Year End Fastener Good Cheer
My intentions were to finish the year with a very industry oriented post about reshoring organizations that I have stumbled upon in my travels. I think these efforts are great and I hope they are successful. During the upcoming year, I think there will be plenty of talk about job creation and the fact that it is an election year only means we will hear more and more about how to do this. Everyone will try to take credit for any good news. Furthermore, I think our only way out of our current national deficit situation will be to have extraordinary economic growth as no politician (or person) seems to want to see their programs reduced. But that post will have to wait. It is December 23 and I am sitting in my office and I just cannot ignore that the Christmas Holiday is bearing down upon me like a fast moving train.
Oddly enough, I was prepared to make this a kind of vacation day. You know, come in at 10:30, move a few things around, open up my mail, move a few more things and go home by 1:00. Well, my kids are home on school break and they're sleeping. My wife has a list of stuff she is trying to get done before we start preparing for company on Christmas Eve. Honestly, I'm better off at the office at the moment. At home, I think I'd be in the way. So, here I sit.
I'm very fortunate. I have three reasonably good kids, a fine wife, several siblings (some in town, some not) and in-laws who I get along with quite well. Holiday visiting is 90% fun. Sure, there is a lot of dysfunctional behavior within both my family and that of my in-laws, but that's pretty normal, yes?? If I ever visit with a family that does not have some measure of dysfunctional behavior, I usually find the time to be very dull anyways. So, some odd behavior doesn't concern me too much.
There are things I need to do still. Gotta clean out old files and make new ones. Gotta look ahead to January and pull together a travel plan, which is always a liquid schedule, due to change on account of snow storms, etc. I guess I can think about New Year's Resolutions. Resolutions to me are kind of like Lent. Some years I give up cookies or chocolate for Lent, and I'm very good about sticking with the program. Other years, I give up nothing and I don't really feel guilty about it. Depends on the year. New Year's Resolutions are similar. Some years I make them, some times I do not. I've got the handy list I can pull out from years past if I need to. "Lose weight, exercise more, keep in touch better with friends I do not see, write a novel, etc." Yeah, I still have plans on writing a novel. I have the title and the first line of the book I plan to write. It was a gift given to me by a regional sales manager I was working with. He just blurted out something when we were sitting at lunch that I could not believe I heard...and that will be the first line of the first novel I write. I listen to a lot of radio as I put 40,000 miles per year on my Buick every year. But, I also listen to a lot of books on CD's. Just finished with "Henderson the Rain King" by Saul Bellow. Kind of runs along a similar vein as "The Fool's Progress" by Edward Abbey which was graciously suggested to me by industry peer and good guy, John Gaudette of Metric & Multistandard. If I ever do write the novel, I think it will be along the same pattern. Wandering guys dealing with life's ups and downs in an imperfect world. And here I said I was not going to talk about the fastener industry but I feel as though I am.
Please forgive me for not delving more into the fastener industry on this "Fastener Blog" (I still remember getting taken to task in the early days of this site for talking about beer and fantasy baseball instead of fasteners). But, I did join the panel discussion on Fully Threaded Radio where we did a fastener round up on the major fastener stories of the year. To come here and talk about Heads and Cardinal and Dokka and Nucor would feel somewhat redundant after that broadcast. And, one more time, Brian and Eric...you guys have added a great feature to the fastener industry that did not exist 36 episodes ago. Your creativity and vision are appreciated. The products that we sell each day may not be the most exciting to others outside out industry but the characters within this industry certainly are interesting. It is an industry full of large manufacturing companies, multinational corporations, guys running businesses out of their vans, companies with state of the art computer capabilities, companies that track their inventory on index cards, importers that bring parts to our country from some of the most sophisticated factories producing in state of the art facilities and brokers who import parts made in shacks with dirt floors. It takes all kinds to supply the manufacturing needs of our great nation.
So, for the moment, I'm going to postpone my next industry related post until I get some free time over the next week. In the meantime, I wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. If Christmas is not a holiday you celebrate, I wish you happiness on whatever one you do celebrate. I think we are entitled to some good wishes regardless of how we were raised or whatever our background. For the New Year I wish you all the good things that are normally wished. Good health, good fortune and peace and harmony in your families and your community. And, one more wish I have is for creativity and enjoyment at your fastener workplace. Hope you enjoy this industry as much as I do. And I hope you are always thinking of how to do things better, more efficiently, creatively. profitably and in a way that drags along the good people you work with for the ride. For, it is better to give than to receive, and when everyone enjoys the challenge and ride together, it is all good.
Peace.
Oddly enough, I was prepared to make this a kind of vacation day. You know, come in at 10:30, move a few things around, open up my mail, move a few more things and go home by 1:00. Well, my kids are home on school break and they're sleeping. My wife has a list of stuff she is trying to get done before we start preparing for company on Christmas Eve. Honestly, I'm better off at the office at the moment. At home, I think I'd be in the way. So, here I sit.
I'm very fortunate. I have three reasonably good kids, a fine wife, several siblings (some in town, some not) and in-laws who I get along with quite well. Holiday visiting is 90% fun. Sure, there is a lot of dysfunctional behavior within both my family and that of my in-laws, but that's pretty normal, yes?? If I ever visit with a family that does not have some measure of dysfunctional behavior, I usually find the time to be very dull anyways. So, some odd behavior doesn't concern me too much.
There are things I need to do still. Gotta clean out old files and make new ones. Gotta look ahead to January and pull together a travel plan, which is always a liquid schedule, due to change on account of snow storms, etc. I guess I can think about New Year's Resolutions. Resolutions to me are kind of like Lent. Some years I give up cookies or chocolate for Lent, and I'm very good about sticking with the program. Other years, I give up nothing and I don't really feel guilty about it. Depends on the year. New Year's Resolutions are similar. Some years I make them, some times I do not. I've got the handy list I can pull out from years past if I need to. "Lose weight, exercise more, keep in touch better with friends I do not see, write a novel, etc." Yeah, I still have plans on writing a novel. I have the title and the first line of the book I plan to write. It was a gift given to me by a regional sales manager I was working with. He just blurted out something when we were sitting at lunch that I could not believe I heard...and that will be the first line of the first novel I write. I listen to a lot of radio as I put 40,000 miles per year on my Buick every year. But, I also listen to a lot of books on CD's. Just finished with "Henderson the Rain King" by Saul Bellow. Kind of runs along a similar vein as "The Fool's Progress" by Edward Abbey which was graciously suggested to me by industry peer and good guy, John Gaudette of Metric & Multistandard. If I ever do write the novel, I think it will be along the same pattern. Wandering guys dealing with life's ups and downs in an imperfect world. And here I said I was not going to talk about the fastener industry but I feel as though I am.
Please forgive me for not delving more into the fastener industry on this "Fastener Blog" (I still remember getting taken to task in the early days of this site for talking about beer and fantasy baseball instead of fasteners). But, I did join the panel discussion on Fully Threaded Radio where we did a fastener round up on the major fastener stories of the year. To come here and talk about Heads and Cardinal and Dokka and Nucor would feel somewhat redundant after that broadcast. And, one more time, Brian and Eric...you guys have added a great feature to the fastener industry that did not exist 36 episodes ago. Your creativity and vision are appreciated. The products that we sell each day may not be the most exciting to others outside out industry but the characters within this industry certainly are interesting. It is an industry full of large manufacturing companies, multinational corporations, guys running businesses out of their vans, companies with state of the art computer capabilities, companies that track their inventory on index cards, importers that bring parts to our country from some of the most sophisticated factories producing in state of the art facilities and brokers who import parts made in shacks with dirt floors. It takes all kinds to supply the manufacturing needs of our great nation.
So, for the moment, I'm going to postpone my next industry related post until I get some free time over the next week. In the meantime, I wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. If Christmas is not a holiday you celebrate, I wish you happiness on whatever one you do celebrate. I think we are entitled to some good wishes regardless of how we were raised or whatever our background. For the New Year I wish you all the good things that are normally wished. Good health, good fortune and peace and harmony in your families and your community. And, one more wish I have is for creativity and enjoyment at your fastener workplace. Hope you enjoy this industry as much as I do. And I hope you are always thinking of how to do things better, more efficiently, creatively. profitably and in a way that drags along the good people you work with for the ride. For, it is better to give than to receive, and when everyone enjoys the challenge and ride together, it is all good.
Peace.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you, TS. Best wishes also to Mrs. Salesman and all the little Travelers.
Reply to this
TS, thank you for an educational and entertaining year. 2012 has the potential for greatness, in both business and political entertainment. I can't wait to read your book. You know what they say, "A book of a million words starts with the title and first line". And if they don't say that, they probably should. Enjoy your Christmas and New Years with the family.
Reply to this
Wishing you and everyone a Happy New Year!
Reply to this
Same to you QueenB. And to any other readers out there. Happy New Year.
Reply to this