Dave the Dog Hater

I hate my dog. It’s not a secret. My friends know it. My co-workers hear about it daily. My family knows it, in fact my daughter Anne is on the same page. I even announced it to a crowded room I had been invited to speak at in Washington, DC.

As a general rule I am a pretty loving guy. I tend to see a bright side to anything. Next time you see me test me out. Ask me about something negative and I will give you a positive spin.

So why do I hate my dog? It’s complex.

About 18 months ago we took our dog, Fenway, to get his teeth cleaned. He died. Never made it home. The vet put him to sleep so that she could clean his teeth and he ended up getting put to “sleep!” It was sad. I liked Fenway. He did what I told him to do. No meant No. If you know me very well you know the concept is key. It is Biblical. I try to live my life to that standard and expect it from others, including my dog.

So we got a new dog because I love my children and they wanted to get a new dog, well Anne didn’t but she lives in Minnesota 9 months out of the year.

The new dog, Tessie, is an Irish Terrier just like the old one. On the surface the only difference was supposed to be the gender. (If you want to know why we named herTessie you can either watch the movie “Fever Pitch” or listen to the Dropkick Murphy’s song “Tessie.”)


So why do I hate my dog?

When I hug my wife she barks at us.

When I take a nap she licks me in the face.

Leave something on the floor and she moves it to another part of the house.

If you aren’t playing with her she runs to find something, like a pair of pants from the closet and, brings it to us.

We have a bell on the door for the dog to ring when it needs to go out. With Fenway it worked great. I will admit he wanted to go out more often then I cared to let him out. Not with Tessie. Now when the bell rings and you go to the door you find her running away or standing with something in her mouth that belongs in somebody’s bedroom.

So cute.

The most recent incident involves her eating a razor blade! Yes a razor blade. (At the Chapin house we store our razors in places like the shower (girls) or drawers (boys). Typically dogs should stay out of those areas. No need to go in either place if you are an Irish Terrier.)

Believe it or not she nearly died from eating a razor. It cost us over $1,000 to save her life. The vet opened her up and found the blade half in and half out of her stomach.

I think you get the point. I hate my dog.

She is selfish. She wants to me to run my life around her. She wants more attention then she really deserves. I want her to listen to me and occasionally play with me when I am bored.

I can envision a world where this dog is useful but I want it on my terms. In that world the dog does exactly what I want and is there for me when I want her to be.

Sounds selfish doesn’t it? Maybe Tessie thinks I’m selfish. She’d be right.

At Willmar Electric one of our core values is “treating other the way they want to be treated.” Tessie and I should apply this to our relationship. It will be tricky because one of us is a dog and the one of us isn’t very interest investing time in the relationship.

So despite my hatred the dog is teaching me something. I told you I could find the positive in anything.

(I also hate the Yankees, the IBEW and cats; I will invest zero time in getting over those issues.)

Sharp Sticks?

A past co-worker of mine, Bruce Kaihoi, had a saying he frequently used. When greeted with minor bad news he would say it was “better than a sharp stick in the eye.” Although he was always correct when saying this unique remark it was a bit awkward to hear.

I always think of Bruce’s phrase when the subject of eye protection comes up.

Let me give you some history on eye protection at Willmar Electric.

Before we went to the policy of mandatory eye protection we had a lot of eye injuries. The safety experts told us that we should start requiring eye protection and in certain situation co-workers did wear safety glasses.

When I started working at Willmar Electric full time in 1991 wearing safety glasses wasn’t required and I don’t remember the exact date was when my dad changed the policy. However I do remember the events around the decision.

Then on a project that we were on somebody poked their eye out. They were using their screwdriver to pry something out and the screwdriver slipped and the tip went into his eye. (I bet you could read that without closing your eye!)

So we changed our policy. It is sad that somebody had to lose an eye first.

Now when we “look” back we see that this simple move has prevented dozens of eye injuries. (Based on the pre-policy injury rate).

Is wearing glass cool? I leave that to you to decide for yourself.

Is it comfortable to wear safety glasses? Not really but you get used to it.

The bottom line is that it is better than a sharp stick in the eye.

Not Taking Life for Granted

I love spring. It means baseball season is here.

It also means that for those of us in the construction business the workload is heavy enough that we switch from worrying if we have enough work to being overloaded with work. Although it is never fun to be overload it beats having a shortage.

Spring represents a new growth that brings with it hope for better things to come. For families it means the school year is nearly over and the freedom of summer is around the corner. It means you’re done with one level and moving to the next.

At the Dave Chapin house it means Mike is done with High School. At the Justin Chapin house it means Max is done with preschool. In both cases its a big life changing event.

But as we get ready for those two events I have to reflect on a couple of events that happened to us recently and be thankful for life in general.

It is my understanding that spring statistically brings with it an increase in teenaged car accidents. I'm not sure why this is but in my life it has definitely been the case. In early March my daughter Sara survived a serious car crash when a 16year old ran a red light. Despite totaling both car involved both driver walked away uninjured.

Late last week 3 of Sara's friends got into a more serious crash that put all three into the hospital. One of girls spent part of the weekend in a medically induced coma and will be in the hospital for 2 weeks. All three families have told us that are thankful their daughters are still alive. One dad said “I feel like I just got my daughter back from the dead.”

Wow. I think about the little things that go wrong in my day to day life and then compare them to having a child nearly taken away from us.

The second event that made me thankful for life in general happened yesterday after our dog ran away.

After finding out the dog had broken free from her chain I reluctantly when to find her. I know it wouldn’t be hard to find her. She is obsessed with our backdoor neighbor's yard. They have a dog and a few chickens. I went to their house and regretfully they had save our dog. :(

As a thank you to them my wife, Sue, made them some cookies. When she delivered the cookies she got a chance to have a long talk with our neighbor. They also had a son in this year’s senior class. Unfortunately Spencer died this fall. Our neighbors have a completely different perspective on graduation.

They are missing a son. When they look over the fence to our yard they often see it full of High School seniors. My son had 12 friends over to play whiffle ball this weekend.

Wow. I think about the little things that go wrong in my day to day life and then compare them to having a child taken away.

Praise the Lord for everything he has given to us and that I never take any of it for granted.

Long Term view on Playing Time (Life)

My son Mike is on his high school basketball team. He serves as the 9th man. That means his playing time is limited. When he gets into the games he gives it his all and plays well but he doesn't make it into all of his games. So far I have never heard him say a negative word about the 3 post players that play ahead of him. I fact I have never heard him say a negative word about the people that are behind him.

On Sunday my wife asked him about a fellow teammate and if that teammate ever complained about his playing time. I won't tell you his answer to that question because it doesn't really matter. But when I asked him for his own views on his own playing time he said,

"When I signed up for basketball as a Freshman it didn't come with a guarantee that if I worked hard I would get a certain amount of playing time as a senior. That just isn't part of the deal. It doesn't work that way."

Wow. That is wisdom. I couldn't agree more.

I am glad my son worked hard. I hope he picked that up from this parents.

I am glad that my son doesn't feel entitled. I hope he also learned that from watching his mother and I.

Life would be much simpler if it worked like a jukebox. Put in a quarter and pick out your song but the truth is it doesn't work that way.

I am sure Mike would like to play more, who wouldn't. But his outlook goes a long ways toward building long term character then quitting or complaining would have.

For now Sue and I will take joy in the fact of son gets it. Praise the Lord.

(As follow up I will likely talk to my children about what the Book of Hebrews has to say about faithfulness and how God is always faithful and that we need to look at the long term rewards. But that might be too deep for this blog.)

Elmo Chapin Day 2015

Today is January 6th. Long term coworkers at Willmar Electric know that today is Elmo Chapin Day. Every year we celebrate our Grandfather’s Birthday by explaining to those of you that didn’t get the chance to meet him what he stood for in life.

Elmo Chapin lived all our core values at Willmar Electric. He was thrifty, he believed in the Merit Shop and meeting our customer’s needs. But most of all he believed in treating others that way they wanted to be treated. He had a great respect for everybody. He want to create an environment that allowed everybody to get and give the most out of their God given talents and abilities.

Going point by point through the core values here is a picture of Elmo Chapin. (If I had been thinking ahead I would have worn his red sports coat in his honor and taken a picture).

• Treating others the way they want to be treated. He would listen to people. Really listen. Try to get an understanding for where the other person was coming from. He had a great concern for his follow man.
• Merit Shop. He thought that construction should be done in an open market where every qualified contractor competed on a level playing field.
• Thrifty. He was recycling before it was cool. Both sides of all paper got used by Elmo Chapin. The lights were turned off in all empty rooms.
• Meeting the customer’s needs. The examples for this value are numerous but I will stick to the simplest one. He always preached that you left a place better then you found it. Even if that meant you cleaned up something that was part of somebody else’s mess.

So again I invite to celebrate Elmo Chapin Day by joining me and be like Elmo. And if you have a red sports coat I suggest you wear it.

I Like Pie

Every Thanksgiving I hold a tournament. Various people bring pies to the party and I eat a piece of each pie. By piece I mean I each an entire piece. Not a sliver or just a taste. I eat 1/8 of each pie. Then I declare a winner and eat a second piece of that pie. There have been years that I have eaten 8 pieces of pie. I realize this means that some years I eat over 4,000 calories in pie.

I like to have these blogs relate back to a life lesson or part of Willmar Electric’s foundational principles. So today my self-imposed challenge is to relate my Pie Tournament to each of the core values, brand promise, marketing slogan and BHAG.

Core Values

Thrifty-Eating this much pie has very little to do with being thrifty but the chances of us having leftover pie is decreased by my eating so much of them.

Meeting Customer Needs-The people that make the pies typically ask me what kind of pies I would like to eat.

Treating others the way they want to be treated-I try them all. All pies get a shot at winning. No pie is left out.

Merit Shop-Every pie gets an even chance but in the end the best one (and only one) is declared as the best and elevated above the rest based on its merit (taste).

Brand Promise

On-time-You need to get started on pie eating right away or the party runs out of pies.

Organized-Eating 5-8 pieces of pie needs to happen in a certain order and at a certain pace. You need to figure which ones might have a run on them (French silk) and eat them early before they are gone. Others (sour cream raisin) can be eaten at any time.

Approachable-During the tournament I am very approachable especially if you are bringing me pie.

Marketing Slogan

Design-Like I mentioned above I often help select the pies that are brought to the party.

Build-I play a very small role in the baking or making of a select few pies.

Beyond-I help with the dishes.

BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal)

Choosing the projects we want to do and making money doing them. Every year I manage to get a second pie of the party’s most popular pie, French Silk.

Happy Thanksgiving. Give thanks to the Lord and enjoy the pie.

Brownies and Potato Oles

Last week Tyler Brown and I spent a day giving each other a hard time and mocking the other person. Somebody noticed the trend and pointed it out to us. The person went so far as to say to us “are you treating the other person the way you want to be treated?” We agreed that they had a point.

So we reversed course and started being nice to each other. Not really all that hard since I like Tyler. It shouldn’t be too hard to be nice to somebody you like and respect.

Instead of trading barbs and insults we were civil.

Last night my wife served brownies to my son’s friends when they stopped over. Because I knew that they were Tyler’s favorite snack I brought one to him.

Then at lunch Tyler went to Taco Johns. He even sat down next to me and starting eating his meal. No big deal. The room was full of other people eating.

No big deal that is if you don’t know the Chapin family. Let me give you some background. My family has an unhealthy attachment to Potato Oles, literally. The point wasn’t missed on Misty Lauer. She started to laugh as soon as Tyler sat down.

So what did Tyler do?

He shared his Potato Oles with me. (Sue isn’t going to be happy to learn that she made the bars but I got the Oles).

I am not suggesting that we should live in a world where we keep score and figure that if I bring you a snack you should “repay” me. Neither Tyler nor I were expecting to be paid for our actions. It was just a natural outgrowth of treating people the way we wanted to be treated. It worked when we were mean to each other and quickly turned 180 degrees when we were nice to each other.

Thank you Tyler for the unintended example (and Potato Oles).

Luckily we work at a place that has treating other as you want to be treated as a core value. Now I just need to make sure I live up to that standard.