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Shoes N Things

An Elderly Cobbler told me something many years ago.

I only had a chance to spend time with him on two occasions in my life; these were during his only two visits to where I lived on different occasions. These places were a very great distance from my home. He would have never been able to afford the airfare to my regular home, and only visited when I was on that side of the world.

He was a man of very few words, and though his fingers were thick, and the skin on his hands was deeply wrinkled, and his palms all hard from calluses, he had the ability to fix any device that operated on a mechanical principle, even something as fine as watch.

To keep himself occupied, he would examine things with a deep intensity and in silent concentration and I'l never forget how easily he understood and how quickly he learnt to operate in an environment much more modern than he had known before. I marvelled at the skills he had. One time he found something malfunctioning, but a suitable tool was not available so he made a tool from what was available.
His daughter later told me that whenver he found a problem needing a new device to help with some tasks, he would either, make from or use materials that where available to him and make a new device.

During one of his visits he said some things to me, that at the time I didn't fully grasp, but in subseqent years came to mind more often. I'm forever thankfull that he cared. At the time as I was just begining my teens and there where so many things to occupy my mind that the significance of what he said didn't begin to dawn on me till some time later. I guess it takes a few growing scars to remember what one is told to avoid doing.

No one is perfect and mistakes get made by everyone, but I know that I've managed to avoid many because of his advice.

Lately more memories then ever flash before my eyes constantly, mostly of painful things of late.

Things that shouldn't have happened had even a little of his advice been known and implemented by others.

So I share the following things with you, if you’ve got time to read them.
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He was sitting on the bed in the guest bedroom, cleaning his left eyeball with cloth. A portion of the roof over the barn structure on his property fell on him some years before, and his wife had gone away visiting for few days. Upon her return she found him still trapped beneath a heavy beam. He was alive, but less one eye.

Though I knew he had a glass eye, I didn't like looking at the empty eye socket. I turned to the window for while, and hearing the shift in the bedsprings turned and saw the glass eye back in its place, he placed the glass of water that was in his hand on the side table.

I thought about how it never bothered him that people sometimes held their gaze at him longer than normal because sometimes he appeared to be looking in two directions at once. I picked up the glass of water and went and refilled it, put it back where it had been and sat on a nearby chair.

"Thank you for doing that", he said turning to look out the window.

Then he pondered a while, turned to me and added some words that have remained in my mind.

"It’s a pity that you have not yet visited me at home, next time you manage to get up north, you must be my guest. You are still so young and have already been to so many places. Yet you still have many paths to travel, and each will be different and often without a signpost. You will encounter benefits and hazards. Whether it is light or dark check each step. Every step, turn and path is a choice. Fewer choices will be made for you as your years increase, and more will be made by you alone. Be careful of any choices made for you by a fool".

"How will I know who's the fool"? I asked,

"It's not that hard to spot one" he replied, then added.

“Listen a while and try and remember,

"As more and more choices become yours to make, remember that any choice in life, but especially your own, are like walking through an unfamiliar place. Each turn to another side path will change the places where other paths will be, and how far the next will be, and the location you find yourself in. What’s ahead of you is your only direction. You can get to a similar place that you came from by doing a full circle, but it will be different from what you remember.

You have a kind heart, most don't. In time more things you’ll see as a glass of water.

If you are given any task by others, try to do it to your best ability. If a task is wrongly set and you can make it better, never be afraid to make that choice. Do not expect gratitude, and help from everyone, but do what you know to be right.

If a task is given to you by a fool, do it to your best. Rewards arrive in the end, as not all are fools, someone wise will see in the end.

I don’t expect you to remember all this right now, as their memory will come back to you.

Try and pause before each choice, and see if any of them apply, use any that best fit the situation you find yourself in. These priciples will help you find others that will help you also as time passes. There are many to be found, so read books about anything, not just the ones you have now.

Look after your feet and legs.

Remember these first,

1_A cheap pair of shoes are expensive, expensive ones are cheap.

2_When anything is entrusted to your care and responsibility. Do today what you plan to delay till tomorrow, eat tomorrow what you planned to eat today.

3_When your are late try to hurry slowly.

4_People are like books.Read and try to understand any traveller on the path. Each is a different story. The book covers only come in two colours, and only their sizes differ. One colour is foolish, the others is wise. Look through them.
To do like this remember,

A fool may listen, but not hear wise words, scoffs, then despises the speaker and remains foolish, craves the sound of other fools

A wise man listens and hears, then ponders, becomes wiser. If the words were wise he has them when needed. The wise know the fool but the fool can’t see the wise.

5_Take action against injustice.

6_When given a task you can do, try to finish it better than your own.

7_Loving gold will dry out your heart



You’ll never fail in any task or action, when the choice is yours to make, and you remember to apply at least one of those to your choice. As your years pass you’ll find others like them. Test them out.

In time your actions will bring justice and reward".


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Some years later, while travelling, an opportunity to have shoes made for me the way that once shoes were made was along my path.

It was a town not that far from were the Cobbler had once lived. Having never had a chance to be his guest I went there on this occasion with a task. In that town was a fool who had wanted to buy the Cobblers house and could not wait for him to go to sleep. I searched and found him and made sure he slept well.

Travelling on, I came across another Cobbler. I might have passed right by the small side alley, but I sensed a smell that reminded me of the travel bag I had once seen beside a table with a glass of water on it.

I found the workshop.

Talking with this cobbler I came to learnt who had taught him the trade and asked if he had the time to make me a pair.

He asked me do I want them expensive or cheap.

I replied that if I get to be old I want to look at the shoes and say they were the cheapest I had ever bought.

He smiled, asked me sit and after a lot of looking and measuring told me to come back in two weeks time.

After I had left, I though some more of the Cobbler I had known before.

I never asked him if he ever made cheap shoes for anyone.

I recall hearing about occasions in his life when his wife would often had to go to farms and houses in and around his home town, to ask people to pay the rest of the money owing on the shoes they had taken delivery of. It seems that the cost of raw material was often barely covered.

I guess then this Cobbler must have been asked to make cheap shoes at times, and would have done a lot of ‘putting his day's meal away for tomorrow’. Many a fool was never aware of how fortunate they were to have had shoe made for them by someone that possessed both Duty and Care.

Some time later in life I found myself in situations where I had to perform tasks as managed and decreed by those who repeatedly chose to ignore their 'Duty of Care' and ignored fixing those things and still do. Things that should have been fixed long ago. Thus I had to use these people’s methods and equipment throughout a number of years. I made every effort to fully comply with their regulations and procedures, and to fulfil all my tasks to their required parameters, and utilize all the equipment that was provided by them.

Many times it was impossible to fully comply with their instructions of its use, as the equipment could not be set up as shown.Their methods and equipment ignored principles that this humble Cobbler taught me avoids both poverty and harm. They knew of these faults and did nothing.

Cobblers were different from today's heal repair shops. Then shoes could be made around a custom frame, and the nails were hand made out of wood, and each bit of leather had to be cut and shaped by hand; Better materials, and the cost of extra nails, and the cost of time to do two stitches, instead of one, made some shoes more expensive than others.

One could also get a pair of shoes made where the construction of them involved using a generic adjustable wooden frame. The thing to remember here is that even today when shoes are mass produced, they can be just as comfortable as a custom fit was in those times. However even today's shoes, if designed badly end up doing damage to the feet.

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THINGS OF SHOES AND SERVICES

Let’s look back in time to a delivery service.


Suppose you are the owner of place that hires people to deliver things on foot for you.

You are responsible for your workers care. Many of those entrusted to your care, tell you over and over in the feedback that you ask them to fill in, that a particular mass produced brand, or model of shoes is causing them injury and pain. What is your responsibility as the carer?

When you get the feedback forms and you get around to sending a reply, it’s always the same. It’s always along these lines? “It’s being looked into”

If you stop getting feedback, does that mean you can tell every one that there is no longer a problem?
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If you as a manager put in feedback froms about the problems you might be having, lets say for example;
that your air conditioning has not been working for two days, and still has not been looked at ?
You call the maintanence department and they say, " Yes we got your repaire, request. Its being looked into"

How many years would you wait ?

How many times would you report the problem ?

If the problem kept being iqnored, what would that do to your desire to fill any more in ?

Then you discover that the maintanece department has reported that there is no longer any real problem with the air conditioning as there have been fewer complaints in the last year !
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Meanwhile your workers stop caring about what is part of your business as well. This is called low moral.
There are some people that do tasks called, 'Human Resource Managment', They should be able to tell you how low moral may affect your opperation.

In the meantime your workers try and struggle on as best they can with various injuries, because they must feed their families, or meet other finacial obligations.

You would rather pay more to those that generate paper on your behalf and is used to try and smother the ones with feet damaged so badly, that they seek help for something that was not their fault or of their making.

When you are asked to try the bad shoes they have to wear, you refuse, and hide behind the title that comes with a larger remuneration, and yet you still do not realise that a title does not make you any wiser.

A fool you are and your lot is to remain a fool. if you missed it before fools always loose and pay while the wise though they suffer because of your inaction and pride will win.
Since,
You refuse to walk a mile in their shoes,
or even,
Try and contemplate what its like to suffer needless and unwarented pain that results from the use of the shoes you provided, and all the operational parameters you instigated.

So, your service deteriorates, but you still can’t see why.

Your under managers tell you what the problem is. You don't mind that at all, as the way to respond to that is to have another meeting.

After the meeting you will again tell the Cobbler not to order new shoe leather, as money allocated for todays expenses just got spent on more staff to look into the situation and other administative items.

Then another meeting will be held to ensure tomorrows alocation will be spent tonight as you have to cover the cost of your new horse so you can get about as suits one with responsibilities as important as yours.

So what did you think, about a situation like the one just described ?

If you thought just now, get the bad shoes replaced, and avoid getting the same ones again. You would be wise.

If you didn't then the main words in your personal book will remain as 'Fool In Action'

If you thought, 'So what as long as I'm O.k', then your book just got bigger in size.

If your mind understood even a little of the simple truth that you’re reading then there is hope for you yet, go back and have another look at what is important and turn from being a fool.

Though there only exist different degrees of the wise or the foolish, it does not stop one from learning
to be more like the other in time, until they change and they see things with greater clarity.

This does happen somtimes, but I needs more effort than most are prepared to take.

When a fool becomes wiser they see the choices that helped make the wise wiser. But until they take that first step their legacy will be empty and lacking the satisfaction that comes from making a choice that only the wise see.
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How are you traveling?
If your not spluttering all over your computer display, or crunching up the paper you may be reading this from then you have already taken the first step to restoring your integrity.
But if,
Things still not making any sense to you?
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Here is your second chance to open your eyes and understand the choice.

Now supposing you are obliged to provide a workplace, by the laws of the land that requires that any equipment you provide to your workers must be without fault and you must train your workers in its correct operation.

If they do as you instructed, and report that the use of the equipment you gave them, can’t be operated according to the instructions that you gave to your workers.

When you do nothing to remedy the situation, and as a result of your inaction and failure in a required Duty of Care, your actions cause them to suffer pain, stress, financial hardship, unwarranted despair, and cause them to even begin to contemplate the last act that anyone can do to themselves making it their last, then even greater is your culpability.

If you had to live in the body of the ones your lack of care, and repeated procrastination cased an injury too you would fix the cause without delay? But because it does not affect your own health and well being you foolishly continue not to listen and not to hear.

Thus, are you wise or are you a fool /

Still think this is a lot of rubbish ? O'k........

A sub choice learnt from the Cobblers basic ones........................

'Warn a fool three times of danger; tell a fool three times the truth. If their eyes and ears stay closed then let their consequences return to them ten fold the misery they caused".

Just so that you will never be able to say that no one told you, here is the last expansion.

1_The thing to do if there are ZERO funds at your dissposal.
If you have no funds at all, not even any to spend on your own comforts and perks. That would worry you greatly no doubt. If you have no funds at all at the moment, however the funds for your operations happend to be allocated to you. Then take the portion that is due to you for the next year and spend it today on your workers.

If that is your situation you must stop your workers using any of your bad or faulty shoes. You are responsible for the operations of the delivery service, you must stop making those entrusted to your care wear the bad shoes you supply.

That was about a, "no, non, nada, nix", funding available situation.....

2_Now,...............
Let’s suppose that you only have limited funds. If that entails you cutting back the spending on comforts and perks for your own personal work area, or delaying a cosmetic change to parts of your operations in order to fulfil your Duty of Care, then that's what you must do. Today, not tomorrow, start fixing or replacing the worn or badly designed shoes.

Still do not understand you Duty of Care. Read on......

If replacement is impossible, because no shoes exist anywhere, then at least properly start fixing today the ones in use. If it results in you spending less on your own perks and frequent equipment replacement then so be it for a short while.

You already get new upgrades every few years for all the things you have to use in the location you work, as the ones responsible for Duty of Care compliance implementations.

Let’s suppose you have to think twice before spending large sums on printing notifications of new and inadequately researched service changes. Modifications that promptly get changed over and over again, because you refuse to heed the feedback that you have received, specificly from those actually doing the tasks that you ask them to give you feedback about.

How hard can it be to realise that it’s the person actually doing the task, knows most about how to make it better. Not those that just imagine what they think it should be like, without understanding the actual logistical details.

Yet,
You make decisions about the time required to complete those tasks based upon short therm small financial savings. You keep ignoring the fact that by forcing those who have no option but to use the shoes you have supplied, shoes that you have known are both faulty and worn.

Year after year you fail to professionally fix, let alone replace the shoes that repeatedly cause injury to your workers feet and legs.

You say, No, No, No… we do get them fixed. We have our own reapir staff , the printing press mechanics in our various buildings that often put patches on them, as our opperation is large and we have people with all sorts of skills.

Is it the printing press mechinics trade to build shoe ?
Would you wear shoes made by or fixed by the printing press mechanic ?

Does that mean that you would ask a Cobbler to be responsible for you printing press maintenance?

You may say that no one is forcing your workers to stay with you if they find they can’t use the shoes you supply without sustaining an injury to themselves causes by their repeated use. They are free to go elsewhere and work.

Yes they could, but two things you have ignored.

Firstly: you are required to provide a safe working place. This means more than painting your building’s stare cases yellow.

Secondly: you sought workers to do a specific task, and then gave those most qualified that task as their responsibility. To comply with laws of the land, you even gave them extra training regarding the way you wanted your deliveries done. What if some of them can not do other jobs?

Does that mean they should be subjected to financial hardship through lack of income because the only option you choose to offer is “go if you do not like the way we do things”. How can you even begin to make such suggestions? It's the shoes you supplied that caused the problem in the first place. Have you forgotten that it is unlawful for you to expect the continued use of faulty shoes by those you have a Duty of Care too?
No! You have not forgotten and you just failed in your Duty of Care obligation through your inaction.

You are still fools.

Stop the waste resulting from your foolish actions. (If this is beyond your understanding then you again confirmed you foolishness, and all fools pay in the end). If a period of time is needed, in order to get the repair job done, it is your Duty of Care, to stop others from using the reported bad and or faulty shoe.

Its is better to swallow your pride and tell those expecting a delivery, that you made a mistake and sold off your backup equipment, and some deliveries will not be made till the problems are fixed.

No, you can't do that can you. I forgot that five tick delivery services have no problems.
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In times when only Cobblers made shoes, people used their feet to get around fare more than they do today. If a pair of shoes failed replacement shoes took time as there might not always be a Cobbler at hand. Back then most people took the purchase of shoes as a serious thing.

So the wise person got the best shoes for those entrusted to their care, and to ensure that they would last and not case pain or injury.

The wise person did not get shoes because they could be gotten at a saving. Nor because they found leather other than what the Cobbler recomended looked better, or that came from the tannery that had sent in the nicest picture sample.

A wise person didn't expect his workers, who travelled around all over the place in their shoes that subsequently wore out faster, to keep the same shoes for up to twenty years, when his own shoes spent time inside a building and got replaced every two years or so.

If your shoes caused your delivery boys suffer while doing deliveries, because they had injured themselves getting around on the things used for their locomotion, ie., their feet and shoes.

If you continued to close your eyes to the cause of the problem that at was occurring in the primary part of your whole delivery operation, and could not comprehend that a simple replacement of shoes would solve the many flow on problems plaguing your deliveries.

If repeatedly chose to ignore the plea of your workers for new or least a fully fixed shoes, a repair task that should only be done by those with knowledge of how they are made in the first place.
(Cobblers not mechanics )

Then your actions speak loudly now about you poor adherence to standards and you failure regarding your obligations to a Duty of Care?

Did you ever consider the following?

Lets also think about what would happen if the shoes where used for up to 19 hours a day, would they not wear out faster ?

What if they where used over terrain that cased faster wear and tear, or if the delivery boy was expected to do the deliveries in a time frame that was shortened so that delivery service owner could pay a lesser per- hour remuneration to the delivery boy ? What effect would the extra stress on the shoe components be ?

Could this result in damaged shoes, wouldn't that lead to damaged feet and legs ?

Did you ever realy consider ?

No! your actions speeks of inaction.

Because despite their age, despite the feedback, despite the number of reported injuries cause as a result of their usage, despite a lowering of moral in your workforce, despite your unwarranted claim that yours is a five tick operation, despite the fact that the injuries have been repeatedly caused by the same fundamental object, you still, after so many years claim there is no problem.

The time has come for your mismanagement to be made know to all.

The time to seek justice has arrived.
_
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__________That was then, this is now.
Let’s have a look at a modern comparison.

Today one would have to be a very foolish person to deny that going faster round corner after corner in a motor vehicle, over a vastly greater time and distance then an average private user normally does, would cause a decrease in the time period that mechanical things remain safe, serviceable or usable.

Thus in a vehicle that used so much let’s suppose the tyres get changed often, because they wear faster, and if not changed the vehicle owner can be fined.

Other components, like brakes get changed when they wear out. If they did not the owner once again would be at fault.

But the one constantly ignored item is the shoes in this analogy, the shoes the owner neither fully fixes nor replaces.

They have failed their lawful obligations of Duty of Care, making their mismanagement or both human and industrial resources that much more condemnable.

Because,
Badly designed shoes lead to,
Damaged feet and legs,
Worn out shoes lead to,
Damaged feet and legs.
_Leads to Service fail

Shoes! What shoes? I thought we were talking about motor vehicles just then?

Yes, but if plain words at times can't be understood them examples might help.
Thus,

In these times, the shoe situation appalies to any vehicle's seats.

So the comparison of such a failure by a carer in this analogy is........And their lack of action results in the same.

Because,
Badly designed seats lead to,
Damaged spines and/or the four primary appendages.
Worn out seats lead to,
Damaged spines and/or the four primary appendages.

Leads to Service fail

When cobblers were more common than today, I was they that made shoes that carried the rest of the body about.

These days it is the vehicle seat, that people travel on. No matter what the make or model of vehicle, it is the seat that is the first fundamental to travel comfort, and with comfort comes reductions in strains and stresses, and it's the seat that ultimately determines a great safety factor to it's occumant; when you have a loose, or poor shock absorbing one, or without the capacity to be set as instructed you are using an unsafe item of equipment. The weight and purpose of the vechicle directly affects the type of physical stresses the ocupant of the seats is subjested to. It's design, construction and use by date is critical to the degree of safety it provides.

Lets make this point again, using simple common sense.

If a person was to be blind folded, and had their hearing muffled, and are then placed in a light vehicle, and then taken for a drive at a set speed along a set course, then transferred over to a heavy vehicle and taken along the same road and at the same speed:

They are ALWAYS able to tell you which one was heavy and which one was light.

This is because the human body feels the increase in all physical forces that all of the bodies various parts are subjected to.

Any directional physical, shocks, strains, and movements have an increasing effect as the weight of the origin of force transfer increases.

If this is not compensated for sufficiently by the design and operating actions and parameters of both:

1- The seat and the vehicle's shock absorbing capacity and efficiency,
2- The seat and the vehicle's degree of lateral swing reduction and motion stability,

Then the occupant is subjected to higher degrees of adverse and detrimental physical actions.

This results in both increased and accelerated wear and tear on many body parts, particularly those which are the connective, cushioning, and shock-absorbing and hinging points inside the human body, and most susceptible to the bodies repeated directional changes.

Just to make it even simpler to see, consider this;

Take a pair of twins place each in a different location for an extended time.

_One remains where their skin is subjected to a high degree of sun and wind
_One remains where their skin is subjected to a low degree of sun and wind

Take photos of each and show the photo to people that have never seen them before.

Ask which photo was taken first; the answer will be the photo of the one that remained in the low wind and sun exposed location.

__Repeated actions of a detrimental nature to the human body will affect the degree of component ageing

__Repeated actions of a detrimental nature to mechanical objects will affect the degree of component ageing

Unsafe leads to no safety, no safety leads to harm sooner or later.

Why ? is this is so hard to comprehend by those who must make the choice to either fulfil their Duty Of Care, or by their lack of action must be held accountable.

So did any of this sound wise or foolish to you?
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