Let me talk about a feeling I had today. It’s a feeling of dread, a feeling that you are in way, way over your head, that the expectations another has placed on you are like the Sears Tower.

It happened when I was on the phone with a quality guy from a sawmill who started asking me for my opinion on a good way to design this productivity improvement idea that we were exploring. He wanted ME to give HIM some ideas on how to make the plant better.

Now, in a way that’s my job, but I just can’t see it happening in the context of a sawmill. They know that stuff in and out. It’s such an established industry that they’re very savvy productivity-wise. Or maybe it’s just that I’m inexperienced and don’t know what I’m doing.

At any rate, I can’t figure out why this guy was so hesitant to go ahead with this idea, because it could save them thousands and thousands of dollars every year.

I recovered from that awful feeling, though. I talked to one of the leader guys at the IAC and he had words of wisdom that soothed and calmed my fears.

One thing, if you ever jog on country roads in the mid-Willamette Valley in Oregon in early summer at dusk, watch for skunks.