"Let's be honest. There's not a business anywhere that is without problems. Business is complicated and imperfect. Every business everywhere is staffed with imperfect human beings and exists by providing a product or service to other imperfect human beings." - Bob Parsons
Hey, I've done business with GoDaddy, the Internet registrar, before. That experience proved Bob Parsons, its founder, one hundred percent correct in the quotation above.
That said, I stuck with GoDaddy through my years of running an ISP from my home. Registered dozens of domains with them. Why? As imperfect as they were in some ways, they provided what I needed: low-cost domain registration that worked just fine. My author-related domains aren't registered through them now, but that's primarily because a friend recommended a different company while I was bringing them up. Know what? The company I'm with now is imperfect.
Writing is the same way. I've commented before on the horrors of finding continuity and grammatical errors in works by none less than the great Marion Zimmer Bradley. Stephen King (the other one, of course), for all of his campaigning against adverbs, sprouts one or two rather frequently throughout his books. In my own writing, I've spent minutes--hours, even--looking at passages, wondering whether it would be perfect if I left a phrase where it was or moved it over by a few words.
At the end of the effort? It really doesn't matter.
Have you ever heard the Charley Pride version of the song Kaw-liga? He starts off talking about adding the song (originally written and recorded by Hank Williams Sr.) to his album, and says "I put one verse where maybe it don't suppose [sic] to be." Imperfect, that is. Number one on the charts, it was, regardless. But then again, it told a good story, despite (or perhaps because of?) its imperfections.
If you're a storyteller, then you need to tell stories. Period. Stop worrying over whether or not they're perfect. Too many people sit and look at the first page of their first novel, worrying over whether or not it'll be great. I'll settle that now--it won't be. First drafts stink. So settle in and write. And then revise. Make it as good as it can be, but don't worry about perfection.
-TOSK
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Monday, September 10, 2012
Keep on keepin' on
"Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all." - Dale Carnegie
There are times in everyone's life--everyone who seeks to achieve, anyway--when the smart thing to do is to give up and move to another endeavor. As Mr. Carnegie points out above, those are the times when you really have to look deep inside. Are you quitting something that really has no hope, or are you quitting something because it's easier to do so than it is to continue pressing toward your goal, useless though the effort may seem?
Take writing, for example. Creating a novel takes months, and all you have while you're doing it is a dream of things to come. "I'm writing a book" has nearly become a punch line rather than a statement, and that's really no surprise because the challenges involved in creating a literary object that large are quite nearly impossible. You reach a point where there's really just no hope that you're going to finish it. But you'll find that if you press on, suddenly--poof, it's done.
Then the really hard part begins. There are two paths to go down, one involving attempting to beg, cajole, and/or wheedle your way into a traditional publisher's lineup, and another involving publishing it yourself. Door number two is deceptive, as just past it are a whole lot of learning curves you must climb before you can relax and sit to watch nobody buy your book. Still, I think most people turn to the first option--well, first. It's easier, or at least it seems so, to pour your heart and soul into a single-page letter and send it to people who very likely will never, ever respond, than it is to beat your head against the concepts involved in formatting and designing and self-publishing. And the simple brutal truth is that most first-time authors who get a yes, which is a small percentage of the whole, get it on, say, the 60th attempt (with The Help) or later.
Sixty attempts! And yet The Help won several awards. And then there's the tragic story of John Kennedy Toole, who wrote a couple of novels that were rejected over and over. Famously, he decided it wasn't worth trying any longer and ended his own life. His mother, though, was unconvinced and kept trying--for ten years. Finally the novel came to the attention of the right person, and A Confederacy of Dunces was published. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.
Then there's the Path B that I mentioned earlier--self-publishing. All rosy and yes-filled, right? Nope. At first, nobody but your immediate family wants to buy your book, and most of them probably aren't going to read it anyway. So you keep trying and trying, and you continue watching the sales figures stay very small. Some people get lucky, just like some people win the lottery, but most people end up watching this multi-month project sit and fester in Amazon's shelf-graveyard. There are some successes, granted, among self-published authors, but they're the ones who understand that it takes time, and it takes patience. Konrath reports that it took him twenty years. Twenty years! You have to march boldly right up to the point where any sane person would quit, and then keep on marching.
Writers aren't the only ones who have to do that. Many, if not most, successful entrepreneurs have similar stories to share, regardless of the industry they're in. The founding father of the college where I got my start in academia, in fact, told the story several times of having to cover payroll from his own retirement account. And that's not that unusual. Any sane person would've quit, but they didn't. They kept at it.
And that's the secret. When you feel like it's time to quit, that just might be life's way of seeing if you're really devoted to it, and when you don't quit you become one of the people Carnegie was talking about.
-TOSK
There are times in everyone's life--everyone who seeks to achieve, anyway--when the smart thing to do is to give up and move to another endeavor. As Mr. Carnegie points out above, those are the times when you really have to look deep inside. Are you quitting something that really has no hope, or are you quitting something because it's easier to do so than it is to continue pressing toward your goal, useless though the effort may seem?
Take writing, for example. Creating a novel takes months, and all you have while you're doing it is a dream of things to come. "I'm writing a book" has nearly become a punch line rather than a statement, and that's really no surprise because the challenges involved in creating a literary object that large are quite nearly impossible. You reach a point where there's really just no hope that you're going to finish it. But you'll find that if you press on, suddenly--poof, it's done.
Then the really hard part begins. There are two paths to go down, one involving attempting to beg, cajole, and/or wheedle your way into a traditional publisher's lineup, and another involving publishing it yourself. Door number two is deceptive, as just past it are a whole lot of learning curves you must climb before you can relax and sit to watch nobody buy your book. Still, I think most people turn to the first option--well, first. It's easier, or at least it seems so, to pour your heart and soul into a single-page letter and send it to people who very likely will never, ever respond, than it is to beat your head against the concepts involved in formatting and designing and self-publishing. And the simple brutal truth is that most first-time authors who get a yes, which is a small percentage of the whole, get it on, say, the 60th attempt (with The Help) or later.
Sixty attempts! And yet The Help won several awards. And then there's the tragic story of John Kennedy Toole, who wrote a couple of novels that were rejected over and over. Famously, he decided it wasn't worth trying any longer and ended his own life. His mother, though, was unconvinced and kept trying--for ten years. Finally the novel came to the attention of the right person, and A Confederacy of Dunces was published. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.
Then there's the Path B that I mentioned earlier--self-publishing. All rosy and yes-filled, right? Nope. At first, nobody but your immediate family wants to buy your book, and most of them probably aren't going to read it anyway. So you keep trying and trying, and you continue watching the sales figures stay very small. Some people get lucky, just like some people win the lottery, but most people end up watching this multi-month project sit and fester in Amazon's shelf-graveyard. There are some successes, granted, among self-published authors, but they're the ones who understand that it takes time, and it takes patience. Konrath reports that it took him twenty years. Twenty years! You have to march boldly right up to the point where any sane person would quit, and then keep on marching.
Writers aren't the only ones who have to do that. Many, if not most, successful entrepreneurs have similar stories to share, regardless of the industry they're in. The founding father of the college where I got my start in academia, in fact, told the story several times of having to cover payroll from his own retirement account. And that's not that unusual. Any sane person would've quit, but they didn't. They kept at it.
And that's the secret. When you feel like it's time to quit, that just might be life's way of seeing if you're really devoted to it, and when you don't quit you become one of the people Carnegie was talking about.
-TOSK
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Give 'em What They Want
"When red haired people are above a certain social grade their hair is auburn." - Mark Twain
You know, when I can't find a quote that has anything to do with the topic at hand, I quote Mr. Twain, because he was smart regardless of topic.
That said, I frequently find myself replying to Rachelle Gardner's posts over at her blog. Often her posts and the others' responses get me to thinking, and often my own responses get me to thinking more. Then, when I find myself writing an entire blog post in response, I decide to come on over here to make the point instead.
Anyway, her most recent topic is "Give Them What They Want," author style. Ms. Gardner recently ran a series of guest posts for which people were invited to pitch ideas. Some succeeded, clearly; she ran a brilliant series. But she also pointed out how others had failed. It wasn't necessarily that the ideas were bad; instead, it was that the pitchers didn't follow directions well enough for her to determine the appropriateness of the article pitched. Some pitches were too long, others too short, and some lacked the necessary ingredients for her to make valid assessments.
Ms. Gardner had a responsibility, in this instance, to choose her submission requirement wording carefully to insure that she'd be able to judge which entries were best for her audience. Moving this into my world, teachers likewise have a responsibility to choose our assignment wording carefully to insure that we'll be able to assess the student's grasp of the topic at hand. Still, over the years I've seen the same errors that frustrated her. "Design Layer 3 of a statewide data network that will provide e-mail, internet, intranet, and document storage services to..." means something specific. I don't expect anybody who's not a senior IT student to get what it means, but take it from me that drawing a picture of the state with pretty little lines between all the cities I mention doesn't cut it. Neither does submitting something that is an identical duplicate to someone else's; after all, I said "design" not "copy a design."
I see teacher applications miss the mark nearly every day as well. Granted, I don't choose the wording carefully on the applications; somebody up at the Mother Ship, likely a feline human resources director as displayed in the funny comic strip, instead waved his magic wand over a computer and poof! Out came an application. Oh, most of the information is useful. Some isn't. Doesn't matter. When I see somebody leave stuff out, whether it's useful or not, the omission tells me something specific about that potential employee. And no, it's not a good something.
Likewise, I actually maintain a file of silly stuff I've seen on real-life teacher resumes. I've had applicants tell me they're looking for an operations management job (on the faculty? really?). Or that they're looking for a great career--at one of my competitors. Or that they love "snoboarding" or "gosspell music." Again, that tells me something, and usually not what the applicant wants to tell me.
We're in the process of applying for a renewal of our grant of accreditation. It's not something I'd call particularly fun, but it's not altogether too rough of a process either. The accreditor sends a document with a bunch of questions, and you answer them and send it back. Here's the hard part--you have to give 'em what they want. If, for example, they ask how the curriculum was developed, they want you to describe the process you use to develop the curriculum so that they can tell whether you follow a rational process or toss a bunch of course names into a box and pull a certain number out till you get a set that's long enough. If they ask about how the library collection supports the curriculum, they don't want a memoir of the librarian's life. Specific questions merit specific answers.
This theme plays out through a great many areas of our lives. Sometimes it's best to just--well, give 'em what they want.
- TOSK
You know, when I can't find a quote that has anything to do with the topic at hand, I quote Mr. Twain, because he was smart regardless of topic.
That said, I frequently find myself replying to Rachelle Gardner's posts over at her blog. Often her posts and the others' responses get me to thinking, and often my own responses get me to thinking more. Then, when I find myself writing an entire blog post in response, I decide to come on over here to make the point instead.
Anyway, her most recent topic is "Give Them What They Want," author style. Ms. Gardner recently ran a series of guest posts for which people were invited to pitch ideas. Some succeeded, clearly; she ran a brilliant series. But she also pointed out how others had failed. It wasn't necessarily that the ideas were bad; instead, it was that the pitchers didn't follow directions well enough for her to determine the appropriateness of the article pitched. Some pitches were too long, others too short, and some lacked the necessary ingredients for her to make valid assessments.
Ms. Gardner had a responsibility, in this instance, to choose her submission requirement wording carefully to insure that she'd be able to judge which entries were best for her audience. Moving this into my world, teachers likewise have a responsibility to choose our assignment wording carefully to insure that we'll be able to assess the student's grasp of the topic at hand. Still, over the years I've seen the same errors that frustrated her. "Design Layer 3 of a statewide data network that will provide e-mail, internet, intranet, and document storage services to..." means something specific. I don't expect anybody who's not a senior IT student to get what it means, but take it from me that drawing a picture of the state with pretty little lines between all the cities I mention doesn't cut it. Neither does submitting something that is an identical duplicate to someone else's; after all, I said "design" not "copy a design."
I see teacher applications miss the mark nearly every day as well. Granted, I don't choose the wording carefully on the applications; somebody up at the Mother Ship, likely a feline human resources director as displayed in the funny comic strip, instead waved his magic wand over a computer and poof! Out came an application. Oh, most of the information is useful. Some isn't. Doesn't matter. When I see somebody leave stuff out, whether it's useful or not, the omission tells me something specific about that potential employee. And no, it's not a good something.
Likewise, I actually maintain a file of silly stuff I've seen on real-life teacher resumes. I've had applicants tell me they're looking for an operations management job (on the faculty? really?). Or that they're looking for a great career--at one of my competitors. Or that they love "snoboarding" or "gosspell music." Again, that tells me something, and usually not what the applicant wants to tell me.
We're in the process of applying for a renewal of our grant of accreditation. It's not something I'd call particularly fun, but it's not altogether too rough of a process either. The accreditor sends a document with a bunch of questions, and you answer them and send it back. Here's the hard part--you have to give 'em what they want. If, for example, they ask how the curriculum was developed, they want you to describe the process you use to develop the curriculum so that they can tell whether you follow a rational process or toss a bunch of course names into a box and pull a certain number out till you get a set that's long enough. If they ask about how the library collection supports the curriculum, they don't want a memoir of the librarian's life. Specific questions merit specific answers.
This theme plays out through a great many areas of our lives. Sometimes it's best to just--well, give 'em what they want.
- TOSK
Friday, August 10, 2012
Two Lessons About Goal-Setting
"A goal without a plan is just a wish." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal. My strength lies solely in my tenacity." - Louis Pasteur
Goal-setting is a funny exercise. It's also a tough thing to teach people. Now, you wouldn't probably expect someone who's made his living for 1/3 of his life educating people to say that anything is really that tough to teach. But setting goals is, mainly because it's a skosh tougher than people think it should be.
Let's get the first part out of the way--well, first. Goals should be SMART:
Problem is, most people only get through SMA. Take writers, ferinstance:
"What's your goal, Writer A?"
"750 words per day."
"Writer B?"
"1000 words per day."
"Writer C?"
"2000 words per day."
"Wow. Writer D?"
"Three pages per day."
"What size pages?"
"You know--normal."
"Normal as in Word default eight and a half by eleven, or normal as in trade paperback?"
"Word, silly."
See? Specific, measurable, and for most writers, attainable.
But then you ask deeper questions: "Why 2000 words per day? What does that mean? How many paragraphs is it? How many scenes?" It usually boils down to a number they thought sounded cool, or else a number they read somewhere. Stephen King, for example, suggests 2000 words per day because that gives you a 180,000-word novel in ninety days. That sounds reasonable at first, but on second look you realize that it presupposes that you're writing a 180,000-word novel--I haven't--and that you're interested in completing it in three months--I've never been. After all, novels are novels when the story is done being told, not when you hit a certain word count.
Granted, I still run with 2000 words per day because it feels good, but that doesn't qualify as SMART. Eh, bite me; it works.
Lest we think poorly of writers, though, I must point out that I've also had a hard time getting subordinate managers at work, in every program I've supervised, at every campus I've inhabited, to set SMART goals. SMA, they get. RT, not so much. And sometimes the A isn't really there either. To wit:
"What's your retention goal for the year?"
"One hundred percent."
"Wow-wee! Why do you think you can get to one hundred percent, though? What will you do to make sure nobody moves or gets sick?"
"It's a goal. We don't expect to achieve it."
(head, meet desk)
"Okay, okay, ninety percent. We'll assume ten percent will get sick or move away."
"Why?"
"What do you mean why?"
"Why ten percent? Why not twelve? Or eight? How many did you have last year?"
"About (pick a number) percent."
"Why is this year going to be different?"
"Oh, it probably won't. I guess we'll go with that, then."
"And so out of the remaining people, you won't have anybody fail out? Are your courses that easy?"
...and so on....
It's like pulling teeth.
But it's trainable. At some point, after sufficient wrangling, you eventually end up with a set of goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely. Put them all together and add a few department-wide ones, and I have my own set of beautiful goals. And everybody's happy after we all ride off into the sunset, right?
Um, no.
There's a second lesson about goal-setting. It's better delivered as a vignette, though.
In a time long ago and a place far away, there was a young man who was contemplating his post-high-school choices....
Yeah, okay, we're talking about me. I was pretty well set on going to the Air Force Academy. I'd narrowed it down to USAFA or USMA, and chosen the Air Force based on the oh-so-important (at the time) fact that my uncle had retired from the Air Force. Hey, that was one of three differences I knew about, the other two being that one wore blue and the other green (though AF also wears green, and Army also wears blue, but that's a whole different level of complexity) and that one had airplanes (though the Army also has airplanes, it turns out, but again--complexity and all).
Anyway, I was headed into the middle of my senior year feeling pretty good. I had a physical fitness test ahead of me for West Point's admissions process, but that was pretty much a moot issue because I already had my Congressman's nomination to USAFA, my GPA was north of 3.90, my class academic rank out of several hundred was in the single digits, my SAT score was great, I managed to not get thrown out of the pool in water polo and the swim team for two whole seasons of each, and I'd served or was serving as drum major of the band, editor of the school paper, student council member, and for some really bizarre reason, an officer in the Key Club (end of junior year: "Sure, I'll do it. What kind of keys, though?"). My resume was just plain hot.
Or so I thought.
Problem is, the Air Force Academy desired that a large majority of the class I wanted to enter must be pilot-qualified. I, meanwhile, could see perfectly well as long as I had my optical devices mounted on the bridge of my nose. My vision, then, put me into a category in which my resume would've probably needed to include "son of Ares" to get in.
I didn't. They said no.
All of a sudden, that physical fitness test for West Point was much more important. I still had Plan C--Air Force ROTC scholarship to UCLA--to fall back on, but that option didn't meet my primary goal, which was getting out from under the protective umbrella that my mother's roof represented. I wasn't worried, though; I was a swimmer, and I was in pretty good shape. West Point wanted me, after all. The only problem? The first event was pull-ups. Now, I'd never done a pull-up in my life. For one thing, I was, as I already said, in pretty darn good shape, and besides, the situation had never presented itself in which I had any reason at all to hoist my chin over some random bar. Clamber up onto the bar, sure. But not hoist my chin over it. Who does that, anyway?
I'll never forget that day. Pull-ups aren't like push-ups, where you're one of a set of backs that is heaving up and away from the floor. No, on a pull-up test you're hanging there in plain sight of everybody, body dangling like a Christmas ornament. You can't fake a pull-up. Just can't do it.
Oh, and by the way, the movement also uses shoulder muscles almost exclusively to begin, while swimming builds lats and pects (back and chest) mostly.
Of all things, I had to follow a guy who'd been a gymnast for years and did his first thirty (ish) pull-ups all the way to his waist. He hopped down gracefully, and I took his spot. Grabbed the bar, and--hung there.
"You can begin now," the guy grading the event said. But see, I'd already begun. There was this little internal struggle happening, with my brain saying "pull, shoulders," and my shoulders firing back "I am pulling, asshole." What it must've looked like, though, was me hanging there making silly faces at the guy doing the grading.
So I finished the day and went home. Once I'd mustered up the courage I called my liaison officer--the West Point graduate who was in charge of helping me get in--and gave him the depressing news that I would probably be a UCLA student the next fall since they didn't require pull-ups to get in.
"Oh, but you get another shot," he said. Remember the scene from Robin Hood: Men in Tights, at the archery contest when they refer to the script, cheer, and say, "Robin gets another shot!" It felt like that. In six weeks was another test, and if I passed it then they'd just chalk the previous episode up to--um, something.
I set a goal then. Ten pull-ups, six weeks. SMART, definitely. But here's the second lesson: I didn't just say "my goal is ten pull-ups at the end of six weeks." No, I internalized it. I made it a part of who I was, what I did. I talked to people about how to get there, and then for the next six weeks, every day, I walked to the elementary school on the corner. Nothing in my life for that six weeks was more important than my work toward that goal. It wasn't easy; I started climbing to the bar and lowering my chin slowly. Then I got to where I could do a regular pull-up, and followed it by climbing up and lowering my chin. Then I got to where I could do two. And then, well, so on.
Six weeks later I did eleven pull-ups on the test. It was a pass--not a spectacular one, but a pass nonetheless. And as I found out later, that was what got me into the academy. There are a lot of people with good grades. There are a lot of people who are on student councils or who get selected to lead the band or the student newspaper. There are a lot of people with SAT scores in the stratosphere. But there aren't a lot of people who're willing to do what it takes to go from zero pull-ups to eleven in six weeks.
That's what a goal should be, then. Sure, it must be SMART. But that's just the beginning. You can write SMART goals all day long, but if they're just something you talk about in your quarterly meetings, you're missing the most important part. To be an effective goal, it has to be accepted, assimilated, made a part of who you are and what you do.
That is where excellence comes from.
-TOSK
"Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal. My strength lies solely in my tenacity." - Louis Pasteur
Goal-setting is a funny exercise. It's also a tough thing to teach people. Now, you wouldn't probably expect someone who's made his living for 1/3 of his life educating people to say that anything is really that tough to teach. But setting goals is, mainly because it's a skosh tougher than people think it should be.
Let's get the first part out of the way--well, first. Goals should be SMART:
- S pecific
- M easurable
- A ttainable
- R elevant
- T imely
Problem is, most people only get through SMA. Take writers, ferinstance:
"What's your goal, Writer A?"
"750 words per day."
"Writer B?"
"1000 words per day."
"Writer C?"
"2000 words per day."
"Wow. Writer D?"
"Three pages per day."
"What size pages?"
"You know--normal."
"Normal as in Word default eight and a half by eleven, or normal as in trade paperback?"
"Word, silly."
See? Specific, measurable, and for most writers, attainable.
But then you ask deeper questions: "Why 2000 words per day? What does that mean? How many paragraphs is it? How many scenes?" It usually boils down to a number they thought sounded cool, or else a number they read somewhere. Stephen King, for example, suggests 2000 words per day because that gives you a 180,000-word novel in ninety days. That sounds reasonable at first, but on second look you realize that it presupposes that you're writing a 180,000-word novel--I haven't--and that you're interested in completing it in three months--I've never been. After all, novels are novels when the story is done being told, not when you hit a certain word count.
Granted, I still run with 2000 words per day because it feels good, but that doesn't qualify as SMART. Eh, bite me; it works.
Lest we think poorly of writers, though, I must point out that I've also had a hard time getting subordinate managers at work, in every program I've supervised, at every campus I've inhabited, to set SMART goals. SMA, they get. RT, not so much. And sometimes the A isn't really there either. To wit:
"What's your retention goal for the year?"
"One hundred percent."
"Wow-wee! Why do you think you can get to one hundred percent, though? What will you do to make sure nobody moves or gets sick?"
"It's a goal. We don't expect to achieve it."
(head, meet desk)
"Okay, okay, ninety percent. We'll assume ten percent will get sick or move away."
"Why?"
"What do you mean why?"
"Why ten percent? Why not twelve? Or eight? How many did you have last year?"
"About (pick a number) percent."
"Why is this year going to be different?"
"Oh, it probably won't. I guess we'll go with that, then."
"And so out of the remaining people, you won't have anybody fail out? Are your courses that easy?"
...and so on....
It's like pulling teeth.
But it's trainable. At some point, after sufficient wrangling, you eventually end up with a set of goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely. Put them all together and add a few department-wide ones, and I have my own set of beautiful goals. And everybody's happy after we all ride off into the sunset, right?
Um, no.
There's a second lesson about goal-setting. It's better delivered as a vignette, though.
In a time long ago and a place far away, there was a young man who was contemplating his post-high-school choices....
Yeah, okay, we're talking about me. I was pretty well set on going to the Air Force Academy. I'd narrowed it down to USAFA or USMA, and chosen the Air Force based on the oh-so-important (at the time) fact that my uncle had retired from the Air Force. Hey, that was one of three differences I knew about, the other two being that one wore blue and the other green (though AF also wears green, and Army also wears blue, but that's a whole different level of complexity) and that one had airplanes (though the Army also has airplanes, it turns out, but again--complexity and all).
Anyway, I was headed into the middle of my senior year feeling pretty good. I had a physical fitness test ahead of me for West Point's admissions process, but that was pretty much a moot issue because I already had my Congressman's nomination to USAFA, my GPA was north of 3.90, my class academic rank out of several hundred was in the single digits, my SAT score was great, I managed to not get thrown out of the pool in water polo and the swim team for two whole seasons of each, and I'd served or was serving as drum major of the band, editor of the school paper, student council member, and for some really bizarre reason, an officer in the Key Club (end of junior year: "Sure, I'll do it. What kind of keys, though?"). My resume was just plain hot.
Or so I thought.
Problem is, the Air Force Academy desired that a large majority of the class I wanted to enter must be pilot-qualified. I, meanwhile, could see perfectly well as long as I had my optical devices mounted on the bridge of my nose. My vision, then, put me into a category in which my resume would've probably needed to include "son of Ares" to get in.
I didn't. They said no.
All of a sudden, that physical fitness test for West Point was much more important. I still had Plan C--Air Force ROTC scholarship to UCLA--to fall back on, but that option didn't meet my primary goal, which was getting out from under the protective umbrella that my mother's roof represented. I wasn't worried, though; I was a swimmer, and I was in pretty good shape. West Point wanted me, after all. The only problem? The first event was pull-ups. Now, I'd never done a pull-up in my life. For one thing, I was, as I already said, in pretty darn good shape, and besides, the situation had never presented itself in which I had any reason at all to hoist my chin over some random bar. Clamber up onto the bar, sure. But not hoist my chin over it. Who does that, anyway?
I'll never forget that day. Pull-ups aren't like push-ups, where you're one of a set of backs that is heaving up and away from the floor. No, on a pull-up test you're hanging there in plain sight of everybody, body dangling like a Christmas ornament. You can't fake a pull-up. Just can't do it.
Oh, and by the way, the movement also uses shoulder muscles almost exclusively to begin, while swimming builds lats and pects (back and chest) mostly.
Of all things, I had to follow a guy who'd been a gymnast for years and did his first thirty (ish) pull-ups all the way to his waist. He hopped down gracefully, and I took his spot. Grabbed the bar, and--hung there.
"You can begin now," the guy grading the event said. But see, I'd already begun. There was this little internal struggle happening, with my brain saying "pull, shoulders," and my shoulders firing back "I am pulling, asshole." What it must've looked like, though, was me hanging there making silly faces at the guy doing the grading.
So I finished the day and went home. Once I'd mustered up the courage I called my liaison officer--the West Point graduate who was in charge of helping me get in--and gave him the depressing news that I would probably be a UCLA student the next fall since they didn't require pull-ups to get in.
"Oh, but you get another shot," he said. Remember the scene from Robin Hood: Men in Tights, at the archery contest when they refer to the script, cheer, and say, "Robin gets another shot!" It felt like that. In six weeks was another test, and if I passed it then they'd just chalk the previous episode up to--um, something.
I set a goal then. Ten pull-ups, six weeks. SMART, definitely. But here's the second lesson: I didn't just say "my goal is ten pull-ups at the end of six weeks." No, I internalized it. I made it a part of who I was, what I did. I talked to people about how to get there, and then for the next six weeks, every day, I walked to the elementary school on the corner. Nothing in my life for that six weeks was more important than my work toward that goal. It wasn't easy; I started climbing to the bar and lowering my chin slowly. Then I got to where I could do a regular pull-up, and followed it by climbing up and lowering my chin. Then I got to where I could do two. And then, well, so on.
Six weeks later I did eleven pull-ups on the test. It was a pass--not a spectacular one, but a pass nonetheless. And as I found out later, that was what got me into the academy. There are a lot of people with good grades. There are a lot of people who are on student councils or who get selected to lead the band or the student newspaper. There are a lot of people with SAT scores in the stratosphere. But there aren't a lot of people who're willing to do what it takes to go from zero pull-ups to eleven in six weeks.
That's what a goal should be, then. Sure, it must be SMART. But that's just the beginning. You can write SMART goals all day long, but if they're just something you talk about in your quarterly meetings, you're missing the most important part. To be an effective goal, it has to be accepted, assimilated, made a part of who you are and what you do.
That is where excellence comes from.
-TOSK
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
The Business Style of Writing
"Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia." - E.L. Doctorow
"The greatest possible merit of style is, of course, to make the words absolutely disappear into the thought." - Nathaniel Hawthorne
"In your business writing, you must choose between boredom, shouting, and seduction. Which do you choose?" - Roy H. Williams
Okay, so I blew it.
Lately I've reveled in the opportunity and need to write in a fairly conversational style. It works well, I think, for the fiction works I've taken on, and it also works well for blog posting. At the same time, you've heard me whimper, moan, and even cry out in disgust over the perils of academic writing. Pure hell, that is, it being prose with all the interesting stuff distilled right out of it. If there are a thousand interesting ways and one mind-numbingly dull way to describe the results of a study, the academic writer is supposed to pick the dull way without even considering the others.
Don't get me wrong, now--I appreciate academic writing. It's the only way that we can preserve the accumulated knowledge of science over the years. I've accessed and devoured it many times myself, both on subjects I needed to investigate for work or school and on subjects that were merely interests or topics of conversation. There's definitely a need for it.
That said, I don't enjoy writing in that style. I can, quite successfully, and I plan to, as I continue my academic career and submit, soon, my first paper for a conference. It's just that I look forward to writing that abstract with as much joy as I look forward to brushing my teeth next.
So--two different writing styles. Very different, in fact; as much so as, to pull a horrible cliche out of my hat, night and day.
But there's a third style, and I forgot it. I tend to use it at work, and when in front of career classes I've always recommended using it. It's work prose. "Business English." It's not nearly as boring as academic writing, to be sure; I've seen plenty of managers prove their knowledge of tremendous repertoires of adjectives and adverbs, many of which I wouldn't put in print here if you paid me to. But it does have one common characteristic, a standard for which I use the acronym "BLUF": Bottom Line Up Front.
Put simply, people doing or considering work don't want to spend time reading wonderfully-wrought prose to get to what you are suggesting. They want it spelled out in the first line, and very clearly, please, while you're at it. If, for instance, the dog died, you shouldn't tell the tale of how the dog, a present from a husband to his wife whose "biological clock was ticking," was a troublemaker but the kid loved him but the dog-sitter couldn't handle him and how the man and woman go through job and relationship issues and then, finally, get around to the death of the dog. No, you start with "The dog died." Then you provide as much detail as is pertinent to the situation.
That is the nature of writing with BLUF.
Doesn't work with fiction. If they'd started the movie with "The dog died," nobody would've watched it, would they? If I'd started my first novel with "And Matt and Crystal kicked Aphrodite's butt and then lived happily ever after" (granted, it wasn't quite like that, but--well, read the book) you wouldn't have read any farther, would you? And that's not a bad thing; I like stories, too, that begin at an interesting point, worm their way around and into my heart, and finally come loping or screeching to a graceful (or not) end. Just--not when I'm trying to get crap done.
No, seriously. BLUF me, please.
You're probably looking for an example, right? Especially considering how I started this post?
I've been working on a project. Not for my day job, but with other colleagues. I sent a missive last night with a list of contacts and the letter that would be merged to go to each attached. In the missive I noted, in my flowery prose, that the list of contacts was on its second revision and it needed a once-over to make sure revisions were acceptable, and--um, so on. Hell, I even forget what I wrote. But in the second paragraph I said, "More importantly," to please review the letter as I'd made significant changes and needed their input.
Got their input. At least, got one of the four's. She complimented me, of course, on how well I'd managed the list of contacts, and then right when I thought she'd get to the changes to the letter, she signed her name.
First thought: damn, next time I won't use paragraphs.
Second thought: okay, it's not the paragraphs' fault. It's mine, for forgetting BLUF. I didn't start with the part that was most important, the bottom line. My fault for writing it like a pleasure reading rather than a business message.
Even when you're writing to writers, you still want to keep business and pleasure separate, even down to the style and structure of the message.
-TOSK
"The greatest possible merit of style is, of course, to make the words absolutely disappear into the thought." - Nathaniel Hawthorne
"In your business writing, you must choose between boredom, shouting, and seduction. Which do you choose?" - Roy H. Williams
Okay, so I blew it.
Lately I've reveled in the opportunity and need to write in a fairly conversational style. It works well, I think, for the fiction works I've taken on, and it also works well for blog posting. At the same time, you've heard me whimper, moan, and even cry out in disgust over the perils of academic writing. Pure hell, that is, it being prose with all the interesting stuff distilled right out of it. If there are a thousand interesting ways and one mind-numbingly dull way to describe the results of a study, the academic writer is supposed to pick the dull way without even considering the others.
Don't get me wrong, now--I appreciate academic writing. It's the only way that we can preserve the accumulated knowledge of science over the years. I've accessed and devoured it many times myself, both on subjects I needed to investigate for work or school and on subjects that were merely interests or topics of conversation. There's definitely a need for it.
That said, I don't enjoy writing in that style. I can, quite successfully, and I plan to, as I continue my academic career and submit, soon, my first paper for a conference. It's just that I look forward to writing that abstract with as much joy as I look forward to brushing my teeth next.
So--two different writing styles. Very different, in fact; as much so as, to pull a horrible cliche out of my hat, night and day.
But there's a third style, and I forgot it. I tend to use it at work, and when in front of career classes I've always recommended using it. It's work prose. "Business English." It's not nearly as boring as academic writing, to be sure; I've seen plenty of managers prove their knowledge of tremendous repertoires of adjectives and adverbs, many of which I wouldn't put in print here if you paid me to. But it does have one common characteristic, a standard for which I use the acronym "BLUF": Bottom Line Up Front.
Put simply, people doing or considering work don't want to spend time reading wonderfully-wrought prose to get to what you are suggesting. They want it spelled out in the first line, and very clearly, please, while you're at it. If, for instance, the dog died, you shouldn't tell the tale of how the dog, a present from a husband to his wife whose "biological clock was ticking," was a troublemaker but the kid loved him but the dog-sitter couldn't handle him and how the man and woman go through job and relationship issues and then, finally, get around to the death of the dog. No, you start with "The dog died." Then you provide as much detail as is pertinent to the situation.
That is the nature of writing with BLUF.
Doesn't work with fiction. If they'd started the movie with "The dog died," nobody would've watched it, would they? If I'd started my first novel with "And Matt and Crystal kicked Aphrodite's butt and then lived happily ever after" (granted, it wasn't quite like that, but--well, read the book) you wouldn't have read any farther, would you? And that's not a bad thing; I like stories, too, that begin at an interesting point, worm their way around and into my heart, and finally come loping or screeching to a graceful (or not) end. Just--not when I'm trying to get crap done.
No, seriously. BLUF me, please.
You're probably looking for an example, right? Especially considering how I started this post?
I've been working on a project. Not for my day job, but with other colleagues. I sent a missive last night with a list of contacts and the letter that would be merged to go to each attached. In the missive I noted, in my flowery prose, that the list of contacts was on its second revision and it needed a once-over to make sure revisions were acceptable, and--um, so on. Hell, I even forget what I wrote. But in the second paragraph I said, "More importantly," to please review the letter as I'd made significant changes and needed their input.
Got their input. At least, got one of the four's. She complimented me, of course, on how well I'd managed the list of contacts, and then right when I thought she'd get to the changes to the letter, she signed her name.
First thought: damn, next time I won't use paragraphs.
Second thought: okay, it's not the paragraphs' fault. It's mine, for forgetting BLUF. I didn't start with the part that was most important, the bottom line. My fault for writing it like a pleasure reading rather than a business message.
Even when you're writing to writers, you still want to keep business and pleasure separate, even down to the style and structure of the message.
-TOSK
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Separating Business and Emotion
"Man is by nature a political animal." - Aristotle
"Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the game, and dumb enough to think it's important." - Eugene McCarthy
A friend of mine posted something I found fairly silly the other day on Facebook. Granted, my friends post silly stuff all the time, as do I. This one, though, struck me as illogically silly. It was a graphic that claimed that there were millions of American businesses who wouldn't hire an additional employee after the 49th, thanks to the act most of us refer to as Obamacare.
Alright, lookit, I'm really not here to talk about the positives or the negatives of that legislation. I've done that plenty in some of the forums I'm in, and of course I'm right and everybody who disagrees with me is wrong. Right? But please, this blog isn't about politics. I'm all about success, whether that be writing success or business success or just life success.
Seriously, this one disturbed me. I've had my own business before. I do now too, though as an authorpreneur I guarantee you it'll be a while before I ever get close to 49 employees (it's in my business plan, by the way--but that's the future plan). But try as I might sometimes to stay away, I keep getting thrust into management roles at work, and my current day job is no real exception. I'm in management. In fact, I'm by most estimations the second in charge of the campus, with somewhere around two-thirds of the employees of the company's location here reporting either directly or indirectly to me.
That's why the post was so absolutely foreign to me. I would never, ever make a decision on whether or not to hire someone based on my emotional stance regarding a political issue. Never. I take my business and its operations way too seriously.
I'm acutely aware of the issues regarding the current legislation, by the way. I know where the 49-50 employee barrier comes from; there is more expense required with hiring the 50th employee, and for all employees, if you haven't already begun offering health insurance before that point. That expense is a valid business concern and has to be taken into account. I'm also aware that there is some risk involved in setting yourself into compliance with the current law when nobody really knows who's going to be making decisions come January, and one side is saying they'll keep it going while the other is saying they'll do away with it and replace it with--um, something.
You know what? Business is risk. Business has been about risk-taking since before Thomas Jefferson built Monticello. You measure the risk and decide if you want to go after it, and if you win, you get the reward. Writing is no different; the risk for a writer who keeps his or her "day job" is pretty minimal, but it's also really tough to get anything going toward a reward. Up the risk by leaving your day job and you now have much greater risk, but you're also suddenly in a much better position, time-management-wise.
So anyway--whether you are for or agin' the ACA (aka Obamacare), don't don't don't don't make business decisions based on that. Make them based on a risk assessment, make them based on a cost-to-benefits analysis, make them based on needs assessment. But don't run a business on emotion.
Now I come to what really spurred this post--I got into it over on Publisher's Weekly's web site. Specifically, there was an article that outlined booksellers' overall reluctance to stock the books published by the physical book arm that Amazon recently purchased. I--and you can probably already see why--said this was dumb.
Lookit, if there's no demand for a book, then don't stock it. If you're not going to make any money off of the sale of the book regardless of demand, then don't stock it. If your patrons will be offended by a book, then--well, that one's kinda up to you. They're your customers, but not necessarily your moral compasses.
But don't, don't, don't, don't, please, for the love of God, don't decide what books to offer your customers based on your opinion (no matter how widely agreed-upon) of who makes them.
Many people disagreed with me. After all, what do I know about running a bookstore? What do I know about stocking? (I do, incidentally, have a couple of years of running a significant stocking/shipping/receiving concern in Phoenix on my resume, but I chose not to trot that out) What do I know about the evil exploits of that spawn of Satan itself, Amazon?
Oh, c'mon. Whether I'm a fan of Amazon, myself, is irrelevant. I finally gave in to the argument, though. I said okay, let's assume you're right. Let's assume that every employee at Amazon has on their secret desires list to put the physical bookstores--all of 'em--out of business. Let's assume, while we're playing around, that Jeff Bezos got picked on constantly on the bus by the guys who eventually ran a bookstore, and as a result he swore he'd have their hides, and that when he goes home every evening he says hi to his father by referring to him as "The Dark Lord of Hell" or just "Satan." Okay? Feel better? Amazon is evil, Bezos is evil, everything they do is for the purpose of eradicating you from the face of the planet, book sellers.
So I come in to your bookstore looking for one of the books I've heard about that they publish. Does that make me evil, as your customer?
How much do you really care about what your customers want?
If you're going to let your own opinions about what your customers should be reading, based solely on where they are sourced, decide what you offer to sell, you're going to lose. And, frankly, you deserve to lose.
"Oh, but we will be happy to order them," some booksellers cried in defense of the accusation of censoring their customers. Yeah, fine, but consider this. The only advantage you have, folks, over the online retailers is that customers can find something they want and take it home to be read that evening. You don't have automatically-updated peer ratings of the books I'm looking at. You don't have a "look inside" option for books that aren't on the shelf. You may have "staff picks" but I don't know your staff nearly as well as I know the online reviewer I've been following for a year or two. You don't even have frickin' free shipping. Yes, you'll order it to the store, but I have to go pick it up when it gets there. For cities like Richmond, and some bookstores in the more popular areas, that's more annoying than paying a shipping fee.
You do have a customer experience to speak about. Unfortunately, for the most part, it's bad. I've done laps around my local Barnes & Noble without being addressed as a person by the kid--any of 'em--wearing the employee badge and studying the computer screen. I went into a locally-owned store a couple of weeks ago and, despite the fact that there were a grand total of three human beings in the place (my wife, the attendant, and me), I tried and failed to engage the attendant in conversation.
Good grief. And you want to censor what I have available to buy, too?
Bottom line: please, for the love of all that's holy, if you run a business, focus on making your customers the happiest customers on the planet. If you're an author, that means writing a great book. If you're a bookseller, that means stocking what your customers want you to stock. If you're anything else, that means staffing as needed to meet your demand. No matter, in all cases, whether or not you like it.
Is it really that hard?
-TOSK
"Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the game, and dumb enough to think it's important." - Eugene McCarthy
A friend of mine posted something I found fairly silly the other day on Facebook. Granted, my friends post silly stuff all the time, as do I. This one, though, struck me as illogically silly. It was a graphic that claimed that there were millions of American businesses who wouldn't hire an additional employee after the 49th, thanks to the act most of us refer to as Obamacare.
Alright, lookit, I'm really not here to talk about the positives or the negatives of that legislation. I've done that plenty in some of the forums I'm in, and of course I'm right and everybody who disagrees with me is wrong. Right? But please, this blog isn't about politics. I'm all about success, whether that be writing success or business success or just life success.
Seriously, this one disturbed me. I've had my own business before. I do now too, though as an authorpreneur I guarantee you it'll be a while before I ever get close to 49 employees (it's in my business plan, by the way--but that's the future plan). But try as I might sometimes to stay away, I keep getting thrust into management roles at work, and my current day job is no real exception. I'm in management. In fact, I'm by most estimations the second in charge of the campus, with somewhere around two-thirds of the employees of the company's location here reporting either directly or indirectly to me.
That's why the post was so absolutely foreign to me. I would never, ever make a decision on whether or not to hire someone based on my emotional stance regarding a political issue. Never. I take my business and its operations way too seriously.
I'm acutely aware of the issues regarding the current legislation, by the way. I know where the 49-50 employee barrier comes from; there is more expense required with hiring the 50th employee, and for all employees, if you haven't already begun offering health insurance before that point. That expense is a valid business concern and has to be taken into account. I'm also aware that there is some risk involved in setting yourself into compliance with the current law when nobody really knows who's going to be making decisions come January, and one side is saying they'll keep it going while the other is saying they'll do away with it and replace it with--um, something.
You know what? Business is risk. Business has been about risk-taking since before Thomas Jefferson built Monticello. You measure the risk and decide if you want to go after it, and if you win, you get the reward. Writing is no different; the risk for a writer who keeps his or her "day job" is pretty minimal, but it's also really tough to get anything going toward a reward. Up the risk by leaving your day job and you now have much greater risk, but you're also suddenly in a much better position, time-management-wise.
So anyway--whether you are for or agin' the ACA (aka Obamacare), don't don't don't don't make business decisions based on that. Make them based on a risk assessment, make them based on a cost-to-benefits analysis, make them based on needs assessment. But don't run a business on emotion.
Now I come to what really spurred this post--I got into it over on Publisher's Weekly's web site. Specifically, there was an article that outlined booksellers' overall reluctance to stock the books published by the physical book arm that Amazon recently purchased. I--and you can probably already see why--said this was dumb.
Lookit, if there's no demand for a book, then don't stock it. If you're not going to make any money off of the sale of the book regardless of demand, then don't stock it. If your patrons will be offended by a book, then--well, that one's kinda up to you. They're your customers, but not necessarily your moral compasses.
But don't, don't, don't, don't, please, for the love of God, don't decide what books to offer your customers based on your opinion (no matter how widely agreed-upon) of who makes them.
Many people disagreed with me. After all, what do I know about running a bookstore? What do I know about stocking? (I do, incidentally, have a couple of years of running a significant stocking/shipping/receiving concern in Phoenix on my resume, but I chose not to trot that out) What do I know about the evil exploits of that spawn of Satan itself, Amazon?
Oh, c'mon. Whether I'm a fan of Amazon, myself, is irrelevant. I finally gave in to the argument, though. I said okay, let's assume you're right. Let's assume that every employee at Amazon has on their secret desires list to put the physical bookstores--all of 'em--out of business. Let's assume, while we're playing around, that Jeff Bezos got picked on constantly on the bus by the guys who eventually ran a bookstore, and as a result he swore he'd have their hides, and that when he goes home every evening he says hi to his father by referring to him as "The Dark Lord of Hell" or just "Satan." Okay? Feel better? Amazon is evil, Bezos is evil, everything they do is for the purpose of eradicating you from the face of the planet, book sellers.
So I come in to your bookstore looking for one of the books I've heard about that they publish. Does that make me evil, as your customer?
How much do you really care about what your customers want?
If you're going to let your own opinions about what your customers should be reading, based solely on where they are sourced, decide what you offer to sell, you're going to lose. And, frankly, you deserve to lose.
"Oh, but we will be happy to order them," some booksellers cried in defense of the accusation of censoring their customers. Yeah, fine, but consider this. The only advantage you have, folks, over the online retailers is that customers can find something they want and take it home to be read that evening. You don't have automatically-updated peer ratings of the books I'm looking at. You don't have a "look inside" option for books that aren't on the shelf. You may have "staff picks" but I don't know your staff nearly as well as I know the online reviewer I've been following for a year or two. You don't even have frickin' free shipping. Yes, you'll order it to the store, but I have to go pick it up when it gets there. For cities like Richmond, and some bookstores in the more popular areas, that's more annoying than paying a shipping fee.
You do have a customer experience to speak about. Unfortunately, for the most part, it's bad. I've done laps around my local Barnes & Noble without being addressed as a person by the kid--any of 'em--wearing the employee badge and studying the computer screen. I went into a locally-owned store a couple of weeks ago and, despite the fact that there were a grand total of three human beings in the place (my wife, the attendant, and me), I tried and failed to engage the attendant in conversation.
Good grief. And you want to censor what I have available to buy, too?
Bottom line: please, for the love of all that's holy, if you run a business, focus on making your customers the happiest customers on the planet. If you're an author, that means writing a great book. If you're a bookseller, that means stocking what your customers want you to stock. If you're anything else, that means staffing as needed to meet your demand. No matter, in all cases, whether or not you like it.
Is it really that hard?
-TOSK
Thursday, July 12, 2012
A Bayonet in the Stage
"You are not in Kansas anymore. You are on Pandora, ladies and
gentlemen. Respect that fact every second of every day." - COL Quaritch
"I love the smell of napalm in the morning.... Smelled like...victory." - LTC Bill Kilgore
"Now I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country." - GEN George S. Patton (the movie one)
You know, there's this tendency for Hollywood to portray the military leader in a certain light, one that's quite a bit non-warm and non-fuzzy. He's (and it's generally a he--women in the military are, if you believe our movie-making brethren, either stupid blondes or tragic victims of their male counterparts) extremely competitive, bloodthirsty, stern of countenance, and fond of uttering his own personal military lingo interwoven with periodic growls and cheers.
Of course, that's not really how we were. Just sayin'.
Nevertheless, this image is based on a touch of reality, as are most caricatures(*). It's not like people of all personality types just wake up one day and say, "I think I'm going to go be an infantryman for a while." People are pulled into that field in part because of the perceived match between their personality and the stereotype. Besides, the leaders, like it or not, have to occasionally be willing to send the soldiers they've trained with up a hill to their potential death. It really does take a certain type of person, yet that type of person is still one that in reality doesn't deserve the negative taints that have been applied by the movie theater's artistic brushes.
So all that said--no shit, there we were. (yes, that's a stereotypical start to a good ole' war story--so sue me) We'd arrived at West Point, our future collegiate(ish) home and the playground of all the demons we would end up facing. Days later we'd marched in formation to a theater, filed in, and taken our seats--quietly and with dignity, of course. We were waiting to receive another briefing by somebody, one of a long string of talks designed to prepare us for the months and years to follow.
They were working to fire us up, playing loud music--um, loudly. Granted, every morning we woke up to loud music (or a quote from the movie Patton, or something else along those lines), but they didn't always start briefings like that.
Soon enough Colonel Turner, head of our Military Science department, walked out onto stage. Now, you have to understand that this man looked every bit the military man from the movies--or, perhaps, vice-versa. Whoever cast COL Quaritch for Avatar may very well have been looking at Colonel Turner's picture as he did so, and when he didn't get a perfect match he added the scars to make Quaritch look as tough as possible. Colonel Turner didn't need scars, though. This man was GI Joe and Sergeant Rock mushed into one fictional ball of awesome and blasted into reality. Every inch of him, from his close-cropped crew cut to his pressed battle dress uniform to his shiny combat boots, screamed "soldier of frickin' awesomeness."
I'm not making this up. The man was amazing. Scarily amazing, and amazingly scary. And he was a pretty good guy, to boot.
So back to my story--Colonel Turner walked out in front of all 1400(ish) of us wearing full combat gear and toting an M-16 tipped with an un-scabbarded bayonet. Bare steel, it was. He marched right out there, the epitome of the finest of America's fighting men, and planted the rifle, bayonet down, into the stage. BLAM!
Don't try this at home, of course, but the effect is dramatic. Ask my classmates--everybody I've talked to remembers, if nothing else, the bayonet stuck deeply into that stage.
Anyway, once he was done talking, he walked over to the still-quivering rifle, gave it a final strong tug that sent it into quiver mode, and strode confidently off, the rifle standing at attention like an exclamation mark in the middle of the now-lifeless span of wood.
Awesome. Awesome, awesome, awesome. That was one of those awesome "defining moments" of my awesome cadet experience. Did I mention it was awesome?
But the story's not over; fast-forward a bit. West Point also had a sponsor program. The sponsors were life-savers, sometimes literally, in that they opened their homes and hearts to us as a place to relax, get the stress off our chests, and regain some perspective. It was wonderful, having this special place on post to go when we needed extra help to stay sane.
My sponsor was Colonel Butzer. He scared the crap out of me at first because he was somewhere around nine feet tall with at least five hundred pounds of muscle wrapped around his frame. Okay, I exaggerate. A little. But he was a big, big man. He'd played football for Army back in the '60's, and later had accumulated all sorts of incredible Infantry experience. He was also a patient, kind, and humorous man, I should add; once I got over my fear of his towering physique I became attached to him. His wife, meanwhile, was somewhere around normal petite size, but beside him she looked like an itty-bitty fairy princess. She was every bit the Infantry Colonel's wife, too--pleasant and proper at all times except when it wasn't called for, and then she was a conversational firecracker who laughed and joked right alongside us obnoxious and sometimes-obscene men.
An amazing couple, they were. He was like the dad that my own late father couldn't be, and she was like a second mom. In fact, when First Mom was there for graduation and they met my girlfriend, I cherished both her and Mrs. Butzer's opinions equally (luckily they were pretty much the same).
Colonel Butzer also worked directly for Colonel Turner as the second-in-charge of the military science department. He told us a story once--Colonel Butzer, not Colonel Turner. It had to do with a bayonet quivering in a stage--remember that? It turned out that the tug Colonel Turner gave the rifle was actually an attempt to dislodge it from the stage so that he could march out of sight holding his weapon. But he couldn't. Either he'd misjudged the force of the thrust he'd used to lodge it in the first place, or the wood was stronger than he'd thought it would be.
Either way, the rifle got stuck.
Later they went back after it in force. They had to get the stage cleared off, after all, because we also had etiquette briefings (no, I'm not kidding), and those are hard to conduct in a serious manner with an M-16 attached to a bayonet stuck in the stage. Colonel Butzer confided that it took three or four guys to convince the wood of the stage floor to release its grip on the bayonet.
And you know what? Many never knew that the rifle was stuck. Colonel Turner had gone out and impressed the core of his message indelibly into our hearts and our minds. Then when something went wrong, he made it look right.
And he cleaned up the mess later, of course.
There's a lesson, there.
-TOSK
* (the male caricature, I should specify--Hollywood's stereotype of the Army woman is so completely opposite the reality of the incredible women with whom I served that it makes me angry to watch)
"I love the smell of napalm in the morning.... Smelled like...victory." - LTC Bill Kilgore
"Now I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country." - GEN George S. Patton (the movie one)
You know, there's this tendency for Hollywood to portray the military leader in a certain light, one that's quite a bit non-warm and non-fuzzy. He's (and it's generally a he--women in the military are, if you believe our movie-making brethren, either stupid blondes or tragic victims of their male counterparts) extremely competitive, bloodthirsty, stern of countenance, and fond of uttering his own personal military lingo interwoven with periodic growls and cheers.
Of course, that's not really how we were. Just sayin'.
Nevertheless, this image is based on a touch of reality, as are most caricatures(*). It's not like people of all personality types just wake up one day and say, "I think I'm going to go be an infantryman for a while." People are pulled into that field in part because of the perceived match between their personality and the stereotype. Besides, the leaders, like it or not, have to occasionally be willing to send the soldiers they've trained with up a hill to their potential death. It really does take a certain type of person, yet that type of person is still one that in reality doesn't deserve the negative taints that have been applied by the movie theater's artistic brushes.
So all that said--no shit, there we were. (yes, that's a stereotypical start to a good ole' war story--so sue me) We'd arrived at West Point, our future collegiate(ish) home and the playground of all the demons we would end up facing. Days later we'd marched in formation to a theater, filed in, and taken our seats--quietly and with dignity, of course. We were waiting to receive another briefing by somebody, one of a long string of talks designed to prepare us for the months and years to follow.
They were working to fire us up, playing loud music--um, loudly. Granted, every morning we woke up to loud music (or a quote from the movie Patton, or something else along those lines), but they didn't always start briefings like that.
Soon enough Colonel Turner, head of our Military Science department, walked out onto stage. Now, you have to understand that this man looked every bit the military man from the movies--or, perhaps, vice-versa. Whoever cast COL Quaritch for Avatar may very well have been looking at Colonel Turner's picture as he did so, and when he didn't get a perfect match he added the scars to make Quaritch look as tough as possible. Colonel Turner didn't need scars, though. This man was GI Joe and Sergeant Rock mushed into one fictional ball of awesome and blasted into reality. Every inch of him, from his close-cropped crew cut to his pressed battle dress uniform to his shiny combat boots, screamed "soldier of frickin' awesomeness."
I'm not making this up. The man was amazing. Scarily amazing, and amazingly scary. And he was a pretty good guy, to boot.
So back to my story--Colonel Turner walked out in front of all 1400(ish) of us wearing full combat gear and toting an M-16 tipped with an un-scabbarded bayonet. Bare steel, it was. He marched right out there, the epitome of the finest of America's fighting men, and planted the rifle, bayonet down, into the stage. BLAM!
Don't try this at home, of course, but the effect is dramatic. Ask my classmates--everybody I've talked to remembers, if nothing else, the bayonet stuck deeply into that stage.
Anyway, once he was done talking, he walked over to the still-quivering rifle, gave it a final strong tug that sent it into quiver mode, and strode confidently off, the rifle standing at attention like an exclamation mark in the middle of the now-lifeless span of wood.
Awesome. Awesome, awesome, awesome. That was one of those awesome "defining moments" of my awesome cadet experience. Did I mention it was awesome?
But the story's not over; fast-forward a bit. West Point also had a sponsor program. The sponsors were life-savers, sometimes literally, in that they opened their homes and hearts to us as a place to relax, get the stress off our chests, and regain some perspective. It was wonderful, having this special place on post to go when we needed extra help to stay sane.
My sponsor was Colonel Butzer. He scared the crap out of me at first because he was somewhere around nine feet tall with at least five hundred pounds of muscle wrapped around his frame. Okay, I exaggerate. A little. But he was a big, big man. He'd played football for Army back in the '60's, and later had accumulated all sorts of incredible Infantry experience. He was also a patient, kind, and humorous man, I should add; once I got over my fear of his towering physique I became attached to him. His wife, meanwhile, was somewhere around normal petite size, but beside him she looked like an itty-bitty fairy princess. She was every bit the Infantry Colonel's wife, too--pleasant and proper at all times except when it wasn't called for, and then she was a conversational firecracker who laughed and joked right alongside us obnoxious and sometimes-obscene men.
An amazing couple, they were. He was like the dad that my own late father couldn't be, and she was like a second mom. In fact, when First Mom was there for graduation and they met my girlfriend, I cherished both her and Mrs. Butzer's opinions equally (luckily they were pretty much the same).
Colonel Butzer also worked directly for Colonel Turner as the second-in-charge of the military science department. He told us a story once--Colonel Butzer, not Colonel Turner. It had to do with a bayonet quivering in a stage--remember that? It turned out that the tug Colonel Turner gave the rifle was actually an attempt to dislodge it from the stage so that he could march out of sight holding his weapon. But he couldn't. Either he'd misjudged the force of the thrust he'd used to lodge it in the first place, or the wood was stronger than he'd thought it would be.
Either way, the rifle got stuck.
Later they went back after it in force. They had to get the stage cleared off, after all, because we also had etiquette briefings (no, I'm not kidding), and those are hard to conduct in a serious manner with an M-16 attached to a bayonet stuck in the stage. Colonel Butzer confided that it took three or four guys to convince the wood of the stage floor to release its grip on the bayonet.
And you know what? Many never knew that the rifle was stuck. Colonel Turner had gone out and impressed the core of his message indelibly into our hearts and our minds. Then when something went wrong, he made it look right.
And he cleaned up the mess later, of course.
There's a lesson, there.
-TOSK
* (the male caricature, I should specify--Hollywood's stereotype of the Army woman is so completely opposite the reality of the incredible women with whom I served that it makes me angry to watch)
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