The modern car has a litany of gadgets designed under the auspiciouses of giving the driver more control. Control to find his or her way, control to make the cabin more comfortable and control the level of the stereo during acceleration. Probably a few of you are shaking your head about now saying something like this while rolling your eyes, “really…you can’t reach the steering wheel audio controls and adjust the volume of the stereo? That’s correct. But it is sooo cool. I discovered this feature laregely by accident while driving Darryl’s 2006 Audi S4. It drives like a dream, handling every corner and acceleration to spare. While testing said acceleration, I became aware the level of the music in the cabin began to rise. I kept my foot in it and it got louder yet. I guess Darryl won’t get to enjoy the feeling of cruising on the freeway,a favorite song comes on the radio (like AC/DC Shook me all night long) for example, and your foot instinctively gets heavier and you reach for the volume knob. But not high enough that you can’t hear yourself belting out off key lyrics.
Driving in a truck with no brakes
la, la,lalala, la
There is a big difference between discovering your car has no brakes and knowing that it doesn’t. The level of advanced planning is staggering. Just after high school a work friend named Troy Wynn and I would occasionally drive around in his yellow Chevy Luv truck that indeed had no brakes. Well…that isn’t completely true, it had an emergency brake. Since every stop with no actual brakes is an emergency, I’m glad it worked well. I remember cruising to the 7-11 or some convenience store (usually thirst or hunger would motivate us sufficiently to take out the Luv truck) wailing as we navigated stop lights, screaming at people in other lanes that we had no brakes. Once stopping became a necessity, I (as the wingman) would grab the emergency brake. Believe me, as I write this I am completely aware of the stupidity of this maneuver. I guess that feeling of invincibility fleets with age.
There is a reason 3M is a Fortune 500 company
It is because of tape. Plain and simple. This lesson was taught to me once again has I grabbed the roll of masking tape to seal a cardboard moving box. Let’s recap. I grabbed a roll of masking tape to seal a cardboard moving box. Ok, by definition masking tape is designed to not be too sticky so it won’t ruin your painting project (it masks things). Packing tape on the other hand is designed to be incredibly sticky so it actually can hold greater weights. Why this fact escaped me as the bottom of my box of text books fell to my feet, I am not sure. Convenience over using the right tool. As a marketeer I am always looking for new ways to reach out to customers, hungry to buy new products or try new services. Picking the right tape for the job is worth spending a little time.
How to catalog a million Post-It notes
The trouble with an endless smorgasboard of drivel is finishing up with those pesky tags. Like what tag would I use for this post? I have no clue. Perhaps this is why my email boxes have hundreds of messages, all read but few filed. 3:37 am is not the time to begin filing project.
A fancy piece of driving
Beware: if your teenager tells you about the incredible driving maneuver that only resulted in a) him or her walking away unscathed and b) minimal damage to your vehicle (emphasis YOUR) a couple of thoughts should pop into the frontal cortex. The first being what was going on just before this (professional driver on a closed course) scale maneuver occurred? Reaching for a CD, texting a friend, perhaps an unsafe rate of speed on a snowy road. Perhaps a sick donut on said snowy road? Hmmm. Like most things in life amazing recoveries require something stupid on our part and occasionally something all to together unexpected.
My sense of community
Please be patient it is 3:19 am and I am recovering from a bout of swine flu. Yes, the type that I had hoped to have died from on Monday. Now I feel better but cannot sleep. Over the past several months I have been reaching out to old high school friends that I barely know, posting comments with reckless abandon, going to cousins weddings that I hardly know (with gifts, make that singular), and even toying with the idea of organizing a block party for my cul-de-sac before winter hits. Is something missing in my life? Why the outreach? Great sales term, “outreach”. Perhaps relationship building and or voyeurism is fueling this burning need. I think it is filling a void that worrying about possessions and keeping up airs used to occupy. Relationships (even Facebook friends) matter. In the end its all we really have. Whoa deep thought.
Paint Sprayers and the Power of Doing Nothing
What seems like an eternity ago, I was doing some home repairs and remember seeing a commercial for the Wagner Power Painter. You know the story, some super model turned DIY expert effortlessly spraying an unfinished wall with not a speck of paint to be seen anywhere. I figured this would make short work of my painting project. Giving the instructions a quick read (emphasis on quick), I began spraying with reckless abandon. It wasn’t going on quite right so I applied more and more and finally the paint began to run down the walls. Insert expletive. The first stop after the swearing ceased, was to return that @#$%^ painter to the hardware store. When asked if there was anything wrong with it, my response was, “oh yes, this thing must be broken.” Broken? More accurately would be that it did not do what I thought it should do. Last week I sold an airless paint sprayer that I had kicking around in the garage. I had used it with favorable results (after thoroughly reading the instructions) see we do get a little wiser with age. I posted it on a local online classified and it sold in a few days. The new owner had a repeat experience of mine. Didn’t work like he thought it should, so his first call was back to me wanting a refund. I told him to read the trouble shooting guide. A week passes and I get a voice mail that he can’t get it to work and he wants to return it. I don’t have a good answer for him so I decide that I am just not going to deal with this. He leaves message after message and I decide to continue to do nothing. My thought is that my silence will make him angry, but not as angry as an argument over the phone and eventually he will talk himself off the ledge and go about his life. Unfortunately the strategy broke down when Lori answered my phone. What she got was a very irate buyer in the throes of extreme buyers remorse. Both barrels went off on her. Greg was in the “say anything” mode to persuade her to take back the sprayer and refund his money. Crazy talk like, there is an implied warranty. Huh, what? The lesson here is that if you are going with the silent strategy, you have to let it run its course.
Short Sale Thinking
My friend Adam likes to use a phrase that says, “a recession is a garage sale for the rich.” Just check out the local online classifieds and this phrase will ring true like none other. As families try to work through unemployment issues, health related issues, failed businesses and other weighty matters, their possessions take (and often related payments) take a back seat. As the urgency increases, the bar lowers. Breakeven is the new standard. Take it from a once future real estate mogul, the housing market is still careening out of control. This loss of control is caused somewhat by real estate agents. Advance apologies to those friends that are agents and good ones, but it seems like the market is being propped up based on a false sense that you can get way more house for pennies on the dollar through a short sale. Somehow seeing that the bank owns it (and we all know that banks are in trouble) they would throw all their business sense to the wind and sell someone a house for next to nothing. The reality is that the banks do not do this. But this sense that everything is a good deal (Costco mentality) is bringing lots of people into the market. Just make an offer and we will see how desperate they are. Here is the secret: unless you are bidding on a $2,000,000 (yes six zeros) banks are just not going to move that much. The trick is to get the consumer thinking about the home and start a bidding war between buyers to get the price nearly where it should be for the banks to recover their losses. The consumer is generally left scratching their head as to the process, and if they persist will be forced to offer much more than initially thought (often four or five bids). The next step is to bask in their victory of squeezing the bank and getting the “great deal.” Even if the great deal is a hundred dollars off list.
Self Published Authors
Because I sporadically post interesting (if only to me) snippets of my experiences, and WordPress is a public site, does that make me an author? Hmmmm. I see the value in writing down my thoughts and ramping my readership from 2 to 6, but this blog is obviously not written with the same level of rigor that books are written that are published. So, what does published mean in this new era of internet? Alexander’s printing or Lulu.com will take your writing and put it in a book. Print and bind into a very professional book. Maybe one book, maybe six or six hundred. But that is printing and NOT publishing. I think there is confusion and those that can not crack the publishing gauntlet spread the confusion. Getting a book published by a reputable house is a feat to be applauded. The fact that nearly all of the 200,000 books “published” not printed, are repeat authors, makes the chances of getting your first time work published very slim, but so rewarding when it happens. Note to all “self published” wannabes, pay the price to be published, do the work, make irresistible content and then relish the victory and the spoils and stop trying to change the definitions.
Is part of the experience being treated like crap?
Chances are at some point most people will learn first hand the joy of being out of work. That sick feeling in the pit of your stomach, visions of scraping week old beans out of a can while huddling for warmth under the bridge. Ok, that last part was just for effect. The real fun begins when you start searching for a new job. That spirit of adventure is quickly quelled as you begin randomly firing off resumes for that coveted CEO, CFO or VP of Marketing position (not recommended BTW). To quote my favorite motivational speaker, the incomparable Matt Foley, ” you are going to find, when you get out there, you aren’t going to amount to jack squat.” Yes jack squat. And I believe that it is every HR, Recruiter, job staffer to remind candidates that they did not amount to jack squat. Understanding that there are real people with good skills behind those resumes that get shuffled around shouldn’t be so difficult. I have been on the other side of the desk (the hiring side) and simply treating people with respect and consideration, not like they are trying to storm the gate goes a long way. I always took it as a compliment that someone wanted to work at a company that in some small way (or large way) I helped build. If you know a recruiter or corporate HR person tell them to just answer email and provide a little information.
