you. When you hit a difficult spot, type “this is a difficult spot, come back later.” Done. Now keep banging away on the keyboard.

Studying: look at the material. Look at it again. Read it silently. Read it aloud. Walk around the room while reciting it. Got it. Time to stop.

Researching: set a time box. I have one hour to research this topic, and that is it. Go through it; take the notes—I’m done. It is all right in front of me.

Great concepts are right in front of me. Squeezing them in my mind doesn’t make them greater. They aren’t lumps of coal that my mind can crush into diamonds. Simply take it, hold it, recite it. There. Done. That was easier than expected. It is usually easier than I expect it to be.

When I am struggling with an idea, and I am having a day of clarity, I tell myself, “You are trying too hard.” I relax. The idea is there in its simplicity and utility.

Hmmm, simplicity and utility. Perhaps there is something with that duo.

by Dwayne Phillips

Choose to learn. We all pay the tuition, but we may not all get the education.

I guess many school teachers and government employees and just plain folks never say this to themselves. I always did, but perhaps that explained my mediocre career in government service. I was too inquisitive, too exploratory, too consumed by keeping pace with technology to pay attention to the political maneuvers inside the supposedly apolitical civil service.

There are days when I regret how I learned daily. There are more days when I don’t regret it. I suppose we all have choices all days. I encourage the managers and non-managers out there to notice and things that may be important, and learn about them.

by Dwayne Phillips

We each have a reputation, something about us that others “know.” What is it? What do I want it to be?

I go to a coffee shop on Saturday mornings to view the Internet and write blog posts. On a recent Saturday I found car keys in the bathroom (shows how old I am as I still call them “car keys” instead of “fob.”)

I suspected, correctly so, that they belonged to one of the runners who frequent the place on Saturday morning as I do. They run a while at daybreak and then come into the coffee shop for breakfast and conversation. They change clothes in the bathroom and are the most likely to leave keys on the baby changing table.

I took they keys to their table and a man claimed them. They were surprised that I guessed one of them owned the keys. One of them asked, “Do we have a reputation?”

Well, yes, you do. Well, yes, we all do.

Hmmm, what is our reputation? What is my reputation? As much as I would like to deny it, I have one here in the coffee shop. I have one at work. I have one at home and everywhere else. What do I want it to be?

by Dwayne Phillips

Simple desires for the workplace.

Years ago, a wise old man once told me, “The workplace should be pleasant and profitable.”

He worked in a commercial business. No profits, no business, no jobs. Profits were necessary. Also necessary, in his experience, was that the workplace be pleasant. If it wasn’t pleasant, people would go elsewhere. No people, no work, no workplace. Simple.

I worked in government for 28 years. Profit was not for us. I substituted another “p” word. Non-profit work should be pleasant and productive. It is easy to goof off in many non-profit jobs. Enough non-productive work eventually catches up with the most non-profitable of the non-profits—even government.

These little sayings aren’t complicated. Perhaps that is how I have always remembered them. Please consider them for your workplace.

by Dwayne Phillips

In the age of the temporary job, the portfolio becomes important to us all.

For most of my life, I heard of the artist’s portfolio—the collected works of an artist. Well, welcome to the age of everyone-is-an-artist. Everyone needs a portfolio to show potential employers. Wikipedia has a few definitions of portfolio that I like.

This age of everyone-is-an-artist causes me to change a few things in my life. These include:

1. accept that I need a portfolio
2. keep my portfolio in mind as I do everything
3. how can this work be part of my portfolio?
4. put my work into my portfolio
5. keep my portfolio organized, i.e., keep my work organized
6. keep my portfolio available
7. do all my work knowing that potential employers will see it

Item 7 can be frightening. EVERYTHING I do will be seen by others. Yikes. Perhaps I should focus on each task a little better and produce high-quality work all the time—especially when I find the task to be mundane.

by Dwayne Phillips

Sometimes—make that almost all the time—the path from the problem to the solution is winding.

“We had a problem; we solved it. Let me describe how we found and implemented the solution.”—a satisfied problem solver.

Ah, nothing more satisfied than a problem solver just after solving a problem. Listen carefully. They will tell you a tale, probably a tall, tall, i.e., not quite true, tale of how they thought a moment and pushed straight through to the solution.

Solutions to problems, i.e., problems whose solution is worthy of a problem solver, rarely come straight. There are fits and starts (what’s a fit?), mistakes, incorrect assumptions, restarts (no re-fits), misdirection, misunderstanding, mis-this-and-that before reaching the solution.

This is normal. Do not panic, do not punish, and do not hold reviews to learn how to make a straight line.

This is why we do agile development. In that, we try to shrink problems to two (four, six, eight, whatever) weeks. The winding is reduced to those time boxes. Hence, the deviation from the mythical straight path is reduced.

Straight paths are for tall tales and myths. Winding paths are for adults in the real world. Choose the path according to your situation.

by Dwayne Phillips

I’m all for brief meetings, but sometimes we walk away too soon.

I’m an engineer. I work with engineers and scientists. You know, insert-you-favorite-derogatory-word-here’s.

We don’t concentrate on social skills. When we talk, and we admit that we have to talk with another human now and then, we state the facts, decide, and move. The conversation is over. We walk away. The shorter, the better. Right?

Not always. Sometimes, in our zeal to be efficient (or is it a zeal to not talk to another person?) we end the conversation and go. Maybe we didn’t cover all the details, but we both understood the gist, and that is all we needed. We will work out the details on our own. Right? I mean, we’re really smart.

Hint to us all STEM persons: pause a moment or two. Ask that question. Allow the others to ask that question. Consider that possibility that you don’t have all the information you need. It is possible.