Valentine’s Day is upon us and we have a simple two part question: who was Saint Valentine and why does he get his own day?
Hearts are wild
If you are daring you can pose that question to the ladies in your life and see what they come up with as answers.
Please share any insight they can provide because we have done some research and the info we have found has been spotty at best.
Of course due to outstanding marketing (marketing by whom we will leave up to the reader to determine) those same ladies will have certain expectations for February 14.
We realize it is unfair for people to have certain expectations when they have no clue why they should have them at all, but then as always life is not fair.
It all seems harmless and quaint until we see our terror-stricken knucklehead brethren breaking out in cold sweats in florists, stores, and restaurants across the land.
Knuckleheads, please choose wisely because the right partner can make all the difference on days like this. Consider yourselves forewarned.
Ahhhh .. the joys of business travel. Recently we took a trip to San Francisco and motivated by cost savings decided to take the “red-eye” flight back home. This entailed leaving (SFO) at 11:15PM and arriving in Chicago (ORD) at 5:20AM.
All of you folks out there that believe that business travel is all eating, drinking, and not working need to review the following pictures. Sure eating, drinking, and not working happen on trips, but so do other things.
Sleeping is great as long as it is this early in the AM. Potential problems arise as it gets later and the other people on your next flight arrive. As a friend explained to us a while back, going to sleep on an empty row of seats only to wake up surrounded by men, women, and children on all sides is less than ideal.
TSA approved “luggage security?”
A short list of potential issues:
Snoring
Drooling
Face stuck to naugahyde seat
Bed-head
Morning wood (only a concern for the male traveler)
Well, well. Here we are in 2018. With the way things are going in the world we are looking forward to what the near future brings us. Our crystal ball is in the shop for a tune-up, so we will not pretend to know what is coming or if it will be good or bad or indifferent. One thing we can count on though is that people will do their very best to have us see things their way. Of this we are fairly confident.
For example – are soldiers bad or are soldiers good? Take a look at the image below and ponder the options.
Alternative Facts
If you only see the image on the left or the image on the right how might that influence your opinion? The way information is presented is critical to our potential understanding of the world. We need to be aware that everything is done for a reason and we may not be privy to what that reason is. Basically, buyer beware.
And as the movie The Big Short begins:
One minor detail here is that according to the folks at Mark Twain Studies there is no proof Twain ever said it. Of course that is Hollywood and they are paid to lie to us. Nothing to see here.
In the past many months we have been captivated by the videos of Jordan B. Peterson. You will see a link in the sidebar of the site that will take you to more information on his world. The clips below hit near and dear to our hearts because they refer to writing style, schooling, and arrogance. Please watch from 42:34 to 44:55.
Sure, it stings learning that not being able to write is not a style, but we are working on it. The last point in this gem is, “She was proud of her insufficiency. That’s arrogance right? That’s not humility. Self-deception and arrogance, to be proud of your own insufficiency, that’s a very foolish thing, and that means to cling to the parts of you that are dead.”
Clinging to things that you do not need or that are perhaps even bad for you is not a path to growth. Humility versus pride and arrogance. Which do you think will get us further?
Next take a look at this clip from an earlier presentation and notice the call for self-awareness (2:02:34 to 2:08:40).
Wait, what? Arrogance of the intellect? “There is no relationship between being smart and being wise. They are not the same thing”? Ya don’t say?
Let’s do a thought experiment. Imagine a small business in the manufacturing and technology realm. There is a certain level of pride that comes with producing state-of-the-art products and the challenge of competing locally as well as internationally. In order to develop business relationships with a wide range of technology companies and attract and retain workforce talent it would be helpful pay attention to even the smallest details. Are you with us so far?
Now conjure in your imagination what a small manufacturing facility might look like inside and out. Obviously there is a manufacturing area. Also envision administrative offices, conference rooms, warehouse space, shipping and receiving, and a break/lunch room. All fairly typical and anyone that has been around manufacturing can probably visualize various images in their mind’s eye.
Is there anything we are missing? Perhaps something mundane and a bit less likely to be discussed in polite conversation? Yes, if you paid attention to the title of this post then you know to what we refer – rest rooms.
We all have need for them at one time or another, so while they are typically merely a detail, more often than not it is important to pay attention to the little things so as to reduce the chance that they bite you in the butt (we hope not literally in this case). Here are a couple of examples of less than ideal rest room scenarios:
Hopefully you had a chance to let that sink in. The next one is much more straight forward.
The other night we went to a gathering of roughly 12 former co-workers at a local watering hole. A long time friend was celebrating a birthday and they decided to use it as an excuse to eat and drink a bit together. Through the course of the evening we made small talk with various folks and learned about how things are with work, family, etc. In general it seemed like things are going pretty well for the majority of the attendees.
Now for a little more background on the company. We actually chose to leave this former employer (local office of ~ 60 people) due to a lack of direction and stability in the business. Overall it is a decent sized multi-unit international concern that has been cobbled together over the last 15 years or so. About six months ago the group was purchased by (yet another) larger group that has similar capabilities and structure. Since then there has been the typical evaluating and feeling out process.
So why do we bring all of this up? Well, because as the night wound down the crowd thinned and we were left with two current employees and one other former employee. It was at this point that the conversation turned to serious rumor mongering. Apparently it will soon be announced that the local office will be shutdown.
So all of that happy talk about things going well at work and getting ready for kids to go to college and planning the summer vacation and .. and .. and ..? Time for Plan B.
In the corporate world in 2014 none of this should be a surprise, but that does not necessarily make it suck any less. Some of the people “in the know” about this have had a chance to plan and work on alternatives while others will be completely blindsided. The simple fact is that you need constantly be on your toes and realize that no matter what anyone else does or says they are in it for themselves and the people they care about.
With that in mind please remember that we will do what we can for you and in the end your first responsibility is to yourself and those you care about. Plan accordingly.
We recently watched an interview with Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs and Ford commercial/Deadliest Catch voice-over fame. It is a bit on the long side for our ADD/ADHD addled brains, but he is entertaining so we managed to get all of the way through it. Here are the quotes listed in the video description:
“If we are lending money that ostensibly we don’t have to kids who have no hope of making it back in order to train them for jobs that clearly don’t exist, I might suggest that we’ve gone around the bend a little bit,” says TV personality Mike Rowe, best known as the longtime host of Discovery Channel’s Dirty Jobs.
“There is a real disconnect in the way that we educate vis-a-vis the opportunities that are available. You have – right now – about 3 million jobs that can’t be filled,” he says, talking about openings in traditional trades ranging from construction to welding to plumbing. “Jobs that typically parents’ don’t sit down with their kids and say, ‘Look, if all goes well, this is what you are going to do.'”
Long ago we saw this Sir Ken Robinson talk: Do schools kill creativity?
We thought about it for a second and decided, yes they absolutely can. Not always and everywhere, but way too often in our humble opinion. We think our educational system has made and is making mistakes every day and like the way Sir Robinson tells it.
*The title of this post will make a lot more sense if you actually watch the talk.
Apparently Sir Robinson was popular enough to be invited back, so here is a follow-on effort:
