Tom_in_CA
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Here's an example of the "visibility" psychology at work
Was thinking about how rules can get born regarding md'ing. I have had strong suspicions that a lot of them get born simply because it's in front of someone's desk for their princely approval. But that perhaps had the issue never been on that/those person's plates, then everything would have remained "just fine".
Here's an example of the psychology at work in another arena, but it applies to md'ing perfectly:
I own a company that has street sweepers. We service shopping centers, MHP's, HOA's, industrial plants, quarries, construction sites, etc... And back when I first got into the business in the late 1980s, I had a practice: I would send out an annual letter, inserted in with their monthly bill, with a "customer survey" for them to comment on the quality of the work. A sort of a "how are we doing?" type survey paper . Naturally I figured that such a thing would foster good will, communication, great customer relationships, etc...
But I noticed a trend by the 3rd and 4th year of doing this: Each time annually that we did this, complaints would start rolling in. Or we'd get back negative comments on accounts that, quite frankly, I thought were quite happy and we'd never previously heard a peep out of them. And about the time of year we'd put out those surveys, invariably we'd get a few cancellations because a few customers went bid-comparing and found something cheaper. Hmmm.
All of the sudden it dawned on me: My cute little surveys would no doubt land on some low ranking secretary's A/P desk. She'd forward it on to the site manager or her boss or whatever. And that person (who probably never even saw us or thought about us, since our work was primarily at night), would then be "tasked with answering this". The wheels of their head start turning and perhaps they wonder "gee, how much are we paying these guys?" and "gee, why don't they get the truck docks cleaner?" or "gee, come to think of it, a neighbor did gripe about the noise a few months ago".
I learned way back then to NOT ask silly questions. That the best business tactic is that the LESS they think of you, the better. That ended my annual customer surveys in a heart-beat.
So too is it with MD'ing in my opinion: The less busy-bodies think of us, the better. And don't ask permissions, or seek clarifications. Look things up for yourself.
Was thinking about how rules can get born regarding md'ing. I have had strong suspicions that a lot of them get born simply because it's in front of someone's desk for their princely approval. But that perhaps had the issue never been on that/those person's plates, then everything would have remained "just fine".
Here's an example of the psychology at work in another arena, but it applies to md'ing perfectly:
I own a company that has street sweepers. We service shopping centers, MHP's, HOA's, industrial plants, quarries, construction sites, etc... And back when I first got into the business in the late 1980s, I had a practice: I would send out an annual letter, inserted in with their monthly bill, with a "customer survey" for them to comment on the quality of the work. A sort of a "how are we doing?" type survey paper . Naturally I figured that such a thing would foster good will, communication, great customer relationships, etc...
But I noticed a trend by the 3rd and 4th year of doing this: Each time annually that we did this, complaints would start rolling in. Or we'd get back negative comments on accounts that, quite frankly, I thought were quite happy and we'd never previously heard a peep out of them. And about the time of year we'd put out those surveys, invariably we'd get a few cancellations because a few customers went bid-comparing and found something cheaper. Hmmm.
All of the sudden it dawned on me: My cute little surveys would no doubt land on some low ranking secretary's A/P desk. She'd forward it on to the site manager or her boss or whatever. And that person (who probably never even saw us or thought about us, since our work was primarily at night), would then be "tasked with answering this". The wheels of their head start turning and perhaps they wonder "gee, how much are we paying these guys?" and "gee, why don't they get the truck docks cleaner?" or "gee, come to think of it, a neighbor did gripe about the noise a few months ago".
I learned way back then to NOT ask silly questions. That the best business tactic is that the LESS they think of you, the better. That ended my annual customer surveys in a heart-beat.
So too is it with MD'ing in my opinion: The less busy-bodies think of us, the better. And don't ask permissions, or seek clarifications. Look things up for yourself.
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I noticed a lot of people getting into the hobby lug around traditional size spades into the parks and make a mess. I don't fool around with federally or privately owned land without permission. But when I travel around to new cities, I'll test the public parks, schools and common green space unless I specifically know they have laws banning it ahead of time. I hunt mostly small towns in TN that no one knows existed, and usually they don't have any laws. So if some local cop or town official wants to run me off, so be it, normally that means it's not a very friendly town and they treat outsiders like crap. And not a fun place to be anyway. They make the rules up as they go. I moved to eastern TN almost 3 years ago and have never even been questioned by a cop one time here, and have only been told to leave by 2 different city employees. One was an employee of a recreational building, who scolded me like she was my mom saying "there's NO digging on city property", and in another city, apparently an official drove by and called the librarian near me to come outside and tell me there's no metal detecting on and city property, anywhere in town. =P
