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Quality personnel for a quality enterprise. Part 1/3

I'm thinking about my days as an engineer in the US. I always was working for my dad, but physically I was often located in the offices of a partner company. That gave me an unbiased look into how these mini-kingdoms work, or fail to do so.

The first company we worked with actually went bankrupt for seemingly obvious reasons. At first glance you might have thought that the employees on the production floor were the problem. They were the smoking and weekend partying types.

But no; those guys worked hard and had their act together when they were welding or cutting metal. The real problem employees were the ones in the office being paid just as much or more money, but making decisions that cost the company dearly.

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Quality personnel for a quality enterprise. Part 2

Eventually the office staff of that first partner company ran it into the ground. I'm not sure how they even found time to make their mistakes. They seemed to spend entire workdays telling each other crude jokes and drinking coffee.

Fortunately for my Dad and I, another company nearby took on our project after our first partner went belly up. They had just bought all the necessary equipment and floor space necessary, and needed more work.

The one thing they lacked was people. Manual laborers, and office staff. Guess who came by looking for a job? Yes, the shop hands from the recently bankrupted place, AND the office workers!

When the shop hands walked in to submit their job application, I was happy to see them, and they seemed to know that I would put in a good word for them. The office workers on the other hand... One of them walked in, saw me, and walked right back out.

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Quality personnel for a quality enterprise. Part 3/3.

My dad's efforts to find a reliable business to partner with in building our machine went on for several years. Finally he found a farming family that didn't really have the facilities or equipment to take on the job, but they seemed to be reliable people of faith.

Partnership with them has worked out well, and now my dad's dream of stepping out of manufacturing and focusing on education of farmers is now a reality.

If you're curious about the machine they are building, you can find it on my dad's YouTube channel; https://youtube.com/@jimmartindale?feature=shared

This is very close to what I predicted on February 7th of this year. Trump claiming President Putin refused to sign a peace deal. I'm not interested in any of my other predictions coming true, but it's not looking good.

https://news.1rj.ru/str/infodefENGLAND/27960

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Growing up, one thing that always made a big impression on me were my dad's stories. How he grew up on a farm, raced stock-cars as a teenager, his college days, and adventures in Alaska.

It wasn't all fun and games though. He would tell stories that were to warn about things to avoid too. He had a way of telling stories in a very animated, and thus unforgettable way, especially for an impressionable child.

When I ended up in Bogoyavlenka, I was once again very glad that dad had told me about the guy who couldn't barely move or talk until he had drunk his morning coffee. Or the other guy who after getting lost in an Alaskan winter, and being found was given a cup of coffee that killed him.

In a warzone being dependant on coffee for energy or concentration can be severely inconvenient if not fatal. Thanks, dad!

It kind of goes without saying, but I could say just about the same about cigarettes and alcohol.

My mom just wrote to say that it was the sugar in the coffee that killed the guy. Should I write about why sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, and splenda are all deadly?

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Funny how some of the best things that happen to a person at first seem to be a curse. That was the case in China when I lived there with my parents, brothers and sisters in 2009-2010.

I was working for my Dad, but that wasn't my only occupation. In order to have permission to stay in the country, I needed a visa. The easiest way to get one was to be a student at a local high school and learn Chinese. This meant being in school three days a week at 8AM.

At that time of day in our little city of Hunchun in 2009, we didn't have hot water in our apartment! The options were cold and very cold, depending on the season. I learned to take cold showers in the morning! And I probably have a stronger heart today thanks to this habit. At first it was forced on me, but I learned to enjoy it. How many of you know the adrenaline rush from being doused with cold water? 😁

Knowing how to play penguin came in handy during my time in Bogoyavlenka too.

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For all the fun I had designing and building machinery with my dad, I can't say it's my favorite kind of work.

Watching a helpless pile of pipe and plate-steel turn into a useful, working machine is gratifying, but it isn't the best. The skills you learn building machinery are useful for many things, and I think I found the place where they are the most rewarding.

For work to be truly satisfying, I have found that there needs to be new life. What could be better than the birth of a pair of kid goats, or when a dozen ducklings crack open their shells?

It's almost as rewarding to watch them grow. That's when all those engineering skills come into play to invent ways of keeping the babies safe, fed, watered, and warm.

Upd: This is Belan, and Chomyachok in the background.

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Imagine for a second that Mexican cartels were carrying out drone attacks on US strategic airfields and civilian infrastructure in the southern states, and sometimes striking as far as Washington D.C. Do you think Americans would be calling for Mexico to be turned into a glass parking lot? You bet they would.

And what if the reason the US military was hesitating to take decisive action against the cartels was because the cartels were being supported by the Mexican government, which was in turn being supported by China? What if China was actually arming the cartels and possibly considering giving them nuclear weapons? Would Americans be demanding that Mexico AND China be turned into glass parking lots?

Now do a "find and replace"; Mexico with Ukraine, and China with the USA, USA with Russia. That was already obvious, right?

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All of those animal lives come to an end though, and much quicker than with humans. Perhaps God planned it that way, so that we could be reminded many times during our lifetime that we won't live forever either.

You learn to see death as a natural part of life.The kid goat that seems to have been born yesterday is already a fully grown adult in a year's time, and it's time for him to go. If you let him live, he might live for ten years, but he won't be any happier for it, and neither will you. Better to harvest him while he's young. The meat will make you healthier and stronger. That's why you've been feeding him for a year anyways. You learn to look at death differently.

The sacrifice that soldiers are making in the trenches begins to make more sense too. We all die someday. The only difference is in how we die, and how we lived. «Was it worth it»?

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Living in an active warzone helps you prioritize. No, I don't mean whether it's more important to spend time in reflection or with family, better to rent a house or buy, spend money on expensive tools or not. I mean whether or not to leave your bomb shelter.

You might need more water, and turning the faucet stopped working over a year ago, but going to the well could cost you your life for several different reasons. A kamikaze drone might decide you look like a soldier and try to kill you! Or there might be another bombing, or shelling any minute! Is it worth it? Or should I drink the 2 year old pickle juice in my cellar instead? That would be pretty dumb to get killed over not wanting to drink pickle juice. Yeah, let's do pickle juice.

I just finished putting my pickle juice away, and there was another shelling. The dust cloud is rising over where Sasha, and his son Sanya live! Is it worth it? Would it be dumb to get killed going to potentially save your neigbbor? No! You jump on your bike, axe, prybar, bucket and gloves attached and away you go!

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🎣 What's the best time you ever had fishing?

For somebody it might the time Grandad took you, first nightcrawler hunting, then down to the river to catch a trout that was as long as you were tall. Or maybe he took you noodling and you caught a catfish that just about swallowed your whole arm!

Or is every time you go still the best time you ever had? The one time in a blue moon that you get a break from coworkers and "other people".

You might think that I'm giving examples from my life, but I have to admit that's not the case😁.