Dan from Madison

Is Pride the Worst Thing You Can Have?

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Of all the faults I see in people, I think that pride is the most damaging.

I am a small business owner and am pretty close with all of my employees. I have had many employees for decades, and a few for just a short while. It seems that whenever there is a major problem with an employee it all boils down to pride. They can call it other things and make excuses, but the main issue tends to be an utter lack of humility.

Just this morning a new employee who had only been on the job for a few months raised his voice at me. I told him that I don’t yell and scream but would be glad to have an adult like discussion. He continued with the loud voice and I was forced to fire him. He had been looking for a job for close to a year when I hired him and just like that he is gone. I am sure it will take a long time for him to find another job. What in blazes was he thinking?

Only a few hours after his departure word spread and I have been deluged with phone calls and emails of people looking for work. I have never seen anything like it. Nuclear engineers to kids right out of high school. But I digress.

This particular individual showed traits that, it seems, more people are showing. Instead of shutting up this morning and saying “yes, sir” or simply being quiet as I asked, my ex-employee had to keep mouthing off. Of course, my evidence of an increase of pride and lack of humility is completely anecdotal to my little world.

I have seen this in many business acquaintances as well as vendors and customers. I have learned that in my world, to shut up and take it is the best prescription, unless you really want to burn your bridge.

To our commenters – do people of this generation or people in general seem to show more pride in today’s era than in past eras? Or do you think I am noticing something that isn’t there?

Bad Law Writing and Keeping You Cool

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Beginning on January 1, 2010, manufacturers in the US were not allowed to make any new refrigeration or air conditioning equipment that was pre-charged with R-22. Originally, the EPA had written in that not only would no new equipment be allowed to be manufactured with R-22 in it, but no replacement parts would be allowed to be sold for the existing systems.

This gave everyone in my industry (HVAC) a huge gasp – there are literally tens (hundreds?) of millions of systems installed across the United States that have R-22 in them – everything from your household window air, to a central air conditioner, to the reach in coolers at a convenience store, to a beer tap cooler, to industrial chilling processors. The industry had to (at much time and expense) heavily lobby EPA to get this part of the law written out. It was a huge sigh of relief for everyone when this part of the laws was written out. What were we (I run an HVAC wholesaler) to do for warranty if an R-22 unit took a dump? Replace the whole thing instead of a tiny component?

The major manufacturers all knew of the impending January 1, 2010 deadline and had fully converted their manufacturing processes to making units that were pre-charged with the new environmentally friendly refrigerant, R-410a (R-410a is used primarily for air conditioning purposes and I will limit this discussion to that to keep it simpler). This includes all manufacturers of hotel units, window air conditioners, and central air conditioners (I am certainly leaving out some).

Since R-410a involves higher operating pressures than R-22 (significantly higher), technicians were forced to have training to use the new chemical, and buy all new tools to handle the higher pressures. Many were also forced to buy new torch sets. With the old R-22 you could soft solder the joints – with R-410a and the higher pressures that it brings, everyone that wasn’t brazing with 15% silver was forced to do that. Distributors such as myself had to invest a lot of time, energy and money into training our customers so they would use the correct lubricants (those changed from mineral to ester oil), techniques and methods to selling and installing the new R-410a units. Part of the training was to show our customers (hvac contractors) how to educate homeowners about the new refrigerant, and why their broken down air conditioner would require a complete system change out since the old components were not compatible with the new R-410a components.

BUT…

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Congrats to the Tea Party

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As I was listening to Bloomberg on the way into work, a quote of Lex Green’s popped into my head.

The news came on and yesterday’s primary results were announced (the Tea Party did very well), and one in particular was the most interesting to me. Christine O’Donnell won in Delaware. After the Bloomberg announcer said this, he also said that the Republican Party wouldn’t support her in the general election.

Reflexively I said out loud “well, Republican Party, you can just get f*cked then”.

I haven’t had much use for the Republican Party for a long time now. That quote from Lex?

“This little episode is one shiny tile in a massive mosaic that we are building together.”

But What About Me?

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The last few days have been nothing short of amazing here at ChicagoBoyz due to the work of Lex Green and the regognition it received on the Glenn Beck show. The posts and comments are some of the most insightful I have read in some time. Hopefully we will secure many of the new commenters for more sharing of knowledge in the future.

I am inspired and am learning a lot. I have learned that there seems to be a wave forming. A very large wave that may still be a long way away. It sort of reminds me of a vacation I just took to Michigan a few weeks ago. As I was enjoying a swim in the waters with my kids we would see a boat go by out in the distance. Several minutes later the wake from that boat would provide us with some waves to play on. Has America just seen the boat go by? I am not sure that I have seen it yet – because I live in Madison, Wisconsin.

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Antique Tool Bleg

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To our readers here at Chicago Boyz – I am looking for some information about a tool. For those not in the know, I am the proud owner of a working hobby farm. We now have five cows, three horses, six chickens, three cats, and a partridge in a pear tree.

We are raising our cows on pasture grass and hay only, no grain. I have been noticing a lot of thistles and burdoc out there in the pastures and I hate looking at it. The burrs also cause problems with my cattle as the breed we are raising is Scottish Highlands and they have a lot of hair.

I have been contemplating going back to the future and buying a scythe to cut this crap down. I cut a bunch of burdoc with a hand snips and it was drudgery – from what I have read a scythe would be a great tool for me. Our pasture is very uneven with a lot of rocks and dips – not good for a mower. Also, I like to exercise so the actual work doesn’t scare me at all, and my obliques could use the work. On top of this we have electrified fence that is constantly being grounded by high grass/weeds so I would use the scythe for that maintenance as well.

My question is to all of our readers – have you ever used a scythe and is there a particular design that I should look for? Any particular blade style that would suit this sort of work better? Most that I have seen have adjustable handles on the snath (the snath is the long handle part) so that should make most models fit my six foot frame. Is there a better wood for the snath? I plan on purchasing a wetstone to sharpen the blade while working, as well as a peening jig to peen the blade when needed. Any comments/advice are appreciated, especially from some of our readers who may have actually used a scythe back in the day for hay harvesting.