A Learning a Day

In my past life – during a time without kids – I used to spend a fair bit of time on flights for work.

Given the amount of time spent traveling, it made sense to optimize the experience. This meant minimizing/removing check in baggage, and getting to the airport with just enough time for security and boarding.

This approach often meant cutting it fine on time at the airport. While it never came down to a missed flight, the thought process was that the cost of doing so wouldn’t be crazy. There’s always the next one in case there’s a mishap.

I was thinking about this the other day. For many years since, I’ve maintained a similar approach. Sure, we added a touch more buffer post kids. But, the old principle of minimizing time at the airport remained.

Until a couple months ago. As I made my way to the flight (it was close), I found myself asking myself if the principle still made sense.

It made sense when I was traveling solo frequently for work on popular routes. The cost of a miss – in case of a mishap – was not crazy.

The assumptions now couldn’t be more different. I travel primarily for personal reasons and our frequency is very low (at best 3-4 trips per year). When we do fly, our entire family typically goes together. The cost of screwing up a well planned family trip is much higher.

A lightbulb moment.

I’ve since shifted my mindset. When we traveled recently, we got in well in advance – with plenty of buffer time. We ended up using a chunk of the buffer time for this and that. We then got some time to hang out at the gate – a novel experience. :-) But, perhaps, most of all, it was a relatively stress free experience.

All thanks to revisiting a decision making principle rooted in dated assumptions.

When circumstances out of our control feel wonky, the most productive thing we can do is to say “focus on what you control.”

Then do just that.

I had a mishap recently. It got me thinking about mishaps over the past decade. And as I thought about said mishaps, I began thinking about some of the best memories in the past decade.

I found myself wondering – where were the mishaps then? Were these great memories because they were mishap free?

It turns out that was far from the truth. Every time I thought about the memory a bit longer, I remembered an associated mishap.

One great memory came right after getting rejected for graduate school in my first attempt. Another involved getting the dreaded recruiter rejection call during our trip. And so on.

As time passed, the mishaps got blurred out while the good times and the emotions associated with them remained vivid.

This trip down memory lane was a helpful reminder to not sweat my current set of mishaps too much. Stuff goes wrong/we fail despite our best efforts from time to time.

Focus on doing the right things. Savor time with those you love. Learn. Find the joy. Make good memories.

The rest is gravy.

A simple test of how much an e-commerce website actually cares about the buyer experience – does replying to the order confirmed/update emails go to a “no reply” email or to a “customer service” email that will answer your question?

Amazon can’t choose the customer service option at their scale. So, it is a great way to differentiate yourself if you are an up-and-coming/niche e-commerce site.

It isn’t easy. But what is?

More than anything, it shows a desire to create a great customer experience. And that is as good an indicator as any of the quality of the strategy of an e-commerce/retail operation.

“A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody.” | Thomas Paine

Accountability is a pre-requisite for trust.

I thought leaded gasoline was a thing of the past. It was banned in automobiles after clear causal impact to brain development in children.

However, it turns out that lead wasn’t banned in small airports. The consequence, as a Quartz investigation revealed, is that it is still used for refueling in every small airport in the United States- every two small airports that finally banned leaded fuel.

When I first dug in here, it blew my mind. Airplane owners in Santa Clara county fought the county rule when this was implemented in January. Would they have done so if their kids were exposed to the lead next to the airport?

It got me thinking about the power of economic incentives in driving behavior. It is why our track record of doing the right thing is poor. We only make that choice if it is cheap or convenient.

It is why we’ll likely not see enough written about the causes of the tremendous flooding at the iconic Yellowstone national park – one among many environmental crises facing many US national parks who are dealing with extreme weather and melting glaciers. This is the case the world over – melting glaciers have even caused Nepali authorities to begin moving base camp on Mt. Everest.

It is pretty dire.

But I don’t think it is too late either. Or at least I’ve come to realize that such optimism is important.

On the bright side, the Indian Government announced plans to conduct its first offshore wind auction with 10-12 Gigawatts capacity. For context, the largest wind auction in the US sold rights for ~6 GW. It is great news for decarbonization. Similarly, the University of Chicago released data that China has reduced air pollution by 40% in the last 7 years (it took the US thirty years to achieve a reduction at this scale).

And there was good news closer to home too. Grid-scale energy storage in the US quadrupled in the past year.

All these installations will make clean energy cheaper. Until it becomes the only choice.

Here’s to less lead, less pollution, and more free energy from the wind and the sun.

I experienced two types of shopping experiences recently. On the one hand, there was an experience that involved clothing that felt like it might take weeks to resolve online.

So, we ended up at a brick-and-mortar store and had it all wrapped up in 30 minutes.

On the flip side, we were looking for something for the home at a store nearby. We tried guessing the size we needed, got it wrong, and had to go back and return it. We decided that Amazon would be the way to go for this one.

With clear item descriptions, reviews, and easy returns, Amazon has nailed the customer experience in so many types of shopping experiences. But it hasn’t replaced our weekly grocery run. It will struggle to replace certain kinds of clothing experiences as well.

The answer appears to be “hybrid” or “something in the middle.”

It is a word I’ve developed appreciation for of late. For those of us who don’t build physical goods, I think the days of requiring 5 days in the office are over. But it is still nice to be back in the office once a week. There are certain meetings that are best done in person.

Again, the answer isn’t this or that. It is something in the middle.

As with so many knotty questions in this life.

I needed a reminder of the “Good? Bad? Who knows?” story today.

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There was a farmer in ancient China who used an old horse in his fields. One day, the horse escaped into the hills and when the farmer’s neighbors sympathized with the old man over his bad luck, the farmer replied, “Bad luck? Good luck? Who knows?”

A week later, the horse returned with a herd of wild horses from the hills, and the neighbors congratulated the farmer on his good luck. He replied, “Good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?”

Then, when the farmer’s son was attempting to tame one of the wild horses he fell off its back and broke his leg. Everyone again sympathized with the farmer over his bad luck. But the farmer’s reaction was, “Bad luck? Good luck? Who knows?”

Some weeks later, the army marched into the village and drafted every able-bodied youth they found. When they saw the farmer’s son with his broken leg, they let him stay.

Good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?

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I experienced a mishap today in what has felt like a couple weeks littered with a string of mishaps. A phase of bad luck possibly?

Then again, bad luck? Good luck? Who knows?

Every time I get a new kind of paper notice or bill, I save it until I find the organization’s /paperless site or paperless option on my account.

My guess – I don’t have data on this – is that I’m not alone. And it makes me wonder – what if paperless were the default option for anyone below the age of 50 (or 40)?

Perhaps we should do away with the “paper by default” assumption. It’s past time. And it’s cheaper too.

When in doubt, rethink those defaults.

We’ve been working through a cocktail of COVID-19 inspired disruption in the past week. It’s hard not to be awestruck at the power of an unseen set of microbes in bringing us to our knees.

I am grateful we got tagged now with less severe variants vs. before. But, more than ever, a week like this reminded me of 2 things –

(1) Being with people who care about you – parents and partners especially – when you are sick is a gift.

(2) When our health is “normal”, it is a really big deal. It is amazing how easy it is to take for granted.

Normal is a blessing we don’t think about and enjoy enough.