ZachEvans

Believer. Husband. Dad. Coach. Healthcare Thought-Leader. All-Around Good Guy.

Miscellany

Random Acts of Kindness

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There was a time when Waffle House did not accept debit cards. There was also a time when neither Mandy nor I carried much (if any) cash with us. If we needed cash we would stop at an ATM and take out only what we needed and we would use our debit card for everything else. These two facts collided on Easter Sunday in 2000 and resulted in me being on the receiving end of a random act of kindness.

Mandy and I had been married less than a year and decided not to visit family for Easter. We were living in a fairly small apartment and did not feel like cooking so we decided to go to Waffle House for lunch–on Easter Sunday (we both agreed). The Waffle House in Brentwood must be the nicest, cleanest Waffle House in the country and there always seems to be a wait on Sunday mornings after people get out of church. We had already waited in line and been shown to our table when we realized that we only had about $9 between us in cash for our meal and tip for our server.

A few furious minutes of negotiating ensued as we both gave up something we had originally wanted and agreed on what we could share so that our total bill would be about $8 with $1 left over for a tip. We then proceeded to order our food an enjoyed our meal and, more importantly, our time together.

After finishing our meal we asked our waitress for our check. She proceeded to tell us that a regular customer of this particular Waffle House had paid our bill for us and that we did not owe anything. We were shocked. Blown away. Who does that? Why would a stranger do that for us? My best guess is that we were seen as a young couple (22 and 23), eating at a Waffle House on Easter Sunday, that had little money given that we were attempting to eat on $8. We must have been a pretty pitiful sight to behold.

The individual that paid our check did not know that we had money in the bank to pay for the meal, just not cash in our pockets.

That is not the point, however.

The point is that a total stranger felt compassion in their heart and decided to help someone out that had less than they did (or at least appeared that way). We were the recipients of a random act of kindness and the story of our first Easter Sunday together at Waffle House has become one of our favorites to retell. I was even presented with an opportunity to play the role of the generous stranger over a decade later when I saw a young couple in the same Waffle House trying to decide what to order because they did not have much money to spend.

I felt privileged to be able to be able to quietly pay their check and leave without ever being noticed.

It is all to easy to get caught up in the big efforts that we want to contribute to. The kind of efforts that take a great deal of time, energy and resources to complete. These efforts are worthy and should always be a part of our service to others. Just do not let them be the only service that you render. Keep your eyes open for those times when you can display a random act of kindness to someone else that may need just a little bit of help. Do not do it to be seen or recognized. Simply do it because it is the right thing to do. The good thing to do. The kind thing to do.

I promise that you will feel plenty good about your actions when it is all over, even if you are the only one that ever knows what just took place.

Inbox Overload

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Ask most people what the top two or three challenges in their day-to-day work lives is and it is likely that somewhere on that list will be: “I just get SO MANY emails. I really do not know how to deal with all of them!” As an individual that averages between 150 – 200 emails a day, I can certainly understand this feeling (of course, my iPhone 4 checks three different accounts: H2U, Lipscomb and Gmail) but, do be honest, I rarely ever get to the exasperation stage.

One reason for this is that I set a personal goal that, at the end of any given day, I will have fewer than 20 emails in any given inbox (that would be a total of 60 between the three that I actively manage, for those of you counting at home). How do you do that, you ask? It is simple: I do not use my inbox as a filing cabinet.

Outlook, Eudora, Thunderbird or whatever your desktop email solution of choice is simply was not designed to be used in this manner. Most people, however, try to manage their email this way. They keep hundreds (or thousands) of emails in their inbox and then try to remember who sent what when if they need to find a particular email.

You actually become less productive when you keep all of your emails in one place instead of creating folders (Outlook) or using tags (Gmail). You may think that you will do better with everything in one place but it is simply not true. You just have to take a peak in your home junk drawer to understand how true this is.

A Degree in Philosophy Doesn’t Guarantee Me A Job?

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I’ve written before about the crisis of student loans that is facing a large number of young people today. A recent study by the Center on Education and the Workforce at Georgetown University further drives home one of my biggest points:

…we argue that college remains the best alternative for young workers with one caveat: Not all majors are created equal. Some majors offer substantially better employment prospects than others.

While I completely agree with the sentiment, why would it come as a surprise that unemployment rates vary greatly among recent college graduates and that there is a correlation between what degree the student has and that rate?

Update: 5 College Degrees that Aren’t Worth Cost

Goodbye to The Office (Again)

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A while ago I wrote about my experience as a remote worker for the better part of five years. Overall, it was a positive experience that allowed me to spend extra time with my boys and avoid the mess of a daily commute.

Now there are new studies pointing to how flexible work environments are leading to healthier employees.

…a rigorous study out of Stanford recently supported claims that remote work increases productivity. Now another study led by University of Minnesota sociology professor Phyllis Moen is doing the same for results-only work environments (known as ROWE) with a careful examination of Best Buy’s experiment in flexibility.

Earlier studies also found that employees with flexible work environments and schedules were found to be more productive as well. I experienced this result personally but at a personal sacrifice: I was working 70-80 per week. Every week. Even when I wasn’t in my home office I was still working. Even when I was supposed to be on vacation. That’s one of the things that flexibility brought me.

Granted, part of this is due to the fact that I have workaholic tendencies and part of this is that I truly love what I do. Part of this, however, is because I was never able to get away from the office. The office was always right downstairs. The first thing I did every morning? Go in to my office. The last thing I did every day? Go in to my office. It was simply hard for me not to.

I did have added flexibility to go to the doctor and exercise but it was most definitely a double-edged sword. I also had a fully-stocked pantry with snacks for my boys that didn’t cost me $1.00 at the vending machine. There are days when I miss working from home but there are certainly benefits of being back in an office. We may all work remotely one day in the future but let’s at least approach that possibility with our eyes wide open.

Being the Newbie

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I have given several lectures at Lipscomb regarding professional networking. Back in the late 1990s I became a huge advocate of networking after I saw the benefits when it helped me land a full-time internship while I was staring a rapidly-approaching wedding date in the face.

I did not know many people in Nashville but I had a college professor that took an interest in me (thanks Randy) and made the first few introductions for me. With this being pre-LinkedIn I kept track of my phone calls and meetings on a set of note cards that eventually became a rudimentary online tracking tool that I programmed myself. One meeting led to another and I soon found myself in a salaried position with LBMC Technologies.

How was able to swing so many meetings with some very high-powered individuals in the Nashville business community? It was simple: I acknowledge that I was just a dumb college kid that did not know much and that needed to borrow some wisdom from individuals that were much wiser than me. I was not being flip about this, I was serious and it opened up a lot of doors for me.

You absolutely cannot lean on that logic for long but it is true that people do not take advantage of being the newbie on the team enough. It is OK to admit that you do not know everything and that you may need some help for a bit. You need to transition to a productive employee quickly but there is a honeymoon period…and you should not be afraid to take advantage of it!

Image source: Atwater Village Newbie

Another Wall is Coming Down

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A decade ago I working as the Director of E-Commerce for a footwear manufacturer in Franklin. We were a 100-plus year old company that sold primarily to retailers or direct in to industries where safety footwear was required. I was hired to start up a direct-to-consumer business for this $150 million company.

At that point in time, footwear web sites were some of the few places online that were offering free shipping (and most–including us–offered free returns as well). This practice was a nod to the fact that shoes and boots from different labels fit differently and we wanted to encourage shoppers to try on our products.

Remember, at that point in time online retailers were using excessive shipping charges to pad their margin numbers so that they could advertise lower prices than their bricks-and-mortar brethren were offering offline. Over time, however, this practice began to change to the point where, today, almost half of all online orders now include free shipping.

For many consumers, shipping chargers were a barrier that kept them from purchasing online unless the price differentials were large enough to make up the cost. As this wall continues crumble, it’s no wonder that online retailers such as Amazon continue to consume more of our spending.

One of the drivers behind this is Amazon Prime where users pay a flat annual fee to access free two-day shipping and discounted overnight shipping. As a Prime customer, I can tell you that my shopping habits have been changed by the fact that shipping costs are no longer a consideration.

How about you?

UPDATE: The walls continue to crumble. “Amazon’s Endless.com Debuts Free International Shipping To 50+ Countries“.

$1 trillion? Really!?!

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It’s being reported that, in 2010, student loans outpaced credit card debt for the first time in history. The total amount of student load debt currently outstanding: Almost $1 trillion (that’s $1,000,000,000,000 for those of you counting at home).

One major reason for the growth: People have been heading back to school in large numbers due to job loss and the thought that additional education will make them more marketable once the economy starts to turn around. Given that many of these new students are out of work, it’s not surprising that they’re financing their degrees with debt.

In the interest of full disclosure, both Mandy and I financed our undergraduate degrees at Lipscomb with student loan debt (about $30,000 between the two of us) and we took out even more loans when she went back to graduate school at Belmont. Fortunately, my employer paid for my MBA at MTSU so we ended up needing to pay back about $60,000 plus interest. Our last student loan was paid off in early 2010 (Thanks Dave).

Seth Godin wrote an interesting blog post recently asking if students are actually buying an education or a brand with all of that money. In it he states:

Does a $40,000 a year education that comes with an elite degree deliver ten times the education of a cheaper but no less rigorous self-generated approach assembled from less famous institutions and free or inexpensive resources?

If not, then the money is actually being spent on the value of the degree, on the doors it will open and the jobs it will snag. If this marketing strategy works big, it pays for itself in no time.

This is a perfect example of why I chose MTSU over Vanderbilt for my MBA degree. I really wanted to go to Vanderbilt and could have, but for me and my career, it just wasn’t worth the money. Vanderbilt’s MBA program is world-class but what you’re really paying all of that money for (and giving up two year’s worth of salary in their full-time program for) is the Vanderbilt name and the alumni network you can now tap in to.

From an education perspective, however, you take away benefits pretty much equaling the effort that you put in to the program. For me, that meant working my tail off for two-and-a-half years while still working a full-time job, traveling quite a bit, and starting a family. (One of my favorite graduate school stories has me having to pay a fee for an overweight bag on a flight to Las Vegas for a trade show because I had too many textbooks tucked in among my dress shirts and slacks.)

I’m confident enough in my work ethic, knowledge, and experience that I know I’d hold my own alongside any of my Owen-degreed counterparts that the additional cost just wasn’t worth it (although I would still love a PhD from Vanderbilt).

Education is a silver bullet for a lot of issues, but I agree with Mr. Godin that the benefits may not offset the costs. If college is about educating people for their future, maybe we need to start with educating people that spending $100,000 on a philosophy degree from an Ivy League school may not be a good investment.

Productive Mornings for the Night Owl

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I admit it: I’m a bit of a night owl. The habit (because it IS a habit) started in college. When I was at Lipscomb we had a pretty strict curfew (12:00 AM during the week, 1:00 AM on the weekends). For me, this meant that the bulk of my study time didn’t start until after midnight because I wanted to spend all of my free time with friends or my girl-friend (and future wife).

This meant that, regularly, I wouldn’t get in to bed until 2:00 AM or later, which made early morning classes quite a chore for me. Enter my wife, Mandy, who I mentioned above.

Mandy is a morning person. It’s not that she doesn’t need much sleep (she does) but that she doesn’t like sleeping in because it takes away productive hours from the day. This isn’t much of an issue any more because we have three small boys at home who wake up between 6:30 and 7:30 AM pretty much regardless of what time they go to bed the night before.

I’ve been able to pick up some good habits from my wife (although not nearly as many as she would like me to, I’m sure) and the need to get up and get going is one of them. The problem is that I just don’t have much energy in the morning and it still takes me quite a long while to get going (or, as Mandy puts it, I like to piddle in the morning).

Two recent articles, one on the effects of morning workouts and one on personal effectiveness, are re-motivating me to take another look at my early morning habits and see if I can wring just a bit more out of life by taking advantage of all of the hours God has blessed me with.

Well, that and the fact that I’ve signed up (again!) to run a half-marathon in April and will need the early morning hours for the workouts necessary to get ready.

What about you? Are you a morning person or a night owl?