There are many phrases and "sayings" that I have disagreed with, some strongly,
some mildly. Here are some of my observations and, dare I say, improvements...
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The saying |
Better |
Explanation |
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A lack of planning on your part is not an emergency on mine. |
A lack of planing on your part may well constitute an emergency on mine. |
We all of us make mistakes. What if firemen or paramedics took this same attitude?
So... how can I help you through this crisis and how can I help so that it doesn't
happen again. If you don't care to do it because you are benevolent - how about
doing it for good business reasons? Find a need and fill it - a great way to make
money.
Now, this doesn't apply to situations where a co-worker has done something that
is going to cause them to suffer and, if you help them it will cause the company
a bigger problem (because you aren't doing your job.) And in a few causes,
it doesn't apply to situations where a customer is going to suffer because they
didn't plan ahead properly. But in this case you almost always need to be very careful
about how you handle it, you need to handle it with sympathy and try to assist in
a way to minimize their problem. |
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Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. |
Do unto others as they would have you do unto them. |
Different people want different things. If you want a hot spicy pizza, giving someone
else a hot spicy pizza might not be a nice thing to do for them. In this saying
- the original statement is in fact properly worded, but many people misinterpret
it. You see, at a deeper level - doing unto others what you would have them do unto
you IS doing what they would have you do. Because - don't you want people to do
for you what you need and want? So, the original saying is correct, it is just applied
incorrectly. There are books like "The 4 loves" that talk about
how different people want different things. Find out what others want and give that
to them and you will truly be doing unto others as you would have them do unto you. |
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The customer is always right. |
Treat the customer with respect. |
You need to consider at all times that the customer might be correct. It could be
your mistake. Also, even when the customer is wrong, there are many times when it
is better for the long term if you treat the customer as if they were correct. Consider
how serious the issue is and whenever possible, treat the customer as if they are
correct. But there are times that it is appropriate, and quite likely necessary
to understand the customer is wrong and deal with the fact. For example, if you
are trying to fix something and they insist the problem is A when you know it is
B, if you treat the customer as being always right, you will fix A and then they
will come back for you to fix B - or more likely, they'll go to someone else and
never return to you. In any event, the point is: treat the customer with respect. |
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There are no dumb questions. |
Yes there are. |
Don't ask, figure it out because...you'll regret it if you ask! |
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Politically Correct |
Speak the truth in love |
In evaluating the phrase 'Politically Correct' over the last couple decades, I have
concluded that speaking politically correct means "Lying
in a way that hurts the people you are pretending to be nice to while making yourself
look better through the lie." When you ignore the reality and
speak a preferred lie, in the short term you make the person feel better who presumably
would have been offended. But because it is a lie, you, the person you are talking
to and the person you are trying to make feel better end up taking the wrong course
of action and the person that you are pretending to be nice to is ultimately injured
more. But at least you feel good and you come across to other politically correct
people as a very good person. Interesting - you are seen as good because you hurt
someone while pretending you aren't.
What we need in this society is more truth and less convenient lies. But the key
I see is that we need to speak the truth in Love. Speak the truth in a way that
has the potential to help instead of speaking a politically correct lie in a way
that ultimately injures. This also means you don't go to the opposite extreme of
blaming a whole group of people just because there is a significant minority or
even a majority that have a specific problem or issue. In some cases, the best choice
is to say nothing. But in far too many cases, saying nothing is just as bad as speaking
politically correct. As it has been said, more or less: Bad things happen when good
men do not stand up and speak the truth. |
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If you don't understand the next one, just skip the 2nd column
and go straight to the explaination. |
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Bureaucracy. |
The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. |
Note that the word BureauCRACY ends very close to "crazy". People in Bureaucracy
will tell you that the system exists to HELP YOU. But notice, they tell you this,
usually at times when it ISN'T HELPING YOU. (You HAVE to have 'this' peice of paper
- and we only require you to provide 'this' peice of paper because we are trying
to help you'. While the original attempt in some cases
was genuinely to help the people the bureauCRAZY was created for. In most
cases, very quickly, bureacracy becomes a tool to serve the bureaucractizers (yes
I know that probably isn't a word.) I have helped create bureacracies, because at
times they were necessary, but I try very very hard to make them so that they are
flexible as possible and that they are created with the ability to adapt and change,
created with a requirement to re-evaluate and change. But still, once created, a
bureaucracy, if it happens to start out useful, almost immediately stops serving
its clients and starts bowing down to the idol of serving those that manage the bureaucracy.
I get angry, I rail against these bureaucracies, but of course, it is normally a
waste of breath. Those in charge will usually defend the bureaucracy and try to
keep it operating (I originally said working, but clearly the correct word is operating).
They tend to get MORE rigid, not more flexible. They tend to get worse not better.
And sooner or later, the clients, if they have any choice, will move away and the
bureaucracy starts to crumble. In most cases, it crumbles FAR too late. In politics,
the bureaucracies often succum to civil war - and from my study of wars (not very
extensive at all) it seems that most civil wars are warranted, and most are railing
against bureaucracies gone off the deep end.
Is it easy to make a bureacracy flexible? No. Is it worthwhile? If you can make
it more flexible - in almost every case - yes. |
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You can never go wrong with land. It always goes up in value. |
Land is one o the best investments - if you are wise about it. |
I am absolutely amazed at how many people have told me "you can never go wrong with land"
"land is a guaranteed investment" "land always goes up in value". I've heard this
from people who don't invest (and probably shouldn't until they understand what
they are doing better), I've heard this from people who have lost their shirts in
the stock market and figure they now know what they should do. I've heard it from
land bankers, from business men. I even heard it in Calgary in mid 2008, after some
housing prices had collapsed 35% - from a business man. When I confronted him with
the facts he dismissed it as a short term aberration, that if you wait LONG ENOUGH
it will always go up in value. For more information, go to my investing page. |
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Fail safe |
A Fail safe should never fail to fail safe |
It is amazing how many fail safe's fail when the failure they were supposed to protect
against occurs. The common reason is fairly easy to understand, first , it is often
hard to test fail safe's (because the situation only occurs when something you did
NOT plan for happens), second, since they are rarely used, they are rarely tested.
The key for designing fail safe's in my opinion, is to design them to be as simple
as possible, at least for the core of their purpose. One of the safest ways to build
a fail safe is to have it occur if anything goes wrong rather than only when a specific
event DOES occur. So for example, Grundfos (a pump manufacturer) has an OPTIONAL
fail safe, a float, that will turn the pump off when the water level becomes too
high (dangerous). The problem is that since it is optional, the float turns the
pump off when the float completes a circuit. The result is that, if the wires between
the control and the float have a break in them, or are disconnected, or are
corroded, the float may close the circuit, but the control never knows it was closed,
so it keeps pumping water and floods. A far better design would have been to have
it only work when the contacts are closed, that way those that don't want
the fail safe can put a shunt (a short peice of wire) between the two contacts.
An even better choice for the failsafe, would be to have TWO switches, one that
closes when the water is high, the other that opens when the water is high. Then,
the pump would only pump when both are in the 'correct' position and it would not
pump if either was is the wrong position. This of course would require a 4 wire
control, but would not be a problem because, someone where flooding is a minor issue,
could just use one of the wire pairs and shunt the other one, and someone where
flooding is a major issue would not in the least mind the extra few dollars to run
a 2 pair wire. So the design would not increase the cost to anyone other than those
that want the fail safe to fail safe. |
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On the lighter side...
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I've been know to say ... |
"As you know, there are only 25 hours in a day...And I don't know why I always seem
to a little short of time every day..." |
Not sure where to put this on my web site, so here is where it is!
I recently heard that, of 1000 people surveyed*, the clear winner for the scariest
sentence in the English language is: "Hi, I'm from the government, and I'm here
to help you."
While it is obvious why this is such a scary sentence, some people are likely to
ask, why did the distance runner up "Stick em up and hand over all your money" not
win or even come close?
Simple, with a robber:
- You might be lucky and someone may come to your rescue
- When the robber turns and runs, he may fall and drop your
money
- The police may recover your money
But when the government "helps" you - you know they are going to get to keep the
money no matter what you try to do.
*'Heard' is a very loose term - it
doesn't mean that the person doing the telling should be taken seriously! Indeed,
someone could say 'tell me <sentence> so I can say "I recently heard..."'
and,
Of 1000 teens asked recently: 'Do you think that
teens these days are more apathetic than in days gone by?'
- 97 answered 'no'
- 48 answered 'yes'
- 855 either ignored the surveyor or answered 'who
cares?'
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