Coffee and a Donut

That’s how I started my first unofficial co-operative education end of semester report from my memory, or for sure I told it to the student taking over for me. 

It’s one of the many lessons taught (or reminded) me that has helped me grow professionally, personally, and in pant sizes.  It’s a lesson I had been taught my entire life but as a college student I needed a random worker to really install it in me, or at least provide the memory that has stuck with me for over 30 years.

I ‘m writing this sitting in The Mill in Bloomington, Indiana surrounded by some of the brightest and most driven workers, business owners, entrepreneurs, and more.  It’s a beautiful historic building but more than that it’s a community. And there’s very little on business I can teach them but plenty I’ve learned these last 2 years and hopefully will continue to learn from them.  The IU Football team is all the talk of the town right now but there’s a whole community here that most people don’t even know about that are also making Indiana and the world a better place.

So this is my little lesson or ramblings I can pass on to you (or maybe waste your time trying to read it) and as a reminder to my future self to never forget the importance of a coffee and a donut.

This is the forth of hopefully several post of what I’m going to call Rodney’s Ramblings, unscripted, unfiltered, most definitely grammatically incorrect.  And probably too long for most to read but this is written for the future me as much as for you.

The first two unfortunately were written and I thought I had gained the strength to let the voices escape but ended up duct taping them shut and throwing them back in my head.  They are my Rodney and Goliath story and depending on the path we choose the stories may never see the light of day.  But hopefully whichever path and the battle thus far produces positive change for others, that our losses and fight makes it so nobody ever has to go through our situation again. 

The one thing I can share now from my first rambling and that is relevant to this one is:

“So if you made it this far and are up for a harder fight grab yourself a coffee and donut, or a beer, maybe 2, and try to follow along my ramblings. I hope you find it somewhat interesting, that it makes you think about your own fights and values, and that at least some portions are entertaining enough to fight through reading the full rambling.”

So the short backstory is to pay for college I began working weekends in the Foundry in town that my father worked his whole life at and literally built it as he worked his way up from maintenance to eventually the Plant and Environmental Engineer. By the second summer I had worked in most departments filling in for people on vacation and I got called into the Plant Metallurgists office and they had a cooperative education student cancel out and figured going for Electrical Engineering at the time I was the closest they had. I would spend part of the time in the plant running trials and the rest in the office doing research and writing up the results. Not a bad deal I must say.

One of the early challenges was in the melt department where you would spend 10 minutes putting protective gear on and then watch an operator who has years of experience essentially take a 10’ long rod with a cup about half the size of a coffee cup into a molten stream of iron and pull a sample out of it without splashing iron on his coworkers. Then you have to follow up and do it yourself for the trial sample.  These guys were pros at it.  I swear they could look at the iron and tell just as much about it as our fancy instruments testing their samples could. 

This was a task I obviously failed at.  It took me longer to take our 1 sample during test than it took them to do 3.  And I swear my one sample spewed more iron on the ground than their entire days of samples probably did.  It didn’t take long until I showed up and I can’t remember his name but I think it was Jack and he looks at me and says something like “do something useful and go get me a coffee and a donut and I’ll grab your sample for you”.  So I head to the break room and I hate to date myself but it’s 10 cents a cup and 25 cents for a hostess donut or something like that.  I come back and I wait until he has a little break and I hand it to him and he asks me how many more I need and it was probably like 1 for each hour for a few hours I can’t remember for sure.  So he tells me to go get donuts and coffee for everyone and not to forget the guy up at the top of the cupola and make sure I come back every hour to get the samples out of his way once they cool down.

And so the coffee and a donut begins.

I upped my offerings by stopping at the grocery store for better donuts and expanded it to other departments and occasionally to a beer if they caught me in the bar that night. So instead of taking 20 minutes out of my hour to grab a sample it now took 2.

So at the end of the summer as I’m preparing to go back to college my boss instructs me to write up a final report summarizing what’s important for the next student to succeed, what trials are ongoing, highlights of trials we did to help the next student succeed.

A month or two later I run into the new student in the bar in town and we start talking and he asks me how the hell I did so many trials.  I asked him if he ever figured out a coffee and a donut yet and he says no.  So I tell him for a beer I’ll give him a hint.  As we share a few beer together I give him just enough to set him up for success.  I tell him something lik starting in the melt department next time you run a trial go talk to Jack the day before and see he would be willing to take the samples for you.  Tell him Rodney is buying you coffee and donuts if you will help out.

After that I get a call asking if I would be willing to come back on a 3 semester official rotation that would allow for college credit in cooperative education program.  Despite not being remotely related to my Engineering degree the Plant Metallurgist talked the college into allowing it.  I’m not so sure without Jack’s help if I would have succeeded enough to be asked back or not. It probably took me years to fully realize how much more productive that simple coffee and a donut made me, and how many smiles and chats with coworkers they brought me.

Looking back on it more than any decision I made that coffee and a donut suggestion likely altered my path forever in college.

I ended up working in the Foundry Industry right out of college.  Instead of sucking sand from under the vibratory conveyors I was now designing them with the knowledge I gained knowing they were going to be running in 3 feet deep of sand. For the industry leading company that I got the interview with after I thought I was throwing them I thought a donut (the person in charge or recruitment probably thought it was a snowball) by sending my resume directly to the President of the Company when I didn’t hear back from them after the job fair.  Despite my subpar GPA the President passed that donut back as I “interviewed” directly with him first.  The “interview” was basically “we both know you have a job here if you want it so let me tell you about how I started my company, what exactly we do, and see what questions you have”.  His honesty was one of the main reasons that I chose that job. Although in all honesty having 30 miles worth of river, a dozen connected lakes, and 50 some bars on restaurants on the water was a good selling point also. Might have to be another future rambling on how The Pink Flamingo came to be.

I passed that donut back to him when a few years later when I decided to leave and I waited weeks to meet with the owner and personally inform him first.  He threw a dozen back by sticking up for me against his own son and then meeting with me for several hours to find out how he and his company failed me on my last day.

I’ve passed out and received so many donuts through the decades that I don’t know if I’m on the plus or the negative side of the equation. Or if there even is an equation. I think most times simply by accepting the donut you’ve automatically passed it back.

And most recently 36 “donuts” were passed my way by The Mill and The Bloomington Remote Program when we relocated here from Arizona.  After over 20 years working remote from home and being the smartest one in the “office” (our dogs would argue that) it took me one hour to realize I was far from it, and probably in last place.  So I’ve only partially consumed the first 24 donuts given to me and despite the actual physical donuts given back I’m still behind the count.  I hope to finish or let go of the battle with Goliath, to stop wasting my chance at sharing donuts.  Start sharing them with the wonderful people surrounding me in this incredible community who just like “Jack” knew that by helping each other out we can all make Indiana and the world a better place.

The other piece from the first rambling that I would like to share wasn’t written by me.  It was generated by an early version of Google’s NotebookLM

“You have the power to make a difference, so go out there and find your fight.” – From Google NotebookLM AI generated podcast

So if you made it this far I thank you.  I think you’ve figured out I don’t pass donuts out for the thanks, knowing I made a little difference myself if even just for a few bites in someone’s day is my thanks. If you want leave your interpretations of what the donuts are or share your donut lesson I would love to hear it. 

I’ll respond back in a week or so with the one word that I think describes the original donut between Jack and I.

So learning from Google who essentially learned from me I’ll depart on this.

You have the power to make a difference, so go out there and share your donut. – Rodney

And once you’ve come up with your word I plugged this into Google’s NotebookLM just for fun and here’s the podcast it came up with.