Working Up

Mr. Cook,

I have been a user of Apple computers for about the last 15 years. Just this week, I bought an new iMac to replace the one I have been using daily without hiccup for six years. I always use Apple’s Time Machine to have a good backup of my iMac.

When I picked up my new iMac at the Apple retail store (see below), I asked the pleasant young lady how I should go about making my new iMac like my old one with all my files, apps, etc. She told me what to do and how to use Migration Assistant. Well, that was a disaster. Her instructions led to several hours of moving files only to find that everything was in the wrong place and the accounts were wrong.

Back to the Apple store the next morning with my new iMac under my arm and my backup drive in my jacket pocket. Eight hours later I was finished.

Three tech support persons at the Genius Bar “knew” what to do. Each spent an hour or two only to learn that they didn’t know what to do. They put me on the phone with a person who “knew” what to do. An hour with this person revealed that she didn’t know what to do.

Finally, after six hours and four “gosh, I thought that would work,” episodes, the person on the phone transferred me to another person on the phone. This gentleman looked at the records and said something like, “I have no idea why anyone told you to do those things. They are obviously wrong. Here is what to do.”

Two hours later, after the files moved once again from my backup drive to the new iMac, I was finished.

Once every four or five or six years I buy a new Apple computer. The restore-from-backup procedure is a little different as times and software changes. I can’t use the method I used the last time. It seems, however, that genius bar persons in Apple stores and support persons on the phone would do this type of thing daily or at least several times a week.

Well, just thought I would let you know about the state-of-practice with technical support at Apple. It was quite disappointing.

What I found appalling is at the end of an eight-hour day in the Apple store, no one, no one, no one at the store would talk to me about, “Sorry this all happened. Is there anything we can do to make this right?”

It would be nice to hear from someone on your staff with that statement and question.

A still loyal customer,

and so on, store information withheld to protect the innocent and others as well…

And yes, I actually did send this email to Mr. Cook. I have read the staff members at Apple read these emails and respond in some cases. We shall see.

by Dwayne Phillips

Limiting what persons can say can be tricky. This is especially true in America where we don’t have much practice at it.

It appears to me that censorship is growing in America. We have too much “fake news,” so we need to stop some of it. At least some persons believe the previous statement and conclusion. I am not so sure, but that is another topic for another day.

Anyways, Facebook, Google, and such are being called to stop all this fake news. (ANOTHER DIGRESSION: why aren’t The National Enquirer and The Onion being called to stop their fake news?) Facebook and Google (and other famous folks) are stumbling along in their censorship programs. They rush new AI software into the limelight and then discover they have goofed and, well, what else do you do when you goof?

Here we find ourselves…we aren’t very good at censorship in America. I guess we haven’t practiced it enough to see the pitfalls and avoid the goofs. I like that. I hate to see the day when we have practiced enough to be good at it.

by Dwayne Phillips

Sometimes the problem is that we have too many people in the room. Move the discussion to a smaller group at another time and place.

Decisions can be difficult. Reaching a consensus among a group of people can be difficult. One technique to overcoming these difficulties is to reduce the number of people in the room.

Inclusion is great. “Buy-in” is great. These are great in the right places at the right times. Reaching a tricky decision is often NEITHER the right place NOR the right time. Narrow the focus. Include only the necessary people. Ask others to leave the room. Take the necessary people to another room. Be nice, but firm. Reduce the number of people in the room.

by Dwayne Phillips

Rarely do I give health advice. Please read this little bit of health advice—especially if you have headaches in the morning.

Health advice for writers and others: I like this post about night routines that bring better sleep.

For me, the big item in this post is hydration. For years I suffered with terrible morning headaches simply because I didn’t drink enough water in the evening. That was all there was to it—not work stress, not worry, not anything other than drinking two or three big glasses of water after 5PM. Please, don’t suffer like I did. Drink water in the evening and have a better life.

This is especially critical if you are trying to work for yourself as a writer or other freelance anything. Without your health, you have no income and cannot support the ones you love—including yourself.

by Dwayne Phillips

For some reason, some social media pioneers are apologizing for reaching their dreams.

Well, the Russians have done it. They are the smartest persons in the history of the world. They sat back and let others do all the work to create platforms that they, the Russians, could use to control the world. At least that is what I read on the Internet.

And the Russians have some social media pioneers apologizing for their success. Facebook is the most famous one, but Twitter and Google and now Reddit are in on the apologies.

At least Wikimedia seems to understand the situation. They candidly tell everyone, “Of course people edit the content. This is a wiki. People are supposed to edit and add content.”

Why don’t Facebook and the others say the same? Why are they embarrassed for reaching their dreams of creating places where people can add content that is viewable by everyone?

And, by the way, just because someone can write stuff everyone can view does not mean that everyone will view it and anyone will believe it. There are, believe it or not, adults still inhabiting the world.

by Dwayne Phillips

A tough one to define, but we usually know it when we see it. And then we ask, “Why?” Look to the eyes.

I spent a few days in airports recently. I found myself discouraged. The word “sloth” kept coming to mind. A long time ago in a galaxy far, far, away I found a newspaper headline exhorting a people to a campaign against sloth and slovenliness. (The second is actually a word, I found the definition online.)

I suppose the word we use today is “sloppy.” Lots of people wandering, and that is how I describe their gait—wandering, through the airport were just plain sloppy. They were the photo you would see next to the adjective form of sloth in the dictionary.

That definition is: a habitual disinclination to exertion.

Hey, comb your hair. Tuck you shirt in your pants. Tie you shoe laces. Stand up straight.

Wait, did my mother write this blog post? No, but I can see her nodding in agreement.

Let’s step past adornment and go to the crux of the matter. I saw sloth in the eyes. Perhaps it was the expression surrounding the eyes. There were people who needed to change their attire, but they were sharp minded and focused. There were people in three-piece suits (yes, some people still wear these at the airport) who displayed slovenliness.

Perhaps the eyes are the light of the body. Perhaps the eyes either shine with the activity of the mind or blur when a mind is … don’t know what to write here, “dull” comes to the keyboard.

by Dwayne Phillips

We are usually happy to have outsiders walk in and help us. Help, however, comes with our conditions.

We have so much work to do here, we will never catch up. Help? Of course we will accept help. What kind of help? Well, you know, someone like me, just like me, and who agrees with me and how I have been doing things.

I have heard the above dozens of times in my working life. Someone desperately needs help and will eagerly accepts it. There are, of course, a few conditions.

But, what kind of help? Do you need a carpenter, plumber, programmer?

Simple, just send some competent people here. I will let them know what to do when they arrive.

When the helpers arrive, they are given one simple task: the other person’s job for them so the other person can do something else, something they would rather be doing instead of their job.

And how does this I-don’t-want-to-do-my-job so you-do-my-job-for-me person manage this work management? Simple, the helper cannot talk to anyone about what happens here. You know, it is, well, uh, proprietary, trade secrets, that kind of thing. Can’t let it out what happens here.

Need help? Really need help? Or do we just want someone else to do our job for us?

by Dwayne Phillips

Sometimes I wonder what smart people are doing. They must have something happening behind the scenes because smart people can’t be this stupid.

I recently sat in an airliner for about 20 hours during a couple days time. In my past, I did this frequently, but not so much lately. A couple of things I noticed:

1. The seats are smaller
2. The people are bigger

Hmmmm, this doesn’t work. I had the misfortune of sitting next to large people. They spill over into “my space.” Uncomfortable? Yes. Excuse my greed for wanting to keep the space designated to me.

(1) People who design airplanes are pretty smart. I mean, airplanes are not falling out of the sky on an hourly basis. They seem to fly pretty well. Good, smart people are designing and building these things.

(2) People who design airplanes are making the seats smaller and seeing that larger people are boarding the planes. They know what they are designing. They notice the seats are smaller. A N D they notice the people who are boarding the planes and sitting in those smaller seats.

What gives? This is just plain stupid, and smart people don’t often engage in just plain stupid. Some possibilities:

• Market surveys show low price trumps all.
• Market surveys indicate that people will endure anything just to reach a destination quickly.
• No one complains about large people on airplanes.
• Short-term profits over-rule everything.

Perhaps there are more guesses. I don’t know. Please help.

by Dwayne Phillips

Question: Why don’t we address this situation? And I suggest one solution.

Note the clever use of the summary as question and the title as answer. Maybe that isn’t so clever, but I find the actual question and accompanying answer common.

I was recently reading about how engineers and computer programmers might be fungible, i.e., interchangeable. One is just like the other, so if a less-expensive person comes along, fire the more-expensive person and replace the other. Why not? Well, persons are not interchangeable. They have unique qualities that better suit one person for a specific job. So, we know this, why don’t we act like we know it? See title of post.

Our organization has many problems. The root cause of most problems is that persons won’t leave their cubicle, walk 50 feet across the cubicle farm, and talk to another person. Why not? They don’t know how to address situations well. We know the problem, we know the solution…train they so they do know how. Why don’t we train them? See title of post.

I suppose I could continue here with examples of problems for which we don’t implement the known solution. The title of the post explains why we don’t.

Here is one solution: bring in an outsider who does these difficult things for a living. As an outsider, they don’t care if persons don’t like them. That is an overstatement. More accurate is that they don’t have the emotional investment in the persons across the cubicle farm and don’t have the accompanying risk. Low-risk persons are more apt to tackle difficult situations.

by Dwayne Phillips

Often, perceptions and other ghosts cause us to believe things. Go back to a fundamental question.

• The world is coming to an end.
• Nothing is right.
• Everyone is against this.

What else have I told myself? What else did I “know?” All were hunches, perceptions, gut feel, and such. Sigh. All is lost.

Please, stop, breathe, calm, and ask a fundamental question:

What have you seen or heard that leads me to believe this?

Try to move away from the hunch and towards some sort of fact. Yes, there is a place for hunches and gut feelings. Yes, there is a place to discard those and go for facts. Ask the above question. Ask it repeatedly. Ask others the same question. Sometimes the answers confirm the hunch. Sometimes they point the opposite way. Sometimes there are infinite combinations of the two opposites.

Please, ask.