Tag Archives: work - Page 2

Mai Ties

Posted by on April 14, 2015 No comments

This is a post about my tie collection.  Yeah, another post about collections.  No one cares – always remember that when talking about your collections.  However, you shouldn’t mistake curiosity for caring.  I can imagine that some people would be curious to see someone’s collection of something, even if they don’t share the same enthusiasm.

Anyway, ties to me were always an afterthought.  I went to a Catholic high school (which was more like a country club with as little learning that happened there), and we were expected to dress up with button-down shirts and ties.  Being teenagers, only about 2% took the dress code seriously.  I was part of the population that didn’t really understand the significance of dressing properly, so I just went through the motions.

Back in those days, ultra-skinny leather ties were in fashion, but they didn’t get worn often because of the dreaded “tie-torqueing” personal attack.  When yanked by an attacker, the leather ties would knot up so tight, they sometimes had to be cut off.  My dad had taught me the full Windsor knot, which proved to be untorqueable, but came with the disadvantage that it was a massive knot.  Once I learned the Four-in-Hand knot, I never looked back.

Knit ties were also in fashion then, and recently I have seen a small resurgence of them, but knit ties really aren’t making a permanent comeback.  They are more like a novelty tie, which is fine with me.  I only have a couple in my collection.

I’ve recently been attracted to ties in non-traditional fabrics, i.e. not silk.  Linen, cotton, polyester, and even velvet have made it into my collection.  I also like non-traditional shapes, like squared-off ends and I have one that I call a “razor” that has a single-angle end.  That one gets compliments when I wear it.  A couple of my ties are event-specific, like a red/white/blue/stars tie for July 4th or maybe Memorial Day.  The velvet tie just screams Christmas time.  My collection is evenly weighted between wide- and narrow-width ties, but most all of my recent purchases have been slim ties.

For me, the why of collecting ties is primarily the recognition.  I always used to have four ties, give or take, that were used only for job interviews and funerals.  But when some people at my workplace suggested “Tie Tuesday” to balance out the everyday casual attire, I joined in.  And that’s when my tie collection started blooming.  I’ve mentioned it before.  People notice when you are dressed above the norm.  But you can’t do it every day, because that then becomes your norm.

As far as cost goes, ties can be a really cheap accessory that adds a lot of style value.  I don’t ever pay more than $15 for a tie, and the ones that are usually $30+ at stores are not even the fashion I like.  They are more business-suit, power-executive ties.  Likewise with tie clips and tacks – you don’t have to spend more than $20 for one.  Of course, once you start getting serious, you will need a tie rack.  I started with a combo tie/belt rack that had maybe eight posts to hang ties.  I’ve since upgraded to a 24-post tie rack for less than $10.  In the same way I limit the clothes I own to the number of hangers I have, I will limit myself to the number of ties my rack will hold.  It won’t be long before I have to start recycling.

So, without further adieu, here are the ties:

dsc_0682_cr-medium “The Razor”
Kenneth Cole

This one gets a lot of attention.  I found it at a discount store and have never seen one like it since.

 dsc_0683_cr-medium “Color Flash”
Little Black Tie

This was a nice gift from the GF.  It works well with my black or my aqua shirt.  The tie is black, but the end piece is a contrasting color that “flashes” when you move.
dsc_0684_cr-medium “The 80’s”
Sero

This one is heavy 80’s with a really big, loose stitch.  I think the low clearance price is the only reason I got it.

 dsc_0685_cr-medium “Red Velvet”
Original Penguin

This is red velvet.  It’s a bit thick and has limited potential, but it will rock when the holidays come around.
dsc_0686_cr-medium “They Said I Had To Wear a Tie”
Dan Smith

This one is a polyester print.  The pattern is cool and could probably be used at a youngster party.  Definitely “phoning it in” as far as style goes.  I use this a lot to practice knots because it’s thin and slick.

 dsc_0687_cr-medium “Dark Marble”
Unknown Brand

This 80’s tie has a nice, tight knit and the red and blue color variations in it match up well with rich, dark shirts.
dsc_0688_cr-medium “The Southwestern”
BDG. (maybe?)

This is one of my favorite ties and another gift from the GF.  It’s linen, with a nice pattern and shape.  It comes undone easier than most ties.  Works good with Oxford shirts.

 dsc_0689_cr-medium “The Suit”
Calvin Klein

This blue tie is made of suit jacket material and is part of CK’s Steel series.  It’s like wearing a suit jacket when you’re not wearing a jacket.
dsc_0690_cr-medium “The Distinctive”
Original Penguin

This tie is a mix of polyester, silk, and cotton.  The fabric has a unique look and feel that catches your attention.  The color scheme works with a lot of shirts.

 dsc_0691_cr-medium “Understated”
Buffalo

This 100% cotton tie is probably going to be 100% rumpled.  But I think that’s its charm.  It’s not pompous or power-tie feeling and the neutral color could go with lots of shirts.
dsc_0692_cr-medium “My Eyes!”
T. Edwards

This is an old-school tie for me, back when the purpose of wearing a tie was to be obnoxious.  It comes out when it needs to.

 dsc_0693_cr-medium “New Start”
Jerry Garcia

This was the first tie I bought when I became re-interested in wearing ties. It started a J. Garcia brand mini-obsession.
dsc_0694_cr-medium “From the Past”
Arrow

Some of the ties from my youth I have no idea where they came from or how I acquired them.  I keep this around because the color and pattern works with so many shirts.

 dsc_0695_cr-medium “Jolly Roger”
Merona

I found this one at Target on clearance and since I’m into computers and you know, pirates and all…  It’s a moderate conversation starter.
dsc_0696_cr-medium “On Black”
Jerry Garcia

I wanted this tie to wear with a black shirt for the massive contrast.  It did not disappoint.  It also got a direct compliment, so, success!

 dsc_0697_cr-medium “The Parent’s Tie”
KETCH

This is another silk tie from my long past.  Probably a more traditional (meaning, old person) pattern.
dsc_0698_cr-medium “Ocean”
Jerry Garcia

Blue is my first choice in colors, so this tie really called to me.  I don’t wear it often enough.  This is when I stopped buying J. Garcia ties because it was getting too predictable.  I needed more variety.

 dsc_0699_cr-medium “Just Silver”
Nicole Miller

I was really attracted to the shine and smoothness of this tie, but I think I’ve only worn it once.  It’s too thick.
dsc_0700_cr-medium “Old Balls”
Ottimo Uomo

Who knows how I got this tie.  It’s old-school silk and has a design I like a lot: abstract modern.  It’s really old, though.

 dsc_0701_cr-medium “God Bless Murca”
Jerry Garcia

Even though I’d stopped buying J. Garcia ties, this one was cheap on clearance and it would be good for American holidays.  I have yet to remember to wear it.
dsc_7123_cr-medium “Oxford”
Van Heusen Studio

This tie is a super-thin, light cotton tie.  Like the Suit Jacket tie, this one is like wearing an Oxford shirt when you are not.  It adds a casual feel to a dress shirt, similar to “Understated”.

 dsc_7124_cr-medium “Vibrant”
Van Heusen Studio

Another super-thin tie, this one in silk.  It has a bold, deep blue color and modern pattern + accents.  Worn against a white shirt, it demands attention.  Against a dark shirt, the pattern becomes the focus.
dsc_7125_cr-medium “The Suit II”
Calvin Kline

This tie is similar to “The Suit”, although it is not in CK’s Steel series.  It’s a silk blend tie with blue/grey/black colors.  It has a semi-iridescent sheen to it which makes it “pop”. Bought on clearance with an included tie clip, for less than the cost of a tie clip.

    

“This” Is Not Good.

Posted by on April 2, 2015 No comments

I write Windows software for a living and as a hobby.  When Windows 8 came out and they introduced the new Metro/Modern app paradigm, I was unconvinced.  I never investigated why I felt that way, but I felt so strongly about it that I didn’t even want to invest the time to figure it out.

I’ve recently had another burst of motivation to get certified in my programming skills, and the training I’ve been studying involves these new-style apps.  For a while, I was interested, but then as I saw and learned more, I got less interested.

I think the same reason I dislike the modern apps is the same reason I don’t use any apps on my phone.  And that’s not surprising since they are essentially the same thing.  The problem I have with the apps is they operate in a singular focus at all times.  You start at a high level, you dive in, then you back out and do it again.  The bottom line is, this will not work for nearly all business applications and it won’t work for many productivity applications.

The official training is as much marketing as it is instructional, and I understand that.  As a developer, you have to sell the reasons for creating an application in a certain way.  One of the marketing themes is that the user should be “immersed” in the application.  There should be no chrome and no distractions.  I don’t see how this squares up with business data, which is primarily a collection of relations.

In a business app, you can have an “Order”.  But that order has a related customer and products.  That customer has a related company and contacts and previous purchases, and each of those products has related inventory, cost information, purchase history, and so on.  How can you “immerse” the user in an “Order”?  If the user then wants to see the customer information, now you have to immerse the user in a “Customer”, despite the context that the focus is still an Order and you are viewing the Customer in the context of that Order.  Ditto with viewing any Product Details.

And I think that’s the part that bothers me to the point that I can’t even begin to want to understand it.  A Modern app feels like, “You are working on this. *click* Now you are working on this.  Do not think about what you were working on, this is what you are working on.”  In fact, the immediacy of “this” sums up my dislike of Modern apps.

When Windows 10 was previewed, I was excited that Modern apps could be run in windows instead of full-screen.  It didn’t dawn on me at the time that windowed Modern apps didn’t fix the root problem that the application itself was single-screen.  Even if you think about a lowly web application, even they can open pop-up windows.  And by that, I mean real windows, not just frames in the main window.

It all just feels like trying to sell a limitation as “the best way”.  We can’t do something that way, but that’s not important, because this is the best way to do it.  It’s similar to a situation I have at work on the application I help write.  The user can’t have more than one screen open at a time because of the way the form controls talk to the parent form.  It doesn’t have to be that way, but the early developers didn’t know how to do it correctly, so this limitation was created.  Now it’s considered best for the user to only be able to have one screen open at a time.

Get More

Posted by on March 27, 2015 No comments

Many months ago, I had come across a book, The Four Hour Work Week, and I was quite unimpressed by it and its author.  Recently, a blogger that I follow read the book and was advocating for it.  Not for the processes in the book exactly, but more along the line of “getting your due.”

My personal employment situation is different than both the Four Hour author and this blogger.  I work for a company and I develop and maintain their internal software.  I’m not a consultant, so the blog author’s primary arguments about “you are paid $50/hr, but your employer gets paid $150-$300/hr for the work you do” don’t resonate with me.  Even so, I have held those jobs in the past, so I know what it’s about.

I know myself well enough to say, I’m not cut out for running a business.  I know because I’ve tried.  There’s a lot involved.  The blogger says that for the difference in what you get made vs what you could potentially make, you could hire the people that can make it happen for you.  Not a salesperson?  Hire one.  Not an accountant?  Hire one.  And I guess you could keep justifying that a lot.  After all you’re making 3-6x what you were making before.

At least you’d be making that much if you were perpetually busy.  Scott Adams recent book has a very wise observation that there is an upper bound on what you can make if your income is dependent on your labor.  And that’s the upper bound.  There is no lower bound. And when you start from scratch, you don’t have the luxury of a backlog of work and pay.

Bottom line is you have to be of the entrepreneur mold.  And there shouldn’t be anything wrong with not being of that type.  You should still be able to be successful by being the best you can be in your field.

With that position – my position – stated, I must say that I believe the teachings of the “four hour work week” are detrimental for young workers.  If you find this works for you, then you are already that type of person.  I don’t believe just anyone can become “that person”.  I know I couldn’t live with myself like that.  I’ve also learned in my time that I don’t want to be associated with people like that.

Which then brings me back to my inner conflict with a blogger I enjoy reading.  I guess I need to wish him well, because everyone has to find their own way.  My way has worked well for me.  Could I have more?  Probably.  Would I also have more stress in my life?  Probably.  Would I trade more money for more stress?  Absolutely not.

The Efficiency Of Procrastination

Posted by on March 23, 2015 No comments

Today is a Monday, both literally and figuratively.  I left on Friday with something on my work plate and a clear plan as to what was needed when I came back in today.  Nothing went as planned.

The project I was working on was a final push on a task that had been dragging out for months and months.  It was an integration with another company. The dev on the other side and I were really dragging our feet on it.  But management was having no more of that, so we both got told to make it happen in a week.  I knew I didn’t have much to do in this, so I agreed right away.  That’s when I made my plan of what I needed to do.

I arrived this morning and got to work.  Preparing to do my initial smoke test, I fumbled around, because I hadn’t looked at the code in well over a month and wasn’t sure what steps needed performed for a successful service call.  After half an hour of research, I figured it out.  That is, I figured out it wasn’t complete.  In fact, it was fairly incomplete.  All the testing I’d done up to that point was manually faked.

So, I did what I normally do when I’m put up against the wall – I made a list of what must be done.  The list was short, but wasn’t pretty.  I had to get other people involved with some steps, so my “oversight” might be noticed.  And some was just some tedious coding.

Then, I wasted no time and got to work.  Within an hour, I had everything done that I could get done and now had to wait on someone else to do something for me.  And as I wait, I write this entry… (this isn’t procrastinating, btw)

I read a quote recently that was something like, “Procrastinators can make a 15 minute task last 8 hours and can do 8 hours of work in 15 minutes.”  Precisely.  I just did it.  Why didn’t I do it earlier?  It might have been the feeling that came over me today when I realized I wasn’t done.  Before I made the bullet list of work to do, I started thinking of what needed done and started second-guessing myself, wondering if that was really the best course of action.

It’s a problem I face regularly.  When you know so many different ways to accomplish something, you can have trouble choosing which one to do.  Everything has pros and cons, so you can talk yourself into (or out of) any choice you make.  So you enter what is termed analysis paralysis.  And you procrastinate, because if you make no decision, you haven’t made the wrong decision.

But, when it comes down to the wire, you have to make a choice and run with it.  And usually, you will find it is a workable solution.  If anything is horribly wrong with it, you can fix it then.

In Recognition

Posted by on March 19, 2015 No comments

There’s a job that is pretty well underrated in the modern age and it needs a little more promotion.  That job is: Lifeguard.  When you read that word, what’s the first image that came to mind?  A person sitting in a high chair beside a pool or on a high deck at the beach?  Just sitting there all day?  Maybe yelling at people every once in a while?  Sounds like an easy and/or boring job.  Anyone could do it, right?

If your lifeguard is not doing anything at your local swim area, be grateful.  That means you have a community that is educated in water skills and water safety.  But, there are many places where this is not the case.  In my area, where people come on vacation to go to the water, it’s painfully obvious that water skills don’t come naturally.  And that is why you need lifeguards.

A lifeguard is not just someone who likes to swim.  A lifeguard is not even just someone who can pull another person out of the water.  Lifeguard certification consists of many specific saving techniques – ones that EMTs and Paramedics might not even know.  There are precise ways to handle different emergency situations and skills that must be honed to perfection to avoid causing additional injury to a victim.  A lifeguard is an emergency first responder and is essentially an ambulance in the water.

There is another element of being a lifeguard that elevates them above EMTs. (You wouldn’t think this to be the case, but it is.)  When an ambulance is called and an EMT is sent to an accident scene, the damage is already done.  The EMT can only keep things from getting worse.  In the role of lifeguard, there is the opportunity to stop an accident from even happening in the first place.  Lifeguards are trained to identify signs of distress and trouble and can respond before anything bad happens.  Of course, this can be completely underappreciated, since the person being saved wasn’t in desperate need of assistance yet.

So the specialized skills of a lifeguard are beyond those of an EMT because an EMT is too late to the scene to help.  If that isn’t impressive enough, consider what “late” means to a lifeguard: 20 seconds.  Can you look out into a crowd of people, identify someone having problems and get to them in 20 seconds?  And if you think that any good swimmer could be a substitute for a certified lifeguard, consider some of these.

Could you save a a struggling person without being drowned yourself?  The victim isn’t trying to kill you and it’s nothing personal, it’s just self-preservation.  Could you save a person with an injury without causing further injury?  What if it was the neck?  What if it was the spine?  How long can you do CPR?  You don’t stop until the ambulance gets there.  How are you with heat?  You’re in the sun for a long time.

Lifeguards are not beach bums and they are not Baywatch.  They are trained professionals who save lives when needed and prevent bad situations from becoming disasters.  They will be the ones who are first on the scene for emergency assistance, whether for cuts, broken bones, jellyfish stings, choking or even drowning.  You may never see one in action, for which you should be grateful, but don’t discount the level of safety they provide.

I am almost always fascinated by trade magazines, because they illustrate how serious and passionate people are about their individual profession.  For example, at my first jobs working at pizza shops, the store would have a subscription to Pizza Today.  Yes, there was plenty going on in that industry, with techniques and technology to keep up on.  So, check out Aquatics Intl and get an appreciation of a lifeguard’s world.  They take it seriously and there is constant education and training happening there as well.

The One Minute Manager Synopsis

Posted by on February 2, 2015 No comments

After reading the book, which was an extremely quick read, maybe half an hour, I figured I ‘d make a few quick notes to keep the ideas in my head.

The three main things the technique tries to instill are: 1-minute goal settings, 1-minute praisings, and 1-minute reprimands.  Obviously, the one minute thing isn’t literal, but it is all meant to be quick and not dragged out.

Some of the details of the story stuck with me, and some raised further questions.  For example, there is a lot of stress on the idea that a worker has clear goals and it is their job to do them.  If that worker doesn’t know how to accomplish a task, who do they turn to?  I thought it would be the manager, because the manager should know everything that is going on in the department.  But the manager doesn’t want to be doing the job of his workers, that is a drain on his efficiency.  There is the weekly meeting where everyone describes their current progress and roadblocks.  That may be where issues get raised and assignments made to resolve them.

Some things don’t sit all that well with me.  It doesn’t seem very useful for a “working” manager – one who has things of their own to do in addition to managing people below them.  The book never talks about that.  The manager is always available, never has clutter, never seems to be doing anything.  But maybe that’s the trick, to delegate everything.  If one of your goals is to create a report of how successful your department is, do you assign that task to another person to do?

One part of me says that this is correct.  A manager should do nothing but manage the people and tasks and make sure the work gets done.  Another part of me says that it’s not enough and wouldn’t be very fulfilling.

The book also doesn’t discuss how much time a manager must spend in meetings.  The story always has the manager fully available, except for one team meeting.  Surely this manager must have superiors and peers at his level.  What about that time?

FML (Failure: My Learning)

Posted by on January 22, 2015 No comments

I read a book recently: How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams.  It’s a good book and has made me think about things I do and has led to some behavioral changes already.

One of the things it made me think about was how I learn.  There’s a common saying when discussing different teaching methods that people learn in different ways.  They say some learn by hearing, some by reading, and some by doing.  In my particular case, I learn by doing.  But more importantly, I learn by failing.

For a very common personal example, when I am learning programming, it’s not enough for me to duplicate an example from a book and see it in action.  I will usually make the example my own – renaming variables, eliminating some pieces I feel are extraneous, and so on.  If it doesn’t work, great!  If it still works, I keep tweaking it until it breaks.  Then I begin the process of understanding why it doesn’t work.

To me, the how isn’t as important as the why.  I have the need to understand what the important parts are, so when I am creating my own version, I know what is flexible and what is not.  Or when I am looking at other’s broken code, I can focus on the important parts.  I think this is an important part of understanding.  I say many times that if something works perfectly the first time, you haven’t learned anything from the exercise.  Failing is a very important part of my learning process.

This sort of means I am suited to do more creative work.  I mean, I would be a pretty poor doctor (even though I am a great troubleshooter).  More like Dr. House, I would have to nearly kill each patient until I figured out what the proper solution was.  It also means I’m pretty damn poor at math.  My approach to solving a math problem is to start with a formula with known working inputs and output, then test it with many different inputs and verify that the output is as I want.  This is why I don’t do game programming.

Ask No Questions, Get No Answers

Posted by on December 30, 2014 No comments

I performed a brief social experiment today that gave me some surprising, and yet unsurprising, results.

At work, our break room has a TV.  And during break time, invariably, someone wants the TV to be going.  Sometimes, it’s HGTV, or sometimes sports, and one time, it was Jerry Springer.  Since I’m not a fan of TV in general, I’m annoyed.

Today, with no one around, I changed the TV to a dead channel.  I thought that would annoy other people.  I speculated that someone would immediately grab the remote and change the channel.  Instead, people just assumed the cable was out and didn’t even try to change it.  Some people were mocking the cable company, some people speculated that it was the weather.  No one ever looked to see if any other channels worked.

I like this and may do it often in the future.

Gas Runners

Posted by on November 3, 2014 No comments

A few days ago, I was driving home and saw a couple of gas stations with different gas prices.  The one station’s prices were “cash only”.  It got me thinking about a couple of things.  First off, I thought that there isn’t any incentive to go to a cash-only station if the prices are practically the same.  I wondered if it was a desperate concession for the station owner to implement surcharges for credit cards.  This led me to consider gas stations as a whole business.

With any business, you have income and expenses.  You can play with these elements in any possible way to create profit, that is, more income than expenses.  When you are selling gas, you have one income source – gas sales.  You would have many, many expenses – licenses, maintenance, labor, taxes, utilities, and on and on.  One of those expenses would be credit card processing fees.  Like I said, play with these sources to create profit.  Eliminate CC fees and you may make a profit, or more of a profit.

With larger gas stations – ones with integrated convenience stores – you would have multiple sources of income, including food/merchandise sales and possibly lottery ticket sales commissions.  Your other expenses may go up too, but we all know that buying anything from a convenience store is not the cheapest choice.  You are paying dearly for the convenience.

So, by having the C-store, your profits from one sector can offset the expenses from the other.  You can absorb the CC fees because your C-store sales are subsidizing them.  This made me wonder how gas stations could even survive without solid c-store sales.  Maybe this is why they have to sacrifice CC processing.

So now, on to my idea.  You have a gas station with customized gas pumps.  The pumps have a large touchscreen that performs as a kiosk.  After you swipe your card to activate the pump, the screen allows you to purchase items in the store.  Within the store are one or more “runners” that will pick and run the items out to you at the pump.  That’s it.  A simple idea.

But more than just simple, this is an improved form of convenience – you don’t even have to go inside the store.  You don’t have to run your credit card twice – your gas and purchases are combined on one receipt.  The store doesn’t even have to be customer-accessible.  It could be optimized for quick-picking.

The ordering kiosk software could remember people by their credit card numbers and provide frequent, recent, and favorite item lists to choose from.  As with everything modern now, you could tie it to an online profile where the customer could review purchases and create lists of favorite items to be shown on their next visit.

If you haven’t determined it by now, this is how a small station could compete with a large C-store.  You have the extra income stream of the merchandise sales, but a much lower overhead of running a large store, including maintenance, taxes, cleaning, utilities, and more.  And, in some ways, the service level would be higher.  With so many people in a rush, saving the time of going in, shopping, and standing in line to pay (again), all that time is saved.

Stranded

Posted by on July 25, 2014 No comments

Today, I got in my car to go to work today and I took note of the gas gauge.  I have enough to get to work and I can get gas at lunchtime.  So I head off to work.  Out on the interstate, there’s an accident.  Great.  Still doing good on gas, though.

It was a delay of about 10 mins.  I’ll be fine.  I decide to stop for breakfast.  At the Dunkin Donuts just down the road from my office, I get out of the car and something immediately feels odd.  Just as I realize what it is and my hand moves to my pocket, I have a flashback of the previous night.

I’m leaving my office and heading to bed and I look down at my desk.  I say to myself, “I have to remember my wallet tomorrow morning.  It’s not in its usual place.”

It’s still there on the desk.  How am I going to get breakfast?  Lunch?  Gas?  I have to go back and get it.  But I’m going to be late for work, like almost 2 hours late.  Nevermind, I’ll have to deal with that when I get back.

I jump back in my car and it hits me.  I don’t have enough gas to get back home to get my wallet.  My mind starts racing trying to figure out how to resolve this.  My only option is to continue to work and borrow some money to get me back home.  But what a ridiculous reason.

Ridiculous or not, that is what I did.  I went to my boss and explained the whole situation and he lent me the money to get the gas to get home and get my wallet.  I have a real issue accepting help from other people, so I took this a little harshly.