2013: The Year in Review

As 2013 draws to a close, I was thinking about what 2013 was to me. The answers came pretty quickly.

1. The Year of Deliverance

After a long time job searching I was finally able to leave the job that I hated. Oh happy day!

Lesson for 2013 and beyond: Life is too short to put up with a job that makes you unhappy. If you don't like what you do, start making plans to get out.

2. The Year of Car Repairs

Here is a list of things I got to fix on my vehicles this year:

Sports Car
- new front brakes (thank you little bro!)
- new water pump (thank you little bro!)
- repaint missing paint on front quarter panel (body shop work- not cheap!)
- repaint faded scoop on hood (body shop work- not cheap!)

Tracker
- new front brakes (yes, it was the year for brakes)
- new clutch, input shaft, pilot bearings, u joints, and a strut (had to go to a transmission shop- almost fell over at bill)

Total for both vehicles: A whole lot of money

Lesson for 2013 and beyond: 2014 had best be far less expensive in the auto repair category! This illustrates to me yet again why you always have to have some money saved. In reality, except for the paint issues, all of these are things that will eventually have to be done as they are consumable parts. They just all happened to go in the same year. Did I mention that the water pump on my sports car started seriously failing at the same time the clutch went out in my Tracker? I'm also very thankful my brother is car knowledgeable and can give me good advice of what to do. He can also fix a lot of things. I am very blessed in that regard.

3. The year of vacations
2013 was an excellent year for travel. I took 5 trips of 3 nights or more away from home. In order they were:

- St. Louis
- New Orleans
- San Antonio
- South Carolina
- Florida

Lesson for 2013 and beyond: I hope this trend continues! I love to travel, and I greatly enjoyed all these trips.

Merry Christmas

As you celebrate the birth of our Savior, may you create happy new memories with family and friends and take time for fond remembrances of those no longer with us.

Merriest Christmas wishes to all.

Great Customer Service Matters

Friday night I was ready to try my new KitchenAid Black Friday Bargain mixer. I wanted to make a recipe for Andes Mints cookies that I planned to take to a family gathering on Saturday. I hit a small nag in my plan when I was unable to get the beater adjusted to the correct height despite explicitly following the directions in the owner's manual. I decided I'd have to call for help. I had low expectations. It was 6:30 pm on a Friday. I was pleasantly surprised when I immediately reached a native English speaker in Michigan. She was able to immediately help me. It seems the instructions in the book aren't exactly correct. She also gave me a helpful hint so I would know exactly when the height was right. Of course, it worked like a dream.

Many companies put so little into their customer service programs that it's a joke. Not KitchenAid. I was so impressed with the service I received. I would highly recommend their products.

And how were the cookies you may be wondering? They were a hit.

Just Wait Until Your Manager Gets Home

The article below recently appeared in a local business journal. It is reprinted here in its entirety with permission from the author.

Improvising Business

by

Stevie Ray

October 11, 2013

Column 256

Just Wait Until Your Manager Gets Home

I remember watching the show Leave it To Beaver on a black and white TV set as a kid. I loved hearing the mother, June Cleaver, say the immortal phrase, “You just wait until your father comes home!” When my siblings or I got into trouble, we didn’t have to wait for dad to get home; we had an equal fear of both mother and father. Nowadays parents on talk shows lament the fact that their children are borderline criminals and “There is nothing I can do. I’ve tried everything.” The host asks, “Have you tried punishing the child?” The answer is usually, “I want to, but I just can’t.” Apparently, “trying everything” stops just short of trying anything.

I ran into an old acquaintance recently. He had his two young children with him, and throughout our entire conversation the children waited politely. I said to him, “Your kids are very well behaved.” He replied, “It’s not an option.” It’s not an option. I have started to use that phrase in my workshops. Just like bad parents have no idea why their unwillingness to enforce discipline has caused a disruptive child, bad managers have no idea why their employees act out. America has lost some healthy fear. My siblings and I were never afraid of our parents, but we have always been afraid of their disapproval. This taught us to us fear disappointing co-workers, clients, and colleagues. As adults, this fear keeps us focused on doing our best; not because of the reward of doing good or the reprisal of failure, but because proper behavior is simply not optional.

I was conducting a workshop recently in which the company leaders were rolling out new standards for conduct; how to treat co-workers and customers better, and how to do their best work every day. There was concern among the directors, managers, and supervisors about how the new standards would be received. They were worried that the staff wouldn’t like the new standards. They were anxious about what to do if the staff resisted implementing the practices. One of the managers asked me my opinion and I said, “Since when is it an option to follow the directives of the company? My parents didn’t say, ‘Do your homework, unless you don’t feel like doing it.’”

I certainly don’t advocate leading with a “Do it or you’re fired” approach. I do, however, believe in an atmosphere of expectations. A leader’s job is to provide vision; a future for the company that others might not see. In order to get to that future the leader has to lay out the path, and then hold people accountable for their behavior.

I don’t like the threat of firing someone, but it is fine to ask the question, “Given that you don’t want to do the things the company is asking you to do, why do you still want to stay here?” If the answer is “To keep getting a paycheck” or “I want to stay and do things the way I did when I first started here years ago” then there is a problem. How many times have you seen bad behavior and hoped that the universe would take care of that person for you?

Parents who request that their children behave get what they deserve, and they can’t blame TV, the school system, or society for the outcome. They have created an atmosphere in which the children are not afraid of the parent’s disapproval. So the kids will grow up not afraid of anyone else’s disapproval. The next time you turn a blind eye to inappropriate behavior, or make following your directions optional, get ready to appear on a TV talk show and say, “I don’t know what to do about my employee. I’ve tried everything (except be the one in charge).”

Stevie Ray is a nationally recognized corporate speaker and trainer, helping companies improve communication skills, customer service, leadership, and team management.  He can be reached at www.stevierays.org or stevie@stevierays.org.

This should be a required reading for managers and parents. I saw this so often when I worked in HR. Managers and supervisors wouldn't like what their employees were doing, but they failed to do anything meaningful about it. It was also a problem among the managers themselves as they had no real accountability, and as my coworker was fond of saying "the ship is adrift ." Each area did what it felt like without a cohesive focus of what was best for the organization.

I would hear managers whine about some of the things they were supposed to do. I often wanted to tell them "THAT is why we pay you all that money, not to sit around and look cute". Yes, being a manager can be more difficult than being a regular worker bee. But, it also pays much more. As the saying goes "to whom much is given, much will be required." If you don't want that responsibility, I understand. But you need to give up the pay that comes with it. You're either in or you out, and your actions show others which category applies to you.

Pumpkin Ravioli with Browned Butter Sauce

Several weeks ago I purchased some pumpkin ravioli at the grocery store. The recommended sauce was a brown butter sauce. This recipe sounded good, so I tried it last week. How was it you ask? I'll answer that with a question- how can you go wrong with butter, brown sugar, balsamic vinaigrette, and pecans?

Worth Every Penny

Around six weeks ago I had major automotive trauma. I was driving home from work when all of a sudden my Tracker would not shift gears. At all. This is somewhat scary and dangerous when you are in traffic. Thankfully I was able to limp it home safely. As you may have guessed, the clutch had gone out. The bill for that was enough. However, it also ended up needing u-joints, a strut, an input shaft and a pilot bearing. I almost passed out when I heard how much the total bill was going to be. I'll just say it was a HUGE amount of money. I gave serious thought to not fixing it as it is not worth much. However, after talking to some wise family members and sleeping on it, I decided to fix it.

Fast forward to today. For the first time in the 3 winters I've owned the Tracker, we had winter weather that really impacted driving conditions. As I was driving home at 30 mph, I was so thankful I'd fixed it. I would have paid what I did just for the ride home today. While I did have some brief slides, it was no big deal. Mind you, I didn't even turn on the 4 wheel drive. This was just with the standard rear two wheel drive. The same trip in my sports car would have been treacherous and miserable, if not next to impossible. It was worth every penny to travel home in relative ease and not have to worry about the road conditions. I was so glad that I had an uneventful trip home. I celebrated with my tradition of having some hot cocoa while watching it snow. I added some candy canes for a seasonal twist.

Yes, that car repair was worth every penny.

Starting the work week off right

One of my first activities this morning at work was to cut off two more noncompliant customers (cue "Another One Bites the Dust"). Later in the morning one of my previous noncompliant customers turned in her overdue paperwork and her sheet for this week, the latter 2 days early. It seems her unemployment got cut off, and that prompted her to catch up. Funny how that works. She asked how soon her payments would be taken off suspension. I told her I'd e-mail the unemployment team as soon as she left, but I was unsure how long it would take for them to remove the hold. I found out later that it's nearly immediate. What I don't think she fully grasps is if she already got paid for the two weeks where her paperwork was late (and I think she did), she'll have to pay that back. It was a good start to the week.

Black Friday Bargains

While I love a good bargain, I am not a Black Friday shopper. I passionately dislike crowds, waiting in line, and being up way too early or late. However, this year I ended up doing some in a very sane manner. Here are my bargains from this weekend.

O'Reilly

This item was a complete surprise. I needed to top off the coolant in my car (HUGE thank you to my brother for replacing the water pump in it for me recently). When I checked out I got a free Duck Dynasty bottle opener keychain.

It seems the first 25 customers in the store on Friday got one.

Rite Aid

Rite Aid had some great deals in their ad. Since it's a small store and close to my house, I decide to give it shot. I figured everything I wanted would be gone by the time I got there (around 9). Not only was I the only customer in the store, they had almost all the items on my list as you can see for the picture below.

Here's a list of my haul
- 6 pairs of tights for $1.99 each (regularly $5.99 each). When I explained how great a deal this was, the female employees started buying them, and one of the male employees called his daughter to tell her about them!
- 1 bag each of almonds and cashews, free after reward coupon on next purchase (ARC)
- Nail polish kit: 3 magnetic polishes, 2 packages of nail polish strips, and a nail file. $2.99 ARC (regularly $10)
- 3 Carmex lip balms- free ARC
- 6 Nivea tins, 3/$0.99 (regularly $0.99/each)
- 2 rolls of tape, free ARC
- 4 bags of M&M's, on sale 2/$4, $2/bag ARC, plus I had 2 $1 coupons, so total price was 4 bags for $2

I paid $34.68 for 26 items. I have $13.50 in free merchandise coupons on my next purchase, so really paid $21.18 including tax. I also got some additional coupons. You can see that it was a LONG receipt.

Kohl's

This is really what got me to go Black Friday shopping. I had a $10 off $10, a $10 off $30, and a 15% coupon, all combinable. I got to the store around 10:30. There was plenty of parking, but no carts. Not a problem for me. There was no line for the dressing rooms either. There was however a 20 person deep line to check out. Grr. However, I spied that they were doing checkout at the jewelry counter. I waited behind one person, and I was homeward bound. After coupons, I paid $12.69 for all this.

Sam's Club

The one Black Friday item that intrigued me was a Professional HD KitchenAid mixer at Sam's Club. It was on sale for $249 (regularly $299) and had a $50 mail in rebate. I checked online, and that was a good price. Even better, you could order online and have it shipped to your house for free. I looked at the website Thursday, and I decided to sleep on it as that is still a lot of money. When I went to order it Friday, the only color they had left was red which would completely clash with my kitchen. I figured it was a sign I didn't need it. Well, yesterday my mom and I went to Sam's Club to buy a few things. As we walked through the aisle, we saw the mixers in more colors. We then went down another aisle and found more colors, including the color I had wanted all along- copper pearl. Needless to say, it's now in my house.

I was very pleased with my Black Friday shopping. I got some excellent deals, and it wasn't stressful. That's my kind of shopping.