Well, I got good news and I got bad news.
Mostly I have a little good news, that’s not really good and a bunch of bad news, that’s not as terrible as it could be.
First this good news:
This somewhat grimy piece of my engine is a side view of the waterpump. It’s no longer in my car, but you probably figured that part out already. But, this really is a good news picture.
Tuesday, when I talked about the various things that could make my engine temperature spike, I pretty much narrowed it down to two: the waterpump or the thermostat. But, there was a third option. An absurdly simple option that I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t even consider. It might have just been low on fluid.
Now, obviously, I did eventually think of this possibility. Unfortunately it was after I was mostly committed to ripping my engine apart. I was about 4 or 5 hours in when my neighbor laughed and said,
Of course, it could just have been low on fluid.
I didn’t say much. I thought about the money I’d already spent on parts. I thought about how much work I had put into disassembling my car. I thought about the fact that there was really no way to check at this point. And then, I drained the fluid out of the radiator. When we installed a new radiator last year, I put a couple of gallons of anti-freeze into the system. Yesterday when I drained the fluid there was about 3 quarts that came out. Oh, that’s not good.
The car is at an odd angle and the radiator actually tilts away from the drain plug. (Called a petcock or p-valve.) As I watched not nearly enough green antifreeze drain out of my radiator I went over again, the symptoms of my latest car mishap.
- Plenty of antifreeze in the overflow reservoir. Of course, it could have sucked it back in rather than blow the engine. It was boiling after all.
- No heat at idle, but heat when we got moving. Could be not enough antifreeze to circulate without the forward motion.
- No puddle of antifreeze indicating a problem with the waterpump
There was way too good of a possibility that my problem may have been simply cured with an $8 gallons of antifreeze from WalMart. I didn’t say anything to my neighbor. It was bad enough I was potentially wasting my time, I didn’t need the neighbor-guilt as well.
Yesterday afternoon we finally got the last of the disassembly done and pulled off the old waterpump. A lot more fluid drained out. And as we surveyed the old pump we noticed that little hole at the bottom of the pump in the picture. That’s a weep hole. Remember that pool of antifreeze I didn’t see under my car? The purpose of the weep hole is to drain antifreeze when the waterpump fails. That black grimy discharge indicates that the waterpump was doing just that. A good waterpump will never weep like that.
At least I knew that all my work wasn’t for naught. My waterpump really was needing to be replaced. Not so much good news, as a lack of bad or worse news.
The waterpump, naturally is sealed to the engine. It has boiling hot antifreeze running through it under pressure. It has a gasket. You replace the gasket when you replace the pump. The gasket is really good at sticking. Not so good at coming unstuck.
This is what the spot where the waterpump goes looked like after about 45 minutes of very carefully using a razor blade to scrape off the gasket. The problem with this step is that you have to scrape off the gasket with a steel blade while not scratching the aluminum block. And while the picture looks pretty clear, the actual clearance means that at times I was holding the razor blade by two fingers while pushing with my thumb. I think that’s why the gasket is red. The blood doesn’t show.
The last of the bad news was that once again the cold chased us from the driveway. Car repairs can be broken into roughly three categories.
- Diagnose the problem
- Disassemble the car until you reach the problem
- Reassemble the car
There’s a step 2.5 – Fix the Problem. But, it’s such a minor thing in the grand scheme of things that it almost seems like an afterthought. Yesterday we made it through step 2. Today, the goal is to take one more vacation day at work and finish putting it back together. . .after we dissassemble enough to replace the thermostat as well.
After all, just because I know the waterpump is bad doesn’t mean the thermostat doesn’t also need to be replaced.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday at 7:00 AM Mountain Time. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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Next remove the cam shaft bolt and take off the rear camshaft.
How tough could it be, right? The guy on the YouTube video made it look like you could just unscrew it. Of course, his engine also looked like you could eat off it.
Yesterday afternoon I started to replace the waterpump on my 1996 Lexus ES300. Being a modern mechanic, I did what every modern backyard mechanic does, I went to YouTube and put in
Lexus es300 replace waterpump
I found a really helpful 14 minute video. And here, I thought it would take hours! I also have a manual. I printed it out from a .pdf file because we are all of us, children of the digital age.
I also have a spare engine that I can reference for those hard to see spots.
Okay, so I realized that it was going to take longer than 14 minutes, but just because you see someone else do something, doesn’t mean that you know how to do it, or even that you can do it. Not until you’ve been been through the process and practice, do you start to gain the proficiency needed to fix problems.
I enjoy working on cars. I don’t enjoy having to work on cars. However, my wife actually drives two cars. She has a Honda Civic for everyday driving and a 15 passenger van for when she needs to drive carpool. I’m not without a vehicle, but I really kind of like my car.
I started well enough yesterday. Several pieces came off the engine pretty easily. I jacked up the car and put it on jack stands so I could remove the right front tire. And with my book and my movie, I muddled through. Eventually, I was to the point where I had to remove the timing belt. Here I stopped.
An engine rotates really, really, REALLY fast. If your car has a tachometer, you’ve seen that needle climb up past the numbers 2, 3, 4, maybe a 5. If you’ve really pushed it, you might get it to the 6. That’s six THOUSAND RPMs, or rotations per minute. Six thousand rotations per minute means that your engine is making 100 rotations every second. And there are a lot of moving parts in your engine. My Lexus IS a V-6. That means that there are three Pistons on one side of the engine and three pistons an the other side. It takes four piston strokes for a complete cycle. The first stroke moves the piston down and pulls in air and gas. The second stroke pushes the piston up and it compresses the air/gas mixture. The third stroke, called the power stroke is when the spark plug fires and ignites that air/gas mixture and the rapidly expanding air/gas mixture pushes the piston back down. The final stroke is another up stroke and it expels the exhaust.
To keep track of incoming/outgoing gases you have two valves (actually, four, but you can kind of think of them as fulfilling these two functions) at the top of the piston. One valve let’s in air the other one leads to the exhaust system. Obviously those two valves cannot both be open at the same time. The opening and closing is controlled by the cam shaft. In my case, there are two cam shafts. The pistons are connected to the crankshaft. And the reason the engine is referred to as a “V” is that all six Pistons connect to the same crankshaft.
Now, picture it, you have a crankshaft, two camshafts six pistons, six sparkplugs and 24 valves. And all of these parts have to stay in perfect sync while the engine is turning over at up to 100 rotations per second. The magic carpet that keeps all of that together is not actually a carpet. It’s the timing belt.
And it was at the point of removing the timing belt that I stopped. Because, in addition to the movie, the book and the spare engine, I also had one more asset; my neighbor who helped me rebuild the car in the first place. Of all the parts to make absolutely sure you get right, the timing belt is probably most important. My neighbor came by late in the afternoon and my 16 year old ‘gearhead’ son got home from school and we got the timing belt off and continued disassembling.
(Yes, that is ice on the ground.)
We finally quit when it started to get dark and the temperature dropped from the balmy 37 degrees we’d started with to the low 30’s.
Oh and that camshaft bolt that he removed? A LOT harder than it looked on TV.
Today is all about the car. Hopefully with a few more hours of work, we can finally accomplish what the guy on YouTube managed in 14 minutes.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday at 7:00 AM Mountain Time. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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Would you rather be right or safe?
It’s an interesting question. It’s one that every kid who’s afraid of things that go bump in the night thinks about. Children who hide under their covers, because of course, no monster was ever able to get through a comforter and a Sponge Bob blanket.
When I was about 12 I remember sleeping with the window open on a hot summer night. My bed was directly under the window. I wasn’t normally a nervous kid. So, it was out of character for me, when I felt something come through the window and land on my bed to instantly start screaming. I didn’t know what had come through my window in the dark, but it scared me. I wasn’t about to leave the safety of my bed to try to turn on the lights.
MOMMMMMMMMM!!
Of course, my parents immeadiately showed up and turned on the lights. I was still too scared to get out of bed.
It’s under the bed! It went under the bed!
A careful, VERY careful search by my mother turned up no monsters. . .no animals. . .nothing. Had I imagined it? No, 40 years later, I can still feel the sensation of something, something BIG, landing on my bed.
Would you rather be right or safe?
I was driving home yesterday when I realized that something was really wrong. The temperature gauge on my car suddenly spiked into the red. That’s never a good sign. A couple of years ago, I would have no idea what the problem might be. I’ve had a very expensive education. I immeadiately turned the heater on full blast. Just cold air was blowing out.
I pulled my car into a nearby gas station and popped the hood. No smoke or steam. I immeadiately felt better that I hadn’t blown a head gasket. A head gasket is the thin gasket that surrounds your car’s pistons. They are not only expensive, but they are a pain to replace. You have to pretty much pull the engine. So, no head gasket.
There was no steam from anywhere in the engine. Had a cooling hose sprung a leak, I’d be seeing antifreeze being vaporized and making that classic white cloud around the engine. Checking under the car, there was no puddle of radiator fluid. So, no broken hose either.
The antifreeze in the overflow reservoir was literally boiling. And it was full. And boiling. I’ve never seen antifreeze boil. I’ve heard it, but this was new.
I now had a couple of decisions to make. I had no thought of having a mechanic work on my car. I might have done that before I got this car, but my neighbor and I did nearly a complete rebuild on the engine last year. We spent $1000 for something that a mechanic shop would have charged me $6000. Whatever the issue was, I was going to fix it.
As the car cooled down, I considered the symptoms. Any car guys out there probably already know what two things I had narrowed it down to: a water pump or a bad thermostat. Your car has a thermostat that is heat activated. When it gets hot enough it opens and allows coolant to flow to the engine. It’s designed to let your engine warm up as quickly as possible. But, once the engine is hot, you don’t want it to get too hot. So, the thermostate blocks the coolant, or antifreeze until the engine gets to about 200 degrees and then it opens and the coolant circulates and keeps the engine from burning up.
This is why when you first start your car on a cold morning, it will only blow cold air. You have to let it warm up. What happens after the thermostat opens, is that coolant starts to circulate through the engine and that coolant gets hot. Then, the coolant flows past the heating system and get it hot and then you can blow warm air. The reason I turned the heater on as soon as I noticed my engine getting hot was to try to pull as much heat out of the coolant as possible. That in turn would allow the coolant to pull more heat out of the engine. The fact that no heat was blowing meant that the coolant wasn’t getting to the heating elements.
And the fact that the coolant was boiling in the reservoir meant that it wasn’t just a bad temperature gauge. (Never underestimate the simple things.)
So, I was now to decision time. Water pump or thermostat? There were indicators that it might be either one. When your water pump fails, it often will dump excess antifreeze out what is called the “weep hole.” No puddle of antifreeze under the car made me think it might be the thermostat. But, the fact that I didn’t get heat in the car when I was stopped made me think that maybe it was the water pump. And I just replaced the thermostat about a year and a half ago. They are designed to last for ten years or more.
The other thought I had was cost. A thermostat cost about $10. A water pump I didn’t know, but the one for my Suburban that I replaced two years ago was about $150. I really wanted it to be the thermostat. And yet, I had a hunch it was going to be the water pump.
Would you rather be right or safe?
I finally consigned myself to having to replace the water pump, just because, I really would rather be safe than right. After making the emotional decision to replace the more expensive part, I went looking online. To have a water pump replaced on a Lexus ES300 by a mechanic is about $400. Of that cost, about $350 is labor and . . .wait. What? That can’t be right. I called my parts store.
Well, I have two in stock for that model car. The one with a one-year warranty is $45 and the one with a lifetime warranty is $65.
I’ll take the lifetime warranty.
Oh, there’s one more thing. You should probably replace the thermostat while you’re at it.
Of course, I should. Guess what I’m doing today?
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday at 7:00 AM Mountain Time. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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My phone beeped to let me know I had an incoming call. It beeped instead of playing my ringtone because I was already on another call. This is not usually an issue. I spend most of my day on the phone. It’s not usual for me to be on two separate conference calls at the same time. The difference today was that I was driving.
My car is 20 years old, but it has a nice hands-free feature that let’s me pipe the phone audio through the speakers. I have to remember to mute the phone before turning on the blinkers to avoid broadcasting that click-click sound. I don’t mind taking calls while I’m driving. I have always thought it makes me more productive. Today, I reconsidered that.
I have a long commute by Utah standards. It’s 40 miles from my house to my office. I have a choice of two different routes. One is mostly freeway driving. It takes 45 minutes when traffic is light and can take up to 90 minutes or more when traffic is heavy. And, it’s that annoying stop and go, “Hey, why did you cut me off,” “Stop tailgating,” “Whoa, that was close,” kind of driving.
The other route is mostly highway driving. It goes past cow pastures, and a huge copper mine. It winds up and down over rolling foothills and provides some gorgeous views of the mountains and the valley. That route takes 75 minutes consistently. Even though it’s still 40 miles, there are many more stop lights and some of the roads I take have 25 MPH posted speed limits, if they have signs posted at all. I can listen to an entire Jazz album between my house and the office. Great music, beautiful scenery and the Lexus that I spent a year rebuilding. It’s kind of coo. . . BEEP-BEEP.
The phone calls are not part of that rosy picture. I can’t play a CD (I mentioned the car was old.) I can’t really relax and enjoy the scenery. And rather than enjoy the journey, I’m mostly thinking about how much easier it would be to handle the issue if I was at my desk with all my tools.
But, on the positive side, I’m being productive on my drive, right? Rather than waste the hour and fifteen minute drive, I can be productive. At least that’s what I tell myself. I’m not sure I believe it any more. I’m a salaried employee. That means I’m exempt from getting overtime, or even an hourly wage. What it really means is that I work until the job is done. Except the job is never done. So, I work 40-50 hours most weeks. Occasionally, well, more than occasionally, something needs attention on the weekend. Last Saturday, I spent a couple of hours on the phone dealing with an outage issue.
I will work the same number of hours today as I would without a phone call during my morning commute. But, what I lost today was the opportunity to enjoy the drive. Rather than wasted time, that commute was my time. And I lost it, or rather I traded it for the promise of greater productivity. I’m not sure I got good value for my trade.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday at 7:00 AM Mountain Time. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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or email him at rbliss at msn dot com(c) 2016 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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I’m not sure I even care about a legacy.
Yeah, but when you’ve left the industry, will your efforts or writings be remembered?
My friend an I were having a discussion about our influence in the IT industry. Our names would probably not be familiar to your average IT worker. Certainly we’d never be mentioned in a college lecture on IT. And we were not deluding ourselves that would be the case.
But, more than almost any other industry, IT and computers in general, allow common, ordinary people to make significant and sometimes exceptional contributions to the industry and the world. Whether it’s Mark Zuckerberg inventing Facebook in his dorm room, or Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak founding Apple in a garage. The history of computers is filled with influencers.
My friend and I recognized that while we were not going to be Bill Gates, or Bob Metcalfe (invented Ethernet) we were capable of influencing our industry beyond our current roles. I’m not sure I cared.
Don’t get me wrong. I was once the world expert on a particular IT process, (migrating Exchange 5.5 to GroupWise.) There are benefits to being an expert. Not the least of which was that I earned $125/hour consulting. But, I’d also done a couple of computer books. They sold reasonable well, but they were quickly obsolete. Today, they are worthless for anything other than a bucket list check mark.
Technology in the IT industry turns over about every 18 months. Today’s expert, if he doesn’t continue to study will find his skills woefully outdated in just a couple of years. Making a lasting impact in that environment is very difficult.
What about your blog? Don’t you see that as building a legacy?
Not really. You know the legacy that I really care about? It’s going to sound corny, but it’s my kids. A hundred years from now, I don’t care if the IT world has a shred of anything I wrote or did. But, if my grandkids and great-grandkids have strong families and a fond memory of my lovely wife and me, that’s the only legacy that I really care about.
So, you’ve given up the idea of doing a management book this year?
Well, I didn’t say that. It might sell for 18 months or so.
What’s your legacy?
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday at 7:00 AM Mountain Time. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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The question caught me off guard. I was having dinner with a friend who comes to Utah once or twice a year. We get get her at the same restaurant. It’s a steak house that changes names a lot. We’ve been to dinner there four times and eaten at 3 different restaurants.
He was telling me about an opportunity to chair a standards committee. The person making the pitch to him was appealing to his sense of history. The story reminded me of when Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, tried to get John Sulley, who was a big shot at PepsiCo, to come run Apple.
Do you want to stay here and sell sugar-water the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?
My friend told the story of his meeting,
So, the guy asked me, ‘What do you want your legacy to be?’ And I thought, I’ve never really considered that. How about your, Rodney? What do you want your legacy to be?
It’s a question that guys our age (both north of our 40’s) start to think about. Generally we think about it when someone brings it up. I’ve done a lot of interesting and sometimes important things in my life. What was the mark I would leave when I was gone to say, “I was here”?
I’m not sure. . .
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday at 7:00 AM Mountain Time. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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or email him at rbliss at msn dot com(c) 2016 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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Americans love to fight.
I gave a speech yesterday. That’s not unusual. As a member of a Toastmasters club, I give speeches a lot. Yesterday was different.
All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle.
Toastmasters is an organization that is designed to teach you to be a better public speaker. As an organization they have a pretty simple mission statement. The method they use is a combination of directed study, evaluation and repetition.
Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser.
When you first join Toastmasters you are given a manual that lists ten speeches. These speeches build on one another. The first one is the Ice Breaker. You spend 5-7 minutes telling the club about yourself. It can be very intimidating for people. Often this is the first time someone has attempted to stand in front of a group and give a prepared statement. It’s not unusual for people to hide behind the podium. Or hide behind their notes.
Americans play to win all the time. That’s why Americans have never lost and will never lose a war.
As the new speaker progresses through the boo, they developed new skills. One of the first big hurdles is Project 3. The speech is designed to help the speaker deliver a particular point of view. What makes it challenging is that the speaker is encouraged to deliver the speech without notes. They can no longer hide behind the paper. It’s great to watch new speakers reach this point. Often you see their confidence take a huge leap.
The very thought of losing is hateful to Americans.
As they move through the initial book, there are constant evaluations. After each speech, another experienced member of the club will take a couple of minutes and evaluate their speech. Evaluations are designed like a sandwich. You first offer encouragement about what the speaker got right. Sometimes it’s as simple as saying, “Great job for making it through without any notes. I can see you were very prepared for today’s speech.” Next, you move to the middle part of the sandwhich. The evaluator offers some suggestions on how to improve. “I noticed you are still standing behind the podium. You might want to move out so there is nothing between you and the audience.” The evaluation wraps up with more praise. “I really enjoyed how you incorporated the various parts of a wheel into your story. Great imagery.”
Battle is the most significant competition in which a man can indulge. It brings out all that is best and removes all that is base.
As speakers complete the first ten speeches, a couple of important things happen. First, they get a certificate. Constant encouragement is a hallmark of Toastmasters. They also get to pick what types of speeches they want to work on next. There are dozens of topics to choose from. For example, after finishing the first ten, I chose to work on “Storytelling.” The Advanced Communication Series, as it’s called, includes five speeches in each manual. The format is similar in that each speech, or project has a particular purpose.
Every man is scared in his first action. If he says he’s not, he’s a liar. but the real hero is the man who fights even though he’s scared.
After finishing the Storytelling manual, I moved on to “The Professional Speaker.” Definitely my least favorite manual. But, still it taught me to give longer speeches, to work through the sales process. To create a keynote. After finishing two Advanced Manuals, there’s another certificate. And all along there’s plenty of feedback and encouragement.
The real man never lets his fear of death overpower his honor, his sense of duty to his country, and his innate manhood
I’m now into a manual called “Interpretive Reading.” I’ve been attending my Toastmasters club for over two years now. I was never shy about speaking in the first place, and I’ve gotten better as I’ve worked through the various projects. However, I’m also a known quantity at my club. You cannot give twenty speeches to a group and countless evaluations without letting them get to know you.
All real heroes are not storybook combat fighters. Every single man in the army plays a vital role. So don’t ever let up. Don’t ever think that your job is unimportant.
Yesterday I gave a speech to my club. In some ways, I did everything “wrong.” I read a printed version of the speech. I stood behind not just a podium, but actually up on a raised platform behind a low desk. I yelled. Well, maybe not so much yelling as talking in a really loud voice.
We don’t want yellow cowards in the army. They should be killed off like flies. If not, they will go back home after the war, stinking cowards and breed more cowards. The brave men will breed more brave men. Kill off the stinking cowards and we’ll have a nation of brave men.
Speeches out of the Interpretive Reading manual are designed to be read, not memorized. I had a friend discourage me from attempting these speeches. “Rodney, you’ll be too tempted to add your own spin to what’s written.” Actually, it’s somewhat liberating to be bound by someone else’s text. To attempt to immerse myself in their style and their thinking and then convey that to the audience. It was very much like performing in a play.
We’ll win this war, but we’ll win it only by fighting and showing the Germans that we’ve got more guts than they have or ever will have. We’re not just going to shoot them, we’re going to rip out their living guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks.
My first project was reading a poem. It went well, but it was much like my normal speeches. I used good voice inflection. I paused. I connected with the audience.. Yesterday’s speech was different. This was an Oratorical speech. I considered several famous speeches from history. Mark Anthony’s speech from Shakespear’s play Julius Caesar Act 3 Scene 2 which starts “Friends, Romans and countrymen lend me your ears,” is one of my favorites. I thought about John F Keenedy when he instructed us to “Think now what your country can do for you, but think what you can do for your country.” I even considered Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream” Speech.
There will be some complaints that we’re pushing our people too hard. I don’t care about such complaints. I believe that an ounce of sweat will save a gallon of blood. The harder we push, the more Germans we kill. The more Germans we kill, the fewer of our men will be killed. Pushing harder means fewer caualties. I want you all to remember that.
Instead, I chose a speech by General George Patton, commander of the US Third Army as it was preparing to invade Europe as part of operation D-Day. Patton had the task of preparing his army for one of the toughest campaigns of the war. His troops were green. Many of them had never seen combat. He knew that he was sending some of his men to die. But, he believed that the cause was worth it. His speech, excerpts of which I’ve included in the quotes here, was a masterful blend of bravado and an almost fatherly confidence.
Some of you men are wondering whether or not you’ll chicken out under fire. Don’t worry about it. I can assure that that you’ll all do your duty.
The challenge for me, was that this is not my type of speech. I don’t do the cheerleader, rah-rah speeches. I don’t do the “appeal to God and country” type of speeches. Patton did all of that. When it was over, I’d blown out my voice by talking in that gravely drill-instructor voice for 10 minutes. And I came to understand the man a little. He was sending boys to die, but they were his boys. He was trying to do all he could to keep them alive. But, not just alive. Because surviving is not the goal of war. Winning is the goal.
You can’t win a war lying down. The quickest way to get it over with is to get those who started it. The shortest way home is through Berlin and Tokyo. So keep moving.
His words sound jarring to us today. But, in 1944 to a group of young boys scared of having to kill or be killed, it was exactly what they needed to hear.
There’s one thing you men will be able to say when this war is over and you get back home. Thirty years from now when you’re sitting by your fireside with your grandson on your knee and he asks, “What did you do in the great World War Two?” You won’t have to cough and say, “Well, your granddaddy shoveled manure in Louisiana.” No sir, you can look him straight in the eye and say “Son, your granddaddy rode with the great third Army and a man named George Patton!”
“That is all.”
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday at 7:00 AM Mountain Time. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
Follow him on
Twitter (@rodneymbliss)
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LinkedIn (www.LinkedIn.com/in/rbliss)
or email him at rbliss at msn dot com(c) 2016 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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It’s great, right? You cut out the commute. You can work in your pajamas. You still interact with people, just through email, chat, text and phone. The only piece you are missing is the physical interaction.
To quote General Ackbar,
It’s a trap.
Your attitude about telecommuting probably changes depending on what kind of team you see your office as. Is it a track team or a basketball team? Both are teams, but they work very differently.
My oldest daughter was part of a track team in high school. She was a long jumper and ran the high hurdles. She did very well. In fact, as a sophomore, she set school records in the high hurdles. We would go to her meets and watch her run and jump. Then, we would go home. We cared about watching her compete in her events, but we were less interested in how the team did. Because, unless you follow track and field, you may not understand how the scoring works. Each athlete competes in their individual events. The results of these individual contest are tabulated and an overall winning team is selected. Team members even compete against each other. My daughter jumped against other kids in her high school as well as the other teams. It’s even possible, although unlikely that members of a team could take second in every event and still win the meet. It’s a bunch of individuals who happen to be wearing the same uniform.
Some companies are like that. Sales associates are working on meeting their own quota. If territories are not carefully defined, sales people end up competing with each other. The company gets the sale, of course, but the individual sales staff members are each fighting to be #1.
In a track meet, there are some groups who work together. The relay teams, for example, depend on each other. They have to all do well for the team to win. While working at Microsoft I was part of a team that was competing with Microsoft Office.Our product, called NetDocs filled the same niche as Office Online. (We did not win that particular race.)
But, there’s another way to consider teams; the basketball team. The greatest basketball team ever assembled was the 1992 USA Olympic team. The team was loaded with future Hall of Famers, and professional all-stars.
- David Robinson
- Patrick Ewing
- Larry Bird
- Scottie Pippen
- Clyde Drexler
- Karl Malone
- John Stockton
- Chris Mullin
- Charles Barkley
- Magic Johnson
- Christian Laettner (And one college player not named Shaquille O’Neal sadly)
And the greatest basketball player of all time
- Michael Jordan
There will probably never be as talented a team assembled in any sport. And yet, the first game they played was against a team of college players. The professionals lost 62-54. The reason they lost was that they were not playing as a team. The coach made poor substitutions. He wanted to emphasize to the team that a good team can beat a team of great palyers. In basketball, more than any other sport, the team members need to rely on each other.
In basketball, players have to play both offense and defense. Not every player is great at all aspects of the game. Some players are great rebounders. Others are great shooters. Others are great at defense. A great team will recognize the talents of each members and adjust their strategy to use that team members in the best possible to way to win.
Most offices are more like a basketball team than a track team. I have almost sole responsibility over our company interaction with my client from a technical standpoint. However, it’s not unusual for someone else to need to step in and cover for me if I’m travelling or unavailable. In a track meet, it makes no sense to ask the high jumper to step in for the guy throwing the javelin. But, in basketball, it happens a lot that a person who specializes in defense might be asked to take on more of a scoring role. If you are the guy getting back on defense, you need to defend the fast break, regardless of who you normally guard.
If your office runs like a track team, then telecommuting is the perfect setup. You want your team to stay out of each other’s way. But, if you are like most businesses, and like mine, you need to interact with your team. You need to know that you can trust them to step in and help you out if the guy you are guarding gets past you. You need her to call the screens that you cannot se. You need to be able to feed a team member the ball as they streak for the basket.
You need to be present. Telecommuting physically removes that interaction where many of the sublties of office interactions are made. Most people are not going to Skype you to ask “did you see that guy run the 100 yard dash at a meet in Germany yesterday?” But, they might wander by your desk and ask, “So did you see the Jazz/Bulls game last night?”
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday at 7:00 AM Mountain Time. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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or email him at rbliss at msn dot com(c) 2016 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
Tell your friends about this!
Last summer, I attended the large Provo 4th of July Celebration called Stadium Of Fire. It’s held in BYU’s football stadium. The band Journey was the headliner. I wasn’t really there to see them. The opening act was my friend Caleb Chapman’s Crescent Super Band. I wasn’t there to see them either. As part of the celebration, my daughter joined a group of over 100 dancers who were part of the show. I was there to see her. The funny thing is, I didn’t. She lives several miles away in Payson. We arrived separately. I anxiously scanned the field for her during the dance number, but my seat was high in the North endzone of the stadium.
The dancers were little more than dots against a green field. My daughter was one of the few black girls dancing. I spotted what I thought was her only to later find out that I was looking at the wrong part of the field. Did I get to see my daughter dance in front of 40,000 people? Does it matter that I couldn’t actually see her?
Last Friday night, I was back on BYU campus. This time I was in the basketball arena. I was there to see two other of my children perform in front of thousands of people. Would it matter if I couldn’t see them?
I was working for Microsoft corporation during some of their biggest events. I remember the day Windows 95 released. It was pretty much like a huge worldwide movie premier. We look back and laugh at any software that is even a few years old, let alone 20 years. But, the version of Windows you are using right now to read this blog owes it’s look and feel to Windows 95. (Which stole it’s look and feel from Apple, which stole it’s look and feel from Xerox.) I remember the excitement of the launch. I was on the phones at midnight supporting Microsoft Mail. People called us just to be able to say they were standing in line to be one of the first to buy Windows 95.
I didn’t attend the launch party held on the Redmond campus. Did I actually participate in the Windows 95 launch if I didn’t see it with my own eyes and I wasn’t part of the development team? What does it mean to be part of an event like that? Who gets to claim participation? How important is physically being present and documenting the event with your own eyes, vs being part of the company that created it?
We can ask similar questions about cultural and world events. I remember last year when the Seattle Seahawks lost the Super Bowl on a last second interception. Was I part of that event? I watched it via the Web from my house in Pleasant Grove, Utah. Does it matter that I watched it live but remote?
We all remember the terrible events of September 11, 2001. Regardless of where we were across the country, the event was happening to all of us. Many of us that tuned in early in the morning saw many of the tragic events unfolding raw and unfiltered. I still remember one of the reporters exclaiming in horror, “Is this live?”
We are part of events when we choose to be involved either physically or emotionally. We are especially involved when we choose to both be there physically and participate emotionally.
My junior high age daughters were somewhere in the group down on the floor of the BYU Marriott center. The BYU basketball game against Pepperdine was scheduled to start in just a few minutes. A hush fell over the crowd as the young men and women followed their conductor in singing our nation’s anthem. I couldn’t pick their individual voices out of the chorus. And despite the fact that they are the only two minorities in a choir made up of white students, our seats were too far away for me to pick out their faces either. And yet, it didn’t matter. I was there physically and emotionally. Just knowing that they were part of the group that was on the floor was enough to qualify me as being part of this event.
I’m glad we didn’t miss the most important part of the evening. Oh yeah, there was a basketball game that night, too.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday at 7:00 AM Mountain Time. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
Follow him on
Twitter (@rodneymbliss)
Facebook (www.facebook.com/rbliss)
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or email him at rbliss at msn dot com(c) 2016 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
Tell your friends about this!
The woman paused on the sidewalk. She anxiously looked at the man sitting in his car in the near empty parking lot. He had parked his car directly next to her van. He’d even parked so that his driver door was next to hers. Perhaps if she waited he’d move on.
She waited.
So did he.
She paced back and forth. The man looked up from his lap and made eye contact. Clearly he knew that he had positioned himself so that she would have to pass right next to him to leave. As he noticed her uncomfortableness he smiled. She considered going back into the hospital to find a security guard. But, what would she tell him? “There’s a guy sitting in a car in the parking lot”? It wasn’t particularly compelling evidence. And she really needed to get home.
The night drug on and the man in the car was obviously not going away.
What would you do? This story happened in the days before cell phones. The man hadn’t actually made any threatening moves. Sure, he had smiled, but maybe it was just a friendly smile. Maybe. Would you chance it?
Finally, clutching her purse close, she decided to simply put a brave face on and walk straight to her car, even though it meant walking right past his door.
Keep walking.
Keep walking.
Look straight ahead.
Almost there.
Just a couple more feet.
Oh no, he’s moving!
He’s opening his door. HURRY. Get in the van. GET IN THE VAN. GETINTHEVAN!!
The terrified like woman didn’t hear the words the man said as he opened his door. She managed to safely get in her van, lock the doors and quickly exit the parking lot.
What do you think the man might have said?
I know this story because I was in the parking lot that day. It was June of 1993. I saw the woman pace back and forth on the sidewalk. The man in the car was actually eating a Burger King meal. I watched the woman approach both his car and her van. I saw the terrified look on her face as she realized he was opening his door. The words she didn’t hear as she scrambled into her van were,
I don’t think I’m who you think I am.
I know all of this because I was the man. Let me take you back to the beginning of this story.
We had been back and forth to the hospital multiple times during my lovely wife’s second pregnancy. She suffered from a condition called Braxton Hicks, or false labor. She’d noticed it a little during her first pregnancy, but with our second it was much worse. Unfortunately, the only way you know if you hare having false labor is by going to the hospital and having the doctors check.
We were very close to the baby’s due date. We figured that this time we were either really having a baby this time or the doctors would induce labor. The wear from the false labor contractions on my wife was starting to take a toll. As we checked in that day, the nurse prepped my lovely wife.
So, how long do you think it will be before the baby is here?
Oh, you have at least an hour before it gets close.
Great. I was starving. My wife was fine with my slipping out to get some dinner. I got the food to-go so that I’d be close to the hospital. You need to understand that I really hate hospitals. I don’t hate the idea, of course. They are important. I just hate being in them. It relates back to when I had an incurable disease and spent way too much time in them as a kid.
I actually went to therapy to be able to attend my kids’ birth. But, if I could have an hour where I didn’t have to stare at the white walls, and the monitors and the people in masks and gowns, I’ll take it! I sat in my car in the parking lot and listened to the radio.
After a few minutes I noticed a woman on the sidewalk. She seemed to be waiting for someone. She kept looking to the parking lot and pacing back and forth. There were not a lot of cars in the lot. That was probably why she kept looking at mine. I was sure I didn’t know her. I wasn’t the person she was waiting for. I really hoped they would show up soon.The woman was obviously anxious to get home. It was clear she was getting off work. It sucks when someone promises to pick you up and they keep you waiting.
And so it went. I watched the clock for when I needed to head back in for the birth of my daughter. I ate my Whopper and fries. I listened to the radio and I watched the woman as she waited on her friend. As she scanned the parking lot again and looked at my car for the twentieth time I gave her a smile to let her know that I sympathized with her plight.
Finally, it appeared she decided to approach my car. Maybe she really did think I was the one who was supposed to pick her up. As she came closer, I realized that with the car turned off, my electic windows wouldn’t work. As she came abreast of my door, I opened it to let her know,
I don’t think I’m who you think I am.
It was only as her van was fleeing the parking lot that realization hit me. It’s been 20 years and I still wish I could go back and reassure the woman that I wasn’t the stalker in the parking lot. If nothing else I could have simply moved my car.
Things are not always as they appear.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday at 7:00 AM Mountain Time. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
Follow him on
Twitter (@rodneymbliss)
Facebook (www.facebook.com/rbliss)
LinkedIn (www.LinkedIn.com/in/rbliss)
or email him at rbliss at msn dot com(c) 2016 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved