Car parts??

First, I want to say thank you to Ann and whoever else was involved in starting this blog. I have learned a lot about the Klops through the blog and I definetly know more of what's going on in the "bloggers" lives than I would have known otherwise. Now, if only more Klops would post and share.....we would know even more.

The end of last week I did something for only the 2nd time in my adult life, and it has caused another time of reflection for me on what "work" is all about. In January 2004, I walked out BSC (Bloomington Seating) after 9 years in employ there. I started there as a young kid building seats and left as Quality Manager. I learned so much there, including many life lessons about the right and wrong way to be a "boss". I came to JCI C'Dale (Johnson Controls Cottondale AL) as a Quality Engineer with no one reporting to me, and left after 4 1/2 years with 36 engineers and auditors reporting to me.

My team, both day shift and night shift threw parties for me as I left. Day shift had a potluck and night shift took me to Ruby Tuesdays. Several of my engineers told me that they could not have survived in the company if it were not for my leadership. Many of them (females and one guy ) actually cried during the speech I gave at the party.

Just so you don't think I have a big head, this is where the reflection part comes in. I DID NOT DO ANYTHING!! Most days I came home depressed at how I "suck" at my job. We could not fix anything, quality got better and then worse without anything happening, battles were fought, won and lost every day. I often came home feeling like a failure at my job. Now I am wondering....was I really a failure. Sure, I couldn't keep leather seats from having wrinkles, couldn't make the production lines run faster, wasn't willing to "massage" data to make numbers look better than they were, BUT....I knew all my employee's, their cares, their concerns, their spouses names, the illnessess they or their family had, and I was willing to listen. I could tell when they were distracted, didn't feel good, or had a lot of stress going in in their lives. When I focused on my people, I did find that quality did get better too!! I found it funny when one of my most hardened employee's, sailor mouth and all, would remind me with the sailer's tongue that I would be late for church on Wednesday night if I didn't leave on time.

The decision to leave was very hard for me, not because of the job, but because of the people. I was able to make the "job" decision very easily. It took about....not even as long as it took for the person to tell me about the new job. Then, however, I remember my team and how fractured they were when I took over as their leader. That made it hard. But God said go, so here we go.

I moved to a new JCI plant called JCIM (Johnson Controls Injection Molding) in McCalla Alabama. It's about 2 miles closer to the house, but takes 5 minutes longer to get there due to the route speed limit. Today was my first day and I got to meet my new team, as frustrated and fractured as they are. I am looking forward to seeing what the future holds with them and seeing how God allows me to impact these folks lives as they impact mine. Isn't that what its really all about? Relationships that result in our ability to share God's love. I sure hope it's not all just about car parts!!

EDK (sorry so long, just started typing and out it came)