Signs of Wife

Like baseball clubs have farm teams, we in the sign industry sometimes have to grow our own talent when positions need to be filled. Not everyone has deep pockets to buy ready-made superstars like the Yankees or the Red Sox can and, even if we could, there is no way to be sure that those big-league personalities would fit in with our existing culture and team dynamic. If that new acquisition turns out to be a (insert troublesome player name here) then you need to trade them, at a loss, and then keep looking, i.e.; invest more time and money on the next gamble.

No, it’s often better to cultivate home-grown players so that (a) they learn your own shop’s way of doing things, and (B) they are trained thinking that the constant use of baseball analogies is normal in day-to-day work life.

My company and I made the decision over a year ago to “grow our own” after unsuccessfully finding another suitable estimator. I’m the estimating lead and so I train new estimators. I have done it in the past and have done it with my current and – here comes the shameless plug - hopefully forever company. #poyantsigns

The challenge that befell me that most leads don’t have is that I live in, and work remotely from, Germany. Yes, it is pretty awesome and so I will give you a couple of seconds to get the images of large beers and even larger Bratwursts out of your system. Good? Great. Please wipe that drool from your chin and we’ll continue.

The problem with training an employee when you and they have a six-hour time difference is challenging, though it can be done, and has. One of the best estimators that I have had the pleasure of working with was trained in this very circumstance after all. But, though possible, it is still not ideal, and so we had to adopt a more creative plan when searching for a candidate.

Now who could I train…that lives in Germany…is intelligent enough to learn cost estimation…and is looking for a new challenge? My wife Eve? Perfect!

But what of her qualifications, you ask? Surely not just anyone can start a new position in a new industry, right? Well, let’s go over her qualifications:

A). She was employed in the insurance industry for years and did well, i.e., experienced and reliable.

B). She has several hours each morning while the kiddos are in Kindergarten and grade school, i.e., available.

C). She happens to share a house with the trainer, i.e., close proximity.

D). She graduated Summa with a master’s degree in accounting, i.e., she’s determined and smart, which means she’ll probably be my boss one day. Note to self: Buy wife flowers.

Once Eve accepted the position, her training began. As spouses do, we toiled and fumed and joked and cursed. More importantly, we made progress - all under the banner of baseball analogies – though still not at the pace I would have liked. Something was amiss.

It turns out that what was amiss was baseball. You see, Eve is German. She knows not the ways of the pitch count or what an ERA means because there is no baseball in Germany. She couldn’t relate. But what she does know is the kitchen. She loves to cook, and she’s also quite good at it as evidenced by my expanding waistline. She can whip up nearly anything at a moment’s notice, it always looks like a featured dish in some gourmet magazine, and it will taste like the culinary version of David Ortiz’s swing: A home run every time she steps up to the plate. Get it? Plate? Okay, enduring my bad jokes is also one of her talents, which is another reason why she is a good team player.

Once I changed my references from home run batters to cake and cookie batters, we were off… Yet I still needed a comparison, something that she could immediately relate to that would encapsulate the essence of what cost estimators do, while being relatable so that the abstract would become tangible. And then I had it:

Recipes.

Because she loves to cook and bake, I had the idea that I could train her to learn estimation by comparing sign fabrication to cooking. The materials like aluminum angle, LEDs, and steel tube are the ingredients, the fabricators are the cooks, and the estimates are essentially the recipes.

Explaining that she would be creating recipes that determine the how much a cake/sign would sell for, and that those recipes would be used by others to create said cake/sign, brought not just a twinkle to her eye: It was more like a shiny butter-maple glaze, and I knew then that she had it.

It has now been a year since I started training Eve. I have learned a few things about the culinary arts, and I even cook once in a while. Eve has picked up some more baseball knowledge and she even has a Red Sox mural in her office. That she painted. Be still my heart.

Most importantly, Eve has become a terrific estimator. She can now estimate anything from post & panels and interior packages to extruded cabinets and channel letters. Everyone likes Eve’s recipes.

And, from what I’ve heard, our company’s signs have never been fluffier. ?