There is No ‘Professional’ Without the ‘Personal’

Professionalism is a mask we wear on top of our everyday personality, and is really a layer of formality through which our expertise is brought to the fore.  The formality we express depends on the specific situation we’re in in any given moment.

That does not mean that professional interactions are impersonal. To the contrary, everything is personal.  Whether it’s an encounter between a boss and employee or a customer service rep with a customer, every interaction begins and ends with the people underneath the mask of professionalism.

It is obviously possible to drop this mask.  Indeed, we usually dispense with it entirely during, for example, a gathering of friends.  There are also times when the personal peeks through the mask while we’re wearing it.  I would even say this is required, as it helps build a strong rapport between employees, employees and customers, etc.  While we may appreciate and admire the professional, it’s the person underneath we connect with.

The pleasant times when the mask can slip are pretty easy to handle.  A coworker announces they’ve gotten engaged, or a customer calls to praise an employee – this is exactly when you want to let your mask slip a little.

It’s during the unpleasant times when you absolutely must keep the mask in place.  A customer calls to complain and starts yelling at an employee.  A boss jumps right to the threat of termination at the first sign of unwanted behavior from an employee.  Taking off your mask like this is not merely unprofessional, it demonstrates a complete lack of respect for the person you’re dealing with.  This is not something you want to do if you expect to have a continued relationship with the other person: The customer will have a bad reputation among the employees at that company, and the boss will become known as a tyrant.

Would you respect or want to do business with someone who demonstrated such behavior?

Your mask sets the tone of your reputation. Wear it well.

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Want a Cobra replica?

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Untitled

Not much to do here yet. This is the night before the event begins. Mostly it’s just vendors getting set up.

Posted via email from Jeff Harbert’s Posterous

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Some of the many 510s here

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My home until Sunday

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510 correction

Five, three being driven.

Posted via email from Jeff Harbert’s Posterous

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Datsuns at Road Atlanta

I’ve seen three totally sweet Datsun 510s in line, only one being driven. #2010Mitty

Posted via email from Jeff Harbert’s Posterous

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New tent

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The Missing Side of Search

The single greatest strength of the internet is that it can be searched. Back in the day, long before Google, when Yahoo! was the biggest game in town and everyone was all hip about web portals, most people got around by merely clicking on links.  Searching capability was practically a secondary focus.  Then along came Google and a new internet paradigm. Search killed the old portals.

Search continues to be a huge focus, and it likely always will.  The ability to search and find what you want, no matter the subject, has obvious advantages.  However, I think it’s time to temporarily put search on the back burner so another aspect of search, long ignored, can be brought to maturity.

Filters.

When I perform a Google search, too often I get results for websites I find completely useless.  Shopping.com, nextag.com, thomasnet.com, and many others.  To me, they’re search result spam.  I’ve never found these sites to be helpful.  Some people might, but I don’t.  I’d like to be able to exclude them – easily! – from my search results.  eBay is another site I’d like to be able to exclude from my search results, but for a different reason; While I do shop on eBay once in a while, I do so quite intentionally.  When I want to look for something on eBay, I search on their site, not through a search engine like Google. Being able to exclude eBay from my search results would be helpful.

The same goes for subscriptions, whether it’s subscribing to an RSS feed, following someone on Twitter, or customizing the layout on Google News.  In each case, there are some things I have no desire to see.

Let’s take news first.  When I’m looking at news online, whether it’s my local newspaper’s website or Google News, there are certain subjects I find (I’ll be polite) completely uninteresting.  Tiger Woods. The Gosselins.  Twilight.  Why can’t I block these ‘news’ stories?

I use Twitter fairly heavily.  I also use the silly location-based game Foursquare.  That said, I don’t publish my Foursquare updates to Twitter.  Even if I know you personally, I really don’t want to see your Foursquare updates within Twitter.  Why can’t I block them?

RSS readers like Google Reader and Bloglines allow you to subscribe to RSS feeds and share items – but not block certain topics within those subscriptions. Why?

The internet wouldn’t work if not for search, but it’s long past time for filters to become as ubiquitous as search has become.

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Posted in Discussion | View Comments

A/C Repairs

We were told last October during negotiations to buy this house that the central A/C didn’t work and that they (the previous owners) didn’t know why.  No biggie, we thought. The house is a great price and we’ll just worry about the A/C after Winter is over.

Well, Spring lasted about three days before Summer hit.  It’s been about 90 degrees for the last several days.  Time to get crackin on the A/C.

I removed the screws from the maintenance cover and took a peek inside.  A little corrosion on one starting cap, but no big deal.  I set the thermostat to Cool, turned the temp down, flipped the A/C breaker on, and went back outside.  Since the power was on now, the contactor (relay) was buzzing.  The A/C unit has its own electrical disconnect on the side of the house, so nothing was actually running yet.

I flipped the disconnect to On.  The compressor fired right up, but the condenser fan wouldn’t turn.  I left the compressor running for half a minute or so so I could feel the refrigerant lines.  Sure enough, one side got cold and the other side got hot.  This was a relief since I don’t yet have the knowledge or equipment to work on refrigerant loops.  (I want to tackle making my own ground source heat pump eventually, so that knowledge and equipment will come along.)

I turned the disconnect and breaker back off so I could turn my attention to the condenser fan motor.  A couple of the spade connectors were broken, so I replaced those.  I also removed the top cover that the fan motor bolts to so I could take a look at the motor itself.  I took the time to replace some wire nuts with crimp connectors.  I did some staring and thinking and internet research.  (This was very much a learn-as-you-go situation.  See my post on Cutting Failure Down to Size about why.)

I determined that the fan motor, which is not original to this A/C unit, had been wired incorrectly.  The wiring diagram of the original motor is on the maintenance cover and, according to it, the original motor had three wires, but the new motor has four wires.  They had cut off one of the wires, covered it in shrink wrap, and tried to connect the remaining three according to the original wiring diagram.  This may have, in fact, worked at one point (read on), but it was still incorrect.

I removed the shrink wrapped, extended that cut-off wire, and wired the motor in correctly.  I turned the power back on and… it’s still wouldn’t turn.  I had the top cover sitting upside down at this point, which means the motor and fan were exposed.  As a troubleshooting step, I reached over and spun the motor by hand.  Sure enough, it spun up nice and strong.  This told me the motor was good (and that the previous incorrect wiring may have actually worked), but that the starting cap was most likely bad.

Off to Home Depot for a replacement.  They don’t carry them, which I found a little odd until I realized that Home Depot is about building things, not necessarily repairing things.  Fortunately, a helpful employee told us of an A/C supply shop not far away.  We stopped by, grabbed a new cap ($15), and trotted off back to home.  Plugged in the new cap, double-checked all the electrical connections, and threw the power back on.  The new cap did the trick.  We now have working air conditioning.

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Posted in DIY, Home Stuff | View Comments