Floating On

I have hit rock bottom creatively and intellectually. I just feel like I have lost a few steps. I feel overwhelmed. I feel uninterested.

At work I have realized that I would rather talk about problems than solve them. I have lost interest in most of what goes on. At home I have started running again in the morning and I feel great most days.

When I get home from work I usually cannot stop eating and I don't know why. I am at a weird point in my life and I don't know why or how to fix it. Maybe something is missing from my life. Maybe it is just the summer heat and the start of school. Maybe it is just the disappointment that I can't do what I want financially. Maybe...

Read more...

Thinking of Change

My eyes have been opened to the problems within my company the last two months. I have been getting more involved in all aspects of the company and I do not like what I am seeing. I feel like I am overwhelmed by the number of changes that need to be made. I feel like I am powerless to make some of the changes and am encountering resistance with most of my recommendations. People fear change!

I keep debating how much I want to talk about with the owner of my company and how much I want to volunteer to take on myself. My work is suffering because of the number of items I am trying to juggle. I can't do this alone.

On a much better note, the family and I had a great time in Seattle over the Fourth of July. It was my third trip to the city and The Queen's second trip there. We were able to see a lot of the city and surrounding area. The only think on my list that we did not get to check off was a visit to the Hoh Rain Forrest. I really wanted to go, but it was just too far for this trip. Maybe on our next trip we can make a plan to visit for a few days.

Seattle made me realize again what is missing in the Central Valley. Other than the fact that I hate the heat here, there is no sense of community. I often wonder why my cities downtown does not have the things that other cities and towns I visit have. Don't get me wrong, our downtown is great and has a lot to offer. It is just missing things that would attract more people to the area.

The entire valley is way too conservative for my tastes. Everyone is afraid to do something quirky because of the people they might alienate. The great thing about a bigger city is that it doesn't matter if you turn some people off because there are enough people that will like what you are doing to support you.

I really loved the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle. They have the famous troll under the Aurora Bridge, but they have a lot more to offer as well. There is a full sized rocket mounted on a building, a chocolate factory, a statue of Lenin and some dinosaur topiaries by the channel. It also has offices for Adobe, Getty Images and some other large offices. They claim they are the center of the universe and even have walking tour maps and funny signs posted around the area. They have created a community and I love it.

The Queen and I talked to our good friends about this and they agreed with us. They have not been to Seattle, but agreed that big cities have much more to offer. They even told us that they have contemplated moving to Portland, but that we were holding them back. They do not want to leave us. That made us feel good, but also got me thinking about a move to Portland as well. I have visited Portland once many years ago, but that was before it stated embracing technology and green industries. The city has changed for the better and I can't wait to visit again.

Read more...

Looking Back, Looking Ahead

My fortieth year was a great one. I am very happy with my life at this point. I am not done growing, but I am satisfied with my progress.

As I begin my forty-first year, I need to contemplate my goals. I know I want to simplify my life. I want to remove the clutter from all aspects of my life. I read a blog post in which the author was attempting to limit his personal property to one hundred items. I thing that would be a difficult goal for me to achieve, but it is something to think about.

Another selfish goal is to travel to Europe next summer. I don't know if it will happen for sure, but it is my goal. And I feel like The Queen and I deserve it.

I also have a goal of dropping ten pounds before my brother gets married in September. I not only want to lose the ten pounds, but I want to get in much better shape. This is an attainable goal and is my top priority at this point. I have been getting healthier the last few years, so this is just the ultimate goal.

In my professional life I want to take more control of other aspects of my company. Up until about a month ago I was satisfied to sit back and let the other managers run their departments. I really got tied of watching them make mistakes over and over and began to work myself into our production and standards meetings. This is where I really feel like I can make a difference in the company and make people be responsible for their own work. I am tired of the excuses and can no longer sit back and allow the company to deteriorate.

Read more...

Memorial Day

I had a pretty good little Memorial Day today. I had to work, but that was my fault for scheduling a business trip without consulting The Queen.

I called my sales agency this morning and found out that Memorial Day is also a holiday in Puerto Rico. We still worked what we had planned for today, but it is funny that all three of us failed to realize it was a holiday when we planned this trip. When we got done with what we had scheduled, they took me out for some authentic Puerto Rican food. We ended up having a plantain soup for the first course, several types of fritters and plantains for an appetizer, mofongos for the meal and sangria during the entire meal.

Restaurante Raices in Caguas, PR makes authentic food that my friends said was what the mountain people ate long ago. I have to admit that there was not a lot of flavor in the food. The sangria was brought to the table in a beat up old aluminum pitcher and we were given little aluminum cups to drink from, kind of like what you think of the California miners using during the gold rush. They were primitive, but they kept the sangria cold.

I ate mofongos from my hotel restaurant when I was here last and they were just ok. The mofongos I had today were much better. They were served in a large wooden cup. The mashed plantains were coating the inside of the cup and the beef was inside with a dried plantain for garnish. The beef just melted in my mouth and the plantains tasted just right.

After eating I headed out on an adventure to find El Yunque, a rain forest in a national park. My rental GPS unit made me do circles for a while before getting me there two hours later. I had time to hike very fast up to a waterfall and back. I hope I got some great photos to show everyone a legitimate rain forest. It was pretty amazing. There was some bamboo, a lot of ferns and a lot of palms mixed in with some other trees and vines. At times i felt like Indiana Jones on a treasure hunt. The waterfall did not compare to those in Yosemite, but not many do.

I drove back to the hotel and took some photos of the view from my balcony, then ended the day with a run on a treadmill and a walk along the rocky coast outside my hotel. Like I said before, it was a nice little Memorial Day.

- Posted from my iPhone

Read more...

No Excuses

My company has been behind schedule in engineering and production for several years now. Up until recently, we have been able to pull together for the really important projects and complete them close to on time. Things have gotten much worse for about the last six months and I have lost all faith that we can even complete one project on schedule.

Things really came to a boiling point recently when one of our regional sales managers called me out of frustration. He said that he was told one date one day and the very next day he was told that project would be a month late. He was confused as to what changed in that twenty-four hour period. I had to admit that I did not know. I asked around and nobody had a good answer so we decided to have an emergency meeting of department managers to figure out what could be done from this point forward.

I put together a list of fourteen items that I thought should be done to fix the mess. When I handed out the list in the meeting, everyone there was surprised that I had gone through that much trouble. They acted like they were shocked that anyone would put that much time into fixing the problem.

There was a lively discussion in the meeting and the excuses started to fly from everyone. I had to speak up a few times and refocus everyone back on our customers. I explained that there is no good excuse to our customers and the first thing we need to do is stop accepting excuses. Everyone agreed, but the excuses kept flying.

We had a follow-up meeting a few days later and nothing was solved. There were more excuses and not solutions. That meeting wrapped up with them inviting me to their weekly production meetings. I told them that I did not know if I could handle sitting through them if they were like these last two meetings. They asked me to attend again and I agreed.

I have heard rumors about how bad the production meetings are for several years. I attended my first production meeting yesterday and I was not dissappointed. There was excuse after excuse given by everyone in attendance. Nobody wanted to commit to any dates and there were no solutions given to any problem. Everything was done verbally because our production schedule does not track enough items. It was difficult to follow and I asked if the production schedule could be expanded to include more items. I was told that there is another schedule that tracks those items. Someone even volunteered to show me where it was.

I have to admit that my company is in worse shape than I believed it to be. I feel like this is partially my fault for not getting involved earlier. While I have nothing to do with production at all, I am a vital member of the company and one of the leaders of the management team. I can't let things continue down the path we are currently on our the company may not exist in a few years.

Read more...

Perfect Day

I finished reading The Art of Non-Conformity by Chris Guillebeau. I really liked this book, but I don't know how practical it is for me. I would love to sell all my stuff and just take off to someplace in the world where I could volunteer and help people. I would love to not have to work a "normal" work day. The problem is that I have bills to pay and people to support.

After I finished the book I started thinking about what my perfect day would be. I think it would be great to start my day at eight o'clock in the morning. Wake up and drop Meg off at school. Come home and do some sort of exercise. I would prefer if I lived in the mountains on a lake. It would be great to take a kayak out on the lake every morning. A good jog or hike would also be spectacular in the morning.

After returning home and taking a shower it would then be time to get to work with whatever I would be doing. This is the part that gets a little fuzzy for me. I don't know what I am passionate about. I know that I want to do something that I love so work does not feel like work. I have thought about becoming a professional photographer, but I don't know if that is my passion. I really enjoy it when I am doing it, but I go weeks without picking up my camera. I also don't particluarly enjoy photographing people, but maybe that is because I am not good at posing people.

I would then pick Meg up from school and help her with her homework. At that point I would either do some more work or other projects that I like to do. I would exercise again in the evening after an early dinner and go to bed about midnight.

I know I have a lot of holes to fill in this perfect day, but it is a start.

Read more...

Old Fashioned or just Unfair?

Every year Administrative Assistant's day rolls around before anyone in my company realizes it, except for the owner. He is always on top of it and he always gets every lady in the company flowers and possibly something else. Last year he took every lady in the company out to lunch in a limousine.

I am glad he remembers this day, but I am not happy that he includes every lady in the company. In a few departments there are ladies who have equals that are men and the men are not treated to any gift. In at least one department there is a lady who runs the show and has men who report to her. Those men are not given any gifts. These ladies are not administrative assistants.

Is it just the owner's old fashioned way of thinking. A male chauvinist attitude that makes him do this every year? Does he think of every lady in the workforce as being a secretary? I don't have the answer, but I know if it was me and I was a female engineer or manager I would be very upset to receive a gift on this day.

We had a female engineering intern last year who gladly went to lunch and accepted the flowers, but did question why she was included. Obviously she was a little insulted, just not enough to refuse the gifts. When is it under appreciated male employee day? I am still waiting for my gift!

Read more...

Who is to Blame?

We all know that the economy has not fully recovered. Most of us know that the real estate market was out of control leading to the problems we are now dealing with. But who is to blame?

I think we are all to blame. The banks and brokers are the people who are most to blame, but home buyers deserve some of the blame as well. The Queen and I recognized that the market was out of control. We believed that home prices were artificially high and that the market could not support the prices for very long. Now, we all know that is what happened.

I now know several people who have either lost their homes or are going to lose their homes. Out of all of them, I only know of one of them that have lost their home because of a job loss. All of the others have just decided that they do not want to pay for their home any longer. They feel like if other people are able to walk away from their homes that they should be able to as well.

I guess I am old fashioned, but I believe that I signed the home loan documents so I should be responsible for paying the load back. My home is not worth what I owe at this point, but I am not in very bad shape. It is really close because we waited until we thought the market had adjusted properly. We miscalculated a bit, but I can live with it.

The problem with our society is that nobody wants to accept responsibility for themselves. There is always someone else to blame. We just need to accept our choices and take responsibility for our actions. Why are you bad America?

Read more...

Choices

We all make choices in our lives. Some of us make bad choice after bad choice and some of us just move through life oblivious to other people. Those people make selfish choices. Choices that bring them enjoyment, but don't bring anything good to society.

I think about these choices all of the time. I made some pretty big choices several years ago. I chose to eliminate some people from my life. I chose to focus on improving myself every chance I get. I chose to make decisions that bring good to society and everyone in it. I don't regret any of those choices, but I am reminded of them a few times a year.

Some of the people I chose to eliminate from my life are still involved in the lives of other people I know. A few times a year The Queen and I are invited to parties where these people are also invited. We have both decided to make the sacrifice and not attend these parties. We don't want to be around these people and we definitely do not want our children exposed to these people. It is hard, but I do not regret it at all. I am comfortable.

I like to have fun just like everyone else, but I don't need to have fun all of the time. I don't need constant entertainment to be happy. I can entertain myself most of the time with some reading or internet browsing. I am thirsty for knowledge. I am pretty serious about life most of the time. I like to work on improving myself and my family.

Most people do not think this way. A lot of people just want to stay out late drinking with the guys and bad mouthing other people. Trying to forget their lives for that night. I think that is ridiculous! If I have to forget my life, then I better be doing something to change my life so I don't have to try to forget it any more. Why continue to live a life that you want to forget? That just does not make sense to me.

Read more...

Future Employees

I spoke on a panel last night called "Building the Community's Work Force for the Future." I was asked to speak about the types of employees my company looks for and the problems we have with finding them. I discussed both the hard skills and soft skills we search for in a candidate. Hard skills being the experience and/or training that they need and soft skills being things like attendance, work ethic, etc.

I was on the panel with three other employers as well as a representative of our local community college. I was not that surprised that the biggest issues facing the other three employers were the soft skills. They just need to find people that will show up every day and work hard. Of course, they were looking for warehouse and production line people so they don't require many other skills. What I was surprised by was that one of the other employers mentioned that math skills were important for their employees. This company is a beer distributor, so I think a lot of young people would be surprised to learn that you have to have good math skills to stack cases of beer.

My company, on the other hand, does not have as many issues with attendance. We do have problems with work ethic. I think the most important assets for our employees are speed and accuracy. We need engineer, mechanics, electricians and machine operators who take pride in their work and have been doing the job long enough that they are fast. The lack of accuracy really bogs us down and costs us money with rework at all levels.

I don't have the answers to how we create a work force that has pride and a work ethic. That comes from your upbringing and early school years. Teachers today are so overwhelmed that it is not fair to blame them for this problem. It still must go back to home life. We have too many families with parents having to work more than one job to raise their family. This is even more problematic when you look at single parent households. It is almost impossible to raise a family today on one average income.

Read more...

Am I a Negative Person?

I know I can come off as a negative person a lot of the time. I do not spend enough time telling people the positive things I like about them. I tend to focus on the areas that need to be improved. This is my focus on myself as well as others. I think other people sometimes tag me as being negative for this fact.

I am not a negative person, but I guess perception is reality.

One of my shortcomings is developing relationships with people. I have always been an observer. I am not the person that jumps right into a conversation. I would rather lay back and figure out exactly what is going on and try to determine what each person's motivation is. I enjoy listening more than I enjoy talking. I believe that this has made me a good judge of character.

I had a conversation with The Queen yesterday morning. She told me that she has not heard me say one positive thing about one of our girls in a long time. I got very defensive. I guess I have not been following my own advice of praising in public.

My only defense is that I have also not said one positive thing about our other daughter in a long time. I know that is not a very good defense, but it is all I have at this point. I really do need to work on building better relationships with people.

I think I do a pretty good job of this in my career. Although I have to have respect for a person before I build that relationship. I am not a two-faced person, so I cannot pretend to like someone. I can deal with them in a working relationship, but I will never pretend to like them.

Read more...

Great Advice

I am reading a book named UnMarketing. Yesterday I read what is the best business advice I have ever seen in print. It is something that I totally believe in and have been doing from the beginning of my business career. Praise in public and reprimand in private. Or better yet, assist in private.

As managers we need to focus on developing our people and making our companies great places to work. We can no longer expect our people to accept that they are lucky to be working for our companies. We must continually prove to them that our company is the best place to work. We must appreciate them and help them become better employees. If an employee fails, it is because of poor management.

I want to emphasis this fact. If an employee fails, it is because of poor management. Management either hired the wrong person because they do not have the proper interviewing or hiring skills or they failed to develop the employee. That is it! This is a pretty black and white situation in my opinion.

I am not saying that we need to pamper our employees and reduce expectations. Quite the opposite actually. I think we need to hold our employees to a higher standard, our standard. We should be performing our own jobs at a higher standard and that should trickle down to even the lowest level employee.

Sometimes there are external factors that come in to play and cause an employee to fail. A good manager will be aware of those factors based on the working relationship they have established with their employees. Once aware of those factors, a good manager will work to reduce their impact and get the employee back on track.

We need to stop propagating the us against them attitude and really start building teams. After all, as the old saying goes we are only as strong as our weakest link.

Read more...

We Need Change!

My company is struggling with many issues. I could have told you a few years ago that this would happen, but nobody bothered asking me. At that point there were two people promoted to vital positions who do not have the skill set required.

I really do not know how the owner of the company is so blind, but he is. He loves to tell everyone that he can read people well, but he was sold a bill of goods by both of these individuals. His other major problem is that he does not like to get involved in the day to day operations of the company until it is too late. Everything is coming to a head at this moment.

I blame myself for this issue escalating to this point because I did not try to push for change. I don't mean to get those two people fired or demoted, but I should have pushed them for change and then tried to force them to stick with it. Some of their major issues is that they do not track the right information and they do not motivate their direct reports to do their job to the best of their ability.

Another major issues is that a few members of our management team are spending big portions of their day trying to cover for themselves. A few team up to cover for each other as well. This is bad for the company as a whole because we cannot progress if the issues are not being properly addressed. They cannot be addressed if nobody is aware of them and that is what happens when people cover for themselves and/or someone else.

I was not in the meeting when everything bubbled to the surface because I was on a business trip. I was let in on what transpired yesterday by our production manager. It is ironic that I was thinking about some of these issues and how to address them while on my trip.

In my conversation with our production manager I really tried to coach him on the things that he should be doing to improve is department and keep him out of the line of fire. There are four departments in our company that need a lot of improvement and his is one of those. His department is not the worst, but after the two major departmental issues are solved his will be next in line.

Read more...

Why Can't We Change?

I am sure most of us wonder why our companies or organizations can't change. Here is a good list of reason why.

Ego is one that really stands out to me. It really is difficult for people to admit they are wrong. It takes a great person to be able to admit they are wrong and look for the correct solution.

Groupthink is another one that is very common. I think of this as "yes men." Many leaders either knowingly or unknowingly surround themselves with people who agree with them. These people think they cannot disagree with their boss and this devalues their worth to the company. You create an organization that relies on one person for vision and change.

Read more...

I Am The Proud Owner of a Bachelor's Degree

I graduated from USC with a bachelor's degree in 1993, but I finally own my degree. It only took seventeen years and five months to pay for my college education, but it is now officially paid off. It was a struggle at times in the beginning, but I made it. I guess I can now say that my education has paid for itself.

I was not in a hurry to pay off my student loans because the interest rate was so low. There was always something else that took priority. It is a relief to be done with it though. Now I just need to work on The Queen's loans. She did not get a great rate on her student loans. I don't know why that is other than the fact that she graduated fourteen years after me.

I have done just fine in my career even with my student loan payments. My loans have not been much of a burden on my financially. I don't think student loans would be too much of a burden on any college graduate and I think they should be part of the financial aid package for everyone who attends college. You need to value your education and in my mind the only way you can is if you have to pay for it. You would think twice about all of your career decisions if you had loan payments to make every month.

I think this goes hand in hand with my belief that every teenager should work had. I worked in a fruit packing house stacking boxes every summer after I turned sixteen. It was long hours and difficult manual labor, but it made me appreciate college and my career after college. Even before I turned sixteen I worked one year picking up grape trays our in a grape vineyard. After that and working in the packing house, I did not want to end up having to do manual labor for the rest of my life.

The problem today is that it is difficult for teenagers to get those jobs. Most of them are having to work in fast food or retail jobs. Retail jobs to me are just too much fun. They are not hard work at all and are very social jobs. They do not teach the value of hard work and do not make you appreciate working hard for what you get.

Kids today also seem to have much more of a sense of entitlement. They feel like they should not have to do manual labor. It is beneath them. All they want to do is have a job that is fun. They don't know what a serious job is like and will be shocked when they enter the real world and work for their first difficult boss. Most of them will not be able to handle it.

My life has taught me some valuable life lessons and has shaped me into the person I am today. My parents helped me with my college expenses or else I would not have my loans paid off yet. I appreciate their support and believe that what they provided for me was appropriate. They did not give me too much help and I value that. I am planning to do the same thing with my kids and hope they turn out even better than me.

Read more...

Taking the Plunge

I was watching some videos on Monday that inspired me once again. I read "The 4-Hour Workweek" back in February and have been thinking about starting my own business ever since. Actually, I started thinking about my own business a long time ago but I really started to get more serious after reading that book. Ever since I saw the movie "Father of the Bride" I have wanted to own a small manufacturing company. I don't know why that movie inspired me, but it did.

I feel like I need to create something tangible. I love technology and know that is the future...and present...but I just need to create something that I can put my hands on. At least I feel like that is my ultimate goal. I have flip flopped a little bit though after what I saw on Monday. I feel like I just need to create a revenue stream as soon as possible. I am not going to take the complete plunge and quite my job. I will just get my toes wet and start a new source of income until I am ready to take the plunge.

I love the idea of reducing my things, but it is just not in the cards right now. The Queen and the girls are not ready to give up there things, even if it means that we can travel the world. They are so entrenched in American culture that they believe that they need things. Don't get me wrong, I have my things as well and am not completely ready to give them up. I think I am closer to that than they are though.

Besides leading a simpler life and not having bills to worry about and upkeep of cars and a home. It is more in line with the greener lifestyle I desire. It would be great to get our from under the weight of the world and just do whatever I want to do. If I want to go to Mexico for six months or a year, so be it. If I want to travel farther South from there and end up at the tip of South America I could do that to.

I could start the non-profit that I have been thinking about since reading the book. I could show my kids the world and not worry about anything else. That would be a great life, but we are not yet ready for that. I just need to take the first step and getting a second income coming in first. That is my three month goal. Even if it is just an extra five-hundred dollars a month. Every little bit helps.

Read more...

What a Great Day!

Today has been a great day so far. The Queen and I are celebrating ten years of marital bliss. If that is not enough, she called me a little while ago to tell me she got tenure. What a great day!

Read more...

I Like Dynamic

I have been working with a new advertising agency for the last few months and I have come to realize that I really like dynamic designs. I don't like printed materials that look static. I want to see movement conveyed in the design and any photography that is used. I just feel that static-looking designs are dated.

The problem is that I am having trouble communicating this to my agency. I don't have all of the answers for how they can achieve the look I desire. I expect them to come up with the ideas for that part of the work. I just want them to be a little more creative with their designs.

I am creative enough and involved enough in the work that is created for my company that I think I can be a pain for an advertising agency. I may be difficult to work with because I have somewhat of a vision of what I am looking for and I definitely know what I like and dislike. I always wanted to be an advertising executive because I feel that I have good taste. I can make good decisions on what is a good design.

This is what makes me a bad customer for a graphic designer or advertising agency. I can't change, but I can work on better communicating my thoughts with the people I work with. That is my challenge.

Read more...

The Resistance

Linchpin is a great book full of some really good insights. I have already found myself talking about many of the points in the book. Just last night The Queen and I were talking about education and whether it is worth it for her to pursue a master's degree at this point. I told her that she needs to fight the resistance and get over her anxiety and do what she wants to do.

Seth focuses a lot of time in the book talking about the resistance. Some of what he says is a little counter-intuitive, but once you have a chance to sit back and digest it it becomes a little bit easier to understand. The resistance is what your lizard brain constantly does to try to protect you. It keeps making excuses for you to not do the things you want to do. It convinces you that you will fail if you try, therefore you should just not try. It is trying to protect you from this failure.

As I think back, I encounter the resistance all the time. There have been many things that I have wanted to do and most of the time I give in to the resistance and just decide that I can't do those things. It is really painful to look back and realize how often this has happened to me. I have not been in total control of my decisions and this is bad.

I would like to say that now that I am aware of the resistance I will not let it control me, but as Seth points out in the book it is not that easy. You have to put yourself in uncomfortable situations. You need to think about the things the resistance is telling you. If is difficult to overcome. It takes a lot of effort, but in the long run it will pay great dividends if you can overcome the resistance. I need to make a conscious effort to overcome the resistance before it is too late.

Read more...

Fat & Happy

I will admit it. My company got fat and happy. Management, including myself, got complacent. We let our guard down and now we are paying the price for our mistakes. My company is going through a rough patch. This trouble came to us much later than most companies because we had done a fairly good job before the recession. But we are dealing with it now.

Within the last few weeks we have laid off a hand full of employees. Our overhead is increasing and we are struggling to ship product. The layoff was the right thing to do to help our overhead issue and it should not affect our ability to ship product. It is just a minor readjustment that was long overdue.

Sometimes a company has to make the tough decisions. When times are good, companies sometimes put these decisions off. This is a really bad thing. It is important to continue to make the tough decisions even when times are good. We did not do ourselves any favors by putting these decisions off. If an employee is not carying their weight you need to cut them loose. A company cannot afford to absorb the overhead of an unproductive employee.

Read more...