Installment # 56

When the first laptop computers were introduced and provided to sales people, field engineers and executives by their companies, I naturally thought that was the height of waste – just a status symbol or a “perk” to make employees feel better about themselves.  I felt the same way about the BlackBerry (the first cell phones from which you could read and respond to emails remotely).  It was a status symbol for someone to reply remotely to your email, and the system included a remark at the end of the response that said something to the affect, “Replied from my BlackBerry,” or something.  To me that was either bragging or rubbing it in that they were important enough to have remote access to their email.

It is interesting to note the evolution of the common wrist watch.  First they were time pieces that men kept on chains and carried in a vest pocket; then they began to be worn on the wrist.  The early wrist watches needed to be rewound about once per week, similar to the way in which cell phones need to be recharged frequently these days.  We would tease someone who forgot to wind his watch and had to reset the time.  Eventually wrist watches were battery operated, with the battery needing to be replaced about once per year or less.  This was much more convenient.  Consumerism being what it is, wrist watches soon became fashion accessories and expensive status symbols.  While people like me wore functional watches that cost $50-75, the big shots wore Rolexes and similar brands, complete with diamonds and other imbedded jewelry that cost $20,000 or so.  All watches told time, but each watch made a different statement about the wearer.  A few years ago, I started not wearing a watch at all, because my cell phone showed me what time it was.  A lot of people are doing the same, and I guess the wrist watch industry is shrinking rather rapidly.

As another throwback, Traveler’s cheques (That is the way they are spelled here in the U.S. for some reason) were also central to any vacation travel in the days before ATMs and on-line banking.  The traveler would purchase traveler’s cheques at the local bank in a variety of denominations that were accepted as cash nearly everywhere.  The signature and I.D. system made it virtually impossible for someone to negotiate lost or stolen traveler’s cheques.  I remember a TV ad for traveler’s cheques ending with a very serious-looking Karl Maulden saying: “Don’t leave home without them.”  That must be another financial services sub-industry or business that has all but vanished.  I suspect I could still buy traveler’s cheques from Wells Fargo Bank, but the teller would surely ask me what I needed them for and offer me alternative banking services that made more sense.

I remember when gas stations were “full service,” meaning that the driver pulled up near a pump, rolled his window down, and told the attendant how much gas he wanted – either “fill it up,” or a certain dollar amount.  While the pump was in operation, the attendant would wash the windshield and usually the side mirrors and back window, and ask whether he should check the oil.  The attendants soon learned how to open the hood (“pop the hood”) and where to find the dip stick on every kind of car on the road.  He would report back to the driver whether he was a quart low or two quarts low, or whether it looked like it was time for an oil change.  I remember the conversations where drivers, eventually including myself, would assure the attendant that the car always ran one quart low, so not to top it off.  The older cars did, in fact, burn oil, whereas modern cars very seldom need to add oil between oil changes.  In another change, Self Serve pumps began to appear as an alternative to Full Service, with lower prices per gallon.  I think it was only about 10 cents per gallon cheaper, but that was all the incentive I needed to always head for (even wait for) the Self Serve pump. 

During a period of ten to fifteen years Self Serve pumps gradually outnumbered and finally totally replaced the Full Service pumps.  One of the marketing spokespeople explained that the industry had come to the realization that when a motorist pulls up to the pump, what he really wants is the freedom to drive his car and get to his destination.  He doesn’t want any “service” to speak of.  So whatever the gas station could do to facilitate that, while saving the motorist time and money, was what they wanted to do.  Now the motorist can wash his own windshield while the car is filling up; and he can use his credit card at the pump, instead of walking into the little store to pay the cashier.  Now we can gas up 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, whether the gas station is open or not, as long as we have a credit card.  Believe me, young people, it was not always that way!

I was still in public accounting when the first fax machines were introduced, so that would have been in the late 1970s.  (“Fax” is short for facsimile – a word that really wasn’t in our vocabulary prior to this).  The Company had one installed in a special little alcove where an operator could connect a coupling device from the telephone outlet into the side of the machine and try to get a connection with another company that also had one of these new-fangled things.  Very few companies (and no individuals) had fax machines; so until they did, ours was of little use.  To use it, you had to call your intended recipient, confirm that they had a working fax machine, get the phone number of their dedicated line, and tell them to turn on their machine.  There was a step-by-step set of instructions posted on the wall.  If there was a successful transmission the print out at the receiving end was on hot waxed paper that curled terribly.  We would do our best to uncurl the documents well enough to permit photocopying onto regular paper.  I was naturally scornful of the whole idea:  What if only a handful of the companies ever bought one?  Ours would be useless.  Since you have to phone them anyway to set up the transmission, why not just give them the information verbally, followed by hard copy in the mail? We had overnight delivery services via companies like FedEx.  If we just plan ahead, who needs these new fax machines?  Just another example of my progressive thinking (Not).

One way to look at it is that there is no guile in me.  I have no hidden agendas.  I don’t say things for affect.  (Not because I am above all that, but because it never occurred to me.)  The down side was that I never recognized when other people did operate that way (which was frequently).  Many, many times I went to meetings where the stated purpose of the meeting was to discuss certain issues and reach some decisions.  To me that meant we were to share our thoughts and contribute to the process...actually have a discussion.  It took me a long time to realize and accept the fact that meetings were really used to make it look like the leader was getting buy-in by virtue of the fact that nobody objected to the decisions he/she announced in the meeting.  When I would speak up it just made everyone uncomfortable and irritated the leader. One thing I noticed early on was the phrase, “With all due respect.”  It was usually followed by a criticism or objection.  To me, it was not at all clear how much respect, if any, the speaker thought was due, but for some reason it allowed him to make his point.  I sometimes heard the phrase said with heavy sarcasm, but it still worked.  I don’t think I have ever used that phrase.  I couldn’t see why it was valid.

Toward the end of my working career I was in the presence of the CEO of a small start-up company, and I recognized his rather unique name as the person who had been the CFO of probably the largest, most important client of the San Jose office of Arthur Young & Co when I worked there in the ‘70s.  In chatting I mentioned that, although I was not on the audit team for his company back then, I heard about a major client relationship issue stemming from a game of flag football between the audit team and his Finance team.  In flag football there is no tackling, so no protective gear is worn, but there is blocking.  The Partner and Manager of the audit team were very concerned about feedback they were getting to the affect that members of the audit team were being too rough on the football field, being unsportsmanlike, etc.   When I brought this up with the former CFO – who certainly would have been aware – he said, “Oh that must have been posturing.  There was no real issue.”  I know enough about the audit engagement process to know that there are ongoing negotiations, particularly between the CFO and the Audit Partner, regarding accounting issues and regarding fees.  Putting the audit partner on the defensive would help the CFO gain the upper hand in important negotiations.  That never would have occurred to me.

As another example, also late in my career, we were staying in San Diego with Kevin and Michelle and family while Kevin attended business meetings.  Once the official meetings were over, Kevin and Michelle took us to Disneyland, a two-hour drive north of where we were staying.  During the afternoon Kevin got a call from a business associate, asking if they could meet for dinner (I think it was “social,” if there is such a thing; I think it was with their wives).  I heard Kevin express surprise that the fellow was still in town and that if he had known, he would have planned to see him.  He then told him where we were and that if we got back to San Diego in time, he would call and they would have dinner together.  A little later I asked Kevin, “Don’t we need to get going, if you are going to meet that guy for dinner?”  Kevin looked at me with some surprise and explained that he was just saying that, and the guy knew he was just saying that.  Evidently, by saying what he said Kevin was showing the proper respect and consideration for the person and the relationship, and that person appreciated it.

Who knew?  I would never have figured that out.  You are being insincere; the other person knows you are being insincere, but you are strengthening the relationship by showing respect and placing importance on it, I guess.  Now I wonder whether the guy calling from San Diego knew that Kevin was with his family somewhere and would not be able to have dinner with him, but made the phone call just to show respect for Kevin – whether it was somehow “the right thing to do” in any case.  I confess this is all beyond me.  No wonder the corporate world made no sense to me.

I was reading about the historic meeting between President Roosevelt (FDR) and Joseph Stalin in November 1943 in preparation for the allied effort to stop Hitler and end WWII.  The narrator said that in the first words of their exchange FDR said to Stalin, “I have been trying for a long time to arrange this,” and Stalin said in reply, “I’m sorry, it is all my fault.  I have been preoccupied with military matters.”  The narrator then explained that in plain English FDR was saying, “Why have you been so difficult and mistrustful for so long?  Here I am, you see, under your very roof.”  And Stalin was saying, “We’ve been doing most of the fighting and dying, that’s why.”  Evidently this exchange took place via Russian/English interpreters, yet the two leaders understood these nuances.  Even in plain English I would only have heard it as preliminary pleasantries with no real meaning at all.

My economics education led me to see the employer/employee relationship in terms of tradeoffs.  It seemed to me that the “company” should try to get the most production as possible out of an employee for the least amount of money; and the employee should be naturally interested in earning the most money possible for the least amount of effort.  I couldn’t see how this dynamic could possibly create a comfortable, positive environment.  In practice I thought employees said and did things just to make it look like they had the company’s best interest at heart, when in reality they just wanted to maximize their paychecks.  Lacking guile, I did not even know how to play that game, let alone do it well.  The employer/employee relationship just didn’t make sense to me.

I remember how people would ask, “How was your vacation?” or on Monday mornings, “How was your weekend?”  I would be stumped.  How much detail did they want?  Why did they care?  After a time, people stopped asking, because I never asked them.  I never asked them because I didn’t care.  Why put them on the spot with a dumb question?  I have always been too literal.  People greet each other with, “How are you?” and respond with, “Fine; how are you?”  What did that mean?  What exchange of information just took place?  If I was glad to see someone, I would say, “Hi!  Good to see you!”  If I wasn’t glad to see them, I wouldn’t say that.  I had figured it out by the time a heard the lyrics of a Louis Armstrong song just a few years ago: “I see friends shaking hands, saying ‘How do you do?’  They’re really saying “I love you.”  Wow!  Who knew?

When someone refers to “an empty can of soda,” I do not correct them, but I can’t help think to myself that it is an empty soda can, not an empty can of soda.  You cannot literally have a can of soda that is empty.  It is a can of soda or, if it is empty, it is a soda can.  Most people would say, “Who cares?” to which I reply that even I don’t care; I just notice and am amused.  It is like the riddle: How much dirt is there in a hole with such and such dimensions?”  Answer: None.  There is no dirt in a hole.  I notice that most of us, me included, say “PIN number” or “ATM Machine.”  But the ‘N’ in PIN stands for “number,” and the ‘M’ in ATM stands for “machine.”  So we are being redundant, saying, in effect, “personal identification number number”, and “automated teller machine machine.”  I’ve learned to keep my thoughts to myself, but I learned the hard way by annoying people and receiving their feedback.  I was enjoying Walt Whitman’s famous life’s work, Leaves of Grass, when it occurred to me that the title makes very little sense.  We have leaves, and we have grass.  We can have a lawn with leaves on it, but leaves made of grass, or grass made of leaves?  What the heck does “leaves of grass” mean?

I just had a conversation with Sandy about my difficulty with a question she asks nearly every time I return from working out at the “Y”.  She asks, “How was the gym?” For simplicity I usually respond, “Good,” and she is happy with that.  But the other day I told her that I was at a loss to know what she was asking by “How was the gym?”  What did she really want to know?  It turns out (and I should have known) that she is wondering how crowded it was.  That is her first and often only comment to me when she comes home from the gym – whether it was crowded or not.  She goes very early in the morning (around 5:30am) in order to avoid the busier times, and I go whenever it fits my schedule.  It is so important to her to be able to get the machines she wants, when she wants them, and to get home by a certain time – not that she has any place she needs to be at any particular time.  I, on the other hand, have a variety of exercises I do, and just use whatever machine or station is available at the time.  If I have to wait, I go do some stretching or planks, or pull-ups or something.

Sometimes the parking lot is full, and I go park across the street and walk across.  So what?  Anyway, I guess my answer to “How was the gym?” needs to be related to how crowded it was, even though it doesn’t matter.  In fact, I want the “Y” to succeed and continue to serve more and more people in the community.  If anything, I am happier to see the parking lot full and lots of classes going on, than to see low usage and the possibility of a cut-back in programs or staff.  One of these times I should respond to “How was the gym?” with “Fine, how are you?” and see if she notices.  Maybe Louis Armstrong is right.

I’ve also chuckled to myself about what appears to be a general misunderstanding of the learning curve concept.  If you visualize a graph where the vertical axis measures the degree of mastery of job duties, and the horizontal axis represents time, a job that takes very little time to learn will have a steep curve.  We do not move very far to the right along the time axis before we arrive at or near the top level of mastery.  A simple job has a steep learning curve.  For example, a job on an assembly line can perhaps be learned in one day.  The job of a scientist probably takes years to learn.  More often than not I hear people refer to a difficult, complex job as having a steep learning curve, which is of course not what they mean.  They mean the opposite.  A little closer to accurate is when the expectation placed on a new employee is to learn a complex job as quickly as possible.  It is also described as needing to “hit the ground running,” or “get up to speed quickly,” which I have had to do often in my consulting career.  In such cases, “steep learning curve” refers to demands placed on the worker, not the nature of the work.

I was once introduced to the word “anomie” as referring to an individual’s inability to discern the norms of society.  Per the Internet, there are more elaborate and nuanced meanings.  But based on the definition I first learned, I have come to think of the word in connection with my difficulty, if not inability, to discern the norms of corporate life.  I was much more comfortable as a consultant/contractor than as an employee, and I spent more than half of my working life as such.  You work, you get paid; you don’t work you don’t get paid.  If you want to know whether you are appreciated, ask yourself: “Are they paying my invoices?”  “Are they asking me back to do more?”  I really hated the annual performance review system in employee situations, probably because I couldn’t “read between the lines” and receive the feedback I needed.  As preparer, I thought that being “brutally honest” was in the long-term best interest of the junior person.  I guess I thought they already knew what they did well; they needed to hear what they sucked at.  It took me a long time to realize that positive feedback, encouragement, appreciation, etc, was a much better approach than telling people what their faults were.

When I was trying to build my multi-level marketing business I watched certain downline people struggling to relate to people and to sponsor people.  One of our upline leaders said, “You can see their faults, but you can’t tell them directly, can you?”  I thought, “Why not?  It’s what they need to know!  Why not tell them?”  Ironically, on the few occasions that an upline tried to tell me what I was doing wrong, I felt that they did not understand me; that they were much different kinds of people than I was; that their input was off base at best.  It didn’t help the relationship, and it didn’t help me, because I wasn’t ready to hear it.  Somehow my reaction to criticism did not help me see that other people would receive my criticism similarly.