StevenVinson.com

I realize you think you are the only one whose house isn’t picked up, or that nobody else has ever locked their keys in the car with it running.  But, I’ve got news for you… you aren’t that different from everyone else.  Here are four ways that you might relate to…

1.  Your refrigerator has several items in it that you would not eat. In fact, they are so old that you wouldn’t feed them to a dog.  Even a dog you don’t like.

Don’t worry, it’s hard to keep up with every cup of yogurt, stalk of celery, and hunk of cheese in there.  There’s bound to be a take-home box from PF Chang’s that we forget about. For three months.  A word of wisdom, earned by experience: do not, under any circumstance, throw away any expired dairy products until trash day. Right before you take the trash to the curb. With the trash collectors standing ready to take your expired milk. In a double-Walmart-bagged containment situation.

2.  You have been so good at calling in fake-sick that you started to buy your own story.

It goes without saying that we have all called in sick when we weren’t. We have all done that and you know it.  What you didn’t know is that we have all also been so into our sick story that we, too, convinced ourselves that we were sick.

3.  Someone tells you they saw you in your car out and about. Maybe at a stop light. You wonder and maybe ask – were you picking your nose…

Look, I get that not all of my readers are nose pickers.  But you have to admit that when you are in your car, you have this illusion of complete privacy.  Or if not privacy, at least anonymity.  Who cares if a stranger sees you rocking out to Adele.  You’re never going to see the dude in the Camry again, so who cares if he catches you unrolling the ho-ho and licking the cream filling out?  But then it happens.  Somebody at work or at your book club or in art class says, “Hey, I saw you at a stop light the other day!”  If you’re like me, you immediately wonder if you were picking your nose when they saw you.

4.  When you get your hair cut and the barber/stylist removes the cape, you immediately sit up straighter and suck in your gut.

I don’t know about you (actually I do, which is the whole point of this post) but when I’m getting a haircut, I spend an awful lot of time adjusting my look and posture.  That big-ass mirror causes me to be microscopically aware of every brow furrow, every nod, where I’m looking, who I’m looking at, and which body part of who I’m looking at that I’m looking at.  Take an insecure dude and plop him in a chair in front of a giant mirror.  Watch him squirm.  The giant cape is a blessing.  The one thing I don’t worry about is my belly.  Or my hands. Or my arms.  Or my legs or knees.  Doesn’t matter how or where those awkward body parts are, because nobody can see.  Until that one moment.  Usually, there is warning – whether we choose to take the warning or not – there is that signal that the haircut is over when the barber/stylist swings you around and puts the hand mirror up so you can see the back.  That’s the signal that the haircut is over.  But I’m still shocked every time she whips the cape off.  And then I am exposed. Awkward hands and relaxed belly and all.  So I do what we all do.  What I know you have done.  I sit up a little straighter and I suck it in.  I asked my stylist about it.  Asked if she ever noticed the straightening and the sucking.  She said that, as hard as it might be to believe, she is not typically paying attention to my belly, as she is normally focused on the hair on my head.

John Dies at the End – a book I read a while back is now a movie that has made it to Netflix. I found the book after reading Help a Bear is Eating Me, recommended by my friend Anna.  My Kindle recommended it.  Anyway, through that circuitous route I came to begin writing a short story called, Dave Doesn’t Kill Himself at the End.

I was applying for a spot in a Butler University fiction workshop.  A sample of my writing was to be included.  I had very few samples of my writing that were not either a Facebook post or something from high school.  So after starting and stopping fifteen or so times I asked a friend what he thought.  He said that since I had been going on about a book I had just read, I should emulate the style.  So was born Dave Doesn’t Kill Himself at the End.

Act I

Dave works at a suicide hotline.  He’s the best there is.  He could talk water out of being wet.  And he can talk anyone out of killing himself for any reason.  Only he plays by his own rules.  Dave’s style ain’t in no book about suicide prevention or crisis counseling.  He’s never lost a caller.  Until today.  But this call was not just any call.  It was weird.  It was different.  It was just the beginning of something – beyond this world.

Act II

Dave just lost his first caller. His confidence is damaged.  His boss is about to fire him. The girl he has a crush on has left the office and is in trouble.  And his best friend just wants to get drunk with Dave because it Dave’s birthday.  Wackiness ensues.  The weirdness turns into hoards of roaming undead and government agents trying to stop them.  Caught in the middle, Dave, his best friend, and the girl Dave has a crush on get the feeling that it is less than clear who are the good guys and who are the bad guys.  So the three of them spend a little time killing undead and dodging government agents.

Act III

Our three heroes are caught by the government.  Or so it seems.  If this is the government, it sure ain’t playing by the Constitutional rules the three learned in civics class.  After much unpleasantness in Gitmo-style detention, the three heroes escape and figure out what is really going on.  Their only hope for survival – mankind’s only hope for survival – depends on them getting to the legit authorities and blowing the whistle on this craziness.  Do they make it in time?  Are the “legit” authorities actually legit?  Does Ed seduce the girl Dave has a crush on? Does Dave Kill Himself at the End?

Anyway, as you might have guessed, the short story turned into a novel.  I haven’t quite finished the first chapter, let alone the first act.

Maybe some day…

Elizabeth stopped about 50 yards along the sidewalk on her way to second grade. She motioned me to come. She bowed her head over a small lump on the sidewalk. As I came closer, the bird’s body took form.

“Dada.”
“Aww.”
Pause. Silence that I felt like filling.
Profound thoughts escaped me.
“If it’s still there after school maybe you can get some gardening gloves and do something with it.” Good one, Dada. Very poetic.
More silence.
Then she buried her face in my belly and wrapped her arms around my waist.
“Bye bye.”
After a moment she blew me a kiss and walked off.
I took a picture, watched until she met Father Steve at the corner, and came back to write.

From October 4, 2011:

This is weird.
I started a new story today. I was searching the net for something related to day of the dead. Found a connection to the Aztecs which led me to a connection to psychopomps. Psychopomps are sometimes depicted as whippoorwills. Finding that connection reminded me of being down south in Bumpus Creek, AL at my Grandma’s house listening to dry flies, bull frogs, bob whites, and whippoorwills. Also reminded me (like, simultaneously) of the Hank Sr. song, I’m so Lonesome I Could Cry. So I outlined in 3 acts a story about a rum runner caught between life and living in prohibition era Alabama. By the way, my dad’s brother Buddy used to run ‘shine two decades after prohibition ended.
Anyway, I’m checking Facebook later this afternoon and I see a pic posted by one of my cousins – it’s my uncles and my dad goofing around back in the day down south. Now, this wouldn’t be weird normally but I have not seen anyone post any old pics of my southern family – old days or otherwise. Its a sign from the muse, I’m sure of it.

I wrote a chapter or two. In 2-1/2 years, I’ve written a chapter or two. I’d better get back to it.

Someone once asked me what my preferred project management tool is. Actually, a bunch of people have asked me that a bunch of times. My answer is always MS Excel. I say that somewhat tongue in cheek. Because MS Excel is crap for managing projects unless they fit that very specific project type in which you have dozens or hundreds of very similar tasks that do not have any dependencies in each other. For example, say you were asked to mow 200 lawns in 50 days with 2 crews. You can do them in any order. Just as long as they all get done within 50 days. Some will take longer than others. MS Excel, along with a good old fashioned calendar, is fantastic for planning and tracking a project like that.

Fortunately for me, from 2006 through 1/2 way through 2009, I had a series of large projects that fit this template perfectly. Hundreds of documents and dozens of work processes rewritten, re imagined, and remediated at three different companies. All through te magic of MS Excel and a little something I like to call leadership.
Enter 2nd half of 2009 and a series of projects that were more traditional in nature. Large and complex. Lots of dependencies. So I had to use MS Project. But I avoided managing resources in the tool like I avoid doing housework on a 72 degree sunny Saturday. And I was successful.
The past 6 months an the next few years – different story. It can’t be avoided. MS Project is the tool of choice for managing schedule, budget, and resources. It really is the right tool for this program.

Why do I hate it then?

It’s greatest benefit is also my greatest nemesis – flexibility. It allows the user to setup the project, indeed each task in the project, any way he wants. To make matters worse, there are ways to make changed to a task that cause it to apply to all (or most) other tasks, depending on how those tasks were set up or how the project was initially set up. In the mean time, if you are using MS Project to manage resource hours as well as schedule, be careful if you change the number of hours a task will take. It might change the task duration. Or it might not. Whether you want it to or not.

Every project becomes like a Rubic’s Cube. Turn one side to line up red and you screw up green in the process. I’ve met several people who mastered the Rubic’s Cube. I’ve only met one person who mastered managing schedule, budget, and resources in MS Project.

If I were you, I’d be very disappointed with this post. I would have expected this author to provide an alternative to MS Project. Or at least a satisfying answer as to why it sucks. Alas, the best answer I an give is a mutilation of a Winston Churchill quote:

MS Project is the worst project management tool, except for all the other project management tools.

Or, better yet, a bastardization of that FedEx slogan

MS Project: when you absolutely, positively have no other choice.

A friend of mine helps people for a living.  Well, she helps people all the time.  She just helps people. It’s who she is.  So, it stands to reason that, professionally, her work includes helping people make the most of their career and, in the process, their life.  So, what’s the problem?  She feels guilty taking money from people for the help she gives them.  The question: Should she be accepting payment for helping someone?  We are just supposed to help people because that’s what we’re supposed to do, right?

Well, here’s my question for her:

Should you accept payment for anything other than helping someone?

In other words, if you aren’t helping someone, I would argue that accepting payment would be somehow empty and unrewarding, wouldn’t it?  After all, our entire society and our economy is built around two parties agreeing to exchange things of value.  I pay my groundskeeper money (something he values) to keep the royal grounds in a state of pristine beauty (something I value).  He is accepting payment for helping me.  Try that model with anything for which you have ever paid money.  When were you happy to part ways with your green and when did you not feel so good about it?  Chances are you gladly pay when it is for something that is helpful (i.e something you value).  And there’s a lump in your stomach when you feel ripped off (i.e. you drop dough on something that didn’t help you).

Money is how our economy and our society assigns value to things.  It’s how you know if something is of value to people.  Another way of saying “is of value to people” is “helps people.”

I work with a local coaching firm on workshops that truly change people’s lives.  The workshops have certainly changed my life and my family forever.  How that work has done that is another series of posts.  Anyway, people pay money for these workshops.  Whenever I speak to people about attending, the obstacle almost always seems to be time or money.  For this post, let’s talk about money (again, we can discuss time in another post).

If I truly believe these workshops change lives and if I truly want my friends and others to have this life changing experience, why wouldn’t I just pay for the workshop for people that cite money as an obstacle?

I’ll tell you.

It’s not really the money.  That’s right.  It can’t possibly really be the money.  We don’t even get to the money conversation until the person already has agreed that this work will change their life for the better.  Dramatically so.  So if it’s not the money, what is it?  It’s value.  It’s spending money on one’s self.  When someone says, “I can’t spend the money right now,” what they really mean is, “I am not worth it right now.”  In other words, I don’t pay for their workshop because I want them to experience an “I’m worth it” breakthrough. Then, their table is set for even greater breakthroughs at the workshop.  If I pay for it, then they may have agreed that the workshop will change their life, but they haven’t agreed with me that they are worth changing.

In the end, I hope I make millions of dollars in my lifetime.  I even hope to hang on to a few of those dollars.  I also plan to make sure as many of those dollars as possible come from people who would say they were helped by me in return.

Another one of my, “I’m feeling lazy and blank. I can’t think of anything to write about,” nights. So I was looking through my notes for inspiration and found this list I wrote circa March 2011. I guess I can’t use that excuse anymore.
What’s your favorite?

1. I Hate MS Project
2. Stop Managing and Start Leading
3. The Work is the Work
4. Enrolling is better than Convincing
5. Why Relationships Matter
6. It’s about Love
7. What Matters?
8. Who Matters?
9. How do you Inspire Someone?
10. Authenticity, or “let’s get real”
11. Justice over customer satisfaction? How do you treat a customer who is late on payments?
12. Trust
13. Debunking conventional wisdom – something’s broken
14. Process validation – are we safer?
15. Risk based approach – are we safer?
16. Should you accept payment for helping someone? Should you accept
payment for anything other than helping someone?
17. How to get your shit together, part 1 – time management
18. How to get your shit together, part 2 – finances
19. How to get your shit together, part 3 – nutrition
20. How to get your shit together, part 4 – fitness
21. How to get your shit together, part 5 – de-clutter
22. No Plan Survives Contact with the Enemy, or, Every Boxer has a Plan until he Gets Hit
23. Why we are Afraid (blame evolution)
24. Is Standardization Really all that Important?
25. The new Capitalism, or, Death of the Corporation
26. When doing the Right thing is Lonely
27. Is there Right and Wrong or just Shared Perception and Preference?
28. Emotional Intelligence

Instant information is not for me.  I prefer to search library stacks because when I work to learn something, I remember it.

Harper Lee

I am not like Harper Lee.  Instant information is for me.  I learn from it and remember what I learn.  Another way I’m not like Harper Lee is that I’ve never published a novel.  I’ve never even written one.  If I do write one and manage to get it published, I bet I’ll publish more than one, again unlike Harper Lee.

Don’t get me wrong, I remember loving To Kill a Mockingbird.  But why has Harper Lee not published another novel? Maybe her debut and only novel was a fluke.  Maybe it was a novel written and exposed at a perfect time.  Maybe it was a piece of shit.  I’ll have to reread it some time.  And maybe research why Harper Lee never published another novel.  Guess how I will do that research?  Search library stacks?  Nope.  Search Google.  Instant information.

I feel, though, that there is something nice about searching library stacks.  The smell.  The feel of the texture of the paper and the bindings and the covers.  The thought that before those books made it into those stacks, they had to pass a test. No, they had to pass many tests.  A writer who knew she may only have one shot at this spent years crafting and re-crafting and self doubting and sacrificing to get those words onto some paper.  An editor, an agent, a publisher all had to decide those words on that paper were worth sacrificing their time and doubting and sacrificing.  Then many readers chose to read those words.  Enough so that librarians chose those books to put in their stacks.  So every word you find when you search those stacks has value. Not just anyone can put those words there.  Unlike my Google search, Harper Lee’s library stack search finds pre-vetted information.

It would be interesting to explore the relative merits and drawbacks to both ways of searching.  But not tonight. I am on deadline to publish these un-vetted words…

List of phrases that sound racist but aren’t:
White on rice
Black lung
Mexican standoff
Dark humor
Honky tonk
Reverse Polish Notation

List of phrases you may not know are racist but are:
Jew someone down (as in a negotiation)
“I’ve been gypped!” (as in “I’ve been cheated”)
Afro-engineering (this version seems passive aggressive but isn’t. It only seems passive because there’s a more direct version that is overtly offensive)
Cracker Barrel

This public service message is brought to you so that you don’t accidentally sound like a bigot.

What do you think of this joke?
You have to imagine me telling this joke live. There are several moments where voice inflection and even song will make it funnier.

Went to the doctor the other day. You kids won’t get this but as you get to be my– uh, that guy’s– age… You start to have a little problem getting all the pee out. You know what I’m talking about, right guys? You can shake and shake but there’s still that teaspoon or so that will not come out until you stuff your junk back into your white, seemingly paper thin pants.
Quick tip for the ladies… He did not splash water on his pants while he was washing his hands. His plumbing is getting old. He pissed his pants. I know, I know. I’m violating guy code…
Anyway. The doctor. I told him that I was having a problem with leaky pipes. “I see. Urine trouble.” You’re telling me, doc. I am in trouble. My girl thinks I piss my pants all the time.
By the way, what’s with that song? Yer in trou-ble. Isn’t it embarrassing enough without the doctor taunting me with song?
After he explained he was saying urine trouble, as in trouble with urine, I gave him a 10 minute lecture on language and mentioned the British word for cigarettes a few times. I also suggested he not sing the diagnosis in the future.
Tag
Tag
Tag