Shelf Life

It turns out there's a word for the reaction I typically have to most of the junk that people - even the people who are close to me & ought to know better - seem to feel with some degree of regularity a compelling need to forward to me. One bit of glurge that has shown up in my inbox from time to time is the one about the husband explaining how he came to see the importance of treating every day as a special occasion after his wife died before she ever found the right 'special occasion' for which to don an expensive piece of lingerie. Even though the story always made me gag, the sentiment isn't entirely lost on me either... though I find now that I have an easier time thinking about it in terms of shelf life.

I'll admit that I came by this notion much more slowly than was probably necessary. I went a long time letting things like bananas and other fruit go bad, thinking that I was leaving it for someone else who might want it. I even have let really good chocolate turn completely tasteless just because it wasn't mine, if you can believe that. In retrospect, it's actually rather amazing that after having been passed by on so many other feminine tendencies that I should somehow get both the interest in chocolate and the kind of self-sacrificing that many men just scratch their heads over. Surely, "You gonna eat that?" ought to apply to chocolate as readily as anything else, right?

While I still hold back on chocolate that actually does belong to someone else, I'm less inclined to stand by and wait for the bananas to get so far as to become candidates for the banana bread I never get around to baking (another of the distaff qualities I somehow missed). I understand now that they have a limited shelf life. If we don't enjoy them now while they're good, it will be too late. Saving such things for later, even if it's something we believe would get used up and not replaced, doesn't work. At least with used up and gone, there's the enjoyment of the experience. Letting it go bad is just wasting that opportunity.

This applies to time too, especially time with people we care about or time spent doing things that are important to us vs. extraneous junk that seems more important at the time than it really is. We usually don't know how much time we actually have; we only know that it is a limited amount like will go on longer than it really will.

There is a shelf life to time and we must enjoy it while it is available to us. Saving it for some unqualified "later" won't work any better than saving Jelly Bellies for a year or more - which I can tell you from personal experience doesn't work well at all. Chocolate Easter Robins' Eggs on the other hand survive pretty well, though I'm not sure if that's because of the armor-like candy coating or the fact that they start out bad enough that it's tough to tell the difference a year later.

So what's a cynic to do - get all gushy and introspective? Maybe. I find it works to remain skeptical if need be and at least temporarily set aside the cynicism long enough to figure out if there's anything worthwhile in the midst of all the glurge before deleting it. Even in falsity there can be truth.

Case in point - Merck is taking some heat for its Make a Connection campaign to create more public awareness around the causal link between HPV - the human papillomavirus responsible for genital warts - and cervical cancer. And guess what - the shelf life of that link is along the lines of 5 years or more.

That means that if you're 'fortunate' enough to have to make several inconvenient trips to someplace really fun like Harborview - and hey, what a treat that is - about the time you have forgotten all the fun you had and why, there's an opportunity to make another series of even less fun trips to investigate and deal with any pre-cancerous anomalies that may have shown up on an annual exam - and can anyone tell me why freezing things that one normally doesn't think of freezing is so often involved? The only thing I can think of that's more unpleasant is the cutting that sometimes happens too. Then, if you truly are fortunate for real, that's about the end of it; only for lots of people, it's not.

Of course Merck's interests are sure to be largely mercenary given the vaccine that they're about to release, and hence the criticism. Anyone who doesn't think so can explain why we haven't seen this campaign say, about twenty years ago when scientists first figured out the relationship.

That doesn't make the program itself a bad thing however. Who wouldn't want to save their sister, girlfriend, or daughter from a cervical cancer scare - or worse yet, the real thing? I'm just amazed that in twenty years, people don't already understand the connection any better than they do. But then ignorance can have a pretty long shelf life. I olnly wish chocolate lasted that long.

If you have thoughts about how long is appropriate to wait to see if someone else is going to take the last slice of pie when you've already had a slice yourself... or the about longest amount of time you've ever waited to eat your last piece of Halloween candy and had it still be good... or anything else along those lines, go ahead and send them to me at techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com so we can compare notes. As long as it's not glurge, I'll promise to read what you send.

How do you tell the difference between patience and immobilization and what does it take to move back into action?

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Kimm Viebrock is an ICF-credentialed Associate Certified Coach who helps technology professionals and service-oriented technology groups develop and use their skills more effectively and increase their value within the larger organization, allowing them to do more, do it better and have more fun doing it. Kimm is devoted to finding the connectedness in life.

Strength in Numbers

I had to watch the video of FedEx arrivals into their Memphis hub during a major thunderstorm over and over. Someone has set the time-lapsed radar playback to music, which makes it look a lot like beautifully choreagraphed dancing ants. You can see the flights pick their way through the cells of the advancing storm and work their way into a queue for landing - right up until the storm is directly over the runway, at which point the ants all go running away from the airport, some to come back again after it passes but many finding their way to other nearby airports instead. It's hilarious... and I find myself wanting a voice-over too (Run away!).

Typically, though, I like to keep my love of flying and my interest in severe weather separate. They don't go well together. It's probably why I didn't do a lot of flying when I was in Omaha, which happened to be Stephen Colbert's target on his show Tuesday night. Between that and Jon Stewart's ongoing jabs at the Terre Haute weather team wars, I was feeling sort of deja vu all over again-ish, getting serious flashbacks of my days in small market television.

That, of course, is another story. While I was in Omaha, though, I nearly had a bit of a flashback of a different kind, coming close to getting caught up in a strike of my own, just like I used to see my father go through when I was a kid. Working in television in a lot of U.S. markets means joining up with AFTRA, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and while I was working in Omaha, the local AFTRA chapter came close to taking action against the station where I worked, placing me in a rather difficult position.

As on-air talent, my contract was considerably different than what most of the rest of the employees had with the station and was negotiated individually. Not surprisingly, the station considered me and the other on-air folks as part of a separate category altogether. They threatened us with harsher action if we honored the picket lines which certainly seemed intimidating at the time and was of course exactly the point.

Needless to say, the rest of the union considered "us" to be part of them along with everyone else and needed our participation to gain the leverage they needed in any kind of strike that might occur. The fact that I essentially agreed with them didn't make being in the middle any easier.

Basically, both sides needed or at least wanted us - our faces, voices, and soubriquets - on their side. I was greatly conflicted (mostly from trying to figure out how not to get sued) and not at all looking forward to making what was sure to have been a difficult decision, should the matter come down to a walk-out. Fortunately, the union and the station were able to come to an agreement and I never had to figure out my part in the situation.

The strikes I lived through as a child always seemed far simpler. No matter how difficult it might be for us as a family, we supported any union action that took place. And my father was always very clear that he understood not everyone was in a position to honor picket lines but he drew the line at enjoying the benefits resulting from such a sacrifice and enjoying continued work (and paycheck) during the strike. That always seemed fair to me.

I learned something else during that time. Going on strike is very, very difficult. I don't wish that on anyone. And what I came to understand back then was that no one likes to go on strike. When it happens, it's because the people feel like it is the only way to get what they want and that what they want is important enough to sacrifice a great deal to get it.

As such, I've always tried to honor any picket lines I come up against in my everyday life, the kind that have nothing to do with me except that they happen to be taking place at the store where I usually shop or the company from whom I usually get my newspaper. I tend to believe that in most cases, they wouldn't be walking the picket lines unless they really thought it was worth it because who in their right minds would willingly put themselves through that trauma if that weren't the case.

Becoming a manager in the tech world shifted my perspective just a bit, seeing what kind of hassles unionization was likely to cause in the places where I worked. When a manager really does try to do the right thing, meeting the demands of a union can be hobbling even while those demands are in place to protect against real-life issues caused by problem owners and managers. As a result, the opinion I've developed over time is that it is in everyone's best interests to do whatever is necessary to avoid the need for unionization, not to avoid unionization itself. If unions are sometimes a necessary evil, avoid the evil part by making them unnecessary.

The tech industry is currently working through the risk analysis for unionization with some folks actively pushing for unionizing technology workers now. There's no doubt in my mind that labor movements are not dead and that they will continue to have value so long as there are forces in the marketplace that push owners and managers to make choices contrary to the best interests of their employees.

When good owners and managers can resist those forces and take a more balanced approach, however, unionization may be premature. Smart owners and managers will recognize that and keep doing their level best to make unionization unnecessary - an obsolete notion - while smart workers will recognize those efforts when they're successful and hold off the unionization call, at least for the time being. While there is no benefit to unionizing before it's really needed, when it is needed, taking advantage of the strength that comes with numbers is the only thing that will work.

Too bad such strength in numbers doesn't work as well against forces of nature but then we wouldn't have had such a cool video to talk about.

Send your stories, thoughts or observations about this column, flying, management, unionization and/or weather phenomona to me at techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com - I'm not picky; I'll work with just about anything

What are the important connections in your life?

Kimm Viebrock is a Certified Professional Coach who helps technology professionals and service-oriented technology groups develop and use their skills more effectively and increase their value within the larger organization, allowing them to do more, do it better and have more fun doing it. Kimm is devoted to finding the connectedness in life.

KFS - Trade-offs

To make the airplane go up, pull back. To make it go down, pull back farther.

- - Old aviation saying

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Soaring Mountains: Piloting tips applicable to everyday living

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Slow an airplane down enough, and you'll find yourself in what's called the region of reverse command or, more commonly, "behind the power curve". It's a term we hear and use quite regularly in conversations that have absolutely nothing at all to do with aviation though I'd hazard a guess that most folks don't actually know what it really means.

A pilot will usually begin any explanation of the phenomenon by explaining first that all planes have a minimum flight speed. They need that airflow over the wings or they become very expensive rocks.

Flying very close to that minimum flight speed, pitch controls airspeed and power controls altitude rather than the other way around. The slower the airplane is flying, the more we find that we need more and more power just to maintain altitude until finally, there's no more power to give and the airplane begins to settle toward earth at a pretty good clip, even as the nose is pointed up in a climbing attitude!

All flight students spend some time learning about minimum slow flight and flying behind the power curve. They practice learning to spot the trouble signs and how to get themselves out of the predicament it poses - hopefully before the airplane stalls. When you've given it all the power you can and you still can't maintain altitude, there's nothing left for it but to trade altitude for speed of one kind or another - hopefully the kind you can use. And hopefully you've left yourself enough altitude to spare.

While the realities of flying behind the power curve and the solution for extricating oneself from that situation may be counterintuitive at first, it's only one of many aspects of flying that fit into that category so no wonder there's so much drill and practice in flying. It's important to get these things right and not just leave it to an instinct that may be inaccurate under certain circumstances.

There's a lot about life and business too that can be cast as "trading altitude for speed" and the best solutions in such situations can be equally counterintuitive. Sometimes we're simply trying too hard and things work better if we relax a bit. Sometimes we have to give in order to get. Sometimes we have to listen better in order to communicate better. It's just too bad we don't drill on these everyday aspects of our lives as much as pilots drill on flying skills. The impact is at least as great, even if it's not always as obvious or spectacular (link not recommended if you harbor any flying fears).

If you've had thoughts about how you recognize if you're operating behind the power curve or have questions about how that metaphor might (or might not apply) in a given situation, send them to me at techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com and we'll see if we can't get you flying straight and level again.

What trade-offs are necessary to begin making progress again?

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Kimm Viebrock is a Certified Professional Coach who helps technology professionals and service-oriented technology groups develop and use their skills more effectively and increase their value within the larger organization, allowing them to do more, do it better and have more fun doing it. Kimm is devoted to finding the connectedness in life.

Penned In

Sure, cubicles are nasty. I particularly dislike trying to get work done when the person on the other side of the partition is (loudly) carrying on the kind of personal, non-work-related conversation that keeps me from getting my own work done. Oh, that's right, I don't have that problem anymore. But I did once. The only thing I can think that would be worse would be to find myself in a sea of desks like the really old days.

So I'm not surprised that they're figuring out now that cubicles may not have been such a great idea. With space being at such a premium though, I'm not sure what the answer is. We'd all like offices (probably not the one I'm working in now and no, I'm not going to show you a picture even though that would be the logical thing to do) but is it really feasible to give everyone office space?

Maybe sharing two or three to an office would work like I've seen in some older buildings that don't have the open floorplan needed for cubies... even so, that's still a less efficient use of space. The end result is that I'm perplexed and don't really have any answers for that one though I am interested in whatever other alternatives people would consider.

Tell me - if it was your business and you were the one who had to choose where to spend your money, what would the desk space for your staff look like? Send your thoughts to me at techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com and let's brainstorm a bit to see if we can come up with a better solution. Everyone will thank us.

What trade-offs are you willing to make to have what you want?



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Kimm Viebrock is a Certified Professional Coach who helps technology professionals and service-oriented technology groups develop and use their skills more effectively and increase their value within the larger organization, allowing them to do more, do it better and have more fun doing it. Kimm is devoted to finding the connectedness in life.

Get Ready to Rock

So - what are your plans to celebrate Mt. St. Helens eruption day (5/18)? Much as I'd love to attend the Attachmate reunion and find out what everyone at the Circle-A Ranch is up to and what the deal is with the latest post-merger acquisition, I'll be too busy dancin' the night away at Lawyerpalooza down by Safeco Field. If there was an easy way to do both, I suppose I would but I'm so involved in LP4 that offering my help where it's needed and making sure I tend to my duties as a professional groupie really are my first priorities.

Of course, you're more than welcome to join me there at the Premier Club (a great venue for this kind of event) as a sort of anti-reunion if you like. It's likely to be far too loud to be able to tell me what you've been up to lately, which is okay since I'll probably be dancing instead of standing around talking anyway. On the good side, I promise I won't be handing out business cards, though I suppose I'll have some stashed somewhere if you're actually looking for one.

The last three events have been a total party, and I expect this year to be no different, especially since we've got some pretty hot sounding new bands joining us. How weird is it, though, that one of the bands comes out of the public defender's office and another comes out of the prosecuter's office? Should make for some interesting Chicago-style voting!

If you come out for the show, be sure to look for me; I'll be the one dancing even if no one else is. And if you go to the Attachmate reunion, be sure to say hello to everyone for me and give me a report afterward. And remember, any Circle-A stuff you still have laying around these days is vintage now!

If you want tickets to Lawyerpalooza or have news to share about the Attachmate reunion, let me know at techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com.

How can you use the best from your past now, and in the future?

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Kimm Viebrock is a Certified Professional Coach who helps technology professionals and service-oriented technology groups develop and use their skills more effectively and increase their value within the larger organization, allowing them to do more, do it better and have more fun doing it. Kimm is devoted to finding the connectedness in life.

My 'New' Friend Judy

Have you ever done something that seemed so simple at the time and it turns out that the impact is far more enormous than you'd anticipated? I had one of those the other day and it's still flooring me. I realize that even though it's one of my very most favorite things to do that not everyone else loves to fly. So I was very hopeful that I could be of some bit of service for another Judy's Book member when she asked about how best to calm her fears about flying. I had no idea the responses would be so positive or that there would be so many of them.

Having done a fair amount of flight instructing, I came to the conclusion early on that one of the biggest deterrants to students taking the controls with confidence was their concern over hurting the airplane should they make a mistake. As soon as I worked that out, I made sure that the very first thing we did as soon as it was safe enough to do so was to let them stomp on the rudder pedals a bit and then rock the wings good and hard and then push the yoke back and forth too. Unless they were the airsick type, I got them really going - just not all three together; I didn't feel much like scaring any prospective students with getting ourselves into a spin, even if I did know how to get safely out of one.

Every single one of them felt more comfortable afterward once they realized that there was nothing they could do (at least with me there) that would hurt the airplane or cause us to fall out of the sky. Knowledge, when you get enough of it, is power.

Small person (though he doesn't seem to need it) is getting a taste of this concept. He agreed to be a control group subject in an autism study, part of which involves taking an MRI. While it's another thing that I don't quite get, I know that a lot of people are afraid of MRI's. The closeness of the tube and the odd noises apparently bother a lot of people. There definitely seems to be a pattern around how people react to noises that they can't place. I've never had an MRI myself but I'm pretty sure that it wouldn't be a problem for me. I haven't noticed any claustrophobic tendencies and I figure instead of causing fear, the noises would be far more likely to seem like a puzzle to me that needs working out.

Small person doesn't particularly care for loud noises though, so I was glad when they gave him a "practice MRI" during our most recent visit to the research center. As it turned out, he had no trouble at all lying very still in a mocked up tube with headphones playing the normal noises of an MRI machine. In fact, he looked like he might be falling into a meditative trance! We'll play the CD they gave us at bedtime anyway so that he can be used to the sounds well enough by the time we do this for real that he can just fall asleep in there.

See - when we're afraid of the unknown, the best thing to do is to make it known. The same is true in business of course. When people don't know what's happening, they tend to make up the most dire scenario imaginable. It must be in our genes. The trick is to help each other identify what's really going on and to communicate that as much as possible. Even when the news isn't great, it's usually better than the story we've cooked up in our imaginations. And even if it weren't, it's far easier and better to make plans and take action based on the truth than on some fiction. We make better, more effective and more meaningful choices that way.

This sharing information must also be natural too even though the healthy version of it doesn't always take hold in corporate culture. It's a phenomenon I've been watching with interest as I watch Judy's Book continue to grow and evolve. People aren't just sharing reviews about goods and services. They're sharing information and ideas that go beyond stores and restaurants and who to trust with your car. They could be sharing these ideas with one another individually and yet there is something deeply satisfying about making sure that more than one or two other people can be helped by what you know. And in an era when we're so spread out and not in close connection with very many other people, the internet as a facilitator (as opposed to being a substitute) can be a real help at times. Plus, it solves the puzzle of figuring out who knows and who needs to know and matching them up.

How do you share information most effectively? Share what works for you by sending it to techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com - or send whatever is currently keeping you awake with worry... either way, we'll all benefit as we work through it together.

What helps you move past fear into effective action?

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Kimm Viebrock is a Certified Professional Coach who helps technology professionals and service-oriented technology groups develop and use their skills more effectively and increase their value within the larger organizaion, allowing them to do more, do it better and have more fun doing it. Kimm is devoted to finding the connectedness in life.