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#253 - Business Of Machining | Year In Review
188 Plays3 years ago
TOPCIS:
- A year in review from both Saunders & Grimsmo.
- Taking guilt free time off.
- Grimsmo got a Voron v0 3d printer.
- Performance reviews for employees.
- Putting pride into your work.
Recommended
Transcript
Leadership Insights with John and John
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning. Welcome to the Business of Machining, episode number 253. My name is John Saunders. And my name is John Grimsmo. John and I talk, as I like to say, semi-reluctant leaders. I don't mean it in an apologetic or sympathetic way, but I like making, and making doesn't always involve – and building doesn't intrinsically involve leadership, but it is a leadership, and you've got to be willing to step up and lead, period.
00:00:27
Speaker
Yep. When you want something in this world, especially when it goes beyond you specifically and it requires other people, whether it's vendors or, you know, friends or staff, um, yeah, leadership becomes a big part of it the more you get into it. Yeah. And I never set out to be a leader, but I'm becoming in that role, like realizing how critical it is for my future. So I have to be as good as I can at it, you know? Absolutely. And you just have to do it. I think the,
00:00:56
Speaker
unsolicited advice that I think is the most important advice that I also really, for some reason, I haven't seen it or read it, or if I have, I didn't realize it. So I wish I had been told it is you just have to do it. And it doesn't. And that means, you know, yes, I think a lot about the team. And I think a lot about leadership. And I, I've,
00:01:21
Speaker
Because I have insecurities, I think it's better to just be candid about that rather than hide it. But on the flip side, darn it, I'm the leader. This is what we're doing. And we've got a great team. Don't overthink it. Be kind. Be nice. Be fair. All that kind of stuff, but just do it. Don't not leave because you're scared. Exactly. What
Caring for Culture and People
00:01:44
Speaker
might happen? It's so easy to hyperanalyze and be scared and be nervous and not act.
00:01:51
Speaker
But lack of action is dangerous. Good cardinal sin. Yeah, exactly. But it happens all the time. And I'm getting much better at it. And yes, sometimes you just have to get out of your own way and lead and say what you need to say.
00:02:08
Speaker
And everyone's everyone's the same. We all have our own things that we love. We all have the own things that we don't like doing. There's very few like maniacally bad people out there that are like actually like enjoy, you know, treating out or whatever, like. And I gosh, sometimes like I hear about how
00:02:28
Speaker
You just care. Sometimes I think about that. How do you care about the company, the culture, the people? There's
Reflections on Comedy and Context
00:02:34
Speaker
a balance. I'm not, I would say, friends. I'm not friends with people we work with. We don't hang out inside the shop, and you're friendly, and you care. I was a random related segue to listening to Dave Chappelle on Joe Rogan.
00:02:58
Speaker
Did you listen to Dave Chappelle's stand up or shows or anything? Yeah, I've heard a bunch of his stand ups. Yeah. So I mean, he is hilarious. I would have thought he would be this kind of like ego Hollywood success, like, you know, there's like, all of a sudden celebrities, you know, seem to have the right to weigh in on political stuff, you know,
00:03:17
Speaker
policy of everything from the Second Amendment to like, how we should be handling COVID. Like, celebrities are celebrities. Like, sorry, you're a good actor, end of conversation. Dude, Dave Chappelle is like the best guy. Hearing him on Rogan, and if anyone's interested, I would without hesitation recommend it. He's just like, look, man, people treat people kind. You know, he's like, there's some decisions I've made where I walked away from a lot of money because I got to stay me and be me. And really just like a wholesome guy who
00:03:47
Speaker
He's not a saint. He's not out there for everyone to revere him as some wonderful person, but he's also just a good dude. It was actually really nice to see somebody who could, he has, what do they say? He has money that allows you to, it's like a few money. He could do whatever he wants. He's not a bad guy. And he chooses to do good. You might not get that from his stand up because he does very triggering jokes and things like that.
00:04:17
Speaker
sometimes that's what makes it hilarious. But I guess in a conversation like on Rogan podcast, like you get to get deeper into the, you know, the man behind the man kind of thing. Yeah. Well, he brought that up because God would have, you know, to some extent, I like our machining world. And you're my conversation podcast, because we don't need to escape from all the other stuff that's going on in the world. But he had a great point about
00:04:42
Speaker
some of the comedians and similar entertainment folks that are catching a lot of flack in the modern era for things that were said 10, 15, 20 years ago. It's like the best thing ever. He's like, dude, I don't get mad at a picture because the picture wasn't taken today. The
Family Time and Holidays
00:04:59
Speaker
picture was taken at a point in time when things were different and that's what was happening. Yeah, I like that.
00:05:09
Speaker
How are you? Cool. I'm excellent. I'm trying to get back into work mode for this podcast because the whole team has taken the whole week off. We get the two weekends on each end and the whole week off. Man, I haven't worked in the past five days.
00:05:29
Speaker
It's weird, but it's amazing. Good for you. I've just barely checking email, certainly not answering anything. I haven't opened Fusion in five days. Oh, wow. I've done a little bit of thinking just because I can't stop that. But for the most part, I've just been spending time with family and playing video games with life, going for walks, hikes with the kids.
00:05:55
Speaker
Just being. It's been really nice. I'm not used to that. Yeah. How was Christmas? It was wonderful. Yeah, just super quiet. Didn't do much. We just wanted family time with just us. Yeah, it's been nice. We just make a little fire in the fireplace and hang out, drink hot chocolate, read lots of books. Awesome. Yeah, it's been awesome.
00:06:21
Speaker
Yes, great kid we you know, William is eight Jane is heard of seven William Jane is five so like probably the peak Christmas years, you know, Santa full steam ahead and super excited and and that's fun and
00:06:36
Speaker
I got two noteworthy things or share worthy things. One is fun. It's called Bino, B-I-N-H-O into any Spanish speaking listeners. I'm probably butchering that name because it's B-N with a nurdle above it or whatever the Spanish thing is. Bino. Bino, thank you.
00:06:57
Speaker
It is a tabletop soccer game. So it's like this little turf field with these metal pins and a marble, and you flick the marble playing soccer against each other, a little mini net. And I like board games, I like hard games, and we play them, but sometimes I want something that's a little bit more actiony. And William and I have probably played 30 games of Beano in the past few days. Super fun. Nice. Yeah, so
Gadgets and Games
00:07:26
Speaker
I enjoyed that.
00:07:27
Speaker
The other thing is this is like blowing my world is I got a little drone Okay And I'm like super behind the curve on this I mean happy I flew a drone when I came up to visit you like four years ago or something that little pico drone remember Yeah It was like the size of a half well us half-dollar or something. Yeah So I got what you get it's a tiny Hawk Freestyle
00:07:57
Speaker
So it's like 200 bucks. It's not expensive. But it has the FPV goggles. Oh, John, it's crazy. It's a lot harder. Is it one of your guys Vince? He's into drones, FPV stuff, right? Vince is super drunk. He helped pick that out. Yeah.
00:08:19
Speaker
So I've been learning to fly it, which is humbling. I can't wear the goggles and fly it yet because it's my wife or my kids can wear the goggles and like we fly it around and it's just, you kind of want to like screw scream. It's so cool. Like it's, it's just like so freaking fun and cool.
00:08:37
Speaker
Yep. Yeah. My brother got a small one for life as well, like a $50 Amazon kind of drone, but it's actually quite nice for that low cost. And it's a D E E R C D 22 or something like that.
00:08:53
Speaker
Yeah, so we've just been playing it. We make little landing pads in the house, like when I have these competitions, like who can land in the circle, you get 50 points if you do this, if you knock over the thing. Right. And you can tie it, it's got a little camera, you can tie your phone to it. Not the goggles, but it's, it's so fun. Just flying around the house. Oh, you don't put your, you don't put your phone on the drone, you can watch the drone from your phone. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's super cool. Yeah.
00:09:18
Speaker
Yeah. And it's amazing just watching it hover and trimming it or trimming it or whatever so it doesn't veer left, veer right. Yes. Yeah. As an adult, I think sometimes things get a little bit less exciting in life. I love what I do, but a lot of times it's just less impressed by a lot of things. Yeah. And I'll tell you, man, flying the drone's super fun. Totally. Yeah. Yep.
00:09:45
Speaker
Yeah, it's amazing. And watching it do like ours can do a 360 flip just in midair. You just double click this one button and it just flips. I'm like, what? And it's so stable when it does it too.
00:09:58
Speaker
Yeah, when I started flying the freestyle, it's probably actually not the best beginner drone in hindsight. I didn't realize it was in like expert mode or like unlocked mode. And it was hypersensitive. And I'm like crashing all the time. I'm like, oh my gosh, like this is kicking my butt. And then I realized there's like a neutered mode, like beginner mode, where the controls aren't as hypersensitive. And now that I've spent like an hour trying to fly it in hyper mode, I'm like way better. But it's still pretty tricky.
00:10:27
Speaker
Trying to land it on a little paver or something is impressive. Did you try it outside yet or on the inside? It is exposed rotor, so it's really only an outside drone. Okay. I'd be lying if I had tried to flatten the house some, but that would be not a good idea.
00:10:48
Speaker
Yeah, we flew ours outside once and then Lafe veered into the neighbor's yard because it was windy and then around some trees and then we hit the trees. Oh, yeah. Well, actually, in fairness, it was like 60 degrees and sunny here for a couple of days, so it was really a great excuse to be outside. Absolutely.
3D Printing Adventures
00:11:09
Speaker
The other thing I picked up, sort of a work purchase for John was a new 3D printer.
00:11:16
Speaker
Oh, which you can bought a Voron V0, V0.1.
00:11:23
Speaker
Voron is a super interesting company. I've had my eyes on for a couple of years. They're actually not a company. They're just a bunch of engineer nerds that got together and they're like, we're going to design the coolest printer that you build yourself. Here's the bill of materials, go nuts. And there's a couple of companies that have started putting together kits where, so you don't have to source all of the components and all the wiring and everything. And they make a little wiring harness for you. So it's a, to put it together, build it yourself kit.
00:11:50
Speaker
Yeah, Voron V0. It's a tiny little thing. It's got a four inch by four inch build plate, but it is fast. I've got the site up now, Voron design. What's the so what of the 0.1? Yeah. Google images is probably better because their site is super basic and not that helpful. Small, fast, fairly easy to put together.
00:12:16
Speaker
quality components, just a good solid build. And it's been a really fun project. It's not running yet, but last night I turned it on and got communication with the online software. And yeah, so today will be kind of
00:12:33
Speaker
tuning it properly. I really enjoyed the build. Probably 10 to 20 hours into it so far, just farting around through holiday break. It's been kind of nice. I have a little ... I call it my lab in the basement. I've been putting it together and the kids come down.
00:12:50
Speaker
just hang out while I do. I'm like, this is kind of cool. I'm doing like engineering kind of work while they're just they just want to be around and chat with me and tell me all about their life. While I get to kind of
00:13:04
Speaker
interspersed little bits of knowledge like, look, I'm doing a self-tapping screw. What's that? Oh, okay. Yeah. Well, let me tell you. Right. The woman who watched me a lot growing up and now helps with our kids, like a babysitter, but she's
00:13:21
Speaker
I don't know, whatever title would be. She means the world to me. And someone hit her mailbox the other day. And so William and I went over and pulled out the old four by four post and dug out the hole and then got a new mailbox and then poured in the mix and reset it and leveled it. And you maybe think of it because of self-tappers, self-tapping in to put the sign back on it. And it felt good. And also starting to ease at that age where it's like, hey, this is how you do things.
00:13:50
Speaker
Yeah, you start to realize not everybody knows everything you know. Sometimes you have to go back to basics like all the different kinds of screws and how things work. You can't just smash everything with a hammer.
00:14:07
Speaker
So are you buying on the Voron? Are you buying linear rails? I'm looking at it now. It came as a kit. Pretty much everything I needed came in that kit, which was good. But prior to the release of that kit, which was just recently, you would have to go basically Aliexpress and buy every single belt bearing rail, the extruder you want. You have to 3D print your own components to build the whole thing, but I was able to purchase a kit of 3D printed parts.
00:14:37
Speaker
Yeah, and uh, it's sweet so like
00:14:41
Speaker
guys are having these competitions who can print the benchy, that little 3D printed tugboat that everybody prints, who can print it the fastest. And I think all of the top contenders are on this printer. Interesting. What's real fast? What nozzles in it? Like what size? Yeah. I think it's 0.4 millimeter. Okay. I think for that speed test, there's loose rules. Like you got to use the same size nozzle and stuff, but it's a core XY printer.
00:15:10
Speaker
and the bed moves up and down in Z. And the corks Y is kind of weird. Have you ever looked into that too much? No. So it's not like, there's not like an X motor, you know, left, right, a Y motor in and out. It's two motors that control these belts that simultaneously move in X and Y direction. So if I push the extruder housing in a 45 degree angle, only one motor will move.
00:15:40
Speaker
Oh, weird. If I move it straight back, both motors move at the same speed. So the motors have to know how to do this motion. It's really neat. It reminds me of that BMG Moray 5-axis machine where the fifth axis knuckles at the corner of the back left corner of the machine. Yeah, yeah. There is no X or Y. It's all synthetic. Exactly. So it's kind of weird to wrap your head around, but the computers will figure that out.
00:16:07
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. CoreXY explained, I got to watch this. That's cool. Did we talk about the new Prusa on the podcast or you mean? A couple weeks ago, you said you pre-ordered it. Yeah. I'm still excited about that because- Absolutely.
00:16:23
Speaker
I mean, I probably printed, I would guess, 40 things in the last 10 days now. Really? Oh, yeah. We print a ton. Yeah. And there's a lot of times where I either want the part done a little quicker or I want to
00:16:39
Speaker
you know, kind of a lock would like I want it, I want to see it, touch it, feel it, own it, and then throw it in the trash because it was just a tester iteration. And so that was one of my, my, my reasons, you know, justifications to myself for buying the V zero is it should be able to print parts like two to four times faster than a person does.
00:16:56
Speaker
Yeah. But like a lot of times we have either threads or text or detail of some sort that I care about. So the idea of having like a one millimeter and the point 0.2 or 0.4, um, is going to be great. And then we're doing more go, no goes where I want to have red and green on the same machine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I haven't, I, I have an IDEX at home, but like it's a pain compared to what you have the 10 log 3d pro or something TL D three pro.
00:17:25
Speaker
I would recommend it. It's been great. And it's like the joke with 3D printers. The three things that you need to focus on are bed leveling, bed leveling, and bed leveling. It prints on the main nozzle incredibly reliably. The point in the second one, you've really, you've slayed it tight to the first one with a set screw, so it's a little bit touchy. But yeah.
00:17:52
Speaker
Cool. It's fun. Yeah. As I'm building this printer, Claire is asking me, oh, can this one print multiple colors? I'm like, no, not this one. Probably the next printer we get will do that.
00:18:05
Speaker
Yeah. It is fun. I love it. I've gotten better at slicing and better at designing things so that they don't need supports because like here's a part we're printing as part of a video series we'll release or a video release on all these different parts that we've
00:18:22
Speaker
designed to improve chip evacuation in our machines. We spent a lot of time and frankly effort on like pumps and hoses and wash downs and we realized air and we realized you have to use the one free
00:18:39
Speaker
that we all have access to, which is gravity. And so this is an example of a corner piece that has cutaways for sheet metal screws and weldments with a couple of magnets that are recessed to keep the magnets away. But I switched, and I know no one can see this, but we had a right angle coming out. I switched that to a 45 to get rid of all that unnecessary support material. And then that is a circular boss where if you change the circle to a witch's point, witch's hat,
00:19:07
Speaker
It fits fine and you don't need any support inside of there. I see what you mean. Isn't that cool? What we're looking at, what John's showing me on the screen is like a pyramid almost that's going to shove in the corner of the machine and just keep stuff from accumulating up in the corners.
00:19:23
Speaker
Yeah. Anyone who's certainly run a Haas. Look, Haas are not the only machines where folks will say, man, I wish it had better chip evacuation, but never the less. Having flat corners or gently sloped corners is horrible. So putting a cheap 3D printed part in there works. And look, if you're a sheet metal shop, you're going to make these out of sheet metal. I hear you all day long, but 3D printing these things, a couple of bucks a piece, a couple of bucks for magnets, rock and roll.
00:19:50
Speaker
and infinite revisions available to you. Yeah, that's amazing. On the current, I 3D printed. I'm going to call them.
00:19:58
Speaker
No, well, for the current. These coolant shields kind of thing, the door that opens up to the pallet changer. Coolant is constantly blasting against the corners of that door and chips get into those corners and fall down and go into this little drain tube that drains all the excess coolant that didn't, that got past the wipers. So chips are getting in there. They're clogging up the drain tube. I didn't like it. So I 3D printed these shields that kind of just,
00:20:28
Speaker
cover the gap of where the door opens and closes. Man, it's been amazing. That's awesome. We just have to clear that hose often and now I haven't thought about it in four months. Yeah, that's great. I almost want to do a whole other video on 3D printing.
00:20:47
Speaker
in a machine shop. We've done at least one where just like all these quality life improvements, we've reprinted all, I don't have one here, they're out in the shop floor, but we reprinted new, this was just a file off of Thingiverse that we grabbed, but they are Wira hex wrench holders that hold the Wira wrenches in a much easier quick grab way. Because actually this is by the Christmas gift is a set of, I first had a PB Swiss. Oh yeah, I've heard about those. Oh, John, they just feel
00:21:18
Speaker
PB Swiss, like Allen wrenches, the multicolored ones. I haven't turned a screw with them yet. I want to say I like them better than the Wieras already, but they seem very difficult to get in Imperial. This set I'm holding is metric. The same thing though, I hate that slide out, the whole wrench all the way out of the tool. I want the quick snap thing, and those have been great. That's what I find so fun about 3D printing is
00:21:47
Speaker
Once you get good at designing, especially designing for 3D printing, the world is your oyster. You can do all kinds. There's almost no rules. The part has to support itself or you build supports into it. Otherwise, go nuts.
00:22:01
Speaker
Yeah, Garrett and Ed came up with a improvement to our skimmers where the skimmer has, after it skims the oil off, it has a coolant oil separator that returns the oil. What? Yes, yes. Oh my goodness, that's brilliant. Yeah, I'll show it on video. And again, we share the file. It's actually stupid simple. It's just based on the fact that oil floats on water. Right. And so it minimizes the amount of
00:22:30
Speaker
The reason I care about it is that it minimizes the amount of oil or volume in the oil container. For sure. Because we want to empty that less often. It's not like the amount of money you're saving on the cooling isn't a big deal, but it's a good improvement. Yeah, but when we ran, I think we had a Zebra skimmer on our Maury, it would pull out like 10 to 1 coolant to oil, you know, that 5 gallon. Oh, really?
00:22:52
Speaker
bucket would be mostly full of coolant after whatever it's full. Then a couple inches of oil on the top. I'm like, oh, this sucks. You get skin. It's basically- Skinned oil, that's dumb. That's cool. It gets me fired up for all this stuff.
00:23:15
Speaker
Yeah. Well, so hey, last week we said we'd talk about HR and feedback and reviews. Oh, yeah. You want to dive in? Yeah, absolutely.
HR and Employee Feedback
00:23:29
Speaker
Let's see here. Yeah, I've been reading that management book called High Output Management. Okay. Again, written in 1983 by the CEO of Intel.
00:23:39
Speaker
So it's very 80s corporate world, but it's actually added a lot of insight to my general distaste for 80s big business, corporate management kind of thing. But it's been really good. And he said in the book, the big takeaway I got from that section was that the review is simply about the employee and how to maximize their effectiveness and happiness within the company.
00:24:08
Speaker
Okay. So I kind of use that on reviewing one of our guys just last week and man, that worked so well. It's not like here's all the things you could be doing better but like I want you to be the best version of yourself. I want you to be the best machinist you can be. What do you need? What are you missing? Is there anything I'm not doing for you?
00:24:32
Speaker
you know, what can we provide? Cause you've been awesome so far, but you know, there's always improvement. Um, what do you need? So little things like that. Um, cause I've always been afraid of reviews and like avoided them. And I don't know, I don't like the whole stuffiness of like, okay, we're going to, you know, reviews coming up, we're going to sit down. We're going to talk about it all just feels weird.
00:24:58
Speaker
Right. I got to find the best version of that that's like suit to me and suits the company and suits everything. Yes. Sometimes it's what you see that doesn't seem to work that is important to see what does work. Somebody once mentioned the idea that at the end of the year, or certainly you could do it in quarters or every other six months, but regardless, at some chunky interval,
00:25:26
Speaker
You sit down and in the same conversation say bad things and good things sometimes there's also like compensation changes or bonus like there's all sorts of like stuff gets muddled into one conversation and what I heard that I really liked is
00:25:42
Speaker
If there's course correction type feedback or criticism or whatever, first off, it's your job as a leader and you owe it to the employees to figure out how to deliver that. Don't be mean, don't be vindictive, don't be petty about it, but you need to say something. That's the not as fun part, but the reality is I remind myself it's not
00:26:06
Speaker
It's not you giving them that feedback. It's what the company needs out of that person. And look, what they should expect. I was thinking about it in this world. Look, there are easier jobs out there. There are probably jobs that pay better. Good grief are local time war or call centers paying a stupid amount. But it's certainly about, there's a lot of things that the company expects out of you and you can expect out of the company, if that makes sense.
00:26:35
Speaker
But give the feedback that you need to give back throughout the year. As quickly as possible is what I've learned. Like more in the moment. It's like you can't tell your dog that he peed on the carpet last week kind of thing.
00:26:51
Speaker
Right? There's another t-shirt. Man, the bomb, preparatory purchase on the front. You can't tell the dog. You peed on the carpet last week. But it's so true because I'm the kind of guy that will sit on things for way too long. And then if I ever bring them up later, it's way too late.
00:27:12
Speaker
You know, it's like, oh, this happened way back in the day. And I don't like being that guy. It doesn't work. And it doesn't ever comes across the way I intended to. And I don't like when people do it to me. And, you know, but you got to be fair. I do. I do find we don't really have we don't really have
00:27:35
Speaker
like major events that require immediate intervention type stuff. But like we all just say, we sometime in the last year had a person come on board who, you know, really failed to meet expectations, including sort of like, hey, you know, when you're here, I don't really care if you have a text message or you need coordinate scheduling or something happens. But like, generally speaking, you shouldn't be on your phone period. Like that's just, you shouldn't be. And the person was basically
00:28:03
Speaker
violating that to the tune of like sneaking around the corner doing that. And so rather than an immediate call you out in the act, I just sort of brought it up the next day. I slept on it, didn't want to feel like it's, you know, whatever. So I think that whole like,
00:28:20
Speaker
very calm, collected like, hey, you know, I can't stop you from doing that. And if you're the kind of person that's just going to try to sneak around the corner, go to the bathroom, like, yep, that's fine. I can't stop you from that. But like, ultimately, you got to think about why you want to be here, what you want out of this, what we can help you do learn. And look, some of it's just work. You got to hear, you'd be here to work, you'd be here because you want to do this, you want to learn. And look, in the long run, life is going to be a lot kinder if you find something you can put pride into. It doesn't mean you're going to love everything
00:28:47
Speaker
Kumbaya, but darn it. One of the things that was beaten to me is if somebody asks me to dig a hole and put in a mailbox, do that with pride. Make that the best darn mailbox you can and it's just fun. It feels good. I like that. That's a really good hiring tip, especially for our company that we want employees that put pride into their work because otherwise, why are you here?
00:29:15
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Like, you're not happy. I'm not happy. Like, I need a team that is willing to put pride into their work, whether it's every aspect of the business. Because it adds enjoyment. When you're like, nailed it, got it. Yep, crushed it. Yeah. But to cut to the real core of things, that's where I
00:29:35
Speaker
want to be as good a leader as I can, but recognize limitations of like, can you coax people and change? Like, this is that cliche question. Like, are people born entrepreneurs or do they made entrepreneur? Like, are people born great workers? Are they made? I don't know. I don't really care. What I know is there's times where I can give feedback and course corrections and leadership. Sometimes it's leading with a carrot, sometimes leading with a stick, and you can get people moving in that direction, right direction. And I'll be honest, there's a couple that I haven't. And those
00:30:04
Speaker
that means you're off the bus, period. There may be other leaders that could have, I guess that's what I think, but there may have been other leaders that could have changed as people and I wish I could have, but ultimately, if I can't, then I can't. That goes back to that whole leadership thing that's our responsibility now is how to
00:30:27
Speaker
how to communicate the vision, how to encourage, motivate, or just push people when needed. There's a lot of different ways to do it and a lot of different times to do each thing. I'm not naturally gifted at that, giving speeches and getting people pumped up and fired up. I'm much more interested in what I'm best at is
00:30:51
Speaker
creating the atmosphere and the company and the products and the work and hiring the right kind of people that everybody can just come in and enjoy their work. I want to get better at communicating the future plan and the vision and where we're going so that everybody knows it's not just coming to work every day and do the same thing.
00:31:11
Speaker
We're going somewhere, you know? But don't just do it then, John. That's kind of what I was trying to say. Exactly. You're not going to read some book or go to some class where it teaches you something you probably don't already know. You just have to decide this is important to me. So I want to say it and say it. And look, I am not going to come work for you because I like what I'm doing now. And I love being an American. But I would come work for you because
00:31:37
Speaker
because you're the kind of guy who will spend an hour and a half on steep and shallow in a bug. And that's like, could be hugely detrimental long term to a business success, but it's also what I love about you. And I want to be in that. And I think this is probably same for people that want to get on the John Grimper train of like, Hey, I want to
00:31:55
Speaker
We got to make money. We got to figure this out. I love that fascination. Let's have some fun with this. Also, I can't expect everybody in the company to have the same fire and dedication that I have because I'm in this maybe for different reasons than they are. I'm in this for absolute passion and enjoyment and family planning and
00:32:18
Speaker
and things like that obviously, but darn it, I love what I do. I'll stay up till 4 AM working on toolpaths and get some sleep and come into work and try them.
00:32:32
Speaker
So I don't remember where I read this list. And so I apologize that I can't correctly attribute it. But somewhere recently, I read something that I liked. Heck, I read a lot of the books you recommend. So maybe you'll recognize where this is from. But for the end of year review, what I asked everyone on the team here were three questions. Company-wide end of year review. Yes, but each person sat down individually. OK, yeah. Yeah.
00:33:01
Speaker
Um, and I didn't ask them ahead of time, which I had thought about whether it would have been better to give them time to think about the answer, but I wanted to just, it wasn't like a trick question. Try it out. Um, and so the, actually that's worth segueing real quick. I also don't think you can ask for feedback about yourself, the company, anything else in the same conversation where there's potential for things like, Hey, this is a bonus or raise. It's like.
00:33:25
Speaker
Wait a minute here. In the same conversation, you're going to tell somebody that they need to work on this, but it's just all muddled. That's one of the things I really don't like about some of the ways I've seen end of year type stuff done. So what I asked were three questions. Number one is, what is one thing that I currently do that you'd like me to continue to do? What is one thing that I don't do frequently enough that you would like me to do more often? And then what can I do to make you more effective?
00:33:56
Speaker
Yes. Exactly. I don't remember where that's from, but I have read that exactly before. Probably traction or something. Yeah. Yeah. And I like it because it's not asking the person to be introspective about themselves. Like, tell me what you think your weaknesses are or telling you what my weaknesses are. Like, I need you to tell me what I don't do well. That's awkward, especially from the more extreme on the pyramid you get of
00:34:22
Speaker
like youngest employee to like, I want an intern to come in here and to be like, this, this doesn't make sense to me. Why do you do this? Like that? I don't, I underestimate how intimidating younger folks are like, of giving that feedback. I'm like, dude, tell me, I don't go. Right, right. But
00:34:40
Speaker
I can't say anything that's going to change that mentality, period. Me wanting it to be different is just the fact that as a 17-year-old isn't going to want to give, isn't going to want to criticize, period. It's almost not allowed, unless you make it allowed, right? Yeah, or to figure out a different way of asking it. I like the answers I got. A couple of them were
00:35:04
Speaker
were good feedback, like a little bit biting and good. Yeah, it's like, ouch, but thank you. No, yeah. Yeah, so I'm glad I did it that way. I do think there could have been something to be said for giving them the questions ahead of time to let them think about it. Oh, I'm glad you experimented with it, right? I got two ways to go. Let me try one way. Next year, I'll do it the other way, like move forward.
00:35:33
Speaker
And I always remember in those situations, it's not about John Saunders, it's about Saunders Machine Works. Yeah. That might be a good prelude to that whole conversation. As you give people the questions at a time, you're like, this is not about me specifically, but this is about making the company a better place. So please, your feedback is very welcome. Yeah.
00:36:00
Speaker
Look, I think at least I'm not a huge feedback type person regularly. I guess my thought is if I'm giving somebody a compliment or if I'm giving somebody constructive feedback, I do it for a reason and it means something, period. I try to make sure I go out of my way when I see somebody that happened to be like,
00:36:23
Speaker
do a nice job. And sometimes, honestly, what I love is sometimes doing that privately is enough because all that person needs to know is you do a nice job on that. You noticed. Sometimes it's nice to do it publicly because who doesn't love some public affirmation? I see both sides of it, but yeah. That's all I got.
00:36:42
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, it's I've noticed that sometimes little things that I say, get remembered in stronger ways than I intended. And that
Team Management and Technology
00:36:52
Speaker
still blows me away, whether it's with my kids or whether it's with, you know, somebody at work, like, I heard the kids, you know, bickering and fighting yesterday, and they were in a doorway, and lives like, we don't know, he was messing with Clara, and she was messing with him back. And he's like, we don't, you know, we don't play in doorways, because somebody's gonna pinch their fingers and makes like, yeah, I said that I told them to do that.
00:37:11
Speaker
Yeah, right, right. Little things, right? Yeah. And it's good that people pick up on this. But yeah, sometimes I've noticed that at work, somebody will do something I mentioned once like a year ago. And it's like, yeah, that's a big thing. I really remember you saying that. It's like, sweet. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. What else do you have to on your week off? Well, I want to wrap up this printer. I
00:37:42
Speaker
I have to install the firmware today and tune it, do some test prints, put all the panels on afterwards. It's an enclosed printer too, so I can print ABS and pretty much any material. Yeah, that's nice. Which is really cool. I don't have that really ability on the Prusas that I have.
00:38:01
Speaker
And then while I'm at work, because I came in for the podcast, I got the whole shop to myself. So I'm going to fiddle around for a little bit. I think we're going to install the temperature sensors on the heat treat quench plate setup. Nice. That'll be cool because it's all wired up and ready. I just have to cut some hoses and put it on. And then
00:38:20
Speaker
I was making a fixture part on Friday night whenever I left, like almost a week ago. And there's a little broken tool on the Kern. So I might fix that or I might just leave it. Who cares? Is it fun to fix it? Do you want to fix it? Not right now. No. Then don't. I'm curious like what happened and why and things like that, but whatever. Yeah. It's weird to walk away from like work that needs to be done.
00:38:50
Speaker
It's the, but remember this, the kind of the whole marathon, not a yes, like I've reached, this is a weird.
00:38:58
Speaker
position. We've reached the point where it's actually not really productive for me to hop back into certain things. Even three months ago or six months ago, I actually really liked helping ship orders or make parts, especially if it's like, hey, we're really crunched or tired or whatever. At this point, it's a good thing. I hate to say it, but it is a good thing. I just don't know what the latest policy part, it's just okay.
00:39:28
Speaker
Well, on that note, as I've been doing the same thing where I'm becoming less and less involved with various aspects of every aspect of the business directly, and I'm losing track of what the policy is. I was thinking yesterday, I was like, what is the shipping policy? What do we do for this situation, this international whatever? I don't know, Fraser's in charge. He just does it.
00:39:49
Speaker
Right, so I want to get better at the team at consolidating that information at least having a place to put it So we have current, you know current method. Yeah, and somebody actually emailed us When you and I brought this sort of topic up a while back about Created a corporate wiki. Yeah And I have a huge amount of respect that it's not the right fit for us right now because we have Lex or
00:40:16
Speaker
Shopify or Asana, it sounds funny when I'm saying all these out loud, but we have enough things in place. And I really like building off of things like Lex where again, we were talking about last week where like if something happens, it creates
00:40:30
Speaker
an action event that presents an email to Julie with the path of least resistance suggestion that she just confirms. That is a great workflow. And we effectively use Asana as an internal wiki. When we want to put in an example of the international customs process, we just do it there. But I totally get that in. If we had done that from the start, we'd probably be using that wiki right now. Yeah.
00:41:02
Speaker
Nice. One of our interns just installed, finally, Octopi on our Prusa. Yeah, with the camera and everything. Yeah. Do you use it? I did for a while, and then I stopped for some reason. I think it stopped working, and then I didn't care. But when it works, it's really cool.
00:41:23
Speaker
Yeah. We do so many overnight prints now that I wanted a way to check it and just shut the printer off remotely if it's failing for whatever reason. And then I also just got tired of sneaker netting files. We actually have a wise camera right now on it, so the camera's fine, but that's not why I would have done it alone. But I'm excited to play with that.
00:41:47
Speaker
Yeah, I just had the little Raspberry Pi ribbon cable camera. Yeah, that's fine. Yeah. But yeah, it's super sweet to be able to drag and drop prints and even start the printer remotely. Because when I was doing it, I had the printer in my basement at home and I'd be up in the dining room in my dining room office.
00:42:07
Speaker
And I would transfer a print and I'd see the camera to be like, okay, the bed is empty, you know, good to go. Hit print, watch the first layer, done. Okay, now I'm good. Check in every couple of hours. And I've actually printed from, the printer was at work. I was at home and I printed a couple of things that way. Absolutely. That is so cool.
00:42:27
Speaker
What reminds me back to my fond memories of when I was buying my tag in a New York City and learning She Cam and Bobcat and going to NYC Resistor and taking Arduino classes. It was just the coolest early stages of this maker movement.
00:42:49
Speaker
second gen, I think MakerBot, which is super still like hacky, organic. They had the back, what would they call it? The Batcave in Brooklyn or whatever. They had created this little conveyor belt that you could buy, build, and set on your, was it like the cupcake or something back then? I don't remember the name of these.
00:43:10
Speaker
And so this conveyor belt, when your print was done, would index forward. And when the belt rolled under it, it would rip the part off. So you could actually do production printing without having to be there to remove the print. Nice. I've seen a couple versions of this, but it doesn't seem like it's really taken off. I don't know. It must not have been reliable relative to the ease of whatever. But it's still like you look at that and you go, yes, that makes sense. Why doesn't everything have this? Yeah.
00:43:40
Speaker
Well, we caught some flack on our video of doing the, actually it's kind of funny, the DIY spindle lighter, which yes, I remember you and I jokingly me throw in some shade your way about like, but I had this idea we had it done and I had like under 20 minutes of my own involved time. And yeah, it took hours to run on the 3D printer, but like, so what? I'm tying up a $300 to $1,000 3D printer. Yeah, and you're doing something else.
00:44:10
Speaker
Oh, yeah, with none of my time versus the setting up $100,000. Yes, T20. Why? And frankly, either changing the tooling or even remote risk of crashing because you're running out of your program. No way. That's
Year in Review and Future Aspirations
00:44:23
Speaker
what happened when I made the spindle liners for Nakamura, I made them on the Maury out of
00:44:27
Speaker
Slugs and I interpolated the holes and I bored, you know, and it was a weird setup weird part I don't cut an aluminum much I had to set up tooling took me hours and hours and hours on this hundred thousand plus dollar machine and I'm like dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb But it solved the problem and you know that we're still using them. It's great. But Yeah, just the the risk of scrapping it making the wrong part choosing the wrong toolpath the time involved the cost that's
00:44:55
Speaker
Did it work when you 3D printed them? Yeah. Now the like gotcha thing is we're not really printing spindle liners. We're taking a, take like a large diameter spindle liner and we're just printing bushings. Oh yeah. But like that's the trick because I, even when I looked at buying the trusty cooks, which they, they didn't get back to actually, they quoted me the wrong one or something was weird. And then it was like 500 bucks plus $80 a ship or something. I'm like, this is not fun.
00:45:22
Speaker
And the other concern was I wanted a really snug fit. And it's pretty tricky to understand what that means when you're ordering those. Because if you don't want it to not fit, that's a no go. But you also, if it was sloppy, they're no fault of the manufacturer just because you weren't comfortable with how to spec it. So 3D printing those bushings, I recommend it all day long. Love it. And when I build my spindle liners, you know, I go to the local metal store,
00:45:50
Speaker
and trying to find an ID that's exactly what I want was difficult because there's extruded IDs and then there's a DOM drawn over mandrel IDs. And still, I'm sitting there with a three-eighths slug of material, putting it in the bar, wiggling it, going, yeah, that's fine. No, no, no, no. And they don't spec the ID like you'd think they would. You can't buy it in every thou increment. Right. So yeah, it's been good.
00:46:20
Speaker
Cool. Awesome. Well, enjoy the rest of your, yeah, enjoy the rest of your year. And I will see you next year. Sound good. I'll see you next year. Yeah. Literally. Hopefully I will see you next year. Yes. 2022. Let's get together. Let's do something. Good. Cool, man. All right. I'll see you. Take care. Take care. Bye. Bye.