Teamwork makes oil's well that ends well

There is almost constant chatter these days about diversity, and that's a good thing.  As a child of the 60's (1960's, not 1860's, thank you very much!) I personally had the perception that things had gotten better in this regard in this country, especially once we Americans elected a black president....twice.

On another level, many of my bosses over the years have been women, including a VP at a major hospital/healthcare system and the executive director of a regional non-profit organization...oh, yes, and of course my wife! I never had an issue with reporting to women. Maybe my experience was unique. (Although I must say I am getting tired of all the modern references to "strong, powerful women." Does everyone have to be a powerful person?  Can't we just all strive to be talented, good and successful people?)

Anyway, I was due for an oil change in my Jeep, so went to the closest Valvoline Instant Oil Change location, the same place I usually go.  There were four people working that hot Saturday afternoon, and the professional who dealt with me and my vehicle was a young black man. Two of the other workers were also young men, one of which looked barely past a teenager, and when the professional who was working in the pits under the car came up, it was a young woman. I have to admit I was a bit surprised at first, as I am not sure I have encountered a female car mechanic before, but I also had no problem with that. As I said, several of my very skillful bosses over the years were women, so why not a skillful female mechanic?

As I drove home after their work was done, I realized that what I saw was not two white guys, one black guy and one woman. What I saw was an effective team working on my vehicle, and a diverse team at that....and isn't that just what should be, and what we should all see, with no hidden agendas?

I went into that location for an oil change, and what I think I saw was the world workforce changing the way it should be changing, with people working because they have the talent for the job, and for no other reason.

I work too hard for my money

At a Christmas party we were talking to some people we only see now at Christmas parties, and the wife was talking about a recent trip of theirs.  They always enjoyed traveling, and to make their trip to the Grand Canyon easier, they decided to take a bus to the Canyon.   They really enjoyed the experience, pretty much on all accounts.

A little while later we got on the subject of going to a casino, which is something I really like to do.  I rarely overspend, but I do so enjoy video poker.   When I was a kid way back in the 1960s, someone gave my mother a plastic, battery-operated hand-held video poker game, and at that time in my life - - long before the Internet and instant access to all kinds of electronic games - - any game that was both hand-held and battery operated was so cool.  So for ages and ages, I have enjoyed the game of video poker. Don't even have to be gambling, just playing the game is fun. Now I also enjoy playing some slots some time.

Anyway, at the Christmas party, after explaining what I do for fun, the wife of the Canyon couple said, "I work too hard for my money to waste it gambling in a casino."

Oh how I love to hear those words!  So I replied, "You know what I work too hard for my money to do?  I work too hard for my money to ever want to spend it riding a bus with 40 or 50 people I don't know, for hours and hours, across a dessert to go out and look at a hole in the ground."

The world's a big big place with plenty of things to do.  Unless what you like to do is rob banks - - especially if my money that I worked so hard to get is stashed there - - or shoot people for no reason except that it is fun, then there is no reason what you do for fun is better or more noble or smarter or whatever than what I do for fun.  This person could have simply said, "I have tried casinos a couple times, but I really don't like it," or something similarly nondescript rather than take the demeaning attitude that "What I do for fun is good and noble and enriching, and what you do for fun is stupid."

I don't think we have crossed paths since that encounter. If she did want to cross paths, she would easily know where to find me. As for me, I still try to avoid large holes in the ground.....they are just not my thing!

Still the same?

When I was a journalism major in the 1970’s, there was a book named How to Make $25,000 a Year Publishing Newsletters, and it planted in me the seed that someday I would publish a newsletter or magazine. (More gory details about this some other time.) Eventually I did start a magazine, and one way I promoted it was to accept speaking invitations at professional conferences to speak about marketing. 

I also worked in marketing communications for 18 years in a major regional medical center, which meant that I had to give presentations to groups from time to time.  Trust me, I have no true desire to speak to groups of people, but I have long gotten past being nervous about standing in front of and speaking to groups.  I don’t crave it, but can do it. The secret, I believe, is to truly be prepared to speak, to practice and know just what you are going to say, so I regularly practiced my presentations, even if I had delivered the same remarks many times before.

So, when our parish church put out the call a few years ago for people to be involved, I chose to help with one of the requested areas and be a lector in my Catholic church, knowing full well that we would be given workbooks with the readings for our assigned readings, and I could practice, practice, practice before I actually stood in front of other human beings to speak.

When practicing my readings for a Sunday mass in March, I repeatedly read the line from the book of Chronicles in the Old Testament of the Bible.  One part reads: “Early and often did the Lord, the God of their fathers, send his messengers to them, for he had compassion on his people…. But they mocked the messengers of God, despised his warnings, and scoffed at his prophets.”

It was a sad and sobering revelation, one that dashed a lot of hope for me.  This reading was from thousands of years ago, and it was lamenting the fact that many people don’t heed the warnings we are given, that we think we can do whatever we want to do and that there are never any consequences, unless perhaps, maybe, only if we are unlucky enough to get caught.

There are times when I think, and probably when you think as well, that the world is going to hell, especially easy to think if you just look at the almost weekly occurrences of people doing mass shootings of innocent people. I just don’t understand it.

Is that really it?  There is no true right or wrong, there is only getting away with it in this life or not?  Are we truly no more advanced than we were as a race thousands of years ago, and that so many still scoff at messengers?

Silence is an equal opportunity employer

Modern technology is an amazing thing, right.  Just think, many of us can simply reach into our pockets, take out a phone, and call someone anywhere in the world…even if they don’t want to be called.

I seemed to get called when not wanting to be called when I am either at home or at work: my home/office phone rings, and being Pavlovianly trained to pick it up and answer, I do so. Many times - - far, far too many times - - there is apparently no one there, because no one responds after I say “Hello.”

But it seems I am wrong. (Well, I have been wrong maybe four or five times in my life!)  Often someone is there, or perhaps more accurately, someone is monitoring their telephone marketing software program, waiting to see if an actual human picks up the phone before they bother to flip whatever button they have to flip to actually talk to me.  After all, they don’t want to waste their precious time listening to a phone ring and ring and maybe never be answered, so they wait for some system to inform them . . . after several seconds . . . that a real human has answered the phone, is on the line and is waiting to learn all about the piece of crap they are trying to sell me.

What I do, after answering a phone and holding it to my ear for what seems like an interminable number of seconds, when the person finally sells “Hello,” or often calls me by my first name, is repay the favor: I don’t say anything, and, without disconnecting the line/call, simply put the phone down and walk away, letting the caller waste his/her time listening to nothing and waiting for someone to talk with them. 

 

I suppose I should be a better human being than the caller, and not be so terribly upset that a telemarketer does this.  But if you are calling me to tell me something or sell me something, I think the least thing you could do is have the decency to be there when I answer the phone, say hello and begin to pitch your product before I say, “I am not interested.” If you are calling me to tell/sell me something and you think it is fine to inconvenience me further because you are not ready to say hello as soon as I answer the phone, then you can waste your time and listen to the same nothing I had to listen to when you interrupted my day...mainly, nothing at all.

Yes, there are times, when silence is golden, but when you interrupt my day to impose your silence on me, I shall do the same to you because silence is an equal opportunity employer.

Pete does very, very well....literally

Pete Davis is an amazing guy. Not only does he successfully operate his own business, the Dundee Manufacturing Company in Southeast Michigan, and raise scholarship money for University of Toledo College of Business and Innovation students, he devotes his time and energy to direct another organization, Hope2Water. He started Hope2Water to save lives by delivering safe and healthy drinking water to children, families, and communities through philanthropy, advocacy, outreach, and custom water solutions to the people in Haiti.

Not long ago his organization achieved the milestone of drilling their first two water wells in Dessalines, Haiti. Davis said, “I was given the opportunity to go to Dessalines, Haiti, on my first mission there to help at an eyecare clinic.  It was shortly after the earthquake and when we arrived for our mission there were a million people living in tents right near the airport. Most of the nine million people in Haiti don’t have opportunity, and there are no jobs”.

“On the three-hour bus ride to the clinic, we were going over a bridge and I saw people pulling pails of water from the creek, the same creek in which other people were washing their clothes. I saw the pollution, and learned there are an enormous amount of deaths due to water-borne disease. I became friends with the chaplin at the hospital in Dessalines and asked him about the water conditions, and he said that five to ten people die each year in his village alone due to the bad water. These were not only people in his village but also his family members”.

“That touched me.”

Davis said his next step was to set up a non-profit organization to be able to raise money to carry out his vision of getting safe and clean drinking water to the people of Haiti. He contacted an organization that was already familiar with drilling wells in Haiti and flew to Texas to meet with Healing Hands International to drill the wells needed in Dessalines.

“They told me it cost $6,000 to drill a well. I didn’t know if I could raise that much money, but I did know that I had to drill two wells in Dessalines, community wells for everyone to get water,” he recalled. “So I said, let’s move forward and do it. I planned to pay for it myself if I could not raise the money, but in six weeks we pulled together a golf outing in Michigan which raised $12,000.”

Davis later returned to Haiti to again help at the eyecare clinic.  “While we were there we drilled our first well; we hit water at 45 feet down, and it produced 35 gallons of water a minute. We then drilled the second well, hitting water at 90 feet.   We capped them, poured the foundation and installed the pumps. We were now able to give water via a hand pump to 1,500 to 2,000 people a day per well!”

“We have identified a pump built here in the United States called Life Pump and have teamed up with Design Outreach out of Columbus, Ohio to purchase and have the pumps installed in Dessalines, Haiti," Davis said. 

"We have raised enough monies to do 2 to 3 pump repairs in Dessalines by the end of 2018."

"For 2019, we are going to complete an additional 10 pump repairs in Dessalines at a cost of $100,000."

 

“It’s just such a basic need, a common thread for everyone on this planet.”

“In the United States we have a tendency to get inpatient, that things don’t happen when they should,” Davis reflected. “But I kept giving it to God knowing he would make it happen; it does test your belief system.”

“I’m good with goals. I want to be able to look someone in the eye and know I did it for them.”

Like I said, an amazing guy!