I need a car for a trip to Sacramento.
Sorry, can’t help you.
Huh? Why not?
See the snow outside?
Yeah.
That storm came off the Pacific. Donner pass is totally socked in. They aren’t allowing anything except four wheel drive vehicles through. And we don’t have any left.
Now what?
It was 10:00pm on a Wednesday night and I was standing at the rental car desk in the Reno airport. My car was 80 miles to the East with what would turn out to be a very expensive broken fuel pump. A complete stranger had driven 160 miles round trip to bring us to the airport. I had my ten year old daughter with me and she had a surgery appointment at Shriners hospital in Sacramento at 10:00 the next morning.
Ok, you’re supposed to be good at problem solving. THINK! What are your options?
Look, I know you’re just doing your job. I need to be in Sacramento tomorrow morning so she can have surgery.
I wish I could help you, I really do.
What other rental companies operate out of this airport?
Well. . .I guess I could check with them. Sit right here and let me see what I can find.
My daughter was past the read a book phase. She just wanted to lay down somewhere and go to sleep. I didn’t blame her. After over 12 hours of travel, I was ready for bed myself. And even when we got this current problem solved, I still had hours more driving to Sacramento. . .in the snow.
Okay, here’s what I found. Most of the agencies won’t rent to a walk in this time of night. If you don’t have a ticket, you have to wait until the morning. I did find one company that has a car that they will let you have tonight. But. . .
What, is it not a four wheel drive?
Oh no, that’s not it. It’s a Jeep Cherokee. Great in the snow.
Well, then what?
It’s a little pricy.
Oh?
Two fifty a day plus mandatory insurance.
I’ve gotta be there by the morning. I’ll take it.
It’s the storm. The prices go up.
Yeah, I know. Hey. Thank you so much. I appreciate you tracking it down for us.
Good luck with her surgery.
So, one more problem down. The only thing left was to drive the 130 miles to Sacramento, down Donner Pass, in a blizzard. The nice thing was that it’s pretty much impossible to get lost headed from Reno to Sacramento. You take I-80 and stop when you get to Sacramento.
My daughter quickly curled up in the back seat and went to sleep. The beginning of the trip wasn’t bad. It was snowing, of course, and it was even sticking to the freeway, but visibility wasn’t too bad, and the Cherokee handled really well. We made good time. . .until.
The state patrol had a roadblock set up at the top of the pass. The snow was about 6″ deep on the road and it was still coming down hard. I watched the California highway patrolman direct one car after another to a crowded parking lot. He was letting several of the semi trucks through. As I approached he simply waved me through. Maybe, it won’t be so bad? It started, not exactly bad, but certainly cautious. Windshield wipers going full blast, the heater keeping the inside toasty. My daughter peaceful sleeping in the back.
Eventually the wipers were having trouble keeping up with the snow. They managed to keep the wiper area mostly clear, but the rest of the windshield quickly filled up with snow. I was peering out through a white tunnel into a white expanse of white. And the snow got heavier. I could no longer see the road. Soon, I couldn’t even see the markers on the side of the road.
I’ve often wondered how it was possible for people to end up driving off a broken bridge, simply because their GPS told them to turn. I thought, “Don’t those people have eyes?” Now, I understood. My entire world narrowed down to a single set of tire tracks in the snow in front of me. I couldn’t see the car or truck that had made them. The truck was frightenly close somewhere in front of me. I would occasionally see a flash of brake lights in the cotton blanket that I was driving through. I was going to follow those tire tracks wherever they led. If the truck was in the ditch, I’d never be able to stop in time. I wasn’t going very fast, but with the grade of the pass, and the slick snow, I had to constantly fight to stay on the road. And the snow continued to come down heavier with each passing mile.
Mile after mile, I followed those tracks. And then they were gone!
And I realized that not just the tire tracks were gone, the entire world was gone. The windshield was simply white. I couldn’t see the tire tracks, I couldn’t see the road signs, I couldn’t see the hood of the Cherokee! For a terrifying moment I was completely blind. I thought I understood whiteout conditions. I didn’t. Not before that trip through a frozen hell.
Just as quickly my limited visibility came back. Should I stop? Where? I have no idea how far it is to the shoulder. And what then? I can’t sit on the side of the this mountain all night.
So, we pushed on. me trying to choke the steering wheel to death, my daughter blissfully unaware. The whiteout conditions were a constant companion, always hovering at the edge of my vision, occasionally swooping in to stop my heart.
I did realize that there are some signs that are really irrelevant in a blizzard.
Speed patrolled by aircraft
Bridge may be icy
And my favorite
Food ahead. . .Arctic Circle
I can’t tell you how long we took to creep down that mountain. It’s like those times you think you hear a sound in your empty house and you tense up and strain your whole body to hear a sound that isn’t there. Except that I kept that vigil for hours upon hours.
Donner Pass is 7,000 feet above sea level. Sacramento, although far inland, is at very close to sea level.
Finally, the snow started to lessen. The tire tracks turned from white to grey and then to black. Eventually the snow started to mix with rain and the road reemerged. I let go the breath I’d been holding since the top of the pass. I sped up to about 40 mph and felt like I was flying. The adrenaline rush carried me all the way into Sacramento, where we checked into our hotel very late and left a wake up call for 7:00.
Whew. I never want to repeat that drive.
The next morning dawned bright and clear, like many California winter days do. We made it to the hospital in plenty of time and the surgery went spectacularly well. Shriners is a great organization.
The day after the surgery was Friday. I was very aware that each day I kept the Cherokee I was being socked for nearly $300. A series of calls to the garage in Fallon where my broken Suburban was at arranged for a new $1000 fuel pump to be installed. Friday morning, I headed back the 130 miles to the Reno airport to return my four wheel drive, limo. I also called the guy in Fallon who had driven me to the airport.
I’ll be at the Reno airport about eleven. Would you still be possible for you to meet me and give me a lift into Fallon?
No problem. See you there.
Sometimes you meet people that owe you very little and give you an immense gift. He was one of those guys. The drive from Sacramento to Reno was as different from the earlier drive as it’s possible for two drives to be. It was during the day. The sun was shining. The snow was gone from the roads and it was bare and dry. The scenery, that I’d barely got glimpses of last night was gorgeous.
I returned the rental car and road with my Good Samaritan back to Fallon, about 250 miles from Sacramento. My Suburban was ready to go. I got it about 2:00 in the afternoon and immediately turned around and drove back to Sacramento, another 250 miles. I realized that I had just driven as far on Friday retrieving my car as I had earlier getting from Utah to Fallon.
So, what did I learn? Some important things. Some silly things. And some humbling things.
I realized that our entire adventure could have been avoided if I’d just taken my wife’s advice and flown.
I learned that Problem Management skills serve you well in many situations.
I learned that Donner pass in the snow is no fun.
I learned a fuel pump will cost you $1000.
I learned that no matter how bad things are, they can get worse, and if you keep your head they will get better.
I learned there are genuinely good people in the world: my Good Samaritan, but also the Shriners who never charge for any of the care in their hospitals.
I’m grateful for those people.
My daughter had several follow up visits over the ensuing months. We fly now.
(This is the second of a two part series on how Problem Resolution Management helped me get my daughter to California through car breakdowns, and blinding snow. Yesterday I related the kindness of strangers.)
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife and thirteen children.
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
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It was supposed to be a pleasant road trip from Pleasant Grove, UT to California. I figured it would take us about 11 or 12 hours. Seven hundred miles of driving. My Suburban was a great road car. My daughter and I were headed to Shriners Hospital in Sacramento for a surgery the next day. We could have flown, but we were scheduled to be there a week and I wanted my own car.
Well, I had my car. It was parked on the side of I 80 about 50 miles from nowhere.
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Specifically we were about 40 miles outside of Fernly, NV. The trip had started off well enough. My daughter was 10 ten years old and was content to read a book for most of the trip. Lots of CDs and miles and miles of flat Utah and then Nevada desert. It was about 2:00 in the afternoon as we came around a bend in the freeway and my car made that “help me, I’m about to die” sound. The one that sounds like it’s out of gas, although I had over a half tank.
No. No. No. NO!!! Don’t Die!
And with that we coasted to the side of the road.
Daddy, why are we stopping?
Ah, just a slight issue with the car sweety. Go back to your book.
Maybe it’s easy, right? Maybe it’s a vapor lock. So, take the gas cap off and put it back on. Nope. The engine turns over, but doesn’t even pretend it’s going to catch.
Okay, think. You’re a project manager. You deal with unexpected crisis all the time. What are your options?
Ah. . . . I got nothing.
Okay, let’s look at it another way. What’s the worst case?
Well, I’m stuck literally a long way from nowhere. No towns within 40 miles. I need to be in Sacramento by 10:00am tomorrow morning for her surgery. It’s sunny now, but in a few hours the sun is going to go down and the January night in this high desert is going to be cold.
Sounds bad. You’d better come up with something, and fast!
I know. My phone!
Success! I’ve got bars. Thank you whoever thought that putting cell phone towers in the middle of the desert was a worthwhile expense.
So, who do I call?
My mechanic? He’s 500 miles away. That’s not going to help. Insurance! I don’t have AAA, but my insurance has got to have some sort of roadside service right?
Liberty Insurance roadside assistance how can I help you?
Yeah, my car died and I’m stuck on the side of the road somewhere in the middle of Nevada.
Could you be a little more specific, sir?
So, the insurance guy calls around and finds two towing companies that will service me. One is $400 for a tow and the other is $250, both are cash up front.
No, my insurance won’t cover that. It’s totally out of pocket.
Okay, so let’s get the $250 guys rolling. They are going to tow my car into Fallon, about 50 miles away. But, it’s going to be several hours before they get to me. There’s no way anyone can fix my car tonight. Still, problem #1 solved. I’ll no longer be stuck on the side of the freeway. What is the next problem?
I still have to get to Sacramento by tomorrow morning at 10:00am.
Any rental car agencies in Fallon? Google on my phone is my best friend right now.
Nope.
Okay, how to get from Fallon, NV 250 miles to Sacramento if there are no rental car agencies?
(Notice that the thought of skipping her surgery date, was never really an option. I’m gonna figure this out.)
Do I know anyone in Fallon? Not really. I didn’t even know there was a Fallon, NV. Who can I ask that MIGHT know someone in Fallon? My first thought was the Masons. I’m a member of Story Lodge #4 in Provo, UT. Masons are charged with helping out our own. The Shriners are a sister organization to the Masons. Back to Google. No masonic lodge in Fallon.
The church! The Mormon church exists in every town in America. Google isn’t a help this time. I call a friend who works for the church.
Carl, this is Rodney, can you look up the phone number for the bishop in Fallon, NV. . .It’s a long story.
At this point, some of you might be thinking, “No way. You’re going to call some total stranger in a strange town and they are going to help you because you say you’re a member of the same church?” Yeah, that’s the way the Mormon church (and I’m sure many others) works.
After a couple phone calls waiting for the tow truck, I finally get connected to a member of the Mormon church in Fallon. For the price of a tank of gas I have secured a ride into Reno, 80 miles away. They have rental cars at the Reno airport.
Hey Sweety, wanna play UNO? Yeah, sweety, I’m getting cold too.
(Photo credit: All Arminda)
We watched the sun sink into the Nevada desert. By now, we were scheduled to have arrived and be having a nice dinner. We had water and road trip snacks, and it started to get cold very quickly.
Eventually a tow truck big enough to move a house arrived, loaded up my Suburban and carted it into Fallon. They dropped me at the garage where I left my keys and a note for the mechanic to find the next morning.
Are you going to be okay? It’s pretty dark and cold.
We’ll be fine. We’ve got someone coming to pick us up.
I didn’t know you knew anyone in town.
We don’t. Thanks for the lift.
About 20 minutes later a jeep pulled into the dark parking lot, his headlights coming to rest on my Suburban where my daughter and I were huddled under emergency car blankets.
Are you Rodney Bliss?
Sure am. I appreciate the ride.
Happy to help. What’s the rush?
She’s having surgery tomorrow at Shriners hospital in Sacramento.
Well, let’s get you on our way then.
And he drove us all the way to the Reno airport. The last 10 miles or so through the blinding snow.
When you return the car, give me a call and I’ll come back and pick you up and take you back into Fallon.
I really appreciate that. I’d don’t want to keep the rental any longer than I have to. My plan is to be back here in two days.
Just give me a call beforehand.
And with that, I shook his hand and he turned around for the 80 mile drive back to Fallon. I checked my watch. Even with the move to Pacific time, it was 10:00pm. Fortunately the rental agencies at the airport are open 24 hours.
The terminal was pretty deserted, as you might expect and we had to page the guy at the Enterprise rental car desk.
Can I help you?
I need a car for a trip to Sacramento.
Sorry, can’t help you.
Huh? Why not?
See the snow outside?
Yeah.
That storm came off the Pacific. Donner pass is totally socked in. They aren’t allowing anything except four wheel drive vehicles through. And we don’t have any left.
Now what?
(This is the first of a two part series on how Problem Resolution Management helped me get my daughter to California through car breakdowns, and blinding snow. Tomorrow I’ll discuss how to not take no for an answer.)
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife and thirteen children.
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
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However, today is the one year anniversary of my first blog post on www.staging.rodneymbliss.com, “Back Where It All Began“. Thanks to those of you who’ve offered me encouragement over the past year. I hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as I have.
(Photo Credit: Keeping Up With The Holsbys)
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife and thirteen children.
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
Tell your friends about this!
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
– Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken –
You are no doubt familiar with Frost’s famous poem. Interestingly, most people (including me for years) misunderstand the poem. We think that picking the least travelled road made all the difference. That’s what he says, after all.
I had my own case of taking the “road less traveled.” While a student at BYU I desperately wanted to get a job teaching at the Missionary Training Center (MTC). You may remember it was there where I Found Out I Was A Jerk. Just as Elder McGee had helped me, I wanted to help others.
(Stay with me, this gets back to business in just a second!)
In order to get a job at the MTC, you had to do two things. First you had to be good with the language. I was a very good sign language interpreter. I had no “hearing accent.” I knew ASL well enough that most deaf people couldn’t tell if I was deaf or hearing when I signed with them.
The second thing you needed was a recommendation from the man who was in charge of the mission where you had served. I had been a missionary in two locations and therefore had two men to get approvals from. One was named Simmons, and I had served under him in Chicago for 18 months. The last three months of my mission in 1985 had been in California under a man named Van Alfin.
I applied for a teaching position confident in my ability to get a job. I waited.
Then, I waited some more.
I waited even more.
Finally, I approached my friend who was in charge of hiring.
What’s up with my application?
Ah. . . .there’s a . . .complication.
Oh?
We aren’t going to hire you.
Okay. . .why?
I’m not supposed to tell you this. Well, they told me to make up a reason. ‘Tell him he doesn’t sign well enough’ was their suggestion. I told them I can’t tell him that. He’s signs as well as I do, and I’m deaf! It’s your recommendation from the mission president in California. He didn’t approve. I’m sorry.
I was really upset. It wasn’t fair! I was immensely qualified for the position. It just wasn’t right. Since I didn’t get that job, I went looking for other jobs. I ended up going to work in the BYU telephone office. My job was to install and disconnect phones (Pull it . . NOW!)
That job led to me going to work for WordPerfect Corporation as a telephone technician. (Back Where It All Began.)
WordPerfect led directly to a job at Microsoft. (How Not To Quit A Job.)
(Photo Credit: Jelson25 via Wikicommons)
My experience at Microsoft has brought me a long career as an IT manager, president of a startup, a technical author, travel, and the finances to afford to adopt lots of kids.
Taking the road less travelled by has made all the difference.
But, how is Frost’s poem misunderstood?
Both paths were less travelled by. Frost is telling us that we all find ourselves at crossroads at times in our lives. And when we reach that point, the choices are often equally good. From the poem:
Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
The point is that we cannot go back.
I doubted if I should ever come back
But, the choices we make absolutely set us on one path or the other. It does no good to “ages and ages hence” look back and sigh about the road not taken. I often wonder what my life would have been like had I gotten that job teaching sign language to new missionaries. I can say with near certainty, I would not be here writing about it for you. I would probably not have the family I do. I caught the Microsoft wave just as the stock hit the market right. We were fortunate to have the money needed to adopt ten children.
So, while I can look back, I’m not regretting my decision one bit. I do agree with Frost that the road I took has made all the difference.
The Road Not Taken
Robert FrostTwo roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,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.I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife and thirteen children.
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
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(Photo Credit: Virtual Pizza)
I have a confession to make, I’ve never seen a single episode of American Idol. The same goes for Desperate Housewives, and Walking Dead. Lost? Missed the entire series. Mad Men? Nope. Dancing With The Stars? Missed every episode. I haven’t watched TV since about 2003.
Originally we cut the cable for financial reasons. We had better things to do with our $50 per month. I remember we had Direct TV. I expected to have to REALLY convince them that I wanted to quit. I’ve worked customer support so I understood the drill.
Direct TV, how can I help you?
Yeah, I’d like to cancel my subscription.
Would you mind telling us why?
Yeah, I just can’t afford it any more.
Well, if we cancel your contract now, there’s an early termination fee of a couple hundred bucks.
Yeah, I know. I’m fine with that.
Or, we could put your account on inactive status. You pay $5 a month and if you ever want your service turned back on, you just call us and we take care of it over the phone.
Oh. . .okay. Let’s do that.
So, I didn’t cancel my subscription, I just didn’t have any channels. It turned out that this was a very good deal. The Mormon Church has a worldwide general conference twice a year. It’s broadcast over Direct TV. In fact, that’s why we went with Direct TV in the first place. So, each April and October I’d call Direct TV.
I’d like to have my subscription reenabled.
No problem. Enjoy.
Four days later, I’d call them back.
I’d like to put my account on inactive status.
No problem. Enjoy.
The only other thing that we turned on the TV for was the Olympics. Same deal. A quick call to Direct TV and two weeks later a follow up call. But, the rest of the programming? We missed it all.
Two interesting things happen when you turn off your TV. The first is how much extra time you end up. I’m not, by any means preaching that people should shut off their TVs. But count the number of hours per day you spend watching it. What else might you do with that time? What else might your kids do?
The other thing that happened was our kids never learned to watch TV. It sounds kind of silly, but that’s the best way I can describe it. We have a TV, of course.
We also have tons of videos and DVDs.
For my kids, “TV” is watching a DVD. My second oldest daughter was about 8 when we turned off the TV. So, she didn’t really have the TV experience for most of her growing up life. When she went to college it was a bit of culture shock.
Dad, I’ve gotten a little hooked on TV.
Oh?
Yeah, but what’s with the commercials? They come on like every 10 minutes and there’s no way to fast forward through them!
I grew up on TV. It framed portions of my childhood. I remember when MTV played music videos. We stayed up to watch the world premier of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” I remember watching the final episode of M*A*S*H, and Cheers and The Cosby Show. And of course, September 11, 2001 was very much a TV experience.
However, today you can get much of that content on the Internet and you can choose your own schedule for viewing and decide what you want to watch. I couldn’t imagine life without an internet connection, but the cable? It’s been gone long enough I don’t really miss it.
Will my kids someday look back and say, “My parents really blew it by not teaching us to watch TV! I missed a whole portion of my childhood!” Somehow I doubt it. And if they do, there’s always Youtube.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife and thirteen children.
Follow him on
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Facebook (www.facebook.com/rbliss)
LinkedIn (www.LinkedIn.com/in/rbliss)
or email him at rbliss at msn dot com
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(Photo Credit: Project Squirrel)
I got up on time.
I got dressed and ready for work.
I got in my car and headed to work in plenty of time.
A stoplight turned red. I could either wait for it to turn green, or turn right and go work from home.
I turned right.
Such is the life of people with ADD. It’s almost a cliche to claim ADD, or as is my case, ADHD. There is certainly no stigma in claiming to have ADD. Many celebrities not only admit to having it, but claim it helps them be more successful. And there are definitely some benefits to ADD. But, if you are actually afflicted with it, there are some major drawbacks as well.
First, let me tell you how I figured out I have ADHD. Like many Mormons who don’t drink coffee or tea, I enjoy colas. I have drunk them since college. And it never really seemed to bother me. Eventually, I decided that perhaps I should try to cut them out. So, I started cutting my 44 oz morning Coke with 1/2 Caffeine Free Coke. (Yes, there is such a drink. It’s very popular in Utah for no reason that I can fathom.) Eventually, I had weaned myself completely off of caffeine. I managed to do it without the headaches and shaky withdrawals. I switched my morning drink to grape soda. (Yes, I know about the sugar content. Don’t judge me.)
I avoided the headaches, but something else started to happen. Work got REALLY hard. Not physically difficult, but it became nearly impossible for me to concentrate on a project that took longer than about 15 minutes. I was irritable, and I always felt like I was a couple steps behind where I needed to be. I knew how to be successful in that job, I just had trouble focusing.
One day I saw an ad for an ADD test. “Yeah right,” I thought. You’re going to self diagnose? That couldn’t end badly.
BTW, I should say at this point that I have three kids with ADD. They are all three blood related. I have thirteen children total and 10 are adopted. A group of four of them are birth siblings. Three of these four have ADD. I know there are people who claim ADD is simply bad parenting. Trust me, I know the difference. My lovely wife and I have raised a lot of kids. These three kids definitely have ADD.
So I filled out the “Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS) Symptom Checklist.”
For Part A I scored a 25. For Part B a 23. These numbers meant nothing to me. (You normally have to go see a doctor to get the score.) Just to act as a check on myself, I wanted to make sure I wasn’t simply deciding to pick higher numbers because I already thought I might have ADD, I asked my wife to score me on the items. Her assessment for me was even higher.
For Part A she thought I was a 30, and for Part B a 24.
So, armed with my completed survey I went to see my doctor.
Oh, you are definitely ADD Rodney. ADHD, in fact.
How can you tell?
Well, this section A where you scored a 25? Anything below 16 is normal. Seventeen to twenty three we would consider ADD as possible. Above a 24 is a positive indication of ADD.
And I scored a 25. Annie ranked me a 30.
Thirty six is the max.
Well, I’ve always been a good test taker.
So, ADD, attention deficit disorder. But, what about the HD, the hyper-activity part?
Part B measures the hyperactivity. Again, sixteen and below is normal. So, you aren’t as strong in that area, but you are still in the positive category. However, if it weren’t for the survey, I wouldn’t have considered you ADD or ADHD.
Really? Why not?
Well, just look at you. You are sitting here calmly in my office, you aren’t fidgeting. In fact, you are exhibiting very few outward ADHD symptoms.
I can explain that one. I’ve been a teacher or a trainer most of my life. You learn to not click your pen, or rattle your keys, or nervously tap, or fidget.
We can prescribe medication for it.
It’s essentially amphetamines, right? Why don’t you give me three pills and I’ll let you know.
Ultimately, I decided I didn’t like the side effects. I went back to self medicating with caffeine. And an amazing thing happened. The first day back on caffeine, I had my most productive day at work in weeks.
So, I’m lucky, right? ADD people are supposed to be able to get more done. And the drugs they use to treat ADD? I’ve read studies that show that if you put ANYONE on speed, they do better at their jobs. Well, a little speed. Yeah, those lucky ADD folks. And there are certainly advantages. I am GREAT at crisis management. When it comes to juggling several different inputs while also trying to focus on solving a problem, I do that easily. However, when the pressure is off, when there is no fire that requires me to focus, I struggle to sit down and force myself to pay attention. Preparing for filing my taxes is painful. I say “preparing” because I don’t actually file my taxes. I have an accountant who does that. All I have to do is give him the records. And I don’t even have to provide all of that. My lovely wife does the bulk of the preparation. And even that tiny involvement nearly drives me into a paralysis of inactivity.
It really is a disorder. It’s not as debilitating as something like fibromyalgia, or OCD (the real disorder, not the “I’ve got OCD. I always carry my phone in my left hand!” type examples.) If my desk is in a high traffic area, I’ll get to know my coworkers well, and get very little done. Conversations involve multiple “squirrel” moments. And I have to consciously monitor the amount of time I talk. Anyone who’s worked with me, I’m sure doubts it, but I will often think about each thing I plan to say and evaluate if it will be dominating the conversation too much. In class, I WANT to answer every question. In fact, I want to have a conversation with the teacher about not just the class subject, but his family, and my collection of miniature Ford Mustangs, and the affect of the Atlantic hurricane season on Presidential elections over the past several decades, and . . .SQUIRREL!! The worst part is knowing that I am exhibiting ADD behavior and having trouble stopping. I’ve had to tell myself multiple times per day, “Think! What do you need to do right now?” ADD people are big fans of lists. The list forces me to focus and puts my random thoughts into an order. But, sometimes the ADD is so bad I don’t want to make the list. . .even though I know the list will help.
Anyone with adult ADD, especially if they went for years with it undiagnosed, has developed techniques to remain effective and employed. But, like anything, there are good days and bad days. At it’s worst, I just want to crawl under my desk and block out all stimulus and decision making. Fortunately, I don’t spend much time under there. However, I do occasionally end up working from home if the stoplight turns red.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife and thirteen children.
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A bit of way-back Wednesday for people who like old WordPerfect stories.
(Photo Credit: Madison Metropolitan School District)
In addition to an email client, WordPerfect Office 2.0, and WordPerfect Library had a calendar program. This isn’t a big deal in 2013. Every smartphone comes with a calendar program. But in 1988, it was pretty innovative. And as much as I like the iPad, I really wish it included the functionality that WordPerfect’s calendar program had 25 years ago.
I’m talking about calendar rules. Say, you have violin lessons every Friday afternoon. You could create a rule that said,
every seven days
starting on a Friday.
Big deal. My phone can do the same thing!
So can mine. But, you know what my phone can’t do? Create an appointment that occurs every six weeks. Or, better yet, every 42 day. Or any other arbitrary number.
WordPerfect couldn’t do that either. The programmers only included numbers up to 31 in the rules. However, you could have multiple criteria. For example, you could say
every seven days and every two days
This created an appointment every fourteen days. But, what we discovered was that you could combine numbers as much as you wanted. So, if you wanted an appointment every forty two days, you enter
every seven days and every 6 days
The only time those two conditions are both met is every 42 (7 times 6) days. Eventually, of course, the programmers simply changed the program so you could use any numbers. But, in the early versions when they thought they needed to limit users to only numbers less than 31, it was fun to discover that with a little work we didn’t have to be limited.
The lesson for us today is not hard to see. Are you letting someone else set your limits? Are you simply content to accept arbitrary limits that someone else picked?
Often with a little ingenuity, you can accomplish far more than anyone ever imagined!
(I still wish my iPad calendar allowed rules.)
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife and thirteen children.
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Did you know the iPad was a terrible name? Not just mildly bad, Apple was accused of being misogynistic. And worse, of being out of step with their customers. When the first iPad was released on April 3, 2010, most of the media hated it. Not the device, the name. It bore too much of a similarity to feminine hygiene products. A CNBC host described it that way on air. The New York Times said the name made women cringe.
And yet, you probably don’t think twice about it. You either love the iPad, or hate it, depending on what field you are in. Despite nearly ten years at Microsoft, I’ve come to love the iPad. I’ve written every blog post except two on my iPad. Those two were when I lost my iPad for a couple days. And they weren’t my best work.
So, what’s the difference? Did Apple just get lucky? Were they really such marketing neophytes that they totally missed the cringe-worthy connection? I very much doubt it. However, Apple understood that you can invent words (who’d ever heard of an iPod?) and that you can own words.
My brother is a marketing expert. He often talks about Owning A Word. He generally talks about it in the context of companies owning an existing word. In the link above he shows how Hyundai, the car company ended up owning the word “assurance.” Other companies could attempt similar promotions, but they would have to call it something else. Not for any legal reasons, but because if they used the word “assurance” everyone is going to think of Hyundai.
We had a similar situation when we decided to name our reservations software. I was working for Agile Studios at the time and we were preparing to spin off RESMARK. Except we hadn’t called it that yet. It was just “the reservation software.” Our investors paid a search firm to come up with some possible names. I don’t remember all of them, but one of them was “Dusty Roads Software.” That was my favorite. The investor liked RESMARK. It evoked the idea of REServations and MARKeting. Two of the main focuses of the software.
I hated the name, and not just a little. It didn’t mean anything. It was a blank slate. And that is why I’m not in marketing. The name was very good. Because it didn’t already mean something, we were free to own it and make it mean whatever we wanted it to. In addition, because it was a brand new word that no one had used before, the domain name was available.
I think we can own words in our own life as well. What one word would you friends and family use to describe you?
– Intense
– Funny
– Loving
– Cold
– Smart
– Stupid
– Loyal
– Untrustworthy
– Talented
– Awkward
– Angry
– Crazy
Did you know that you have control over that word? You gain ownership of the word during your everyday actions. If you don’t like the word that people think of when they think of you, change it. It’s not easy. I talked about The Day I Found Out I Was A Jerk, and how hard it was for me to change. If you are the awkward one and you want to be talented, all it takes is work. If you are one who is famous for starting and never finishing, you have control over that.
I’ve known a couple of people in my life who were just unlucky. But, aside from the Universe throwing you more than your share of curveballs, you have control over the word for you.
Pick one you like, and then own it.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife and thirteen children.
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What really bothered him was that you found out, Rodney. He really felt bad about that.
Chris, that’s like saying, “He was okay with stealing from you, but really sad when you found out it was him!”
Chris and I have been friends for years. We had a pair of mutual friends, Clint and Carlos. The three of them were already friends when I joined the group. I’m typically pretty good at reading people. In this case, I completely failed. The four of us would hang out at Salt Lake City comedy clubs. If you’ve never been to a comedy club, you might be tempted to think it’s like the opening and closing credits of Seinfeld. A room full of people, politely laughing with a comic sharing jokes about clever observations of human behavior.
There are some clubs like that, but it’s not typical. A comedy club is generally in a bar or a coffee shop. If you go to one of the big name comedy clubs, it’s packed. However, the vast majority of comics perform for sparse rooms filled mostly with other comics. And the material is what is politely called “blue.” Foul language and crude humor are typically the norm. I described this a little in The Pedophile, The Comedian And the Englishman.
So, by choosing to hang out with comics in comedy clubs, I knew I wasn’t going to Sunday School. However, I’ve been a fan of standup comedy since my mom used to let me watch old Abbott and Costello films. She said at times, I would laugh so hard that she was worried I’d pass out.
Carlos had been performing comedy for seven or eight years. Clint and Chris had been performing less, but both were regulars at Wiseguys, the most popular Salt Lake City comedy club. Over the course of a couple months we became pretty good friends. Except that I later found out that my definition of a friend and their definition were vastly different.
It was around Christmas time when a family member came to me and explained that Clint and Carlos were both keeping secrets from me. They’d placed their own desires above our friendship and betrayed a trust with someone close to me. The actual “betrayal” was disappointing, but what was worse, was that the betrayal had happened weeks earlier. They had allowed me to go ahead thinking all was well with us, not mentioning a word. A Bob Segar lyric came to mind, “Surrounded by strangers, I thought were my friends.”
Chris was in an awkward spot, since he knew what was actually going on, but was not part of it. With a lot of prodding from Chris, Clint approached me at one of his shows.
Rodney, I’m really sorry. Please tell me the other person is getting through this?
We’ll be fine.
Would it be okay if I came by your work next week and we went to lunch?
Sure.
Was I past being angry? I don’t know. Hurt? Sure. Leery? Absolutely. But maybe, just maybe we could reset our relationship. His friendship was important enough to me to at least give him a chance to make it right. Maybe I would be able to forgive him and move past it.
I never got the chance.
Three days later Clint overdosed and died.
How do you stay mad at the dead?
We all attended the funeral and listened to the wonderful things that are said about the deceased. And that’s the way it should be. People don’t want to remember the drug addict. They want to remember a loving son. A friend. A funny comedian.
But, I wasn’t done hating him.
Was that wrong?
HOW DARE YOU DIE BEFORE I HAD A CHANCE TO FORGIVE YOU!
It’s been three years since Clint passed away. We gathered for a comedy show last weekend with his family and friends. It took several months for me to finally come to terms with him. They say that carrying a grudge hurts the person with the grudge immeasurably more than the person they have the grudge against. How much more is that true when the person you hold the grudge against is dead?
I took the fact that he was attempting to make it right, as evidence that he really did value our friendship. Our friendship wasn’t more powerful than his demons, but considering those demons killed him, I’m not sure anything could be.
As for Carlos? He’s still around the comedy scene. He was there last weekend. All he’s ever said was,
We need to talk about that thing some time.
No Carlos, we really don’t.
We are no longer friends.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife and thirteen children.
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Rodney, I think you should be a level 60 during this review period.
Okay. I’m a 59 currently so who am I to disagree with my manager?
I had never had a conversation quite like this one before. Not at Microsoft, nor at any job before that. Instead of the classic “Ask your boss for a promotion,” my boss was coming to me and telling me that she thought I should get a promotion. My manager was Staci Hartman, the very best manager I have ever had. It took me years to figure out why she did that, and realize that she was letting me in on a management secret:
You only get promoted when someone is willing to spend political capital to make it happen.
There were three important characteristics to me getting promoted.
Timing
Visibility
Suppressing Manager Ego
Timing
Promotions depend a lot on timing. Staci was sitting down with me 6 months before the reviews had to be submitted. Many organizations only do promotions once per year. So, it’s important to both understand the schedule and start preparing well in advance.
I’ve also worked for organizations in a management role where they have a limited number of promotion slots. So, there might be 5 or 10 people who are ready to be promoted, but if the organization only has two slots, eight people are going to be disappointed. As a manager, you are going to put yourself out there to get your people promoted. Make sure you are picking a review period where you don’t have to compete with the resident hot shot coder being up for review.
Visibility
After you’ve picked the time and started well in advance you need a plan. And that’s really what Staci was telling me. She was letting me know that we needed a plan for the coming 6 months that would justify my getting promoted. There may be organizations where if you show up to work everyday and do a good job, management will recognize that and give you a promotion. I’ve never actually seen any of those organizations. Navigating the management power maps can be frustrating at times. But, if you are sitting and waiting for someone to come along and recognize your work, you may have a long wait.
So, there are two important considerations when thinking about visibility. First you have to have the right projects. Ideally, these should be projects that aid your own team AND have an impact on other teams. The reason you need something that impacts other teams is guess who picks the promotion candidates? Yup. It’s the managers. You have to give your manager some ammunition to use when answering the question, “Why should we choose Rodney as one of our two promotion candidates?” If the other managers haven’t ever heard of you, they are going to shoot you down, because they all have people from their teams that they are also trying to get promoted.
Second, you have to actually get the visibility. No one likes a suck-up, including me. And I’ve only see that work once and it was a really clueless manager. However, you have to be seen. You have to be increasing your scope. I created a chart for my employees one time to show them the way to get promoted. Let’s use Microsoft’s level system and see how your performance rating changes depending on your level. And let’s make up a level of work 0-100. Stay with me, it will make sense in a minute.
Employee Level 58
Level of influence: Self
Available ratings and work needed to achive:
– (E)xceeds expectations: 50
– (M)eets expectations: 40
– (F)ails to meet expectation: Less than 40
Employee Level 59
Level of influence: Team
Work to get a specific rating:
– (E): 60
– (M): 50
– (F): less than 50
Employee Level 60
Level of influence: Department
Work to get a specific rating:
– (E): 70
– (M) 60
– (F) less than 60
Did you notice that as you move up to each new level, the level of expected performance also increases? In addition, if you are a level 60 and influencing your department, you are also expected to still be doing everything a 59 does in terms of influencing your team.
When picking projects, you need to show that you are already doing the work at a higher level. So, if you are trying to move from a 59 to a 60, it’s important to work on some department projects. This is part of the reason your promotion is so dependent on your manager. It’s typically the manager who will be making the assignments. She is going to choose who is the team representative to the Department steering committee and who is going to be working the night shift installing Linux kernel patches. Not that installing patches isn’t important, but it’s not going to give you visibility.
Manager Ego
The third important consideration when getting promoted is the manager’s ego. This probably sounds like a strange choice. But, good managers help you grow. Great managers get out the way and let you shine. Trust me, it’s a little humbling when a promotion plan starts to work. Because the employee is now having more influence outside of the team and getting recognition. Typically that’s the role the manager fills. If the manager isn’t ready for the emotions of getting upstaged a little it can be pretty disheartening. In Staci’s case, she had recently come to Microsoft from a large company where she ran an entire training department with dozens of people. Now she was a team manager with 6 of us. But, she told me later that during this period, she made the conscious decision to put her own goals on hold and focus on developing her team. She was more than willing to let me shine during this time.
After six months of focused planning, and execution, the promotion was almost anti-climatic. However, I understood a lot better the process of promoting people.
Paying It Forward
Fast forward ten years and this time I’m the manager. I went to work for a large non-profit and inherited an existing team. We managed the messaging and SharePoint services. We had our superstars and we had our rank-and-file guys. One of those rank-and-file guys was Mark. Mark was a good engineer. He came to me shortly after I took over as his manager.
Rodney, I’d like to get promoted.
Okay
I told Jacob, our previous manager but, it didn’t really go anywhere.
Did Jacob give you any advice? Anything to work on?
He said work harder.
Okay then. I remembered back to my conversation with Staci. And immediately we started working on a plan.
I’ll help you with this. We’ll come up with a plan for the next 8 months. I think I have to have promotion recommendations in by then. It’s simply a matter of timing and visibility.
I didn’t tell him that manager ego was an important piece. Mostly because he had no control over that. Over the next eight months Mark worked on expanding his visibility. Whenever possible I had him send team status messages to the department. He did struggle with spelling. Misspelled emails undermined our plan. So, I helped him turn on auto-spell check in Outlook. He also took on some more challenging projects that had department wide visibility.
At the end of eight months, Mark had done everything he could. Now it was my turn. I had already been laying the groundwork for a promotion for Mark. I had talked him up to the other managers and to my manager whenever I could. They’d been getting status messages from him. They knew he was working on some high profile projects.
We did a stack ranking exercise where we each rated our own teams from most valuable to least valuable employee. Then we combined the 4 teams into a department ranking. When the results were projected in our managers meeting, the top name was Mark. There were a few more questions, especially from my manager who didn’t really see Mark as promotion material. Ultimately he was moved to the second slot. But since we were promoting the top two, I didn’t really care. Especially since the top name was also one of my guys.
The point is that as a manager, it’s your responsibility to develop and promote your team. Don’t be like Jacob who kind of brushed Mark off with a “work hard” suggestion. Be willing to expend your political capital for your employees. That’s one of the most important reasons to amass political capital is to use it on behalf of your employees.
And employees, realize that while there is a process to getting promoted, none of it works unless you are getting work done. All the manager support in the world will do no good unless you deliver on your projects and commitments. But, if you can bring together a manager willing to spend capital and an employee willing to work on high visibility, sometimes challenging projects, there’s no telling where you might go.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife and thirteen children.
Follow him on
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Facebook (www.facebook.com/rbliss)
LinkedIn (www.LinkedIn.com/in/rbliss)
or email him at rbliss at msn dot com