Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
The Impact of COVID-19
235 Plays6 years ago
This weeks episode is a little different than our normal conversations. John & John talk all about the effects of COVID-19 in their personal life and business life. They take a quick detour to talk about higbee threads as well! Please everyone stay safe out there. Look after yourself and loved ones.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Setting the Scene
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning and welcome to the Business of Machining episode 163. My name is John Saunders. My name is John Grimsmo. And this week, it's, what is it, March 25th right now? Sort of deep in the thick of the whole coronavirus thing. But normally on this podcast, it's two entrepreneurs talking about business and life and ups and downs and challenges. And we're in that challenging time, you know?
00:00:28
Speaker
It is true.
COVID-19 vs. Past Crises
00:00:31
Speaker
Never before in my life, and I was in the thick of the Great Recession, but never then have I seen things change so much each day.
00:00:45
Speaker
Yeah. Like Meg and I were talking, we're like, it's, it's been a week and a half, like here of crazy, like, you know, schools are shut down and everything. And before that, you know, half the people didn't believe it. And then it started to get serious. Yeah.
00:01:02
Speaker
Yeah, there's certainly it's interesting. I usually have always just tried to say diplomatic in life and see both sides of the story. And I think that's there's a lot to be said for that. But boy, the while the disease will be terrible, the cure is going to be worse. And governments play a key role. And I think getting aid out and programs is important and vital, but governments ultimately don't
00:01:29
Speaker
sustain economies and shutting down global. It's unprecedented and worrisome. Yeah, it's brutal. How are you guys doing? You guys
Essential Business Status in Ontario
00:01:45
Speaker
open? We're doing okay. We're still open as of a couple of days ago. Today's Wednesday, so as of, well, technically now.
00:01:55
Speaker
All, air quote, non-essential businesses in Ontario are shut down, except I read through the document and they stipulated 74 industries that are still available. And manufacturing as a whole was a very broad statement that didn't specify any type of manufacturing. It just said, if you make something or a material, you're allowed to stay open. I'm like, OK, so now it's basically up to me to decide if we're staying open or not.
00:02:25
Speaker
because we're allowed to under that stipulation unless they keep changing the rules. But yeah, so we're still open. We're being super careful. We got a lot of our guys home. And yeah, I'm starting to wonder if I need to shut down.
00:02:45
Speaker
Look, I'm
Legalities and Tough Decisions
00:02:47
Speaker
going to just level it. It's not an easy decision, and you got to make that decision. The decision I make isn't necessarily the one that's right for you or anybody else, but I will say there's an element that is for the greater good. Both of us would be devastated if
00:03:05
Speaker
if we had an employee get sick period, let alone any sort of a lasting illness or worse. On the flip side, in the state of Ohio, the authority with which they're shutting down businesses is dubious legality at best. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but
00:03:26
Speaker
I think folks too often don't consider challenging the government's authority. The Ohio Revised Code Line is basically a line that says the public health director, I believe that's the title, has the authority. You can't defy their
00:03:48
Speaker
decisions in the event of a pandemic. And that is, I mean, extrapolating that out is completely unconstitutional or wouldn't hold up. By that measure, they could say you need to stay inside your house without ever opening the door for two years or something.
00:04:05
Speaker
And then the other thing is, policies work when they are fair and enacted.
Decision to Close for Safety
00:04:12
Speaker
And it's the same thing, John. We're shut down as well. And I'll tell you, there's a ton of traffic on the roads. Gas stations are open, grocery stores are open, takeout foods are open, manufacturing is open, plumbers are open. And I fully support all of that. But it's like, wait, why should I go through the hardship and endure
00:04:30
Speaker
Is this life changing event when it's sort of willy-nilly about who actually complies or or has to shut down you know. I'll say one more thing and then stop we did make the decision to shut down.
00:04:46
Speaker
We are not, to be honest, we are not essential. We are not doing work that directly relates to the ability to help people in hospitals with things like ventilators and masks. If somebody reaches out to us and shows us how we can play that role, we will have those machines fired up in a matter of minutes or hours.
00:05:09
Speaker
There's a lot of great things and great energy happening out there. I commend so many people, but I'm also
Small Manufacturers' Role and 3D Printing Limits
00:05:16
Speaker
going to say something that may be a little bit controversial, which is that sometimes too many firefighters run into the building. There's a lot of projects I've heard about that aren't necessarily going to result in the outcome of that getting put into hospitals or in medical professionals or not, so far as I can tell, at the point where
00:05:34
Speaker
people are trying to build ventilators to sustain the life of family members at their houses. It's not that level yet. I would like to see some leadership emerge at some level of state, healthcare, government, federal that would help us understand how smaller manufacturers can play a role, but I'm torn because
00:05:56
Speaker
You can't 3D print your way out of this. The number of millions of masks that you need is not a... Bree Pettis actually put up a beautiful statement on this who's quite qualified to talk about the scale of 3D printing and where that works and where it doesn't. And I'm not trying to be negative. I'm trying to be a realist about making sure we allocate resources correctly. And when we can't, for us, the decision was stop going to work. The state wants us to shut down. That's their intent. And they're going to pick up the tab for that.
Government Aid and Economic Impacts
00:06:23
Speaker
something I generally believe in as a capitalist entrepreneur who has always paid his own way. I just don't believe in that sort of thing. There's a reason it exists. I'm not saying it shouldn't exist. I've never thought in my life I'd be making some of these decisions. Of course. It's quite an interesting time to
00:06:45
Speaker
to be forced into making these kinds of decisions. But I guess that's where big decisions come from, is you're forced into it. You don't choose to go down these paths. This is where the rubber meets the road, and we as business leaders have to make our choices.
00:07:07
Speaker
Basically, we are a non-essential business, too, unless we get into making some medical stuff, which we're loosely looking into. But as you said, you can't 3D print your way out of everything.
00:07:21
Speaker
But I mean, we, we do have the capability to make some crazy stuff if, if it came up, but I'm not going to invent my own ventilator because I don't have three years to Grimsmo this thing. Custom titanium knobs on the stick.
00:07:40
Speaker
The best thing I can think of was that we created that NYCcnc.com slash COVID. I even was hesitant to that because this is not about me promoting my brand about COVID, but I just am getting so many emails from folks that mean well, so we're trying to just share resources. Frankly, I wish I probably should have done it on a generic site because I dislike when folks are like, hey, there's a virus going on. Look at how we're helping. It's like, I'm not helping right now.
00:08:08
Speaker
The best thing I can do is, according to healthcare professionals, not even the government, but according to the nurses and the doctors, stay home, quit spreading it.
Financial Strategies for Survival
00:08:20
Speaker
It's weird though too. We have no infections in our county and we're a relatively rural place. But anyway, the best thing I could think of is if there's folks, like Swissimation, awesome guy, awesome shop. I got to think a guy like Dennis Rathy who's got
00:08:36
Speaker
all the paperwork in AS9100 and ISO and the quality of his machinery, you know, those guys could pick up work, then maybe there's some way that we could backstop the work that they have to forego or something. But I don't know, we'll see. Yeah, tricky. And I mean, since some of us are still coming back to work, we're being extra triple vigilant, but I got to say it's
00:09:03
Speaker
it's hard to stay six feet away all the time and work and not touch the same tools and not have two people standing together, looking at a mill and asking questions. Like it's, it has to be, you know, you have to actually think about everything that you're doing consciously. And I gotta say it's exhausting. Yeah.
00:09:26
Speaker
We'll see. I mean, I think the mood and facts and situation was different.
00:09:33
Speaker
a week ago, and it was different three days ago, and hopefully it'll be different in three or five more days. Ohio is through April 6th, and we'll see. Hopefully, the thing I dislike about this whole thing is it's like you know a hurricane is coming with way too much notice. It's like not a good thing to happen. So we'll see. Yeah, and I personally,
00:10:01
Speaker
I don't watch the news that much. I don't follow this that closely because it would just drive me crazy. But I hear what I need to hear and I see what I need to see to suffice my own interest. So I feel like I have a good enough handle for what I need on the situation. And I mean,
00:10:22
Speaker
we're absolutely going to get through this. And this will be a memory at some point in life. And so many people are running around with their hair on fire thinking
Optimism and Personal Growth
00:10:31
Speaker
the world's over. And I'm like, it's just not going to happen. It's going to change. It's going to be different. But it's up to us to decide what that looks like on the other side. So the decisions we make now
00:10:44
Speaker
have to play out over the next, you know, months and years, I guess. So we got to be super conscious about how we're making those decisions and what that's going to mean long term. Yeah. Yeah. Well, look, and there's a, I tried to make the most of it. I figured, okay. Um, I've got the chance to both hang out with the kids, um, get to tackle some house projects, but then also, uh, it's kind of like back to the old days where it's just me, I've been going into the shops. I'm on my own and, uh,
00:11:15
Speaker
There's an element of it that's wonderful. Yeah. I got to say a small part of me is.
00:11:21
Speaker
kind of looking forward to that possibility of like, all right, everybody else go home. Only I'm allowed in the shop. Yeah. Play with the current for two weeks. I would, I would love, love that. Yeah. It's like a two week pause. Yeah. From a purely selfish, like progress the business on my end sort of thing. Um, so if that's not the end of the world and then, uh, yeah, we're, we're getting everything structured. We're, we're,
00:11:50
Speaker
You know, Barry and I, even though he's gone, not working here, he's still working from home. We had a lot of chats yesterday kind of planning out the possible eventualities of the decisions we're making right now. So if we do this, what's going to happen? What's it going to look like? Blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:12:08
Speaker
It felt really good to actually decide things and come up with options for all scenarios that we could see and realistically think of. But it just brought a lot more peace to my panic. I'm typically a very, very optimistic guy. And in a time like this, 10% of the time, I'm just absolutely freaked out and run out.
00:12:36
Speaker
you know, panicked and then 90% of the time I'm like, no, no, no, thanks for good. I can handle this. This, this is fine. Yeah.
Communication Challenges
00:12:44
Speaker
Yeah. I don't think there's anything to, it's, it's not a panic inducing thing from what I'm seeing, but perhaps a bit different if you're in a place like New York city, um, where this may not fare so well, but I mean, this is not Ebola. People aren't walking down the street, hemorrhaging blood out their ears. Um,
00:13:02
Speaker
And or, you know, I've heard I don't even know what's true or not these days. Shame on the media for a lot of the hype that they've put out and fake news or both sides left and right. Republican, Democrat, it's it's shame on the media. But it's fake or not. But if you're only reporting the absolute worst of it.
00:13:23
Speaker
then that's not good either. That's just fear based. Anyway. Yeah. It's like Tom Hanks gets it and he's now basically fine. It's like, well, that's not the story we want us to tell. So let's go find. Yeah. Oh, everybody heard that he got it, but I haven't heard anything since. Right. Yeah, exactly. And that's not to make light. I mean, people are dying for sure. But yeah. Well, one of our guys,
00:13:51
Speaker
just got a phone call at five o'clock this morning. I said, somebody he knew in Scotland, he knew very, very well, um, passed away last night. Okay. Sorry, sorry. From this. And, uh, yeah, just that, that starts hitting close to home. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, that's just probably going to happen more and more, you know, whether it's a direct knowable or somebody, a friend of a friend kind of thing, but it just kind of, it's those degrees of separation that start closing in on you. Um,
00:14:22
Speaker
And there's no doubt this is an actual real, this is a real thing and the death toll is climbing and it will probably continue to climb until it starts tapering. And I'm certainly no expert, but I see what's happening and I'm trying to act accordingly. Yeah, we will see.
00:14:43
Speaker
Oh, that's what I say. Apparently Elon Musk, think what you want of him, but apparently something like on Friday, there's something that happened on Friday, like his plans or his contacts or his publicity around it. And then by Monday, some like three, four days later, he had from overseas, I think Asia, air freighted in a thousand something, I don't know whether it wouldn't be masks, because that's a thousand masks is nothing, but I think it was ventilators or some part of it.
00:15:12
Speaker
And I was like, that's cool. I do commend. It's weird. There's some scary implications to what certainly the United States is doing. The idea of nationalizing companies is horrifying and, frankly, not necessary. And companies are already doing what they need to do for what I can tell in terms of companies like 3M or the medical companies, just absolutely the intent and the desire, the action is there, which is absolutely phenomenal and awesome.
00:15:42
Speaker
I lost my train of thought again. Just for fun, can you define what you mean by nationalizing companies?
Government Intervention and Productivity
00:15:49
Speaker
That would be where the government comes in and either takes over the operations and tells the company what to do, or even worse, the government just decides we're going to own you. In South America, this has happened. It's famously happened in the book, Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, where the government
00:16:11
Speaker
often through corruption or greed just says, well, we're going to take over this mine or this medical company. There's not always as clear cut and gray and white. There's forms of nationalizing that occur through how they effectuate price controls with utilities. That's not necessarily a bad thing. For example, somebody spends all the money, a private company, to build all these
00:16:38
Speaker
utility poles throughout the country or electrical infrastructure, and then the government decides where you can't, you know, we're giving you a monopoly, but you're going to be required to allow other people to transmit on the lines that you put up. So that's kind of that gray zone. And then, you know, the whole medical supplies thing, there's these laws against gouging. And of course, that's absolutely anybody with any form of humanity, dignity would recognize that you shouldn't
00:17:06
Speaker
permit price gouging, but there's an interest between price gouging and somebody who's saying, hey, I took the risk when nobody else cared to purchase something and hold it, and I incurred the cost and storage of holding that, and I'm now just putting it up for auction. You pay what you want. If somebody wants it more, go get it. That's... That's pretty much it. Yeah, I'm not sure where I feel on that. Right.
00:17:30
Speaker
because ultimately a lot of this does come back to the fact that folks don't tend to always want to, um, you want to not be prepared then. Okay. Um, I'm not saying that none of this is a, so I told you so. Um, but, um, yeah, strange times, strange times.
Leadership and Keeping the Shop Open
00:17:53
Speaker
Hmm.
00:17:57
Speaker
Yeah, I've been pretty quiet on social media lately. I don't know how to... I don't know what I want to do. It's good. I don't like being quiet, but I also don't know what to say in the way that
00:18:17
Speaker
I don't know. It's, it's tough because either you pretend like everything's fine and you try to inspire hope and like, um, you know, show cool stuff that you're working on, but that's fake because everything's not fine. Or you go full doom and gloom and that's not me. Or you try to go somewhere in the middle and I don't know, it's just tough. So it's, it's much easier to be quiet, but yeah.
00:18:40
Speaker
What we did, the week's been a blur, so forgive me if I'm repeating myself, but probably a month ago, I bought everybody a pallet of water. Did I share this anecdote? No.
00:18:55
Speaker
Look, this isn't about me, really. But say what you did. It was easy to me to realize how severe this was. When I saw things like Macau, the largest gaming place in the world, it dwarfs Las Vegas. When it got shut down, when you started to see those sorts of behaviors, I realized, oh my God, not only is this big, but this isn't staying contained to China. This is going to come
00:19:22
Speaker
and hit us. This is not a difficult decision to make. And the most importantly, even if I'm wrong, there's a ton of things you could do that cost you very little, even if you were wrong. So what I did was we huddled. I don't have the exact date, but it was probably the beginning of March, three, four weeks ago, way before anybody cared about this here generally. And I bought everybody a pallet of water.
00:19:47
Speaker
which is not that much. It was more of a token gesture. I got everybody together and I said, guys, things are probably going to get pretty weird. I don't know what that's going to look like, but now's the time to take care of this because nobody else cares right now. There's no panic. There's no run. You can get everything you need now. I think, to me, the water was both
00:20:07
Speaker
I told everybody to take that pallet of water home, both because it is a good thing to have, but more as a token to say, okay, go check your ibuprofen or go check your prescription drugs or your freaking toilet paper. And it ends up, because it did get serious, that I think that actually worked, because I think people realized, wow,
00:20:28
Speaker
Okay, let's do this. If it doesn't really cost that much money, 100 bucks at Sam's Club goes a long way of getting some oatmeal or granola or canned peaches or whatever. It doesn't even look like the food supply has been phenomenal. It doesn't look like that's going to be relevant. What I tried to do at least at our shop was keep everybody
00:20:50
Speaker
on the same page. So before we shut down, we were having morning meetings, which we don't normally do. And we took everybody's temperature together and we created a log. We did lots of things, soap dispensers, hand sanitizers, procedures, all that. But then we also just talked about what we were hearing and actions and try to communicate. And I was actually emphatic about keeping the shop open. I was like, we are here.
00:21:19
Speaker
We are not, there's no reason to shut down. We're small. We can be smart about this. Exactly.
00:21:27
Speaker
And then when the government announced that, I just heard it had a rethought huddle.
Capitalism, Welfare, and Economic Resilience
00:21:31
Speaker
Well, look, what if somebody gets sick or what if somebody's family ever gets sick or if some people start need to stay home, it doesn't feel right to keep other people obligate them to come home or to say it just, I just saw all these pros and cons. Um, you know, I thought ultimately what I realized was kind of a, kind of a, frankly, a,
00:21:53
Speaker
a realization. Well, no, frankly, kind of a ticked off at the government. It's fine. You're going to shut me down. You pick up the tab. You pay for this. We're going to take a short break and we'll be back. Assure you, we will be back. And so that was the last message I had on Monday. The last day we operated was, folks, we will be back sooner if we get the phone call to help out with this effort. And if not, when we can legally and safely.
00:22:18
Speaker
We love what we do. We're good at what we do. We've got equipment. We've got skill. America, if anything, is going to realize that we're going to make more stuff here long term. And the layoffs are going to be astronomical. So we've got folks that are going to need training. They're going to need retooling. They're going to need new skill sets.
00:22:38
Speaker
whether we can play on that with our online offerings, just YouTube stuff, whether it's people coming to classes through schools, through state grants, through their own private interests. We will be part of this recovery. We're going to help people learn this trade and we'll be here to go. And it's always weird to talk about your own leadership, but I think so far that has resonated well with the folks that are stakeholders and Saunders. Love it. Yeah, that's really good.
00:23:07
Speaker
I like how you said you were emphatic about keeping the shop open because that was me up until about two nights ago. And I was just like, die hard, like we have to keep this open.
00:23:21
Speaker
And I don't know why, if it's to give purpose or if it's just purely for a cash flow reason. You know, a lot of reasons, so many factors. But then, I don't know, I'm starting to not necessarily change my mind, but just to open it up to more possibilities, which is good, because now I can see things a bit clearer. Yeah, good.
00:23:45
Speaker
Government plays a huge role in helping some people when they're down and out and that is phenomenal. It is the reason capitalist works. It's the reason Karl Marx was wrong in the communist manifesto is that the way our capitalism system has evolved is there are social welfare measures, both welfare and the literal sense of the welfare program.
00:24:04
Speaker
but overall welfare programs that help folks in times of need, and those are phenomenal, but those are a byproduct of our ability to produce as a country, and that has to continue, period.
00:24:18
Speaker
It's the same thing with having a profitable company. Making profit is not just like sliding around Benjamin's. It's like having the money to do what you need to do to reinvest in the company or to get through a downtime or to help people out in a time of need.
00:24:35
Speaker
I didn't fully understand profit up until a couple of years ago and its effect and positivity and like potential for good until we actually started making it. And then I was like, Oh, Oh wow. Okay. This, this gives us a lot of leverage to do cool stuff, you know, good stuff. Um, so that's been nice. But, but not only, not only is somebody not doing good, they're frankly, uh,
00:25:03
Speaker
they are a bad person, a bad member of a society. If they think paying others or helping others when they can't even help themselves is helping them. So in other words, for you to be charitable as a person, as a company, that's a phenomenal thing, but do so out of the coffers of your own success, not because you're like a government borrowing money and just this $2 trillion package that gets passed. These numbers are just a joke at this point.
00:25:29
Speaker
Like, oh, we're just going to send out checks to everybody. I actually think that could actually be a good move. And I'm not an economist or public policy person, but that has to come from somewhere.
Financial Adaptation Strategies
00:25:45
Speaker
You just don't turn on the printing press outside of the, you know, the printing press is fed by the engine of American productivity. Yeah. What I was wondering here, like,
00:25:57
Speaker
it's now super easy to defer your machine payments or even your mortgage. So we're calling around and we're getting six months delayed on all machine payments and we've already gotten a few of them nailed down yesterday. So like, great. And then I was asking around and I was like, um,
00:26:13
Speaker
So just curious like where does this money come from because the banks aren't going to eat at their banks they want to make money like is the government going to repay them or like. You know what I mean like this lack of revenue is that I assume a bank being a profitable entity doesn't just want to lose. Insane amounts of money from this so I don't really know but.
00:26:36
Speaker
Well, I can't speak to the Canadian system, but in the US system, it's the government, most somewhat appropriately, somewhat very inappropriately backstopping all sorts of things that never intended or plan to backstop. So the Federal Reserve is the only
00:26:52
Speaker
only entity in the US that can write a check that won't bounce. So when we write checks, our checkbooks have to have enough money for the recipient to cash the check. Federal Reserve has a checkbook that doesn't have that obligation. That makes sense. So when they adjust interest rates, they don't actually adjust interest rates. What they do is they inject money into the money supply that would target a
00:27:15
Speaker
that would have the causality effect of it. They also do actually set a direct rate for how they loan to banks, but they can basically step in and allow banks to have liquidity. But then they're taking unprecedented moves where the Federal Reserve is actually purchasing corporate bonds directly, which is just
00:27:37
Speaker
That tells you, that should be a huge red flag about the systemic problems. You can't ever go back on this. Once this sort of thing happens, it's like, well, they did it this time, let's do it again. And as a business person, John, well done. And anyone else listening, do not
00:27:57
Speaker
feel any pity on yourself. You need to look out for yourself. You need to look out for your business, for your employees. These programs are being made available. Do not for one second. It's funny, the thought that I would have ever been involved in a situation in which people that I employed went on unemployment is unconscionable to me. And I'll tell you, I did a complete 180. Now, darn it,
00:28:21
Speaker
you're making me do this, we're going to take advantage of programs and opportunities out there because it's ultimately become part of your business strategy. It's tough to change your mindset like that. Barry and I were talking about that yesterday, and we're actively investigating the government programs available to us right now, whether it's delaying the payments or otherwise.
00:28:46
Speaker
Part of you feels not guilty, but you're like, this wasn't my business plan. We can do this ourselves, but not anymore. So you got to be nimble. You got to change. You got to be OK with changing your mind sometimes, as bullheaded as I like to be. I'm either super focused, bullheaded, or I'm super open-minded. And it's hard to switch back and forth, especially on a topic that was one or the other.
00:29:16
Speaker
But yeah, it's an interesting time right now where I get to push myself mentally to grow and to learn new things and to try new things and to not be afraid to change my mind a little bit. Always try to do your best to think about the counterparty. Be a good person. Communication is often generally better than
Community Support and Mentorship
00:29:39
Speaker
not communicating. But there was a brief comment on our WhatsApp group
00:29:44
Speaker
about a person saying, I was going to ask permission to do something. And my response was, you're not asking, you're telling. Because right now, banks aren't in the business of going in and repossessing machine tools. They're not in the business of repossessing real estate or whatever. So I'm not saying that you should be a rude person or arrogant.
00:30:07
Speaker
This is not like have conviction about what you need to do to make it work and tell them that that's what's going to happen. And we're going to figure this out. Period. Exactly. And that's that's part of the conversation Barry and I were having yesterday, because typically he's much more.
00:30:23
Speaker
straightforward, bullheaded, hard-nosed person. He can place a good argument when he needs to, whereas I'm typically a lot softer. But yesterday was kind of the reverse. I was like, no, you need to call the banks and tell them we're not paying for six months. Tell them to delay the automatic payments for six months. And he's like, well, how about I call them and ask what they're prepared to do for us? And I was like, no, no, no, that's not the right wording. This is not the time to put the kid gloves on.
00:30:51
Speaker
So yeah, it was that back and forth between just taking it very seriously and trying to get what's best for us versus, you know, trying to see what they can do for us. I was like, no, it's too open-ended. Like let's go in with a plan and let's, let's just attack it and it's working. Good. Awesome. Well done. Well done. That's part of what's making me feel a lot better about this. Um,
00:31:16
Speaker
Because we have a buttload of machine payments, especially with the current now. So to delay all of those for three to six months is huge for our cash flow situation. Sales have slowed down, but we sold three knives yesterday, which is awesome. So it's ups and downs. I firmly believe right now that
00:31:39
Speaker
Everybody still wants our stuff, but the perceived need is obviously out the window and I totally understand. It's tough because I don't necessarily advocate the purchase of my own stuff, especially at a time like this, but it's like any quality product. It's got its own reasoning and you have your own justification for it.
00:32:00
Speaker
We all like nice things in different ways, you know, whether it's a, you know, house or car or jewelry or guns or knives or whatever. Like everybody's got their little fun thing that that they appreciate the quality of. So. Sorry about that. That's the joys of the joys of podcasting from home. Yeah.
00:32:24
Speaker
What's that or, or, uh, Leif and William jumping all over us three years ago, saying hi to each other on the video. Yeah. This is hilarious. It's on YouTube. This BBC, uh, BBC, um, individual who's interviewing on like literally like Syrian middle East, like atrocities or something like super like specific hardcore news. And his, uh,
Post-Pandemic Opportunities
00:32:50
Speaker
his like two year old wheels in on one of those wheelie things or something into the room background. And then the nanny comes in and tries to grab it. And then there's like this like kerfuffle hilarious. I think I've seen that. That's awesome. Sorry.
00:33:04
Speaker
Yeah, that's the thing I don't know how to size up yet is what's gonna happen. One fellow on the forums was sort of saying he lost a major contract and our machine tool sales are gonna slow. And I'm inclined to think that they will because we haven't yet started to feel the repercussions of the layoffs and the consequence of a drastically
00:33:32
Speaker
It's the optimism of humans that's our own weakness. Even a couple weeks ago, people were saying, oh, GDP growth may slow from 3% to 1%. I'm like, you guys are idiots. It's going to be down single or double digits. Now they're starting to say, oh my gosh, GDP could be down 5%, 10%, 20%, which is
00:33:54
Speaker
unconscionable, really. So I don't know. The thing I wonder about is, you know, tons and tons and tons of people both in Canada and the US and probably everywhere are getting laid off or fired or whatever. I don't know how many of these businesses are coming back, which is scary. You know, many will, many will, but a lot of the smaller ones that are literally month to month, you know, we were there until a couple years ago. Yeah.
00:34:22
Speaker
And if something like this happened to us in our state a couple years ago, I don't think we could have recovered.
00:34:30
Speaker
Yeah, so it's a scary thought because all these people getting laid off and how many people are going to have to how many people are going to get to go back to a job? I mean, obviously you're going to everybody's coming back as the second they can. But a lot of places might not have that.
Positive Mindset and Problem-Solving
00:34:44
Speaker
So my point is, there's going to be a whole ton of talent out there that that doesn't have a job. So the opportunity potential if if a business leader is in a position to like hire great people in a month or two,
00:34:58
Speaker
there could be insane opportunity. Yeah. Yeah. That is a phenomenal point. And it's just, it's, it's like a chess game of trying to think about where's this, we're going to shake timing, man. It's timing and cashflow. And something this has taught me that I'm going to keep for the rest of my life is, you know, something you've been telling me for years that, uh, is save money, save. So like, like, I wish I had a million dollars in the bank and the business right now to, to sit on and just stay there.
00:35:28
Speaker
And if I had that right now, I'd be laughing. I'd be hiring people. I'd be crushing. So as a takeaway for myself, both at home, I need to have saved more money. But from now on, we're going to make an actual point of having our, people have talked about it forever, three-month reserve, six-month reserve, whatever. We're going to actually do that.
00:35:56
Speaker
But yes, yes, yes. And for medium or larger businesses, the time to negotiate lines of credit is when you don't need one. And it's not just you. The one thing I have less sympathy for is the coronavirus didn't happen to you.
00:36:16
Speaker
There are all sorts of things that tend to happen in 10 to 12-year cycles that are not caused by internal company decisions. The economic outcome will likely be worse than any sort of otherwise correction, but there are all sorts of other things that could have happened in terms of the stock market, the bond market, corporate loans, just natural disaster, another terrorist incident, all sorts of things.
00:36:46
Speaker
And I think there's one thing I will say, people will forget this. It seems crazy because kids being out of school and lockdowns are a whole new level, but people will forget this. People will say, well, you know what? I'm not going to keep a little bit of water and food on hand or toilet paper, or I'm not going to worry about saving money anymore. Basically, people will get stupid again. Yeah.
00:37:09
Speaker
Yeah, I was talking with Eric even just a week and a half ago and it was, you know, I was in that 10% of depression, 10% time. And I was like, man, are people ever going to like high five again and hug?
00:37:25
Speaker
Yeah, right. You know, you're in that doom and gloom phase where you're like, man, this is forever now. And he's like, of course, because he was still fake newsing it. And I was like, man, I don't know. It's going to change everything. And like now the thought of doing a high five or a bro hug or something is like unconscionable. Isn't that funny? But it'll come back. I mean, yeah.
00:37:47
Speaker
Human nature is human nature, and we are a close species that likes to be around other people for the most part. I mean, even I'm a super introvert, but I still like people. For now, but we'll see. Yeah. But yeah.
00:38:06
Speaker
crazy. Well here, can we switch topics? Sure. Although I will say this has been nice to talk about because typically I don't like talking about this. About what? Just doom and gloom stuff. But it's been nice to have a rational
00:38:23
Speaker
somewhat opinionated but not argumentative conversation about all this. So thank you for that. Absolutely. And you've got my number. And for anyone to break the third wall here, anyone else that's out there, you've got to find people to talk to and think about and rely on.
00:38:41
Speaker
On that point, I was texting back and forth with our buddy Mike at Milterra two nights ago. And I was just checking in like, man, did you see this article? Like, like, how's this effect? Are you guys okay? And we texted from like 10 p.m. till two in the morning. And it was so relieving, like, like he's got his head on his shoulders. And he opened my eyes to a couple of things that I didn't know existed. And
00:39:09
Speaker
that like he's, you know, several times his business is probably four to six times bigger than mine. And
00:39:18
Speaker
And he's many years down the road from where we are. And it's just like, as a mentor, super nice to have that connection. And I literally sent him some stupid GIF. And I was like, you're my hero. And he replies back, you too. But yeah, that was probably the turning point for me of we got this. We got some steps in place.
00:39:42
Speaker
And that was nice. I was able to reach out to a friend who was able to mentor this. And it wasn't even on purpose. I was like, hey, how's it going? Exactly. That's something I guess I mistakenly thought was obvious, but it should be clarified. Mentorship isn't always, would you be my mentor? It can just be getting to know somebody, try to do what you can to
00:40:07
Speaker
Pay it forward, though. Show that person you're paying forward because that mentorship is not one-sided. One of the big things I would encourage is instead of asking a question, try to think through it. Maybe even propose an answer. Pay yourself first or spend some time on it yourself before you just
00:40:28
Speaker
Right, because otherwise you're just looking for the quick fix. Like, what do I do right now? I can't answer that for you, buddy. But if you gave me an ABC option, I'd be like, well, from my perspective, you know, C is the right choice to go or whatever. But it certainly helps when people are asking me questions to know that they've thought through a couple options. You know?
00:40:51
Speaker
Yeah. Show me that you're doing that. To me, that's how the world works. And not everybody has to agree with me, but show me that you've done some work before, you know, for example, calling me up and asking me tons of basic questions about a medical device. It's like, dude, I'm not a medical expert. And I don't even know. But if you Google this stuff, you can actually find it out within point two seconds. That's not helping. That's just noise.
00:41:22
Speaker
Yeah, he was just looking for quick answers. But something I heard I saw on Instagram the other day from Andy Frisella. He said, guys, you don't realize that we can all still control what we can normally control.
00:41:35
Speaker
all this stuff happening is basically outside of our control. Yet we're freaking out about it. Yet we can still control our mindset, our bodies, our health, our families, you know, all this stuff. So focus on what you can do. And I've been thinking about that and some other stuff. It's like, you know, whenever I'm getting in a panicky mode,
00:41:57
Speaker
I just kind of step back and I go, what can I do? What can I do right now? Something that'll help me, something that'll help another person. Just, I need to do something. What can I do? So I've been repeating that nonstop in my head. Um, whenever I get in a bad place, because it just gets me on my feet and gets me going. Otherwise it's just negativity.
Manufacturing's Role in Healthcare
00:42:18
Speaker
Yeah. Well, don't, don't, uh, please don't let yourself get down. That doesn't, that's like telling somebody not be stressed out. It's like, if you want to punch the person, but, um,
00:42:27
Speaker
I read in a book last night, I'm reading Lynchpin by Seth Godin, which was hard to get into, but I'm like halfway two-thirds of the way in and I'm like, oh, this is getting good. And he said anxiety is like a flame.
00:42:46
Speaker
It only works if it's fed. If you just let it die out, it's got no juice on its own. You have to see it, you have to acknowledge it, and you just have to let it die out.
00:42:58
Speaker
Like I'm not typically a very anxious kind of person, but I have bouts of it. I think Meg is more anxious. My wife has more of that problem and certainly some of the other people around me have it more. But I read that just last night and I was like, whoa, that's, there's something to that. That's interesting. It's not, it's like a next level skill set. It's not easy, really.
00:43:26
Speaker
Well, because it's so easy just to live life and like accept things and, you know, your mindset, your mentality and things that I've been working on for many years now and just trying to observe and notice and be like, huh, I do do that, don't I? Maybe I shouldn't. Whereas, you know, I'm questioning myself in a good way, in a positive, progressive, progressing way. And it's neat when you kind of look at yourself and you're like, that's stupid. Maybe I shouldn't be doing that. Yeah.
00:43:56
Speaker
I actually meant to mention this, I kind of forgot, but on that COVID page we have, we've been just trying to put forth just stuff that people can choose to research or look into or sign up for, join. The best one that I've seemed to have seen,
00:44:11
Speaker
Hesitate to say that because I'm not an arbiter of what's going to succeed or help, but you know that company ClearPath, Technics? Yeah. They called me on Sunday and they're like, John, can you help spread the word? And I listened to the pitch. Oh my God. I was like, this seems awesome.
00:44:27
Speaker
They, in a matter of 48 hours, teamed up with, I think it was the University of Minnesota, so a whole slew of literally vascular surgeons, medical PhD, MDs. So it's kind of like, okay, this is checking the box to me as a layman in terms of the smell test because they've got legit mechanical engineers teamed up with legit doctors in a medical institution.
00:44:51
Speaker
And they prototyped a automation of a manual ventilator bag. And they sort of had all the right, okay, we're not sure this is gonna make sense. We're working with these departments. We're working with these agencies to think about how it would be rolled out. What are the safety issues? What are the manufacturing scalability requirements? Like all the like, okay, this seems to have really awesome potential. And so we're just kind of spreading the word
00:45:17
Speaker
And they were also great. They're like, we don't really need anything right now, but if this does something that is going to help or make sense, we're going to need to scale these parts. For sure. If they said, I need 2,000 of this thing, you'd be like, done. You'll have it as soon as I possibly can. And you're like, I can't make that part, but I know Grimsmokan or whatever. And just go, go, go. You and I have a contact list that could bang this stuff out, no problem.
00:45:43
Speaker
And I kind of feel bad sitting back and waiting for an opportunity like that.
Strategic Manufacturing Responses
00:45:48
Speaker
Part of me feels like I should be pursuing it.
00:45:53
Speaker
But I don't know, I got a lot on my plate. There was a, I can't remember the book and it's super controversial because it's just completely contrarian to our human instincts. But the book basically called out a number of the first responders on September 11th, 2001 who defied orders or, or perhaps followed bad orders of run into the building, go save people. Um, and, and I'm,
00:46:20
Speaker
I'm sharing the book. It seems to resonate with me, but I recognize this is super polarizing that they didn't help. They either made it worse or contributed to their own demise, or not only did they potentially die, but then they weren't able to help later when they would have been needed. And it's a weird thing. How do you deal with that going forward by saying, no, don't run into the burning building right now? We have the people that we need in there on it. I need you to sit back right now.
00:46:50
Speaker
And especially in a situation like that, you know, hindsight being 20, 20, it's easy to look back and be like, well, that was stupid. You should have done that. Yeah. Oh, that's a great point. Right now we're in that situation. Like, like literally right now, as you're saying, you know, do we get everybody in the world with the 3d printer, hundreds of thousands of them to start making this one thing? Cause it'll help. Or, or is that just not good?
00:47:14
Speaker
Well, what if everybody uses up their filament and then we find something that really they really do need? I don't know. I mean, you're right. Hindsight is is so problematic here. So one of those guys likes the.
00:47:30
Speaker
the religious history guy Malcolm, but well, I think was the one who was talking about how if you're some horribly cryptic scenario where like if you're if your young child is being held at gunpoint inside a building you shouldn't you shouldn't go in after them, but like no parent is going to be I Recognize that the statistical better thing for me is to stay out here rather than also potentially go become a victim, right? Exactly exactly
00:48:00
Speaker
Yeah. So, and that's, that's, that's an easy conversation to have on a sofa. It's a conversation to actually do. Yeah. Yeah. My, my couch negotiation skills are right there with my keyboard hero. Yeah. Boy. Hey, can I ask you about Higney threads before we run out of time? Bring it. Did you, you are doing them or okay. So,
00:48:28
Speaker
I want to explain how I think I'm trying to get them done because I'm not liking the result. So I've got it programmed in CAM. I'm almost certain I've got it programmed correctly.
00:48:41
Speaker
And then what I do is I take the parting tool and the parting tool and the threading tool, the CNC machines tool point control, like how you set the tool height.
Technical Challenges and Solutions
00:48:56
Speaker
It's the same on both of them, which is that it's the... The front face. The front face of that insert or edge that's closest to the main chuck. So on the threading tool, it happens to be
00:49:06
Speaker
not the part that's cutting the thread because it's offset by the triangle point, okay. But then what you have to do on the grooving tool that you're using for the Higbee is in the control, you have to add a value to that Z offset that is the distance between the, on the grooving tool, or sorry, on the threading tool, like we're using the Sandvik insert that happens to have a 0.059 distance between the front edge of that insert and where the point of the thread is.
00:49:34
Speaker
Yep. You do do it in camp. Yeah. Okay. I was curious if that was possible. I just did it the other day on this part that I'm making. Um, I haven't read it yet. I'm just looking through the code right now. Thread Higby thread. Um, I thought I had a folder offset.
00:49:54
Speaker
I guess what that's doing, whether you do it in cam or you do it in the 12th set, is you're changing the synchronization of the clocking point where the flat school is going to start intersecting that thread. Let's say, hypothetically, Z0 is at the face of your finished part and you want to start threading 100,000 in front of the part.
00:50:15
Speaker
And then you want to Higbee thread from 100,000 in front of the part, but you actually want to go 100,000 plus half of your threading tool thickness, like from the tip to the face, call it 70,000. So the Higbee tool is now starting at 170,000 in front of the part and then
00:50:37
Speaker
it'll work. And then you want to stop the Higbee thread one thread rotation in, which is if it's, you know, whatever. Yeah. What, you know, what 20 TPI is, uh, 50,000. Yeah, exactly. Um, so you want to stop at C negative 50, give or take, and you play with that value until it looks right. And so I was going to say, if you go further,
00:50:58
Speaker
it will just wipe out threads. Okay, right. If you hit the two threads, the nut should still go on. Okay. Yeah, I'm close. You just have a bunch of flat flat threads. And I look at it under the microscope, and you can physically see where the first thread starts. And you can see where it becomes a full thread.
00:51:22
Speaker
like where the chamfer on the front of your bolt becomes a full pointy, crusty thread. That's where I want to stop the Higbee. Yes. Right. And are you that you obviously, or you do chamfer the edge of the part? Yeah. I've got a 45 degree chamfer on it. And does the, does the chamfer distance affect anything with the guard of the Higbee? Your depth.
00:51:48
Speaker
Yeah. You might have to be a little bit deeper. Yeah. A little bit deeper than the 50 thou from the face of the park. You might have to go or whatever. I meant depth as in the pictures as the offset, like how deep you're cutting the Higbee. You basically want your ex a Higbee to be the same ex as the finished thread. Yeah. Right. And then they match.
00:52:12
Speaker
Yeah, it's weird because I'm getting what looks to be like a five foul, and I got to double check my tool sites and so forth, but it looks like it's not quite wiping out the whole thread like the, like it's just a few foul, not deep enough, but I didn't want to override it yet because
00:52:31
Speaker
When Sandvik puts out a page on it, Sandvik didn't make a mistake. I'm making the mistake, but it's hard to tell yourself that sometimes. That's fine. Do you have a de-featured model or something that you can share that I can look at on the Higbee? Probably. I don't need your proprietary screw or anything. I just want to look at your code. Yeah, I could send you something. Thanks. But yeah, if you start the threading 100,000 in front, then you start the Higbee 100,000 plus half your threading width.
00:52:59
Speaker
and you stop it wherever you need to. Interesting. That'd be great if I could control it in CAM because I did a custom height offset, which is always risky. Yeah. And you know, you risk fat fingering it or whatever, but in CAM is good if you know what the result is going to be, but there's going to be a lot of back and forth and tweaking and stuff, but so what? And then you save a template and you're like, sweet, Higbi template done.
00:53:23
Speaker
Well, so that was my other question is, let's say, let's say you, John Graham, so have never cut a half by 13 thread on your knock camera, but you have all the Higbee cutting tools in the knock. Could you not, or would you say, no, I know how to do a Higbee. I can make a Higbee correctly on the first try. Probably. I'm, I'm not there yet just cause I don't program new jobs every day, but, uh, I could do it. Okay. That's, that's good to know.
00:53:50
Speaker
And I mean, so much of my cam is copy and paste from the last time that worked.
Personal Reflections and Family Time
00:53:54
Speaker
That's the majority of my cam.
00:54:00
Speaker
Cool. Well, best of luck on that. That's going to be fun. I'm running a program part for the first time now, too, today. What do you mean? Yeah, I'm moving apart from the Nakamura to the Swiss. So I spent the past few days reprogramming it and changing it. It's one of the saga parts, kind of holds everything together, the threaded sleeve. Nice. And yeah, it's going to be a much better Swiss part. So it's complicated.
00:54:29
Speaker
Cool. Well, good luck. Yeah. I would look, don't hesitate to call if you need anything. Otherwise I will talk to you next Wednesday. Sounds awesome. Stay safe. Be good. Have fun. Spend time with your family. I have. Yeah. Great. Yeah. All right. Take care.