Shop Talk

A couple of weeks ago, I had an opportunity to meet with and talk to a gentleman I've known for a couple of years now. The relationship we've always had was a work relationship. He works for me, well, some of the time. And some of the time I work for him. Actually, I have no issue with working for him as I actually believe my responsibility is to support my people. Some call this the inverted management pyramid. Anyway, because of some circumstances, we decided we shouldn't talk in our place of business, but instead we'd meet at his home. This was a little unusual, but as I said, under the circumstances  it made sense. When I arrived, the first thing I noticed was the new garage/shop he'd built. As all of you would completely expect of me, I asked for a tour. Let no shop go unexplored.

Then an amazing thing happened that really caused me to reach back into the recesses of my memory. The next few minutes of conversation were the most open and the most honest we had ever had. In a few minutes I knew more about him than I learned in the years I've known him. I think the reverse may also be true as I found myself very much at ease, talking about things truly important to me with an openness we'd never shared before. It cause me to think back to the days with Payless Cashways when my closest group of friends managed stores and tried to put up better numbers than mine.  I remembered all of the merchants who helped us to be more than we should have been, and I remembered "bar talk."

Bar talk was a concept my Regional Vice President first suggested to me. I'm not sure if it was original or something he learned somewhere else, but it really didn't matter. The concept was that if you were in a meeting and asked a question, you were careful with your answer, thinking about all of the people in the room and how they would interpret your words. On the other hand, when the meeting ended and you all went out to dinner together, had a couple of adult libations, and the same question was asked, the answer was completely different. In this environment the same person who over-analyzed their response in the meeting would just tell you what they really thought. Bar talk. Open, honest communication at its finest. And now, I discovered another place this happens is in the shop.  Who knew ...

Throughout my life, there have been places I've always been more comfortable, and when I came to the end of this conversation, I figured out why.  They were the places where there was a lot less posturing and people had a greater tendency to be open and honest. The first of these was Sigourney Lumber on Saturday mornings when I went up with dad to see what had happened around town during the week. That was an incredibly honest venue, maybe a little too much for a boy my age. But I never had to wonder what someone was thinking, they just put it out there. The next was my mom's kitchen table. Although the players changed over time, the conversations were always the same: open, honest, and direct. This is where I learned to argue, with Jerry Miletich taking a position just to start an argument and then seeing how I did. It was a place to learn about truth and opinion, all in the same time and space.

The last place like this I think of is Midwest Top Shop in Fort Dodge, Iowa. When I arrived there, they were a vendor of mine, but soon, this place became a shelter from the world, and the people there became some of my closest friends.  Again, look at that, it was in a shop I felt the most comfortable and at ease, and was probably the most honest. Now, here I am again, in a different shop, in a different part of the world and the conversation is once again one to remember forever.

I guess I am a "shop guy" at heart, and will probably always be one.

One interesting note is that my company has bought several businesses in small towns in Iowa this last year. I find myself very comfortable in those locations. Maybe I need to modify my thoughts to say shops, or small towns in Iowa.

I don't know where you are the most comfortable, but I hope you can identify where it is so you can spend as much time as possible there. Have a great week.

Conflict

We all experience conflict and we see it around us, but rarely do we talk about it, or even think about it. The last few weeks seem to have contained a lot of it for me and it really made me think about the ways this happens and the results that often ride with conflict.  Although I'm sure much has been written about it, I can identify several different types of conflict.

First is conflict that has no real purpose. This is often around a topic that is really not very important, or with a person that is not worth the fight. Now admittedly, there are times that this type of conflict can be very entertaining, working to push the buttons of the person on the other side of the conflict, but in the end, rarely is anything affected, or are changes made. Many of the conflicts around political personalities, or political positions fall into this category. There will be a lot of rhetoric around a topic, but in the end, very few changes.  People tend to return to their original position, like fighters returning to their corners.

The second type of conflict is often encountered in our professional lives. I'm in the middle of this type right now. For the last year, I've been managing a rather large project at work. This project cost is in excess of a quarter of a million dollars. It is one of the larger projects I've ever been associated with and I have worked diligently to communicate with all of the parties exactly what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it. As we approach the end, I find that one of the biggest targets that I had: an increase in speed in the way we do our business was not clearly understood by the company I'd hired. Needless to say, conflict arises. I understand that some of the people on the other side don't feel that I am being reasonable, and quite honestly, I feel the same way about them. We all know that the project needs to be completed and it needs to be done right. We will work through it. The interesting thing in this kind of conflict is that when it is all done, you can choose to go your separate ways, think poorly of the opposite party and never associate with them again. While that is a possibility, it probably isn't the best. We live on a small little planet and sooner or later, the relationship will need to be renewed. Interestingly enough, I am reminded of a conflict that I had in High School with a girl named Jane. At the end of it I told her that she would need me again. Hmm...well, not so far at least. Guess that I was wrong on that one.

The final conflict that comes to mind today is one that you have with those people you really love. These can actually be the most intense as we know exactly what to say and how to say it to make the conflict personal. When you get in the middle of one of these, everything that happens hurts you and hurts the person on the other side. In some cases of conflict, you can identify a winner. In this situation, there is never a winner. At the end of the conflict all you can really hope is that apologies will be accepted and that it will be possible to move forward and be okay. The wonderful thing is that since these are the people we care the most about, conflicts can be set aside with love and caring, apologies and acceptance. We may have to be stubborn and wait a while. but it will work out.

If you are dealing with unresolved conflicts, take a little time in the next few days to see if you can put one of them behind you. Just one. Take the steps to make things better with a person that you wronged, or may have wronged you. You will both feel better.  I am going to try to take care of the work one this next week. And Jane, if you are reading this, give me a holler. We probably need to get that fixed as well.

Okay, a couple of other notes.  I am working on a Quartered White Oak bed frame for the guest room, and I have to say that it is coming out absolutely beautifully.  I can hardly wait to show you pictures when it is done.

And finally, if you have missed the series titled "Highway Through Hell," you have missed a good one.  Check it out on Netflix.  Now, have a great day.

Doldrums

As we come to the end of the month, I look back, not only at the last 29 days, but back through the years. It has always seemed to me as if February is one of the hardest months to get through.  I think back to school days and I remember it seemed as if February would never end. Too many tests and Spring Break still seemed out of sight  - far off in the future. In the days I ran residence halls for Drake, as Hall Directors, we always knew this was the month with the most craziness. This was the month roomates would decide they had enough of each other and this was the month people would walk out into the hallway and just start fighting with each other. February was always hard work.

So, of course the question is why? I think there are a lot of reasons.  Part of the issue is that by this point, winter has been around too long. I think the days are too short and the nights are too long. We have a lot of the nasty weather in February, and even more important, February is generally without sunlight. Gray days most of the time.  I think part of it is because we come off such a high time, with Christmas, New Year, Super Bowl, you pick the thing which is most important, but in February there isn't much after Valentine's Day has come and gone.  And finally, it's the shortest month of the year, so all of your regular payments come way too close to each other. Had you thought of that one?  

But guess what? The other end of the spectrum is coming. Spring is just around the corner and before we know it, farmers will be planting fields and trees will be sprouting their little buds which lead to them leafing out. We will have reached the Spring Break period for families and students, and all will seem better. We will see the last snow storm of the season come and go and we will know it will get warm and stay warm.

So, as we reach this time of change and the promises of Spring, I guess the question for me is what will I do with it?  Every year I look forward to this: waiting for the end of winter, waiting for the time I can put the coat away for good. And every year, I think of the items I have left over from the year before which haven't been completed. I am on year three for a patio project. It needs a little more rock and I need to move the grill upstairs where it's easier to use. I need to put a second coat of paint on the garage door. This has been waiting since the year Megan graduated from High school.  I should probably get that done, don't you think?

I'm coming to the end of February and the beginning of March and am going back to one of the things I learned while working at Drake. This is a planning season, the time you think about the things coming up and see if you can make sure these go better next time around. We have a lot of things coming up this year - I should try to be ready for them. And I've learned a very valuable lesson in the shop lately. I discovered that if I really set my mind to something, and really work on it, a project moves forward at a nice clip. I believe I will have photos of a new bedstead I've been working on to show you in the next couple of weeks.  

A great deal of my life I thought I was pretty organized and got a lot done. Thinking through the doldrums of February have put me in a different place. I do get a lot done at work nearly every day, but when I come home it's really easy for me to turn into a slug and time passes and gets away from me. I have, like many people, lost years to sitting on the couch and watching television. Now, I'm not for a minute saying I will eliminate it all, but I am saying I will work diligently to curtail time-wasting activity. Also, I have to start thinking about building kitchen cabinets. We have been working toward a kitchen remodel for quite some time and it needs to start now.

Finally, I have an order for a teardrop trailer to make for my sister by her birthday. Fortunately, it is not for this birthday, but for one coming up which ends in a "0", but will be here before you know it (sorry for saying so Jaye).  I guess I had better get busy there as well.  Okay, out of the doldrums of February and into the frenetic activity of Spring.  Anyone care to go with me?

Voting

For those of you in Iowa, you either looked forward to or are thankful that we just finished the Caucus season. For those of you living somewhere besides Iowa, the state's "First in the Nation" status regarding the Presidential contest does in fact come with some baggage. We've had more access and exposure to reporters from around the nation than is ever required. In the last two weeks, at least half the time my commute included a news crew doing a story about the conflict....oops, I mean contest.  But now that is all over for a while. The candidates have packed up all of their slogans and promises and moved on to New Hampshire, and I am sure I speak for many when I tell them to travel carefully. Even though we worried a blizzard might keep people here another day or so, it looks as though they are gone.

So, let's talk about the real power of voting. I am not talking about the caucuses, although all of that was important, I am talking about voting economically. We've all thought about this at one time or another, and have probably executed this at one time, but if you are like me, I always wonder if it really matters.  Well, I am here to tell you for me, it does.

You know me - a story has to come with this. I have been with the same bank for over 26 years. I moved to this bank in 1990 because I discovered a very interesting thing. At the time, if you were with a bank in one state, and at an ATM in another state, you could not make a deposit.  At the time I was with a local Des Moines bank and working in Kansas City - in the days before direct deposit. In order to deposit a paycheck, I had to drive to Iowa and find an ATM in the middle of the night. Yes, if there is any doubt, the deposit needed to get into the account and HOW. So when the smoke cleared, we moved to a bank with a national footprint so this wouldn't happen again. And I have been with them for 26 years. Until a week ago.

Over the time, this bank has added more and more fees, as so many have, and I just accepted it, but a week or so ago, they charged me $37.00 for something which was incorrect, at least in my opinion (by the way, remember, I am the customer here). When I called to speak with someone, I was pleased to be talking to a call center immediately identified as being in Rhode Island. Okay, good first step. Then after I explained what my issue was, to my amazement and disappointment, the person on the other end of the phone tried to explain to me why I was wrong, and in what seemed to me to be a very demeaning tone. This after they identified me at the beginning of the call as a "Preferred" customer. By the end of the call I had to resort to telling them in the event they did not want to fix this, I  would just leave. They fixed it and I came off the phone angry enough I decided to leave anyway.

In steps JP at a local bank. I've used this institution to finance the Toybox for several years now, and even though JP on occasion asked me about other opportunities, he never pushed or treated me like any less of a customer because he only carried the paper on the Toybox. When I called him to make an appointment, he told me he was working on Saturday and typically after the rush first thing in the morning there was a very quiet period of time. I went in during that window and found things to be just as JP had said. We sat and talked about all of the things he could do, and I set up accounts with him on the spot. I also believe if there is ever an issue with anything, JP will take the time to listen to me and come up with a solution appropriate for the circumstances.

Now, in looking at the total current assets of the bank I am leaving, they show 2.144 trillion dollars. I feel highly confident nobody in that organization woke up this morning and said, "Crap, I think Jim Martin left us."  From the point of view of voting economically, this did not affect the company I left even one bit. But it mattered to me.

I feel as though I will be taken better care of in a more local situation. I know the name of the person I am dealing with, and I believe that getting my business matters to him. And that is good enough for me. Thank you, JP, for caring enough to treat me as not just a customer, but also as a person. I look forward to doing business with you.

Floor Furnace

For those of you who live in other parts of the country, I'm not sure that you are aware, but we had some relatively cold weather last week. Now, I realize some of you've had challenging weather as well, and I am not in any way challenging you, I'm just saying it has been cold here. In fact it's been so cold I actually wore a jacket. Those of you who know me realize this is a big deal. I fight winter as long as I can and wearing a jacket is just giving in.

In the middle of this, I find myself thinking about ways to get warm and I remembered the floor furnace that used to be in my grandparent's home. Actually, they had two of them - one in the kitchen area and one in the living room. Early on, they were fueled with fuel oil and later they were either converted or replaced with units that burned natural gas. Fuel oil - we will come back to that in a little bit.

Back to the floor furnace. For those of you who were never around one of these, they were one of the best and quickest ways to get warm - ever. If you were outside and chilled to the bone, you could come inside, stand over the furnace and when it cycled, you would be warm. As a kid, I remember thinking of it as standing over the sun. The heat would travel up through your pants legs and just warm you all over. In only a moment, you were warm and happy.

Now the catch to a floor furnace (and there is always a catch) is that the grate in the floor was about the temperature of the face of the sun. Touching the metal with exposed skin, or even skin with one layer of cloth over it, like a sock, would result in a burn, often with the accompanying "sizzle" sound telling you that it was going to hurt. The other thing that you had to remember as you rolled into the house and dropped your shoes/boots, was that leaving them on the furnace could result in melted, burnt, or branded clothing.

But when you were cold, wow the floor furnace would fix that. For those of you that are younger and wondering how the decision could be made to have such a dangerous appliance in the house, remember, we were the children of full-blown chemistry sets, wood burning sets, and lawn darts. It was a different time.

The other thing that made a floor furnace a really great thing was the way the heat got to the second floor of the house. In the ceiling of the first floor/floor of the second floor, there were grates that could be opened and closed to let heat into the upstairs.  The thing that made this fun as a child was that they were also the perfect place to drop things on your cousins from upstai8rs, or listen to the adult conversation going on in the kitchen. You did have to be careful, though, as typically the people in the kitchen could hear you open the grate and would then yell at you about eavesdropping on them. Sometimes the reward was worth the risk.  My cousins and I found out some great things that way.

Circling back to fuel oil. Now that I work in the industry, I have a much greater awareness of the inherent risks in dealing with fuel. We all know some of them, but I'm probably more aware than I was a year ago at this time. Any fuel - fuel oil included - needs to be recognized not only for its flammability, but also for the chemical properties and the way that it interacts with the human body. Basically, you need to be careful with this stuff.

When I grew up, we used fuel oil in a multitude of ways it was never intended for. In fact, when Grandma and Grandpa change the house to natural gas, the fuel oil barrel was kept so we still had a good source. It actually became easier to use since the barrel was no longer attached to the house. To get fuel you just opened the valve and filled your three pound Folgers can. It was it for everything from lubricating the horse shears to cleaning paint brushes. Nobody thought a thing about it, and honestly, I liked the smell. We think of it all differently today. Sometimes I wonder how we ever lived through those days.

I've talked enough about the weather and the cold. I hope you all have a great way to stay warm, and I hope that you have a source as good as an old floor furnace to heat you up.  Take care and talk to you soon.

Bag Balm

Something brought this product to mind yesterday. Not really sure what it was, but it seemed worth sharing. For those of you that are not from an agricultural, or near-agricultural background such as I was, bag balm is a lanolin based product used in dairy operations for soreness in a cow's udder. For people that worked around this environment, it was also the cure-all for many of the maladies that occurred around animals and farms. Sore hands, small cuts and abrasions - these were all helped with the application of a little bag balm.

When I was in about the third grade, I was up at my Aunt Dorothy Dean's in the late summer or early fall.  I was trying to help with some of the chores and in my typical manner, I slipped and fell. But this time a piece of steel was involved and I ended up with nearly one hundred stitches. With blood flowing from my leg and tears from my eyes, I asked Aunt Dorothy Dean on the way to the hospital if we couldn't just put some bag balm on this. Not funny at the time, but hilarious years later.

What got me thinking about this yesterday is this is exactly what we need now. We need something that will just fix everything. Knees hurt from aging? Bag balm. Hearing a bit problematic? Bag balm. Can't seem to get enough sleep and are always tired? Bag balm.

While we all know that there's no way anything like this will ever be true, there are certainly times we let ourselves be lulled into an thinking like this, or at least I do. Right at the moment, we are about to have a drawing for one of the largest lotteries the United States has ever seen.  When I looked a few minutes ago, it looks as though the amount of the drawing will crest the $900 million mark. When we stop and think about this kind of money, it's easy to think that this would fix everything - bag balm.

When you let the totally unrealistic side of your brain go and think about this from a much more logical basis, of course you realize there is no way that there is any one thing that fixes everything, least of all money - even really big money.

This last year I've been given a wonderful opportunity to get back out into rural towns throughout Iowa with my job. The interesting thing about these communities - Bridgewater, Neola, Perry, Grand Junction, Osceola, and State Center (really - all over Iowa) - is that they are able to get things done within the confines of the community that they have and accomplish it without really big dollars. These communities continue to move forward into the future.

Now that I've wandered all over the place with these thoughts, what I really want to say is that although I would love to have a bag balm for all of the issues we have in our lives, our jobs, and our communities, there isn't any such thing. Additionally, money will not fix everything either. It is, as it always has been, about people working together and coming up with creative solutions to overcome the things we are faced with. Friends, and family, and those around us, work together to make things better.

But if you happen to win $900 million this weekend, you will be in a position that lets you help with a lot of these issues and can make the corner of the world that is yours better. I think that would be a pretty wonderful way to use that kind of big money, So, an agreement between friends - pinky swear - whatever you want to do. If we have the chance, in any and all ways, let's make the world around us a better place. We can be the bag balm for our corner of the world when we work together.

Re-Set

Last week a dear friend of mine, Russell Jensen, posted this on Facebook:

Dear 2015, while I am eager to see you leave, I at least owe you some thanks. So thank you for the priceless lessons you taught me about living, which is really about about faith, family, resilience and gratitude. I like who I am and where I am today better than who I was and where I was a year ago.

Dear 2016, any chance I can get extra credit for 2015 so we can we just skip the whole lessons learned thing this year? Yes?

First of all, I loved this post. Yes, 2015 was a tough year for Russell and like many of us, I'm glad he is through it. I also wish that I could have done more to help him. But one thing this post made me consider was all of the thought we put into the first of the year. Like everything else, it comes with its good and its bad.

In terms of the good, many of us use this as a time to reset. In the next few weeks the gym I use will be absolutely packed with people who made a New Year's resolution to lose weight, or get healthier - whatever the goal may be.  This is a time to quit smoking, or any number of healthy challenges.  Like I said, it's a really good time to reset.  And  I hope that for everyone who sets a plan for the first of the year, this is the most successful attempt you've ever made.

But, and here comes the Jim part ... why is it that the first of the year holds such a magic? Why could we not use the 12th of April to think about things for the upcoming year? What is it about January 1 that has such a grip on us?

I've talked about will power and the fact that it actually is an exhaustible resource. The book I read talked about will power and self control as something you have a limited amount of. When you start using it - it will run out.  Then, it takes time to rebuild your reserves back up. The author explained that this is why diets fail. "Change is hard because people wear themselves out." We start strong and when our will power fades, we are right back where we started. It isn't laziness, he says - it's exhaustion.  (Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard, by Chip Heath and Dan Heath)

So what should we do with all of this?  I have a thought and I think that it's a good one. I think we need to slice the time that we have into smaller segments and allow ourselves to see them as an opportunity to re-set.  Rather than just celebrating the beginning of the year, maybe we should look at quarters, or even months. Would it not be better to think about all of the good that happened and get rid of the bad in three months rather than a year? This really seems like something I can get my head around.  It makes the chunks that we are going to bite off less overwhelming and maybe I can set goals that I will be able to accomplish in a quarter, rather than run out of stamina over an entire year.

Think about it. What changes can you break down into quarterly segments. Would you celebrate those and then start something new? If you decide to join me, great, and if not, I will celebrate with you once a year and then have three other quarterly celebrations by myself.

Okay, so at the beginning I wrote that the first of the year was mostly good. But I have to share one with you that really just made me shake my head. I worked for a person at one time who saw the beginning of the year as the worst of times. Every January we heard the same rant - all of the costs of the whole coming year had to be covered before there was any opportunity for profit. Rather than see opportunity ahead, this person only saw the costs of the entire year. Like all of these came about on the first day of the year rather than across time. We were already in the hole and had to dig ourselves out. It was one of the most ludicrous ways I'd ever seen to think about the new year, and I was glad it wasn't the way that most of the world saw it. It really takes the fun out of a fresh, new year.

I hope that you all had a wonderful holiday season and that you are ready for the New Year. It's already arrived, and as we all know, it will run by us at a staggering rate. May you all be happy and healthy during each quarter of 2016, and may you discover opportunities to re-set more often and feel good about the things you accomplish.