Imprecision

im·pre·cise (mpr-ss)
adj.
Not precise.
impre·cisely adv.
impre·cision (-szhn) n.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Why are we imprecise? In fact, let me switch that out. Why are YOU imprecise? Because I’m a programmer. I get my booleans mixed up a lot, but that’s not imprecision, that’s confusion. I get confusion. But I can’t fathom imprecision.

If someone gives you a task, the precise thing to do is (a) do the task and (b) report to the giver that the task is done. Doing that PREVENTS confusion. It’s precise.

It’s what your momma would want you to do.

My friend, my good friend, one that I love dearly, got a new cellphone a week ago. I learned today that his wife also got a new cellphone. I learned that because after he hung up with tech support that he was quite put out with the cellphone company for switching the phone numbers (he got hers and vice-versa).

This is imprecision at it’s best. The confusion of two cell phones and two cell phone numbers gave rise to the potential for imprecision. This is where you may roll your eyes at grandma and grandpa when they show up with their cellphones with sticky notes on them to show which one is which phone number.

But guess what, halfassamerica, THAT IS PRECISION!

Grandma and grandpa have lived long enough to realize that precision overcomes confusion!

Be precise and reduce the confusion!

Get ‘er dun

There are steps to every process.  There are procedures to follow. With all our laziness we all find shortcuts and ways to get ‘er dun.

That does NOT make an effort half-assed.  Finding a way to get the same or better results with less work is the reason the word “ingenious” was created; it describes just such an outcome.

But wait! What’s that? You finished the task? “Miller Time” you say?  NO! You half-assed, worthless piece of space-and-time!  CALL THE CLIENT!

Why don’t you just let people know you finished their task?   Is it because you actually *DIDN’T* do an ingenious job and amaze the masses?   Is it cause you actually *DID* do a half-assed job that anyone’s grandchild could have outdone?

Look, whatever the procedures are, no matter what rules and regulations you’ve skipped.  Call someone, anyone, and let them know you’re done!

The job is NOT done until you’ve notified someone that you did it!

You’ve done it too…

It’s Not My Job

Ah, the lovely 4 words we all love hearing on the other end of the phone from (usually) a 20-something year old who still lives at home with mom and dad and has no idea the hurt we could put on them. Yet it continues to be a staple of dialogue in most customer service departments.

My latest concert of such words was a recent call into Comcast (am I allowed to print the name oft he company??? Well, its the truth so why now!). I had called because I was not able to send email at all for the last few days and after several shut down, reboots and nashing of teeth, I made the dreaded phone call into CONcast. After waiting for several minutes to just get to Customer Service, I was transferred to Technical Help where a gentleman answered and I re-iterated my purpose in calling. To no surprise, they had blocked my SMTP so I was not able to send email stating that I had sent spam on a particular day a few weeks ago. Of course, this was total nonsense but when I asked why I wasn’t notified this was going on, the gentleman on the other line had stated that they did send out an email and proceeded to give me the email address. The email address on my account was an address I have never owned and replied to the CONcast employee that I’ve never used that email address, nor ever heard of it.

After a few minutes of discussing how that email address was applied to my account, I just discarded any reasoning and asked the person to change the email address. His reply was that someone in Customer Service would have to do that. When I voiced my displeasure in waiting another 10 or 15 minutes to get CS back on the line and asked him if he could change it, those words rang out like nails on a chalkboard… “It’s not my job…” What would I have given to have super-hero strength to melt his brain with heat from my throat!

Now, I’m all for companies having procedures and such but spewing out “It’s not my job” sound like “I could do it, but I don’t want to, because you, the customer, do not matter to me.” What the person should have said was “I’m not suppose to do that but I’ll take care of it for you”. Knowing already that I was upset about my email being blocked for no reason and not being able to send mail for three days, instead of diffusing the problem, he made it worse with those words… “It’s not my job.”

As always, we live in a country that is getting lazier and lazier. It shows in our work ethic, in our way of life, our eating habits, the rising stats that show obecity in the US, the list goes on and on. How about we, just for a change, try thinking of the other person before our job title, or social status…. our state of mind.

It’s called Google, look it up!

A big pet peeve of mine is people who do not know how to use the internet. It’s like having a dictionary, thesaurus, encyclopedia and any text book found in any high school across America right at your finger tips. Whenever I want to know how to spell something, I go to Google and type the word in. If it’s a word I spelled wrong, 95% of the time the search result comes back with a question at the top asking me if I meant “… the correct spelling of the word.” Or, if I hear someone tell me a term of a phrase I do not know about or read a tutorial on something and it mentions a term or word I have no clue about… I mosey on over to Google and type it in the search. And wha-la… almost 100% of the time I’ll find out what it is.

I don’t understand why people continue to call or email me with questions on “what’s this…” or “what does this mean…” or “how do I do that…” when to find answers to those questions can be found in one of two places, either Google.com or Wikipedia.com.

I would have killed to have the access to information I have today. Yet in seems in this day in our society, as access to information becomes easier, people are becoming lazier at even doing the simple task as typing a few keystrokes in the computer to look it up. Come on, it’s easy people. Stop for two seconds and think for another two and I guarantee the next time you want to know what indolent means, I’m sure you can find it.

Put the shopping cart away

You ever go to Wal-Mart and see the parking lot full of shopping carts? My head about explodes when I see this. I didn’t see this epidemic of laziness as a kid, but now people are suddenly too lazy to put away their shopping cart. They’re also too inconsiderate to realize that their laziness has just robbed somebody of a parking spot. I have a term for these people – ‘Democrats’, because they have the mentality that “somebody else (the company / the government) will take care of my problem, so I can be lazy and mooch off the man.”

Now, I can understand a mom with little kids just leaving the shopping cart in the middle of the parking lot, but frequently it’s someone who’s perfectly capable of putting the cart away.

Putting the shopping cart away is one of those simple little things that the average person can do to help out the next guy. It’s not a big deal – takes all of 60 seconds or less, yet it’s a simple courtesy that we all appreciate.

If We Only Had More Time….to Watch TV.

Americans watch more TV than ever

According to the latest research from Nielsen, Americans devote more time than ever to watching television. A couple of more nuggets from the report:

• The average individual watched 4 hours, 32 minutes of TV per day last season, the highest level in 15 years.
• The average U.S. home now receives more than 100 channels of programming.
• The average household watches 1 hour, 53 minutes of prime-time TV per day.
• During 2005’s premiere week for prime-time programming, an average of 62 percent of American households were watching TV.

Those are scary statistics…c’mon get up off your half-ass and get out in the fresh air, go to the gym, ride a bike, read a book, get a hobby, play with the kids….

See that handle on the left side of your steering wheel? USE IT!

A national survey put out back in 2006 stated that 57% of American admit that they do not use their turn signals when driving. That means over half of the people on the highway admit to being rude and inconsiderate. It’s amusing that when we talk about drivers who do not use their turn signals, we speak as though they do not use a napkin during dinner or do not remove their shoes when they are in their own home. When in reality, not using your turn signal is basically telling other driver to kiss off, letting other drivers know where you’re going is not enough priority to simply lift your arm and operate a devise that a 12 month old can use a few seconds before doing something!

Lets analyze more of this survey. 42% of drivers state they do not use turn signals because they do not have enough time.
No, what they are really saying is that they are not paying enough attention that their attention span is only a second long… scary!

23% of drivers admit they are just plain “lazy”.
Really? Well, that sums it up… no need to elaborate!

17% don’t signal because if they do, they forget to turn it off.
OMG! You have got to be kidding! Thats like saying I’m not going to eat because if I do, I’ll have to go to the bathroom! Come on! That should go into the “lazy” column.

11% of drivers say it isn’t important to them.
Again, what they are really saying is they don’t care for anyone else on the road…. basically they’re inconsiderate.

8% say they do not signal because other drivers don’t.
Sheep!

7% say forgoing the turn signal “adds excitement to driving”.
What if I was to step in front of you in a long line waiting to get into the movie theater to see a film and my excuse  to you was, “being rude to you adds excitement to the movie going experience.” I have a funny feeling that excuse would not go over well.

So in closing, use the dang turn signal, it lets everyone around you know what you are doing, it’s considerate, and if you do it, then others will too and can you imagine if we all used our turn signals, I bet the American roads would be a happier place to be. We could even curb road rage… imagine that!

TV Dinners…Frozen Burritos?

good lord! how fast do we need food? it’s not even good at that. are you afraid you’re going to miss a few minutes of the ‘the amazing race’? i have an idea….throw out those frozen disasters, turn off the tv and get a big fat steak to throw on the grill. invite the family…invite your neighbors. sure beats not so real tv.

Whatever….

This is a little corner of the world where we can point out, discuss, and downright complain about those people, (you know who you are) that just get by, do the minimum and don’t think past the end of their own nose. Not mention in this day and age we are getting to the point where expect things to just happen for us. Like a door opening and lights turning on and off. Are we becoming so lazy that we cannot do this ourselves? We are getting fatter by the day and less invloved by the minute. So, put down the chili dog and Wii Fit and stop half-assing it!