Mia's a Halloween Pumpkin--16 months old

What you see here is Mia's very cute "Where'd it go" expression. She came up with this on her own, and often accompanies it by saying "Go?" or "Kitty Go?" or "______ Go", where the blank can be any object she saw at one point but doesn't see now.

Things I Learned From the...Part 2

This is just a brief update to a previous post regarding "things I learned from the..." various non-traditional sources of information.

I recently attended an ASTD workshop in downtown Columbus and was intrigued when one of the CEOs/Presidents in the panel discussion began to talk about her method for gathering honest information about how her organization was doing. She mentioned that she makes a point to attend smoke breaks whenever conducting a site visit. The reason for this is that people on smoke breaks talk about the nature of their work and what is bothering them the most at that specific point in time. She therefore is able to get a good sense for employee concerns (and a much better sense than if she, an executive, tried to get these same individuals to provide candid feedback in a 1:1 setting with her.

On a related note, my sister mentioned that everyone at her former employer, a large internet service provider, used to stand around the water coolers and talk about what was going on in the organization. Rather than try to gather this input and use it to make constructive changes, their leadership removed the water coolers.

Midwestern Auto Group and Corporate VW Customer Care Don't Care About Their Customers

When I bought my VW Passat, I knew its reliability was questionable, that's why I purchased a third party extended warranty. Many different repairs have been needed in the 6 years I've owned the car, but I'm okay with that. What I'm not okay with is the incompetence demonstrated by the Dublin Midwestern Auto Group Volkswagen Service Department, along with their lack of concern for the customer. To top that off, Volkswagen's Corporate Customer Care group is not at all interested in making things right that their service departments are messing up. There appears to be no accountability for good customer service within the entire company. If you're really bored, you can read my recent letter to VW in the next post. I followed the letter up with several phone conversations with VW Customer Care, and they declined to do ANYTHING to help redress their past errors and try to rebuild my trust. Therefore, I will never purchase another VW or any other automobile that VW has a stake in. I will do my best to tell everyone my customer disservice story, in order to save them from the crap VW calls "customer care".

Team Building Event of the Past

When organizing documents in my home office, I recently came across the lyrics that we had written for a mock Budweiser commercial as part of a team building event at work. You know the commercials, the ones where a low voice narrates and a higher, heavy metal voice sings "we salute you, Mr. Zamboni driver", etc.

Why am I posting the song here? So Budweiser can pay me lots of money to sing, and pay my colleague lots of money to narrate. Well, not exactly. It's a more mundane reason...I'd like to throw out the paper with the lyrics, but I want to have it captured somewhere.

Anyway, the song we created is as follows:

We salute you, Mr. team building song creator (narrated)
You create songs in a moment's notice that are creative yet meaningless (narrated)
Mr. team building song creator (sung)
Bang those bongos now (sung in background)
Some prefer to lay low and judge, while others dare to soar (narrated)
Mr. team building song creator (sung)
Shake that tamborine now (sung in background)
Teammates may laugh, cry and take notes, but you don't care, your self-respect is long gone (narrated)
Mr. team building song creator (sung)

Italy Wins World Cup

Well, it wasn't the most exciting World Cup final I've seen, but Italy prevailed. This somewhat softens the blow of the US team's early departure from the tournament, as at least I was able to root on my heritage (dad's side of the family). Plus, Eric and Jen came over so we had good/weird conversations throughout the game, making the time much more enjoyable for all.

U.S. Disappointing in World Cup Opener

It took this long for me to calm down long enough to write something about the U.S. Soccer team's opening game against the Czech Republic at this year's World Cup. Although the Czech Republic is a very good team, the U.S. team looked like they were not prepared to play in a world cup game. They brought the same low level of energy into the world cup that had permeated their last few friendly matches leading up to the world cup. Despite a couple bright spots, including Claudio Reyna hitting the post and Landon Donovan's 1:1 effort drawing a yellow card on the Czech defender, the majority of the U.S. play was unenthusiastic and slow. Claudio Reyna is getting older and slower, so when he looks like one of the quickest U.S. players on the field, the team is in trouble. I could continue on like this for a while, but it's too painful. I want to relive the good times. I still distinctly remember the great pride I felt getting up at 2:55am to watch the U.S. take (and maintain) the lead over Portugal in 2002. I'm glad this year's game took place in mid-day as it would have been difficult to justify any loss of sleep to watch it. That being said, the U.S. has a good team, a team that can beat Italy, but only if it plays like the last couple matches of world cup qualifying, not like in the recent friendlies. I'm rooting for the U.S. to beat Italy on my birthday (the day before my first father's day). If they don't, then I start rooting for my more distant heritage, as I'll root Italy on to win the whole thing.

Happy 1st Birthday Mia!!!!

Mia had a great time at her first birthday party. We had heard many stories about 1 year olds' reactions to their first exposure to cake, so we were eager to see how Mia would react. She started off tentatively, checking with Mommy and Daddy to make sure this bright shiny thing was okay to eat. Once she had the go ahead, she picked off some icing and ate it. Apparently she liked it, as her hands went immediately back to the center of the cake. She ate many handfuls of cake and icing and overall had a great time. And even with all of that sugar in her system, she was still able to go to sleep relatively close to her normal time.

Mia's 1st birthday is June 13. It's absolutely amazing to me that a year has gone by since she was born. She's crawling, says "ball" (she can pick out a ball or circle anywhere--in a room, in a book, on a shirt, 2 dimensional, 3 dimensional, partially hidden, etc.), says "mama", "dada" "go", "bye bye" and several other words we can't decipher. We're pretty sure she said "veggie puffs" the other day. She loves her sweet potato puffs. Her preferred mode of tranportation is holding mommy or daddy's hands as she walks around. Otherwise she'll settle for crawling. She has taken several unassisted steps, but she prefers holding onto mommy or daddy.

Things I Learned From The...

Here' s one of my strange ideas for a new book, or series of books. Basically, each chapter in the book would contain a bunch of things I learned from a source we don't often view as particularly edifying. To illustrate the idea, here are a couple examples:

Things I learned from the...

1. Office printer--people often forget items they printed, and you sometimes see them as you're sorting through the printed items to find yours. For instance, you might see resumes, job postings, internet shopping confirmations, confidential e-mails, etc.
2. Restroom--It may sound sterotypical, but it seems that there is more to learn in the women's restroom than the men's, though I clearly don't speak from first hand knowledge on this one. Sometimes, for example, a trainer or facilitator can find out how their session is going by hanging out in one of the stalls and waiting for participants to chat with one another. Sure, another approach would be to just ask people directly, but the "Things I learned from asking people directly" chapter just didn't sound as interesting.
3. Hotel lobby phone--Sure, this may be a rare occurrance, but I have heard some interesting conversations taking place at hotel phones as I've sat in the lobbies waiting for an acquaintance to join me. In one particular instance, a female using the phone to talk to her boyfriend began speaking in pig latin when she noticed my presence. I did not let on that I knew pig latin (did she think that language was unique to her and her boyfriend?), so I heard about strange medical issues the woman was experiencing.
4. Smoke break--Well, it seems that all (or at least most) bets are off during smoke breaks. I don't smoke, but people who do seem to possess an automatic bond resulting in instant trust during a smoke break, sometimes breaking through the barriers of organizational level or status. All kinds of things that wouldn't be discussed within the confines of the office building are discussed casually 2 feet from the entrance.
5. Calendars--Some individuals use the office's electronic calendar (e.g., Lotus Notes, Outlook) to list everything they have to do during their week and weekend, even if it has no relationship to work whatsoever. You can basically get a complete understanding of these individuals' lives by perusing their calendars.

I have several specific examples that fall into the above categories, but at this point I'm interested in other categories that you would like to add, and any specific examples you have that fit within one of the aforementioned categories.

My Infinity Squared Counterpart--Update

Some of Kevin Kniffin's research was recently highlighted in a feature article entitled "The Goods on Gossip" in the April 2006 edition of the American Psychological Association's Monitor magazine. The full study, entitled Utilities of gossip across organizational levels: Multilevel selection, free-riders and teams, appears in the journal Human Nature (Volume 16, No. 3. pp. 278-292). Hey Kevin, where's my free autographed reprint?

Visit with Dave, Denise and Ethan

Last weekend, we had the opportunity to visit with some friends of ours who we hadn't seen for a few years. Nadya and I got a chance to catch up a bit with Dave and Denise, and Mia got the chance to meet Ethan. The trip was great, and involved lots of playing, some mall shopping, a fun children's museum, great places to eat, and an occasional check on the NCAA men's basketball tournament. We're looking forward to planning another visit soon.

Heavy Metal Rules!!

And she has never even been to a concert, well unless you count Trans Siberian Orchestra, in utero. Ronnie James Dio would be proud. Bring on the Karaoke Revolution!!

Mia's Trip to Florida

We recently returned from a visit to Grandma and Grandpa Z's house in Port St. Lucie, FL. Mia did several things for the first time, including swimming in the ocean, crawling more than just a step or two, riding in a golf cart, and other fun things. She really seemed to love the warmer weather (and so did mommy and daddy)!

Mia at 6 1/2 Months

What are you lookin' at?