Just Plain Bill

No Greater Love…

Everyone had quieted down just after my mom blew out the candles and just before she was cutting the cake during her 90^th birthday celebration when she announced her birthday wish:  “My wish is for my son Bill to take all the money I have left and - buy himself some hair.”

As one might imagine, that brought about quite a bit of laughter, and more than just a little bit of embarrassment to me. 

First, some history to put that audacious statement in perspective: Ever since I began losing my hair in my late teens (starting with the old term “widow’s peak”), my mom had been fixated on my hair - or lack of it. My mom was also a very talented artist. She was trained as a “tintist”, one who would hand-tint black and white photographs, a long lost skill, which thrived before Kodak perfected color photography. My mom’s copy of my black and white college graduation photograph included, in addition to coloring, a hairline carefully colored into the picture, filling up the growing space in my receding hairline.

Nowadays, we have the magic of tools such as Photoshop that will take care of the task with a few moves of the mouse and a few keystrokes. But that just wouldn’t be the same as my mom’s unending effort to return her son’s full head of hair, something she imagined and accomplished through her gift of those magical colored pens. It was an expression of love only a mother could bestow. 

Just Plain Bill

On-the-Job Training is an Oxymoron

How many times have you entered a place of business and experienced someone being trained to do a job that involves greeting you and fulfilling your expectations?  This little OJT scenario occurred in an upscale restaurant I recently experienced in Boston. A new hire was instructed to take us to our seats, provide us a menu, ask if we wanted water, and inform us that a “real waiter” would be coming soon to take our order. Except for his evident nervousness, our experience with the new hire was acceptable. I can predict with certainty that this trainee will become more confident soon and will prove quite capable meeting my expectations as a paying customer. 

Another recent OJT experience was not acceptable in the least. I purchase a smoothie from a national chain on a regular basis. In one of their stores last week, a person I didn’t recognize was working the cash register. (I guess they still call a computer terminal a cash register.) It was a warm afternoon, a nearby high school had just let out, and 12 or so people were in line waiting to place their order. The person at the front of the line requested an additional ingredient. It quickly became apparent the unfamiliar face was a new hire when she had to stop and ask a teammate for help because the additional ingredient was not recognizable or a part of the descriptions on her cash register key board. The teammate – who was performing his assigned duty filling cups with the finished smoothies - had to stop what he was doing to first tell, then point, and then press the required button to complete the order. Yes, the experienced employee pressed the button himself, so the new employee did not necessarily learn how to complete the function if the request came up again. I’m sure you’re already ahead of me and have already guessed that the same task came up on the very next order.  

In an apologetic tone, the new hire repeated the question, asking the same teammate for help. This time though, the colleague didn’t even try to teach the technique. This stopping, asking, and right-button-pushing went off and on for 15 minutes. I watched several customers leave the line and depart the store without ever buying their smoothies.  

It would be interesting to calculate the lost business and relation to the cost of time and added frustration in using this style OJT. Instead of establishing a simulated new-hire training program where all kinds of scenarios can be experienced through a structured learning curve complete with expected mistakes, the smoothie store lost the opportunity to deliver service excellence through a confident employee. More importantly, it may have lost the opportunity for repeat business from satisfied customers.

You see – I stayed in line and patiently waited my turn. I smiled and tried my best to put the new employee at ease by just saying, “First day? I’ll be your best training customer all day. Take your time and let’s learn together. We’ve all been there.” But, unable to count on service excellence, I will not return to the store on any day I am the slightest bit pressed for time. A potential sale has been lost from a less than raving fan customer.  

It often seems like the experienced employee thinks the direction being given, or the training being provided to the new hire is taking place in an invisible space – where you are not supposed to notice what’s going on. But we all can see it IS going on.

Sometimes the experienced employee informs customers that the person undergoing the OJT is “new”, or “in training”, implying that you are expected to lower your expectations for service quality. Not for my money.

There is a better way.

Just Plain Bill

Like the Back of My Hand

When discussing my performance on a recent project, my manager said, “You should know how to do it as well as you know the ‘back of your hand’.” After resolving an issue with this manager (who just happened to epitomize the definition of a micromanager), I stopped and thought about his comment. In spite of the fact it provided absolutely no direction or assistance whatsoever, it did cause me to become fascinated by what the back of my hand looked like!

I tried to visualize it in a couple of ways. I tried to see just how the back of my hand might relate to me supposedly knowing how to do something quite well. Then - and without peeking – I tried to, but couldn’t really describe the “back of my hand” in any detail.

Was the back of my hand smooth? Did the veins stick out? Were my knuckles well formed? Or are they gnarly? Did I have any, or many age spots, or what?

As you’re reading this, know that I’m wondering if you’d be able to pick out the back of your hand from a group of five or six pictures of backs of hands. And, if you can, I greatly admire your ability so can you please tell me how that applies to a critique of my work???

Give it a try and let me know!

In closing, let me share one definition I love, which provides some rather sarcastic relevance to my work:

 “The phrase is meant to describe intimate knowledge of something to a degree greater than anyone else could possibly achieve. If one couldn't pick the back of one's own hand out of a line-up, it would demonstrate one's ignorance about the back of one's own hand and thus make the use of the phrase pretty meaningless, unless it's intended to be sarcastic or humorous.”

Wordwizard.com, response by Shelley – 05/2005, NY, NY

http://www.wordwizard.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=22477

Just Plain Bill

“FFS”  - Am I the Only one?

Early today, I was texting a response on my cell phone and was having difficulty moving the cursor between words to make a correction. I have also been making typing mistakes in pressing the correct letters on my on-screen keyboard. I found myself asking if it a problem for other people, or was it just me? Am I the only one with FFS: “Fat fingers Syndrome.”

The advent of the cell phone keyboard, with the tiny keys or letters on the screen you have to press, has brought to a head this handicap I’ve been living with my whole life.

In reality, this concern about my “fat fingers” started when I was quite young, which preceded the cell phone or on-screen “keys.” Looking back, I can trace it to when my sister, five years older than me was able to easily peel the skin from an orange when I had to either get a knife to get the peeling started, or bite into the bitter tasting skin to remove the peel and eat the orange. (Adding to my frustration was that my sister, throughout her life, made fun of my inability to fulfill that simple act.)

I’m sure there’s a name for the study of how our various body parts “function” in the tremendous range of spaces, the discipline that focuses on how we either “fit” into spaces, like a driver’s side of a car or the cockpit of an airplane, fit into a phone booth or how our fingers use a dial telephone - or anything is designed to maximize our physical ability to do stuff.

I believe folks somewhere calculated the size of the average finger pad that one would use to efficiently press the keys on modern electronic devices we use throughout our modern life. It is clear that these folks must have felt that someone like me, with somewhat larger surfaces on my finger tips (they don’t really look bigger” and they function quite well in playing the piano), would just have to get by, making more than occasional errors - that are really not “my fault.”

As my mom would say whenever I would whine that things were seen as not fair, ”Just deal with it, Billy,” and I have for the most part - but it occasionally feels good to complain.

What about you?