http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/10/AR2005091001053...
Thought this might be interesting for those of you who care. Current doctrine pending approval by Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld dictates that the pre-emptive nuclear strike option is now open.
Did you know…that even when people are being recorded…and they know it…they will still continue to swear profusely if you’re not doing what they want?
Also, where does a person get off calling someone “f-ing white trash” when you see that they have two unpaid accounts work in excess of $400 each?
I head the c-word today for the first time with a British accent used.
I was also called a variety of other names for other parts of the female genitalia. To round off the list, a couple co-workers called me a boob.
Bless them. It’s the only thing that brings me through a day on days like this.
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/09/09/D8CGV9L8A.html
Remember the Nevada woman that sued fast food restaurant Wendy’s because she found a finger in their chili?
Yeah. She recently pleaded guilty in that case.
We’ve all heard of frivolous lawsuits that have become more prevalent as of late, but this one seemed extraordinarily ridiculous to me. Maybe it’s the amount of people that I have spoken to on a daily basis that says that they are going to complain to [insert government agency here] or the better business bureau or their attorney that seem to do so, most of the time, frivolously so.
Okay, I’m using that word too much. And, let me go back a bit.
People speak to the receivables management department to pay—or try to get out of paying—their bills. Sure, there is that group of people that are honest and probably very decent; however there is also the group of people that give most other people a bad name.
“Well, at least my bill gets paid on time.”
Want to know a secret? I don’t care. This is still a material breach of your contract. Insinuating that you somehow have a right otherwise is ludicrous. Do these people really think they have a leg to stand on when they go complain to their attorney or the government about thinking it’s unfair that we suspend or cancel their service because they haven’t brought their account balance current for 60, 90, or more days? Heck, if I were the presiding authority over half of these peoples’ concerns, I would just laugh and cite two words:
Personal responsibility.
So, yes, viewed through my job the world looks like it’s going to heck in a hand basket: The kinds of people that try to pull their shenanigans on me and my colleagues are the kinds of people that try to sue everyone and anyone that they get their hands on.
People that pull these things…need to be smacked with a newspaper: A big one.
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/09/09/D8CGV9L8A.html
Remember the Nevada woman that sued fast food restaurant Wendy’s because she found a finger in their chili?
Yeah. She recently pleaded guilty in that case.
We’ve all heard of frivolous lawsuits that have become more prevalent as of late, but this one seemed extraordinarily ridiculous to me. Maybe it’s the amount of people that I have spoken to on a daily basis that says that they are going to complain to [insert government agency here] or the better business bureau or their attorney that seem to do so, most of the time, frivolously so.
Okay, I’m using that word too much. And, let me go back a bit.
People speak to the receivables management department to pay—or try to get out of paying—their bills. Sure, there is that group of people that are honest and probably very decent; however there is also the group of people that give most other people a bad name.
“Well, at least my bill gets paid on time.”
Want to know a secret? I don’t care. This is still a material breach of your contract. Insinuating that you somehow have a right otherwise is ludicrous. Do these people really think they have a leg to stand on when they go complain to their attorney or the government about thinking it’s unfair that we suspend or cancel their service because they haven’t brought their account balance current for 60, 90, or more days? Heck, if I were the presiding authority over half of these peoples’ concerns, I would just laugh and cite two words:
Personal responsibility.
So, yes, viewed through my job the world looks like it’s going to heck in a hand basket: The kinds of people that try to pull their shenanigans on me and my colleagues are the kinds of people that try to sue everyone and anyone that they get their hands on.
People that pull these things…need to be smacked with a newspaper: A big one.
In the course of my days some are extraordinarily great, some are extraordinarily bad, while some are just extraordinary. However, on occasion, my days are normal. What does a normal day consist of, however? Let me enlighten you into my wonderful world.
Typically my work shift runs from about 11:30 am to 8:30 pm. However, I typically arrive around 11:15 am and do not leave until 9 pm. Throughout my day I will typically field an average of about 30 calls—either advice calls on any number of issues from representatives or escalated calls from customers in hopes of resolving an issue that the customer has regarding any number of issues regarding payment of their account. Between calls I typically am working on two to five projects by my own initiative or assigned by my immediate supervisor. My colleagues and I are also asked for advice or account analysis by any member of the supervisory or management teams. I am consistently relied upon by all levels of the organization to provide timely and accurate advice and guidance on any number of subjects drawing on any number of disciplines.
Examples of projects that I have initiated are front-end/GUI, some back-end work, and algorithm development for any number of “trackers:” applications that quantify various metrics of job performance throughout a representative’s work day. So far our trackers have been made to measure and allow the user to evaluate agent performance metrics at both the agent and supervisor/team lead levels; also, to monitor compliance—how closely a representative adheres to their schedule (agents not adhering to their schedules is one of the biggest losses of income for a call center, if not the biggest) and generate account notations.
I say “we” and “our” because these are, by no means, individual efforts. It just takes one to be able to pull a group of people together towards a common purpose. The real way many of these things started is my primary partner in these creations getting an idea from someone and creating a proof-of-concept for that idea or developing the idea more. Between us we develop the back-end and the front-end of the code, test the alpha version amongst ourselves, work out the kinks, and send the beta version out to a team of dedicated beta testers. Over the course of our pre-established beta run any glitches are remedied, user feedback is used to add requested features to the applications, and we finally go gold.
Aside from this I am responsible for site-level and team-level reports for collections metrics for one line of business at the site, encompassing nearly 200 actively collecting agents on a weekly basis. I have also been on teams reporting on attrition and retention opportunities, sent to other call centers to teach receivables management and system use, and developing a more user-friendly database produced from the larger knowledge base that not only encompasses departmental methods and procedures, but also attempts to limit the number of transfers to another department by increasing representative’s capabilities of assisting with customer care-style issues. With this I have been able to gain the assistance of 4 additional people. I would not be able to accomplish this project on time without their critical assistance and input.
Recently, my team underwent a transformation: Many interim positions were eliminated and made permanent, with some permanent positions added. Some people in the "old guard" were replaced, some stayed, and the general feel and mix of personalities changed to create, essentially, a "new guard." WIth this new guard, there are less than a handful of people that, it seems, have been setting the standards for the rest of the team. My good friends S.J. and Cliff are two of them. I didn't realize that I was one until today when another good friend of mine, Joy confided in me that she felt that she should offer to take on maintenance of the primary application that we use in Resolutions to keep track of the calls that we take. When she, mostly in jest, scolded me for this after I implied that it might be my fault, it hit me. I had been an impetus for the standards of this new guard.
This work often encompasses much of my break time and also ensures that my lunches typically aren’t full ones.
Don’t think, however, for a moment that I am complaining. I love every minute of it. Why? This is what I’ve prepared myself for several years and my theory that my application of them in an actual cube land-style workplace is getting me far. One day while I was trying to find business insurance for the CEO of the company I was working for at the time, the lady I was speaking with said that she was extremely impressed with my business acumen and stated that I should “give [myself] a chance and try to get a job in a bigger city.” They say that the harder you work, the luckier you get.
I don’t care who you are, all it takes is adherence to a finite number of principles and you, too, can get far in the workplace.
"I've seen a rich man beg
I've seen a good man sin
I've seen a tough man cry
I've seen a loser win
And a sad man grin
I heard an honest man lie
I've seen the good side of bad
And the downside of up
And everything between
I licked the silver spoon
Drank from the golden cup"
-Everlast "What It's Like"
For generations, it has been told by the wise ones in our society that it is difficult to tell the true character of a person on an everyday basis: It takes special circumstances, when things come down to the bottom of it all...crisis and the like...to actually tell the character of a person.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina the true nature of portions of our society have been made known to the entire world. In an instant it is turned political and blamed on the sitting president by liberals while National Guard and other first responders (police, firefighters, and paramedical personnel) rush to protect and serve, as their oaths to uphold and defend the basic tenets of society dictate. Masses are housed in the largest structures that the area has to offer and then transported by bus to Houston, TX while others fight to stay in the homes that they have spent years making for themselves.
I have always had a fixation on the endtimes--a field of study called eschatology. What will the last days of mankind be like? I have always been intrigued by the epic events that pepper the timeline of mankind, with this single chain of events being the epitome of them all. As a student of human behavior, however, I have always wondered how people would deal with these turbulent times.
The events following Hurricane Katrina offer us a benchmark for what to expect of human behavior in epic times in history. I want to take this opportunity to highlight some of the good, the bad, and the ugly.
The federal rescue effort statistics as of 6 September 2005 per FEMA:
Rescues performed 32,000
Shelters 559
People housed in shelters 182,000
FEMA responders 7,000
U.S. Coast Guard personnel 4,000
National Guard personnel 43,000
Active Duty Military 15,000
MREs provided (meals) 11.3 million
Water provided (liters) 18 million
These numbers are spectacular. Other numbers I have come across in the past few days have been, for example, the number of volunteers that Houston-area churches were able to recruit in train in just a few dozen hours: 31,000.
We have all heard the reports of assaults on the police, firefighters, and soldiers, sailors, and airmen assisting in the relief efforts. This simply is ridiculous. What goes through a person's head when something like this has happened? Is it a free ticket to completely be ridiculous in one's actions? Or, maybe, this is how they act on an everday basis? I can understand looting for the basis of survival, but not anything more. There have been stories going around about "tribes" forming of people across various divides--economic, cultural, and racial--in order to better survive. There have also been stories about gangs emerging and wanton violence.
British news outlet The Online Sun published a story online recently at http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2005410428,00.html called "Orphans of the Storm" highlighting those children that have been orphaned--by one means or another--by the natural disaster. The most chilling line in the entire piece, in my opinion is the one that reads: "Rescuers are haunted by the realisation that hundreds of survivors may never be reunited with their loved ones. Older children may even be faced with the worst task of all — identifying the bodies of their parents."
Truly, this event in our history can be used to benchmark several things about human society. Among the short list:
o Human behavior in epic times of trial
o Proof of development of different economic systems in an economic breakdown (the theory goes that barter is among the most basic of economic systems and currency, fiat or otherwise, is an indication of a more advanced economic system)
o Methods of better responding to disaster threats at the regional, state, and local levels.
I put the lyrics in the beginning of this entry in due to pieces done by two very good friends of mine who spoke of the relief effort in terms of their experiences as first responders--a police officer and a firefighter (both soldiers, also) and the experience of people standing on the outside of the fire looking in. You cannot understand what these fine people go through unless you walk a mile in their shoes.
So, in conclusion, probably the only redeeming factor of the chaos in the Katrina debacle is the basic human element of kindness towards his or her fellow person.
To those who have given of themselves to help this area get back up on it's feet: My hat goes off to you and I thank you with every bit of my person. To those people who are a part of the problem: Go away now. No one wants you here.
I've seen a rich man beg Rescues performed 32,000
I've seen a good man sin
I've seen a tough man cry
I've seen a loser win
And a sad man grin
I heard an honest man lie
I've seen the good side of bad
And the downside of up
And everything between
I licked the silver spoon
Drank from the golden cup
-Everlast "What It's Like"
For generations, it has been told by the wise ones in our society that it is difficult to tell the true character of a person on an everyday basis: It takes special circumstances, when things come down to the bottom of it all...crisis and the like...to actually tell the character of a person.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina the true nature of portions of our society have been made known to the entire world. In an instant it is turned political and blamed on the sitting president by liberals while National Guard and other first responders (police, firefighters, and paramedical personnel) rush to protect and serve, as their oaths to uphold and defend the basic tenets of society dictate. Masses are housed in the largest structures that the area has to offer and then transported by bus to Houston, TX while others fight to stay in the homes that they have spent years making for themselves.
I have always had a fixation on the endtimes--a field of study called eschatology. What will the last days of mankind be like? I have always been intrigued by the epic events that pepper the timeline of mankind, with this single chain of events being the epitome of them all. As a student of human behavior, however, I have always wondered how people would deal with these turbulent times.
The events following Hurricane Katrina offer us a benchmark for what to expect of human behavior in epic times in history. I want to take this opportunity to highlight some of the good, the bad, and the ugly.
The federal rescue effort statistics as of 6 September 2005 per FEMA:
Shelters 559
People housed in shelters 182,000
FEMA responders 7,000
U.S. Coast Guard personnel 4,000
National Guard personnel 43,000
Active Duty Military 15,000
MREs provided (meals) 11.3 million
Water provided (liters) 18 million
We have all heard the reports of assaults on the police, firefighters, and soldiers, sailors, and airmen assisting in the relief efforts. This simply is ridiculous. What goes through a person's head when something like this has happened? Is it a free ticket to completely be ridiculous in one's actions? Or, maybe, this is how they act on an everday basis? I can understand looting for the basis of survival, but not anything more. There have been stories going around about "tribes" forming of people across various divides--economic, cultural, and racial--in order to better survive. There have also been stories about gangs emerging and wanton violence.
British news outlet The Online Sun published a story online recently at http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2005410428,00.html called "Orphans of the Storm" highlighting those children that have been orphaned--by one means or another--by the natural disaster. The most chilling line in the entire piece, in my opinion is the one that reads: "Rescuers are haunted by the realisation that hundreds of survivors may never be reunited with their loved ones. Older children may even be faced with the worst task of all — identifying the bodies of their parents."
Truly, this event in our history can be used to benchmark several things about human society. Among the short list:
o Human behavior in epic times of trial
o Proof of development of different economic systems in an economic breakdown (the theory goes that barter is among the most basic of economic systems and currency, fiat or otherwise, is an indication of a more advanced economic system)
o Methods of better responding to disaster threats at the regional, state, and local levels.
I put the lyrics in the beginning of this entry in due to pieces done by two very good friends of mine who spoke of the relief effort in terms of their experiences as first responders--a police officer and a firefighter (both soldiers, also) and the experience of people standing on the outside of the fire looking in. You cannot understand what these fine people go through unless you walk a mile in their shoes.
So, in conclusion, probably the only redeeming factor of the chaos in the Katrina debacle is the basic human element of kindness towards his or her fellow person.
To those who have given of themselves to help this area get back up on it's feet: My hat goes off to you and I thank you with every bit of my person. To those people who are a part of the problem: Go away now. No one wants you here.
"I've seen a rich man beg Rescues performed 32,000
I've seen a good man sin
I've seen a tough man cry
I've seen a loser win
And a sad man grin
I heard an honest man lie
I've seen the good side of bad
And the downside of up
And everything between
I licked the silver spoon
Drank from the golden cup"
-Everlast "What It's Like"
For generations, it has been told by the wise ones in our society that it is difficult to tell the true character of a person on an everyday basis: It takes special circumstances, when things come down to the bottom of it all...crisis and the like...to actually tell the character of a person.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina the true nature of portions of our society have been made known to the entire world. In an instant it is turned political and blamed on the sitting president by liberals while National Guard and other first responders (police, firefighters, and paramedical personnel) rush to protect and serve, as their oaths to uphold and defend the basic tenets of society dictate. Masses are housed in the largest structures that the area has to offer and then transported by bus to Houston, TX while others fight to stay in the homes that they have spent years making for themselves.
I have always had a fixation on the endtimes--a field of study called eschatology. What will the last days of mankind be like? I have always been intrigued by the epic events that pepper the timeline of mankind, with this single chain of events being the epitome of them all. As a student of human behavior, however, I have always wondered how people would deal with these turbulent times.
The events following Hurricane Katrina offer us a benchmark for what to expect of human behavior in epic times in history. I want to take this opportunity to highlight some of the good, the bad, and the ugly.
The federal rescue effort statistics as of 6 September 2005 per FEMA:
Shelters 559
People housed in shelters 182,000
FEMA responders 7,000
U.S. Coast Guard personnel 4,000
National Guard personnel 43,000
Active Duty Military 15,000
MREs provided (meals) 11.3 million
Water provided (liters) 18 million
We have all heard the reports of assaults on the police, firefighters, and soldiers, sailors, and airmen assisting in the relief efforts. This simply is ridiculous. What goes through a person's head when something like this has happened? Is it a free ticket to completely be ridiculous in one's actions? Or, maybe, this is how they act on an everday basis? I can understand looting for the basis of survival, but not anything more. There have been stories going around about "tribes" forming of people across various divides--economic, cultural, and racial--in order to better survive. There have also been stories about gangs emerging and wanton violence.
British news outlet The Online Sun published a story online recently at http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2005410428,00.html called "Orphans of the Storm" highlighting those children that have been orphaned--by one means or another--by the natural disaster. The most chilling line in the entire piece, in my opinion is the one that reads: "Rescuers are haunted by the realisation that hundreds of survivors may never be reunited with their loved ones. Older children may even be faced with the worst task of all — identifying the bodies of their parents."
Truly, this event in our history can be used to benchmark several things about human society. Among the short list:
o Human behavior in epic times of trial
o Proof of development of different economic systems in an economic breakdown (the theory goes that barter is among the most basic of economic systems and currency, fiat or otherwise, is an indication of a more advanced economic system)
o Methods of better responding to disaster threats at the regional, state, and local levels.
I put the lyrics in the beginning of this entry in due to pieces done by two very good friends of mine who spoke of the relief effort in terms of their experiences as first responders--a police officer and a firefighter (both soldiers, also) and the experience of people standing on the outside of the fire looking in. You cannot understand what these fine people go through unless you walk a mile in their shoes.
So, in conclusion, probably the only redeeming factor of the chaos in the Katrina debacle is the basic human element of kindness towards his or her fellow person.
To those who have given of themselves to help this area get back up on it's feet: My hat goes off to you and I thank you with every bit of my person. To those people who are a part of the problem: Go away now. No one wants you here.
"Confirmation bias refers to a type of selective thinking whereby one tends to notice and to look for what confirms one's beliefs, and to ignore, not look for, or undervalue the relevance of what contradicts one's beliefs...A tendency to do this over time unjustifiably strengthens one's belief in the relationship between [a cause and an effect]."
No matter how smart some people are, they sometimes make the dumbest judgements. Why is this? It is a concept called confirmation bias. Due to genetic predisposition, educational background, parental influence, or general life experience people will tend to make decisions skewed towards the irrational even when faced with a straightforward table of "pro's" and "con's."
Take, for instance, at work today. My "Call of the Day" was a customer that had called in after their respective customer care department had closed. He wanted to dispute his bill, which (in most circumstances) can only be done through this department: Not the receivables management department, to which I belong.
He comes on the line and I introduce myself as I always do with my name, position, and department and a statement indicating why I understand they wanted to speak with me.
Of course, the customer needs to go into their issue, what they feel is background, for a while. He finally gets to the point after some minutes of speaking. I indicate to him that the previous representative was correct, and that he needed to speak with the customer care department, however they were closed at this time.
The customer, obviously not caring for that answer, asked the question again, phrased a different way.
"Sir, I cannot connect you with that department."
A third time he asked, again in a different way. This time he threw in there something about him recording the conversation, perhaps thinking that I was giving him wrong information.
"Sir, for the third time, I cannot directly connect you with our customer care department."
The definition of insanity is doing something over and over again, expecting different results. At this point the customer became very sarcastic (you know, more than he already was) and downright rude.
I advised him that I did not care for him being rude, reminding him to keep the conversation on a professional tone. I then asked if there were anything else I could address.
The call ended shortly thereafter. However, this is a common ocurrence in my business. I just think that...some of these people...at which point in time does their medula oblongata (brain stem, which controls basic bodily functions) say that the intelligence quotient is so low that it just stops working?
Come on, this tactic isn't even intelligent. It's the same kind of thing that 8 year-olds use when they are trying to get their ways. Surely, a lot of these people aren't having the same mental capacity as 8 year-olds.
Are they?
This is what leads me to confirmation bias. For some reason, due to some event that shaped this person's life during their past up to this point in time, they believe that a certain course of action will provoke different responses in a situation, especially after repeated attempts.
...Or do they need to be reminded with the smack to the head with the big newspaper and following with the stern "No!"
You go to work on a daily basis, sometimes even take it home with you in the form of thoughts or actual work, and you feel like you're just spinning your wheels and not getting anywhere in your organization. You give 110% and you are consistently among the best at what you do, but it is all to no avail.
We have all faced this problem in our workplace...and now we can view this problem through the perspective of a new survey done which, among others, is being reported at (one of my favorite sites) Slashdot.org.
American workers were polled and several revelations were among the findings:
o The average worker openly admits to wasting 2.09 hours daily outside of lunch and scheduled breaks (adding up to a total of $759 billion annually)
...on a side note: Remember the scene from Office Space where the main character is meeting with "The Bob's"?
o From the article: [O]ne of the reasons people gave for wasting time is they feel that they're not being paid appropriately for the work they're doing. And so it is sort of quid pro quo, in that an individual employee's ability to increase his or her pay is limited, but their ability to decrease the number of hours they actually work is not as limited.
o Not all nonproductive time that an employee spends is a complete waste. Some of it is creative or constructive waste.
Okay...so here is what I propose: Around your workplace make it known how you are the person that counteracts these trends. You don't waste time at work like other people do; you efficiently do your work as to not create constructive and non-constructive waste.
There's some food for thought in your fight for that next promotion.
"What on Earth are elementary students doing carrying cell phones to school? Better yet, why do parents think their child needs one? Our children today need to focus on education while in school and save the conversations for after-school activities."
--Thanks to Juliann Williams from Anderson, IN
Yep. I exhibited some pretty strong thoughts at reading that one, too.
By now I've established that I work in the wireless industry and don't much care for cell phones due to people using them with blatant disrespect regarding their usage.
Just like I said yesterday: Just because you have the right to do so, doesn't mean that you should forget all of your other morals (assuming that is, that the person has some), manners, and that it gives you a free ticket to go over the line with it.
Anyways, let's look at some cold, hard numbers:
o A recent U.S. study shows that fifty percent of 12 to 17 year-olds have cell phones
o The average cell phone user spends about $87 dollars per month on their cell phone
o Thirty three percent of teens have text messaged with a phone
o Twenty five percent of teens have used their wireless phone to connect to the Internet
o Trust me, by my experience, that the average teenager does not spend $87 per month on their cell phone. This figure is much higher (which, in turn, skews the statistics for everyone.
If I had a dollar for every parent who called in and said "yeah, my child ran up a bunch of charges..." I would be able to spend $87 a month on a cell phone. This last condition would also be able to be met if I were getting government subsidies in California.
Let's throw another quote in here at this point:
Lindsay Shepardson of New York comments: "I was sixteen when I got my first cell phone and I think as long as you're responsible you can get a cell phone when you're like twelve years old."
Emphasis is mine.
Remember when I said last night that children shouldn't be allowed to raise children? Yep. Anyone who gives what should be an intelligent answer to a growing problem by using the work "like" outside of the traditional grammatical sense should, well, be smacked with a newspaper and their opinion (most likely) their opinion dismissed categorically.
I mean, really, when you were twelve years old, were you ready to handle a cell phone with 2 dozen features, third party content provider charges, understanding of various multimedia charges, and the like. Cell phones are that age are like sex: If you're not ready for the entire package, don't even get your feet wet.
During the opening 6 weeks of enforcing a new ordinance, Chicago Police officers issued 841 tickets recently to motorists. Yep. Twenty-one tickets a day. And studies also show that these kinds of drivers are much more likely to have a serious car accident than their non-cell phone using counterparts. Numbers escape me right now.
Upon reading this study, a colleague of mine replied in two words that say it all:
"Well, duh."
Let's put these two together. Kids are being raised by parents that impress upon them that certain behaviors, such as those exhibited by the above cell phone statistics, are alright. When they grow up, who's to say that the kind of situations that we're having today with drivers who use them aren't going to increase and, in all likelihood, get worse?
I would like to end on a note on an instance I had as a floor representative several months ago. She made more sense than most people do on a daily basis. This person indicated that she would never give her kid a cell phone, but she decided instead to give them walkie talkies.
A perfect answer to a not-so-perfect problem.
Now that Hurricane Katrina happened roughly a week ago and every news source has put their two cents into the fray, I figure I might as well throw in my two cents, also.
While reading through my various news materials and intelligence analyses I recall that Katrina was likened to a nuclear bomb going off in the vicinity. The more I think about it, the more that I think it is true (sans the radiation).
Regarding the building/re-building New Orleans debate...a city that sits below sea level...both sides bring up good points: On one side, it's just plain dumb. On the other side, an economic infrastructure has grown there for more than 2 centuries. Anne Rice, the famed author of the Vampire Chronicles (think Interview With the Vampire), even penned a piece regarding the rich cultural and artistic background of the area.
However, being the budding economist that I am, let's strip the emotional out and get down to the nitty gritty:
The Port of New Orleans is the 5th largest in the world and the largest in the United States in terms of tons handled, at 52 million tons outgoing and 17 million tons incoming annually. Most of this is the export of U.S. agricultural products due to the Port's proximity to the farmland of the U.S. southeast. Imports range from fossil fuels to building materials.
Can you see the pattern yet? Yes: Agricultural commodities leave us, while industrial materials come to us...all through this one location. Let's say that this flow of goods stops: The price of goods will shift due to the increased scarcity of products either in their raw form or as part of a manufactured good. We're looking at a re-shape of the entire global economy. Remember? up to twenty percent of all the world's goods flow through this one port.
Now, let's take into account shipping alternatives. You can use semi trucks, but the price of fuel is high right now and this would further a fuel problem that are are having right now. Air is too expensive and rail is generally too slow. What about using this natural waterway?
If you're thinking that this is the way that it is...you would be right. This waterway--so many rivers flowing into the Mississippi River and onward to the Gulf of Mexico--is what historically built this part of the country up. In retrospect: Had the U.S. lost New Orleans to the British in 1815 then the Louisiana Purchase would have became obsolete and the south would have little to any economic capacity at all (even think to what the Civil War would have been like, had we even had one at all given this scenario). There was even talk amongst scholars during the Cold War about which city the Soviets could nuke and be the most efficient about it. New York, Washington D.C., Detroit: All of these were viable alternatives, however at the end of the day...imagine the fallout of the destruction of New Orleans.
...or do we have to imagine anymore?
"If a pretty poster and a cute saying are all it takes to motivate you, you probably have a very easy job. The kind that robots will be doing soon."
Who am I? I want to take this opportunity to put down, for all of my audience in the world, what empirical and non-empirical characteristics comprise who I am. This list, by no means, will be comprehensive; however it (hopefully) will be a good primer on getting to know me better.
People should be less stupid. This I know for sure. The rest...well, it's conjecture based on who I am and what I believe.
I was raised half in (what I consider) a small city and half on a farm. I believe myself to have a high level of integrity and a strong set of morals. I have a strong work ethic but couple it with the "work smart, not necessarily hard" ethos. I am a strong believer in efficiency and effectiveness of effort which has been developed in me as the ability to know which tasks should be delegated (and to whom, another key ingredient) and which ones I should undertake myself or up-train someone else on.
"Give a man a fish, he eats for a day; teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime."
By teaching others the knowledge and assisting them with developing the abilities to complete tasks, you produce synergies that have the capability to propel you and everyone else on your team into a higher order of doing business.
I am a firm believer in common sense, free markets, state's right's with a balance of a handful of federal government programs (read: highway money, not necessarily welfare money...you shouldn't be able to afford to have a cell phone if it is a lifestyle being subsidized by the government). I believe in the american way, apple pie, and white picket fences. I believe in having a good education--whether that be in the halls of a school or the school of hard knox. I believe in working for what you earn and that you aren't entitled to anything but.
I don't believe in excess, gas prices over $2.00 (I remember when they were much, much, much less expensive), or crooked politicians. I believe that my father is the best judge of character I will ever know and that my brother is one of the toughest. I believe in holidays for the sake of tradition and reasons to get the family together: Turkeys at Thanksgiving, presents at Christmas, Easter egg hunts at Easter, and barbecues in the summertime.
I believe in cars with more than 2 horsepower, but anything bigger than what you really need (read: SUV's as status symbols) is just stupid. I believe that athletes and actors get paid too much and that teachers, police officers, firefighters, soldiers, or anyone else that I'm forgetting that fits into these categories needs more pay.
I believe that the focused human mind is the most powerful tool or weapon in the universe. I believe that you can accomplish anything if you put your mind to it. I believe that the collective IQ of the gene pool must be a constant, and the gene pool is getting larger.
You must have goals and aspirations. You have to know where you want to go and be able to develop a game plan on how to reach that place.
Set your standards higher than other people set for you. If you do this, I guarantee that you will get ahead.
If you do something stupid you should be smacked with a rolled-up newspaper. If you keep on doing things that lack common sense the newspaper needs to get bigger.
If you can't control your environment, it will control you. Do you want your environment to be a product of what you believe, or do you want to be a product of your environment?
I believe that Patton and Bradley were two of the greatest generals that this country has ever known. On my list, furthermore, are Washington, Pershing, and Schwarzkopf.
I believe in having a strong national defense, the right to bear arms, freedom of press and religion, that our government don't be plain dumb in administering policy.
However, I feel that the freedom of all these things doesn't allow abuse of them: For instance, freedom of speech doesn't give a person the right to be mean and rude to other people. It's a license to be an agent of change, not the person that people don't like being around or talking to.
I believe that physics can answer most matters in the universe, that prayer works, and that people need to remember how things worked before modern life made them automated, replicated, and moving between places on the face of the planet instantaneously.
I believe in human space flight because of the sheer thrill of it. Basic science needs for funding because that is where the great stuff comes from.
I believe in real things: Butter, sugar, sodas, and people. I don't like the fake things too much: Fake butter, fake sugar, diet sodas, and fake people with fake parts.
I believe that parents should raise their children, that children cannot raise children (what are they going to raise their kids based off of?...both years of their experience?). I believe that violent video games don't make kids kill people. I believe that guns don't kill people, people kill people. I believe that people should learn to shoot a weapon, but learn the elegence of a sword.
Lastly, I believe that when it comes down to it...most people have a fundamentally good nature; however people shouldn't project their feelings on how the universe works onto other people. I don't know, maybe I have it all wrong.
Trust me on the stupid people thing, though.
Since I can't sleep, it's my Friday night, and I need to take a break, albeit a short one, from playing C&C Generals (think Real-Time Strategy game), I decided to write a little bit. Get this blog back onto a happier note.
Dark times, too, shall pass. On the other side we are stronger and more elastic to the demands that life places upon us. This has been something I have developed since being ripped out of the "bubble" that I grew up in.
Miles City, MT in the late 1980's. I had lived there for 9 years and had finally established the roots that a child should be allowed to establish. After moving to Wolf Point, MT, it only took a couple of years to do the same thing.
Then Bowman, ND happened. I started growing less as the "popular kid" and more as the outcast. In retrospect I know that I tried too hard. I tried too hard to make friends, make people laugh, and answer the questions. A cocktail for social disaster.
As the years passed, I became more reclusive and studied schoolwork and beyond. I became extremely interested in the television show Quantum Leap which led me to being engrossed in teaching myself physics: Light on the classical mechanics, heavy on the relativity, high energy/particle physics, and cosmology. By the 9th grade I could recite any number of physical principles and describe them to the layperson as well as discuss them intelligently. I could recite anything from the textbook definition of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle to the 4 Fundamental Forces of Interactions in Quantum Physics.
My love for knowledge grew, fueled by my bouts of self-examination and deep reflection. I realized that my love for knowledge and the ability to soak it up like a sponge had existed since several years earlier, but the drive to expand on that through personal development was just budding. I delved into computer science, anatomy & physiology, basic pharmacology (I was wanting to develop a pre-medical background), neurology, chemistry, basic linguistics, and anything else that I could get my hands on. It was a golden age of sorts.
Around the same time I started developing several different ideas for research projects and the need to be able to bring more minds into the mix. My first R&D organization was formed as a non-profit in the mid 1990's. Over the course of the next 5 years we considered hundreds of project concepts and developed a good third of them. A handful of them became my pet project. At it's height this organization spanned 5 states and 50 people with positions in 50 different departments representing a different area of science or technology. Each department was then broken down into relevant areas. The Physics Department, for instance, was broken down into 11 different parts ranging from low temperature/solid state physics to relativity.
Wanting to develop the business entity more, a for-profit entity was formed in the late 1990's to capitalize and develop several business concepts we had been playing with, conceptually, for several years. At first a former Vice President of mine took the helm. I eventually took the helm in 1999 and held the post until we dissolved the entity in 2001 to focus our efforts toward a more succinct project.
From 2001-2003 South Dakota Technologies operated as a general partnership with myself acting as managing parter/chief executive officer. We had a total of about 12 people led by 4 executives being directed by myself. We did well until I learned the ultimate rule of business partnerships: If you get a bad feeling in your gut about one of your business parters...listen to it. Thus, due to a technicality the partnership was dissolved. I was able to walk away with my dignity, some developed projects in my hip pocket, and a couple of very good executives and friends that will hold places in any future entities that I lead if they want the jobs.
By this time I had graduated with the Associates in Business Management and Marketing. I developed keen interests in corporate strategy development based on strategies and tactics that I had learned in the Army in both "grunt" and headquarters positions. I also delved into history sometime around this time.
All my life I have been seeking wisdom; a prolific writing stint in journals since my youth had, by this time, blessed me with a striking level of awareness both of myself and of my surroundings. Multiple opportunities for leadership training had gone a long way to help with this journey.
So, after positions in sales and marketing for a high-tech defense contractor, a concierge at a well-known resort, a general manager for a pizzeria, and a cook back at the same resort I decided I needed to settle down somewhere and start a life. By this time my only association with the Army as sitting on the inactive ready reserve roles in St. Louis, MO, so I decided that I would move to the state that I have always dreamed that I would flourish in since my youth: Colorado.
Now, for those of you that have not been to Grand Junction, CO, before...let me tell you: This place is one of the most beautiful places on earth. I have been halfways across the world: Seen the waterfalls of Central America, the Swiss Alps from Bavaria, the Black Hills of South Dakota, and one of the largest lakes in North America, just to name a few: And I was at a loss for words and breath when I first saw the scenes around this great city.
I applied for this and that upon moving to Junction. My first time here was when I actually moved here: I was quick to be able to produce enough satellite imagery of the area to familiarize myself with it. When it came down to it I ended up with a job--a job that I considered to be only filling a gap at the time--with a contractor for a major wireless service provider.
In my training class I didn't finish my test first; I was close, however. I wasn't the first one to take the first receivables management call, either. I was the guy that had a firm knowledge of business and leadership principles and had learned how to adapt quickly to any given situation. This was new for me, however: Taking money and solving basic billing problems for people calling into me.
For what it's worth: I'm not much of a person for talking on the phone. I call my family about once a week, but that's it. I owned a cell phone once upon a time, but that's ancient history.
However, I attribute my quick rise in success to a number of factors: I had what many people considered the best trainer in the company; I had a first-rate mentor my first two weeks taking calls, but not yet on the floor; and I came into the company at a time when a person could ride a wave of change to the next level.
My first few months on the floor were the stuff that legends are made of. $80K collections my first two weeks, nearly $180K my first full month (second-highest grossing in the call center, in fact.) I began to memorize and learn to adapt rote policy and procedure after being told that I should push for the next level in the hierarchy. I was then selected to go on an away mission to assist in training half of a call center of new RM agents in systems at another call center.
Upon coming back to my site, I was on an interim basis in my current position. Within about 4 months of being in that position I, and several of my colleagues, were made permanent.
My progression in this position was made possible by the friendship and help of many people in my department. S.J. helped get me started and into a position that I could actually compete with her metrics and other abilities; Cliff with his experienced words of wisdom and soft-spoken way of pointing you in the right direction; Joy for "keeping me motivated;" and Rick to teach me the ropes that only a person of his tenure could.
During this time I rode the wave of change: Developing many of the call center standards for how we deal with our new line of business. Training aids. Applications (with my good friend and colleague, Rick (The Wonderful Richard of PAR).
So, that's the short version of the road that got me here, sans the military stuff.
Questions, comments, and bad jokes are always welcome.
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