Fixin' It Up

Curious George ain't got nothin' on me.

Ever since I was a small lad in western Massachusetts, I took things apart.

As my grandfather defended, "to see what makes it tick." His smile didn't dim (much) when I took apart my grandmother's favorite brass lamp, replete with chains, threaded projections, and ornate base. Can't quite recall whether or not I ever put the thing back together, but my parents suggested a few corrections to my personality during the drive home.

Nevertheless, I'm constantly amazed at what I've learned in the past few decades about how things tick.

For example, after about ten hours tonight I fixed a complex stepping motor control central processing unit that drives an industrial engraving machine. It's a big ol' computer, but with fingers and toes. Funny thing (that even amazes me) is that the fellow never told me what was wrong with it, how it stopped working, or even had schematics (detailed electronic plans) for clues. But when my wife saw me tracing a circuit board to visually uncover the electrical workings, she shook her head as if I were doing rocket surgery... which, in a way, perhaps I was.

But this is all is not about me, really. I'm nothing special, nor do I have a magical wand.

Point is that when I counsel youth, I tell them the story of how my skills appeared-- whence they came as if by magic: I can do what I do because I was poor in my teens. I think back on years and years of personal poverty (mostly through poor decisions about the use of money) and realize that I learned to repair electronics and mechanical things precisely because I didn't have the money to buy what I wanted. So I had to settle for broken motorcycles, or for cars abandoned by others-- and many "basket cases" of plain ol' stuff disassembled and cast aside. Most of my stuff started out in the trashbin.

It was through fixing things (and breaking them enough by myself) that I learned how things really tick.

Quite honestly, while I might not have made money, I was always paid experience.

And so warmly quoth I the words of Mr Harold Geneen, "In the business world, everyone is paid in two coins: cash and experience. Take the experience first; the cash will come later."

Cheers!