Simple Work...Air Hose Test

Yesterday was Sunday.  In the small business world and during most of my 27-year gig there really were not days off, and that day like most others had a really long list of tasks assigned to it..  At the request for coffee from my better half we headed off.  I've never really felt totally at home in the Starbucks and Caribou and Dunn Brothers coffee places.  It's always a challenge to order and people in front of me are always ordering some elaborate coffee with two of these and do this and do that.  It was a major disappointment to my Norwegian relatives, including my mother, that I really did not drink coffee.  They were simple coffee people...black, hot, perhaps with an egg at Christmas.

As in my whole life I was not really in the mood for coffee but the Holiday Gas Stations do have a remarkably good old fashioned doughnut which is also quite unhealthy so that is where I headed.

When I left the building my son in Denmark called so we sat in the car drinking our coffee and eating our four doughnuts.  It goes without saying, but I will, that the coffee and the doughnuts cost less than even a simple coffee, much less a complex one of these and extra whatever coffee at one of the status coffee places.  The phone conversation was pleasant and covered the standard topics of weather, food, politics, jobs and the future.

Parked in front of the "Free Air" sign and air hose reminded me of the diversity of practical knowledge and work ethics we face.  The hose was all over the ground when we arrived.  A young guy drove up and put air in a couple of tires on his Honda.  Being a typical twenty-something he had the look, including the backwards baseball cap.  When he finished filling his tires he took all the remaining hose off the holder and and re-wound the air hose.  It made me think that he had just gotten out of the military where order, tidiness and standardization makes the work of war and defense and offense much simpler.  The Armed Forces figured out Lean Process Improvement a long, long time ago.  Debates about toilet paper coming off the top or the bottom of the roll or whether the air hose should be would right to left or left to right have all been standardized so that you can do your real job.

Despite the suggestion of my better half I did open the window and compliment the young man on his work.  He smiled.  Were I in a position of hiring he would have had a job immediately.  Microsoft asks interesting questions of applicants, things like "why are manhole covers round?"  Certainly that probes the realm of logic and conceptualization but leaving an unraveled air hose at the front door might identify the workers who do the work that needs to be done when presented, not just the work assigned and who think of the future without thinking.

The next car was a nice SUV driving by a woman in her late 30's or early 40's with a ten year old boy in the passenger seat.  She got out of the car carrying a pressure gauge, unraveled about half of the hose and then simply stared at the coupler that you push on the tire stem.  Apparently she knew there needed to be some sort of pressure test given the gauge but that's where it ended.  She bent over and looked at an outside water faucet handle perhaps thinking that turned on the air.  Finally she went to the door of the repair portion of the Holiday station which was dark, closed and locked and pulled on he door, then returning and holding the gauge up to the air hose coupler.  Finally she threw one loop of hose over the hanger and left the rest as a mess on the ground.  The ten year old boy remained in car throughout this staring at either his phone or handheld video game.

Farm kids are driving tractors, dealing with livestock and repairing equipment by this age.  When I was a kid, and I was not a farm kid, we'd ride out bikes a mile or two to put air in our tires all the the time, not just because we had lousy, bad tires and tubes but because the gas station mechanics would talk to us and we'd ask what they were doing and we'd watch.  I felt bad for the kid.  A parent or grandparent should have taught him by this age to put air in a tire and he should have helped his mom.  The mom's parents should have made sure she knew this skill, too.  Maybe she was at a loss.  Perhaps her husband was a war casualty or currently deployed.  I was twitchy with the urge to get out of the car and help but that would not have really been help, it would have been me doing work she should have known how to do or she should have logically figured it out.  Leaving the hose all akimbo was wrong.  Certainly her kitchen or living room is not a place where she leaves her tools and utility stuff all about.  I would not hire her and it's unlikely that her son will be employable either and he's not going to make it as a video game programmer or NBA star as many futureless kids believe.

Get your stuff in order is the mantra of the day.  Leave your tools, intellectual and physical, as they need to be for the next time you need them.  Expect the same of your subordinates, your team and your managers.