EppsNet Book Review: Dig Your Job

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Full disclosure: I got a free advance copy of this book because I know the author, G.L. Hoffman.

Dig Your Job book cover

The books I’ve read on business and career advice fall into three main categories:

  1. Academic theory
  2. (Quoting Dogbert) A bunch of obvious advice packaged with quotes from famous dead people
  3. A person who’s actually done something talks about what worked for them and what didn’t.

Dig Your Job is in Category 3, like every other book I can think of to recommend to people.

It’s a high-density book. Hoffman has done startups for 25 years and shares hundreds of ideas and observations about the workplace in blog-sized chunks.

The style is conversational, easy to read — like having a career mentor you can consult whenever you want to.

Hoffman is currently running excerpts from the book on his blog, so you can click over there for a free preview.

Highly recommended!

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Then Wear the Gold Hat

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Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her;
If you can bounce high, bounce for her too,
Till she cry “Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover,
I must have you!”

— Thomas Parke D’Invilliers

This is the epigraph to The Great Gatsby, which my son is reading for school. So beautiful, so sad . . .

(Thomas Parke D’Invilliers is a character in Fitzgerald’s This Side of Paradise, used by him here as a nom de plume.)

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Preparing Kids for Success

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As a music teacher I often ask myself if we are truly preparing our students for success. I am not just referring to how well we teach the students to play their instruments, but more importantly if the students will take with them lessons/knowledge/experiences that will prepare them to be strong contributing members of any challenging discipline, and to any organization, in music and other areas of interest.

Approximately 70% of students in any youth orchestra will more than likely select a non-music related profession. Of the students who pursue music as a major in college, a strong percentage of them will end up pursuing a livelihood that is not centered around music.

So then, what skills will the young person take with him if he does not become a professional musician? … I began coaching chamber ensembles how to communicate and lead from within the ensemble, and play without a conductor. While the model was successful it required Team building aspects to make it whole. From this grew a set of core principles; Trust, Unfiltered Dialog, Commitment, Accountability, and Attention to Team Results.

— Wyatt Sutherland, Artistic Director and Founder, YellowCello Young Artists

This is also the critical issue with kids and sports, the main difference being that the percentage of kids who will not be professional athletes is closer to 100 than to 70.

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Essence of Lean

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From Alan Shalloway:

Essence of Lean for People Doing Scrum

  • Lots of concurrent tasks cause waste
  • Focusing on removing delays will remove waste
  • Adding value and getting feedback quickly is important
  • If you make a mistake and don’t attend to why you made the mistake, it will likely repeat itself
  • Minimizing work in process (WIP) is a way of improving efficiency and minimizing risk

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Art and Technology

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We have artists with no scientific knowledge and scientists with no artistic knowledge and both with no spiritual sense of gravity at all, and the result is not just bad, it is ghastly. The time for a real reunification of art and technology is really long overdue.

— Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

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Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

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Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

My son sees a book I’m reading lying on a table . . .

“Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,” he says. “What kind of a title is that?”

I say, “It’s hard to explain.”

“Life,” he says in a mystical voice, “is like a motorcycle. You must maintain your motorcyle.”

He makes a gong sound . . .

 

I am in an enormous vault, dead, and they are paying their last respects.

It’s kind of them to come and do this. They didn’t have to do this. I feel grateful.

Now [my son] motions for me to open the glass door of the vault. I see he wants to talk to me. He wants me to tell him, perhaps, what death is like. I feel a desire to do this, to tell him. It was so good of him to come and wave I will tell him it’s not so bad. It’s just lonely.

I reach to push the door open but a dark figure in a shadow beside the door motions for me not to touch it. A single finger is raised to lips I cannot see. The dead aren’t permitted to speak.

But they want me to talk. I’m still needed! Doesn’t he see this? There must be some kind of mistake. Doesn’t he see that they need me? I plead with the figure that I have to speak to them. It’s not finished yet. I have to tell them things. But the figure in the shadows makes no sign that he has even heard.

— Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

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These Are My Kids

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We’re getting snacks and sodas at AM/PM — me, my son and two of his friends.

I know the girl at the register because I stop here for a soda most days on my way to work and she’s always here.

“Hi,” I say to her. “These are my kids.”

She looks at the kids, who are all the same age and look nothing like each other — a tall Wasian kid, a stocky Asian and an Indian boy.

“Different moms,” I explain.

Afterward, the group was evenly divided on whether or not she believed me . . .

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One Mint Julep

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After we struck out at Black Angus, we wound up at Lucille’s Smokehouse Bar-B-Que on my son’s recommendation.

Mint julep

Not only does it turn out to be better than Black Angus, they’ve got — mint juleps!

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have an alcoholic beverage at a family lunch, but I love mint juleps and it’s rare to find a place that advertises their ability to make one.

“What kind would you like?” the waiter asks.

“There are kinds of mint juleps?” I ask.

“We have seven different brands of bourbon.”

“Oh. Let’s go with the Wild Turkey.”

Ahhh, I’m in heaven . . .

[audio:one-mint-julep]

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The Lunch Coupon

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We’re on our way to Black Angus for a family lunch.

My wife is driving . . . she pulls a huge stack of coupons out of the glove compartment and hands them to our son in the back seat.

Lots of food

“Find the Black Angus coupon in there,” she says.

After a while, he says, “Why do we have ten 20% off coupons for Bed, Bath and Beyond?”

“Your job is to find the Black Angus coupon,” she says, “not to criticize people.”

I say, “If you combine all those coupons, they actually wind up paying you to take the merchandise out of the store.”

A while later, he says, “I can’t find a Black Angus coupon.”

I say, “Let me take a look.”

He hands me the coupon stack, which I look through and find it.

“Pwned,” I say. “Why couldn’t you find it?”

“It looks just like the Bed, Bath and Beyond coupons.”

“Do the Bed, Bath and Beyond coupons have a big picture of a steak on them?”

“It’s exactly the same size and the same cardboard and it was mixed in together with them.”

About this time, we pull into the empty parking lot in front of Black Angus to find out that they’re not open for lunch . . .

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Owen 16

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Owen 16 jersey

You can go to the NFL Shop and buy a custom Detroit Lions jersey like the one shown here for $99.99.

Well, not exactly like the one shown here, which I Photoshopped, because the NFL anticipated the joke. If you try to order an Owen 16 jersey, you get this message:

Your current entry cannot be processed. Some entries are prohibited due to guidelines for past and present player names. Please create a new entry.

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A Box of Pears

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We’re having an extended family holiday get-together today, including a gift exchange.

Harry and David pears

My wife did the gift shopping. She’s passive-aggressive about it because she really believes that other family members, especially my mom, use the holidays to clean unwanted items out of their closets, wrap them up and give them to us as Christmas presents.

I’ve explained to her that these people simply don’t have any style or taste, so even those these are items that you would stuff in the back of a closet, they actually see them as pretty nice gifts.

Here’s a rundown on what she bought this year: My ex-sister-in-law is getting a box of Harry & David pears, normally $40 but obtained at a deep discount. My great uncle is getting a box of pears. My parents and my sister’s family — a box of pears.

“And the best thing,” she says, “is it says $39.99 right on the box.”

“I assume you’re going to take that off.”

“I don’t think I can. It’s right on the box.”

“Uh . . .”

“Don’t complain. Lucky enough they’re getting anything in this economy.”

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Free Samples

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I’ve got my son and one of his friends with me at Trader Joe’s. They start off by grabbing some roast beef and panini at the free sample stand.

Later, when I’m in the checkout line, they wander off, I assume to go outside, but it turns out they went back for seconds on the free samples.

“You guys are an embarrassment!” I say. “The free samples are supposed to be one to a customer, not all you can eat!”

“I don’t think she saw us the first time,” my son says. “So it’s okay.”

“Jesus, I can’t take you guys anywhere.”

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NFL Week 17 Recap: You Can’t Win With Knuckleheads

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My son is 15, he’s played competitive roller hockey for a number of years — including winning a 12-and-under national championship — and the main thing I’ve learned in that time is that a player’s individual skills are not nearly as important as his ability to play as part of a team.

We know lots of kids with terrific skills but if they just want to do their own thing out there, you put them on a team and they actually make the team worse.

Or to put it in a nutshell: You can’t win with knuckleheads.

I was reminded of that last weekend as I watched Dallas, with talented knuckleheads like Terrell Owens and Pacman Jones, get knocked out of the playoffs with a 44-6 loss to the Eagles, who cut Owens in 2005, and the Jets, who cut Chad Pennington to make room for drama queen Brett Favre, get eliminated with a loss to the Dolphins, who signed Pennington and went from 1-15 to 11-5.

Teamwork always beats individual talent. You can’t win with knuckleheads.

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