There was once an cobbler in a small village. His meager business was barely enough to pay his bills. Every day from before dawn to long after sunset, he’d sit hunched over his workbench, bending leather and pounding nails, polishing and repairing. Everyone agreed that the cobbler’s shoes were first rate. All the children in the village looked forward to the coming winter knowing that their feet would stay warm and dry in the beautiful boots he built for each of them.
But, not everyone was excited about the coming cold and wet weather. There were three children who despaired of ever having sturdy boots and dry shoes.
Rodney, school starts next week.
Yeah, the kids have been complaining
We have five in high school and the three in junior high are going to have lots more homework.
Yeah. . .
They are going to need access to the internet.
Okay. . .
We need the network set up so that they can each log in with their own accounts. You were going to set that up months ago.
I used to be a computer expert. Seriously, I was once a world expert on computer systems. I got paid $150/hour to fly around the country and install and migrate email systems.
It’s been a lot of years since I played the consultant. Several years ago I moved into managment, and then Project/Program Management. But, there’s still a little of that technical expertise rattling around in myhead. The problem is, that like an aging fighter, it’s harder to step in the ring.
My server is a Windows 2012 R2 installation.
I have at least a dozen computers in my house. It should be easy to get them all hooked up and configured to talk through the server. Should be, but isn’t.
Two months ago, my server broke. My neighbor borrowed it to do some file copying, and somehow the server lost it’s mind. Easy, I’ll just fix it, right?
Right.
Eventually, I couldn’t put it off anymore. This week was the week to fix it. The server has two disks, one is a 1TB drive that the operating system files are on. The other is a 5TB disk array. My first effort was to fix the OS. I rebooted at least a half dozen times, trying to get into the OS through the troubleshooting tools. After a couple of days of frustration, I finally decided I’d simply reinstall.
More frustration. Windows wouldn’t install over the top of itself. My neighbor brought over some spare drives that we could attempt to install on and boot from.
The first two were bad.
The third one was only mostly bad. I won’t take you through the blow-by-blow. We rebooted at least 25 times, with various pieces of hardware hooked. We finally got the system reinstalled and then it died the same at it did the very first time. More reboots, more installs.
It’s been 10 days of working on it, almost non-stop and I think I’ve finally got it stable, with an OS and my RAID array accessible. The work I’m doing is not hard. It’s stuff that I’ve been doing with various versions of Windows for 25 years.
The difference? It’s no longer exciting. I used to relish the idea of doing battle with an obstinate operating system. Knowing I might be at it for hours or days, simply heightened the challenge. I think I got old. Now, I just want my stuff to work.
Tomorrow, I create accounts on my new server for my kids. Yep, tomorrow, the cobbler’s kids get their network accounts.
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) 2015 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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Think you know what skills are required for a particular job? You might be surprised.
I live in a neighborhood with a lot of kids. There are seven houses on our cul-de-sac and over 30 kids. (Yes, I do live in Utah. How could you tell?) It’s been fun watching the kids grow up. Some have gone on missions for the LDS Church, some have gone to college. This summer, some of them got jobs for the first time. One young man got a job this summer as a lifeguard at the local pool.
How’s the new job going?
Pretty good. I struggle most with the swim.
What do you mean?
We have to swim 500 yards each week. It takes me forever.
You’re not a strong swimmer?
Ha. No, not really
He is 15 years old and 6’3″. He looks like your typical lifeguard. His naturally brown hair has bleached in the sun and he’s got the lifeguard tan.
But, can you really be a lifeguard if you aren’t a strong swimmer?
Think about the people you work with. Do you really know what it takes to be good at their jobs? I’ve been an IT manager for many years managing teams of programmers and engineers. One day I was talking with or Project Manager.
Clint, what do you think my major was in school?
Oh, I don’t know. Political science? Maybe, English?
Obviously to Clint, my effectiveness as an IT manager was not dependent on me having studied a technical subject in school. One of my first managers at WordPerfect Corp was in charge of the Telecom system. His major in college was Literature. I would have never known, if I hadn’t asked him.
One of the great things about the IT field and computers in general is that the barrier to entry is still incredibly low. Mark Zuckerberg, one of the richest men in teh world, famously started Facebook in his dorm room. Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard to start Microsoft. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak founded Apple in a garage. Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the founders of Google (Now renamed Alphabet) started their company while students at Stanford.
The IT world is full of examples of people who had a cool idea and built it into a multi-million, or multi-billion dollar company. Some of the best programmers I know didn’t take Computer Science in school. They found a passion and taught themselves.
That’s not to say that education is not necessary, or even useful. It is. If you want a career in computers, the easiest route is to study it in school. But, just because you see someone working in a particular job, don’t assume that means they had formal training in that role.
But, I can hear you now, “That’s great Rodney, but they still have the skills necessary to do the job. How can a lifeguard do his job if he doesn’t swim well?”
The skills that we think a job requires are not always the skills that are actually required. I once went to my boss to ask about a technical certification that one of my team members wanted to do.
Sure, I’ll approve it. I think certifications are really important.
Yeah, me too. But, I don’t make hiring decisions based on them.
What do you mean?
I mean that just having a certification doesn’t tell me that someone can do a job.
For example, you might decide it’s important that all your employees take a course in communication. There are several that I’ve been through that are excellent. (Crucial Conversations, Influencer, Arbinger Institute Courses) But, not everyone’s job requires communication courses. I neede programmers who are great at coding. If they don’t write effective emails, I can live with that. I need engineers who are brilliant at diagnosing network issues. If they can’t present their finding to a senior-level managers meeting, I don’t really care.
“Rodney, are you saying that swimming is not a required skill for lifeguards?”
That’s exactly what I’m saying. . .with two caveats. Swimming is not the the most important skill for a lifeguard. Beyond a certain minimum level of expertise, additional swimming skill does not make someone a better lifeguard.
Realize that when you are lifeguard at a pool, the odds that you will have to jump in and swim for more than a couple strokes are very low. Lifeguards are primarily there to watch, to keep people safe, to prevent injuries. Our neighborhood pool is about 50 yards long. But, the deep end, the part you cannot stand up and walk in, is about 20 yards long. And a lifeguard’s first response to a swimmer in distress is to reach out to them with a pole, or to throw a flotation device to them. The last resort is to jump in and swim to the person. You don’t need to be a distance swimmer to do that.
When you are working with other teams, or especially when you are hiring for your own team, remember that the skills needed to do a job may not always be what you think they are.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. (He majored in Computer Science) 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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(An extended metaphor)
I raised the field glasses and again checked the position of Captain Salazar’s infantry platoon. What was he doing down there? Why didn’t he attack? Our tanks were deployed on the ridge south of Salazar’s position. We had been asked to sit this one out. “Indirect support” they’d said. We hadn’t fired a shot.
Still, it had been a well coordinated battle plan. Very much like our earlier engagements. All the forces worked together like a well oiled machine. We’d been doing this for the last couple of years. And in the back of my mind I’d always been slightly suspicious of Salazar. It wasn’t the first time another team had to pick up the slack for his unit. In the past we’d always managed to step up and still accomplish the objective on time. But, I had to admit at times it was in spite of Salazar.
Get on the radio to those guys and find out what the hold up is. That bridge is just sitting there. It’s not going to come to him.
Their radioman reports they sent out another patrol.
I held my tongue. All he’d done for the past 8 days was send out one patrol after another. Through the glasses I could see his squad gearing up in the dusty street. “Sent” out? No. “Sending” out? Yes. Here I was sitting on 62 metric tons of killing machine and my tanks were gathering dust while the infantry took a sightseeing tour through the village below.
The patrol, like the others before it, ventured out less than a mile. Barely half the distance to the bridge. They walked down streets that had been cleared for days before heading back to their HQ without even setting eyes on the object. I swore softly. This delay was costing us money. Everyday we were on this side of the Richmond River was another day we weren’t getting paid.
Get on the radio to Colonel Scott. I’ve had enough of this sitting around. . .And warm up the armor.
What do you do when you can do someone’s job better than they can? At least a part of it?
That’s the problem I struggled with a while ago. We were expanding one of our call centers. We’d brought three call centers online in about 15 months. I had been the Project Manager on them and we’d not missed a single deadline. Sometimes we barely finished the last of the preparations before the client walked in the front door.
One time, we couldn’t get the turnstiles working. No matter how many times we’ve installed them, everytime it was the turnstiles that tripped us up. On this particular inspection, the client walked in and the turnstiles didn’t work when she tried to get in.
Well, Rodney, obviously we came too soon. You aren’t ready. We’re leaving.
Wait. Wait. Tell you what, why don’t you go and inspect the classrooms and we’ll get this turnstile issue resolved before you get back.
I told the turnstile vendor, “You’ve got 20 minutes. I don’t care how you do it, but you need to have this working before she gets back here.” And he did it. We passed that security audit.
But, with the latest expansion, I was regulated to the role of one more stakeholder. We had a great project manager, but he was new. He’d formally been a lead engineer. I wasn’t sure he would be able to push at the times he needed. PMs need to sometimes push the engineering teams and at other times they need to push the client and still other times they need to provide encouragement. Knowing when to use which method was one of the skills they didn’t teach in PMP class. As a Technical Account Manager, it wasn’t my job to get the last the last of our audit items approved by the client. It might not have been my job, but I knew it was something that I could do.
Colonel? I’m going to take the bridge myself.
What do you need?
Nothing. Just keep Salazar’s guys off me. He’s likely not going to be particularly happy with me stepping on his toes.
Leave Salazar to me. Let me know if you need additional support once you engage.
The big gasoline turbine engines rumbled to life as we headed down off the ridge toward the bridge. I’m not even sure that Salazar knew we were on the move. At 30 miles per hour we tore down the dusty streets shaking the buildings as we rumbled through. We spread out and came at the bridge from three directions. M1s on the left and right flank prowled the river bank looking for any sign of a threat.
I blazed down the middle and hit the bridge going flat out. This wasn’t how we had planned to take the bridge. If it was mined, this was going to be a short trip. Emerging on the opposite side, we quickly spread out to offer less of a target. Behind me the rest of our thirteen tank company poured across the bridge like teenagers fleeing a kegger when the cops show up.
Radio Scott. Tell him we’ve taken the bridge and are moving on to secure the village.
The resistance was minor. Actually, I think they were surprised it had taken us so long.
Yeah, so were we.
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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WordPerfect Security, how can I help you?
Is my mom there?
Ah. . .I don’t know. What’s her name?
I don’t know.
Okay, what’s your name?
Tommy.
How old are you?
I’m four.
The year was 1988. WordPerfect had recently moved into their new office park. I was working in the Telecom office. With the new move we also standardized the phone numbers. Like many big companies, WordPerfect secured a block of numbers with the same three digit prefix; 222. Of course, to call someone’s extension, you only needed to dial the last five digits. Security, decided they wanted the 22222 extension. It was easy to remember. Too easy, as it turned out.
The law of unintended consequences can strike any time. I’m reminded of a Dilbert cartoon that I kept pinned up in our office at RESMARK, when we were writing software. The Pointy-Haired Boss wants to motivate his developers to find bugs.
We will pay $10 for every bug you find and fix.
His team is ecstatic!
Woo Hoo! I’m gonna code myself a minivan this afternoon!
If you pay the developers for finding bugs, but don’t penalize them for writing bugs, you have the law of unintended consequences. This is especially important when you start to measure anything. There is a management saying, “What gets measured, improves.” And while that’s true, it doesn’t always happen the way you might like.
While working for a large non-profit in Utah, my team owned the email system. We had a stated goal for the availability of our email servers. One weekend one of the executives had trouble getting into email. My team investigated and declared that the email servers were up and running all weekend.
How is that possible if the executive couldn’t get to his email?
It was one of the other network systems that was down.
Can anyone get to email if that system is down?
Well, no. But, the email servers themselves weren’t down.
I had to explain to my team that if our users couldn’t get to our services, then we were down; regardless of what the state of the actual servers were. Keep in mind what it is you are actually trying to accomplish. Availability numbers don’t mean much if they don’t measure the actual availability.
In my current role, I need to monitor the availabilty of the systems in our call centers. There are pretty severe financial penalties associated with missing our aggressive availability numbers. As a result, there’s tremendous pressure to classify any outages as client caused. If our client causes an outage, it doesn’t count against our stats. The agents are still off the phones, we still have to try to fix it, but if the client takes ownership of the issue, we don’t have to pay, even if the call floor is still shut down.
As you build your monitoring system, or your review system, or any system that you are going to use to evaluate your teams, keep in mind that things don’t always go as planned. The law of unintended consequences can strike when you least expect it.
WordPerfect Security eventually figured out why they were getting so many calls from kids who could barely use the phone. It wasn’t because the kids were lost, or in danger. In fact, most of the kids were calling from their own homes. In the days before cell phones, when you didn’t need to dial the area code to complete a call, kids were picking up the handset and randomly pushing buttons. Sometimes the kid would push the same button over and over. Sometimes they would push the number 2 over and over until they completed a call.
WordPerfect Security’s phone number was (801) 222-2222. Today, the number is owned by a law firm in Utah. I wonder if they still get calls from Tommy?
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) 2015 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”“The Road Less Travelled” Robert Frost
If Robert Frost had been hiking in Utah, he’d have taken a path through the mountains. Have you ever wondered who made that path? The mountain trails that crisscross our beautiful mountains look like they evolved naturally. Maybe it started as a game trail, or a Native American pathway. And over time it evolved into the bark lined path of today.
That’s not how it happened.
What was your first job? Chances are, for better or for worse, it was memorable. Chances are also that it bears very little resemblance to what you do today. Four of my kids are 15 years old this summer. That means, they are excited about starting to drive, and also that they are out getting their first jobs. Nationwide, there has been a steady decrease in the number of teenagers getting summer jobs. There are many factors that contribute to this decline, including a change in the nature of traditional “teenager” jobs, changes in family structures and priorities and even a cultural change.
Not in our house. My kids, at least some of them, couldn’t wait to jump into the job market. Being a computer guy, I have watched to see if any of them have an interest in getting involved in computers. In many ways, computers remain the great equalizer. A kid with an interest can learn app development in a summer. My home network is complex enough that one of my kids could learn system or network administration. So far, none have been particularly interested. Perhaps it’s because computers are “Dad’s thing.” Perhaps it’s that computers are a pretty solitary pursuit. There’s a reason that computer geeks have the stereotype of being loners, who don’t play well with others. Maybe, it’s that computers require you to sit inside behind a monitor and keyboard when kids would much rather be outside enjoying the wonderful Utah summers.
I think that’s what motivated my third son in deciding his summer job. A couple weeks ago we drove from Pleasant Grove, in Northern Utah, to Monticello, a small town in Southern Utah. My son had been working for the summer on a Youth Conservation Corps building Frost’s “Road Less Travelled.” It was a six week job that saw him living out of a tent in the middle of the La Sal mountains. Each morning, he’d join his trail crew and carry tools up the side of mountain to build a hiking trail.
One morning we decided we were going to beat the other crews up the mountain. We were booking up about 2000 feet in elevation. We beat them by a good half hour.
So, what happened?
We all got altitude sickness. Couple of the guys were throwing up.
Ah, fun times.
We picked him up at the base camp, but went to see his trail before we headed back toward civilization. The trail was accessed by driving down a country highway. Then, we turned off onto a gravel road. Then, we turned off onto a Forest Service road. Then, we forded a stream (in our 15 passenger van) and drove for 20 miles into the mountains. At the end of the road we got out and started walking through a gorgeous mountain meadow of wildflowers.
So, did you make this trail?
No, this was the forest service. Our trail is still up ahead.
About a mile walk through the meadow and aspens brought us to the start of his trail.
We hiked for another half hour to the edge of the aspens and another mountain meadow.
I think we need to start heading back.
Ah, I was hoping you guys would want to hike to the summit.
Maybe next time.
And we headed back to the car for the five hour drive home.
“And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.”
The next time you find yourself on a lonely track deep in the mountains, realize that many young men and women probably got their first taste of a “real” job working very hard to make that track look so natural.
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) 2015 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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The city was Sau Paulo, Brazil. I was there on business, but had an extra day. My terrible Spanish failed to translate at all to Portuguese so I was unable to ask even the simplest question. Traveling for Microsoft, I normally tried to be extremely low key; no shirts with logos, neutral colors, no visible camera or jewelry.
But, here I sat on a bus surrounded by Portuguese speakers, my Hawaiian shirt and camera around my neck practically screaming I’M A TOURIST. And I was surrounded by six guys in white shirts and ties. I honestly had no idea where we were going. Normally, I’d be at least a little worried. Not today. I was as calm as a guy taking a walk in the park. . .which might be one of the places we end up at.
One of the best jobs I ever had was as a corporate trainer for Microsoft. I’d say it was the best job, except that some of my current and former bosses read this blog. No sense playing favorites. The job involved a lot of travel. And while many trips were to Charlotte, NC or Dallas, many of them were to places like Athens, Dubai, Mexico City and Sau Paulo.
Two of my sons are getting ready to fly from Utah to Washington to spend a couple of weeks with their grandmother. One son hasn’t flown since he flew back with me from China when he was two. The other son has never flown. They are both very nervous.
As flights go, Salt Lake City to Seattle is about as easy as it gets. It’s a straight flight and takes about 90 minutes. And we’ll be seeing them off in Salt Lake, my mother will meet them in Seattle. It’s pretty simple. And yet, if you’ve never done something, no matter how simple, it can be somewhat scary to downright terrifying.
I honestly don’t remember a time before my first airplane trip. We moved a lot when I was a kid. I know in the second grade we flew back and forth to Alaska. That might have been my first trip.
When I travel now, I don’t even look at my itinerary until I’m in the air. It’s become a routine. Even international travel, which I’ve done a fair amount of, is typically pretty straightforward. At least if you are travelling on a corporate expense account it is. That’s what made my Sau Paulo trip so unusual. . .and exciting. I was doing something out of the ordinary.
My six bodyguards escorted me all over Sau Paulo. We went places that I’d never venture by myself. We rode busses from one side of the sprawling city to the other. I enjoyed the ride, knowing that if anything happened, my six companions were all fluent in Portuguese and capable of handling any situation that arose.
I enjoyed the day more than I typically enjoy a day off in a foreign city. At noon I bought them all lunch. I offered to take them anywhere they wanted to go. They didn’t choose a Brazilian grill, or a fancy restaurant. They chose a Chinese buffet.
Who were these well dressed guardians? One of them was the son of my good friend. He along with four others of them were Mormon missionaries. The sixth was a local Mormon boy of 16.
They are not your typical tourguides, but for one day in Brazil, it was fun to get to just play tourist.
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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Suppose a plane that is 100 feet long is flying along the equator at noon on a cloudless day. If the plane is 1000 feet in the air, how big will the plane’s shadow be?
- 10 feet long
- 100 feet long
- 1000 feet long
- Not enough information to answer
I love movies. It’s probably because I’m a writer and a storyteller. Back in the olden-days when you rented not only the VHS tape, but the VHS player as well, I bought a tape of one of my favorite movies before I owned a tape player. It was Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It was written by William Goldman, who also wrote Princess Bride.
However, there are times I overthink movies. I can typically overlook plot points, or bad dialogue. And let’s face it, movies are about pretending. I’m always amused when my kids will criticize a movie by saying something like,
There’s no way that Simba would have been able to survive on just bugs. He could never have gotten enough protein to sustain a full grown lion.
So. . . .you’re okay with the premise of talking animals but you’ve got a problem with a lion eating grubs?
However, I have to admit that I do it too. Just on different items.
The sun is really big. I mean REALLY big. Think of the biggest thing you’ve ever seen on earth. The sun is WAY bigger than that. In fact, the sun is way bigger than the earth. It only looks reasonable sized in the sky because it is 93 million miles away.
(Photo Credit: Answers In Genesis)
I learned about the size of the sun in high school physics. And I can’t forget about it while I am watching movies. Pixar is one of the most successful movie studios ever. Their record string of successful movies without a bomb will probably never be matched. They combine wonderful animation with interesting storytelling. Bug’s Life was no exception. I loved it as a kid and my kids love it now. There’s just one scene that really bugs me.
Remember when they have to build the bird? They cut a bird shape out of a leaf and then fly the leaf high up in the air to get the shadow to expand to the size of their “bird/plane.” Yeah, I hate that scene. It’s terrible science.
I think we’ve all pictured ourselves as the main character in a reality show at one point. Before we had actual reality shows, we had The Truman Show. Jim Cary gives a remarkably understated performance as a man unwittingly staring in his own reality show. At a key point, he starts to figure it out and he attempts to escape in the middle of the night. Ed Harris, the show’s director has to make a tough decision as the crew searches for Truman on their mammoth artificial sound stage.
Cue the sun.
And we find out that the sun that Truman has spent his whole life looking at is simply one more prop in their elaborate TV set. Yeah, I hate that scene too.
If I hadn’t paid attention in physics, I would be able to enjoy them without issue. But, remember how I said the sun is REALLY big. Like bigger than the earth big? That affects how the sunlight gets to earth. If you turn on a light bulb, the closer you get to the light bulb, the bigger your shadow becomes, until you eventually block out all light if you get close enough. That’s because a light bulb is a point source of light. The light rays come off in an ever expanding circle, like ripples in a pond when you toss in a rock.
The sun isn’t like that. The sun is so huge that the light rays reach the earth essentially parallel to each other. Sunlight is kind of like a great big wall of light. If you walk up to a wall of light, you will never be able to block it out. It’s too big. That’s the sun. It also means your shadow will be the same size no matter how close or far away you are from the wall of light.
Okay, so what’s this have to do with Bug’s Life and The Truman Show? In Bug’s Life, the leaf that they use for a template would only get bigger if the sun where a point of light. Like if the sun were a spot light 100′ above Ant Island, instead of a massive wall of light 93 million miles away. The same thing with the Truman Show. It’s impossible to simulate the sun effectively on a sound stage. The shadows would be all wrong.
What’s this have to do with computers, or IT or leadership?
There are times when we need to suspend our disbelief. We need to put aside what we KNOW to be true and accept what we WANT to be true. Microsoft has asked us to do it for years when they would announce some new “amazing” new product. . .scheduled to come out “later.” We don’t need to buy into that hype, but as a manager, there will be times where you need to believe in your team. You might know that they are not currently capable of accomplishing a challenging goal. But, if you ever want them to exceed their limits you need to get really good at suspending your disbelief and convincing yourself and your team that they can reach new heights.
Maybe even the distance from the earth to the sun.
And in case, you are still curious about the question I posed at the beginning; regardless of how high the airplane is flying, the shadow would be 100′ long. The exact same size as the airplane.
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
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or email him at rbliss at msn dot com(c) 2015 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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I got to do something very special on Sunday. I got To participate in blessing my newest granddaughter. Like many grandparents, I’m very proud of my daughter and absolutely in love with my granddaughter.
I didn’t post it to facebook.
Most of the people who read this blog everyday get it emailed to them. (Thank you for deciding what I’ve said in the past was good enough that you’d like to read what I write in the future, sight unseen.) Of the people who browse to this page, most of them come from facebook. If the link between WordPress (my blogging platform) and facebook breaks, I know it from the drop in views.
I know a lot of people who are very careful about who they add to their friends list on social media. Although I don’t add everyone (I’m Sorry We Can’t Be Friends Anymore), I tend to add most people. (Yes, Person That I’ve Never Met, I’ll Add You.) I’m a writer and social media is my publishing platform. People who want to be my facebook friends or connections on LinkedIn, or followers on Twitter are potential readers. And they are the best kind of readers. They chose to follow me.
So, it might be surprising to some that not only didn’t I post about the baby blessing, I also didn’t upload a picture of my granddaughter. (She looks a lot like the baby in Ice Age, but cuter.) It’s more the fact that I Don’t Tell Other People’s Stories. However, there is currently a picture of my gorgeous daughter and my beautiful granddaughter on my page.
My daughter chose to post the picture. She got to tell the story. Naturally, some people commented and more LIKED the picture. I noticed something interesting as I was scrolling through the dozens of people who hit LIKE on her picture. Those with whom I shared the most friends in common were not the friends I shared the most in common with.
High School
Like lots of people, I use facebook to keep in contact with old high school friends. The number of shared connections with high school friends ranged from 20-70. I never see these people. Other than a couple that I’ve stayed close to, I don’t share much in common with them. And yet, they make up one of the biggest facebook groups I’m connected to.
Comedians
I have a lot of friends in the comedy scene, especially in Salt Lake. Some of the comics and I share 75 people in common. and while I do enjoy going to shows and have always loved standup comedy, I really share very little in common with these very funny people.
Facebook Political Friends
I have a group of friends with whom I enjoy talking politics. We typically keep it off our pages. I especially enjoy talking to poeple with whom I disagree. My facebook time is often spent talking about the presidential campaign, or the political scandal of the day. And yet, these friends, whom I interact with multiple times per week share only a few friends in common; a dozen or less.
Professional Organizations
I’m a member of both the Masons and Toastmasters. I attended a Toastmasters meeting yesterday. Mason lodge meetings are once a month. When I attend these meetings, I actually have to interact with people in person. And yet, I share only a dozen or so friends in common. And these are people I see and talk to often.
Family
I have a big family and married into a large extended family. Some family members and I share over 60 friends in common. Yet, one of the people who liked the photo was one of my other daughters. She and I share three friends in common. However, I would much rather spend the afternoon with her than almost anyone I know.
My Best Friend
Actually, my best friend didn’t like the picture. He’s not on facebook. But, his wife did. She’s also a close friend. I attended their wedding 15 years ago. I’ve stayed at their house. She is one of the people who I know I could call at anytime day or night for a favor and she and my friend would literally do anything for me. We share three facebook friends in common.
So, what did I learn about my friends? Social media gives us (at least me) a false sense of relationships. Those people with whom I share the most friends in common are the people I am the least close to. The people who are closest to me, the ones who mean the most to me don’t share a lot of facebook friends in common with me.
Facebook doesn’t have the concept of acquaintances as opposed to friends. And while I appreciate all my acquaintances, I’m grateful for my true friends.
I hope you are 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.
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or email him at rbliss at msn dot com(c) 2015 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
Tell your friends about this!
It’s hard to not overhear people’s phone calls when you work in a cube farm. Mostly we just pretend that we didn’t hear and move on. But, Steve’s call really caught my attention.
Listen, listen, listen. I’m not at my home computer. I’m at a work computer. You wouldn’t be allowed to access this computer. When I get home I will check my home computer and see if it’s affected. . .Yes, of course, I will call you tomorrow and let you know if I have a problem.
I was only getting half the conversatin, bu the surprising thing was that Steve is a highly skilled IT worker. Why on earth could he not recognize a scammer. And do I dare say anything?
In addition to being a brilliant writer, my brother is a board game consultant. He plays board games, and helps promote them; games like Pandemic, Settlers of Catan, Dominion, Star Trek Armada and others. It’s not exactly Monopoly and Risk.
He’s really good at the games, but he also wants to promote the hobby of board games. He will often find himself teaching a group of friends how to play a new game. At these times, he has a dilemma. If he plays to win, he will easily crush them. Losing isn’t any fun for anyone just starting to learn a game. So, my brother will intentionally play to lose. He’s playing the long game. If he can get these people hooked on board games, he’ll have helped expand the hobby.
This strategy worked well until he was playing with a group that included a young kid named Mark. I say young kid, but Mark was probably in his early 20’s. Mark didn’t take direction well. My brother kept trying to explain strategy to the group and Mark was having none of it.
If you’re so good at this how come you haven’t won a single round? You’ve lost every single turn.
Let’s just you and me play.
It wasn’t pretty.
When I managed a team of engineers, I worked very hard to make sure that they didn’t think of me as particularly technical. I talked to my project manager about it one time.
Curtis, what would you guess my major was in college?
I don’t know. . Political Science? Maybe English?
I was a Computer Science major.
Really? I would have never guess that.
It was important for my engineers to not feel threatened by me. I wanted them to think they were the experts, because in reality, they were. And by, at times, playing the dumb manager, I was able to drill down on issues to a level that surprised people. It helped me to evaluate the engineers’ recommendations.
And in a sense that’s what Steve was doing.
I didn’t mean to overhear, but that sounded a lot like a scammer.
Oh yeah. Absolutely it was a scammer.
Well then, what was your side of the conversation about?
I just like to mess with them. I once had one of them going for over two hours before he got frustrated and hung up. I asked them to put me on their do not call list, but they still call me. I figure I might as well have some fun with them if I have to talk to them anyway.
Next time my brother’s in town I’m going to introduce him to Steve. they have lots in common.
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) 2015 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
Tell your friends about this!
Look at your current situation in life. Do you like it? Did you choose it? Do you wish it were different?
Ammon was presenting to our Toasmasters club. I don’t know if his speech was designed to be controversial, of if it just turned out that way. See, Ammon believed that the you, me, him, we all DID choose our situation in life. By being in a situation and refusing to change it, we have by our decisions, chosen our lot in life.
It’s an interesting idea, and one that I’m not sure he completely thought through. Later in his speech he quoted a concentration camp survivor. He explained how the man kept a positive attitude during a period of hell on earth.
Ammon, do you think the concerntation camp prisoner liked his situation?
Of course not!
I’m unclear how that matches your earlier statement that we are responsible for our situation in life?
Oh, maybe I shoudl have thought about that more.
Still, I enjoyed your speech.
Notwithstanding, Ammon’s contradiction, I agree with his premise. We all have tremendous control over our situation, even if it’s only in controlling how to approach the day.
I spent the last several months restoring my car. The shell of our “parts” car has been cluttering up my driveway. I had salvaged almost all the parts I wanted. My car still has a steering issue, and I wanted to get the rack from the spare car before we haul it off the metal recycler.
However, a couple weeks ago, my neighbor and his sons showed up to help load the Red Lexus onto a trailer.
I couldn’t do this on my own, so I when the help was available I took advantage of it. I was getting ready to head out of town.
If you want to haul the trailer off while I’m gone, feel free. I’ve taken everything I want from the red car.
What about the rack? It’s still attached.
I looked at the car sitting on the trailer.
I have everything I really want. If I really wanted that rack, I would have taken it off by now. No, I’m good.
I can’t say that I’m perfect at being able to live without regrets, but I’m working on it.
I’ve written over 600 blog entries on this blog over the past three years. In fact, this one is number 638. My brother is a very good writer. He’s written for Forbes.com and has amassed hundreds of thousands of views. He was instrumental in helping me start the blog. Obviously he also writes. He had this to say about my writing,
If I’d even written a tenth of what you write, I’d have a well established blog.
Why did I do it and he, who is (although I’ll never admit it) just as good a writer as me, didn’t?
Simple. I wanted to be a blogger and he didn’t.
I have a friend who was a very accomplished piano player. it used to make him mad when people would come up and tell him
I wish I could play the piano like you do.
Why did it make him mad Because they were lying. Maybe they were even lying to themselves. But, did they really wish they had spent hours and hours practicing every day? No. They didn’t really want to be a piano player.
Ben Bova, is a brilliant science fiction writer. He told me one time,
A few people want to be writers. Most want to have written.
In other words, they don’t want to go through the writing process. Instead, like my piano playing friend’s fans, they want the results without the work.
My dad used to say,
Most people typically get to do exactly what they want.
Think about your own situation? Do you wish you were a writer and yet your best work is done on facebook and Twitter? Do you really want to be in better shape, but would rather sleep in than get up and run in the rain? Do you hate your job, but keep showing up every morning because you don’t want to go through the pain of changing jobs?
I own a guitar. I can play one chord and no songs on it. I don’t want to be a musician enough to put it ahead of other interests. I have friends who are brilliant musicians. They don’t write. They don’t have 13 kids. They don’t tinker with cars on the weekends.
Each of us are a little like the concentration camp prisoner. We do not have 100% control over our situations. But, are we really stopped by circumstances? Or are we limited by our own fear of failure? Or our fear of change?
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) 2015 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved