Apr 6
Ridden Like a Family Car
This morning, I had a review with one of the senior managers at my job. These monthly reviews are time a for feedback and two way conversation about performance and productivity on the job. It's not a chewing out. We talk like grownups. One of the items discussed had to do with trust, "Do my managers trust me to complete a task?" I had to say yes, of course. But it made me think. I had a knee-jerk response about micro-managment as I took a defensive posture. But in retrospect, I could have handled it better.
The Marines are a tough, highly trained group of individuals. Leadership is stitched into their soul. My brother was a Marine who served in Beirut during the mid '80s. He had friends die in '83 when a terrorist blew up their barracks. My brother-in-law served with the Marines in Iraq. I've been to Parris Island. Served along side Marines on an aircraft carrier during the Gulf War. They know a thing or two about leadership.
I was reading on the Marine Corps' Leadership traits (http://ow.ly/1c4viD) and found a portion of this article could be pertinent to my life.
Having dependable Marines eliminates micromanagement, which allows the leader to focus on more pressing business.Unfortunately, once a Marine exhibits he is undependable, he brings a good bit of attention to himself until he proves, once again, he is dependable. By bringing attention, I mean he’s likely to be ridden like a family car, so to say, until his dependability improves. I’m saying that’s necessarily the best way to handle it; I’m saying that’s what will happen having been on both sides of that ball.Within a month of checking into my first duty station, my boss determined I had a horrible time management problem. His solution? I had to account for every 15-minute block of my day, and at the end of each day, we reviewed everything to see where I could have better used my time. To say I was ridden like a family car throughout the day would be putting it mildly, but thankfully, that didn’t last long. I hated (still do to this day) being micromanaged, and I did everything in my power to get out from under the debilitating situation in which I had put myself.
Have you ever had a boss tell you to do something you know how to do very well? Have you ever had him follow you to the site and then watch you work, peering over your shoulder? Fun, isn't it? That's annoying to say the least. It's the epitome of being micro-managed; not being supervised but being babysat.
It drives me crazy.
I need to be the type of individual who has earned my manager's trust. I don't want to give him any reason to have to make me account for every minute of my day. I've seen it happen. A driver complains about breaks, for example. There's never enough time in his day to take a break. This turns into a battle of let me manage every minute of your day, driver, so you will have time for your break. It's hand holding to the Nth degree. It's not an atmosphere of trust.
I want to facilitate a culture of trust among my coworkers and managers. That means being accountable without being defensive. Take the first step to ask for feedback, even on a task I know I can handle. How could I do this better? Is there a faster way that will improve the results? Being micromanaged is the natural result of neglected training. It's both his fault and mine. It doesn't result in anyone's growth to embrace their position and desire to get better. It's demeaning. To facilitate trust, I need to be transparent, without excuse-making. Be ready to step up and take charge. Like a good soldier.
Apr 5
Why I Use Apple Computers.
I started on a Commodore VIC-20. I loved being able to program in Basic and make something that would be fun and easy to use. Like most of the world, I followed the evolution of the PC and was a Windows user. I was pretty good at building a machine from scratch and installing versions of Windows. How did I use my machines? I was trying to make websites and create photo DVDs on the old homebuilt PC. Things started to go downhill with Windows XP. It was so virus-laden and buggy. I was helping a lot of people maintain their store bought machines; removing malware, viruses and trying to make things work. I spent many nights trying to keep my home-built machine running. It became a bit of pain and ate up a lot of my time. I have 3 kids and a full-time job. I work in the church. I have no time. The PC had issues. It had issues with drivers. It had issues with updates. It had issues with burning my photo DVDs and not being able to play them. It had issues with the kid's games crashing the OS. I wasn't seeing red, only blue. BSOD. I had issues just trying to be a user of this awesome technology that was supposed to make my life easier. It was a cycle of reinstalling and repairing Windows. I felt like a gerbil on a spin wheel, except the spin wheel had electricity sent through it on random occasions. Not fun. I decided it was time to be a user, not a technician.
My travels at work took me through Syracuse University on a weekly timeframe. I was in Newhouse School of broadcasting and ran into a few hardcore students who were using Macs. I was surprised that Apple computers had what it took to be used in a studio environment. Little did I know. They showed me a lab full of Macs, just used for photo and video editing. It took about 15 minutes to display the simplicity, the fun, and the power of real computing. I saw video edits for broadcasting. I was introduced to iPhoto, a full featured app that came on every Mac. I saw people USING their machines and doing amazing things with them. It's how things are supposed to be. I was in. But the price was a huge barrier. It was an investment. I would have to wait for tax-time to get my new machine.
At first, my wife was not on board at all. It took a few months of using the new iMac to persuade her mind. She went through the learning curve like any new user does. I was a geek and took right to the new OS. Now she likes it. She likes the fact she doesn't have to call me over to fix or get it running all the time. She has learned to be a Mac user also; getting things done. I had to show her basic aspects of iPhoto, Pages, Numbers and Safari but we were quickly off and running. I was making DVDs, filling up a huge iTunes library all organized by genre, editing wedding photos and made several websites all on our shiny new iMac. It was fun and reliable. I was having fun for the first time since my VIC-20.
We soon replaced that 2006 20" iMac with a 24" model. It was beautiful. My wife loved it. She still says it was her favorite machine. She works from home and needs a big bright display for viewing scanned Tiffs. She could have a video or DVD playing, work, have email going, Pages for her time sheet and it just chugged along day-in day-out. For years.
I needed my own machine. So in 2007 I got the highly rated 15" Mac Book Pro. It had great speed benchmarks from the tests done by Macworld magazine. PC magazine said it was the best Windows laptop you could buy, if you installed bootcamp on it. I ordered one and it was a powerhouse. I installed Parallels 4 to have Microsoft Publisher and a handful of Windows apps available. I got everything in Windows installed and froze a snapshot of the Windows OS. I would never have to troubleshoot Windows again. Skip ahead almost 4 years. I never reboot the thing. It goes for weeks on end and usually an occasional update is all that prompts a reboot. I could ramble for too long about how much work this thing has gotten done for me. From the first bus flyer to the last webpage I have made, this computer has been worth every penny. I routinely have between 6-10 windows all open. If I sigh, waiting a second for something to open, my wife laughs, "Give the thing a second! You have a hundred things all going at once." It does such a good job I wouldn't want to work on anything else.
With the Mac Book Pro going on 4 years old now, she seems to be groaning. Her fans have gotten gummed up with some dust or something. And the hard drive seems to just sit there when I close a window. I click. It thinks for a minute. Sometimes it doesn't respond at all. It's time to think about moving on to the next machine.
Why do I buy Apple? What possesses me to spend my hard earned money on a piece of technology? It's a tool. More than that, it's a tool I can depend on, day-in day-out. My time is worth something. I run no security software on any of our Macs; not antivirus, nothing. I have spent zero hours reinstalling the Mac OS or troubleshooting drivers. I am not a technician, I am a user. An Apple user. I don't have to bow my knee, taking it apart trying to figure out what has gone wrong. It serves me and doesn't hesitate or ask why. It just works. A lot of Apple users say that. It just works.
I look forward to a new machine, whenever it may come. Things will have to wait for a little bit. That's ok. I'm not the type to absolutely have to have it now. I still haven't bought an iPad. That's ok. I'll get to it. In the mean time, I have about 700 wedding RAW images to touch up, flyers to make, church tracts to update... and the kids like to play their games as well.. so don't die on me yet old girl! Hang in there a few more months. I love my Mac.
What's your story? Share in the comments. I'd like to hear your story.
Apr 5
Editing in Adobe Camera Raw
The program is has a great feature to auto select a mask where you mouse click and perform non-destructive edits. In Aperture, an adjustment is effected and you have a lighter, sharper or whatever type of masking effect on that portion of pixels. Those pixels are changed and all you can do is UNDO or leave it. The thing I like about Camera Raw is that after you create the mask, you can slide those changes to the pixels and make different adjustments to the mask later. Even if I open the image a week later, I can go back and dial down the sharpness, saturation, brightness or whatever. It's non-destructive. I love that.
Mar 29
A tip on how to see if someone is following you on Twitter.
I sometimes want to check if a specific individual is following me on Twitter. In the past I used to visit their following list and scroll through hundreds to spot my name. There is an easier way. Go to that person’s page. And see if it has a "Message" button. Wow, that's simple.
A message button will only be there if the person is following you, so you can direct message them. Otherwise the person is not following you.
Mar 25
Taken with picplz at Grist Mill in Parish, NY.
Having breakfast with my dad. My favorite Friday each month.
