Woke up again this morning

[MattA]

Barely woke up this morning, the lack of sleep is accumulating. After a whole day with the job, kids, and chores, I still look forward going to my tiny tiny shop and do a little something related to one of the tractors. But it's catching up with me, going to sleep around 2AM every day, waking up several times during the night (babies crying) and waking up early in the morning. Not complaining, I would not trade my life with anyone. However tired I feel, I also feel blessed.

Yesterday our 21 months old, Timothy, said "daddy, start small tractor do garden" so we took the 644 for a spin through the garden with the moldboard plow. Was not necessary, but it felt so good. He really likes our tractors! And so do I!

Might be a good time to take a night off

My 3 month old sleeps through the night pretty much every night. I can't remember the last time she got me up. Now my 2.5 year old used to have me up 4, 5 or 6 time a night when she was little. I used to go to bed at 9pm and get up at 9am.

Glad to hear Timmy's talking well. I wish Lily, 2.5 year old would talk more.

[Eugen]

@MattA we get the occasional night with only one awakening. It's all good.

Lily will speak in her own time. My mom said I didn't speak until very late and they were concerned but I turned out ok. My wife said I should employ that early skill sometimes and be quiet. Our toddler is ahead of the pack it seems, he's parroting us quite a lot. They're all different.

Thanks for lending a ear guys!

[Eugen]

I know a guy who knows a little guy who has this story to tell.

He woke up on the morning of November 17th and, after giving it a few days thought, he asked his wife "should I send it?" She said go for it if you feel it's the right thing. So he sent his letter of resignation to one of his jobs (he was keeping two jobs). It was not bad money, the job was technically interesting, so why would he do that? To understand that, you need a little context. He was invited to this job by one of the researchers he was working with for many years. There is a group of researchers that were relying on him for all their technical needs, and this particular researcher was one of them, world famous. The group of researchers had revolutionized the field a few years ago and the government and many big name companies put money together to create a unique research institute, right downtown Toronto. Thus he was invited to build the compute cluster for them from scratch, which he did: design, purchase, and deploy, from cables to software to identity management, everything. That was in 2017, and he worked there part time until now. Researchers are a funny group, they like doing research, inventing new things, going to conferences, but they don't like being administrators. So the institute hired early on a guy to be in charge. The government also put one of their guys in a key position, since in part the institute is government funded. The guy in charge hired all kind of managers too. The technical team grew to three people, including the part time guy who's our main character. Sadly, pretty much from the beginning the guy at the top started to micromanage everybody. Our main character always saw himself as loyal to the researchers upon whose work the institute was built, so he tried to ignore the micromanaging as much as possible. But it was always an uphill battle. The big guy in charge and all the other big guys, all managers, directors, and such titles, seemed much more concerned with creating an image, than with creating content. This bothered our little guy very much, because he cared about the researchers who were doing the real work in the institute, and they're interests didn't seem to be well taken care of by the corporatists. Now the institute seemed pretty much "stolen" by people in power with their own agenda, from the people who not only provided the scientific results that made such an institute possible, but they're still doing so. But you see, the corporatists also saw that our little guy is a little bit of a rogue, not loyal to their god of imagery, and they didn't like that. So they systematically made it so that our little guy could have less and less impact on anything. They hired grossly incompetent people in management positions, and sent them to important meetings where key technical things were discussed, about the future of the compute in the institute, in the meanwhile making sure that our little guy who built the entire compute infrastructure was not invited. After three years of that, our little guy had enough and decided to leave.

What does this has to do with our forum, you might wonder. This forum exists because when a large company took over the other site, it seemed that the large company did not care about the people on whose presence and input the site was built in the first place. LIke the corporatists in the story above perhaps, they don't care about the people that matter.

And this is why I put this much work in creating a site, the forum, and so on. Because I don't like seeing corporatists who don't care about their staff, about their clients, about their users, etc. The very people who they should care the most about. You may say I'm an idealist. I'm ok with that. I appreciate the community, people helping other people, and they deserve to have a nice environment where that can be done, and be listened to when they have concerns, feedback, or suggestions.

[DavidBarkey]

Everyone has to do what is right for them .
In the last 40 years I have been a machinist , run a auto body shop , built race cars , auto mechanic , drive clean repair tech. and my skill beyond that are fairly good . My back force me to take a hard look at my career path . So why do I work on small tractors ? I could have done a number of other jobs that are easier and pay better . I have done my time so to speak and the slower pace suits me fine now . Besides the one thing I have found out, is the people that willing to have repaired and maintain there tractors are a better class of people than the throw away people . Well in my books anyways . And those are the people I wish to deal with these days .

Dave

[Gordy]

Unless you are self employed we have all had to deal with that at work. Some brown nosing, backside kisser wessels his way into a position he does NOT deserve.

This summer the job was building 4 miles of railroad bed for multi track siding. Big shots in the RR F---up by not getting the environmental permits, that put us 1 month behind. That sucked as we were in a drought and it was excellent weather for dirt work Then there are utilities crossing the job site that need to be lowered. The contractors to do this were chomping at the bit to get in and get it done, BUT again the RR management seemed to ignore all requests. So we had to work around the utilities, that meant digging sloped ditches with dams in them that held water and made the subsoil unusable for building up the low spots in the rail bed

Then the micro managing, penny pinching money grubbers suck their noses in and screwed things up SO BAD I mean who in their right mind would have you start a job in the middle to the finished grade when you are running scrapers and off road dump trucks (OR's) Just to clarify the scrapers haul 1/2 of what the OR's will, the OR's have a scale built in and the average load was 38-40 tons plus the trucks weight. As you can imagine these do a hell of a job at packing, to the point that they eventually force the water deep in the subsoil to the top and start making huge ruts So the finished grade is now low and the ditch walls have been forced out and need to be reworked I won't bore you with the rest of the foul ups, but there were many.

So yeah I know what you are talking about.

Gordy

[thebuildist]

I just got back from the funeral of one of the most generous and admirable men I know. For whatever reason unbeknownst to me, he took a shine to me a while back, and we've been friends ever since. He was 63 years old and in perfect health so far as we all knew. Cardiac arrest out of left field. They started CPR within seconds, but there was nothing the EMT's or doctors could do to bring him back.

I've never met any of you guys in person, but your character and priorities shine through in your posts. I know you're the kind of guys that don't take life for granted. I don't think I've ever read a single post on here that sounded stingy or mean spirited.

But if you ever slip up for a moment and forget that tomorrow isn't guaranteed for any of us, here's your reminder: Life is short. Do what's important first. Today, while you have the chance, be intentional, show your love for those whom God has put in your life. Give with an open hand. Don't keep score.

Happily, my friend Tim lived an exemplary life in this regard. No regrets on that score. As for me, I'm going to try a little harder.

Bob

[Eugen]

Sorry to hear about your friend Bob. So true what you say and never too often a reminder.

[Timj]

Nicely said Bob. Please accept my condolences for the loss of your friend.
Tim

[Spike188]

Bob, Thank you for your post. Your observations ring true with me and bring back some good memories of friends past. For me "trying a bit harder" means taking time to call or txt acquaintances to let them know they are on my mind. We just never know when that chance will be forever missed.

Spike

[thebuildist]

Thanks everyone for your kind words and condolences. I really appreciate it, and it's one of the reasons I'm glad this site exists.

For that, my thanks to Eugen in particular!

I'm sure I'll be ok, if I can just convince myself that it has actually happened. Because it still seems like it must be some bizarre dream.

But today I'm working on Christmas decorations, to better share the holidays with the wonderful people here in my neck of the woods.

Onward!