You can't fake passion

OK, I'll wait a moment while you make whatever jokes popped into your head when you read that headline...

<PAUSE>

I am of course talking about the G-rated passions in your life, whether it's a hobby, a charity, or the focus of this post, your job.

One of the advantages of having worked in so many different places since the early 90s is that I have gained a wide perspective on what makes a great workplace.

The perks are always nice, of course, and I have nothing against those employers who install slides, ping pong tables, gaming consoles, etc. in their office. And hey, no one is going to complain when a bonus check shows up on payday.

But as cliché as it sounds, the best workplaces are the ones with the best people. And more to the point, people who love what they're doing and the organization for which they're doing it.

It is an absolute struggle to work in a place where employees are ambivalent about their jobs. No matter how conscientious you are, you'll feel that lack of energy personally, and it will undoubtedly affect your performance.

One of the first things I noticed about Goodyear is that people there love the company and feel a strong loyalty toward the brand. This may be attributable to the fact that so many of them have worked there for 20, 30 or even 40 years. There are lots of long-timers at the Home of the Winged Foot, and their personal identities are often wrapped up in Goodyear's identity.

In many ways, the same was true when I was at Vitamix. It's a family-owned company that has much to recommend it as an employer, and people are justly proud of the organization and its products.

This is especially helpful as a corporate communicator. When someone loves what they do and you talk with them about it for, say, a company video or intranet article, it's immediately obvious. It's not the kind of thing you can pretend.

If you're not truly all in, I can tell within 10 seconds. And the resulting communication is going to reflect that, no matter how much I try to pretty it up.

I haven't been at Goodyear long enough to have developed that connection myself, but I do hope it happens.

The problem is that, when it does, this blog will no longer be called 5 Kids, 1 Wife, but probably something like "4 Tires, 1 Car."

And nobody really wants to see that.

Deciphering what "business casual" really means in your office

Over my 30 years in the full-time workforce, I have worked in enough places for enough companies with enough people to know that the single most difficult thing for many employees is figuring out exactly what the "business casual" dress code means.

It seems simple enough, but there's a whole lot of room for interpretation under the business casual umbrella. As with many things in life, it's probably even tougher for women, but I can only speak from the male perspective here.

Look up "business casual men" online and you'll see everything from sport coats with button-up shirts on one end of the spectrum to nice t-shirts with jeans on the other. And of course a whole bunch in between.

In my first real job at The News-Herald, we in the sports department always went with the "extreme casual" look, which meant shorts in the summer and jeans with sweatshirts in the winter. The news side reporters wore shirts and ties, whereas we all looked like we had just come from a frat party.

Later, when I entered the 9-to-5 world, I also went the shirt-and-tie route most days, and even the everyday-suit look when I was at the Cleveland Clinic.

But for most of the past 20 years, business casual has been the rule with my employers. And I've always taken my cues from both company leaders and my immediate peers. Whatever they wear, that's what I'll generally wear.

Granted, if I err, it's almost always on the side of dressing a bit more professionally, which could be a generational thing and/or having learned to dress for work from my dad. He was a data processing/computer guy who always went with a shirt and tie.

I recently took one of my every-three-year shopping trips to Kohl's to stock up on work clothes, and the load of stuff I brought home was heavy on button-up shirts and different-colored dress pants. I'm already well-stocked with khakis and have enough different kinds of shoes and belts to create nearly endless color and style combinations.

But again, the way I dress is largely dictated by what I see around me at Goodyear. And what I see around me are a whole lot of engineers and tech types who, it must be said, subscribe heavily to the stereotype of how you think engineers and techies dress. So maybe the bar isn't set as high as it might otherwise be, particularly in an older, traditionally more conservative company like Goodyear.

I will say that our CEO often wears jeans, and that sets a pretty relaxed tone.

So it you're confused about business casual, pay close attention to your co-workers, particularly those of the same gender (obviously) and job level as you. You'll figure it out quickly enough.

I would leave the Led Zeppelin shirt at home, though. Even if the CEO is a big fan.

Here's one advantage the people of Luxembourg have over Americans

There is an old joke that goes something like this: If you speak three languages, you're trilingual. If you speak two languages, you're bilingual. If you speak one language, you're American.

To be fair, there are obviously a whole lot of non-Americans in the world who only speak one language. But compared to our friends in say, Europe, we here in the U.S. of A tend to be a little lacking in terms of our linguistic diversity.

I have become more acutely aware of this fact in recent weeks as I've conducted meet-and-greet meetings with my new colleagues at Goodyear. We have a very substantial operation in Luxembourg, and virtually every person to whom I speak from there could be classified as quadrilingual (if that's a word). They all seem to know French, German, Luxembourgish and English.

And not only do they speak those four languages, they speak them pretty well. A good number of them also speak Italian or Dutch...and, interestingly, Portuguese (as a full 18% of Luxembourg's inhabitants are of Portuguese descent).

Luxembourg is a really small country, so it's heavily influenced by its geographic neighbors. What's more, the population literally rises by one-third every day when thousands of Belgians, French, and Germans drive into the country to work there. It then goes back to normal levels when they all leave around 5pm.

Isn't that cool?

I asked Alex, a Goodyear communications manager in Luxembourg, how you know which language to speak when you walk into a store in Luxembourg. He said a lot of the time you just know, but when you're not sure, you just look at the signs and listen to the people around you, and you immediately slip into the appropriate tongue.

That's also very cool, at least to me.

You may not have known that "Luxembourgish" is a language, but it is. Alex tells me it's really just a mix of French and German, but you can't ever say that to the native speakers, who will be offended.

Good to know for when I finally make it over there. I can't wait.

It's August and I've been wearing sweaters for a month.

I've dropped some weight over the past few months. Nineteen pounds as of yesterday, to be exact.

I won't get into the weight loss thing, as I've covered it to death on this blog over the years. I shouldn't even have to be worrying about it right now, given that I achieved a healthy weight back in 2016 and had no real reason not to maintain it.

But I didn't, so here I am.

Anyway, if you've ever lost weight, you know there's a point where you start feeling the effects yourself but no one else yet really notices. That point varies from person to person, but for me it's right around 15 pounds.

Pants and shirts are looser. I have more energy. I'm walking faster in the mornings with the same amount of effort. That sort of thing.

What also happens around 15 pounds is that my temperature tolerance shifts, and it shifts dramatically. I go from wearing thin dress shirts to multiple layers, even in July and August.

Most of the time when I'm at Goodyear, I wear a fleece pullover or sweater. Otherwise I almost freeze by the time the day is half finished.

It doesn't help that they really crank up the air conditioning there (which I think is uniquely an American office thing, though I can't be sure). I would be fine if they weren't constantly pumping Arctic air into our work environment.

But as it is, I'm always cold. So I bundle up and look like Nanook of the North when others around the office are wearing polos and short sleeves.

It's a small price to pay to be healthier, I know, but I'm kind of looking forward to that September-ish transition when we go from AC to heat.

And the inevitable trip to Kohl's to buy some new winter clothes, one size down.

Appreciating Saturdays again

When I was between jobs earlier this year, one day was a lot like the next. Tuesday may as well have been Sunday, and Thursday was pretty much the same as Saturday. Nothing on my to-do list really changed depending on the day of the week.

That was then. Getting into the working game again has shifted my mindset back to what it used to be. Now, Monday through Friday is completely different from the weekend.

Monday through Friday, I wear certain clothes, spend much of the day eating from my lunchbox, and of course, devote the majority of my mental energy in service to the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company.

Saturday and Sunday? That's about home. I do laundry, I clean the bathroom, I read, I go to my Weight Watchers meeting, we have Sunday School and church, etc. From the way I dress to the way I think even to the way I talk, the weekend is THE WEEKEND. It is sacred.

"Everybody's workin' for the weekend," is what the great philosophers from the band Loverboy told us, though that was never quite true for me. In addition to the paycheck, I'm blessed to feel a high degree of fulfillment from my job. It nourishes my brain and, through personal connections, even my soul. I'm workin' for more than just the weekend.

But don't get me wrong. The freedom to do what I want for two days (depending on what we have scheduled, of course) is invaluable. We all need that to some degree.

Nowadays there is much talk in the business world of adopting a four-day work week. It goes without saying I am open to it.

Holy cow, people drive fast on my commute to work

(NOTE: When I first drafted this post, I didn't put a comma in the headline between "Holy cow" and "people." Then I realized that, without the comma, it seemed to imply that a random group of religious, bovine-like folks were driving fast on the way to work. Which is not at all what I meant. Thus the comma. Please carry on.)

I have a 44-mile drive each way to the office. I don't really mind it that much, though, particularly this time of year when the weather is nice (ask me again in six months after I've done it through snow). It only takes me a few minutes longer to get to Goodyear in Akron than it did to get to Vitamix in Olmsted Township.

My drive goes almost due south down Interstate 271 and Ohio Route 8 before a very short eastward leg on Interstate 76. These highways won't mean anything to you if you don't live near me, but you can probably think of similar stretches near you.

The speed limit on most of I-271 is 60mph before ramping up to 65mph for a few miles ahead of the Route 8 exit. Similarly, it's 65 on Route 8 until you get to what I refer to as the Land of Eternal Construction, where it goes down to 55mph for a long period.

As far as I can tell, these speed limits are merely suggestions to the veteran drivers of 271 and 8, some of whom own cars apparently equipped with warp technology. People absolutely fly on these roads, let me tell you.

If you set your cruise control to 70 through the 60mph stretches, you had better stay as far as possible to the right, which I do. There are farm tractors that will pass you when you do anything less than 75.

Similarly, when the speed limit jumps to 65, oh boy. Don't even think about entering the left lane if you're not traveling well into the 80s through there.

Again, though, you will not see anyone passing me on the right. I never considered myself to be a slow driver, but I give these people plenty of leeway to jet by me on the left.

Once I get onto the 271 express lanes, I get it up to about 72, turn on the cruise, settle into the right lane, and watch as car after car zooms past at speeds I sometimes can't even guess.

I've seen maybe one police cruiser running radar in this area, so it's basically the Wild Wild West.

I have become a grandpa driver at the age of 51. Much like that black Porsche that had to have been doing 100mph this morning, I never saw it coming.

My opinion of you will not be affected by the tires you have on your car

As I knew would happen, I find myself these days walking through parking lots looking at people's tires to see which brand they have.

I recently joked on Facebook that I now judge you depending on which tires you bought, but that's not really true. I don't tend to be particularly judgmental in the first place, since my opinions and preferences are clearly no better than yours.

But I'll admit that, when I check out those four tires on someone's vehicle, I'm rooting to see "Goodyear" and the iconic wing-foot logo molded into the sidewalls.

This is more about rooting for the team I represent than anything else. Michelin, Bridgestone, and other companies make great tires, just as Goodyear does, so it's not like you or I have done anything "wrong" by selecting a particular brand.

Admittedly, I've had other jobs where this wasn't the case. When I worked for the Cleveland Clinic? I judged those who used any other hospital system, including the excellent University Hospitals of Cleveland. At Vitamix? Yeah, even though those machines are crazy expensive, it caused me physical pain to see people making smoothies in a cheap Oster.

But with tires I'm a little more neutral. Or maybe it's that with age I'm a little more neutral. I want Goodyear to succeed, but I'm not going to think less of anyone whose tires happen to be made by a different company.

Admittedly, my opinion of you is somewhat dampened if I see you wearing a Pittsburgh Steelers jersey. But then I remember it takes all kinds of craziness to make up this world.

How long have you had your cell number?

When I joined Goodyear a few weeks ago, I looked into getting a company-issued mobile phone. Communications people always get phones, given that we deal regularly with media and a host of time-sensitive issues.

I almost didn't care what my options were, just so long as I could keep my phone number. I have had that number for nearly 21 years and have no desire to go through the hassle of changing it and letting everyone in my life know. It has been both my personal and professional number for the entirety of those 2+ decades.

Cell phones themselves are marvels of technology, but for my money, number portability (the ability to take your phone number with you from carrier to carrier, phone to phone, job to job, etc.) is right up there in terms of sheer brilliance.

I'm not even sure which is worse: changing your cell number or changing your email address. Either way, you're in for a lot of work and at least a little aggravation.

I'm happy to say that I was able to keep the number. In fact, Goodyear did something I didn't even know was possible: They gave me an iPhone XR, and through the use of a virtual SIM card, I was able to add a second line onto the phone.

So whether someone calls my longstanding personal number or my new Goodyear business number, the same phone rings.

Two lines, one phone.

I like it.

Getting back into the habit of packing your lunch

Technically, those of us working at Goodyear are supposed to be in the office two days a week, though most of the leaders I've spoken with are coming in more often.

The vast majority of my work days thus far have been onsite, mostly because I much prefer to conduct onboarding meetings and other coworker interactions in person. Plus, it's just easier to learn the layout of the complex if I'm, you know, actually at the complex.

This is all well and good, except it also means I have to worry about packing lunch and snacks the previous evening. It's not like this is a huge burden, but what with COVID and everything, it's something I've fallen out of the habit of doing over the past 16 months.

I probably take more time getting my workday food together than most people. For one thing, I always take about 10 separate items, since I like to graze throughout the day rather than have a big lunch.

For another, I have to log my food choices into the Weight Watchers app. I'm pretty quick with the app, having used it for a number of years now, but it still takes a few minutes to enter it all.

By the time I get everything packed away into my new lunch box and stored in the fridge in the garage, it has become an actual chore.

Of course, the word "chore" implies I don't like doing it. But it's difficult to complain about a task that's dependent upon having an obscene amount of food in my house from which to choose. This is a "problem" millions of people worldwide would love to have.

So I hope you'll excuse my whining.

Seriously, though, do I take two apples or three? Three. I'd better go with three.

Flying used to be such a part of my life (and maybe yours)

We're driving my daughter down to Florida so she can participate in the Disney College Program starting next week. I'll then fly back alone in order to minimize the time I miss at my new job. It will be the first time I've been on an airplane since November 2019.

This 20-month hiatus marks the longest I've gone without flying in probably 25 years. There was a time when the airport felt like my second home.

I spent the summer of 2005, for example, crisscrossing the continent, jetting from place to place to do work on behalf of various clients as a public relations agency professional. There was one nine-day stretch when I flew to Minneapolis to work alongside the Northwest Airlines PR team for two days, then flew to London to meet with various journalists over a five-day period, then flew directly back to Minneapolis once again to work with Northwest.

Terry was pregnant with Jack at the time and was having to take care of four young children by herself while I was gone. She was less than happy with my travel schedule.

It will be strange going through the airport security process again and, you know, actually streaking into the sky. I never used to pay much attention to takeoffs and landings, but I'm going to soak up every minute of my 2 1/2-hour jaunt from Orlando to Cleveland.

There is some business travel in store for me at Goodyear, but nothing on the scale of what I used to do 15-20 years ago.

And this, I assure you, is a very good thing.

Being the new guy in the office...again

(NOTE: This post originally appeared here on May 13, 2013, my first day at Vitamix. I bring it back today, my first day at Goodyear, because it all still holds true.)

Today is my first day of work in months. I am, as you may have noticed, extremely excited about this fact.

Part of the reason is that I am very good at being The New Guy.

Having worked at eight different places over the last 20+ years, I'm well acquainted with finding my way through a new office, from figuring out the internal culture to exactly where they keep the coffee.

It's a process of constant adaptation, deference and friend-making.

It's also mentally exhausting, because it takes months to really get everything down. But it's worth the initial effort.

For example, I make a point of being proactively friendly when I start a new job. I'll aggressively seek people out and introduce myself.

Even if, as is the case about 20 percent of time, that person is just a visitor who doesn't even work there. In those situations, they're more frightened of me than anything else.

Mostly, though, you're able to make a good first impression by doing this.

Good first impressions are useful, because your co-workers are more likely to help you if they think you're a pleasant person. It also helps to project an aura of competence, especially if the way you do your job affects the way they do theirs.

I'm pretty good at projecting competence. That doesn't mean I have competence, only that I'm excellent at seeming as if I know what I'm doing.

I also go after what the professional self-help books like to call "low-hanging fruit." I find some relatively easy project to tackle early on, and when I complete it successfully, I make it seem as if it was a great problem I have solved to the long-lasting benefit of the organization.

People always seem to be impressed by this. Or maybe they're just taking pity on me and want me to feel good.

Another great New Guy trick is the come-early-leave-late approach. Everyone knows you're going to be gung-ho when you first get there. And they'll expect the long-hours routine to fade out quickly.

But if you keep it up, people will start to think, "OK, this guy isn't going to bail on us. He's dedicated. I like that."

Or at least that's what I assume they're thinking. They may actually be thinking, "What a total suck-up. This guy will flame out in less than a year."

I choose to believe the former.

Everything is about to change. And that's a good thing.

I hope you didn't look at that headline and expect me to talk today about some sweeping trend or societal shift that's going to affect your life. I was talking about my own life. As far as I know, yours is likely to continue on its orderly (or not so orderly) way.

It's just that tomorrow is my first official day working at Goodyear, and I couldn't be happier about it. I'm going to resurrect a blog post from 2013 in which I talked about how I good I am at being the new guy in the office. I expect nothing different from this gig.

But the return of full-time employment also means a departure from the relatively leisurely schedule I've been enjoying for the past 3+ months. I get a lot done most days because I like being productive, but I've been able to do it all on my own time and at my own pace.

That changes tomorrow. Suddenly, I'm going to have meetings to attend again, some in person and some virtual. I'll have deadlines to hit and obligations to co-workers. I'm good with all of that, but when you've been away from it for a while, it takes some readjusting.

There's also the matter of a few leisure-time activities and how they're going to fit into the life of Working Scott vs. that of Unemployed Scott. Just to name three:

• The saxophone: I play my horn almost every day, and since January I've been doing online lessons with my teacher Ed every Monday at 5:30pm. Practice time will now have to be fit into a much smaller window during the evenings. And if I'm in the office on Mondays, I don't think I can get home in time for a 5:30 lesson. So something's going to have to change.
  
  
• Writing blog posts: Since April, I've been doing my blog writing every morning right after breakfast. That doesn't work on weekdays anymore, so again, we're looking at evening time for writing. My goal is to maintain an every-day blog, but I'll admit new jobs have gotten in the way of that in the past, so I don't know what's coming.
  
  
• P.A. announcing: I've made this work with full-time employment before, so it's not like this is new territory. But my office is now 44 miles from home, and there will undoubtedly be days I have to be there late. Again, like everything else, it's going to be a balancing act in which I'll occasionally be going directly from Akron to the Wickliffe High School press box without a stop at home to change or eat. I'll live.

It goes without saying that I would rather have a job than not have a job, but getting a taste of a semi-retired life when you're not yet in a position (age-wise or financially) to maintain it can be dangerous. The dose of discipline that comes with reentering the workforce is probably coming at just the right time.

My love of office supplies started early

When I was growing up, my dad worked in an office environment as a data processing specialist for Lake County, Ohio. He worked with those big, tape-fed computers of the 60s and 70s, which had the processing power of your average tablet computer nowadays.

He would regularly bring home pads of paper for me to use, but it was never ordinary, blank paper. It was always sheets of specialized data processing forms, the back of which were blank for my writing and drawing pleasure.

He also brought home staplers, tape dispensers, binder clips, pens, pencils, erasers, markers, notebooks, file folders, and a whole host of other items that businesses commonly use, most of which were for me to play with.

Other kids wanted toys. I asked for typewriter ribbons.

This was weird, I know, but it has served me well in my career. I am the absolute go-to guy if you're looking for a particular item and don't want to walk all the way across the building to the office supply cabinet.

When I start my new job at Goodyear, one of the first things I will do is get my hands on a bunch of fresh office supplies and store them in a drawer in my desk.

Nothing else will be more exciting to me that first day, I guarantee.

The start of a new adventure: It's a good year (get it?)

A couple of months ago, I told you my time at Vitamix had come to an end and I was seeking a new opportunity.

Consider the new opportunity found.

On July 12, I will join the team at Goodyear as Communications Manager, Global Technology. It's a chance to tell the company's story beyond its legacy rubber tires, specifically the work Goodyear is doing to shape the future of mobility.

I'll get to communicate both internally to Goodyear associates and externally to a variety of stakeholder audiences. It's the best of both worlds, and I couldn't be more excited about it.

The team I'm joining is brimming with talent and experience, so there's the added blessing of upping my own game and learning from some truly accomplished corporate communications pros.

And speaking of blessings, I couldn't have expected to find such a great position so relatively early in the job search process. By the time I walk into the corporate offices in Akron for the first time, it will only have been 2 1/2 months since my last day at Vitamix.

I received a lot of support and encouragement over these last several weeks, and it came from a list of people too numerous to mention here individually. Suffice it to say I'm indebted to all of them.

The only question now is whether I'll have space in my new office to house my collection of 20 or so sports bobbleheads. They're a great conversation starter when you're the new guy.