Doing The Math (Pity Me)

Doing The Math (Pity Me) was Originally Posted on October 15, 2010 by lavarock

I have a love/hate relationship with math. At times I really hate it; I get numbers wrong, my guesses are off and so on. That is not all my fault, being a computer guy. Computer people are used to working in large and small numbers, such as millions of lines of code or millions of calculations per sec. Still, when asked to estimate the time needed for completion of a project, the answer is usually off by an order of magnitude!

Thus, when I started working on this farm, I had high hopes of being fully done planting within a year. That turned into 5 or 6 years, and is still in progress!

The guys punched the final holes for the fruit trees and cleaned out the holes. The dirt was delivered and I got the fertilizer and lime. Then the guys decided (I guess) that they didn’t want to plant after all. I paid them for the work they had done up through the day before and told them the dirt and trees would arrive just before noon. The trees came in at 10am or so and the dirt was here by 1pm (even dirt people can be off a bit in their estimates). By 2pm I had not heard from the guys and although held out hope, decided I could leave and get lunch. I’ve not heard from the guys since and will make a call today but expect either no answer or a “no thanks”. Granted, I thought te guys low-balled the planting fee they charged (and I was prepared to pay them more because they did a great job on the holes), but they have to show up and do the work first.

On Sunday the guy asked me to get paid a bit in advance for fuel for the backhoe. I gave him a check and he was happy. Then Monday he came back and said the back was closed because of Columbus Day. I don’t know why Hawaii celebrates that, Hawaii was “discovered” in 1778, but OK, (and another day off is fine with us). Then he tried Tuesday and said the bank would not cash it… It is a check on my credit union on the mainland and should cash just fine. He had gone to the local credit union, which is not the same one the check is drawn on. I told him to take it to his own bank and cash it. That is when I found out he did not have a bank account…. OK, well I went into town and accessed a few different accounts to get him cash. It appears he had rented the backhoe and had to pay that guy, etc.

Anyway, I tried to be as accommodating as possible. They guy, Wyatt, was here with what I guess was his Father and perhaps a friend. In any event, as I say, a great job, but not quite done. I know one guy in the crew was leaving yesterday and they would have been 2 of them planting 131 trees. Perhaps he figured $1.50 a tree was too little to get. Remember, he was the one who quoted that to me, and you can see why I think that was not enough money. Anyway, one phone call may resolve that. If he decides he doesn’t want to plant the trees, I have a few other options ready, so stay tuned.

Speaking of dates, tomorrow at about 10:22am Eastern Time marks a bit of a milestone. It has been (at times) a grueling 1,893,456,000 seconds or 31,557,600 minutes or 525,960 hours or (sounding shorter) 3130 weeks (rounded down) since I was born.

Yes, I admit it, I’m over the hill and then some! To be honest, when I was 20, I never could imagine getting to be 30, let alone 60.

It is a perfect time to reflect on would-have, should-have, could-have’s. This will be a lot like New Years Resolutions where I can make grandiose resolutions, which sound great, and then just 24 hours later, ignore them all and just continue to comfortably ignore that I made them and continue along on my current path.

Looking back at my employment history, I probably would not have changed much. I started out helping my father in construction and met a number of people, many with a very good work ethic. One carpenter I worked with was putting up molding in a closet and while measuring a piece I asked him why he didn’t just butt two pieces together instead of cutting a new piece. He pointed into the closet at the fall wall and said, “The homeowner will look at that molding there and see that I was lazy and sloppy. If I have to butt two pieces together, I’ll put them up above the door as you walk in, because they won’t see them there”. I thought that was a great way to do it. Also, the female electrician I worked with had never had a wiring job of hers rejected by the inspector. While I was laying cable in the crawlspace on a new house, she had us drill each rafter and feed the wire through the holes. Other electricians would just run the wires across the top of the rafters and go diagonally. Myra told me that although this took a bit more time and effort, soon the homeowner would want to put plywood up there and start storing things and the wires would get in their way.

Around this time I was going to military school and learning to be ordered around, sometimes by someone my own age or younger. It was a unique experience and I still visit the grounds and continue to see some of the old instructors there still. That shows how young they were when they started!

In the same town, I worked for a very short time laying wall-to-wall carpeting. I even did a motel out on Long Beach Island and I remember a couple of jobs where I helped add a “waterfall” to the steps in a home, forming the carpet just right. They guy I worked with, took great pride in his work, however the boss was rarely there. I was there only a few months when my co-worker came and said that this was the last job we would be doing. The owner, pretty well known to the rest of the town, had been found dead in his car outside the local bar. It appears he was often in there from early morning to late at night while we did the work. My co-worker knew this and was doing his best to help the wife out, who just was unable to do anything about her husbands’ problem.

I also worked that dishwasher job mentioned here previously.

I soon worked at the local ARCO gas station and was pumping gas and repairing autos. The owner showed me many things and how to make some repairs. Once a Mother and her son came in with a Mustang that needed many repairs. I did them and their bill was about $9,00. She handed me large bills and as I went to get change, she started driving off. I ran after her and she said the $100 was my tip. I told her that I was paid by the hour and no tip was necessary, however, she waved and drove off leaving me to pocket my first real tip!

Soon I was off to college (one of many I would never graduate from). I worked twice at the local radio station while I helped build one for the college.

Many other jobs came and went and once I worked at the same company as my Mother. That was a somewhat odd feeling and I was careful to behave as she worked for the President of the company. A few years ago she was still friends with one woman who also worked at the same company as us.

My longest job stint was at Hewlett Packard (18 years) and I learned a lot about loyalty, honesty and integrity. I have to admit that in the last decade or so, those ideals seem to be lacing in management of that company. Still, the ethics Bill and Dave used will work in any company if followed correctly. They felt that if you called a major company like HP and asked fro the President, you should get them If it is important enough that a customer needs to speak with them, it is important fro the company. If you are a manager, your door should be open (unless you are in a meeting). That way your employees know that if they have a problem or concern, you are there for them. If the door is constantly closed, the employees are afraid to “bother you” with problems. We as employees wee encouraged carefully looking at solutions and trying things. If we made a mistake we should own up to it and correct it. We were reminded thought to learn from our mistakes and try not to repeat them.

In my life, all was not perfect, by any means. I have been fired twice, once perhaps justifiably as I may have been in over my head. Another time I was fired for a minor infraction as the boss was filing bankruptcy. It also turns out he did not pay into the unemployment fund. Recently I was let go for “lack of work” but turns out the boss wanted to hire a friend and move her out to Hawaii. Within weeks of me leaving, the company downgraded her to my old position instead of taking on the manager position she was promised. I was there a year and a half or so and lasted through three managers; there have been two since I left a year ago! I was surprised that being there a year and a half that I had seniority! Luckily I never had the desire to become a manager or I may not have lasted that long!

Speaking of college, I went to a number of them, however never finished. I was not really a good student. I hated studying and trying to remember facts.

When Hewlett Packard decided to offer early retirement to many of us, I realized that I had been wasting a lot of money and had not put aside as such as I could of. I made some good and bad stock decisions and they worst one was to keep faith in a stock as it slid from $145 a share to $14 a share and still held on. I have since cashed that in and took a major hit to my retirement fund in the process. I SHOULD be completely retired now and am not! I tell people to put as much away for their future as they can. Buy generic products, try to save and never pay full price if they can help it. I have followed that on my own coffee website, offering discounts and specials. Often when somebody DOES pay full price, I give him or her something extra because “no body should pay full price”

I decided long ago to move to Hawaii and finally did, however I needed to continue to work and use savings to build up the farm. I’ll either live quietly here, tending coffee and now fruit trees, or I’ll finish fixing it up, sell it at a great profit and move on to yet another adventure.

Looking forward we have a hard time imagining where we will be ten, twenty or more years from now. Even though I am bad at math, I can pretty well calculate that 60 years from tomorrow, I won’t be counting much anymore