July 27th, 2009
Last week, my friend Laurie at PunkRockHR considered the value of credit and debt. I agree in general, but wondered about the level of control that needs to exist. Then, on my way to work, I heard a commercial with the voice of a famous personality.
Magic Johnson is a respected businessman. He was a respected college basketball player at Michigan State, and he was the first round first pick in the NBA draft in 1979. He played for the Los Angeles Lakers as part of a championship team, and was MVP of the Finals in his rookie year. A high performer. A star. One who is willing to work hard to achieve great things. He knows the payoff comes after the hard work, and that there are no short cuts.
His was the celebrity voice I heard. Encouraging people to reach their goals and get want they deserve by using Rent-A-Center. This is a chain that charges a low monthly fee for many household items. The kind of things that cost more than a paycheck or two. Washers and Dryers. Widescreen televisions. Furniture. Things that many people save for. Things that if you rent for any length of time you will spend much more than the outright purchase.
Rent-A-Center is a good business, in the sense that their business plan works. But the business plan relies on our inability to save for big purchases, and almost assures that we never will. This approach is sharp contrast to Dave Ramsey, and if we did more of what he suggested, we would have far fewer credit problems to deal with. But Dave’s advice is sort of like living like The Biggest Loser contestants. Sure, they make a lot of progress, and their changes in health are nothing short of remarkable. They will also need to be more disciplined than they have ever been before.
So my problem is really with Mr. Johnson. He knows that what he is selling is not good business for the individual. He knows, in fact, that for most customers, it’s an easy way to greater problems. He uses an emotional appeal of “You want to provide your family with the things they want” and “You don’t even have to have credit”. Every time someone walks into those stores and signs a contract, they are moving further away from the goals that Magic is selling them.
If he didn’t do the commercials, someone else would. And people would still get into more debt. But these contracts aren’t about debt, they are about easy payments and immediate gratification. People don’t get that because they live in comparison to far too many bad examples of excess. Money is a fundamental part of our lives, and yet a large percentage of the population does not understand the power they can have over their finances.
If we had any sense at all we would do more in schools to educate our kids about money. They’re smart, they can understand the long term costs of short term thinking.
Oh, and it might help of Magic said something like: “I worked hard to be a champion, and eventually I earned a reward for my skills. You might not ever play pro basketball, but if you find your passion, and work to perfect it as I did mine, you can have a good life too.”
July 4th, 2009
Michael Jackson died last week, and I decided I would not write about that fact.
But news related to his death is everywhere today. People want to know the exact cause of death, they want to know about custody of his children, they want to know how they can get into the service planned for Tuesday at the Staples Center in L.A.
When someone dies, somewhere there is mourning. There is a loss of what that person brought to the lives of others. There is a perceived loss of what they might have done, what they might have contributed of their life had not ended.
Sometimes those close to the deceased are comforted by the many who show to pay their respects. There are times, however, where we wonder why we hadn’t gathered before the person died to let them know how important they were.
This death will continue to be news in the coming weeks, and little by little the story will burn out until a whole week goes by without any mention, then a month. Those close to Michael, especially his children, will hold their memories daily for a long time to come.
No doubt he had tremendous talent. No doubt he shared it with the world. And the world acknowledged his abilities with every record or ticket purchase made. All through his life as a performer, he received acknowledgement and praise for his work.
But many people in everyday life never hear that praise for their work and their life. When they die, people come to tell those who remain how important the deceased was to them. If we had any sense at all, we would tell each other every day how important we are to one another. Is that such a bad idea? Try it tomorrow. And maybe the day after as well.
June 23rd, 2009
Today my youngest son turned 20. As is our tradition, we ate out at the restaurant of his choice – a Japanese steak house. My wife and I along with our other son and his fiance. It was nice.
He is an interesting kid. I know all parents feel that way, or at least close to it. I can’t recall anyone ever saying that they had a rather uninteresting child. But as I watch him these days, I keep seeing the emerging adult, and he is quite unlike any young adult I’ve run across in recent years.
Like many his age, he recently changed his major and realigned his college plans accordingly. Music, while clearly a part of his personal core of skills, was not fun under deadlines and coursework. Making a living this way, he decided, would take the pleasure out of writing and making music. So on to another field; computer science.
Just before finals he had a particularly bad week, and ended up in the emergency room. Diagnosis: Type 2 Diabetes.
So with 5 weeks left in school, including finals, he had to make major adjustments to his eating and sleeping habits while trying to keep his blood sugar in reasonable control.
Diabetes is not an unusual condition, and learning to manage the disease is not too difficult. He took to the process quite well. There was only one problem. With each attempt to follow doctors suggestions his levels would improve for a few days, and then begin to rise again. So they changed his medication and the same process would happen again.
Once school was over and he could get to see our local physician, it was clear something was not right. That something was the original diagnosis – he is much more likely Type 1. Big difference, and different treatement involved.
He has been very frustrated by this. In retrospect, we should have recognized that the emergency room is no place to get a firm diagnosis. Their role is to get patients stable and then refer them as needed to other doctors for treatment. Since all this was taking place out of town, we followed the hospital recommended referral, a man who accepted the diagnosis of the emergency room physician. I imagine if my son had stayed there another couple of weeks, they too would have reached the conclusion that he had type 1.
I am grateful for the quality of the US health system, but if I had any sense at all I would recognize that the role of the ER is not to solve the problem, but to relieve the emergency.
Lesson learned. I hope.
June 14th, 2009
We moved to the Atlanta area in 2004. It was a work-related move. Part of what I now refer to as my 6-city tour. Six cities in 25 years. The most extended engagement was 8 years. All the moves were east of the Mississippi. And we have tended to like the south more as we have gotten older. Used to love the snow and cold, now we can’t imagine living in upstate NY, or Sandusky, Ohio. Well, maybe long enough to ride a roller coaster there.
Everyplace I’ve lived has had some good points and bad points. Pros and Cons. In Atlanta, the big one on the con side is traffic.
I live about 12 miles from where I work, and there are many routes I can take to get there. Enough options so I can change my route if there appears to be problems ahead. But it generally takes me as much time as my commute to work in Mobile, Alabama, where I lived 20 miles from work.
The first time I accepted a transfer, my methodical, you-gotta-have-a-plan engineering manager gave me his trusted guide for relocation. One of his standard steps was to choose potential neighborhoods, and when visiting the area take the drive from a house you like to your new workplace. In rush hour. An then do the same thing at the end of the workday.
It’s a good suggestion, and although I never followed it, I still recommend it as a consideration. I recommend it because if you spend four or five years at a location, and your drive is at least 30 minutes, then you will spend up to 1,000 hours commuting in that time.
But, with a family that is also being relocated, how to get the kids to school, soccer, dance and whatever can take precedence over drive time. In fact, that way of deciding has worked well for my family, and my engineer friend didn’t always think about that. If he had any sense at all, he might have, and he might have preserved his family.
Sometimes common sense is not about the numbers and simple logic. Sometimes we solve the wrong problem.
June 8th, 2009
There is a book with the same title as this entry. It explains how work can be done anywhere, and how US companies in particular have taken advantage of that fact. Outsourcing has replaced relocating in many cases. Outsourcing is the practice of contracting work to another firm who specializes in just that work. Relocating is the practice of shutting down plants and offices to rebuild them elsewhere, usually where labor costs are cheaper.
When I was younger and living in the midwest, car companies were just starting to expand into the south, and foreign competitors were building plants in the US as well. Older inefficient operations were replaced with more sophisticated equipment, and staffed with willing workers at a lower cost than the Detroit standards.
Lower cost has also pushed many repetitive tasks such as basic accounting and service desk work to areas with lower wages. The world is now flat. Information flows electronically around the world in seconds. Some work can be transferred literally anywhere in the world. As more work heads out of the US, to Mumbai, India for example, then the competition for labor there increases. Some of the outsourcing companies are finding that they must hire and train new people on a continuous basis. The cost advantage is going away.
If we had any sense at all, we would understand that this current cost advantage may slowly erode, and the opportunity to fix the issues at home, with our own workforce, will be gone. I hope to see the trend shift over the next 10 years, and that we bring some of that work back to the US workforce.
What do you think? Can we bring the work back, or is it gone forever?
June 4th, 2009
Among the many trends in management speak, the word “milestones” seems to be coming back in full force. I hear it most often in reference to those accomplishments that signify movement toward some larger objective. We are expected to reach certain milestones by certain dates in order to be confident we will reach the bigger goal.
On a personal level, there are many life events that are considered milestones, no matter when they happen. Graduations, for example, are marked with ceremony and family celebration. So are weddings. Birthdays are marked with a little less formality, probably because they come around every year without a conscious effort on our part. If we had any sense at all, we would mark each day as a milestone. Each day is a progression. Sometimes there are setbacks, sure, but we should be able to think of each day as an opportunity to get closer to our goal.
Do you know your next milestone?
Here’s a hint: If you don’t know what your next milestone is, it’s likely you don’t have a valued goal you are chasing.