Yes, I Do Have a Hole in My Head

Fortunately I worked with a great surgeon and he took out a non-cancerous tumor, the size of a golf ball, attached to my brain. Afterwards he told me I would be just as good as I was before the surgery. I was very disappointed because I wanted to be better. Such is life.

For a couple of weeks I could barely read as the tumor was attached to my left optic nerve and the surgery left me with blurred vision. It is now better and I have looked forward to getting back to being a blogger.

Why am I writing about this now? Because I was in a teaching hospital with 400 beds and 22 operating rooms. And everything went perfectly. It has to because of the whole life and death concept. There were 13 folks in the room during the surgery and while I was awake for the first five minutes, everyone knew what to do without asking questions.

Does your glass company have this level of quality control? Think about it. How many phone calls do you get from foremen asking what to do at a jobsite? How many call-backs do you get? How many times do you bring the wrong tools to a site? The lack of planning needed to make a jobsite perfect is what puts most companies in deep danger, financially.

You are not holding someone’s brain; you are holding your company and your employees’ futures. One sure fix to glass installation problems is to have very good training for your teams. Once a month, have a training day in your building. Practice on a new type of metal, or on using new tools. Make a checklist of what should be on each of your trucks every day and make sure your lead person checks this before they leave in the morning. Listen to your field people for their needs.

This investment in time will be well worth it.

Back to the surgery for a minute. I have a wonderful and caring 34-year-old son who is a wise guy with a great sense of humor. He was here for the Thanksgiving weekend and during dinner he asked me, “Dad, now that you have this big hole in your brain, what are you going to do with it?” Then the other 17 people here started giving suggestions on how to fill the hole. Well the hole is still there and I am looking for ways to fill it.

To all, I wish good health.