When a company is formed, the CEO or whom ever is responsible for the initial configuration of the company hires people.. usually because they need someone who already had knowledge in that area.. I am not sure what good it does for a CEO or Business man to Hire a Mechanic, IT personnel, HR, mechanical/ electrical/ Manufacturing civil engineer if the CEO is going to say “I want things done and it is my way or the highway” without allowing for input on how things are suppose to be done or, the time and resources it takes to get things done.

This is just one example of communication in the work place being less than effective. Often it appears that the communication or lack there of is due to lack of trust.  Rather than trust the people doing the work a leader in what ever position would rather Manage (micro manage) things them selves.  What this person may not understand is that they are really doing more damage to them, the company, and everyone the company deals with.

Another example of how this affects everyone. I recently encountered a company that their sole interest was sales. They contracted all of the other portions of the company’s operations to organizations that were already in place. Sounds pretty streamlined right? May not be as clear cut as that. The sales force worked hard and created ample accounts and recruited enough reps for a full sales team in several locations.  Sales were good until, the operations side of things kicked in. Months passed with no products installed. Customers were becoming edgy. This is where the communication comes in. over the months of sales. Training after training occurred. changes took place to ensure information from customer to corporate was smooth, accurate, and efficient.  In return Reps were fed information that was in turn given to customers on timeline, and how the process of installation works. All of the information being fed to the customers later appeared to be false. As this information’s validity failed, communication from corporate stopped. Rather than feeding accurate information to the sales team enabling them to properly manage the expectations of the customers, False information was given making things sound better than they are until it was too late.  Customers began to cancel accounts, reps began to leave the company. Accounts under contract were frustrated because they could not get an accurate update on the status of their install.  Because of all of the problems, Reps stoped turning in new accounts causing the company to loose hundred of thousands in sales.. All this because communication was no transparent and given to the people that needed it to do their jobs properly.

In summary, If you are one that hold information, are you giving it to those who need it to do their jobs? If you are the one that needs information and are getting radio silence, it may just be time to move on.. it is hard to say you are not getting information. Fraud, Hiding things going wrong, disorganization. Any of these problems usually end with everyone loosing unless communication is restored.

In my years of education, I was always told to make myself as valuable as possible so that I could be promoted as quickly as possible. For most of my life, that has been the case for me, moving from a base employee to an assistant store manager within 6 mo- 1 year. Going from customer service to manager of returns and then on to Logistics manager within 2 years. This all seemed to be “Just how it is” until recently when  I was told that I was not promoted to a position that was open simply because I was considered “too valuable where I was at”. Please keep in mind, much has happened since then, it was just a situation that I felt was odd and would possibly get you thinking.

As I thought about this situation there were several questions that came to mind:
Am I so under paid that it is not worth offering a promotion for risk of having to pay more?
What did I do so well at that they could not see the same potential for outstanding performance in a new position?
What do I need to stop doing to reduce how valuable I am so that I can get promoted and thus improve my finical situation?
This is all a situation that wither you know it or not, it is very likely that you have been the victim of this at one point or another. The real question is, is there something better that they are “Preserving” me for.  In the long term, is there a better option? So, here is the real question, have you had this happen that you know of? If so, what did you do and  what happened to resolve this?
As far as background, I will admit that I was one of those people fooled by the idea the a company promotes a person once they qualify and have proven themselves worthy. I have felt that there should be no need to ask for a raise. Sadly I can officially say I was wrong. Now the reality sinks in, that I was never taught how to “Properly” ask for a raise and/or Promotion. I know that there are a lot videos on the web as well as training materials that explain how this is to be done but they never account for the possibility that you actually know your boss. That may seem a bit odd but it is true. Often times, I have found that you know and get along well with the boss and asking for a raise may simply cause ripples or even on the other side, you don’t see eye to eye with your boss and although you are great at what you do, you don’t want to cause them a reason to let you go.
I do want to clarify something. In a recent position, I had no desire to be promoted and that is different. I had worked my way up the ladder to a position that I enjoyed, and looking up I did not see any positions that I felt I would enjoy or be “good” at. At that point in my mind, it became time to start looking outside the company for the opportunity to move up in another in area or function that would be considered “exciting” , “fun”, or more “Fulfilling”.

I have to admit the entire week of the 4th revolved around the 3-day weekend. All week we were focused on cleaning things up and trying to do even more spring cleaning. I know it is no longer spring but there is so much cleaning and organizing that needs to be done. Merging two households into one house is one thing but, we have been merging two shops into one as well on top of trying to finish construction work on it. I am happy to say much of the “online yard sale” has been going relatively quickly. Not for the amount that we had hoped but at this stage of the game I feel it is more important to just get it out of the way for my mother in law and simplify our lives. I do have to say, having so much cleaned out, we are gaining usable space in both the house and the garage and I really look forward to being able to start seriously working on some projects that are wants and not so much needs. In fact one of the wants and needs has already begun, an old swamp cooler from our rental house had begun the process of being refurbished and will be installed on the shop making the shop functional in the heat of the day whereas up until now, we have been “hibernating” from about 8:00 am to 8:00 pm to avoid the heat and, the garage is one of the worst places because it collects the heat. There is a lot going into this where I plan on leaving it for a long time. The pictures below are the progress so far.  That has been our main goal this whole last week, trying to beat the heat and get the cooling on the house and shop resolved.

Our new renter has started moving in, I visited for the first time recently so that I could finish a repair on the dryer and see how everything is going. From what I could see there was a lot of stuff everywhere still (to be expected) but there was already indications that they were making an effort to take care of things. It is still early but at this point I am excited to see that we might just have a good renter. I do know that there is still a ton that needs to be done to the house to get it where I really want it to be but, there is only so much time and so many funds to complete it all available.

As for the 4th. that is a big topic this time of year for a lot of people but I do not know why. This will be a topic for another day but just to get you thinking, what are we celebrating our independence from? And are we still independent from this? Not necessarily speaking about the country but the idea? . I did find that having a small party with some close family and friends was more fun than a big “Traditional get together”. Maybe it is just me but, I do not enjoy the family politics caused when the large family groups are together in crowds. I have found it to be much more enjoyable when  I am with a smaller group. The Night of the 4^th, we had a my in-laws and some neighbors over to do fireworks. I will admit, I felt at home that night than I have in a long time which, I enjoyed very much (Thank you to those that we shared that time with).

The  week of the 6th there was a lot of camping and more family time. Although my work schedule would not permit me to take much time off. I was able to go up Saturday with my family and go for a hike. We hiked 3.5 miles round trip from Maple lake to Red lake up the canyon from Payson UT. I have to say, I have known for some time I was not in the shape I would have liked to have been in but that was RIDICULOUS! Granted there was several steep ups and downs on this hike but my legs burned for 3 days after.. them there muscles had not been worked like that in a long time and it was apparent! It was fun though because Chug was able to go with us and did really well with her new training leash (I will do a review on this soon because I have found it to be a very humane way to train a dog to not pull on the leash)

in closing, my hat is off to the owner of this creation for their creativity. I know this is massively redneck but that is what I love. If this is yours be sure to comment and let me know.. thanks!

As mentioned before, it is hard to see a friend and family member pass. This last Tuesday my father in law passed from this life to the next.. leading up to the funeral we took time to make the arrangements but, we also spent time working in the garage and yard. Our goal was to feel productive and try getting our lives back in order from the last 6 months of irregular life. (the garage is getting that much closer to being productive in fact I started working on two smaller projects ( I will touch on those in a later post)

I will admit, the Funeral was harder than I expected. For the viewings, there was so many people that it was easy to avoid thinking about it as I could occupy my mind with “what are the kids doing”, “do I know ANY of these people?”,”where am I suppose to be and what am I suppose to be doing?” and so on. but as we wen to the funeral service we were, of coarse, sat on the front row with the casket smack in front of us.. I could still kinda hold it in and only let a little out.  At the grave side service however, my Brother in law was performing the military honors and watching him struggle to hold it in, I could no longer..  the day after the funeral, we went back to the grave site and it went back to the surreal feeling like none of it had happened. below are some of the pictures taken at the event

Sorry everybody.. after just getting back from Mexico, I am spent.. I have pics and even some video to share but it will have to happen later this week.

Thanks for your paitence

It is defiantly a nice thing to be “Home” now you might wonder where I have been.. Right? I have been home the entire time but with the construction it everything has felt like we were in limbo. I am not sure if I mentioned this but, when we moved here about a year ago it was only suppose to be temporary. I had just lost my job and went right to work with my father-in-law until something came along. It was July when the job I have now came along and by then all of our savings had been depleted so we decided to hang out a while so we would feel more stable. In November we decided that we would rent a home in Provo/Orem near my work. Lots of looking trying to find a house that would fit our needs (bit garage!) and all at once we found what we wanted and felt comfortable that we could talk them down to the price we could afford. The day we were scheduled to see it and sign papers, was the day that my Father-in-laws health took a horrific dive and we found out he had a Brain tumor. At that point we decided buying there house was what we were suppose to do. From that moment on we were retrofitting the house to fit us on a more permanent basis. Its still not perfect but it is beginning to feel like home..

Here is the update on the projects:
Kids Bedroom: DONE!!! yes, that is correct it is done, kids are moved in, and off my agenda! Now I did have to do a really crazy trick to get the tack strip to stay down (if you want to know what the trick is, leave a comment at the bottom of this post and I will put together a vid showing how to do it) but here are the pictures of how it turned out:

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Now I know that the Trim around the door is not done, there is a reason for that. (none of the house has any) and we have not decided how we want. As soon as that decision is made it will happen. we still have cabinets we want to put up in the hall and some other minor touches but it is to where we can use it and move on..

Garage: Yes! I did say garage. This one has been hanging over us for some time because doing projects where there is not a good accessible way to get to tools in there has caused a nightmare of all nightmares! That and missing the Moab meetup on the dirt bike because of the Un-running bike, I need room to start working on it and need space for that..

here is the list of to do’s
1- build shelf for long term storage – (in progress)
2- Move stuff to shelf
3- seal floor
4- rearrange shop for maximum space usage
5- electrical (lighting and plugs ect…
6- (really have not planned in detail this far ahead)

here is what we got so far:

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More to come.. stay tuned
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