Eleven Month Update To The Place I Used To Work

Since leaving my 27-year gig at the end of last September I've given two updates to a handful of people at the place I used to work.  My staff was about fifteen people and internal customers numbered about 700 across the country in seven or eight regional offices and many commercial construction job sites.  While I miss many things about that position it's a handful of people who I spoke with daily that I miss.  There were people I spoke with daily that I do not miss, too.  The following letter was sent as the second update, at eleven months, today.  It's taken much longer than I expected to "be done" with this 27-year engagement and that's probably reasonable.  It's possible that this will be my last communication to this "handful," narrowing it down to three, maybe four individuals.  Perhaps they are the four friends that came out of this investment.

The Eleven-Month Email

One of the noticeable changes when you leave an executive/professional position is that the phone stops ringing.  Vendors, as friendly and chummy as they might be spend their time calling people who still have a budget, discretionary spending, etc.  You have no worth to "internal customers" and peers once you are officialy "out of business."  Money cannot buy you friends, only vendors and transients.

LinkedIn has been interesting.  There are a lot of good feeds and a certain amount of networking that takes place.  I'd recommend going beyond simply positing your profile.  There are many 'groups' with specialized interests, whether that be some niche part of IT, everything you ever wanted to know about concrete and on and on.

Several "positions" have been of interest.  I am quite particular about the kind of organization and work that I'm willing to commit to.  After eleven months the notion of getting up and going to a job five days a week is becoming less attractive.  There are a lot of opportunities outside of the 8x5 paradigm.  One of my profile photos is of me at my desk at that place I used to work. You all know the look...business casual, fake wood desktop, vinyl wall covering, file cabinets and credenzas that represent the way people used to work.  Work and the nature of work and the nature of work spaces (check out http://cocomsp.com/ ) changed.  Forbes has been interesting in their progressive moves in the media and publishing world and their reliance on a world of contributors.  Clearly companies are decoupling functions into specialized networked organizaitons.

Working today is remarkable.  While I still like my home office setup I spend a lot of time writing and creating and networking and working while out an about.  Wifi creates a remarkable opportunity.  At the moment I'm sitting at a Ramsey County Library in front of a window overlooking a delightful small pond surrounded by large one-hundred year old oaks.  This experience also includes sitting next to a nice guy covered with prison tatts who offered up an extension cord when I ran out of juice.  I switched offices about two years before my departure.  To the best of my recollection I put nothing in the file cabinet or desk other than a few office supplies and my nail clipper.  Upon my departure I missed a couple of things.  If there have been any company messages about a found nail clipper or two bottles of "Five Hour Energy" please let me know.  Actually I brought home four or five boxes of past work that I thought might be useful; I've thrown (recycled it all, now).  It's a nice world out there.

While employed I did have access to a lot of computing resources.  During this post-work time period I've employed and explored a lot of web resources.  I will confess that 98% of my work is done on a $219 Samsung Chromebook using Google applications, including spreadsheet, and presentation tools.  I have versions of Microsoft Office, both fat-client and hosted solutions but rarely use them.  I believe they are close to a non-necessary expense.  LibreOffice and Ubuntu also play into this phase of my working.  One should still remain cautious of "cloud" tools, resources and storage.  Many of these solutions still remain unprofitable and as we've seen in the past year cloud storage certainly is totally open to the eyes of the cloud vendors and government.  You might want to consider encryption and an anonymous proxy server solutions.

I have not been to Denmark yet to visit my son.  I am a terrible father but you can't be good at everything.

Some of you know that I've had a few lose end in the real estate world and that has taken some time.  I'm still working on my mother's condo and hope to have that on the market by this weekend....the tattoo guy just made me have a mental flinch...I hope to have it on the market by this fall.

Tim **** and I have kept in touch and will be having lunch in a week or two.  Years ago, before his racing career, I told him that golf was a pretty boring game.  Traveling around a track at 100+ seems to have caught his attention much more than a 15mph golf cart.  Tim and I share some small town upbringing experiences but it ends there.  We were of dramatically different work styles when we began working together.  I learned a lot from Tim.  He was a quick study, requesting just the needed information to make or confirm and decision and let you do your job.  Once after a couple of years I tested him a bit asking about a performance review (we never had them back in the day).  His response 'Why would we do that?  I'll tell you if there's something we need to talk about."  I loved working for Tim.  Never underestimate his compassion and caring for people and employees.  When you fall out of boat or end up in the deep end of the pool you want him holding the life ring.

The creative side of my head and hands is getting a bit more time.  I've written several articles submitted for

publication, kept up a couple of blogs, one serious, the other profane and tested the limits of friendship on Facebook.  I've restarted "Marriage for Dummies" after the loss of the first rough draft.  Attached is a recent small project, one of many.  My plan is to take a carload of work to the Nova Scotia Folk Art Festival in 2015.

When I consider taking a "real" job I think of Dave S*****.  Dave and I were left-handed, shared a birth year and seemed comfortable with our ad hoc conversations.  When I asked him why he was retiring his response was simple.  "I can and I have things I want to do."  We spend a lot of time as employees doing what others want us to do.  Certainly we perform professionally and enjoy some parts of our jobs but at the end I don't think we'll surround ourselves with proposals we've written, contracts negotiated or work done long ago.  Once in a while I create an image of some old geezers standing around a shuffleboard court, all of them retired programmers or network administrator (or perhaps even a long-ago CIO) talking about some algorithm implemented, a unique VLAN solution or a Ruby subroutine.  Nobody cares about your past work.  Being gone from the corporate world helps define and narrow the definition of what you really like,  what you want to spend your time doing and what you may or may not be good at.  It's a good transition.  The fish was a simple little thing, a basswood log culled from a acreage clearing effort, a slab sawed off and tossed aside and then a notion of something that might look like a fish to hand work and then it turned into something else.  I follow other artisans and craft persons' work on Facebook and have found some delight in international collaboration.  This would not have happened if I was still doing the commute, parking in the ramp, walking past the local, pondering the mall sights through the four seasons and gluing myself to that fake wood desktop.  Spending your time on lasting work and lasting friendship should be a priority.  Dave Sterk retired and died two or three years later.  Going back to an office 8x5 (or more) seems like a pretty illogical thing to do (some sort of 3x10 thing might be good).

Dave H*** repeats the same lines pretty regularly.  "Life is short.  I try to enjoy each day."  It's good advice.

I've reconnected with some of my past employees, even some who left not of their own choosing.  Jobs and companies change, dissolve, morph, grow, shrink get better  and sometimes disappear.  The connections (other than vendors), relationships and friendships persevere. 

Years ago I worked for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota.  During the new employee orientation this hard nosed old HR woman stated simply that there would be a six month review to determine if they had made a mistake.  At that very moment I decided that I had made a mistake.  I waited two weeks and then two more but then began a job search and left successfully at eleven months.  It was the best bad job experience ever.  Following that experience I had a great five year run at a startup  and then provided the IT infrastructure for the growth from $35m to $750m at that place I used to work.  There were other jobs, too, that  are topics for the future.  Now I'm enthused about each day in this era of my creative life.  

Other than one business casual funeral I've not worn any business casual attire in almost eleven months.  Not once have I pondered a departmental budget statement or attempted to explain the core issues of IT governance to people who just want free iPads.  The place I used to work was OK, but it was the place that I "used to work" and the work there was of a certain type, not necessarily the work I'm doing now or in the manner of working that we are evolving to.  

As I mentioned in my earlier update I do miss a few people, those with authentic greetings, smiles, a sense of humor and a commitment to unconditional teamwork.

You can follow my life, even be a part of it, if you wish.

Best wishes.

P.S.  What do I miss (other than the previously mentioned):

• summer on the Mall
• lunch on the Mall
• evenings on the Mall
• walking down the Mall with a hot coffee on a cold day
• smoked chicken enchiladas at Rock Bottom
• rooftop at Crave
• coffee at Cafe Pateen where the owner thought I was a cab driver.  good service comes quickly when your hack is double-parked

Work Until You Die

Legacy...

My maternal grandfather, Fred, was a Norwegian immigrant who worked his entire life, farming, being a hired hand and "chasing cows" in a meat packing plant.  His accent was long lost but his enthusiasm for working never ended.  He was a laborer, had not time for bosses or "big shots" and appreciated the opportunity make money, have a roof and food on the table.  He did not expect much more.

As the story goes, Norwegians work until they drop and eat until they sweat.  Working until you die must be part of culture for the immigrants.  Those who stayed in Norway have benefited greatly from North Sea oil and are more comfortable with less working and more vacations.

Peer Group Deaths...Early Death

Both sides of my family have pretty good genetics and many live into their 90s and even over 100.  There are issues with that.  This past weekend was my 45th high school reunion.  There have been reunions every five years.  This is the ninth.  I attended the first one at five years and none of the others...for a variety of reasons.  Wayne Larson drowned the night before our high school graduation.  I was sitting on the other side of the lake watching the recovery effort, wondering who had drowned.  John Gill died in a poorly driven VW bug a couple of years later.  Bruce kratzke was a Viet Nam fatality.  My friend from elementary school, John Johnson, was a victim of diabetes.  Ione Grove died of cancer.  Bruce Mathiason was a Christian Scientist and went home to die at 21 from curable leukemia.  Mike Hall, tormented by his role in NVA deaths took his own life.

The high school graduating class was five hundred and something.  Fifty or more people have died.  As I looked at the photos and the names there were some that I thought "that's logical that they are dead" and others of whom the names and pictures trigger nothing.

It's possible some of these people died doing their life's work.  It's unlikely any of them died chasing cows in a meat packing plant.  Did they leave their mark on the world?  What was their contribution to the GNP, world peace,  culture, the arts, or were they slackers.

In the many comments on Facebook people from the 1969 class commented "it is so sad," "there are so many,"  "I knew of some but not this many."  Some of those living have stopped working, other not.  It's a time of transition.  Certainly looking at this poster board of lives' gone short might encourage a change to stop working (until you die) and enjoy that which is there or be an incentive to put your head down and finish the work undone,  to impact something in this world that will be around after you are gone (other than the dumb comments and dancing cat videos you uploaded to Facebook).

This morning I awoke to overcast skies, the basswood trees moving gently and

an evolving list of what I wanted to get done today.  When I left the 27 year gig everyone (well some) congratulated me saying "enjoy your retirement."  I'm not really retired.  Actually I'm not retired at all.  There is a lot of work to be done.  Every job, every contract, every project has had its' rewards.  I expect many more rewards.

The Cost of Working...

Since leaving the 27-year gig I've not purchased (or worn) any "business casual" clothing but I've destroyed pants, shirts and shoes doing "real work."  The plan is to need more "business casual" this fall or winter.

I need to find work of the legacy type.  In the real world of work the last ten days has consumed my Stihl weed trimmer ($250), a set of tires ($700) and some belts and miscellaneous on my "better" John Deere mower ($200).  It's costly to do either white collar or blue collar work.  

One Thing Leads to Another - 6 AUG 14

Dates

Language is quite interesting.  This past week there was an interesting conversation between my son and me regarding the absence of "script" writing instruction in schools and the implications for cognitive thinking.  My better half claims that texting is also the demise of conversation whether that be social or business.  It's clear that most young people working at fast food restaurants can only use a touch screen and are lost with complex transactions...or complex people.  I like to test them.

The article addressed cognition and socialization.  Admittedly there are times that I do not like being around a lot of people and perhaps am a bit selective about with whom I wish to socialize.  Most of that can be attributed to the Norwegian half of my gene pool and the entire gene composition predates clicking and drop and drag by many years.  

My point initially in the heading was to address the challenge and flexibility of our writing.  Were I speaking I'd say "it's August 6th" and that would be more or less understood and probably obvious that I was speaking of the current year, not last year or some other year to come.

My military experience comes back in strange ways.  Often it's in the presence of bad people or certain sounds or smells and always in the presence of weapons.  The title today evoked the military style in dates; "6 AUG 14."  This was always remarkably simple, clean and short, much better than August 6, 2014, 8/6/14, 8/6/2014, or some other variation.

One Thing...

Reluctantly I made another trip to the windy city last week primarily to deal with a small plumbing problem.  This brings the tally to 2800 miles and nine days committed to a small plumbing problem.  It is now resolved.  My intent was to drive my own car but I kept thinking about breakdowns, tire issues, road hazards, 70 MPH meetings with deer, etc., and chose to drive a rental car in full anticipation of using the rehearsed "I am on I94 near Mauston and I just had .... can you bring me a replacement vehicle."  The trip included two near-encounters with road debris and three or four no-fault near meetings.

Arrival safely back home was in the cards but yesterday I headed to the small business to take care of about ten minutes of work.  As I headed over the interstate, glad that I was not on the interstate I hear a loud "thunk" followed by a second.  "This probably was just two flats starting."  Only one tire was flat.  Removing the lug nuts tested my manliness and I cursed aluminum wheels, air wrenches and rust.  Upon removal that shank of something was sticking out of the tire. Premonitions are to be respected.

... Leads to Another

During the past few weeks every time I go somewhere or work on a project something is lost, broken or in need of repair or replacement.  The weekly outlay of dollars during this non-job period has exceeding that of the employment period.  This pretty much sealed the deal.  I'm back on the job pursuit trail and took a few steps this AM.  Right now I'd work for gas money ...and tire money...and equipment repair/replacement money...and standard vices money, and so on. 

• having lunch w/ my boss of 25 of the 27 years in two weeks
• meeting with my friend w/ the professional services firm next week
• looking at temp CIO positions
• reaching out to my LHH guys who probably has given up on me

Low Hanging Fruit

"What in the Sam Hill is going on here?" was referenced in a pleasant blog followed elsewhere and referenced as a regional idiom.  Language is important and I've been away from certain forms of learning for many years and felt compelled to confirm my comprehension of "idiom."  A collection of words with certain meaning not immediately determined from the words.  It was perfectly clear to me what that sentence meant.  Something a bit stupid or wasteful is occurring or you have just done a really dumb thing after receiving explicit directions.

"You'd better keep an eye out for that!"  might be national rather than regional but after looking at it (with an eye out?) it seems like a CSI plot rather than cautionary advice about something you might miss (because you are stupid?).

"Let's go after the low-hanging fruit" is now part of corporate process improvement culture, as idiomatic as it

may be.  My opinion was that simple fixes generally fixed simple problems, not big problems and rarely led to any transformational change.   Anyone can go after low-hanging fruit and it has immediate return.  If you don't like a staff member, fire them or move them to something they don't enjoy.  If you don't like your IT department's security policies circumvent them and keep all your files on www.box.com .  Staff resources, corporate knowledge and a legacy of past work that stabilizes the innovation framework of tomorrow is really important.  It's a bad idea to eat all the apples in the summer.  It might make sense to save a few for the late fall.  If you want a treat, have an apple but don't tear down the branches which provide next years fruit.  As an aside I did lose a lot of apple trees to the cold and to deer this past winter but this comment makes no particular sense right here.

OK the point is that if you are after fruit, get a ladder.  Put some work into solving your problem.  Work hard at it.  Maybe the answer is some sort of lift instead of a ladder.  Don't be put off by the cost.  Perhaps there are competitive lease rates or there are fewer injuries and your worker's compensation, liability insurance and health care costs will be less, or you'll just pick more apples or cut your labor costs or you employees will enjoy it or you can use the lift for other stuff when it's not apple picking time.

The deer spit is awesome.  A few years ago there were two deer that frequented the windfalls of this tree.  I'd toss an apple between me and them and they'd advance.  With each throw they'd get closer.  After a month of this they'd start to salivate just seeing me.

IT Executive & Pickle Salesperson

Years ago I used to take my kids to work once in a while.  It seemed logical for them to witness a corporate headquarters, see how people acted, have lunch with dad and perhaps get a sense of what I did.  During those visits I'd go about my normal day responding to phone calls, sending and receiving email, "networking" with peers, "collaborating & planning" with other department heads and ensuring that everything in the IT department was on schedule, on budget, etc.

There would always be a followup conversation with my kids asking what they remembered, what they saw and questions for them.  Always they would remember lunch, especially if it was at some pizza place.  Anyone with blue hair, purple hair, good tatts or who took the time to actually acknowledge and talk to them was high on the list of memories.

When I'd ask them what they thought of what I did the standard response was "I don't know what you do except talk on the phone."  When my son was in second grade I suggested that I take his place in second grade and that he go to my job.  "What would I do?  I don't even know what you do."  My advice was always the same.  Be nice.  Don't answer the phone.  If it's important they'll leave a message.  Throw away all the mail.  None of that really matters anyway.  Be pleasant and respectful.

Now my children are adults, 30 and near-thirty.  They've watched me, too, over this past ten months of re-definition.  One of them asks every month or so how I am doing.  The other I see almost daily in my wife's and her small business. 

Today I was talking about the opportunity we had to create a friendly business for people to patronize and the opportunity we had to be pleasant and respectful.  My daughter indicated that as a guy who now sells pickles and honey from the back of a pickup truck I had something to share.  As I've pondered that I've thought of all the people in the corporate world with whom I worked.  Certainly there were lasting friends and relationships that defined the social aspect of the corporate organizational world that made the work more pleasant.  I think the advice there to throw away the mail and be prudent about which calls to answer was correct. 

During the last ten months I've met many new people, some at the small business and its' sidelines, some in the pursuit of new ventures and some in similar spaces, both in-person and in this new era "online."  The strength of my work and the challenge my work was always the newness, the creative opportunity.  The last ten months have had many more creative opportunities and rewards.  That has been great.

I'd still like to re-visit second grade.

"What day is it?", Big/Small Corporate Deceit, Screwdrivers & Jobs

What day is it?...

After a normal sleep I was up early with assignments at the cafe.  Certainly there were tasks that needed to be done at 7:30AM & 9:00AM but it was a bit unclear what day of the week today was.  Was it the weekend?  Was it a weekday?  If either of those what was the name of the day?  In the current mode of operation every day is a work day (with limited financial gain) and they are all a bit unfocused...but that can change.  Gainful return comes with focus.

Big/Small Corporate Deceit...

Many of the the brand names we grew up with are gone and many others have been become nameplates on inferior China-produced goods.  

Our food has gone through similar branding compromises.  Hamburgers used to be fairly decent.  Now it's feedlot beef teaming with e coli, formed in a factory somewhere into patties, fried, frozen, shipped and microwaved for your pleasure.  One contaminated plant can poison the nation.

Branding involves what you hear and retain but also about what you see and what synapses that ignites in your head.  If you see a pickup truck parked along the road with bags of sweet corn you think "hey, fresh sweet corn.  I bet he/she picked that this morning."  If you put a couple of teenagers on the tailgate it's even more convincing.  Farm kids working for the summer.

In our area there is a corporate entity that has cornered the market on metropolitan food stands.  They are placed about the metro (not in bad areas) and the produce sits out in the sun all day after arriving from Texas and other god-forsaken parts of the country.  Hand-painted plywood signs indicate that this is "farm produce."  At night the produce sits out or on the ground.  No doubt the raccoons and vegetarian night-prowling coyotes have a field day.  They also charge about twice what the big box grocery retailers charge where the produce is rotated regularly, kept air condition, misted with cold water and for which you get really competitive pricing. 

My uncle used to say the best business was one in which you have no employees, no inventory and you continue to make money when you are not there.  I think that's what works for the owner of this farmstand corporate entity.  Hopefully I'll think of something like this one of these days.

Screwdrivers (and the US economy)...

My years at Universal Milking Machine were memorable and certainly representative of a long history of manufacturing in Albert Lea. In later years as I learned of it's end it did not dawn on me that it was the beginning of a an era of closings, consolidations, exportation of jobs and a loss of local and national economic strength. This evening as I remained challenged with a self-imposed writing deadline I opened my desk drawer looking for something to motivate me.

This was my first Enderes screwdriver and I distinctly remember seeing a four-way tool for the first time, explaining the Enderes name to the hardware store person (who may not have cared) and buying it without checking the price. Several more were purchased. Over time I started to see orange-handled screwdrivers of similar size and appearance but they were at most $1.99 and made in China. We started with really good screwdrivers and local jobs and tools that last and ended up with a very old company on the ropes, really cheap Chinese screwdrivers of questionable quality and jobs in China, not Albert Lea. Online checking indicates that Northbridge Tool purchased the Enderes name, reputation and goodwill and it looks like they have a catalog and it looks like there are new production Enderes tools available on eBay. If that is the case I'm going to send all of my orange-handled Chinese tools to some country that deserves failure.

 Jobs...

working on it...

Broken Tools, Obsolete Necessities - July 14, 2014

Beekeeping/Fruit/Horticulture

• the late winter, cool temperatures and rain, rain, rain impact
• slow, late bees in the field
• agitated bears finding the beeyard(s)
• broken mowers
• reliable Stihl weed-wacker died from overuse (twelve  years)
• fee apples
• the gooseberries are going crazy
• great red and black currant production
• grapes...another story

Technology

Looking for one thing leads to finding another.  This afternoon I found another box which I must have used fifteen years ago to consolidate computer debris.  There was a nice Multi-tech 28.8 modem with the power
adapter and serial adapters for both sizes of serial ports.  Obviously this was purchased at a point of technology evolution.  Software and hardware alike takes forks in road which can be dead ends, switchbacks, shortcuts and the main road to the future.  Telecommunication speeds continue to increase.  Centurylink will now bring fiber directly to one's home.  Someday we'll be stealing copper telephone cable from our neighbor's homes along with the plumbing.  I'm not sure what I used this modem for and I have no recollection of the computer for which the adapters were purchased.  My first personal computer was purchased in 1980 for about $1500 which was half-price at the time.  Following that most have come from one job or another.  The no-name box in use at the moment was about $300 four or five years ago.  Most other PCs about the workspace are throwaway notebooks re-purposed with Linux or my ever-present Samsung Chromebook.

Half of the cables and adapters were discarded.  I kept a couple of network cables but pondered whether they were CAT3 or CAT5 and all six on the parallel printer cables.  Certainly there are people around today that know nothing other than wireless or bluetooth printing.  That's fine.  Having a box of old computer cables are probably like the brace and bits of our parents and grandparents.  The brace and bits in my tool box are still useable.  The computer cables cannot connect to much of anything.  I shipped the box of cables to some impoverished country in Africa where they can burn off the insulation, polluting their drinking water and air but make a few cents.  It made me feel like a business incubator.

Job(s)

After working a short consulting gig the other day I felt pretty good.  The company were complimentary of
opinions, perspectives and ideas that the 27-year gig rejected for 27 years.

The Twin Cities is full of jobs.  I'm shooting for a fall re-entry but only something less than 8x5.