Tag Archives: communication

Communication Breakdown

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And no, I’m not talking about the Led Zeppelin song.

Imagine this scenario: A married couple have been together for many years. She’s been described by more than a few people as an “overachiever” — someone who sets many goals and then sets out to achieve them. She gets bored easily and is always looking for new challenges. He’s more laid back, generally satisfied with what he has, and often just takes whatever life hands him and makes it work for him.

In the beginning, the differences between them were minor. But as she shifted in one direction, he shifted to the other. After a long time together, she was ready to move on — preferably with him — and he resented the fact that she just couldn’t accept the status quo.

In the later years, she often brainstormed with him, usually on long car rides, about the things they could do together to make a more interesting life that relied less on the 9 to 5 grind he was stuck in. He almost always agreed they were good ideas. She thought they were on the same page.

But they weren’t. For some reason, he kept nodding but he wasn’t really agreeing. Yet he never told her how he really felt or what he really wanted. She never knew.

Then it was too late.

Communication breakdown.

Or think about this scenario: Same couple, but they’re living apart. She’s gone to her summer job for the fifth season in a row. She left early because she likes it there and can do more work earlier in the season. He doesn’t want her to go early, but he never tells her. He keeps his anger and resentment to himself.

She never knows how he feels because he never tells her. Instead, he tells everyone else, making her look downright evil for leaving when he wanted her to stay.

But he never told her. She never knew.

Communication breakdown.

Or this scenario: Same couple. He’s called her to tell her he wants a divorce. She’s surprised at the suddenness of it all — only a month before, they’d talked about him spending the summer together where she works. She’d begun planning, preparing, making room in her cramped quarters for another human being and a dog.

So when he suddenly tells her he wants a divorce, she’s shattered.

Communication breakdown.

Or how about this scenario: Same couple. They’ve talked it over in person and although she’s still shocked by the suddenness, she realizes that it really is over. She asks if it’s okay to wait until she returns home in October to take care of the formalities. He agrees.

In the meantime, he’s called her family members and at least one friend who lives where she works. She doesn’t know about this; he asks everyone not to tell her. The friend gets the wrong message from the call. He tells the wife that the marriage can be fixed. That all they need to do is get together and work on it. She’s doubtful, but he’s so sure. She starts to think that maybe he’s right. That maybe when she gets home they can talk it out and make things work.

But two weeks later, the husband contacts the wife, asking if she’s given the split any thought. She doesn’t understand — she thought they agreed to wait. What’s the hurry? But he won’t return her calls or texts promptly. When they finally speak, she’s strung out, confused by her friend’s advice and the signals she’s getting from her husband. She’s not rational on the phone. He gets angry.

Two weeks later, it happens all over again. Now she’s really upset, especially when she can’t get him on the phone right away to talk and doesn’t understand what his hurry is. And then when she does reach him, he’s nasty and hostile.

Communication breakdown.

And this scenario: Same couple. Not understanding how a man she’s loved for so long can be so hostile and mean to her and unsure of her future, the wife is completely strung out.

When she finds out about the other woman, things come to a head. She can’t sleep. She has no appetite. She cries on and off during the day with the tiniest thing setting her off. She begins seeing a grief counselor for help.

She writes him a long letter trying to explain her side of things and trying to get him to explain why he’s hurting her so badly. He doesn’t respond. This only makes things worse.

Communication breakdown.

In all these scenarios, a lot of pain is dealt out — mostly because of a failure to communicate. When will it end? That’s something the wife would really like to know.

Cockpit Distractions

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There’s a reason for a “sterile cockpit.”

The other day, I wrote a blog post about the four recent helicopter crashes that occurred during cherry drying operations here in Washington State. My point was to explore the possibility that pilots and operators were not taking this potentially dangerous work seriously. You can read that post here.

In giving this some more thought, I think that post neglected another indicator of not taking this work seriously: the concept of flying in a distraction-free environment — a so-called “sterile cockpit.”

Sterile Cockpit Defined

From Wikipedia:

The Sterile Cockpit Rule is an FAA regulation requiring pilots to refrain from non-essential activities during critical phases of flight, normally below 10,000 feet. The FAA imposed the rule in 1981 after reviewing a series of accidents that were caused by flight crews who were distracted from their flying duties by engaging in non-essential conversations and activities during critical parts of the flight.

Obviously, most — if not all — of a helicopter’s operations are below 10,000 feet. And helicopters performing cherry drying services aren’t subject to the same rules as airliners. So my point isn’t that helicopter operators are required to follow this rule. My point is that this rule exists for a reason.

When I went through the process of getting my Part 135 certificate, the topic of maintaining a sterile cockpit was brought up. My FAA POI was concerned about distractions during critical phases of flight. For my Part 135 operations, which consist primarily of tour and air-taxi services, that meant times when I’m in tower-controlled airspace, when I’m landing, or when I’m taking off. It also meant phases of flight operated at or below 300 feet AGL. The point being that when I’m communicating with a tower or close to the ground, I need to minimize distractions.

Distractions come in many forms. My POI’s main concern for me was chatty passengers. While I can normally perform landings at easy landing zones (LZs) without any problems — even while conducting a conversation with someone — when you add the need to listen to and look for other traffic, communicate with a tower, or deal with unusual conditions such as crosswinds or difficult landing zones, things are tougher.

For example, just the other day a very chatty passenger decided to start a new conversation just as I was on final approach to an off-airport, confined area LZ with a crosswind of 29 mph gusting to 36 mph. (We were about 1/2 mile from the airport, so that reading comes from an AWOS and is accurate.) When I didn’t answer her second question, she got the message and shut up. I have a switch I can flick to turn off cockpit chatter among passengers, but since I don’t usually need to use it, I didn’t flick it for that flight. Although the landing was fine, I’m thinking of a better briefing for passengers in the future.

Maintaining a sterile cockpit means eliminating all non-essential communication. It means reducing or eliminating distractions during critical portions of the flight.

Sterile Cockpits in Agricultural Work

Cherry Drying Near Wires
This is a photo I won’t show my mother. The helicopter’s airframe is probably about 20-25 feet from the wires in this shot by Patrick Schroeder. That’s as close as I’m willing to get.

Agricultural flying such as spraying, frost control, and cherry drying can be pretty intense. All of them require precision flying. Spraying is low level, at a relatively quick speed. Frost control is very low level, pretty slow, and usually done at night. Cherry drying is very low level and very slow, sometimes during or after weather that can obscure cockpit views. Obstructions are usually a concern for all agricultural flying work. These are conditions and flight profiles that could definitely benefit from a sterile cockpit.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that most aircraft set up for spraying — whether they are helicopters or airplanes — are either labeled “Experimental” or have just one seat. These are not aircraft set up for passenger flight.

Imagine this scenario: A helicopter pilot is sent out to do some cherry drying. He’s been hanging around all day with a buddy who might even be another pilot. He invites him to come along. They head out over the orchard and the pilot gets to work. While he’s flying, he and his buddy are talking. Maybe one of them tells a joke and they laugh. Or maybe the buddy is texting with someone they both know and is relaying the conversation to the pilot. Or, worse yet, maybe the companion shows the pilot a photo from last night’s trip to the local sports bar on his smart phone. The pilot is not giving his full attention to the task at hand. He’s being distracted by his companion.

The Orchard Block from Hell
Who plants cherry trees under wires? Too many growers.

This isn’t so far-fetched — especially in a situation where the pilot and passenger aren’t taking the work seriously. Sure, the pilot is just hovering and the pilot has been doing that since he learned to fly. It’s not very difficult for an experienced pilot to do. But add obstructions and wind gusts during slow flight and it isn’t quite as easy. It requires more concentration — less distractions.

A sterile cockpit.

A Coincidence?

There were two people on board when three of the four cherry drying crashes occurred in this area over the past twelve months. I pointed this out in my recent blog post, but didn’t really think about the second person as a cause of distraction.

Could that have been a contributing factor? That the pilot was not focused on the work and allowed himself to get into a dangerous situation? That he didn’t react promptly because of distraction?

It’s certainly something to think about.

Your Poorly Written Communication is Not Cute

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Capitalization, punctuation, grammar, and spelling — it’s pretty basic stuff.

I’m trying to determine whether some of the people who contact me via blog comments and email are illiterate or trying to be cute.

I’m a writer. I’ve been writing for a living since 1990. No, I don’t have a degree in English. And no, I know my grammar isn’t perfect.

I learned to read and write with everyone else in school back in the 1960s-1970s. We were taught to write using good grammar, punctuation, capitalization, and spelling. If we got it wrong — and yes, there is a difference between right and wrong for these things — we were penalized with bad grades. That became motivation for getting it right. Some of us learned better than others, but we all learned the basics.

Apparently, this is not the case these days. Take, for example, the email message I blogged about back in September, “News Flash: I am NOT a Helicopter Cost Consultant.” I quoted the full text of the email message I received:

as of this date if i were to buy a used R22 with approx a 1000 hrs on it how much would the total operating costs be per hour if i were to fly 100 hours a year including reserve money for future overhaul

Note the lack of proper capitalization (well, he got R22 right) and punctuation. The whole thing is a run-on sentence fragment.

Yes, I understood what he was looking for. And yes, I know that mutual understanding is the goal of communication.

But seriously: this email message leaves me wondering if this guy was asleep through elementary school or simply doesn’t care enough about the recipient of his messages to bother making recognizable sentences.

I got another one today, this time in comments:

i think it hard to become a pilot if it in book to study…………….

Ironically, this was posted on a blog post titled, “So You Want to Be a Helicopter Pilot, Part 6: Study Hard.” Was this supposed to be a joke? I didn’t find it funny in the least. And because it added nothing of value to this blog, I trashed it.

So I’m left wondering whether these people are:

  • Stupid. They just didn’t learn the basics in school.
  • Too stupid to care. They think it doesn’t matter.
  • Trying to be cute. They think that lack of capitalization and punctuation is unique and different.

As a writer, this failure to even try to write in decent English (or the language of your choice) pisses me off to no end.

I’m just wondering how these people survive in today’s economy and job market. I know that if someone contacted me looking for a job and couldn’t be bothered to communicate with something resembling good English, I wouldn’t bother to read past the first sentence fragment.

Juggling Internet Bandwidth

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Working with bandwidth limitations.

This summer, I’m on the road again, working out of my RV, the “mobile mansion.” And, after dealing with crappy, overpriced Internet service at my first stop for the past three years, I decided to go it alone this year with a My-Fi.

Why My-Fi?

My-FiThe reason I picked the My-Fi (instead of setting up a mobile hotspot from my smartphone) was twofold:

  • The My-Fi unit came with better plans. There was a 3GB plan for $35 which would only cost $10/GB if I went over. I knew I’d likely go over at least a few times a year — last summer, I had an 8GB month. The other plans would have been far more costly for that overage.
  • I’m a Verizon customer and I wanted to be able to talk on the phone while using the Internet. I admit this was not a primary concern. Last year I used mobile broadband tethering from my BlackBerry and did occasionally get interrupted by a phone call while doing my Internet thing. It didn’t kill me to wait until I was done talking. After all, I spend very little time actually talking on my phone.

I should note here that I do know that the Virgin Mobile My-Fi has a plan with unlimited bandwidth. But what good is a device that doesn’t work where you are? The Virgin Mobile device doesn’t have coverage in the areas I travel to. Verizon does. That’s the same reason — or one of them, anyway — why I don’t have AT&T.

My Plans

Last summer, I was spoiled. Although I paid for Internet at my first stop, I also had free unlimited Internet access through my BlackBerry. I’d had tethering for years and was grandfathered in on a plan that offered unlimited bandwidth for only $15/month. That plan was not available for either iPhones or Android phones and I needed a step up from my BlackBerry. Turning off that plan was one of the hardest things I ever did as a techie.

Of course, my iPhone and iPad also have 3G coverage, giving me access to the Internet from either device without a Wi-Fi (or My-Fi) connection. The iPhone’s plan has unlimited 3G, which is nice. But I’ll be the first to admit that the last device I want to surf the Web with is a smartphone. For the iPad, I went with a limited plan offering only 1GB per month. The idea was that I’d do my heavy Internet lifting with my desktop or laptop computer and limit the iPad’s use to reading RSS feeds, doing a little Web surfing, and sending the odd e-mail.

My goal, of course, is to not go over any bandwidth limitations for the entire summer. And that seriously changes the way I access the Internet.

For example, right now my My-Fi is turned on and ready to access. But the AirPort (or Wi-Fi) connectivity on my computer is turned off. Why? Because my computer seems to access the Internet any time it can, sucking down my bandwidth for no apparent reason. No, I don’t have a virus or worm. But my computer does like to check in with the various services I use — MobileMe, DropBox, etc. — to see whether it should download any updates or get any files. It does anytime it’s connected. While I could disable a lot of these automatic checks, it’s a lot easier to just turn off Wi-Fi until I actually need it.

SurplusMeter

SurplusMeterYou might be wondering how I know what my computer is doing. Last summer, I picked up a Mac app called SurplusMeter. It’s kind of neat. You set it up, tell it how much monthly bandwidth you have, and what day the month starts on. You also tell it how you’re connected to the Internet. It calculates a daily allowance; the idea being that if you use less than your daily allowance, you have a surplus to use during the rest of the month. Then it runs in the background, monitoring your network access. You can launch the app at any time to see what your totals are. Here’s mine for this month, which started just a few days ago. Last night, I was in the red, so even though it’s early, today’s allocation has been partially consumed.

Now, of course, I can use as much Internet as I want per day. The idea is for the monthly total to be less than — or, ideally, exactly — 3GB. SurplusMeter helps me rein in my Internet usage so I can minimize it.

Two things to note about SurplusMeter:

  • I’m only running it on one computer. That means it’s only logging bandwidth usage on one of the four computers I have with me. (Don’t ask.) Laptop access is not being logged. This results in an understatement of total usage.
  • It logs all AirPort activity, including local network activity. That means that every time one computer talks to another — for example, to share files — that usage is also logged. This results in an overstatement of total usage.

I’m hoping these two discrepancies net each other out.

And no, it isn’t worth it to set up multiple copies and use some other file transfer method to get more precise information. All I’m interested in is ballpark numbers.

But if you do know of a better app for the task that doesn’t cost a fortune, please do let us know about it in comments.

Getting the Big Fat Files

Of course, I still have to access the Internet for things that would make a serious dent in my allowance. For example, right now I’m working on a Mac OS X 10.7 Lion book. The Developer Previews I’m using as I write are about 4GB in size. There are two problems with this, and both are pretty obvious:

  • Downloading a 4GB file over a My-Fi with a max download speed of about 1Mbps would take more than 10 hours.
  • If my monthly allowance was only 3GB, I’d exceed that with just one download.

Fortunately, I’m running Lion on a laptop. Over the years, I’ve identified some Wi-Fi hotspots with pretty fast download speeds. One is in Wenatchee, at a coffee shop, where I was able to download a 900MB file last summer in less than 12 minutes. There’s a gas station in Quincy that used to have pretty quick Wi-Fi, although I admit I haven’t tried it yet this year. And there’s a coffee shop in Quincy that might have decent speed; the only time I used it, speed was not a concern. I do know that the local library’s Internet absolutely sucks, so it’s not likely that I’ll be using it for Internet access anytime in the future.

Yesterday, while in Wenatchee, I used the coffee shop Internet to download podcasts, check for updates, get maps for ForeFlight on my iPad, and do whatever I could. If I’d stayed in Wenatchee a few more hours, I would have gotten the big file I need today. I figure I’ll try the Quincy coffee shop first and if that isn’t fast enough, I’ll try the gas station. If that’s not fast enough, it’s another trip into Wenatchee for coffee and a high-speed Internet fix.

Doing Chores with iPhone

In the meantime, I’ve been trying to use my iPhone as much as possible for small tasks such as checking e-mail and sending/receiving Twitter tweets. After all, there’s no bandwidth cap, so it just makes sense to maximize usage. For some reason, I’ve been getting a ton of spam lately — 10-20 messages a day about dieting or “male enhancement” — and it’s quick and easy to just delete these from my phone so neither my iPad nor my computers need to retrieve them.

I know this is a drop in the bucket as far as Internet usage goes, but the way I see it, every little bit helps.

Rising to the Challenge

This summer is an experiment to see how well I can limit my usage and stay within budget. I’m prepared to pay for the extra bandwidth, but I like the challenge of working within limitations. It’s a lot like trying to conserve energy by turning off lights and turning down the heat/air conditioning.

It’ll be interesting to see how I do.

Banking by Phone [App]

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Almost full-service banking by smart phone.

I’ve been doing 95% my banking online for the past five to eight years. I seldom write any checks and never visit the bank and wait on line for a teller. Instead, I have direct deposit from some of my publishers and use online bill pay (through my bank’s Web site) and online bill paying features in Quicken to make payments. When I receive money by check, I deposit at an ATM. When I need to pay someone with a check — which is more and more seldom these days — I pull out one of the ones leftover from my original check stock, blow the dust off, and write one.

Some Words about Bank of America

I do all of my banking with Bank of America. Before you start bashing them, let me explain why. Our local branch in Wickenburg was, until recently, extraordinarily helpful. We had no trouble opening accounts, getting loans, refinancing our home, getting a home equity line of credit, etc. The staff knew us by name and always helped us immediately with any problems. It just made sense to put everything in one bank.

Since then, Bank of America has done its part to seriously piss me off — as they piss off everyone else they come in contact with. The local branch service completely failed to help us with a very serious problem, actually bringing me to tears in the branch location. I was forced to work with the monster that is Bank of America’s loan department and, although I resolved the situation satisfactorily, I have not been back to the branch since. I also have serious fears that the same problem will arise again and it has forced me to take a completely different approach on my personal finances. But that’s another story.

In general, my banking with Bank of America works pretty well. Between my husband and I, we have many accounts: 3 personal checking, 2 business checking, 2 credit cards, 2 mortgages, 1 home equity line of credit, and a 1 “recreational vehicle” (helicopter) loan. To start moving these accounts to another bank just because Bank of America isn’t what it used to be would be a time-consuming exercise in frustration. I have better ways to spend time frustrating myself.

What I do like about Bank of America’s Web access is that I can access all of my accounts from one login screen. This makes it really easy to manage my accounts. And it works with Quicken for free (although they do charge for QuickBooks access, which is why I don’t use QuickBooks). Even bill pay is free. And checking, as long as I use my debit card at least once a month. So my banking costs are quite low and access is quite convenient. How can I complain?

Point is: please don’t fill up the comments with suggestions on a better bank. I’m not interested in switching.

The Bank of America App

Recently, I downloaded the Bank of America iPhone App. It sat on my phone for at least a few weeks before I decided to give it a try. It has limited functionality, but it does make it relatively easy to check account balances, pay bills (to known payees), and transfer money using the app.

BofA AppThe app is pretty straightforward. You open it and then log in using the same kind of Site Key protection that’s on the Web version of online banking. You then choose from three options:

  • Accounts displays all your accounts and their balances. Clicking an account shows transactions in that account. Clicking a transaction shows transaction details.
  • Bill Pay & E-Bills gives you access to the bill pay feature. You can make a single payment, view (an cancel, but not change) outgoing payments, and view unpaid e-bills (if you have any).
  • Transfer Funds lets you transfer money between your accounts now, schedule a transfer between your accounts for later, or transfer to another person (if you have this feature set up).

Although the app’s limited functionality makes it impossible to use without occasional Web access — for example, you can’t set up a payee in the app; you must do that on the Web site or from within Quicken — it is, in general, quicker to use than the Web site — especially if you suffer from painfully slow Internet connections, as I do at home in Wickenburg. The phone has fewer options, so it takes fewer clicks (or taps) to get to the feature you need. Unfortunately, that feature doesn’t appear immediately. Worse yet, when you go back, there’s no indication that the app is doing anything — some kind of wait cursor or Internet access indicator would really help. But I still think it’s quicker and easier to use than the Web site for the few features it does support.

Point in case: today I paid my mechanic for some work he did on my helicopter. I was able to do this while eating breakfast, without firing up a computer. Launch the app, log in, and get right to the payment page. Enter an amount, send it, confirm it, and I’m done. It took about a minute.

And I can do this from anywhere I have a 3G phone signal. (I have Verizon, so that’s nearly everywhere I go.)

Conclusion

While I’m certain this isn’t the best banking app out there, it is the one that my bank offers, so it’s the only one I’ve experienced. If this is an indication of what’s to come, I’m very glad. The quicker and easier banking tasks are, the less time I have to spend doing them — or dealing with the bank’s staff.

Now that I’ve tried it, I’ll likely be using it more often.

What do you think? Do you use an app for your banking needs? If so, share your experiences in the comments.