Way Too Funny

The ‘Exploring Mass Communication’ textbook is officially available. Give it a look to get a free T-shirt (and more)

“And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the book swaddled in recyclable brown paper, lying in a cardboard box…”

I don’t know if I can fully describe the feeling I had when my kid lugged this box into the house recently and said, “It’s heavy as hell. It must be a book thing.”

It was, and at that precise moment, “Exploring Mass Communication” became real for me.

Never mind that I’d seen links to digital versions on Amazon and Sage’s website.

Never mind that I’d seen cover mock-ups, proof editions and various Vantage versions.

Never mind that I had put together an hour-long presentation to Sage reps on the book about a month earlier.

That box was proof this whole thing wasn’t a St. Elsewhere Kid/Fever Dream situation. I wanted to just scream and cry and jump around and roll around in the snow while cradling a copy of it.

I quickly reached out to the folks at Sage and the conversation went something like this:

Me: I got my copies of the book! Can I tell people it’s out now?
Them: Yes!
Me: You sure?
Them: Yes.
Me: It’s not gonna be like last time, right? This is a real “go for launch” for the book?
Them: Yes… In fact, if you could write a blog post to tell people to adopt it for their classes, that would be great!
Me: Um… No…

I never wanted the blog to be a book-pimping tool because a) nobody wants to read that kind of stuff and b) I can’t promote myself worth a damn. Other people’s accomplishments, student media successes, good causes and great organizations, yes.

Me promoting myself, no.

That doesn’t mean I’m not ridiculously excited about this book and what I think it can do for people. Here is the link to the Sage page for the print text and digital version that lays out all the features, options and fun stuff we poured into “Exploring Mass Communication.” When I read it, even I was like, “Damn… I did all that?”

I have to say, though, the coolest thing about this whole thing is the Sage Vantage system. This is honestly a real game-changer for anyone teaching any course with any Sage book.

When I first heard about Vantage, every conversation went like this:

Me: I want to do (X).
Sage: Um… You can’t. It won’t translate into Vantage.

Now that I see how it works, I totally get why my weird ideas needed to be streamlined. Here is a 90-second video that explains Vantage. It impresses the hell out of me. The knowledge checks, the plug-and-play with any LMS, the ease of grading and more are all part of Vantage and this book was written specifically to work with that system.

That’s about as much self-promotion as I can handle: Bragging about someone else’s tools that make my textbook a “immersive digital learning experience.”

I have no idea how to tell you that I love this book and that I want you to love it too. So, I’m just going to offer you a bunch of bribes to make your life better in some way and perhaps get you to look at the textbook/digital-immersive-learning-experience thing.

 

BRIBE 1: REQUEST A REVIEW COPY OF THE BOOK AND GET A FREE “FILAK FURLOUGH” T-SHIRT

The folks at Sage are looking for people who want to adopt the book for a class. Me? I need to look cool in front of my publisher while simultaneously moving an excess supply of T-shirts.

So here’s the deal: If you’re teaching an intro to mass media/mass com class and you would be willing to take a look at the book, hit me up on the contact link here and I’ll get you on “Staci’s Magic List of Wonder” for a free copy. (Most folks like the digital version with all the Vantage toys to play with. If you’re old school or just need a new coffee coaster, I’m sure we can get you a print text.)

Send me your name, your school and your school email address. Also, send me the size of T-shirt you wear and a snail mail address and I’ll send you a “Filak Furlough Tour T-shirt.” All freebie. I’m covering shipping costs on my end.

(If you are thinking, “Vince, I’d love to see the book, but having your name on my body in any way feels profoundly creepy…” you can feel free to pass on the shirt. I totally get it. I still have trouble hearing my name as a descriptor as in, “Don’t forget to read Filak Chapter 5!”)

The shirts are a result of CustomInk doing an awesome thing and reprinting them after they made a mistake on the back of the first batch. Sage bought a bunch for a promo at its annual sales meeting, which was back in December, so when the reprinted shirts came, it was too late. Thus, I told the the Sage Folks I’d take the shirts and do something positive with them.

Sizes are somewhat limited and first come, first served. They are available while supplies last, but if that many people are that jazzed about this book that I run out of shirts, I might just do another order.

As you can see, I’m a total dork.

 

BRIBE 2: TELL ME WHAT I MISSED AND I’LL WRITE IT FOR YOU ASAP

The key reason I want you to look at the book isn’t to adopt it for your class.

Hyperventilating Breathe GIF - Hyperventilating Breathe Sheldon GIFs

Hang in there, Sage reps… I know this isn’t what you’re used to for a book launch…

My rationale is this: I know that despite five years of my life, 27 edits, five complete reboots, 128 reviews and innumerable prayers to St. Jude (the patron saint of lost causes) for intervention, I probably missed more than a few things in here.

If you have ever written anything, you know that eventually you read it over and over and over until you basically go blind to it. Over the course of this journey, we added, removed, reworked, replaced, added again, removed again and reconfigured everything in here at least twice. That means I need some people to tell me what works and what doesn’t, which is where you call come in.

If you read this thing and see something that needs to be there and isn’t, tell me and I’ll write it for you and post it on the blog. It doesn’t matter how big or how small. I’ll start a complete new section of the blog called “The Exploring Mass Communication Hotline” and post all fresh content to fill in any holes, add any additions, improve on any thin spots and generally augment what you get in the textbook, regardless of if you plan to adopt the thing or not.

I’ll also credit you on the blog. If the book gets picked up for a second edition somewhere in the future, I’ll fix the problem and you’ll be personally thanked in the Acknowledgements section.

People often think I’m kidding when I say stuff like this, but it’s real. Case in point: After the reporting book came out a few years back, a rep got a hold of me and said he had some feedback from a professor. The professor told him that if I had included a section on freelancing, the book would be much better.

So, I got in touch with several former students who were working various aspects of the freelance game and wrote a three-part, 8,000-word series on how freelancing works. I then sent the professor the links to use in the class, even if she hadn’t planned to adopt the book. We then took that series and tweaked it out for an appendix in the second edition. Her response? “This is great, but you’re crazy. Why would you do this for ONE PERSON?”

Well, because you asked. I just like helping folks.

Which leads to…

BRIBE 3: IF YOU TRY THE BOOK AND HATE IT, I’LL HELP YOU PUT YOUR CLASS BACK TOGETHER USING ANY BOOK YOU WANT

I would be honored and humbled if you’d consider my book for your class. Over the past few years, I’ve come to know a lot of great folks I otherwise never would have met if I hadn’t decided to turn my life into a series of book deadlines and giant Post-It Notes.

I use a giant Post-It to keep track of each book I’m working on at any given time. Yes, this was when things clearly got out of hand…

I understand that if you’re trying out my book, it means you’re not entirely happy with the one you’re using or looking for something specific. Nobody just switches books because they’ve got six weeks of stress-free time to kill or because they’re trying to help out a friend. The goal, I assume, is to plug a hole, fill a gap or generally improve upon whatever it is you’ve been sticking with through the last five or six editions.

That said, over the last 27 years of teaching college, I’ve come up with two universal truths:

  1. Rewriting a class for a new textbook is a massive pain in the rear.
  2. I am not everyone’s cup of tea.

In combining these two truisms, I realize I’m asking a lot of anyone who might be considering adopting “Exploring Mass Communication” for a class. In short, it’s like trying out a new hairstyle: It might be awesome or you might spend the next six months saying, “How long until I can get rid of these bangs?”

(I have been bald since I was 20, so I’m mostly guessing at how hair works…)

So, here’s the best deal I have for you: If you find yourself interested in trying this book for your class and it turns out it’s like eating sardine-flavored ice cream for you, I will work with you to rebuild your class in any format using any other mass-com text out there. I will literally fill in gaps, plug the holes and improve SOMEONE ELSE’S TEXTBOOK, based on what you tell me you want so that you can use it to fulfill your needs.

(Cut to a reaction from the offices of Sage…)

The first thought you might have is, “Vince, that’s a cute idea, but I’m using (NAME)’s book and I’m sure you haven’t read it…”

Hold my beer. Here is a sample of what I read in preparation to pitch Sage on this book:

I read everything in that photo at least once, most twice and one three times. I’ve read multiple editions of all of these, and these were just the ones I could still find on Amazon with a quick search of my internet history. That’s not counting the dozen or so other texts I borrowed from people or checked out of the library. In short, I know what’s out there because it informed on what I did or didn’t do when I wrote “Exploring Mass Communication.”

The second thought you might have is, “Vince, this has to be the stupidest thing you’ve ever done. Why would you actively improve your competition?”

Well, to start, it’s not even close to the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. This is comfortably below the “free tequila slammers” night and the “hey, let’s work on a pinball machine’s electric transformer without unplugging the game” situation. You could also ask my wife about the time I bought a beer can collection if you want to get me in real trouble…

Second, in answer to your question, I am constantly driven by two basic needs:

  1. Help people
  2. Make things work right

This is why Amy hates it when I see a broken lawnmower or vacuum cleaner on the side of the road. She knows I’m grabbing it and fixing it, even though we have no need for another lawnmower or vacuum cleaner. It’s also why I have a bunch of dead pinball machines in my game room and a garage full of dilapidated furniture: I’m bound and determined to fix them.

The whole reason I got into the textbook game was to help people. That’s why I did the blog, the Corona Hotline, the “Filak Furlough Tour” and pretty much everything else. To me, there is nothing that is more gratifying than feeling like someone who came to me with a problem actually left my presence with a solution.

When kids come to my office for help, they often say, “I’m sorry to bother you, but…” I immediately disabuse them of that notion: “You’re never a bother. Whatever you need is more important than what I am doing right now. Helping you is the best part of my day.” And I mean it.

So, that’s the pitch: Get a free copy of a book, get free stuff for doing so and get free help even if you don’t want to adopt the book. It should be clear from this proposal why I never went into sales and marketing.

In any case, operators are standing by, so thanks for being part of this journey with me.

Best,

Vince (a.k.a. The Doctor of Paper)

 

 

 

How to react when a student asks, “Which classes do I really need to attend?” (A Throwback Post)

A good friend and fellow professor inspired this Throwback Post, after a student reached out to her near the beginning of the semester with this request:

“I have a lot going on this semester. Can you tell me which classes are the most important so I can try to attend those?”
She politely responded to the student that she could not classify any one class period as more or less important than any other. That level of restraint means she needs to be involved in the next round of global peace talks.
Of course, the rest of us started chiming in with some of the better dumb things we’ve been asked or told over the years by students, including one person posting this gem:
I had a student who raised his hand on the first day going — this class is a lot of work. Why? It’s supposed to be a blow off course!
Yup. I’m here just to give you three credits and a side-order of fries…
So without further ado, here’s a look at some potentially useful comebacks for generally stupid questions…

Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions: Journalism Educator edition

Despite my parents’ best efforts, I got addicted to Mad magazine as a kid and fell in love with Al Jaffee’s acerbic wit. I’m sorry, all my former, current and future students…

Al Jaffee probably had a bigger influence on me than most people wished he’d had. The longtime cartoonist for Mad Magazine who died earlier this month at age 102, was both a gifted artist and a gifted humorist.

During his time at the publication, Mad had an amazing collection of talent, and each artist brought their own special vibe to the publication. Paul Coker drew his “horrifying cliches,” movie parodies and single-panel pieces. Sergio Aragones literally filled the magazine with his dialogue-free sketches, as he drew in the margins of the various spreads. Don Martin did some truly ridiculous cartoons, of which my favorite was the detective-wannabe Lance Parkertip, Noted Notary Public.

Jaffee, however, wrote his way into history with his “Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions,” which did exactly what the title promised. He’d present one of the dumber questions people tend to ask, and follow it with a series of sarcastic, snide or otherwise snappy responses, intended on laying low the idiot inquisitor.

As a kid, I took to Jaffee’s biting snap-backs like a fish to water, using his style of humor to keep bullies at bay in grade school and dabble in some class-clowning in high school. As I got older, I was told this kind of thing wasn’t age-appropriate for me but hey, if a guy can do this kind of stuff until he’s 102, I’ve got some time left on the clock.

In honor of Jaffee’s passing, here are a few Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions most of us tend to get as journalism educators:

 

“Sorry, I overslept. Did I miss anything important in class today?”

  • “No, we only did a bunch of unimportant stuff, like we do most days.”
  • “No, we just sat here and thought about how much we missed you.”
  • “Yeah, it was the best! We didn’t have to slow down and reexplain everything to this one kid who never pays attention and is constantly missing stuff while he’s Snapchatting the class period away.”

 

“Is this going to be on the test?”

  • “No, I enjoy throwing random facts at you for the sake of seeing how you react. It’s like my own little version of giving a lab rat an electric shock.”
  • “I’m not sure yet, but God forbid you be presented with information that might be valuable in its own right.”
  • “Probably not, because even though I said, ‘You want to write this down, because it’s going to be on the test,’ at least 912 times, I’m still debating how to handle this.”

 

“Why did I get an F on this assignment?”

  • “Because the university hasn’t figured out a way for me to give you anything lower.”
  • “Because given your writing ability, I figured this was as far as you ever got in learning the alphabet.”
  • “I understand that it’s probably a mystery, shrouded in the 20 or so sentences of feedback I wrote at the bottom of your paper, clearly outlining every point deduction.”

 

“Can I get an extension on this paper?”

  • “If you mean you want me to make the paper longer, sure.”
  • “Absolutely, because the six weeks I gave everyone else to accomplish it clearly wasn’t enough time for you to craft your incredibly expansive effort.”
  • “But what will I do in the meantime, as I wait to consume your exquisite prose? How will I pass the time as I await the dawning of your genius?”

 

“Can I do some extra credit to make up some points?”

  • “Given the effort you put into your ‘regular’ credit, giving you extra credit right now would seem to be an exercise in futility.”
  • “Sure, because when I said at the beginning of the year, and at least 12 times since, that the class will offer NO EXTRA CREDIT, I only meant that for other people who didn’t have the chutzpah to ask for it.”

 

“Do I HAVE to take the final exam?”

  • “I lack subpoena power and the university doesn’t equip me with a gun, so I can’t force you to do much of anything. That said, you probably won’t pass the class without at least a decent attempt.”
  • “Given that it won’t save your grade, no matter how well you do, I’d actually prefer you avoid wasting both of our times.”

 

“You know I’m graduating in two weeks, right?”

  • “Well, not if you need this class to do it…”
  • “That puts me in a quandary, as to pass you would mean I gave up on any standard I had for this class whatsoever, but to fail you would mean I’d need to tolerate your pointless presence again for a whole semester. Let me think about how much I hate myself right now and I’ll get back to you.”

 

“Is there ANYTHING I can do to pass this course at this point in the semester?”

  • “Can you invent a time machine and travel back to the start of the term when I told you to make sure you kept up with the reading and the assignments and kick your own ass to make sure you did so? If not, probably not.”
  • “Well, I’d ask for a bribe, but given your performance in class to this point, you’d probably screw that up, too.”

 

“Do you know who my father is?”

  • “Does HE know how to build a time machine to fix things for you? If not, I’m not sure how this is relevant to your grade.”
  • “No, but that’s probably because he found out how poorly you’re doing in school and immediately entered some form of witness protection.”
  • “No, but maybe a “23 and Me” kit could help.”

If any other pathologically stupid questions have come your way and you’d like some snappy answers, feel free to hit me up here and I’ll do my best to put together another list at some point.

Cutting it short: Remember to always check to see if autocorrect correctly corrected your copy

There’s never a good reason to be lazy, particularly when it might lead to a viral moment. A Pizza Hut in Ontario apparently didn’t bother to really read a sign workers posted to let people know the dining room wouldn’t be open. What happened next is now the stuff of legends:

This led to one of the greatest leads ever written, via the New York Post:

No tips required at this pizza shop.

The rule here, as always, is that you can write quickly, but you need to edit slowly. Also, if you aren’t sure that the autocorrect correctly corrected your work, look stuff up.

 

Gone Fishin’: “So That Happened…” Edition

If you want a 30-second synopsis of how the semester went, this is pretty much it…

We started the year with an $18 million budget hole, filled it with the career corpses of about one of every six employees here, had our raises held up by a petty tyrant who somehow got away with it and then saw the Board of Regents get strong armed into changing its mind with a tactic that seems to have come straight from an old Mafia movie to accept a terrible deal.

I also had a weird year in that more students than usual seemed to think class was an optional element of their education and now are flabbergasted that they will likely have to retake a course. (At least two people came within a hair of not graduating, thanks to this philosophy.)

On the plus side, I got to have a hell of a lot of fun visiting with more than a dozen schools on the “Filak Furlough Tour,” which led to great posts, a tour T-shirt and a post about the tour T-shirt… I also didn’t have to teach law this year, which we all should consider a blessing.

Grades are due Friday, which means its time to hunker down and pass a few people who don’t deserve it, based solely on my desire to never see them in a classroom again. (I’m clearly kidding here, although don’t think that thought doesn’t cross EVERY educator’s mind at least 824 times per semester…)

After that, it’s going to be a little time off before I have to figure out how to teach Intro to Advertising.

We’ll be back in Late January with the regular schedule and, as always, if something pops up before then, we’ll cover it here. Also, if you have any requests, feel free to shoot them my way.

Have a great holiday season.

 

Vince (a.k.a. The Doctor of Paper)

‘Tis the Season to Avoid these Ho-Ho-Horrible Cliches in your Journalistic Writing (A throwback post)

Some things only need to be said once for people to get the message:

Y’know, the basics.

Then there are things that apparently need to be said repeatedly and they still don’t get through to people with anything short of a death threat:

We’re already getting our “Turkey Day” references in the media around here, along with some “‘Tis the season-ing” that will likely only get worse. With that in mind, we offer another reminder that you can actually write about holiday stuff without resorting to cliche…

‘Tis the season to kill these 17 holiday cliches that will land you on the naughty list and get you coal in your stocking

 

The holiday season brings a lot of things to a lot of people, including family, gifts, joy and faith. Unfortunately for journalists, it also brings a ton of horrible, well-worn phrases that sap your readers’ will to live.

I tapped into the hivemind of jaded journos who were nice enough to come up with their least favorite holiday cliches. Avoid these like you avoid the kid in class with a cough, runny nose and pink-eye:

Turkey Day: The event is called Thanksgiving, so give thanks for journalists who don’t use this cliche. In fact, it took almost 300 years for turkey to become a staple of this event, so you might as well call it “Venison Thursday,” if you’re trying to be accurate.

T-Day: Regardless of if you are “turkey perplexed” or not, you’re compounding the problem with the above cliche with simple laziness. That, and you’re really going to create some panic among distracted news viewers in the military.

‘tis the season: According to a few recent stories, ’tis the season for car break-ins, holiday entertaining,  to propose marriage, to get bugs in your kitchen and to enjoy those Equal Employment Opportunity Commission year-end reports!

The White Stuff: Unless you are in a “Weird Al” cover band or running cocaine out of Colombia, you can skip this one.

A white Christmas: The only people who ever enjoyed a white Christmas were bookies, Bing Crosby’s agent and weather forecasters who appear to be on some of “the white stuff.”

Ho-ho-ho: It’s ho-ho-horrible how many pointless uses of this phrase turn up on a simple news search on Google. None of these things are helped by the inclusion of this guttural noise.

On the naughty list: The toys “on the naughty list” in this story “all have some type of hazard that could send a child to the hospital. The majority pose a choking hazard but parents should be aware of strangulation, burns, eye injuries, and more.” Including a cliche diminishes the seriousness of this a bit. Also, don’t use this with crime stories around the holidays: The first person to find a story that says Senate candidate Roy Moore, Harvey Weinstein, Louis C.K. or Kevin Spacey landed “on the naughty list,” please send it to me immediately for evisceration.

Charlie Brown tree: Spoken of as something to avoid. You mean you want to avoid having a tree that demonstrated looks aren’t everything and that tries to capture the true deeper meaning of Christmas? Yep. Can’t have that stuff.

“Christmas starts earlier every year…” : Easter, maybe. Christmas, no. It’s the same time every year. Check your calendar and stop this.

War on Christmas: Be a conscientious objector in this cliched battle, please.

“… found coal in their stockings”: Apply the logic of “on the naughty list” here and you get the right idea. The story on the Air Force getting coal for Christmas after tweeting that Santa wasn’t real could have done without the cliche. Then again, maybe we’d all be better off if the Air Force was right, given the picture included with the story.

Making a list, checking it twice: A all-knowing fat man has a list of people who are naughty and nice and will dole out rewards and punishments accordingly. Sounds cute when it’s Santa, but less so when an editorial is using this to talk about Steve Bannon. Let’s be careful out there…

Grinch: There is probably an inverse relationship between the number of people who try to use this cliche and those who actually get it right. Let’s let John Oliver explain:

Jingle all the way: Nothing warms the heart like an in-depth financial analysis of a multi-national retailer like a random reference to Jingle Bells.

Dashing through the snow: This product pitch isn’t improved by the cliche, but it might help you survive hearing the use of it over and over and over…

It’s beginning to look a lot like…: Well, it apparently looks a lot like Christmas for small businesses, at Honolulu’s city hall, through a $1.5 million investment in lights at a Canadian park, and at a mall in Virginia. It’s also looking a lot like 2006 in the NFC. Oh, and it’s beginning to look a lot like Watergate as well. Get ready with that naughty list and coal, I guess…

The true meaning of…: Nothing says, “I understand and want to engage with my readers” like lecturing them on “the true meaning” of something, whether that is Christmas or a VAD.

Wishing you all the best in this season of cliche…

Vince (The Doctor of Paper)

Buy a Filak Furlough Tour T-Shirt from the World’s Worst Businessperson!

If I’ve been through a worse day at work than Tuesday, I don’t want to remember it. UWO just passed out more than 140 pink slips to employees, with another 75 or so folks taking early retirement and dozens others not being rehired on annual contracts. According to the news, 1 in 6 employees here got canned.

In addition, the university system decided to put our UWO Fond du Lac branch on hospice care, killing off in person classes starting in the fall, which likely spells the end for all the folks there in a relatively short amount of time. Also, the chucklenut who basically runs the statehouse decided to greenlight every state employee pay raise except for those in the university system. The reason? Apparently we’re indoctrinating kids with the idea that empathy, equality of access and basic human decency should be valued.

I needed something to make me smile, and thanks to Jenny Fischer and Heather Tice, who have design and art ability far, far, far beyond mine, I got it.

The Filak Furlough Tour T-shirts are ready to go.

Since there seemed to be a split between a neutral color and a loud color, we decided to offer both.

HERE IS THE LINK TO THE ORDER FORM. The window is about two weeks to order with another two weeks to ship. The cost should range between $15 and $18 depending on how many we sell. Each order has a shipping charge, but it will be directly shipped to you and you pay the company directly.

No “middle-Vince” to screw things up.

Just to make this absolutely clear, what you pay is what the shirt costs based on what CustomInk is doing. I don’t make a dime on this and I sure as hell don’t want to.

Look, I’ve been accused of a lot of things over the years in academia, with many people using words that my editors at SAGE would not allow me to repeat here. Being an opportunistic entrepreneur has never been one of them.

When the Filak Furlough Tour started, people were asking, “So how much are you charging to do this? Is there a fee for you to teach a class or visit my school?”

Nope. I just figured it’d be a nice thing to do. The best part of my day is working with kids in media, helping out fellow educators and feeling like I’m relatively useful. The furloughs took all that away from me, so I saw the tour as a way to get some of that back.

Then it was, “OK, so is this your attempt to gin up some job opportunities? Are you looking for the next big career move out of Oshkosh?”

Nope. Despite UWO treating folks here like my nieces treat their diapers, I really want to stay here. I love the kids, I love my classes and it would take somewhere close to half of a year to pack up all my bobbleheads. Besides, I really like our house, my workshop and even the chickens have kind of grown on me.  If they fire me, OK, fine, I’ll go somewhere else. In the meantime, UWO is stuck with me.

Then it was, “So you’re trying to do some book-pimping, right? Is SAGE sponsoring this?”

Nope again. They had no idea  I was going to do this. Other than what people tell me, I have no idea if anyone signed up for the tour is using my books for any of their classes. Just like the blog, it’s open to everyone for without cost.

The books I’m giving away are from my author’s stash that I got for publishing each book and if I run out, I’ll buy some more on my author’s discount and use those. The bats were nicely donated from the stash my dad had in the basement of my parents’ house. I’m paying for the supplies and postage myself. I made a promise to give this stuff away, and even though I had no idea people actually liked me and/or free stuff this much, I’m making it happen.

This leads me to the T-shirt thing: I set up a design at CustomInk because I’d used them before and the quality and service are good. I could have made it a fundraiser or something, but I just wanted as many people who wanted to buy a shirt able to buy a shirt at the best price. And if I’m honest, I wanted to rub a little shame on UWO as well for this debacle.

So buy a shirt and enjoy telling the story about this insane weirdo you know who took a pay cut due to his school’s fiscal mismanagement and turned it into a Quixotic adventure that involved free books, bats and classroom lectures.

If you really want to know what I’m getting out of all this, that explanation should cover it nicely.

Image

Filak’s getting furloughed, so let’s have some fun with this…

This was expected, thanks in large part to the media coverage that explained UW-Oshkosh was going to be $18 million in the hole this year. That said, this wasn’t the best email to get before a holiday weekend:

(If you’d like to see a master course on sterile jargon, enjoy reading Patient Zero here…)

All faculty members are getting some degree of furlough, while the folks who are in the academic staff, administrative staff and other non-tenured spots on the campus await layoffs and other levels of anxiety-provoking announcements.

(Some of us sat through an hour-plus event that included the explanation that to close our $18 million budget deficit, the university would be using the $5 million remaining in its surplus fund, furloughing faculty to save $3 million and then relying on $1 million in cuts. Even my journalism brain realized something was wrong with that math.)

Given my use of humor to deal with darkness, the jokes on this have come fast and furiously through my brain:

  • “Welcome to UW-O, home of the furlough!”
  • “It’s UW-Furlough, where the customer comes… into an empty office at least a few days this month.”
  • “You can’t spell furlough without F-U!”

I also liked the line of “You are not to  be performing any work for UW-Oshkosh” as I’m trying to imagine the enforcement mechanisms that will be employed:

(Sound of SWAT officers kicking down my front door, annoying the dog and scattering the chickens)

Cop: “Filak! Are you GRADING PAPERS? Hands off that laptop now!”

Me: “No! Officer! I swear, I’m just surfing for porn!”

Cop: “Yeah… you BETTER BE!”

In any case, this isn’t a pity party for me but more of an opportunity to go out Irish-Wake style on this thing, so here’s what I’m pitching:

THE 2023-24 UW-UH-OH, FILAK’S ON FURLOUGH TOUR

I’ve basically got 11 days to kill, so let’s do something positive with those.  I’m putting out the Bat Signal for anyone out there who is teaching journalism at the high school or college level, anyone running a student media outlet at any level, any group of students who need help in journalism or basically anyone who is looking to take advantage of a journalism professor/blogger chimp with a desire to help you in  any way I can while making a mockery of the system.

I am ready, willing and able to do pretty much anything you want me to do for your classroom, your newsroom, your student media organization or whatever for one of my 11 furlough days.

  • You want me to hop on a Zoom call and teach a topic? Fine.
  • You want me to drive out to your school and meet with students to do some brainstorming for the next issue of the student publication? Totally cool.
  • You want me to come out to your student media conference and teach a dozen sessions on stuff that people want/need? I’m there.
  • You need me to go through resumes, cover letters, copies of your student newspaper, last year’s yearbook and your relatively weak “break-up poetry” from sophomore year? Sure… Hey… Let’s do it!

In addition to that, I’m willing to kick in the following things:

  • A blog post about whatever we did, promoting your place and giving the readers a nice bit of information they can use in their own classroom/newsroom/journalistic lair
  • A copy of the latest edition of any of my textbooks. (I’ve got your choice of Media Writing, News Reporting and Writing, Media Editing and Exploring Mass Com, all of which are suitable substitutes for Ambien.)
  • One of my personalized, hand-burned wooden baseball bats for your office or classroom

(I’ve done some pretty cool bats…)

 

And, if I sell out the tour on all 11 dates, I’m getting T-shirts with your class/team/organization as an official tour stop.

So, what do you need to do to get in on the hustle? Hit me up via the contact page linked here and tell me the following things:

  • Who you are, what you do and where you are located
  • What you want me to do for your class/group/organization
  • When you want this to happen, as apparently I can only take a certain number of furlough days in a certain set of pay periods for reasons past my understanding
  • How you want to do this (in-person, on Zoom, via the Pony Express, whatever)
  • Why you want to do this

Let’s turn a truly stupid thing into something awesome for you and your folks, which I think Is the unofficial motto of this blog.

Blog lines are open. Operators are standing by.

Best,

Vince (a.k.a. The Doctor of Paper)

 

Elon Musk said he “learned a lot” from his SpaceX rocket explosion. So can media professionals.

You know you’re rich when you can have what equates to a multi-million dollar firework explode after four minutes in the air and refer to it as a learning experience. Elon Musk noted after his SpaceX rocket blew up that he “learned a lot” from the flight that lasted about half the time of the Rolling Stones’ “You can’t always get what you want.”

As much as it would be fun to beat up on the guy who somehow turned Twitter into a place that has baffled Stephen King, a more valuable use of our space here might be to turn this into a learning experience for media practitioners across the spectrum.

Thus, let us begin with…

NEWS LESSON 1: When it comes to leads, just tell me what happened.

A friend and colleague sent me an array of leads as a reminder of what can happen when writers get too into themselves…

This shit is remarkable:

Washington Post:

SpaceX’s Starship lifted off the pad in Southern Texas and cleared the launchpad, its first milestone, but then began tumbling as it was preparing for stage separation and the vehicle came apart some four minutes into flight.

 

CNN:

SpaceX’s Starship, the most powerful rocket ever built, took off from a launch pad on the coast of South Texas on Thursday at 9:28 a.m. ET, but exploded midair before stage separation.

 

CBS.com:

SpaceX’s huge Starship rocket, the most powerful ever built, blasted off on an unpiloted maiden flight Thursday and successfully flew for more than two minutes before tumbling out of control and exploding in a cloud of flaming debris.

 

CNBC.com:

SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas — Elon Musk’s SpaceX on Thursday launched its Starship rocket for the first time, but fell short of reaching space after exploding in mid-flight. No crew were on board.

 

Space.com:

SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas — The most powerful rocket ever built put on quite a show during its debut space launch.

As my friend noted, each lead seems to avoid the fact that a giant missile blew up and created quite a mess for people who were wondering if Musk’s effort would be better or worse than his work with Twitter.

The lesson here is simple. Just tell people what happened and why they should care in your lead. If you feel the need to wax poetic about a massive ship breaking free from the celestial bonds of Earth, go to a poetry slam.

 

NEWS LESSON 2: Completeness and clarity matter a great deal.

Shortly after the rocket turned into a flying junkyard, “think” pieces started to emerge about how this wasn’t really as bad as it seemed:

About four minutes after SpaceX‘s gargantuan rocket lifted from its Texas launch pad, it burst into a fireball over the Gulf of Mexico, never reaching space.

Though SpaceX hasn’t shared many details yet about what happened during Starship’s maiden voyage, one fact is known: It was intentionally ordered to explode.

This and several other stories noted that it wasn’t an unexpected explosion, but one deliberately set off by the SpaceX folks because of the risk of falling debris and other similar concerns for people on the ground.

That’s important to know, but it’s also worth noting that the REASON they blew this thing up was because the rocket had started to malfunction around that time. In other words, either way, this thing was not going to be a fully realized launch.

Both of these points are worth making clear right up front on stories that discuss the rocket, although it seemed like half the stories out there were doing some version of a “Ha Ha! Elon Sucks!” story and the other half were doing the “Oh, you simpletons. You do not understand the genius of Elon” stories.

Both are half true, in a way, but neither is clear or complete.

 

PUBLIC RELATIONS LESSON 1: Manage expectations

Dovetailing nicely with the info above, the first lesson good public relations practitioners learn is how to convey important information of interest to an audience in a transparent and direct way. In this case, that seemed to be lacking.

The follow up stories touch on how this taught people a lot, or how rockets fail a lot before they succeed or how they never really intended this thing to be totally successful. All of these things might be true, but the timing of those pieces is really terrible.

If you manage expectations people have for an event, you can better control the narrative  in terms of what people should expect or not expect. For the longest time, people got used to NASA tossing spacecrafts into the heavens with nothing but total success. Musk probably knew (I’m guessing based on what’s coming out now) that this wasn’t going to be that.

Rather than tell people, “Hey, this thing is going to be in the air about as long as it takes to blow $20 in a slot machine at the Las Vegas airport,” he didn’t mention what could happen. Thus, the reaction from pundits and suddenly all of the “we learned stuff” responses sound like trying to polish a turd.

Put it this way: If I go to the mechanic to get my car fixed and he tells me, “It’s going to cost $300 and take two hours,” that’s my resting pulse for expectation. If he comes in at $250 or it takes an hour and a half, I’m going to be thrilled. However, if he tells me it’ll cost $250 and will take an hour and a half, but instead it’s $300 and two hours, I’m going to be upset.

 

PUBLIC RELATIONS LESSON 2: Don’t give people a reason to mock you.

Perhaps the one thing people will remember most of this mess was the linguistic calisthenics that Musk and crew used to explain the rocket’s demise:

This approach to reality reminds me of the time that I covered the Mifflin Street Block Party, which devolved into fire, arrests and the destruction of a fire truck.

When I called the police to determine if they called a 10-33 (Riot in progress), I was told I shouldn’t call it a riot. I then outlined all of the stuff I saw there: A car burned to a shell, porches ripped to pieces, fires torching the street, kids screaming “f— the pigs” and more before asking, “If it wasn’t a riot, what was it?”

“It was a large, prolonged disturbance,” the officer said before hanging up on me.

A “rapid unscheduled disassembly” is not only jargon, but it’s clearly mock-worthy. I get that you don’t necessarily want to be this blunt in your assessment of the launch, but come on… You might have been better off going with “we had an oopsie” at that point.

If there’s one thing the internet is good at, it’s mockery. The last thing you want to do is softball it in for the folks out there who really enjoy roasting the hell out of you.

 

And the Lord said, “Away from this burger, Satan… You are a stumbling block of cheddar…”

The Easter weekend involved so many truly ridiculous things, trying to explain them all would be beyond your willingness to ever consider me a reliable source again.

That said, here are a few basic takeaways I picked up:

  1. I live with two people who murder muppets in our bathtub. There can be no other explanation for the size of the hair clogs in our drain.
  2. The amount of PCV pipe you buy on your first trip to the store is in inverse proportion to the amount of the old piping that will shatter when you try to repair it.
  3. Elderly family members in assisted living and pets will randomly run away from where they are supposed stay at the least opportune times for no real reason. At least one of these groups should require a collar with an Air Tag/GPS Tracer/LoJack on it for just this reason.
  4. A car will run while pouring gasoline out of its fuel lines. It will not run very far, but it will continue to run until you realize what the problem is.
  5. A Catholic Church on Easter can be among the least Christian places on Earth, in some cases. If someone is muttering, “Stop praying so loudly…” because they’re trying to pray, it’s hard to square that circle.
  6. The amount of time you give students to complete a project does not increase the likelihood that they will complete it. It’s almost like a stress test for your own sanity to determine how many emails you want to  get that will start with, “This was totally my own fault, but…”

All of this being said, you know you are in the right field when you get emails and messages from friends, colleagues and former students that fit perfectly with your own reading of a situation, like this:

As God as my witness, I swear I was wondering when I read this, “Who the hell is healing burgers?”

May tomorrow bring less chaos, more insight and a post that helps you in educating the next generation of journalists.

Vince (a.k.a. The Doctor of Paper)

A Texas Rep. calls for Connie Lingus, Anita Dickenme and Holden MiDick (A throwback post on how to avoid getting pranked)

A friend of mine posted this moment from a Texas Legislative session where a bill targeting doctors who provided help to transgender youth was up for debate. As heartfelt as this woman’s pitch is to get this thing stopped, it pales in comparison to what happens next:

The fact it took this guy three tries to figure out what was happening is the reason for this throwback post. Between pranksters and terrible headline issues, we never know when our work will become a cautionary tale for future generations.

To help you avoid asking for Connie, Anita or Holden to step forward, here’s a throwback post to help you out:

 

3 ways to avoid letting Tucker Boner, Dick Hertz and Heywood Jablome turn your story into a prank

The world of news features is fraught with danger when you couple unsuspecting reporters with people who enjoy trolling them. A journalism colleague and friend alerted me to this potentially suspect source in a New York Times story about Zillow Surfing:

As my friend noted, “I couldn’t help but think the reporter got duped,” before referencing this classic “source” in a New York Post story:

If you need the joke spelled out, I’ll answer the question for you: “No, I would not like to blow you…”

The Post story is coming up on two decades old, but the folks there are apparently not giving up the ship when it comes to Heywood’s bona fides (sorry… couldn’t resist) as this story is STILL AVAILABLE.

Is it possible that these guys were both real people with just unfortunate names? Sure. I mean, one of the best pitching coaches in baseball history (at least in my mind) had probably the world’s worst name if he wanted people to take him seriously: Dick Pole.

Of all the greatest “add another layer” moments was the year in which Pole played for the Portland Beavers. Although you should know by now I’m not creative enough to make this stuff up, here’s proof:

We could spend hours going through a list of names people have used to punk reporters. The Seymour Buttz and Mike Rotch’s of the world are well known, thanks in large part to “The Simpsons” and Bart’s penchant for pranking the local bar.

There are plenty of cases where “regular” people have names that go beyond common spellings or those we have seen hundreds of times before. We once had a music guy who kept calling us to promote the promising bands he represented. His first name was Spackle. I have no idea how or why…

Even more, there are cases where people share famous names with people who have entered the public spotlight in an unfortunate fashion. (In my time at the State Journal, I worked with a “Susan Smith” right around the time another “Susan Smith” was in the news for all the wrong reasons. Our “Susan” actually wrote a column about these unfortunate pairings…) And, of course, it’s probably no great shakes for these regular folks, either, who have to deal with this on a daily basis:

However, as a journalist, you can’t cut people out of your stories or avoid them just because “that name sounds weird.” With that in mind, here are a few tips for keeping yourself out of trouble in these situations:

Trust but verify: In most cases, you’re getting people to tell you their names and spell them, so you’re in pretty good shape for making sure you got the name itself right.

If the name seems like it might be a “trolling moment,” you can’t automatically assume this person is messing with you. (“So that’s Dick P-O-L-E… wait a minute!”) It would be in poor form to demand ID from that person, but you can get around that concern in a few other ways.

Make use of the other publicly available databases, such as those for court records. Maybe “Yankton Weiner” was sued, filed suit, got a speeding ticket or got a divorce from the former Mrs. Weiner, which would help you figure this out.

Do a search through multiple other websites connected with the topic at hand to see if that person was cited as a source. A quick run through your own news site and a few others in the area would be helpful as well. If you keep coming up empty, telephone directory searches are also helpful.

Also, the internet has a burgeoning public records industry where various companies swear they can find out anything about anybody. If you search for a name, chances are, you’ll get at least something in the free version of the company’s site. Worst case, pay the $20 or whatever if you’re desperate to use the source but afraid of looking like an idiot.

Box the source in: One of the easiest ways to prevent a source from snowing  you is to pin that source down with specific questions about themselves. A person might quickly give you “I. P. Frehleigh” as a name, but would likely be less adept telling you what the I and P stand for. The more questions you ask, the more hemmed in that source will be.

If the source works in some professional field, ask for a business card with the idea that you might want to reach out to them later. If they balk, that’s a pretty good indication that something might not be above board. If they offer a phone number instead, use that number to reach out to them from another phone and see how they answer. Or use a reverse-directory app to get their name from that number.

Throw some basic chatter at the person to get some other information such as, “So how long have you lived around here?” or “Where did you say your office was?” If the answers are quick and easy, the person is likely on the level. If they feel forced, be wary. Either way, write the answers down so you can check them against other information. Also, don’t be afraid to go back and ask a basic question a second time to see if they have it the same way twice: “I’m sorry, but HOW did you spell ‘Frehleigh’ again?”

Ask that source to give you some contact information for their colleagues or other folks who might be just as helpful. This will help limit the number of lies that you can hear. At the end of the day, paranoia will be your best friend, so ask as many questions about the person as you need to

Cut it: There’s no rule that says you have to use a source just because you got the source to talk. Granted, some sources are crucial to a story, but if you review what Mr. Jablome and what Mr. Boner told the reporters here, you can see nothing vital or unique. This is a case of a reporter just deciding, “Well, I got the source, so I’m using him,” a concept in journalism known as notebook emptying.

At the end of the day, I’d rather be one source short than to add to the legend of “Elle Phunt,” “Dee Z. Knutz” or “Barry McCockiner.”

 

 

 

More words of wisdom from Dad on his birthday (A Throwback Post).

You might think, “Gee, Vince, it seems like the only reason you do these odes to your Dad on his birthday is to feature his really bad fashion choices of the 1970s…” Well, you wouldn’t be ENTIRELY wrong about that…

My reporting class inspired me to dig up these words of wisdom from my dad today on his actual birthday.

About six or seven weeks ago, we discussed open records and launched our “Fun with FOIA” assignment, which was relatively simple:

  • Come up with a story that is predicated on public records of any kind
  • Create and file an open-records request with the agency responsible for those records
  • Write a two-page, double-spaced story that incorporates the info you got back and at least two human sources who can discuss the topic in a meaningful way.

This isn’t rocket science and I wasn’t looking for a Watergate story. Find the budget of the student government, figure out what they spend money on and ask the leaders some questions. Pull the contracts used to hire speakers for campus events and see who got paid what and if anything was hinky. Get the total number of parking tickets given on campus, see where the most/least tickets were given and talk to parking services folks about it.

That said, I told them about 832 times that the only truly problematic thing would be if they waited too long to file their open-records request. That would limit the time people on the other end would have to look at your stuff, find the records and get back to you. “Yeah… Yeah… We know…” was the general attitude as they left class that day.

Today, drafts are due and I’m getting emails that start like this:

So, this is honestly my own fault, but I submitted my open records request to the University Police on Monday and for some odd reason I thought they could get to me by Thursday, but they just got back to me today saying they’re so busy with open record requests, so he won’t have done for another 10 days.

And thus came forth advice my father constantly gave me that I then shared with them: “Dammit, you should have done it right away…”

Dad believed in the idea that if we got stuff done when it came up, we wouldn’t end up forgetting about it or getting painted into a corner by circumstance. It’s why we always pack the car for card shows the night before, print off an itinerary for a trip immediately (even if the trip is six months away) and make damned sure to file our taxes right away.

It’s why when I get asked to judge a contest, I try my best to nail it down as soon as I get the assignments. It’s why I respond to emails right after I open them. It’s also why nothing irritates me more than if something slips past me and then I’m behind on it.

Today’s throwback post brings back Dad’s maxims I put together on his birthday a few years back. These still fit perfectly in everything I teach. I also wanted to add these two items that I find myself coming back to every, single day as a journalist and a professor:

Learn to haggle: If there is one life skill students desperately need, it’s to understand how to appropriately value things and negotiate. I learned this when I was about 7 years old at a baseball card show.

I wanted a 1973 Roberto Clemente card, and one dealer had a whole bunch of them for sale. When Dad asked the guy how much one would cost, the dealer pulled out a price guide, and said they were $25 each.

“I’ll give you $10 for one,” Dad replied.

“Look at the book,” the guy said, pushing the guide toward Dad. “They’re booking at $25.”

“Well, I’ll give you $10 for whichever one you want to sell,” Dad replied.

The guy sighed, and said, “Pick whichever one you want. It’s a deal.”

I still couldn’t understand how that all worked, but I waited until we got in the car to ask Dad about it. I mean, the BOOK SAID the card was worth $25. That’s got to be how much you pay, right? It was at that point, Dad said something that sticks with me until this day:

“Something isn’t worth what somebody says it is. It’s worth what someone’s willing to give you for it.”

Not only was that good advice when it came to garage sales, flea markets, baseball cards and auto purchases, it was phenomenal advice when it came to negotiating debts, getting info from sources and prying documents loose from wary record keepers.

Even more, it’s the skill I teach students the most when they get job offers: Here’s how you ask for a better salary, better hours, specific computer systems, more vacation, extra 401K matches and more. Haggling can feel awkward until you get used to it, which is why it’s important to understand how to do it well and to get plenty of practice at it with small stuff.

Like baseball cards.

Live up to your word: The best and worst moments of my life came from this maxim, in that Dad did what he said.

When I was 8, I asked to go to a Milwaukee Brewers game. Dad agreed to take me on the day I had asked, not quite realizing that it was Free Bat Day, and that the team was in the middle of a pennant race. The place would be packed, the traffic would be awful and who knows if they had enough bats to satisfy every kid.

Still, Dad said yes, so we went. It was a heck of a game and I still have that bat somewhere.

Conversely, when I turned 16 and got my driver’s license, Dad told me, “If you get a speeding ticket, you’re done. I don’t want any (bovine excrement). You get a ticket and you give me your keys.”

About a year later, I was flying down a stretch of road notorious for speed traps when I got clocked at 17 over. No warning and no mercy from the officer. I got the ticket.

Dad was making dinner and he asked, “Where the hell were you?” I didn’t say a word. I just put the ticket on the kitchen table, dropped the keys on top of it and that was that for a while. (Eventually, I got my driving privileges back but 32 years later, I’m still smarting from that to the point Amy accuses me of being an elderly woman behind the wheel.)

Dad always said, “If I said yes, it was yes. If I said no, it’s no. A ‘maybe’ means ‘maybe.'”

I try to live by that with my own kid and with my career as well. If I commit to something, whether it’s as pathologically stupid as writing three books at the same time or as easy as keeping my door open during office hours, I do it.

As my reporting class learned this morning when they asked, “Can’t we move the deadline for the FOIA story?”

Nope. It is what it is.

So, on Dad’s birthday, here’s a look back at his previous words of wisdom and what I hope students can learn from them.

 

Happy Birthday, Dad: 4 valuable things I learned from my father that might help you, too

DadSuit

It might be hard to believe that a guy who dressed like this could have valuable advice, but trust me, he always does.

As my daughter was going stir-crazy the other day, whining loudly about missing her friends, her extracurricular activities and even in-school classes, I told her the one truism I hoped would keep her sane:

“You can’t focus on the things you can’t do because of social distancing. You have to focus on the things you DO get to do. Otherwise, you’ll go batty.”

For me, an introvert with a long-standing aversion to social situations, this has been an easy adage to espouse and obey.

Until today. Today is my dad’s birthday.

Like everyone else in this country, Dad is stuck at home with limited contact to the outside world, for fear of contracting a virus that is decimating people at an incredible rate. While this “wait this out at home” rule is rough on a lot of people, it has to be killing my dad, who earned the family nickname of “No-Line Frank” for his disdain of waiting in line for anything. (It probably isn’t any great shakes for my mom, either, as she’s isolated in the house with him like this for at least another month.)

I wish with all my heart I could jet down I-41 and give him a big hug (and a nice bottle of Drambuie) today. The fact I can’t saddens me to the point of distraction. That said, he would be the first one to tell me it’s fine, not to worry and that I should get back to work.

My parents were and still are instrumental in who I am and what I do in life. In honor of dad’s 76th birthday, here are four “Filak-isms” he taught me that helped make me who I am and likely will help me make it through this pandemic unscathed:

HUSTLE WHILE YOU WAIT: I can’t remember when he first said it to me, but I rely on it almost daily: “The best things in life come to he who hustles while he waits.”

Although Dad later told me he heard this in a Credit Union seminar or something, I still attribute it to him because he not only said it, but he lives it. I often joke that I’m a “human twitch” when it comes to keeping busy, constantly writing books, teaching classes, refinishing furniture and doing almost anything else anybody asks of me.

Compared to my dad, I’m a piker.

I can’t remember the last time I saw him watch a whole ballgame or TV show without getting up and looking for something to do. He might be cleaning out the junk drawer in the dining room or sorting some baseball cards or looking for something in the basement, but he’s constantly on the move. Seeing this always inspired me to find more stuff to do and to keep looking for new opportunities to make the most of my time.

If you’re always hustling, the good things will come your way.

 

DON’T BRING SHAME ON THE FAMILY: I know I’ve explained this before, but it bears repeating. Dad told me this when I went off to college and decades later, it still rings true. “When you go out there, have fun,” he said. ” But, don’t bring shame on the family. It’s my name, too.”

The sheer tonnage of stupid things I avoided doing in college, simply based on that bit of advice, could stop a speeding locomotive from moving another inch forward. Even now, when I considered doing something, I would imagine the headline “UWO Professor Arrested for (Fill in whatever stupid thing I thought about doing)” and immediately decided against doing that stupid thing.

Whether it was being a success or just avoiding failure, the goal was pretty simple: When Dad saw someone he knew at the grocery store, it would be great if the person didn’t start the conversation with, “Hey, yeah… Heard about your son… Geez… That’s not good…”

 

YOU ARE NOT AVERAGE: In fifth grade, I came home with five C’s on my report card, much to the dismay of my parents. Dad was less than pleased that I wasn’t living up to my potential, whatever that was, and he pretty much knew full well that I fell short because I wasn’t giving a crap.

We were in the middle of a “silent supper,” thanks to my transgressions, when I finally broke the silence with what I thought would be a pretty good argument for my folks to not be so upset: “I read the report card, and it says that a C is average, so-”

Dad cut me off in a firm tone, “You are NOT average.”

I got the point. I could do better. And I knew it.

From that moment, I didn’t get another C on a report card until I hit my freshman year of college. In that case, it was more of a scheduling mistake than a lack of effort, because I took an introductory zoology course that served as the “weed-out” class for the veterinary medicine program at the U.

It’s always easy to take it easy, but that’s not the right way to do things. I was lucky enough to get a set of tools and the ability to use them in a way that matters. I was also lucky as hell to have parents who wouldn’t let me slide because I was good enough to get by or because other people’s kids were doing something worse.

Once that got stuck in my head, I realized that it’s important to always push beyond average whenever possible.

 

FINISH THE WORK FIRST, DRINK BEER LATER: Dad always believed in the separation of work and relaxation. He once told me about my grandfather and how he liked to do part of a job and then relax a bit and then go back and do more of it. Dad fell into the mode that my great-grandfather espoused: Finish the work first, drink the beer later.

What I learned from this was not only the importance of a strong work ethic but also the idea that I could find joy in completion of work. Seeing things get checked off a list or looking at a well-done job brought me happiness that could far exceed the joy of a brief respite and the knowledge that I had to do more work.

Even more, the beer always tasted better when I knew I was done for the day.

Thanks for everything, Pop. I love you.

Dad