2022 RETA Breeze March-April

SERVICE

The Shade Tree Mechanic volume XLIX

Diggin’ Dirt

Now I have a first-class mess. And why? I got stuff ta do! Stuff that don’t involve two knucklehead maintenance boys. I don’t even understand why they ran their mouths. Heck they bowl together every Friday night. But now I have to play peacemaker, like that Judge Judy lady. I’m going to sit them down and explain a few (Dale) Carnegie things to them. First of all, give everyone a reputation to live up to. If you have an all-star reputation you tend to act like an all-star. If you have a reputation of being a screwup, then you probably will be a screwup. Let’s face some facts, you want to work with an all-star! Your job is easier when you work with all-stars! If stuff isn’t breaking, your life is easier. If there isn’t a lot of rework going on, your life is easier. So, give your co-work- ers a reputation to live up to. Second, “If you don’t like my work tell me. If you like my work tell someone else.” It’s an old contractor saying. It may have been on more yellow page ads than any other phrase. That means if you think I screwed up tell me. That way I can fix it now and learn how not to do it in

look better to the receptionist lady, but in the end, you look like someone who can’t be trusted. Everybody loses. Jim McMahon never had to worry about Mike Singletary tackling him when his back was turned. If I think your gonna tell everyone in the plant, every time you find a mistake in my work, I don’t want you around. You’ll can just get! So Jimmy, Bobby and I are gonna have us a sit around the shade tree and discuss all of this in great detail. Hopefully, we can mend this and get back to making things other than our relationships cold again. The shade tree grows outside of the little town of Broughton, Ohio. Where everyone is always welcome, the beer is always cold, and something is always needin fixin.

Watching the NASCAR race from Bristol, Tennessee last night, it struck me that NASCAR drivers aren’t the only ones who like digging up dirt. Some of the boys in the maintenance shop like digging dirt too. Take the other day for example. Jimmy was working on a refrigerant pump. We keep losing seals in this one. Well Bobby rebuilt it a month ago. Now I don’t know if Bobby rebuilt it correctly or not. It ran pretty darn good for a month. Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. The pump is getting some age on it and maybe that ain’t help the seal life none. Regardless, when Jimmy tore it down, he found a piece of gasket. I don’t know if it was left during the rebuild or maybe if maybe it came loose and got sucked in the pump. It doesn’t matter at this point. Just fix it. Well Jimmy fixed it. Then he decided to dig a little dirt on Bobby. If Jimmy had talked with Bobby and told him about the bits of gasket, I wouldn’t have had a problem with it. I understand that there are times that things need to go to the boss man too. But hopefully, the guys get things squared away without me. But you know who he told? Everyone, everyone but Bobby and me. He even told the receptionist lady. She proceeded to tell Bobby’s girlfriend, who told Bobby. Then things got mighty uncomfortable. Bobby then proceeded to bring up everything Jimmy had done wrong since they started working together 10 years ago. But Bobby didn’t bring them up to Jimmy. Oh no! He decided to bring it up to everyone else. Including the receptionist lady, who told Jimmy.

the future. If you think I did a good job, feel free to tell my boss. It’s a great policy Bobby and Jimmy need to adopt it. Third, never make your teammate play defense. I know that sounds odd, but normally you only score on offense, so your team should always try to be on offense. When you attack a teammate and they

need to defend themselves, they are on the defensive, no one scores. You may think you

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