How much Hay to feed?

"The more, the better!" My enthusiastic, capitalist spirit immediately responds. "I'll make more of it!"

But, seriously, in the small bales business, you meet a lot of new people. A few of those people are green and learning.  How much hay to feed is a very common concern.

The first consideration is the quality of hay.  It stands to reason that the better the Relative Feed Value and the higher the percentage of Total Digestive Nutrients, the lesser the quantity is needed.  Hay quality can vary widely from farmers to farmers, field to field, and cutting to cutting. There are scientific methods for measuring quality, but most people are just looking for general guidelines.  I have over a decade worth of experience feeding cattle, horses, and sheeps.

Horse nutrition is the most complex and intimidating.  There are volumes of books on the subject. Mistakes are expensive. I will only share the most basic observations of horse feeding and recommend further study on the subject.

I have more confidence with sharing tips on feeding cows, sheeps, and goats.  The starting point that I recommend is 5% of bodyweight.  It's easy math and gets you in the ballpark.  Take a 100# ewe for example. 10% is 10#, just move the decimal then split it in half.  So, 5# would be my daily ration to start with.

I recommend feeding twice a day, so you would feed half of the daily ration in the morning and the other half in the evening. The reduction of waste over feeding once a day is significant enough to warrant the extra effort.

When herbivores are fed a large quantity, they pick through it to get their full of the sweetest stuff.  When they come back later to eat again, a lot of the good feed left is soiled and they will not eat it.  In those instances, their fiber intake suffers and you have to feed more to make up for the waste.

I stress 5% as a good start, because of all the other variables.  The weather, the animal health, alternative food stuff, supplements, and hay quality are all factors.  The good news is that you can observe your animals' behaviors as indicators to offer more hay or taper back.

What is the interest at feeding time?  Are they overly enthusiastic?  Are their feeders empty?  Do they stay in one feeding spot or hunt around?  All of those observations can tell you about how much you are feeding. Horses, however, are unique in this aspect.

A horse's favorite pastime is eating.  They will eat all day, every day out of boredom.  Left alone in a sufficient pasture, they will eventually turn it into a nuclear waste land.  1) Don't mistake a horse's enthusiasm as hunger. 2) Don't judge their clean feeder as insufficient. 3) Volume by body weight and body conditioning are probably your best indicators.

Cows, sheeps, and goats won't eat all day long.  They stop when they are satiated and will lay down, chew cud, and meditate. It typically takes about four hours out of the day for them to get their full.  If you are feeding twice a day, you should see them losing interest after a couple of hours each time. If they are taking longer, that should be considered with other indicators that you may not be feeding enough.

How Debt creates a Bubble

There are plenty of big spenders out there that are dependent on creditors to live beyond their means.  Non-discetionary spending leads to enormous amounts of debt.  That behavior and all the hot air used to justify it creates abnormal financial bubbles.  Bubbles burst, eventually.  What have we learned from our past?

Remember the big real estate bubble only ten years ago?  When the big spenders were flying high there was a lot of hot air justifying the irresponsible spending and touting a "new" normal.  For a lot of political reasons, money was being lent at greater amounts and to more people than ever before.  The political correctness called them  "sub-prime" loans.  The lenders found out that they could make money off of loans that they didn't expect paid back.  They could profitably lend money to folks without the will or the ability to pay it back, so long as it didn't get out of control.

The typical bubble formation starts innocent enough.  A responsible buyer finds an interesting property and performs diligence in preparing a reasonable offer.  They weigh all the negatives against the positives and come up with a number.  But even before they can submit their offer, another buyer quickly appears without concern for the value.  With a pocket full of loaned money, they don't hesitate to make a full price offer.

The neighbors across the street take notice of how fast and how much the property sold for.  They decide to list their property with comparable amenities for ten percent higher.  It sells immediately.  The escalation continues and the bubble is formed.  Extra money in loose hands perverts the natural worth of everything.

Eventually, the loose money runs out.  The early careless buyers use all of their available credit and get to the point where they need to sell their house to continue their lavish lifestyle or avoid bankruptcy.  They are shocked and dismayed when they realize that nobody wants to buy it for what they paid for it.  Nevertheless, it becomes increasingly important to sell, so they drop the price.  When their neighbors get in the same boat, they lower their price too.  Almost as quickly as the bubble was formed, it begins to break.

Before everybody realizes what is happening, their property values have dropped significantly.  They don't want to continue paying on a property worth so much less than what they are paying!  Daunted, they just stop making payments and the foreclosure process begins.  The foreclosure system is designed so that the lenders still come out ahead, but only for a normal amount of defaults.  When the rate of defaults exceeds the designed system, the lenders find themselves in financial trouble! 

The business investors are among the first to see the significance.  They don't want their money invested in firms that will not be able to earn a profit in the fore-seeable future.  The mass hysteria from the total collapse of one sector, bleeds off into another sector.  The whole "house of cards" comes crashing down.

That was all ten years ago; so what?  History doesn't repeat itself, exactly.  We have a lot of smart people whom instituted changes and laws so that can't happen again.  Perhaps the most significant of those are contained in the Dodd-Frank bill?  Aren't they currently in the process of dismantling that bill?

What is a bubble anyway?  How can we recognize it?  A bubble occurs whenever loose money and the hot-air accompanying it increase the value of property.

So what are some property values at today?  In many of our prospering cities, the median property value is at 16 times the average local wage.  If the average wage earner had the ability to pay half of their income on a mortgage, it would take about 32 years to pay it off.  The average wage earner can not do that due to interest, taxes, cost of living and OTHER debts!  The top three OTHER debts are classified as student loans, consumer debt and automobile debt.

Student loan debt can not be defaulted under current law.  However, legislation can be created by swaying public opinion and that has been in motion for over a decade.  I expect we will see some form of "foregiveness" at tax payers' expense in the next four years.

Consumer debt and credit card spending is volatile.  It is currently very high and that is never a good thing.  Often times, the higher levels of credit are anchored by home ownership.  That indirect relationship creates a covert property value bubble.

Automobile debt has grown to second place in the typical American household.  Not only is it high, but it has exceeded record levels.  This is alarming in itself, but the hot air from the "experts" are quelling concern because "things are different".

Loose money for auto loans has created an obvious bubble in vehicle valuations.  Consumers are borrowing more than ever for the vehicle they commute in to their underpaid jobs from their overpriced homes! 

Things are different.  How are these things related to the crash of ten years ago?  The warning signs are more covert.  The loose money is from other sources than the government subsidized sub-prime mortgages, yet the real estate bubble is still forming.  The loose money is perverting valuation and that is very similar to the circumstances that led to the last financial collapse.

Thinking like an Immigrant

What makes America so appealing that would encourage an individual to pull up roots, leave their home country, friends, and most of their family?  They are putting so much at risk: their livelihood, their relationships, and ultimately their lives.

Free Enterprise.

For most of the immigrants that I know the best personally, the chances offered by free enterprise are the highest motivation.  Most of us home grown Americans take free enterprise for granted.  There's a whole lot of other places in the world that inhibit opportunity with laws, culture, and corruption.

Just being born in the USA is like winning the lottery of life.  You are born into millions of opportunities for a better life.  Many immigrants arrive looking for employment, but are destined for self employment.  Free enterprise offers the best chance of success towards that goal.

Why do so many immigrants realize so much success in the USA?  Despite so many barriers - not the least of which being the language, they are able to surpass many homegrown Americans toward economic prosperity.  My observation is cliche', but it is because they work harder and smarter.

Work ethic is a requisite.  Nothing moves without being pushed or pulled.  I don't know of a single successful immigrant that is not a hard worker. 

Duty is held in high regards.  Duty of 365 days a year.  Duty doesn't take a holiday off, it doesn't call in sick, it doesn't offer excuses.  It is a complete dedicated effort.  No sandbagging allowed!

So many homegrown Americans are lacking that motivation.  Many are complacent underachievers.  Some are self defeating pessimists and others are malcontents.  A few spoiled children that never grow up and a few are overly ego-tistical.

A had a friend who was a talented bike racer.  He would train very hard for a race only to go out the night before and get drunk?  Some people have such big egos that they sabotage their own efforts so they have a ready excuse for failure.  They never have to look close and serious at themselves because of the obvious reason for failure that they provide.

There is no sandbagging among successful immigrants.  They don't play that way.  They were held back in their homelands.  Remove the reasons of failure that were beyond their control and LOOK OUT!

Although, hard work is essential, we all know that it is not the only ingredient.  You can work very hard on a treadmill without getting anywhere.  Successful immigrants don't confuse action with progress.  They are adept at working smarter.

They see hidden opportunities, they establish a goal, and then they go after it.  They are inherintly risk takers and don't fear failure.  But they do not expect immediate gratification.  They are measured optimistic and certainly not self defeating.

Many of them suffered defeat in their homeland.  Usually the fault was none of their own.  They were working hard and smart, but somebody changed the rules!  That kind of thing can happen in America too, but it is far less common.

Americans hate corruption.  We also hate anything less than fair play.  But we LOVE a figher and a winner!  Just ask General Patton.  A fighter, a winner, a smart, hard worker thrives in the free enterprise of the USA.

Shopping Locally - for Sagacity

Financial success is aplenty if you look for it.  From an early age, I have been cognizant of learning from seemingly unlikely sources.  Business philoshophies and strategies have always peaked my interest.  So with my parabolic reciever aimed in that direction,  I have gotten a lot of repeat strong signals leading me to believe there is some truth to the matters.

"First, we find a way to make money, and then we just do that over and over again."  It is a local rancher's recipe for good business.  Seemingly simple, the first part can prove a lot more difficult than it sounds.  Especially in agriculture when it can be like hitting a moving target.

You can be profitable one year, do the same thing and lose money in consecutive years.  The lesson in that realization is to expand the definition by finding something that works more often than not. 

The second part of that strategy is just as challenging.  Controlling all of the variables to ensure a repeat performance can be very difficult if not impossible.  I think the key is in stocking away a surplus to help you make it through times when forces out of your control are against you. 

It might be stated in other more modern words: "Follow the money."  If you have found a profitable business, say in selling beef, don't modify your whole operation to start selling hay.  It sounds like simple common sense, but this mistake is made in all levels.

Remeber when Coke changed their original recipe?  They had an established winner, but thought they could do better with "New Coke".  The resulting fiasco caused a significant loss in market share and a prompt retreat back to what was working.

"First we ask how can we make it better.  Second, is how can we make it cheaper."  This was the simple guiding principle of a NW food manufacturing equipment manufacturer.  I fell in love with it's simplicity, but it is very difficult in application.  Especially in the high tech business they compete in.  Nevertheless, it focusses on two important business goals: quality and cost.

The competitive nature of business requires improvement.  How can you do it or make it better?  Creative thinking and engineering really pays off here.  But do not forget about the second part!

Anything in the world can be improved if money was no object.  In business, money is the objective - so making it better economically is what's important.  Making it better for less than the competition is a fundamental advantage.

"Now you boys always remember this:  It's not how hard you tamp a post, it's how many times."  That old cowboy at my very first paying job was referring to more than building fence.  Henry Ford implementing mass production as we know it comes to mind.  Quality gets so much press, but quantity is just as economically important. 

Many higher profits can be attributed to mass production.  High yields and big numbers can cover up a lot of little problems.  The bigger your production numbers the lower the cost per unit. Don't try to do things in one big effort.  It's the sustained effort that is going to add up.

"The more junk you've got, the more headaches you've got!"  I heard this repeated from the same local rancher many times.  It illustrates the importance of simplicity of design.  The fewer moving parts in your operation, the more robust it becomes. 

Accountants value this as return on assets (ROA).  The more efficient you are with utilization, the easier it is to be profitable.  It's not what you've got that counts as much as what you do with what you've got.  Make the most of what you have before you go out to upgrade your "assets".

"Grease is still cheaper than metal, last time I checked."  I saved this bit of wisdom spoken by another local rancher as my favorite for last.  My whole professional career was based on this premise.

The more sophisticated and better that I became at preventing problems, the greater my worth was realized.  "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."  is another way of saying it.  It's about working pro-actively to attend to small details before they multiply or grow into major events.

Grease is cheaper than metal and so is paint.  Wax is cheaper than paint.  Armor-all is cheaper than vinyl and molded plastic.  Do you feel like you are vainly wasting your time  by waxing paint or armor-alling seats and dashboards?

Why not change a hydraulic hose before it blows?  Waiting for failure is going to still cost the hose plus the oil spewed at $12/ gallon and worse it could cost you a new hydraulic pump if it runs dry long enough!

To summarize all these tidbits: Attend to details so you can fully utilize a few assets to mass produce a better product or service at a competitive price that you can usually make money at.  That's all you need to know to make a living in the intermountain northwest!

Mined Over Matter

There are numerous studies about the reduction of food value in our modern fruits and vegetables.  It seems that the carrot you eat today is not as packed full of our bodys' essentials as it was years ago.

Modern ag practices have shouldered much of the blame.  The trend has been bigger and bigger and quanity over quality.  Yield is the primary concern and minute compromises of quality are ignored.  If the customer can not see the difference then it is not a significant difference?

Ever increasing yields by means of genetic manipulation, high rates of synthetic fertilizers, and high rates of herbicides and pesticides are all commonplace.  But the often overlooked result of those practices can be the root cause of substance depletion in our food supply - the resulting depletion of soil organic matter (SOM).

SOM has been mined out of our soils for decades.  That practice has necessitated replacing those nutrients with high levels of fertilizer to maintain economical yields.  The trend for big ag and everything getting larger and more expensive creates the demand for evolving crops with higher yields.

Yield is king!  To make margins profitable in the modern ag economy, you must continually improve yield.  There is zero tolerance for imperfections that would compromise yields.  High rates of herbicides and pesticides to the rescue!

All of those practices destroy the biology at work in the soil.  Improving the soil has not been a concern of big ag.  Could that be the reason for the decline in nutrition of our food supply?

I have been taking steps and making decisions to improve the soil on my farm for five years now.  I started out with an average SOM of less than one percent.  This is typical for my area of farm ground that is continuously tilled.  Ironically, our farms was certified organic for six years and that contributed to the destruction of organic matter.  Organic farmers have few options for controlling pesky weeds, so they often resort to additional tillage.

Pulling iron through your top soil kills the micro organisms at work trying to reproduce and increase your SOM.  It's analogous to raking scars on your skin.  The health of your skin and body would seriously be compromised from that continual practice.

For five years I have been instituting conservation ideas and the SOM appears to be responding to those efforts.  This laboratory data that I am basing this assumption on was the source of some controversy last year.

My field man has a lot of years of experience in this valley.  He has not witnessed such improvements in SOM and immediately concluded that the laboratory erred.  I suspect that I am his first "no-till" client.  I base this assumption on looking at farmers' fields whenever I have to drive somewhere (without running off the road!).  This areas farmers are prominently traditionalist, so it wasn't a surprise when he told me that he has not seen much change from one percent in SOM.  "The ground here is not capable of that much improvement."

He went on to educate me of the massive amounts of dump truck loads of importing material that it would mathematically require just to raise a single acre by a single percentage point.  I didn't offer any argument to the contrary because you cannot be too sure about these things initially.  Time will ultimately tell the truth, but a related university study came to mind that illustrates the great mass that life can accumulate out of "nothing-ness".

This particular agricultural university study was to identify the source of the mass required to grow a massive tree.  Measures were regularly recorded of the contained soil, the water added, and the mass of any added fertilizer.  They concluded that the mass supplied to grow the massive tree came out of the air!  The masses recorded from the soil, water, and fertilizer were negligible.

This leads me to believe that the magic in nature can create tons or living matter from the air that we breathe.  Providing of course that we do our part to keep conditions favorable for life.  So that has been my fundamental guiding principle: provide favorable conditions to support life in the soil.

Food, shelter, and clothing?  Life in the soil is not all that different.  It needs food, water, and sunlight.  What it doesn't need is harmful disturbances: tilling, poisons, or pH imbalances.  It's taken a lot of patience and tolerance for less than perfection to improve conditions for the soil life.  The explosion of earth worm populations are a good indicator.

My most recent laboratory tests, along with other observations, lead me to believe that I am on the right track.  My SOM has improved from less than one percent to average about three percent.  Another macro-indicator, the Cation Exchange Capacity (CEC) has also improved from single digits to average in the middle teens.  These improved numbers along with field observations of the soil composition and our increasing yields with lower additional fertilizer inputs all point to improving conditions for the matter that really matters on our farm.

A Tough Act to Follow

In every workplace, in every work group, there occasionally exists a prototypical employee.  They are born leaders by example.  Their efforts and history earn respect from all of their peers.  They become tough acts to follow.

Rich Cilantro was my first tought act to follow.  He had a great rapport with all the workers all the way up through management.  He was able to fix problems quickly and efficiently.  He made equipment operators' jobs easy and performed his task with a flair that left everybody in a great mood.

Suffice it to say, when I was the new guy on that job, my immediate expectations were unachievable.  There was one person in particular who was especially critical of my early failures.  She expected me to walk on water the same way that Rich did, and would accept nothing less.  Even as my experience grew and I gained respect from her peers, she was still holding out.

The catalyst that won her over was extreme.  She saw something noble in my efforts to help a co-worker who nearly lost her life getting tangled up in a machine.  From that moment forward, she became one of my strongest supporters.  We became friends, allies, and teammates.  I pity the fool who tried to fill my shoes after that!

My next workplace had a hero named Larry.  On top of all the qualities that Rich had, Larry had a very long tenure - 19 years!  He had gained mastery of his position and kept everything running as smooth as a Swiss watch.  Luckily, I was not to immediately follow his act, that was Tony.  Tony turned out to be the polar opposite of Larry.

Tony could not endeavor to meet the expectations that Larry established and nor would he even try.  His purpose was purely self-serving.  He didn't make any effort that would not benefit himself in short order. 

All the other workers were quick to catch on and would not do much to further his selfish goals.  The machines that he was responsible for performed very poorly, the operators didn't care, and for a long two years it was a dreadful work environment.  He'd finally made things bad enough that the union would stop covering him and worked with management to expel him.  I was hired shortly after that.

What a mess that I inherited!  The machines and operators were all down trodden and looking for hope.  A few of the managers who were only told highlights of my resume had hoped that I was Larry "re-incarnate"!   One of them introduced me to a group as the "next" Larry.

Being the new guy, looking for direction, and trying to make quick friends - I accepted the idea.  I vowed to do things the way Larry did.  Little did I know all that entailed!

It was like a campaign promise.  I was sold to the spirit of Larry's contribution, but not the letter of the law!  Whenever I started to do something a little different than Larry, I was quickly set straight.  In almost every circumstance, I would humbly listen and learn Larry's way.  Until one day it became preposterous.

"Paper towels are used around here to clean lenses -lenses for cameras.  Cameras are electrical, so that is an electrical expense."

"Okay?"  I responded to the manager's directive.

"I want you to go to supply, charge paper towels to the electrical department, and I want you to keep those dispensers full."

"I don't think paper towels can be classified as electrical?"

"That is the way Larry did it.  Didn't you agree to do things the way Larry did?"

"Yes.  But this seems to be ridiculous.  Or at least it seems that way to me, but I can check with my boss?"

"I am your boss and I am telling you to maintain those paper towels!"

"No.  I won't do it.  Not without checking with my boss."

"What?  Did you say 'No'?  That is insubordination!"

"Maybe so?  I will go and discuss this with my boss right now."

My boss was more than a little perturbed to discover that his department was financing paper towels.

"and furthermore, what is your pay grade?"

I wasn't familiar with the union's stratification of laborers, but I knew where he was going.

"You are a twelve.  We don't pay grade twelve to change paper towels!"

My campaign among the managers and operators took a step sideways.  They were not sure if I was more like Larry or (heaven forbid) just another Tony.  Un-deterred, I proceeded to to my best and follow the ways of Larry, for the most part.

A few months later, I would get the opportunity to meet Larry.  He had kept in touch with friends at the plant and agreed to spend a day with me to help me with some idiosyncrasies.  He was greeted with many smiles and hand shakes.  I knew that I was in special presence.  I absorbed everthing he shared with me like a sponge.

I was not there long enough to ever achieve Larry status.  Nevertheless, I made quite a significant impact during my short time there.  A new opportunity more aligned with my long term goals had come up and the next "Tough Act to Follow" was waiting there for me.

Terry was a living legend.  The more that I got to know him, the more I learned to admire him.  He was not only the prototypical technical employee, he was a great role model.  In the short five years that I worked with him, I learned so much.  Not just the tangible technical items of which he was an authority,  but many intangibles like work ethic, honor, and character.

Unfortunately, there were managers at that place that were disheveled by the respect bestowed upon Terry.  Amongst working men, there are two modes of respect: respect from title and the greater respect that is earned and proven.  Those managers wanted greater respect for their titles.  When Terry would inform them of follies in their directives, they percieved it as a threat to their status.

Depsite that caustic environment, Terry always kept his chin up and his nose to the grindstone.  He personified the indomitable spirit.  Everything he did was to the best of his ability.  His ability was substantial!  And above all of that, no matter what the situation, he was always kind.  He left a very tough act to follow!

Lucky for me, I ended up leaving before he did!

Planning and Scheduling

One good thing about a long career is exposure to a few world class mentors.  One such person, was a long term professional consultant.  He made a good living selling world class benchmarks.  His expertise was equipment maintenance and his silver bullet was planning and scheduling.

Any business that employs equipment suffers breakdowns and the associated high costs.  If you can not produce, you can't make money.  Lower quality and lower returns on investment are typical from surprising events.

There is significant cost savings to be had from fixing problems pro-actively.  If you grease a bearing, it doesn't sieze, the shaft doesn't get undercut, the sprocket doesn't jam and cause the chain to buckle and the motor doesn't burn up.  It's a lot like the fable of the horshoe nail.  The kingdom is lost for want of a horse shoe nail.

Without being clairvoyant or having a crystal ball, how can you predict such failures?  There are a lot of easy things to begin with.  Most manufacturers give recommended maintenance periodicals based on data.  All that typically requires is tracking the number of hours of useage.

Going beyond the basic scheduled maintenance requires a bit more effort.  There are very many modern and sometimes expensive techniques for predictive maintenance.  Infra-red cameras, vibration monitors, lubricant analysis, mega-ohmeters, ultra-sonic detection, and analytical computer programs just to name a few.  Maybe everybody can not cost justify such equipment, but you can examine the purpose of these tools to reveal some basic indicators.

Heat, vibration, and sound coupled with a general familiarity with a machine can go a long way.  Frequent inspections with your eyes, ears, nose, and touch are often times sufficient.  The goal is to identify and quantify a problem so it can be managed before it becomes more significant.  The more you can manage pro-actively, the greater your cost advantage is going to be.

I had the good fortune of spending an entire week in training with an expert.  "Planning and Scheduling" was the topic of the classes.  The purpose of this lofty venture was to gain a competitive advantage by continually improving at fixing problems efficiently and timely.  This would result is lower cost of production and increased profits over competitors that simply run to failure.

One very important theme was measuring.  You can not objectively manage what isn't measured.  To measure our progression, we kept records on how well the actual results matched our plans.  The main metric ended up being scheduled time.  We planned and scheduled events breaking them down into ever smaller actions and each action had an allotted time to perform.  After a scheduled maintenance event, we'd compare actual numbers to the plan.

We had regular Planner/Scheduler meetings to share and discuss our results and upcoming events.  In the beginning, I was head of the class with actual time predictions in the 90 percentile.  The remaining half dozen planners all came in around 70-80%.

At first, the others belittled my achievements:

"Yeah, he's got great numbers but he has the smallest crew."

"He's cheating by doing a lot of his own scheduled work!"

Some of my extra efforts started to catch on.  I tried to implement every concievable idea that would prevent a task from taking longer.  I personally checked inventory of parts. I used penetrating oil on parts that were to be taken apart later.  I would secure specialty tools in advance to guarantee availability. I had face to face discussions with individuals of my crew fishing for ideas to streamline our work.

The more effort that went into stomping out and refining details, the smoother everything went.  Workers were happier knowing more of what to expect. The jobs didn't go into overtime. Costs were lowered and production schedules were more reliable.

The Power Factor Factor

"How much are we paying for electrical penalties?"

"What?"  the plant manager was caught off guard.

"Can I show you something?""

In the interest of finding meaningful significant opportunities to benefit my employer, I was always on the look out.  I was constantly evaluating systems and machines.  A great advantage of an ever expanding education is the expansion of your opportunities. 

During my college days, we learned a little bit about this concept of Power Factor.  It is one of the most significant metrics of efficient electrical power.  When the current lags the voltage, it takes more power to do the same amount of work.  It's like driving your car uphill, you still get where you are going, but you use more gas.

This effect is very significant at factories that use a lot of power.  They can afford to go to great expenses to "level" the power factor.  Not only do they reduce their usage, but they avoid penalties levied by the power company tacked on to cover higher transmission costs.

I was a newby when I first recognized the systems at the plant were sorely in disrepair.  My first inquiry went to the senior electricians there.  They were all too familiar with what I was talking about.  They had made it known to the chiefs, the chiefs had little interest in what the scouts found.  The problem persisted for years.

Undeterred, I thought that maybe I could deliver a novel approach?  Maybe I could explain it in better layman terms?  It was obviously a big contribuition to be made to our cost of production.  Surely, the chiefs would take interest if they fully understook the impact?

As a newby, I was optimistic about developing a progressively improving working relationship with my new boss.  Surely, this was the sort of thing that he hired me for?

I gave the problem a lot of thought.  Knowing that the electricians had already brought it up, but failed to sell an idea - I dug out old textbooks and researched the internet.  I wanted to  be well prepared for challenges.  I wanted to sell the idea, but careful not to go too far being the FNG.

The next day, I asked my boss if we could talk.  He invited me to his office.  I didn't beat around the bush about what I had found.  Knowing that he didn't have an electrical background, I thought I had dumbed it down enough to plainly understand.

He thanked me for bringing it to his attention and indicated that he had no prior knowledge of the situation.  He promptly dismissed me to go perform some menial task.

After my departure, he called in his confidante.  The two went far back as friends and workmates.  It was rumored that he held some kind of electrical license in a far away strange state. 

My discussions with the boss's right hand man usually left me walking away shaking my head.  He delighted in telling stories about how stupid the electricians that worked for him were.  I couldn't relate to him, but felt very sorry for the poor guys under his direction.

It didn't come as a surprise that the issue died in his office.  I would have been surprised if his buddy had even heard of power factor.  It would be a long time before I had another opportunity to bring the subject up again.

It was during a scheduled down day and I found myself alone in the MCC room with the plant manager.  He was looking straight up at overhead conduit runs and I startled him with my question:

"How much are we paying for power factor penalties?"

"What?"

He followed me to the non-functioning apparatus.  I explained to him the purpose of this big machine with the large footprint.  Why it was occupying its space in our limited spacial room.  He seemed to take some interest.

The next thing I saw was my boss and his right hand hustling on their new top priority.  They never said a word to me or asked any of the payroll electricians a single question.  They hired outside constractors and consultants over the matter.  We were all curious, but the whole affair was cloaked in secrecy. 

Eventually, we got some new major hardware.  Although, it was never fully activated!?  It was about a year later when I petitioned my direct supervisor for a chance to bring it on line.  I found that the system was automatically shutting down because of detected harmonics being out of spec.  My boss instructed me to over-ride it, which I reluctantly did - and we were finally out of penalty!

I bumped into the plant manager in the same place some couple of years later.  I thought it safe to ask him for some closure to my curiosity.

"How much was that problem costing us?"

His vague and indirect response was still cloaked in secrecy...

Power Harmonics

"This is awesome Dude!  We only read about problems as bad as this in textbooks!"

Nerds like me.  We find interest and excitement in topics that most people find boring and trivial.

The Power Quality Engineers were from out local utility.  They were sent to help identify and quantify our newly discovered problem with power quality - harmonics.

We first became aware of the mysterious problem after changing out a massive 300hp motor for the third time in a short duration.  Our leader was a bit of a simpleton and relied on shaky resources with topics that he did not understand.

He had burned bridges with one of our motor vendors and was setting fire to our latest vendor.  He was accusing them of poor quality workmanship on the motor rebuild.

Both vendors were long established and reputable shops.  His accusations were based on insufficient knowledge from limited people.  His bull headed approach to our valued vendors caused many related business hardships.  This was one very conspicuous example.

Both vendors had re-examined their entire processes and concluded no wrong doing on their end.  They had recommended that we do the same diligence on our end.  Our leader either didn't understand or acted in malice, until now.

We had data logging equipment recording over the past week and now the engineers were evaluating that data.  The level of harmonics were a magnitude that they had never seen before.  "So cool!"

In layman terms, harmonics are like driving a car on a road full of potholes.  It beats the crap out of your equipment until the insulation fails and you suffer a meltdown. 

No doubt that this was also the reason for our power factor compensation equipment failures.  Both harmonics and power factor were out of whack, but the PF is a whole other story...

Long story short, filters were ordered for our biggest frequency drives.

Art vs. Science - perfect hay bale

In the simplest quality test for hay, the perfect bale would have a Relative Feed Value over 185, Crude Protein over 22%, and Total Digestive Nutrients over 56%.

Hay for those kind of numbers would pretty much have to be pure alfalfa. There are plenty of good arguments for having grass in your forage, but quantitively speaking would dilute your quality numbers (of this subject).

Assuming that you have grown a top quality stand (which is a subject all its own), you have to first decide on the timing of the cut.  The plant reaches maturity at bloom. Cutting before bloom maximizes nutrition. The trade off is reduced yeild and stand longevity.

The best accepted compromise for quality, yeild, and longevity is when the stand is at 10% bloom.  This is our first subjective, artistic opportunity: how do you accurately determine that timing?  It's not practical to count every plant. You have to settle for how you see it.

Having decided that it is time to cut, brings the next decisions.  How are you going to cut? What time of day? How short? What pattern? Are you going to condition the stems?

There are so many different ways to proceed cutting. My preference is to cut with sickle instead of rotary, and leave four inches. I don't condition stems for the belief that stem moisture makes the feed more palatable.  And I cut at the time of day that maximizes carbohydrates.  It's my philosophy to maximize all available nutrients in a package of preserved forages.

If you make it so far that you have layed the field down according to plan, your next round of options is available. The most controversial may be to rake or not to rake.  I am in the school of rakers for two reasons: 1) it halves the number of turns that the pto driven baler has to make 2) it allows for a more uniform dried windrow.

The biggest drawback of raking is leaf loss.  All three of the quality numbers that we started with are highly dependent on leaf retention.  Timing your raking to minimize leaf loss is very important.

Since the leaves start out flexible and well attached and they only fall off after they get dry and brittle, why not rake while it's wet?  The rake doesn't work until it's dried a bit. It tight ropes wet windrows trapping excess moisture inside. 

I prefer to wait until the windrow needs another full day before baling.   That's hard to put a number on because it is dependent on so many things: the ground moisture, the temperature, humidity, bulk, wind speed and direction. I usually rake a little later than convention dictates, but I compensate by moving slow.

Other farmers are laughing at me creeping along at a snail's pace trying to conserve leaves.  I only go fast enough to turn the row over one and one half turns. That's it. I try to leave the rows as wide as will still fit in the baler, and I like a little air space between the two into one formation.

Now comes the next step. When to bale?  It's universally agreed that avoiding the hottest time of day is best for leaf retention.  But your target moisture can be a source of discussion.  I like to try for 15%. When it gets close, I monitor conditions every few hours.  I'd rather be early than late because you can't put the right amount of moisture back.  Many times I have jumped the gun.  I have learned to make a couple of bales, stop, evaluate, and if need be - shutdown.

Once again, the big time operators will be laughing at me.  They trust in their on board analyzers and hay preservatives injectors.

My ways are slow, methodical, and sometimes painstaking. They are necessary for creating the best possible product with what I have.

The art of haymaking is a step dependent, challenging process. You can only stack as good as you bale. You can only bale as good as you have raked. You can only rake as good as you have cut. And you can only cut as good as you have grown.

Business Projects

Expensive and significant projects are commonplace. It is especially true in competitive marketplaces, "If you are not progressing, you can find yourself at a disadvantage." I can relate to every position in a project's process.  For the longest time, I was at the bottom or the middle, but I have been at the top a few times now.

The budget for the project is key!  The birth of a project is a fiscal purpose.  There is a calculated investment to be made and that cost is in comparison to the status quo.  Often times, there is a number of years paying for the investment before a profit is realized. A very significant part of that cost is the project implementation budget.

Why do projects often go over budget?  Even when I was at the bottom, that was a major irritant of mine.  Somebody somewhere was lacking the discipline required to stay under budget.  It could be the engineers overlooked a detail, or a contract labor mishap, an overlooked market fact, or just flat out bad management.

When expensive things go wrong, who is going to take the blame?  The answer to that is the main reason that business likes to hire credentials.  It's the ultimate CYA response to a failure situation, "the people who failed have the credentials to succeed, so it's not my fault!" Sometimes the finger pointing and dodging grows to take precedence over solving the problem.

There will always be side tracks and challenges to overcome.  Expensive projects are inherently complicated.  The best planning and diligence of one person can not uncover every circumstance. Every reasonable effort should be made to that goal.  Unfortunately, that lack of effort is usually the reason for going over budget. The successful effort required is too much for a single person.

To get enough players involved to put forth a successful effort takes "world class" communication.  I saw a lot of problems from the bottom and the middle. When there was a system to communicate those problems, they were overcome with little extra cost. In other circumstances when I was left alone to my grumblings, those little problems became budget busters!

I never forgot the significance of every player's contribution.  When I was at the top, I listened to everyone. Although, I did weigh input differently based upon level of understanding. I did not confuse the level of understanding with their rank, pay, nor credentials. If you are at the top because you are "in the know", you can utilize great ideas from unlikely sources. That cooperation stems from "world class" communication.

It really helped me to pay my dues at the bottom and the middle.  I was irritated so many times by doing the wrong thing and witnessing folly management. I knew that I could do better!  I so badly wanted a chance to prove it!  For people lacking credentials, there is another road. Albeit, a more difficult, time consuming, and subjective road.

If you string together success long enough and often enough? And if somebody is watching that knows what is going on? And if the wind is blowing in the right direction? You might get a chance to orchestrate a project!

I have had a few of those opportunities while working for the "man".  I have added a few more on my own private farm. I am very proud of the fact that EVERY project that I have directed has been completed UNDER budget.  The single most important reason why is "world class" communication.

People and their input must be valued. Opinions and ideas should be heard early and often.  This requires first hand observations, trusting relationships, face to face interactions, and formal meetings.  The more eyes, ears, and hands on the project, the better.  Concerns must be acknowledged and addressed all the way from the bottom to the top.

That type of cohesive, open and honest teamwork is how I define "world class" communication. Problems are better resolved when they are anticipated or addressed early in the process. With a broader source of input, there are far fewer opportunities for things that "go bump in the night" to bust your budget.

The Smart Breaker Story

After a couple of days of planned downtime, the plant was ready to produce again.  Except for one particular breaker that would not reset.

It was not a normal run of the mill breaker, it was a ten thousand dollar smart breaker.  Those were used to control whole MCC sections.  They are sophisticated units, part mechanical with a spring loading mechanism and part electronic with an on board processor and memory.

Not wanting the plant to suffer un-planned downtime, I sprang into action like GI Joe with the Kung-fu grip!  I called the manufacturer.  They connected me to a very knowledgable fellow in tech support.  He instructed me step by step on a 30 minute procedure using a pencil to reactivate the mechanism.

Unknown to me, the plant's engineer (in title only) had already called our local distributor.  They sent three contractors to the plant.  When I looked in, they were trying to remove the breaker.  Only they discovered that the breaker was welded to the bus bars due to our power quality problem.  No problem for the gorillas, they just get bigger tools and use more force!

I tried to stop their madness, but this just caused the engineer to put me in my place:

"They have got to remove that breaker."

"Okay, but then what?"

"We're going to replace it with a new one."

"But, we don't have a new one?"

"Yes we do.  It's only two days out."

"Two days?  Do you know what that downtime is going to cost?  And what about the risk of destroying the bus bars?"

"You guys never mind him.  Just keep doing what you need to..."

If I was to save the plant, I had to get the big cheese involved.  We had to stop the irreversible damage from being done!  I don't know how I did it, but the gorillas were stopped.

The big boss agreed with me on one thing: let's wait until we have a replacement available.  The gorillas were grumpy about packing up their extended pry bars and the engineer was disheveled.  But I got myself a little time and perhaps a chance to do my thing.

I explained what I had learned to my immediate supervisor.  I pleaded for a half hour opportunity to fix that smart breaker.  In that politically charged environment, he reluctantly granted my wish.

I felt like I had to sneak into the MCC room to do my job.  Once inside, I retrieved my notes prescribed by the service tech and thirty minutes later, reset the breaker.

I called my boss with the triumphant news.  He in turn notified the production leads and there was a lot of unhappy workers putting their lunch boxes back down.  They were on their way out the door for an impromptu two day vacation and some hot-shot ruined it!

Everybody at the plant was mad at me for doing my job.  Not the least of which was that engineer that thought he knew better than I did, again.  What's worse?  The plant manager didn't even offer a thanks...

The Six Million Dollar (idea) Man!

Knowing how to improve the chances of increasing your net worth is challenging.  I came from the bottom myself.  Hard work, playing the odds and the standard advice rings hollow without stories demonstrating how it can work.

Making a real million dollar contribution is a sure way to get noticed.  It is easier said than done.  So here's three examples that got me some notoriety and a "get out of jail" card in corporate life:

My first employment was a million dollar effort that I wasn't cognitive of.  I was what corporate America desired most of their employees- bright but clueless.  I didn't realize my worth until the very end.  That was when I realized that my contributions were quantified, and it was my own ignorance to blame for failing to profit from my own growth.

Upon returning from an unprecedented vacation of an entire work week, I soon became aware that something really bad happened.  Something to the tune of $15 million!  That should have been my first conscious realization - the sheer size of that number!

My next conscious realization should have taken notice of the huge number of e-mails dedicated to the problem.  Too many to read thoroughly, I started skimming through them.  I started to get a real bad feeling about it, the farther I went into it and pieced together what happened.

When I discovered the conclusion, that I was the MAIN scapegoat for this incredibly costly mistake, it should have been completely obvious the amount of my worth was underpaid!  Instead of thinking like a business man and examining the significance of the numbers, I took the whole ordeal personal.

There was huge potential in being the lowest paid, but apparently most significant player in a multi-million dollar blunder!  If a brother is going to take that kind of responsibility, surely a brother deserves a significant raise!  But I didn't think like that.  Not then.  Instead, I was hung up on the ridiculous situation and focussed on the juggernauts rail-roading my sensitive little ego.

The first to share the blame was the top section head manager.  He was relatively new and immediately instituted department wide changes.  The most significant of this case was the elimination of the defect engineer.  The defect engineers duties would be spread out according to classification.

"What?! Who is going to do the classification? That's the whole purpose of that position." My immediate concern was voiced.

"Don't worry.  You will only be responsible for defects in your area of expertise.  We'll split it up, so everybody shares the burden."

"That doesn't make any sense!  I don't know how to do the defect engineer's job."  My question was not being answered.

"Don't worry.  You will get specialized training."

Lie!  The training never happened.  We were supposed to pick it up on the go.  That was the biggest mistake in this multi-million dollar blunder.

The next in line was that manager's boy.  He was the area coordinator, and admittedly very good at his job.  Maybe a little overconfident with the manager's constant approval?  He networked several of the machines to a common server.  That expedited the updates of software revisions.  This was new to us and we were too busy to remember that all of the machines were linked, right or wrong.

The problem was immediately identified by a random qualification test of one of the machines.  Production didn't recognize that one bad now meant they were all bad either.  Standard procedure was followed, but the techs worked on the single offender all night long and couldn't fix it.

When they filled me in with the details that morning, I had a quick hunch what the problem was.  My hunch was correct and production applauded my ten minute fix that solved their all night problem.  Except I was too busy going on with my new Defect Engineers duties to think that all the machines had the same problem.  I didn't know what the hell I was doing in that role!  I was expected to see the subtle change in the product occuring.  It was an easy catch for the REAL defect engineer.  What in the hell was wrong with me?!

And so it was, that week and the following week that I was on vacation that the product was mis-processed to the tune of $15,000,000.  And I was the tech to fix the problem at the early stage, and I was at the helm in the Defect Engineer's role to catch the problem early - and I was the MAIN person to blame for the blunder.  The department manager called a special meeting to say so.  Never mentioned my name, but everybody knew who I was!

That was the straw that broke the camel's back.  I hit the streets and immediately landed a new job.  I was so excited and elated!
I couldn't wait to tell my boss off!  And my boss's boss and the area coordinator and the whole damned board of directors and the CEO!  Man! was I pissed!

My first day back, I had an abnormal extra spring in my step. I had a fixed grin on my face and I couldn't wait to tell my boss the news.
"I am quitting.  This is my official two weeks notice."

"What!? Are you serious?"  He was obviously rattled.  "You know that KK is going to want to talk to you?"  He had an obvious fear of his superiors.

I chuckled with a hint of disgust, "I should hope so!  I have a few things that I want to tell him!"

It didn't take long for the word to spread.  The area coordinator was the first to come and talk to me.  He was still skirting any responsibility in the matter.

"I have talked to KK about this.  You know that we value your contributions and there is a wage increase in store for you?"

"That is too little too late." My disgusted response to the realization that I was grossly underpaid for years.  "I have already accepted another job and I will honor that commitment."

He was suddenly shaken.  "Well, I think that you should re-consider.  I don't know how much you're making, but from my talk with KK, we are ready to make things right for you..."

I just hardened my stance, "After what's transpired?  I don't think so.  I have a new job.  A new beginning!  That is ALL that matters to me."

He became obviously angry with me.  He didn't say another word to me, ever.  Not even when I bumped into him at the pizza place months later.

Despite the rumors indicating otherwise, I worked out those entire long two last weeks.  On the last day of my final minutes, the facility suffered a power outage.  Everybody else was out to lunch and I was alone in the bay doing my best to salvage the product in the process.  I got that strange feeling of somebody watching me and it was KK, standing in the main hallway watching me scramble.

I'd finally made it to the last hour and my appointment with KK.  I wasn't the slightest bit nervous. The outcome of the meeting didn't matter to me at all.  In a lot of ways, I became more of a man in those coming moments.

I walked straight into his office, standing tall.  He offered me a seat and I declined.  And then I let him have it!  I didn't use a single cuss word, but I was stern and direct.

I told him how he created the environment for me to fail.  I told him how he coddled his "boys" and threw me to the wolves!  And I told him how it felt to be singled out in the department meeting.  When I finished my ranting monologue, I looked him straight in the face.  He was looking down.  And to my surprise, the apologies started.

He was oblivious of the impact that all of this had on me.  He certainly didn't intend for those things to affect me the way they had.  He backed up, admitted his wrong doing, and sincerely apologized.  And then he tried to persuade me to stay.

Something drastically changed inside of me as this was transpiring.  This was not what I imagined?  I was becoming less warrior, not taking everything personal and getting a wider angle on things.  A better business perspective!

I realized that it wasn't a pugilistic relationship.  That was MY mistake.  It really was a cooperative effort.  I realized that I did own half of the power of negotiation.  I was not powerless as I had feared.  They did care about me and they did really want collective success!  If I had been more open about my needs and desires, it would not have become so isolated and personal.  I would have benefitted from a more healthy business relationship.

That experience of my last minute on my last day was so empowering!  It started to make perfect sense.  I didn't have to be envious of others.  I could have what they had too, what an epiphany!  But that wasn't a "six million dollar idea" as much as it was a "six million dollar blunder". 

My next opportunity came at my next employer.  We had a long conveyor belt that was difficult to track and resulted in $2 million of annual product waste.  At least three different engineers had given their best shot, but the problem remained.

I was assigned to go on a business trip to learn about a new machine that we were purchasing.  My reputation as a scribe and willingness to share new information got me on the plane with three other constituents. 

I quickly got bored with the sanitation demonstration and wandered away from the small crowd.  What was really drawing my attention was the long conveyor belt running on a nearby bake tunnel.  One of their engineers noticed my snooping.

"How do you do that?  That belt tracking is tight!"

His eyes lit up and I immediately knew that I was lucky enough to ask the right person.  "We have demanding standards and found this one particular vendor out of a dozen that met those needs."

That single discovery saved our company millions!  It was something that I could hang my hat on.  It probably got me out of jail a time or two?

My next example wasn't as much a single idea as it was a sustained million dollar effort.  There was a fair amount of good luck involved in this case because I happened upon a perfect storm.

The technician whom I took over from was fired.  He was a union guy, so it took the better part of two years to get rid of him.  He did a poor job in every aspect.  Things were in dire straits when I took over.  I was up for the challenge and my skill set and experience was a perfect match for what was needed to turn operations around.

It took six months of scrambling to get things back to par.  After that the section manager held a meeting to introduce a stretch goal.  They had identified $1.2 million annual waste from the machines that I was supporting.  In addition of that was $100,000 they were spending on field service just to keep running.

One field tech in particular made most of the visits.  He was a dedicated, intelligent, straight up guy that made the most of his limited time there.  We became immediate friends, like two thieves meeting in the night.

The million dollar waste number was calculated from the performance capabilities claimed by the manufacturer.  The devil was in the details though, and the machines were far from their operation capabilities because of lacking discipline on our part.

The caring field tech had made a substantial list of recommendations to improve performance.  But that implementation would require the efforts of full time employees.  Since the tech responsible for that was a loser, absolutely nothing on the list was done for two years.  Once I got my head above water, I set to changing that.

Over the next six months, I started by making some lasting improvements that compounded.  We continued checking off literally​ a couple hundred little things that contributed to the goal.  Along the way, I added a few big hitter ideas of my own.

I was there for almost one year exactly when we had a follow up meeting for the stretch goal.  We were still short of the stretch goal, but we had gotten half way in six months!  Adding that to the $100,000 that I'd saved the company in field service, and my $50,000 salary was up for negotiation. 

They tried real hard to keep me on after I was offered another job.  The kick in the ass there was that the union would not allow my salary boost!  They said that I had peaked for my classification!  But the company pulled out the stops and offered to make me salary which would remove the union control of the situation and allow them to top my recent offer.  I still declined because my new offer was more consistent with my long term goal.

A Poor Man is a Lousy Philanthropist

Philanthropy.  When I first heard the word, I had to look it up.  It's a long and complicated definition of Greek origin.  That's fitting, because helping others is complicated.

Statistics for financial gift giving are somewhat revealing.  Conservatives are more giving than liberals.  Liberals tend to be very generous with other peoples' money, but more stingy with their own.  Conservatives are much more generous with their own money, but their charities tend to be extensions of themselves.  The greatest majority of their contribution goes to their religious affiliation.  That benefits others, but also indirectly benefits themselves. 

The deeper that you look into the subject, the more you begin to understand the difficulty.  At one extreme, you contribute to your ego's agenda.  At the other extreme, you wind up giving drinks to drunks.  But the need for help is real.  How do you go about helping others without contributing to their problems?

In my younger years, as soon as I had a little expendable income, I started giving.  I would send $10-20 every month to any charity that showed up in my mailbox.  I also added to my utility bill to help people with trouble paying electricity.

It made me feel good about myself.  I believed that I was doing good and helping others in need.  It was so simple.  Put a check in the mail and feel righteous.  Then a friend told me a little bit more about "non-profit" institutions.

He told me about the IRS mandated form 1090.  It was public access for non-profit institutions and declared the percent of income towards the cause and the other "administration" expense.

I did a little more research about my mailbox charities.  All charities are not equal.  To my dismay, many of the charities that I was giving to had substantial "administration" costs!  I could imagine some administrator driving away from his cush desk job in his shiny new Porsche Carrera.

Where was that administrator when I was working (free) overtime?  Where was he when I was in the fab at 2am on Christmas morning?  Where was he when I was being evaluated by medical staff after being exposed to poisonous chemicals?  Where was he when I saw my life flash before my eyes in the seat of a crane?  In every case, I expect that he was snug as a bug in a rug, enjoying a pleasant sleep in a warm bed.

The more I learned, the less righteous satisfaction I got from sharing.  I still continued to share, but I became a lot more discriminating, and as a result, I shared less.  When a person has to sacrifice and work hard for the money, it takes on a greater value.  And it should, because money is the best representation we have of past service and production. 

So how do the wealthy elite go about helping others?  They are approached in a myriad of ways.  Some needs are legit, but many are not.  Money wasted on a shifty cause takes away from the real needs.  So how do they tell the difference in a flood of needy requests? 

I have known a few multi-millionaires and witnessed their dilemma.  In one case, I personally knew the people in need and their cause.  I donated $200 and the multi-millionaire donated $100.  The recipients were not impressed by the rich giver's donation.  They shared the letter that accompanied the donation.

The letter was heart-felt and offered advice.  I could read in the tone of the letter the difficulty that the giver had with managing the abundance of requests for monetary help. 

So I suspect that big and small philanthropists struggle with the same cynicism.  I remember reading about Warren Buffett approaching the subject.  He came to understand that he was doing a lot of the same diligence as Bill and Melinda Gates and decided to throw in with them.

I suppose that there have always been posers, beggars, and drunks.  It's just that some of them have evolved with modern life so it's not quite so obvious what they are. Nobody wants to give a dollar to them only to discover a real need tomorrow and wish that you had that dollar to give.

A poor man is a lousy philanthropist. He is not going to build libraries or hospitals. But maybe he can help a neighbor or a stranger on occasion.  I only recently learned of a case that my earlier giving did benefit a legitimate need. That was a good feeling. I would like to do it again.

How to Max your Earnings

"WHAT ONE MAN CAN DO, SO CAN ANOTHER!  SAY IT!"

"What one man can do, so can another."

"LOUDER!"

"WE'RE GONNA KILL THE BEAR!"

"SAY IT!"

It's my favorite part of one of my all time favorite movies: The Edge.  The hero had never slain a bear before.  Yet, he knew that he would not be the first to have done so.  He convinced himself that he could do it, but the problem was convincing somebody else!  A brother could use a little help in slaying the bear...

"How do you do it?  What do you do to get paid more than what you're worth?"

Despite his tact-less and blunt approach, I could appreciate his candor.  He asked me this right off, before we had a real opportunity to get to know each other - and eventually become friends.

My response was just as short and to the point, and tailored to what he was ready to hear: "I walk fast."

There's a lot of truth to that over simplified statement.  Walking fast gives the casual observer the impression of importance.  It looks like there's a sense of urgency in trying to accomplish a lot in a short time.  But the longer story, explaining the details of playing the part instead of merely acting the part requires a little longer attention span.

I've shared my story numerous time with numerous different people who showed genuine interest.  Despite sharing it all, I don't know of anybody that took my advice.  It was a lot like all the classes that I gave and the training of apprentices.  A big number of people could have benefitted, but only one that I recall actually carried a notebook and asked questions like he expected to apply the information.

Most people are just like the character portrayed by Baldwin in that movie.  They don't want to kill the bear, they'd rather have you do it for them.  When forced to the task, they will go along but half-hearted.  It takes dedication and belief in success!

My story always starts out with losing and suffering. For seven years!  I am a slow learner!  Almost every negative fate that can befall a worker happened to me during that seven years.  I could relate to the suffering of the people that I have tried to help.

That compilation of suffering had to amount so that I would do something about it.  Something drastic, a real change, a gamble or a chance.  I found another job.  Things improved immediately.  But REMEMBER THIS: it was for LESS pay (initially).  In fact, every single time that I started for a new employer, it was for LESS pay (initially).

At my new employment, I was swimming with the current.  I got good reviews and good raises.  It was a short time before I was exceeding the pay of my previous employer.  But I still was not satisfied.  So I did something else crazy and I got on a plane to Portland to attend a job fair.  I wanted to test the market first handed.

I got four hits.  Of those four hits, I got two job interviews.  Of those two interviews, I got one offer.  It was a fantastic offer!

It posed an immediate dilemma because I was very happy with my current employment.  The offer was so good, that I could not responsibly continue my current employment.  I did some real soul searching and decided that what I really wanted was to keep my current job, but at a compensation closer to my market worth.  The important part was having the data and holding the cards.

The next work day, I talked with HR.  I was forthcoming of my honest goal and asked for a raise that was about 75% of my new job offer.  That was my plan A, but I made it clear that plan B would be to accept the new offer.

HR agreed to consider my proposal.  They needed some time to involve others in the decision.  So we had to negotiate a time period because my job offer was time based.  We agreed on a couple of days.

The very next day I was notified of their decision.  And this was one of the most exciting times in my career!  Not only would they meet my proposal, not only would they meet the job offer, but they would exceed it!  I was elated!  After consulting my peers and production customers, they gave me golden handcuffs!

After that experience, I changed employers twice more.  Both times, I initially started for less pay, but exceeded that salary before my departure.

To summarize my advice: If you are working for wages, test the market.  You must be able to gain a position that allows you to negotiate from a position of strength.  It is NOT personal.  It is BUSINESS.  It will require dedication and sacrifice on your part.

"What one man can do, so can another!"

"SAY IT!"