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O/T What did you learn?

J

jhilyer

Member
Saw this article on MSN: "What did you learn from your best boss"?

My best boss used to say "The world is full of C students". He would explain that not everyone is a star - most people were "average". He realized that you just can't get all A+ people, so you need to put the "average" people to their best use. I always thought that was a real good bit of insight.

Hmmm...Why was he telling me this story???

What did your best boss teach you?
 
" People just doing things out of generousity get more respect than people doing things for recognition"
 
jhilyer,

This isn't something I learned from my boss, but it goes along with your statement about "C" average people.

Many years ago I read a statement from the president of Ohio State University. He said that he liked his "A" students because there was a good chance that one day they would be professors at this school.

But he really liked his "C+" students because they were more likely to be succesful businessmen who would one day come back with a big endowment for the school.

Seems to be some truth to that. Most of the successful businessmen that I've known over the years were hard-working, down-to-earth, regular guys.

Tom in TN
 
My Boss once told us that this is how important you are to the Company....Get a bucket and fill it up with water. Put your hand in the water then pull your hand out of the water. Look at the water, is your hand imprint still in the water? This will demonstrate to each of you, how important you are to the company and how the company views you.
 
As a teenager working in a machine shop running a lathe, my boss told me that if whatever I turned out wasn't good enough for me to risk my job to steal, then it wasn't good enough to sell to our customer. I thought it was sort of a strange thing to say since I never made anything I wanted to take home, but he was very quality consience and never accepted half azz work of any kind. This was a job shop and almost all our business was repeat business....not for re-work but for more work. That was a fun job, and he was a great boss.
 
I had a job working as a machinist trainee on a radial drill. We ran hydrolic control boxes. Those old drills had about 1/4 in of slop & we used grease pencil to mark depth (with a scratched line at the corect point). You had to maintain pressure on the hand wheel to get controlible depth readings.
Added to that was production quotas.
I couldn't hang & lined up a job welding.
When I told the forman I was quiting he asked me what i would be doing next & when told said"Welding is something I always wished I could learn to do."

He helped to build up my confidence as I was leaving when he had nothing to gain by it. It was my first experience of a random act of kindness & I learned nice aint no more effort than butt ugly.
Always tried to use that as one of my tools...
 
He told me on my first day"if you don't know how it works,leave it alone and ask me to show you".
"Think one step farther than your next step" or stated another way"don't take it apart farther than you're certain you can put it back". "Try and always have a plan B".
All good advice for some one thinking about taking an injection pump apart don't you think?
 
On a framing crew, after lunch, 'we should do something, even if it is wrong"! He was a jokester anyway!
 
My best boss (platoon SGT) taught me to have faith in my people and to give them a task and get out of the way and let them do it. I found out that A. they would get the job done faster and B. done better than if I was always looking over their shoulders.

My worst (tank commander) taught me not to constantly change standards. Constant, even if set very high, was good.

I learned through the years on my own to make all goals achievable and to reward when goals were met. And those rewards were better if they were tangable, like a 3 day weekend.

Rick
 
One of my best bosses was a cantankerous, demanding, meticulous azz hole.
All the time. Every day. Week after week. Even on holidays.
His bottom line when it came to business was great, product quality superb,
and none of us really disliked him, just called him the old grouch.
Consistency and perseverance do triumph.
 
Had a boss tell me one time its not about what you know but what you know about getting things done. I've known lots of people that could sight off a text book at moments notice but couldn't tie there own shoes. I guess my philosphy is that if you can't use it you don't need to know it.
 
Didn't come from a boss, but a blade hand I hired for a day to finish preping a road., When I complemented him on the outstanding job he did, he said: "the trouble with not knowing waht yer doing, is that you never know when your done!"..."and I'll be done in :10 minutes!"
Larry NEIL
 
The best boss that I had told me: Be sure that you are talking to the right person that can do what you want - and ask the right questions. Anything other than that, you are just wasting your time and will not accomplish what you want.
 
My best boss told me one day, "You can milk a cow for many years, but you can only slaughter it once. The same is true with customers"
Said this as the new owners of his nearly 100 year old dealership were slaughtering many of his life long customers and firing many employees(me included). That dealership is now closed and the new owners in trouble with the law
 
That's always been one of my favorite sayings, John- and to refine it a little further, "Character is what you do when YOU KNOW nobody is watching."
 
The best lesson I learned was - Not everyone is book smart. That being said, find what that person can do. In the long run he will make the job go well.
 
made a critical mistake once at a hydro generating plant that shut down a large unit generating at full load. called into the boss's office later i was expecting a good chewing out; however, first question asked was "did you learn anything?" from there it just got better. walked away with a lot of respect for the man. BTW, that was 30 years ago, remember it like yesterday.
 
"All successful leaders in world history both in Government and Private Industry have ruled/managed be evolution, not revolution."

In other words don't try to make big changes too fast, it just won't work.
 
And I learned from my dad that if you don't have time to do it right you will never have time to do it over.

Rick
 
I learned loyalty. Nothing like my last boss who used one quote to get the job and then pedaled the numbers to buy materials from the low bidders competition. The first employer stayed in touch with his frat brothers and used the same sub-contractor on every job.

Larry
 
My former boss had this to say in regard to customers: "Those that complain the most about getting shorted are trying to short you".
 
One of my two bosses when I pumped gas at a Sunoco station after HS.
Look at the object. How it was made, where it is placed and what it supposed to do. He called it the compliment between structure and function.
Gave me a more open mind on things mechanical.
Respect the engineer who designed it. He most likely had more facts about it and its place in the overall machine it was in.

Now, hindsight is 20-20. If Ford Taurus keep coming in with slipping or blown up tranny's, well, that is another story.

Pete
 
Tom, Marilyn read something about a boss who would not hire a person who had the highest IQ and a straight 4.0 GPA. Instead he hired average people who had decent grades when they graduated because he knew they had to work hard for it and would likely be more dedicated to their job. Jim
 
Not my boss, but my "old school" shop teacher in high school (one that didn't need to use books to teach) once said" If you need something to get done, ask someone who is busy. Someone who is not busy will never get it done. I'll never forget thatone. So true.
 

Just a couple from over the years in the carpentry trade:

There is no such thing as a dumb question.

A mistake is alright as long as you learn from it and don't do it again.

It takes the same amount of time to do it right as it does to do it wrong.

If the job isn't fun anymore it is time to move on and try something else.


I guess I am still having fun after 30 years.


Vito
 
That's interesting Jim. When I was in high school, I asked for a summer job in a gas station. Back then they did oil changes, exhausts, shocks, washes, about everything but a major engine overhaul. Anyhow - the owner asked me if I was a football player. My heart kinda sunk and I told him no, I wasn't a football player. He said, "You're hired, I don't want a kid working for me who thinks he's a hero".
 
One of my better bosses use to say that we are like parachutes to those who depend on us. If we fail them once, they won"t need us again. My worst boss taught me the value of ducking.
 
I only worked for 4 bosses before I went out on my own. One was a jack$ss one was ok the other 2 were great. One was a vet on a large horse farm. One thing I learned from him vs the jack$ss was respect for employees. The job at the horse farm was a minimum wage job that attracted all levels of people, right down to a drunk. There were around 30 employees there. Well the doc would buy coffee for us a couple times a month, and treated everyone the same, with respect, no matter if they were a looser, ex con,, gay, ect. He was a great guy and as of this summer I won't be able to see him anymore. He was a great guy, and I liked working with him.
 
I never knew what my boss thought of me until I was transferring departments, he gave me a service award, shook my hand and thanked me for being a hard worker whom he could trust to the job right. Taught me that even though you may not like what you're doing at the time and it may seem worthless it's makes a difference to someone.
 
Best boss I ever had was my Dad, for a whole lot of reasons. Second best wasn't really my boss, but the owner of a small screw machine shop where I worked one summer when I was In college. He was well into his 80's, and an old time practical machinist. I worked second shift as a production operator, and Joe would come over about three nights a week and pull me off the job, take me off in a corner, and show me how to sharpen a drill, or tap, or a lathe tool. All by hand, no gages, no templates, just by eye. Absolutely drove my foreman nuts, he had to get production out and I was off messing around with Joe--but he couldn't do anything about it. What I learned from Joe went far beyond the mechanics of what he showed me. He saw something in me that he wanted to teach his craft to. I have passed on what I learned many times. I never sharpen a drill without thinking about him and the confidence he had in me all those years ago.
 
Working with my dad for alot of years, and remembering growing up what his Dad always told me, I was raised with the idea that if a job was worth doing it was worth doing right, and if you didn't have time to do it right the first time where were you going to find the time to do it again.

Early on I had another true bossman who had a saying he liked that, "They only make so many types of parts, it just depends on how you put them together as to what they do". I've found this to be true many, many times over the years.

Another saying, and I don't have a clue where I heard it, was that when working on equipment you have to use the 10% rule. Basically that is if your at least 10% smarter than the machine your working on and it'll be much easier to get it fixed....Problem is many of the newer machines are smarter than the multitude of guys that designed them, so being '10% smarter' than the machine is next to impossible for one man......That's why I like working on the old stuff....LOL
 
Good comment, PJH.

I was never a "jock" in high school. My boys, are, though.

They are -almost- at the age where they could get an after school job. And I want them to. Builds character. So do sports, I guess. Maybe. Sometimes sports builds that 'hero' attitude like you say.

I don't want my boys to miss having an after school job for the sake of sports practice. maybe they'll have 'weekend' & 'summer' jobs instead.

Sports are not important to me, but I know kids from our little school who have gotten sports scholarships to go to college. So if it helps my kids go to school, I'm for it.
 
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