Email Jim at jim.thompson@ipulpmedia.com

It starts when you get out of bed in the morning. Do you make your bed or not? Depends on your personal standards.

Likewise, how you keep your work area, how you keep your automobile, whether you steal from others or lie, whether you put tools back where you found them or in a better place, these are your standards.

So don't say there are no standards--you started having standards before you went to school.

Back when I regularly hired people, in the course of the interview, I would ask if they minded if I took a look in their automobile. I don't think anyone ever turned me down, but some people did not get an offer after I looked at the pig pen they were driving around.

It is obvious that you cannot ask others to have standards that you don't have. So make sure you are doing what you asked others to do.

Having written over 2,500 columns in the last 25 years, I have writing styles and standards. They may not exactly follow any of the well-known published ones exactly, but they are my standards. I suspect it would be hard to change some of them at this point.

I have engaged in maintenance activities on automobiles and tractors since I was in the third grade. I admit to having gotten sloppier in my disassembly in recent years because there is now always the phone and its ubiquitous camera. I take pictures before and during taking things apart. This has caused me to lower my standards.

As an older person, some of my standards have become confused. Up until about 2000, I knew when to wear a coat and tie and when to eschew these decorations. Now, I am totally confused about what is appropriate to wear when and I don't think it is old age. Only at night, in the bedroom I share with my wife, am I completely comfortable with my attire.

Back to automobiles, how you park and where you park is a standard. Again, I have gotten a bit sloppy about perfectly lining up with the paint stripes here in my old age. When I ran large businesses, I destroyed any named parking places. In one business of about 150 employees, some approached me about named parking spaces. They said, "but you park by the door."

And I said, "but I get here at 6:30."

But to shut them up, from then on I always parked at the furthest spot in the lot, rain, shine or snow.

This same bunch, when we moved into the building we were in, tried to claim the corner offices. I quickly fixed that by making all the corner offices conference rooms.

Unless you own the business lock, stock and barrel, you are an employee. Employees should advance by merit, not privilege.

What standards do you have throughout all aspects of your life? Do some need adjusting?

Be safe and we will talk next week when it will be PULP RATS MONTH!

________

Other interesting stories: