Javier: Daddy, pirates say, "Ar me hearties."
Me: Really, Javier? They really say that?
Javier: Yeah, Daddy. An’ I like Pirates and Cara-beans.
Me: *Falls out of chair laughing*
Page 23 of 51
I was watched a little bit of the last auto executives grilling (smoky flavor), and I have to say they were a huge group of clueless morons. For all the money they make, you’d think they would get the simple things, like:
Your salary is not a prize, or yours for that matter. Your salary is a reflection of your commitment, responsibility, and risk you assume heading a company.
As the cookie cutter executives blathered on and danced around a word, a word that was clearly "victim", I began to realize it’s not the market that brought down these companies, it was their clueless CEOs.
You see, they are victims just like everyone else. They are just guys, regular guys, employees at their respective companies, paid just like everyone else and worried about their salaries, families, etc. I’m just a regular joe trying to fix a problem, they seem to say. This isn’t about me, they say. It’s about the company. Please help us. Help us poor working folks. You see, I drove here in a hybrid. Aren’t I special.
You’re not showing me anything special, Mr. Auto-exec. In fact, I’m starting to wonder why we paid you all that money.
Let me spell it out for you. Here’s what happens when things go awry. You take the hit, Mr. Auto-exec, until such a time as the company improves. It’s your fault, Mr. Auto-exec. You get the big salary, as an indication of risk, your responsibility for performance. You have the most to lose, so you get a big salary. If things don’t go well, we fire you. We blame you. It is your fault. In some cultures, those responsible parties feel such commitment to their company that they commit suicide. That’s going a bit far, but in this case I’d like to see top executives stick to a few simple rules.
I’ll call them, Jim’s nine rules to successful leadership at a car company.
- Drive yourself to work everyday in a base model (or car that your company wants to promote). Love that car, know it inside and out. Do your own oil changes.
- Get down in the dirt with the mechanics once in a while. Walk the production floor EVERY single day in some plant across the country.
- Sit in on and understand engineering meetings. If you are not an engineer, use your company’s education benefits and get a degree. This is not an option at a car company.
- Sit in on and understand marketing/advertising meetings. If you are not a marketing person, use your company’s education benefits and get a degree. This
is not an option at a car company. - Understand the finances of your company. If you are not a CPA, take some courses, and take the certification exam. If you are not an MBA (which isn’t very likely, I suppose), get one.
- Stay late at the office and talk to the cleaning staff. Talk to your designers. Have lunch with union leadership. Meet with your plant managers, line workers, dealers, customers, all the time, constantly.
- Give up your salary at the first hint of trouble. Live off your carefully managed investment portfolio.
- Take blame yourself in the bad times
- Give credit to others in the good times
Any questions?
I noticed Javier quiet in the back seat of the car. He seemed concentrated on something, his little brows furrowed in thought.
"Hey, Javier, what are you thinking about?"
"A watergun." He replied without hesitation, and as to open the floodgates to the torrent that is his little brain, continued. "Daddy, I want a watergun for my birthday… an’ a telescope."
"A telescope? A telescope AND a water gun?"
"Yeah, a telescope that goes on top."
"Oh, you mean a scope on the gun. Wow, little boy, that’s some pretty sophisticated hardware. You need a scope so you can see your target more closely, right."
"Yup, an’ I don’t want a pink watergun. I want a water gun that is colored like a water gun."
"You mean a dark color, right? I don’t know if they make them like that anymore. But anything but pink, right?"
"Yup, ’cause my friend had one that was pink and it had a telescope."
"Who was your friend? Isabel?"
"Yeah, Isabel. She had a watergun with a telescope."
"Isabel is your cousin, Javier. I’ll check it out and see what we can do."
"Okay, Daddy."
When our little boys need a bath, I call them croquetas de jamón, little ham filled dough balls rolled in bread crumbs and deep fried. Delicious.
"Come here, my little croqueta de jamon," I say to Asier. "We need to give you a bath. I see crumbs."
Croquetas de jamón are tasty, crumbly little treats that make any occasion all the more fun.
"Ms. Palin, you mentioned today that the ‘gloves are off.’ It puzzles me and I am curious."
"You betcha. But why would you not get what we’re tryin’ to do?"
"Um, it’s just that, if the gloves were off, that would imply that the gloves were on at some point, right?"
"You betcha. We’ve taken off the gloves, and we’re not holdin’ back. We’re taking it straight to Obama. We’re going to show the American people what we’re made of."
"Oh, okay, so here’s my question. Did you wear gloves before? If so, why? Why were you wearing gloves when it seems the best method you have now determined is, in fact, sans gloves?"
"Well, the gloves are off now. We mean business. We’re gonna hit hard with our message."
"But before, when the gloves were on, you must have talked about it, right? Were you possibly trying to match your opponent’s elevated tactics? Did you think that it was classless to attempt to smear or ‘swiftboat’ your opponent? You wanted to run a dignified campaign, rich in real substantive issues? Did you believe that the road to the presidency was to be found on high not down low? There must have been something in the merits of the ‘gloves on’ tactic. Is this new ‘gloves off’ thing an indication that your ‘gloves on’ approach was failing because of a lack of substance?"
"I’m not going to answer that question. You want me to, but I’m not. I’m going to take our message straight to the American people. You see, you’re smart, but the American people – they might just be dumb enough to buy it."
Here are a couple more. These were taken in the port zone approaching El Viejo San Juan (Old San Juan), Puerto Rico. We were on our way to enjoy the Fiesta de San Sebastián. Some of these kids have a real talent.
Then there was this sweet ride. It was almost like being in Cuba, except without the political oppression and rationing.
Here’s a picture I took of my mom’s garden in St. Louis. We spent a month traveling around the Midwest (Missouri to Michigan), visiting family, having fun.
On our way to Mackinac Island in Lake Michigan, Laura spied these flowers growing in front of a Hampton Inn. She has a good eye and snapped this beauty.
The sky looks so beautiful because of my circular polarizer. The polarizing filter removes distracting refracted light that sometimes makes nature shots look hazy. It really makes the details of leaves and stems (that would normally have glare) pop.
Little Mr. Asier Enrique (pictured left below), has been loathe to speak. He points, shakes his head, demands with his body language and cries, but has up to recently not uttered a distinguishable word.
Over the course of a few days he has acquired the following vocabulary:
- Bye – (his first word) which he says repeatedly while exiting the room, reenter, exit, reenter, exit… rinse lather repeat, all for the opportunity to apply his new vocabulary to a relevant and appropriate situation.
- Leche (milk) which you can imagine is something he cares about. I need some leche. Fetch it papi.
- Mama – you would think Mama would be the first word, but mothers always get taken for granted. The world is unfair.
- Dada – I finally have a name. Wheeee!
- Ball – let’s play ball, daddy, so I can say ball over and over and over. Smile, throw the ball, and say ball. Repeat until daddy distracts me with something else.
I think that’s it. I’ll add more if I think of anything else.
I’m posting this conversation that Laura and I had over IM after my "You Are Not the Sum Total of Your Accomplishments" post. I wouldn’t normally post things like this, but I found it an interesting window into our relationship. Bear in mind that my explanation of the post is really me figuring out why I wrote it.
(8/20/08 4:03 PM) Laura:
nice post
(8/20/08 4:04 PM) Laura:
you went a bit all over the place… so I had my doubts, it gets
confusing… You are not your job, but you made a man reconsider his job
and feel loved.
(8/20/08 4:04 PM) Jim:
thanks, I think
(8/20/08 4:04 PM) Laura:
Did he feel loved because you helped him reevaluate his job…then does
that go against the message
(8/20/08 4:05 PM) Laura:
I am still chewing on this.
(8/20/08 4:05 PM) Laura:
not sure it is clear in your post
(8/20/08 4:05 PM) Laura:
hmmm
(8/20/08 4:06 PM) Jim:
your job isn’t what you are
(8/20/08 4:07 PM) Jim:
but HOW you do your job, maybe
(8/20/08 4:07 PM) Jim:
it’s realizing that ALL jobs are service
(8/20/08 4:07 PM) Laura:
ahhh ok… because HOW you do your job helps you serve others
(8/20/08 4:07 PM) Jim:
and it is in service that we touch the divine
(8/20/08 4:07 PM) Laura:
yes I liked that part… that sentiment was unique
(8/20/08 4:07 PM) Jim:
so it’s a question of thinking your job is the TITLE, when in fact it is
how you serve
(8/20/08 4:07 PM) Laura:
It is rarely said… In service we touch the divine
(8/20/08 4:08 PM) Jim:
that way we can appreciate sweeping floors AND being a doctor
(8/20/08 4:08 PM) Laura:
yes I think you need to somewhere in there… reinforce that people get
down when they focus on their job, the tasks the title, the indignities.
(8/20/08 4:08 PM) Jim:
but too many people think being a doctor is the M.D. rather than healing
people serving people
(8/20/08 4:09 PM) Laura:
They should rather take strength and base their dignity on HOW they do
their job, on their service to others… because in serving others we
touch the divine
(8/20/08 4:09 PM) Laura:
ok got it,
(8/20/08 4:10 PM) Laura:
very cool and unique. Like I said I think the posts has this and loses
it… but ends with a bang
(8/20/08 4:10 PM) Jim:
you know I write these things by the seat of my pants, right?
(8/20/08 4:10 PM) Laura:
yes that is why I am giving you feedback
…And therein lies the reason for of our 14 years together 🙂
There was much to be ashamed of during the Republican National Convention, but I’m just going to pick one moment to tear apart. I think one is enough, and after I gut it and lay its entrails open, you’ll see just what I’m talking about, just what the Republicans are offering.
Although I don’t consider myself a community organizer, I do work with a lot of the same needs in my community as Barack Obama. I consider it a privilege to mentor and share time with youthful offenders from, what Americans would consider, the "inner city," people who come from the projects.
In Puerto Rico our "projects" are not segregated in specific areas of the city, congregated and sequestered far from the day to day life of "normal" folks. Our projects are everywhere, and they have all the same problems you find on the south side of Chicago. The projects are controlled by gangs. The police are out-gunned, out-flanked, and out-manned. The residents of the projects have no where else to go. They could try to get out, but where would they go? They live on public assistance, their children exposed daily to violence, fear, and a culture that offers them the way out – run this errand, sell these drugs, lookout for the police, and you will have the flashy car, the jewelry, the girl, and the respect. It is the only way forward for these kids, and it is why I meet them in prison, why I talk to them, why I have compassion for them, and contempt for the system that foments this aberration.
Barack Obama saw the same things I see every day. He saw a huge community of lost potential, wasted lives of violence, drugs, and guns. He saw kids not nurtured and edified, wrapped in the warm embrace of love, but cold hard shafts of steel forged in heat, anger, and fear.
I don’t know for sure, but I can imagine Barack Obama had the same calling I did. He decided that the war on terror begins at home, and it doesn’t begin with "shock and awe" but with service to the poor. Barack Obama began his life’s work in the trenches doing what Christians would call the work of Jesus. If you consider yourself a follower of the ways of Jesus, and you are not actively seeking to serve the most miserable and lost of our society, you are not living the message. How come you are not engaging, putting your lives at risk in response to the great gift you have been given?
But Barack Obama did.
He risked himself to go into communities held hostage by apathy and neglect and dealt with fatherless households, lawlessness, poor infrastructure and public schools, and a host of other problems that "white America" only sees on television. "Oh my goodness, that’s so horrible," they say, "I’m glad I don’t live there." Barack Obama didn’t say that. He rolled up his sleeves and got involved.
So that’s why I was so insulted when I heard Rudy Guliani mock him in such a disrespectful manner (quote msnbc.com).
"You have a resume from a gifted man with an Ivy League education. He worked as a community organizer.”
He paused and then said, “What?” as if to express befuddlement at that job title.
Giuliani had eloquent body language — a dismissive half-shrug — as he said the words, “community organizer.”
Immediately the delegates on the convention floor burst into laughter and guffaws.
GOP vice presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin also poked fun at Obama’s work as a community organizer, contrasting it with her own work as a mayor.
Don’t kid yourself. It was not an off the cuff remark but conscious and deliberate.
If you consider yourself a Christian why would you laugh? Jesus, was the son of a carpenter, a good Jewish boy with a bright future ahead of him as a respected tradesman. He didn’t take that path though. He threw it all away to spend time with the downtrodden, the cast out, the lost, and abandoned. He dedicated himself to a life of being a "community organizer."
And he got mocked too.