Archive by Author

You’re fired!

By on August 4, 2011 in Blue Collar Business, Leadership 2

Photo Credit: 28misguidedsouls

This isn’t a post on how to fire people. Frankly, I don’t feel I was any good at it. I didn’t believe in re-hashing old issues or bringing up new ones. I usually just handed them their last check and told them we were moving in a new direction. I certainly didn’t spring it on them over one issue so most weren’t surprised.

I will share one story with you where I feel I did it correctly and then explain why I’ve decided I was right.

This was during the early stages of owning my business. Probably the fall of 2005. I had put out the word through the local state employment office that I was looking to hire. Someone had applied with what I considered an adequate resume. He had been in charge of several family owned facilities. He was the head facilities manager and claimed to have done a little of everything including cabinet installation (our specialty). It was apparent after a couple of days on the job that he wasn’t as knowledgeable as he claimed and by Friday I printing up his check and sent him on his way. It didn’t go over so well with him as he felt I didn’t give him enough time to figure things out. We never give anyone new something too complicated. This gentleman couldn’t even trim out a window seat by himself. During the interview process I was given the impression his experience level was well beyond this task.

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Fly

By on August 2, 2011 in Let's Blog Off 7

Photo Credit: Photo Extremist

I grew up during the greatest era in sci-fi entertainment history.

Star Wars (the good ones, not the new garbage), Star Trek (Movies), Superman (Christopher Reeve), The Last Starfighter, Explorers and Close Encounters of the Third Kind just to name a few of the best.

From the earliest days that I can remember I’ve been fascinated with flying. I can remember A LOT of dreams where I was flying around my town. I can still remember the feeling in my stomach during these dreams as I was floating above everything. Many times I would go to bed believing I would dream of flying and many times it would happen. I can remember many hours where I wold lie in the grass looking up at the stars dreaming of having the ability to travel into deep space.

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Journal: Walk the edge

By on August 1, 2011 in My Journal 8

I’ll warn you right now that my journal entries will very likely have some faith based content from time to time. This entry is one of those.

It’s interesting how constantly dependent I am on God’s provision.

The community college that I’m attending is only about 20 minutes away. It serves a very large portion of the Missouri side of the Kansas City area. I’m receiving a Pell Grant for this upcoming year and I was excited that the Grant would cover twice of what the tuition was going to be. This would allow the college to cut us a check for the difference right before Christmas. Knowing that I was going to get a check right before Christmas was of great comfort. I would possibly be able to take a few days off from work and school at the same time.

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Sync Gmail contacts on iPhone

By on July 29, 2011 in Tech 0

In this tutorial I will show you how to best set up your iPhone to synchronize with Gmail. In this tutorial we will setup email through IMAP with contacts and calendar being setup with Exchange. This will result in two accounts being set up. When complete the iPhone will update Contacts and Calendar in real time exactly like an Exchange server. The email updates will be done via IMAP which incorporates more of the Gmail functions than the Exchange settings.

Please note that the procedure to set up your iPhone with Google Apps is identical.

To start simply enter the “Settings” area of your iPhone and navigate to the “Mail, Contacts, Calendar” menu. Choose “Add Account” and you should find the options listed below.

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Choose your words carefully

By on July 27, 2011 in General 8

Photo Credit: h.koppdelaney

“This is where I am”

“This is what I’m going through”

Can you hear the subtle difference between those two phrases? One seems to have a certain finality assigned to it. It’s an air of defeat.

Many are truly experiencing hard times right now. How well we fare will determine largely on our mindset.

Do we see our current circumstances as temporary or permanent?
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Journal: Self Discovery

By on July 25, 2011 in My Journal 13

The idea of a personal journal has always intrigued me. I’ve tried more than one time to start. It usually involved going to a book store or stationary store and picking up some form of note taking paraphernalia. I really do enjoy office supply stores so purchasing writing materials is always fun.

I get my new supplies home and look them over quite well over the next day or two. I take everything with me everywhere I go. Constantly pulling them out of whatever I’m currently using to haul all my stuff around. I may write a few words on a page or two but that’s as far as it goes. Before long, I just have another nice pen and notepad lying around.

I think the main reason I’ve struggled with journaling in the past is my lack of direction with it. I’ve never known what to focus my writing on. I haven’t had a plan or a thought-out schedule.
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Mama works

By on July 19, 2011 in Let's Blog Off, My Story 14

If another person asks me if my wife works, I may become violent.

For some strange reason our society feels this need to put women who work outside of the home and women who choose to work at home, managing a family, into separate categories.

The most obvious reason to do this, I would guess, is because the ‘stay-at-home-mom’ doesn’t take a check for her labor and a college degree is optional. This puts her into a category all her own. One that is quickly becoming harder for the world at large to completely understand.

I can’t speak for other moms, but today, I want to speak for my wife, Julie. The hardest working and least appreciated person I know.

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Let your staff be frustrated

By on July 14, 2011 in Leadership 2

Photo Credit: Marvin L

People get frustrated. Even if we have signed up for the trip, sometimes the trip can frustrate us and stress us out. It doesn’t mean that we don’t like the job or want to do it. Often it’s something outside of the norm that we either don’t have a lot of experience doing or just don’t enjoy.

As the leader in your organization is your job to help your staff work through these tough situations. Often your staff just needs someone to hear them out. Someone who will help them work through the frustration.

Here’s a hint. Pad answers such as, “It’s your job, just do it!” or “Hey, you should have my job!” will only frustrate your team members even more.

Let’s pull a scene from a popular movie (as I’m oft to do).

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I’m Bored

By on July 12, 2011 in General 16

“I’m bored”

“There’s Nothing To Do”

Photo Credit: plasticrevolver

There isn’t a parent in America that hasn’t heard those words. Julie and I are starting to hear them a lot. Our oldest daughter is thirteen and it’s getting harder and harder to keep her occupied during the summer. We don’t do a lot of TV and video games around our house. We have those things but we do a pretty good job of keeping them down to a minimum. Besides, our thirteen-year-old has never been very entertained by TV and video games anyway. We don’t let her wander around town all day long with her friends.

We’ve put out the word that she’s available for baby sitting but I’ll admit that we are kind of strict as to whos house she is going to hang out at for an entire day. This keeps the baby sitting gigs down pretty low.

The sad thing is that she is ready to get some kind of a job and she can’t. When I was thirteen and fourteen I was already working for my dad building cabinets. It was perfectly legal at the time and perfectly healthy for me. It was safe too. I didn’t use any dangerous equipment. I just assembled drawers and sanded cabinets.
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The trap of attention

By on July 7, 2011 in My Story 2

Photo Credit: batmoo

Attention.

There isn’t anyone in the world that doesn’t like it. We want to be noticed for what we do, good or bad. If it gets us attention we will stick with it.

As I’m working in the mental health field as a nurse I see all kinds of people who will do some terrible things to maintain the attention of others. Self harm and hurting others are just two most obvious examples of this. Unsafe relationships and affairs both can be the result of attention.

The same thing can happen with an online business. You can use stats as justification to continue on your current path. Stats are helpful and very useful. They can be your guide on what to write about and what types of products and services are of interest to your followers.

They can also serve to give you a false sense of hope. A new twitter follower here, a new Facebook ‘like’ there. You can feel the momentum picking up. RSS subscribers grow and you get a few ‘ye-haw’ emails and turn around to your “fill in the blank” and tell them that you are almost there!

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