Tear down at the end of a trade show is always a bit hectic. You are almost always in a hurry to get done and get away --- to get on the road, to catch a plane, or perhaps just to relax. Over the years I have "worked" maybe 300 - 400 trade shows and have helped set up and tear down way more than anyone should be forced to endure. (Here I am, headed off tomorrow to do another one, with solo set up and to help tear down. Ugh!)
I have digressed to set the stage for explaining why I was once accused, after the fact, of doing "time studies" on two of our staff members to be sure they were moving fast enough getting materials moved out to the truck during tear down after a trade show. I confess, I was timing them, but only to judge how long it would take them to complete the tear down and move out if I did not stay to help. I did not want to make the burden too great. At least one of them will probably read this post and may still question if my motive was pure.
A numbers guy can have problems, or create them for himself.
Sales numbers, money numbers, time numbers, distance numbers, probability numbers; the opportunities for numbers people are endless.
Last fall, I did a series of calculations involving several factors and the rate of rise of the national debt for the last several presidents. I was going to present it in my political blog (link top right), but it never made it to the "light of day." Too many words were required to explain it all. It probably would have caused me problems anyway.
I once asked my friend, Lawyer John, what he thought the probabilties of winning a particular case were. I was floored that he had not considered such a thing. He is a really smart guy with a scientific mind and I was sure all really smart people with scientific minds would think in numbers.
When you start thinking in numbers about things that not everyone tries to quantify, especially if it appears that you are trying to judge them, you may have a problem.
Don't get me wrong though. There are lots of things that cannot or should not be quantified!!!
Is it an obsession? Or worse? A narrow view of the world? Or merely an attempt to bring some order to chaos? What else is an engineer to believe?
If you are running a business, any business, you'd better be able to think in numbers, even if not all the time. Otherwise, you'll probably lose your direction.
My friend Larry, a self confessed numbers guy, writes an interesting (to me anyway) blog about the Cocoa Beach real estate market. (See his Nov 28, 2012 post for his confession)
Check out his blog by clicking this.
Then you can go to November 28 to read the confession.
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