On education, racehorses, and accounting

So no one showed up for the class that I spent time creating.  Ok.  That’s fine.  I can deal with that.  What I can’t deal with is someone that won’t learn the material on their own.  People have to learn, and you can’t drag them where they don’t want to go.  As I’ve heard said once, race horses don’t run with donkeys.  Race horses run with race horses.  Donkeys run with donkeys.  You get a collection of donkeys together, and you’re not going anywhere fast.  Get a collection of race horses together, and you’ll go places.  What happens when you combine the two?  The race horses run and the donkeys don’t.  So you have to get rid of the donkeys or the race horses will take off running and never come back.  Which group do you want to build a company with: the slow, unmotivated, and un-teachable or the fast, motivated, lightning bolts?

I’ve been working on accounting issues today.  It’s hard trying to describe to those who are not accountants why the numbers have to be perfect if the numbers balance.  I took a few classes in college.  Maybe two or three.  And I can explain a little bit.  But not everything.  Four hours later, it seems I can come up with how to describe to non-accountants why the accountant demands everything be balanced a certain way.  But I finally convinced them.  Granted, they had to look at a few numbers themselves.  But I think they got it.

On the subject of accounting, I’ve changed my budget up a bit.  The gas reimbursement checks I get have thrown my entire budget for a loop since they started.  Based on what I drive, I get a giant check, and then have to spend just as much of it the next week gas again, which causes instability in the budget.  Problem is, I’ve got too much debt to just throw the gas check in a separate account.  But then I realized, I’ve been budgeting a specific amount of money from the gas check to stay in the regular account.  So what happens when I flip the equation?  Instead of putting the entire thing in, and assuming a certain amount is going to be there to prop up the budget, put the gas check in a separate account and transfer the remaining that would have been used to prop up the account as a single amount.  Because the single amount stays the same.  And then I can take gas out and get it in its own account, where it will be a small tornado, separated from the rent and food.  We’ll see. 

Teachable moments

I’ve been writing another power point for a class on network structure.  It’s scheduled to be taught on Wednesday.  This is the second time I’ve written a class.  The first was on how to program at AT Systems safe.  AT Systems went out of business and was bought out by FireKing.  FireKing made a new version of the same safe, but it sucks.   So we didn’t buy it.  We went with something from Tidel.  

I put a lot of time and effort into writing the class on how to program that safe.  I even had a block of time assigned for teaching the class.   And no one was here to teach the class to.  So it makes me wonder if I’m wasting my time with this class.  Seems people want the information, but they won’t take the effort to show up and get the knowledge.  I don’t have any other classes currently scheduled.   And if no one shows up for this one, then I won’t spend the effort blocking out time for another class.  I’ve got other things to learn.

I have to admit going back and creating classes on this information gives me some knowledge on how all these devices work together.  It also codifies what I already know.  The problem is I already know this information without thinking.  I know how to reprogram a safe, and I build the network on any new store or remodel.  I know the information.

But not the others.  And that is what causes me to work like I do.  Because they don’t know, and won’t show up to learn.  Kind of disheartening.  But there isn’t much I can do about that.  You can’t control others.  You’ve just got to fire them and find people who are willing to work and learn.  Unfortunately, I don’t have that power or authority.

Spinning Wheels

In some strange way, I think I’ve been thinking too much.  And I think that’s the problem here.  Too much thinking, and not enough doing.  Because all real growth is work.  And you can’t just think about what you have to do.  You have to go out and do it.  But I haven’t been.   I’ve been opting to sleep in, and enjoy myself.  A little folding of the hands for slumber, a little rest.   Too much rest.  Not enough action.

And I suppose this here is some sort of action, and so is reading books related to my work.  But is it the action I want?  Sure, in the long run that will get me more income, but is it the path I want to continue?

I had a discussion with a coworker on the way out of town about the problems we face as an IT department.  There’s a theory I have… you notify those people you either see as peers or those you see as superiors.  If a group is neither peer nor superior, then you don’t inform them of things that go on.  Because you don’t care or respect them.  And I think that’s the primary issue: respect. 

It’s the root cause of the problem, but it’s the problem no one is talking about or doing anything about.  See, it doesn’t matter what else is fixed because you don’t solve the primary problem.  If you don’t solve the root cause, then you don’t solve the problem. 

Now here’s the better question: am I just spinning my wheels at this job, preparing for something else because I seriously doubt they will change their utter lack of respect for the IT department.  So I guess the question then becomes: am I reading and doing the right thing to send me in the right direction for when I grow completely disgusted with the lack of respect?

Better question: what do I want to do?  Even better than the last question: how can I benefit others? 

How can I benefit others is the best question because that is what most entrepreneurs end up doing in order to grow empires.

The project that ate my brain.

Finished an upgrade to the car wash/lube servers about 1 hour ago.   Since then, I’ve modified a router configuration, added half a dozen things to my to-do list, learned a spitting of knowledge about GeoVision DVR systems, and decided I need to quit working so much. 

I guess the question here is... what do you do when it’s time to let go and your mind won’t?   I really can’t answer that question, as I’m still here.  Perhaps it’s a false pretense to let go of work.  Assuming you like your work, that is…   If you don’t like your work, go find a job you like.  If you’re going to spend most of your waking hours dealing with it, you might as well like what you do.   

I may complain about my job here and there… about policy, and bad decisions, and any other stupid thing I can think to complain about.  But I love my job.  I work like a madman, but I get to go figure out some incredibly weird stuff and have a lot of “YES!” moments when dealing with equipment that just won’t cooperate.  That last post?  After the credit cards came up, I spent less than 20 minutes working on the gas pumps because everything worked.  So as soon as the credit cards worked properly, the entire thing was over.  Just because I wanted to fight about a receipt trailer and small problems generally indicate much large problems.

PROTIP: Fix all noticeable problems before moving on to the next problem.  They might be related.

Final note... I actually wrote this back on Tuesday.   Just never had a chance to finish.

Scheduled Updates and Chron Jobs

Kicked back, upgrading car washes and lube centers from the comfort of my office at 9:40 PM, listening to selective bits from Punk’O Rama CDs from yesteryear.  I’m working ON #7 as I write this, and I find that I’m still enjoying the NOFX/Rancid crossover after all these years.  There were a lot of good songs on those albums.  I learned of a lot of good bands and good music.  Those, and the Warped Tour CDs.   Both harken to different times in my life, and certain CDs almost bring me back to times years ago.  Has it been a decade?

Had an upgrade Monday night.  An upgrade Tuesday night.  Hopefully, I won’t have any more this week.  It would be nice to spend some time at home for a bit and get a more consistent sleep/work/home schedule.  The Monday night upgrade was hell.  Verifone Viper boards are picky pieces of proprietary junk.  When you follow the right procedures, they work like a champ and fire off without problems.  Note that the right procedures aren’t written in any manual or taught.  Verifone would rather spend 45 minutes talking about putting the stupid thing in a Sapphire and two minutes on actually configuring it.  Granted, there isn’t much for the installation.  But the tricky bits that cause you to get the system up and running the first time aren’t ever documented.  Except in some persons’ head.

I’ll tell you.  Don’t plug the network in the first time until the network is completely configured.  And if you have to reload Viper… unplug the network.   Or get a V920, as they seem to operate better and don’t like an ungainly kludge of a device.  You can definitely tell engineering genius when a cable exits a box and goes back into the box.  At least Verifone was smart enough to make those cables replaceable.  Except the one they decided should be proprietary.  

All told, it could be worse… it could be better, too.    This upgrade shouldn’t take me all night.   Hopefully, another hour and it will be done.  That would only make this one only two and a half hours.   Though Monday was 9 hours and a 6 hour upgrade, and today was another 6 hours and a 3ish hour upgrade.  That’s only a bit over half a week of work crammed into two days.  I think the company will hate me if they ever make me hourly.

And hey, what do you know.  Microsoft Outlook 2010 has the ability to create reoccurring daily tasks.  They can repeat forever or for a definite amount of time.  In the last week or two, I’ve read about 100 pages of material.  That’s more than I’ve covered in several months before that. I like these things.  It’s that doohickey that is causing me to write this.  How many days will it take to burn through 100 days of “read 30 minutes” or write a blog?  I don’t know.  But it’s pretty easy to eat an elephant at one sitting, 30 minutes every single day.