Carl T. Holscher fights for the customers.

Category: Observations Page 28 of 88

Care

Terrapin Systems (Terpsys) is the only contracting company I’ve ever worked for I felt cared about me as a person, as an employee and wanted me to stay. They invested in me like I invested in them.

How?

We had face time with our manager. She would sit in with us periodically. She was available in person or by phone and she was on our work site enough it was easy to schedule in-person chats with her.

We had two reviews a year. Every six months we’d get a review, the 6-month meeting was a check-in. It was a chance to see how we were doing and if we needed to make any corrections. It also provided a time to talk about goals and hopes for the position and advancement.

What?

The 6-month review offered a chance at a pay bump. The yearly review offered chances of both a raise and a bonus. Both were calculated based on a number of factors.

All of the factors were provided to us at hiring and made available at each meeting. So it was very clear what the company expected of us and how we could maximize our earnings and performance. There was no mystery. What we needed to do was very clear and spelled out.

Perks

Regular Time Off

Terpsys had a Regular Day Off work schedule. It was a compressed work schedule that meant we’d work an extra 30 minutes everyday, and earn a day off every pay period. It wasn’t always the same day and was decided based on coverage needs.

The schedule was setup at the beginning of the year, so we had all of our days off scheduled and we could plan accordingly. It was a perfect time to schedule appointments and run errands. It made vacation planning easier and we could use those days to extend or replace our Paid Time Off.

It wasn’t something the company had to do, but it was something they offered because they could. And they cared enough about their employees.

Certifications

Terpsys also required certifications. I got my Comptia A+ and Network+ the first year, which they required all of their tech people to have those as a baseline. After the first year, we were required to get one certification each year after that. The company reimbursed us for all test costs.

Those tests can be very expensive. And Terpsys paid for all of it. They wanted us to better ourselves and in turn better the company.

Gear

The gear. Oh man, Terpsys loved to give out gear. At the 90-day mark the onslaught of Terpsys shirts began. For the 2.5 years I worked there, I never bought a single polo shirt. I was given a couple new ones twice a year.

They were nice shirts, many of which I still have and wear outside of work because they fit well and are very comfortable. I was only there for a few years and I have:

  • 1 Raincoat
  • 1 Light jacket
  • 1 Sweatshirt
  • 1 Set of tools with drill and soldering kit
  • 2 T-Shirts
  • 12 Polo shirts
  • 2 Hard plastic to-go cups
  • 2 Glasses cases
  • 1 Picnic blanket

And I’m sure I’m forgetting some other stuff. We were not required to wear the shirts for work and some people never did. But they were nicely made and stood up well. So I wore mine all the time.

The raincoat and light jacket are still the only ones I own and the blanket gets lots of use in warmer weather. The toolkit I reach for all the time.

Inclusion

It’s hard to feel like you’re part of the company you actually work for in a contracting environment. You begin to feel much more in common with the client, in this case, the National Institutes of Health. I felt like part of NIH and not Terpsys. They were just the name on the pay check.

But they did a lot to try to make us feel included.

There was a softball team. There were monthly staff meetings. There were cross-training opportunities and stand up meeting with others who worked on the same campus, but not the same building. It was helpful to put names and faces together and to get all of us to feel part of a larger team.

I didn’t always appreciate all the things they did. I didn’t play softball or attend the pizza nights, an opportunity to learn something taught by another employee unrelated to our work. I never attended a happy hour after the staff meetings (partly because I didn’t drink at the time.) I didn’t attend the summer company anniversary party (which always fell on the week I took off for vacation).

I did attend the winter holiday party (called that because it was in February). It was a grand affair at the National Building Museum in Washington DC. Everything was paid for and there was a theme each year. The food was good. And it was nice to introduce my wife to my co-workers and vice versa. These were all the people I spent my days with and now they’d get to meet each other.

The End

There was a lot Terpsys did right. Their only major misstep was relying on one single, huge contract. When they lost that contract, most of the company lost their jobs. Many people transitioned to the new company who won the contract and many more, like myself, left entirely to pursue other work.

The sad truth in contracting is the only way to get a major raise or promotion is to move jobs. In the past 7 years, I’ve doubled my salary by moving around every couple of years.

I tend to get bored with my work I do about two and a half years into where I’m working. I know the work. I’ve mastered it and I have no other challenges to meet. So it’s time for something new. And because the contracts are so narrow, there’s nowhere to move within the contracting company and the client’s site has nothing since you don’t work for them.

So it’s time to move. I’ve made wildly differing amounts of money for the same work. It just depends who the client was and the size of the contract. Money is always flexible. At the end of the day, I have to make the best decision for me. And often times that decision is to move on. Whether there’s a big event like losing a contract, or I need a new challenge.

Lance Cpl. JuanCarlos Aglugub, a Light Armored Vehicle crewman at 4th Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion in Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, Calif., Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force Marine Week shows a young Cardinal fan what it's like to be hold a machine gun outside Busch Stadium in St. Louis June 21, 2011. Marines from all across the Corps came to St. Louis for Marine Week to show the city who they are and what they do. Photo by Lance Cpl. Chelsea Flowers

Every gun-related death is preventable

“We know that we can’t stop every act of violence. But what if we tried to stop even one?”

President Barack Obama tears up as he delivers remarks to announce steps that the administration is taking to reduce gun violence, in the East Room of the White House, Jan. 5, 2016. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Believe what you want about guns and rights. Believe what you like about President Obama, the Second Amendment and the NRA. I am not going to try to change your minds. I won’t.

What I want is not to lose any of you to gun violence. I don’t want to see a Facebook update about how you were gunned down last night.

I don’t want to get a call that you were murdered while seeing a movie, going to church or being black.

I don’t want your family to mourn your death. I don’t want you to be a loss your family commemorates. I don’t want you to be reduced to a memory and a grave stone or a sprinkled pile of ash.

I want you to be alive. I want you to be well. I want you to live and breathe and make the most of your life. I want you to enjoy the life you were meant to lead. I don’t want you to die.

I don’t want to die. I like going to the movies. I used to regularly attend church. I drive my car and use public transit. I don’t want to get gunned down as I go about my day.

And I want the same for you. I don’t want you to get killed. I want you to live a long and full life. And I want to enjoy the same.

I own a gun. I don’t think about it. It’s not a part of my life. I have the right. But I don’t need to carry it around and keep it on my person at any given time. I understand those who feel the need for a firearm for their own safety.

But I am not that person. I don’t feel unsafe. If I walk outside and I meet a gunman and it’s my day to die, then so be it. I don’t believe if I were armed I would stand a better chance in living through the encounter.

I write this as a I watch President Obama’s talk on guns tonight. I know he’s a controversial figure and anything he says will draw fire from all sides.

He is not coming to take our guns away. He is not trying to infringe on our rights as Americans or gun owners. He is asking why we allow gun violence to be a daily problem in our country.

Watch President Obama Share the Steps He’s Taking to Reduce Gun Violence.

“Maybe we can’t save everybody but we can save some.”

It seems like a reasonable idea.

The Administration is proposing a new $500 million investment to increase access to mental health care.

Part of the President’s plan has nothing to do with guns themselves. But to invest in treatment for people with mental health issues. These issues can lead to homicide, but also suicide.

I fully support helping people with mental health issues get the care they need. This will take the guns, pills, cars and knives out of their hands and allow them to live a happy and healthy life.

Let’s keep people safe and keep them alive. I support life. I support people getting the help they need. I support making it just a bit harder to get a gun immediately. I don’t expect to change anyone’s mind. I’m not trying to. I watched this talk tonight with tears in my eyes as I thought about all the children, parents, teachers, and friends lost to needless violence.

I support less death. I support trying to do something about gun violence. Doing nothing is not the answer. And I don’t know what the answer is. But what we’re doing now isn’t working. So it’s time to try something new.

The Virginia Tech shooting will always be a part of my life, as long as I live as my wife was a student at Tech when it happened, and I covered it for our college newspaper. The pain of a death doesn’t end at the day of death.

Header image from Flickr: Young Cardinals fan and a machine gun

Tacky Light Tour 2015

One of my favorite parts of Christmas is driving around to look at lights people put up to celebrate. After living in a high-rise building for the last few years, we’ve not had an outside front door or place to hang lights. So this year we changed that.

We have some lights and a small tree shining in front of our house. It’s not much but it makes me smile when I come home and see its warm light. Our artificial Christmas tree will stay up until February or March. I think it made it to spring last year.

This year, no one else in our townhouses put up anything more than a wreath. The neighbors in our community hung some lights and it was nice to see. But overall, there was nothing up.

A couple of nights we drove around and didn’t see any lights anywhere near us. There was one house near us that had some major decorations. But most people didn’t put up any lights at all.

So we did what any sane couple would do. We drove two hours South to Richmond, Virginia and the Tacky Lights Tour. This has been an ongoing listing of tackily lit houses for 26 years in Richmond.

I knew we only had one evening to do this so I wanted to get the most out of our trip. Being the nerd I am, I turned to Casey Liss’ Tacky Lights Navigator.

I took his original list and looks at a map view of the houses and listed them from North to South and we made our way through them.

It was a great night and we had a blast. Most of the houses were amazing. We caught a few unlisted houses and some of the ones on the list weren’t participating this year.

We saw about 30 hours in the 5-ish hours we drove around. Below are a few of the photos we took along the way. They don’t do any of the houses justice, but I hope you enjoy a bit of Christmas cheer in this new year. Click them to see the full-size version.

Empty box of chocolates. From http://gratisography.com/

Consumer

I consume as much as the next guy. I constantly refresh Twitter hoping for something new to show up and give me a few seconds of delight.

I scroll through Facebook past the Likes and Stories Commented On to find the little nuggets of people’s lives I’ve chosen to keep up with.

I go back and forth with Tumblr trying to decide if it’s purely a place to read about Destiny and silly memes. Or if I want to follow writers, photographers and artists. Presently, it’s a mix of both and I’m liking it that way. It’s not too heavy I feel the need to skip reading it until I’m in the proper mood or mindset to get something out of it. And not to silly that I still feel the need to go there and catch up.

I’ve consumed a lot. I sit and I pour hours into video games and joking with friends and I’m sure I could be doing something more productive with my life. As a gaming friend said to me last week, “If I quit Destiny, I could write a book.” And while I have no plans to quit any time soon. I am going to make more of an effort to contribute to the world of consumables this year.

This isn’t a resolution. It’s nothing new. But I am starting to get a few things going that have come together around the same time. Here’s what I’m going to be making in 2016.

March 2 March

My March2March project reached the end of the year. I wasn’t sure if I would get this far but I did and I’ve had fun with it. March2March is a daily photo project starting March 1 instead of the first of the year.

Once I hit the March 1 again, I’m not sure if I’ll do it again for 2016-2017 or if I do something different. I’ll decide when I get there.

Buddycast

Buddycast logo

I’ve started a podcast with a few buddies from a Slack room I hang out in. The show is called Buddycast. The idea is a show about technology, games, movies, TV, and whatever we feel like talking about. It doesn’t have a set release schedule nor roster. There’s a core group of four potential hosts and whoever is available on the day we decide to record is on the show.

I appear on episode 1: Technology as an Enabler and the recorded-but-not-yet-released Episode 3. Which may or may not be all about Leisure Suit Larry 4.

It’s been a lot of fun to be on the show and the whole idea behind it is no-stress, no business plan fun. We’re not trying for sponsors or to make money from it. We’re just looking to have a good time and share our conversations with anyone who may be interested in them. We a geographically diverse cast and a great collection of accents. I’m staring at the token white guy.

Origin Story

I started a project about the origins of the names we use online. Origin Story has been on hiatus as I lazily forgot to send out requests to more people for interviews.

I have three in the queue I’m ready to release but I need to collect some more so I can keep it going instead of posting a few, having months of nothing, then posting a few more.

It’s going to come back in 2016 and I’m going to try to keep it going more than I did last year.

Book

I’ve sat on a small book I wrote a few years ago called Beyond the Reboot. This is the year I do something with it. It’s a series of essays about customer service and tech support and what it takes to be a good tech.

This is the year I take the text files, get them professionally edited and release it to the world for a few dollars.

What Else?

I’ve really enjoyed podcasting. I can sit and talk and I don’t stutter and stammer as much as I tend to in life. I have every Monday off with my new job so I’m more flexible this year.

I’d love to partner with someone else on a project. I don’t know what yet. I’m a terrible idea guy. So if you have an idea and if you’re looking for a partner in crime, I could be your co-conspirator.

I don’t have any coding skills but I’m a passionate customer service and advocate for the user. I’m a recovering advertising major and former graphic designer and semi-decent photographer.

If you’ve got ideas I could be the one to help you see them through. Let’s talk!

Dial-up Fibers

We are all afraid of being alone.

We all went to the web to find out if the question we all had in our heads was true.

Am I alone?

Does anyone else feel like I do? Am I the only one who feels this way?

No.

We aren’t alone. That’s what the Internet was able to show us.

Back when it was the Information Superhighway or the World Wide Web. It was a big, flashing neon sign attracting nerds like flies.

I was one of those nerds. I was drawn to the flame. I craved the warmth and acceptance of other people like me. But I had no idea where to find them.

One School

I grew up in a county with one school. One middle school. One high school. One.

I went to high school with about 500 other people. I graduated in 2000 with 167 peers.

It was a small place and in that place I was the freak, the outcast. I was big enough to be the ideal football player. With no interest in being a tackling dummy.

I quit the varsity basketball team because it would mean missing our final Coffee House, which our Literary Magazine put on a few times per year to promote our publication and raise funds.

I knew who I was and what was most important to me. But there were not a lot of people like me. Later I learned there is no one like me. No one is like anyone else. We’re all our own people.

Lit Mag

Literary Magazine was a safe haven for me. I was able to be with artists and writers and musicians. I was able to share parts of myself that weren’t congruent with my 6’5″ and 250 pound frame. I was able to be myself.

I wasn’t the person I looked like. I wasn’t the stereotype people assumed.

I was my own person and that was a strange beast in my home town.

The Web

The web was a revelation. It was a place to go outside of my high school. It was a place I could be myself.

The web is about ideas. The web doesn’t care who you are or what you look like. The web is about information. Not appearance.

That’s what drew me in and why I keep going back.

I’m 34 now but I still feel like the same freak I was in high school.

I’ve never felt comfortable in my own skin. I skip around and follow wherever I see as the best path at a given time.

I used to feel like I knew who I was. But the deeper I look inside the less I feel I know myself.

But I know one thing. The friendships I’ve made online are keeping me going.

Some of my best friends are avatars. And those avatars are wonderful people I wouldn’t know what to do without.

From dial-up to fiber, the web is my home.

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