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!"