I suppose

That last post entitled simply, "2012," refreshed my memory of how much I loved my job.  It held everything I wanted, travel, responsibility, multitasking, respect, financial consideration, and interaction with all levels of the workforce.  Unfortunately, the boss did not have the foresight to transition my position from compliance to salesforce, and ended the job.  The turnover rate there was phenomenal, and this should have been expected; but I was in denial.  I no longer have my dream job.

It's been almost 3 years since I last posted on this blog, and almost a year since I became suddenly and without warning unemployed.  The boss had called my work cell to see if I would join him for lunch.  Wrapping up a compilation of three binders that morning, and handing them off for mailing, I joined the boss for lunch.  The other two workers made lame excuses and left, so it was just the boss and I heading to Subway.  After about 5 minutes of small talk, I asked, "So, what's on your mind?"  His reply hit like Roadrunner's boulder drop on Wiley Coyote.  "Employment changes for the upcoming year that involve you."  And that, friends, is how I was "let go."  He apparently had given this some thought, because he had a 5-page no-compete agreement ready for my signature.  It looked like he and his wife (Pres & VP) were afraid I would rally the crew and start a business to steal them away.  He offered 2 months of severance pay.  He caused two months of depression.

After lunch, I drove home and applied for 7 different jobs, and continued applying daily.  Since I do not have a college degree, many of the rejection emails came unusually quick.  A larger percentage, though, provided no response whatsoever.  This only fueled the insignificance I was feeling.

And then, little lights began to illumine.  A phone call, a message on LinkedIn and Facebook, an email here and there.  Almost every customer had spent some effort locating personal contact information to reach me.  They all thanked me for helping them through the EPA emissions rule, and most mentioned what they thought of my boss for letting me go.  Each one played a significant role in my return to "normal." 

I have not landed other employment as of yet.  The combination of my lack of college degree and geographical location challenge the latest methods that HR utilize for recruiting.  Giving up is not an option.  God has plans for me, and I trust he will reveal them.  He knows how impatient I am, and He knows the right fit for me and my potential employer.  I have completed six more applications this week.  Who knows?  Maybe one of them will recognize the value I can bring to their business.

What I have learned from all this is simply that my significance does not come from what I do; rather who I am.  I am a child of God. 

2012

This year has been a busy one, thus, no posts to record.  I've traveled throughout the midwest, flown commercially and in the boss's plane, met some wonderful people, and experienced new things.  Recently, a utility membership asked me to present information on an EPA rule and answer questions on the "mechanical aspects" of the rule.  Levi is the "speaker" of the house, and I don't know where he got his talent from.  I am the sit-in-the-pew critic.  It is one thing to deliver advice on speaking, it is another to speak.  When I got back from being on the road this week, there was a card on my desk that came in the mail.  Those thank you cards are under-rated.  "The information was spot-on".... "couldn't have pulled this together without your help, especially the on-site power plant visit"......"thank you, thank you, thank you".......  and those were just excerpts. 

In Story City, the power plant administrator's wife has told him that any time I come there, she wants to know so she can take off work and hang out with me.  She's a nurse at the hospital and we talk "car talk."  It's funny how we hit it off griping about lug nuts.

This year the boss finally got rid of an employee that I was doing most of his work for him, and the stuff I didn't get involved with turned out to be a nightmare for the installers.  The last job he was involved in finally got done.  His replacement is exceptionally talented and I don't have to worry about him or his submittal drawings or approvals.  He runs all the quotes by me for my input, and takes criticism very well......... throws it back at me, too.

My job has been somewhat consuming, and I attempted to warn my family that the next two years would be this way.  It pulls at me not being able to be around all the time, but I do see hope at the end of the tunnel.

I was recently invited to a facility in Omaha where they have 42 engines and I offered them a free consultation.  The supervisor asked, "what's in it for me?"..... I answered the opportunity to quote the business, and he has respected that so much, that he offered 4 of the high priority engines to be done by our company without the normal bid process.  I gave him round numbers at the consultation, and he has called the boss and told him how impressed he was with me.  I'm just now starting to get the feedback of reassurance that what I'm doing helps people with their weighty decisions for their facilities.

A couple months ago, a rep from Minnesota called me and said he has completed an installation at a major company and they want him to do the performance test and compliance paperwork.  He said I was the best there was and wanted to know what we would charge to do this part of the work.  This requires me knowing the foreign components of his installation, trade secrets, costs, everything.  I was very up front with him and he sent it all.  I just wrapped up the testing in Minnesota and the Facility Manager treated me like I had done the installation all by myself.  When I told the boss all the stuff that was going on there, he said that the Facility Manager was "intuitive."  Haha, as if.

This is already November and this year has flown by.  It is probably the first year I haven't had trouble writing the year correctly since I was putting out bids last year with this year's dates on them for installation.  I've been doing that for 2013, as well, so I don't foresee any problems adjusting after December ends.

Next week I'll be in Jackson, Missouri, followed by Chanute, Kansas, and a side trip to Tulsa, Oklahoma.  I'm sure others will be added, as they always are.  I have the coolest job in the world getting to meet the backbone of America, the people that keep the lights on and the plug ins working in everyone's homes.  I see what they have to deal with on a daily basis and I commend them for their patience, their sense of humor, and their work ethic.  I am blessed.

My son and his co-worker, John, decided to take their motorcycles for a buns-of-steel-type ride and head out for the California coast from northeast Kansas. They left Thursday morning, today is Saturday, and apparently his car misses him so much that it just up and gave itself a wash and wax to be ready for his return.... sometime Tuesday?

Beatrice Speedway

Hard bleachers, loud noises, occasional dirt in the face, and a cool breeze on a hot summer night. What more could you ask for?

Ok, a few sprinkles of rain toward the end of the evening to top it off. This is what memories are made of.

How many does it take to....

I just thought it was nice to see three generations of Oehm guys tackling the glass for the church building sign. Two are bracing the heavy glass, the other is putting rivets in to secure it. I heard one of them say, "You think we should see if it closes before we go any farther?" haha, they didn't. Such precision work.

Flashing Green Light

After arriving home from work this evening, I found both computers had shut down due to a storm. Surprisingly, only one started back up. There was no response on the "down" one when we pushed the button to power it up. We unplugged everything from the back of it (monitor, keyboard, speakers, power, all the usb connections) and then plugged just the power source in. Still nothing. There was, however, a cute little flashing green light near the fan. This flashed even when there was no power cord plugged in. I thought this was strange. As it turned out, the computer's power supply box was fried. Luckily, I keep a spare computer around for salvage parts. The down computer is up and running now. We've taken the photos and burned them to cd just because of this warning. Storm season always reminds me to power down computers and other electronic devices.

Host Process for Windows Services Stopped

Have you ever wanted to throw the computer out the window? It starts running slower, then your searches get redirected, you can't download windows updates. This is what happened to my son. He asked me how much desktop computers are these days. Knowing he had a perfectly good laptop, I inquired why he was entertaining the idea of purchasing something else.

When he told me the symptoms, I suggested he run a program called Malwarebytes from the website www.malwarebytes.org and gave him caution to make certain it is the program he is downloading and not an ad. Realizing he didn't already have this on his laptop, I had a flash drive that had it on, so I connected the flash drive to his computer and opened Malwarebytes to run the "quick scan" on his laptop. It found 33 threats. After removing those 33, I opened Malwarebytes again and clicked on the tab to "update" the version so that he could scan for the more recent threats. This gave us 17 more to remove. The quick scan takes about 10 minutes, the full scan can take a little over an hour. Since we were headed for church services, I ran the full scan just to see if any further threats appear. When we got back home, the computer showed 0 threats.

I checked to see if I was able to download updates for Windows 8 from the microsoft website, but I kept getting the error "host process for windows services stopped.....blah, blah, blah"....... so I knew that either there were more problems to remove or some files were corrupted. It turned out there were more problems to remove.

I found another tool called Hitman 3.5 on this website http://www.surfright.nl/en/hitmanpro that also scans for threats. This website allows me to run this program for 30 days without an activation code (free). There is a 32 bit or 64 bit version to download; I right clicked on "My Computer" and found under "Properties" which one to use for the laptop. I must caution the reader that there are at least THREE "download" buttons but only ONE GREEN ONE that says DOWNLOAD HERE. The red ones are ads for something else you don't want. Hitman found a type of an alureon virus to remove.

After that, the laptop ran much faster, the error codes were all gone, and windows was able to update normally. My son is buying my dinner for this fix. Win Win. ☺