“I believe that honesty wins. Not only the kind of honesty that keeps a man’s fingers out of his neighbor’s till, but the finer honesty that will not allow a man to give less than his best, the kind of honesty that makes him count not his hours but his duties and opportunities.” ~ J.C. Penney
I was thinking this morning about what I would want to see in someone the most if I had to hire them into my company. In my mind I went through the long list: proper …

Home improvement contractors are unique people. I am no longer surprised by the tricks pulled by some of them as I have learned to expect absolutely anything. Does their business environment require some to act a certain way? I have not yet fully figured this out and hope you’ll share some of your experiences and thoughts. Here are some of mine.
Know the work. This is a difficult one as the more you know the less pleasant it is to see the various shortcuts that are employed at your expense. However, …

Couple days ago I was watching a movie about a teacher who turned around a class of troubled kids (classic topic) and remembered my own teachers who made such a difference in my life. Teachers are very special people. My mother was a teacher. I think I understand teachers slightly better because of that.
I have had many teachers but some of them were more than just teachers of a particular subject. They were also role models. I remember the math teacher from my 4th or 5th grade for having the …

My father brought back from my childhood home my journal where I had written a few poems in my teenage years. As I read them again, I was struck by the contrast of the feelings I must have had when writing these and the complete lack of any feelings currently for the objects of my childhood love. Coincidentally, a friend recently also posted Life probabilities: Memories …. Aside from my slowly fading and gradually distorted memories of the past, that journal is the only evidence left from my emotional teenage …

For the last couple days, I’ve been dealing with project management issues. Training, textbooks and authorities on the topic say that you must have a clearly defined scope, timeline and resource plan. There are even contract writing solutions, all kinds of methodologies, and even books that go into detail on how to arrange the parts and execute to succeed where success is defined as completing the project on-time within budget. From my experience so far, all of this is not sufficient and is ineffective at guaranteeing a truely predictable successful …