“If you’re kinda uncoordinated, just do things slower”

I remember the day it happened.  I took my stand and told my mother and father that I was striking out on my own.  No longer did I need their daily counsel and companionship, I was ready to make my mark flying solo.  So I packed my bags (mostly socks as I recall) and threw it in the back of my leaky convertible, and headed off to my own place. 

After a week of eating out, I decided it was time to make my own feast.  Hey, I had pots, pans, plates and flatware.  How difficult could it be to make sloppy joe sandwiches?  Amazingly that package of ground beef didn’t have the recipe on it, and as a ‘guy’, I certainly had never gotten the Betty Crocker Cookbook.  So I did what any self respecting emancipated young man would do – I called my mother and got the recipe.  I think she knew that giving me a recipe was as futile as giving me ballet lessons.

After a dinner that I ate – and the dog wouldn’t – I decided to look at a leaky faucet I had.  Who knew that even the lowliest of handymen would think it prudent to turn off the water supply prior to disassembling the faucet?  Along with the fountain – quite majestic really – I was amazed at how something so simple could have so many parts.  Pick up the phone, call dad.   My father, pictured here, grew up on a farm and became a crop supervisor for Campbell Soup Company.  Like most farm boys, he grew up fixing things.  I still stand in awe at what he could fix with a hammer and bailing wire. Because of this, he became my Betty Crocker of cars, electricity and plumbing.  My calls habitually started with, “Hey dad, how do you?”  If he had caller-id, I’m sure he would have stopped answering calls during my Saturday morning projects. But he always, answered and always gave good advice.

If one of my sons calls me and starts with “Hey dad, how do you”, I get on line and go to www.ehow.com.  As soon as Jason says “‘car”, I click on ‘automotive’.  When I hear “broke” or “won’t”– I click on ‘Repair’.  When he mentions “idle”, I start listing the things he should do to adjust the idle on a carburetor.  This article stars with the sage advice of “determine whether your car has a carburetor”.  If we just hit a wall and nothing seems to work, I jump to the section titled ‘Communicate Effectively with your Mechanic’.

eHow and its partner site wikiHow just published their 5,000^th article. After just one year,  these two sites are visited by nearly a million people a month.  Virtual help desks exist for a wide variety of subjects including  relationships, finance, food, health games, garden, pets, and travel.  Some of the most popular include: how to sweep a girl off her feet, how to read 12 digit UPC barcodes, how to spin around a pencil with your thumb, how to solve a su doku puzzle, and my personal favorite, how to whistle with your fingers.

How many times do you make a call that starts with “Hey (insert name here), how do you …?”  When you make that call, it is usually to a relative or a very good friend.  We don’t like to seem unknowledgeable to our casual acquaintances.  Do you suppose your customer’s have questions that they just don’t feel comfortable asking you?  Using the eHow model, you could document the ‘how to’ and make your customers more self sufficient.  It might be securing an anhydrous tank against theft, or cleaning out a spray nozzle before you start spraying, or maybe some fundamentals on marketing their crops. Any of these helps make your customer more successful – and that should be the goal of us all – make everyone in the industry stronger and more successful.  

I wish I had heard the sage advice in the title about appearing uncoordinated earlier.  I found this one in the “How to be Cool” instructions.  This article, in the “teen life” section, talks about being you, getting involved and not joining the Geeks of America Club.   They caution that if you do all of the things they list to be cool, there’s a good chance that you will have the opposite effect.  That’s always been my problem.