New Eyes

I remember hearing a comedian once talk about having kids and seeing the world through new eyes. A sunset was now "pink ink" in the sky and when your foot went to sleep, it got "all squiggly." At that time, we had children who were young and it was so very true. Rarely did we go through a week, and often not even through a day without having the opportunity to see something in a way that we'd never seen it before. This was truly a gift that I never realized even existed and it came with having children around.

Typically these moments of enlightenment were around things that were very loud, or very bright, but you never really knew where the next one would come from.  For instance, I remember that Megan had decided, based upon conversation that she had listened to between adults, that the little piece of grass in the middle of a boulevard was called a "cricket."  It took years for us to find this out. She'd overheard us talking about a metal cricket sculpture in the median near a friend's home and just assumed that was the word described the boulevard. We will never forget it. In the same vein, I remember Andrew believing that a car we had rented had the ability to adjust the radio volume to the "ambient sound level" of the car. Really it was just dad messing with the volume when Andrew could not see me doing it.

Fast forward about twenty years.  As of December 1, I have a new job.  And by the way, I love it. And by the way #2, I'm seeing the world through new eyes, or maybe just eyes that I had forgotten I had.  I've taken on the challenge of Operations at a distribution company in a line that I know absolutely nothing about.  Or do I?  It's amazing to me that the further and further I dive into it, the more it is like the lumber history that I knew so well.  Every time I turn around, we are working on something that I remember working on in the early days in lumber.  The difference is that now I am in the petroleum business.  But, interestingly enough, it is about buying inventory, protecting that inventory, selling it and getting it delivered to the customer, all the time making sure that we take good care of the employees and keep them all safe.

Just today the snow started to fly and I was transported back to a time when we worried mostly about getting our people to work safely, getting product to our customers and making sure that we could be ready to do it all over again.  By the end of the day, I think that we actually were able to accomplish all of that.

Of course, today I hadn't been home ten minutes when I got a call that one of the company owned trucks had been in a wreck.  Again, I found the old training drop into place, making sure that first and foremost, all of the people were okay and then making sure that everyone knew that it was only a wreck and we would take care of it all tomorrow.

So, even though I get to look at a whole new industry, and all new people, doing things that I didn't even begin to understand a month ago, much of all of this is so familiar that it takes me back to when I got to see the world through the new eyes of my children.  Now I get to see the world through the new eyes of the employees that I am managing, working to make the way they do their job easier and more profitable.  What fun this is going to be.

For those few of you that have asked if I am nearing the end of my career, ready to retire and do something easier, I tell you not just no, but hell no. I love what I do and I love seeing all of the ways that people figure out to accomplish things they need to accomplish on a daily basis.  I know there is probably a best way, and I look forward to figuring that out, but there so many different ways to get from point A to B that I love discovering them all. Come with me on this ride, and take the challenge yourself in the things you do every day. Find the joy in looking at everything around you as though you were seeing it for the first time - through new eyes.

Back Yard

In the time that Sara and I have been married, we've lived in several different cities and towns in four states.  Although there are no universals, I can say that one thing I've run into time and time again - and it never fails to amaze me - is that people don't recognize the things that are in their own back yards.  One of the first times I noticed this was on a trip to San Francisco.  First, you had to look long and hard to find someone there that considered themselves a "native" but when you did and you asked about the local sights, they hadn't been there. They had not been to Alcatraz, or out to Napa Valley, or in some cases even down to Fisherman's Wharf.  I remembered thinking it was amazing that they would have missed these things, but chalked it up to being a "California" thing.

Time passed and we landed in Dallas.  Although we were only there for a short period of time, I knew there was a lot that should be seen and experienced.  And in the middle of it all, there was the Grassy Knoll and The School Book Depository.  These locations were at the center of a moment in time that compared to few.  Twice in my life I remembered school being interrupted for something happening in the world.  One was the assassination of Kennedy and the other was the moon landing.  Now, here I was, at  the place where the Kennedy assassination happened. I wanted to learn as much as possible and take in as much of the feeling that I could about it.  In the time we were there, we went to this area two or three times with company from out of town and with people that were from Dallas. I was always amazed that the people who lived in Dallas had never been there before.  They meant to, but they had just never gotten it done.  They didn't recognize the importance of things right in their own backyard.  Well, maybe it was a California and Texas thing.

After Dallas, we worked our way back through Kansas City and home to Iowa.  We've been here about six years now.  And lo and behold, I found out that we are the same way here. I actually live the same way. When we were moving so much it seemed like we should check things out in these other places, but now that we settled back in to Iowa, I know that there are things here we are missing.

We have yet to go to the new High Trestle Bridge up in the Boone area.  I've been talking about going there for five years already and done nothing more than that.  It is not like it's too far, it is just that we haven't gotten to it.  We haven't been to the State Capital since coming home ... or the State Historical Museum.  All of these are worth the time that it would take to take in the venue.  We did in fact visit the Art Museum when Karen and Jaye were here because we knew that they would enjoy it, but that was the push that finally motivated us.

On top of the things that those of us who live here haven't been to see, it's really interesting the manner that we think about the things that are in the state.  For example, we have a great number of really quality educational institutions, even beyond Drake University.  Yet when you talk to Iowans, they often have a tendency to minimize or dismiss the local institutions as not being of the same quality that you find outside the state.  It just isn't true.  We have quality undergraduate degrees and graduate programs in law, medicine, engineering, and veterinary science that will line up against anyone in the nation.

Finally, while we are talking about this kind of thing, and I know I have mentioned it in the past, we have one of the finest State Fairs in the nation. Good food, great exhibits and if you have never been to "East Side Night," you have truly missed something. 

We need to be aware of all of the things that exist right in our own backyard.  We need to recognize and appreciate all of them.

Career

While wandering around Evernote today, I came across this note from my mother.  It was one of the multitude of little sayings that she kept stuck around in her life, and out of all of those that I disposed of when we cleaned out her house, I actually kept this one.  I guess that when I ran across it when cleaning, it meant something to me and today once again, it truly spoke to me in its own simple way.  It aligned with the thing that my father had always told me about work and career.  He said that he would rather have me be a good ditch digger than a rotten attorney.  At this point, I see how my parents came together and worked together to build a life, all summed up on this little piece of paper and a few words.

Over all of the years that I have worked in various industries and jobs, I know that I have been challenged, not only by my friends, but also at times by myself to answer the question:  "What do you want to be when you grow up?"  I'm sure many of us in this generation have been challenged with these words and I'm equally sure that there have been times that we aren't able to answer this question. 

And this note from the past comes to me today and it all seems to be so much clearer.  It isn't about saying that you will be the best neurosurgeon in the world, although it might be.  It is more about saying that I will be the best that I can be at whatever I am doing ... period. Maybe it is about being the best pastry chef, or artist, or curler.  It need not be something that the world can identify, it is only important that you can identify it. 

I think of Jack.  Jack came to work for me in a lumberyard in Des Moines in 1985-1986.  He'd never worked anywhere before and was challenged intellectually.  I remember that I struggled with teaching him that there was always something to do and that standing around watching others work was not what I needed from him.  After a couple of months, we had figured out that he was the best "sweeper" in the place.  He would start at the beginning of a shift and would clean and sweep continuously until it was time to go home.  He became a great employee.

Then came the day he came in to tell me that he had a chance for a different job.  There had been a position with the West Des Moines schools for a sanitary engineer.  He found out about the job and told them he would be interested and they offered the position to him.  But he needed to tell me that he was going to go somewhere else.  I thought that he was going to have a heart attack.  For me of course, there was only one thing to do, offer him my best wishes and good luck.  That was the right thing to do.  And now, as I think about it, Jack was headed off into his career.  Not a career that a lot of people would think about that way, but one that Jack absolutely would.  I even remember, as he tried to tell me about the job saying, "Oh Jack, you are going to be a Sanitary Engineer", and him explaining to me that I was wrong ... he was going to be a janitor.

The number of years that have passed and the fact that he was a little older than I, tell me that he has probably retired at this point. Unless I miss my bet, he probably retired from the West Des Moines School district as a janitor.  Good for him. 

Sometimes we all get caught up in the terms that the world uses to describe who we are or what we do.  Maybe it is important for all of us to ask ourselves if we are happy, challenged, and comfortable in our job.  Does that make it a career rather than a job?  I'm not sure.  You will each have to think about that.

I have a bunch of examples in my life of people that were very important to me, employed in ways the world would have considered a job, but they considered a career.  My grandfather worked for Keokuk County for close to twenty years - hauling rock and pushing snow in the winter.  I know he considered that a career, not just a job.

Well, I am going to close for the week, just a little more satisfied in the way that I look at what I have done.  There are others that do what I do better, but I am pretty good at it.  It is my career, and it has certainly been a lifeboat for me over the years.  I will bet that there are some of you that feel the same way.

Have a nice weekend.

Value

I have really been thinking about how we determine what a "value" is, or on the other hand, what makes something a good deal?  At a time when the entire world is topsy-turvy over Black Friday or Cyber Monday deals, it really makes me think. 

Added to this is a bit of information my son shared with me last week.  He told me that a large percentage of the "deals" for Black Friday were produced specifically for that day, so I'm curious if they are the same quality and attention to detail that you would get if you bought the same item produced in say - June.  There is part of me that really wonders about that, but I'm also a person who doesn't participate in the craziness of these shopping experiences either.  As my family and friends know, when I need something I will go out and buy it.  When someone tries to advertise to me, typically unless I just happen to need what is being advertised, I will talk myself out of the perceived need for the item.

So, given what I have said above, what is a "value" in my world?  I had to think about this for a while, but I have some really good examples for you.  First, there is the plumber that did work for us last week.  We bought a new stacked high efficiency washer and dryer about a year ago.  It fit into a VERY tight spot in our house.  It has already needed service twice, and then a couple of weeks ago it dumped water on the floor.  Because of all of this I decided that we would move the unit to the basement where it would be much easier to service.  In order to do that, we needed water supply and drainage hooked up in the basement, and as many of you know, I don't do plumbing work.  So, we found a person that seemed reasonable and was willing to work us in around the rest of the things that he had going on.  He came in and looked the work over and quoted us $500.  Again, for the work involved this seemed very reasonable.  The time came for him to do the work and he was on time and very positive throughout the project, and by the way, he did a superb job.  When he was all done he told us that he needed to return some things to Menard's and when he was done he would send us a bill.  The bill came in the mail and I opened it expecting to see $500.  I was pleasantly surprised to see a bill for $454.89.  In my world, that is a value.  Unasked for, not bartered for, just given because it is the right thing to do. 

I watched the complete reverse of this the other day on one of the "car/hot rod" shows.  The principals in the show were doing a complete restoration of a car for a customer and they had quoted $60,000 for the project.  At the end of the project, they were all happy with themselves when they told the customer that the price was $60,000.  Alright, they hit the number, but no big reason to be happy.  They had committed to that number.  Be under by a little bit, 500 or 750 dollars and the customer feels as though they got a bargain.  And just as a final note here, if you are in West Des Moines/Clive/Johnston and looking for plumbing work, or handyman services, a big positive shout out goes to Premiere Property Services in Clive.

Okay, example two.  Sara's birthday was this weekend and one of the things everyone wanted to do was go to the UpDown Lounge in the East Village.  I think I've mentioned this place to you before.  Vintage arcade and pinball machines, full service bar and honestly, geeks as far as the eye could see.  I was really at home in there.  Well, you talk about a value, when we got there they were running a "Buy One Get One" deal on tokens for the machines.  Ten dollars and we got eighty tokens!!!!  I will tell you with honesty, had there been a place that had done that when I was in college, I am pretty sure that I would have figured out how to take my entire paycheck in and I am relatively sure that graduation may have come with as a bit more of a challenge.  Anyway, that really seemed like a value to me.  Oh, and by the way Kansas City, I understand that UpDown is coming your way pretty soon, so be ready.

Finally today, I am going to turn this over a little bit.  Sometimes we don't see ourselves, in our roles as consumers, as having a value.  If you go to Google and ask "What is the lifetime value of a pizza customer", the first link that comes up is Putting the Service Profit Change to Work. This is a pretty good read overall, but it points out that a loyal, happy pizza customer can spend $8000 in a lifetime with a pizza place.  And that of course is an average.  Some families can spend a lot more than that.  But when you stop to buy that pizza, are you really treated like someone that will spend that kind of money there?  Typically we aren't, and typically we don't even think about it.  One of the things that I've tried to teach Andrew and Megan is to think of things at least by the year.  It isn't only $20 per month, it is $240 a year.  And we need to think of ourselves as the kind of consumers that will spend $8000 with a pizza place, or $1800 a year with our cable provider.  We are a value to the businesses that we support, and in turn they can truly provide us value at the same time.  I will spend my money with the UpDowns of the world and the Premiere Propertys -  the companies that see me as a lifetime customer and offer a value in recognition of that, even if it is only the first time that we've ever worked together.  It is fun doing business with people who think about it this way.

Have a great week.

Slumber

I have been traveling back and forth to Marshalltown for the last few weeks.  If you haven't made this drive in a while, or if you have never done it, I would really recommend it.  There are some absolutely beautiful rolling hills and valleys between here and there.  Making this drive is the thing that really got me thinking this week.

In the past I've talked about Spring and the way that the land comes to life.  It is a great time of the year, but this time of the year is equally awe inspiring.  In the last couple of months, the world of agriculture has been absolutely frenetic.  The level of activity has been amazing.  The season has always been this way, but with the size of the equipment in use today, it seems as though giants have taken over the state of Iowa.  Even more so if you are out at night, as much of this equipment can light up football field size patches in the fields.

I remember being in Mixed Choir in High School. When I was a freshman, I sat next to Mark Cavin, a Senior.  We had way too much fun in there, which I am sure Tom Stewart, our director would agree with.  Anyway, one day, Mark came in and sat down, obviously upset about something.  After I pushed him a little, he told me that he had been doing field work the night before, may have fallen asleep for just a moment, made a turn too wide and caught a fence. Now he was going to have to spend a bunch of time that weekend fixing fence.

This is the same way that our agricultural community goes at field work in the fall today - 100% until it is done. The other thing that I remember in those days was that only about half of the students would be in class since they were busy with their families in the fields.  It gave us "townies" a little time off as well as the teachers saw no reason to teach for only half of us.  There were a lot of study periods and movies during that couple of weeks.

Experiencing fall and the beginning of winter fill my thoughts right now.  It is almost like watching a giant recline, taking a big breath and going to sleep.  A big long slumber ... one that will last until next Spring when the whole cycle begins again.  I know there are a bunch of things that still go on, maintenance, planning, buying for the upcoming season, and of course taking care of livestock, but it still seems to me like the whole agricultural world takes a bit of a deep breath and begins a bit of a slumber.  This year, that slumber is a bit more profound as the harvest seems to have been so strong.  Everything settles in to rest in order to come alive again when it awakens. Next time you are out and about, take a look and let me know if you see what I'm seeing.

Okay, let's turn to the Toybox.  There hasn't been much slumbering out there, in fact there has been a lot going on, and I haven't yet told you about the equipment addition that I made earlier this year.  I added a wide belt sander, capable of sanding sixteen inches in a pass, 32" by flipping the piece around.  I am really not sure how I ever got by without it.  I seem to turn to it all of the time now that I have it.

Additionally, I had made the mistake earlier this year of getting rid of my truck.  After a change in employment, I found myself without easy access to a truck.  That was completely unacceptable.  So, in the last month, I fixed that by adding a 2013 F-150 to the family's fleet.  Now we are back in the position of having a vehicle for everyone, no matter how many directions we are going.  And when I need to haul something ... I can.  This is important.

Also coming together at the Toybox is a project that I've been working on for a while.  I have been forming (sounds artistic, doesn't it?) a dining room table out of recycled heart pine and walnut.  The heart pine came from a mill in Peculiar, MO that reclaims old lumber from mills and warehouses and reworks them into usable sizes.  The walnut was wood that my father had milled out of trees in the Sigourney area and they have been with me since we sold mom's house back in the late 80's.  So these things are coming together to form what I think is going to be an absolutely beautiful table, and at this point, I am very happy to announce that I think that it will actually be finished and in place for Thanksgiving which was the request of the person that I am building it for.  I have included some pictures of the pieces as they begin to come together.

Keep your fingers crossed for me that I can get it all done and in place for the feast at Thanksgiving.

Buy Local

As you all know, I am an Iowa boy, born and raised. At this point, unless something drastically changes, I will probably die that way.  So, over the course of my lifetime I have watched a lot of changes throughout this state and the Midwest.  I have watched family farms get big; I have watched little old farmsteads fall to the plow - the land brought back into production, and I have watched unfounded attacks on these farms when companies attack them for being "factory farms" (yes Chipotle, I am talking to you).  But one thing I've watched and thought the most about over the years is the demise of the small town and the businesses that should be and could be thriving there.

I know that a lot of people blame the loss of business in small-town Iowa on large mass merchants coming into and taking business from older established businesses.  I really am not sure that I fully agree with that.  I will give you a couple of examples, one from years ago and one from very recently.

Many years ago, I sold lumber for a living in Des Moines.  At the time, I had a family member selling the same product in my hometown.  In fact, there were times that I would order product for min and he would pick it up, haul it to Sigourney and resell it.  Good for the American free enterprise system.  But, there was a Saturday that I happened to be home and I was sitting in his lumberyard talking (and probably drinking coffee) while he was invoicing customers.  I remember looking at an invoice that he was completing and being shocked by the fact that he was thirty to forty percent higher on the exact product that I was selling in Des Moines.  When I asked about it, he smiled and explained to me that Des Moines was 90 miles away.  Interestingly enough, a couple of years later when my Grandmother bought product for a new garage, it all came on a truck out of the Southside Payless store in Des Moines.  Even with the dollar per mile delivery fee, the local Sigourney yard wasn't willing to match the price.

So, now let's jump forward forty years.  I was in a smaller Iowa community this week, not as small as Sigourney, just not as large as Des Moines.  I've been working on cutting boards at the Toybox that I am donating to YESS (Youth and Emergency Shelter Services) for one of their fund-raisers, and needed small rubber feet to.  I remembered this just as I was passing a True Value hardware store.  Needless to say, I swung in to find what I needed.   I found what I needed - they had one on the peg. I probably would have bought two just to have an extra, but one would be enough.  I took the $3.00 item to the register and was told that I couldn't use my debit card since the actual purchase was under $10.00.  I have to wonder how many times that day that happened.  Since, I wasn't able to purchase what I wanted there, I ended up in Des Moines, at a large hardware store, buying it (and two extras since they had them) for a dollar less than I would have paid in the small community.

So what? You might ask.  I really wonder if the demise of the downtown retail areas in small communities in Iowa is because of large retailers, or because of short sightedness?  If you ever spend time in Maine, you will find that the natives there are fiercely loyal to the local merchants and not only do they not not like large chains coming in from the outside, but choose to refuse to spend their money in those box stores.  Again, I wonder what the difference is?  Is it that Mainers have taken these outsiders on directly when they entered their communities?  Rather than hoping that people would be loyal to the local merchants, have they done the right thing and made sure that there was a reason to shop locally?

When we were worked for Payless in Des Moines and new competitor opened in town, we put together a plan to show that we would never be beaten on basic items.  We matched or beat everything that this new retailer advertised, and we did not lose market share.  We gave up a little profitability, but we never lost our share of the local market.  Then, when our corporate structure told us that we couldn't do that, the minute we quit fighting, we started losing.  People went to check the new place out, and then stayed for selection and price.  We were never going to have selection, but at least we still had them on price.  The Japanese say that business is war, and I really think they may be right. The sad thing is that some of the people in our smaller communities don't understand this, or don't believe it's real.

The Saturday after Thanksgiving has become Small Business Saturday, an opportunity for people to re-discover their local small businesses. There will be a lot of promotion geared to that day all across the country. While it is great to ask customers to focus on the small businesses that live in their neighborhoods during that promotion, it is just as important ... no, it is more important for those same small businesses to consistently focus on their customers and how they shop and what makes it easy for them to buy locally, just as the big chain stores do.

Quit giving our downtowns away.  Stand up, fight, and win.

Second Degree

I don't know about you, but my world has been a whirlwind during these last few weeks.  A lot has happened really quickly and I continue to learn things throughout this process. 

As we all move through life, the people that we count on are those we keep closest to us.  They are those we count as our closest friends and our dearest confidantes.  They are the folks that support us through the tough times and tell us how wonderful we are ... all of the time.  I have leaned on these people in the last three months in ways that I can barely describe.  I will always be thankful to each and every one of them.

In the middle of everything, though, there was something else I learned.  Within this group of closest friends, and it is the same for all of us, we all have the same information.  We all  know about the same open jobs, the same opportunities, and the same things that the rest of the group knows.  I think that it is part of what makes this group really comfortable for us.  It often even seems that this kind of group has its own language.  If you doubt what I say, spend a little time around high school or college students who are close friends with each other.  You will quickly learn that they know their universe very well and those of us on the outside are barely able to understand their language, either spoken or written.

Okay, now comes the part that was most interesting for me.  It is not necessarily from within this group of our closest friends, that the most unusual, wide-ranging opportunities come from when you are in the middle of a job search.  The most interesting leads come from the friends of your friends, or maybe even one level beyond that.  Now you may ask why I think this is true.  I believe that it is because as you go out into the levels of relationship, that is the point that you find people who are operating in completely different circles.  They are just like all of the rest of us, they have friends and acquaintences that they count on, the only difference is that their sphere of influence comes from a different overlap with the person whom we know quite well.

So, through this comes the power of a tool like Linkedin.  This is a place that glories in the layers of relationships beyond our closest friends.  It is about your entire network, all of the levels and all of the things that those levels know.  I have thought about the connections that are out there, but I have not spent enough time growing those relationships.  It is something for me to work on going forward because now I understand that within these levels are found ideas that are different than those I typically find in my circle of close friends. 

Once I begin to assimilate these new and fresh ideas from the extended network, I need to come back to my closest friends, who will help me think through what to do with them.  Well, that is what I have been thinking about this week.  I really need to figure out the best way to ask all of these smart, interconnected people questions so that I start with the widest range of possible solutions to the things that I face.

How about the Toybox?  Well, I am up to my armpits in projects.  First, there is a bunch of work we are doing for YESS for their upcoming Human Foosball tournament.  Oh, and by the way, if you have not yet signed up, there are still just a few slots open for your team and it should really be a good time.  Lets all work to make Max's event a monstrous success.  Then, I finally got the call that the lumber is ready for Terri's table.  This needs to be done for Thanksgiving.  Wow, that is really just around the corner.  We will just have to see what is possible.  You all know of course that I want this to be beautiful.  Then after that I have cutting boards to do for YESS and some for a curling bonspeil in Maine.  Looks to me like sleep may truly be optional between here and the end of the year.  Actually though, I am very excited about all of the work.  Keep your fingers crossed that I get it all done.

Have a GREAT week