Does anyone try to educate?

Most of the time, probably due to my youth, any advice or education I try to provide is either ignored or is angrily rejected. I'll keep giving it though, because of that 5% where you see the light bulb turn on or the 1% when someone is sincerely inspired. A little bit of gratitude goes a long way for me.

Keep up the good work Oldman47 !

 

Sometimes if I can.Other times they don't wanna listen,either other customers or store employees.Some employees don't care,think they know already or its ''don't bother me,I'm late for my coffee break''

Over the years things have changed,just depends on whether I feel like saying anything or might be in a hurry...

 

I've heard many times,“When the student is ready, the teacher will appear”. I think this forum is a great example of educating people who are willing to listen. I myself joined a while back so that I could take advantage of other peoples wisdom. This is my first post, and I want you all to know that your insight and advice is not falling on deaf ears. Please don't stop trying to educate, there are a lot of us that rely on it. Oh, by the way, my name is John and I am a wood hoarder.

 

Prime example.
I've spent the better part of the last 27 years in the FW business trying to convince the public to buy their wood 2 years in advance. I have not convinced a single customer.

 

Every time I wear a blue shirt to Menard's or academy sports I get asked for advice ...or at least where something is...because they think I work there. I try not to wear blue shirts....

 

Very cool, and yes I try to ease the complexity for folks, as long as they are receptive. I have been known to point out the advantages of making an OPE purchase at an independent dealer as opposed to a box, or fleet store as well. Once I explain the set up, warranty registration, and offered incentives, most folks are willing to listen. I like my local independent dealers, and I have no problem helping them. I even sold a snow blower one day, for my Husqvarna dealer when he was busy with two other customers.

 

I wasn't even wearing a blue shirt.

Welcome to the forum Viewfinder.

 

one of the things I do with employees is to give them an odd question to answer, usually mathematic. If they get the answer I give them 50 points..... literally a post it note that I write 50 points on.
its all in fun, makes them think about something and they actually brag about who got the points. Brings fun to the day, it is a lot easier now with the internet but still fun.
I have also brought in pieces, parts, tools from my aerospace days and have them figure out what they are, some of those have taken days. There are a couple they are still working on after a few months.

 

This made me think about a story that got passed around the office a few years back:

When I was a younger person, my first full-time adult-type job was designing automatic fire sprinkler systems. It was an eye-opening and educational experience, and even though the job basically sucked, I learned all kinds of crazy stuff in that job that I use daily in my present-day non-sucky job, so I can't complain.

One interesting lesson was learned at the hand of the Chief Superintendant, Bob. Bob was in charge of installing the systems that me and my group designed. People who put things in, I quickly learned, have a wealth of knowledge and experience about things that people who only design never gain. As a result, when I first started in that job, I wound up going and bugging Bob for answers on a regular basis.

This annoyed Bob. Bob liked to sit in his office and shoot the chit with his buddies on the topics of fishing or hunting. He did not like fielding questions from young designers. This was especially true because, in his opinion, many of the questions could be answered by me, without bothering him, if I would just think about it the right way. At one point he got fed up. When I came into his office and opened my mouth to start asking whatever question I had, he told me to stop.

Bob pointed into a corner of the office. "Over there," he said, "is a stuffed duck. I want you to ask that duck your question."

I looked at the duck. It was, in fact, stuffed, and very dead. Even if it had not been dead, it probably would not have been a good source of design information. I looked at Bob. Bob was dead serious. He was also my superior, and I wanted to keep my job.

I awkwardly went to stand next to the duck and bent my head, as if in prayer, to commune with this duck. "What," Bob demanded, "are you doing?"

"I'm asking my question of the duck," I said.

One of Bob's superintendants was in his office. He was grinning like a bastard around his toothpick. "Andy," Bob said, "I don't want you to pray to the duck. I want you to ASK THE DUCK YOUR QUESTION."

I licked my lips. "Out loud?" I said.

"Out loud," Bob said firmly.

I cleared my throat. "Duck," I began.

"Its name is Bob Junior," Bob's superintendant supplied. I shot him a dirty look.

"Duck," I continued, "I want to know, when you use a strap hanger, what keeps the sprinkler pipe from jumping out of the strap when the head discharges, causing the pipe to..."

In the middle of asking the duck my question, the answer hit me. The strap hanger is suspended from the structure above by a length of all-thread rod. If the pipe-fitter cuts the all-thread rod such that it butts up against the top of the pipe, it essentially will hold the pipe in the hanger and keep it from bucking.

I turned to look at Bob. Bob was nodding. "You know, don't you," he said.

"You run the all-thread rod to the top of the pipe," I said.

"That's right," said Bob. "Next time you have a question, I want you to come in here and ask the duck, not me. Ask it out loud. If you still don't know the answer, then you can ask me."

"Okay," I said, and got back to work.

In the months that followed, I had many questions. I followed Bob's directions and asked the duck my questions. I believe that 50% of the time, asking the duck produced the answer.

Why does this work? I am not sure. I think there is something about framing your question as a verbal inquiry that causes your brain to work on it differently. You turn the question around and see it from another angle -- the angle of the person answering the question. This, in turn, causes your own brain to put itself in the answerer's shoes -- and, because we are basically clever apes, we have the tools to come up with smart ideas all on our own.

Fast forward to my current job. I am no longer a young designer. I am now an officer in a medium-size engineering firm. I do less designing than managing these days. And I get asked a lot of questions.

A few months back, after being interrupted for the sixth time that day by a very smart young engineer who had a question for me, I chose not to answer. Instead, I took the young man down the hall from my office and into a huddle room. Hanging in the huddle room was a photograph of our company's founder shaking hands with a politician.

"This," I said, "is Newt Gingrich, 58th Speaker of the US House of Representatives, and he is generally considered a smart fellow, even by those who despise him." My young engineer looked up at Newt, wondering where on Earth this could possibly be going, just as I had done with Bob and the duck many years ago.

I get less questions these days. But I think my young engineers get better answers, because there is no thinking quite so well-understood as thinking you do for yourself, even if you get a little help from a duck, or a politician, even one I loathe.

 

this sounds like fun!

 

Various folks I volunteer with have been very receptive to chainsaw-maintenance workshops we've conducted. In fact we're waiting to convene the next on a couple of topic areas of interest. Yes, motivation is the best tool, and they're enjoying the fruits of their labors. Self-propagating.

All very open and democratic.

 

In the real world I have tried to educate on a multitude of levels in variety of subject areas, but due to #1, my being female, and #2, my being older than most of them, I usually get that blank look as though I'm speaking in a foreign tongue all together or the yeah right, what does she know type look.

So I quit trying to educate and just go about my business without saying a word. If someone asks, I'll just send them to an older male that "knows" because after all, I'm just some dumb old lady, so what do I know.

 

Some people just can't be told nothing. You even see that in some of the threads here or other forums lol. I think the absolute worst thing is when people have an opinion, but no knowledge on a particular subject. And then argue against what you "know" to be true.

On a different forum, I was trying to walk a newb through figuring out his Englander 17 problems, and another member, who doesn't even have the same stove as us, was dismissing and disagreeing with my advice!! Takes a special kind of person to do that.

 

I hear that attitude at home all the time Star Gazer. I don't know where she gets it. If I find someone who knows what I want to find out, I am all ears.

 

One thing I figured out when I was in my teens is that older people have a lot of knowledge and wisdom especially people 50 60 70 years old, and if you're willing to listen you can learn a lot from them, that's why I liked to talk to any older people that I encountered, not just my parents.
I saw that many people my age did not want to talk to older people maybe because they thought they already knew everything I don't know.
As I got older though I realized too that some people younger or even much younger than me may know more about some things than I do, and I can learn from them also.
I have seen many older people that will not listen or try to learn anything from anyone Younger, and that's a big mistake.

 

If Dad was still here I would be asking him; however, dad is gone so now I have the FHC for my questions.