Work
Yesterday, my boss, Don Gillespie, and I had a meeting with a client named American Louvered Products (ALP), which is a shutter manufacturing company that I do a lot of work for. Don, as he has in the past, brought Publix donuts to the meeting, almost like a peace offering for an employee of ALP, Cam Whipple. That’s fine with me, because we all get some. :)
Cam is a character. He’s a large-framed, overweight man with a crew cut and dry sense of humor. You hardly know when he’s joking. He hardly cracks a smile ever, though I think I can tell he’s dying to laugh deep down inside at times. I’ve had a good share of dealings with him in the past, due to the programming project that I’ve been working on for ALP. The project consists of an ordering process for shutter distributors, replete with all kinds of calculations to determine the proper build specifications for the shutters. Cam has called the Morning Star Interactive office (where I work) before and told my boss that the ordering system-the majority of which I created-was malfunctioning and resulting in $1000s worth of badly constructed shutters. But, that’s his way of joking... Don didn’t know it was a joke :(. Later, Cam asked me if he got me into trouble. Well, it turns out I have a really gracious boss, who doesn’t get easily upset! He’s a reformed Presbyterian, who is an elder in his church.
Actually, there was a dreadful time when I did something that did result in incorrectly built shutters that were shipped out to several distributors. *ugh!* That was a bad day. Cam took it in stride. He must have forgive me, because now he’s calling me the “Joel-meister,” and giving me calls at times to check on orders to make sure that everything looks good--though, he could do that himself.
At the meeting yesterday, we were discussing a few new features that we are in the process of adding to the system, and early on in the meeting Cam asks me if I could find a CD for him. The CD was “The Rage of Angels,” a “Christian” heavy metal band that no longer is playing. After that I wasn’t so sure about Cam. Don was like, “Sure, we’ll find the CD for you.”
It’s amazing how much confidence ALP has in Morning Star Interactive. We have direct access to their server in their office and to their QuickBooks, financial documentation. I guess it’s because M.S.I. has transformed ALP, by improving their marketing and so forth. The first time I went to the ALP office there was a handful of cars in the lot, but yesterday there were hardly enough overflow parking places for vehicles. The president of ALP was saying that they are now having inventory problems, meaning, as I understand it, that the demand is exceeding supply at times. (I told Don that we’re making everyone grow except for ourselves! MSI has remained relatively small.)
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This morning I was reading Ezekiel 9, which I haven’t read in a long time. This verse struck me: “And the LORD said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.” I was asking myself, “Do I properly deplore the wickedness in this country?” The murdering of the unborn! Sodomy! Witchcraft! On and on the list goes. “Abhor that which is evil,” God tells us. I think this abhorrence of evil begins with personal sin, really. When we detest our own sins, we can then properly grieve over the world’s sins and the lost--and speak against the evil as we have opportunity.
Cam is a character. He’s a large-framed, overweight man with a crew cut and dry sense of humor. You hardly know when he’s joking. He hardly cracks a smile ever, though I think I can tell he’s dying to laugh deep down inside at times. I’ve had a good share of dealings with him in the past, due to the programming project that I’ve been working on for ALP. The project consists of an ordering process for shutter distributors, replete with all kinds of calculations to determine the proper build specifications for the shutters. Cam has called the Morning Star Interactive office (where I work) before and told my boss that the ordering system-the majority of which I created-was malfunctioning and resulting in $1000s worth of badly constructed shutters. But, that’s his way of joking... Don didn’t know it was a joke :(. Later, Cam asked me if he got me into trouble. Well, it turns out I have a really gracious boss, who doesn’t get easily upset! He’s a reformed Presbyterian, who is an elder in his church.
Actually, there was a dreadful time when I did something that did result in incorrectly built shutters that were shipped out to several distributors. *ugh!* That was a bad day. Cam took it in stride. He must have forgive me, because now he’s calling me the “Joel-meister,” and giving me calls at times to check on orders to make sure that everything looks good--though, he could do that himself.
At the meeting yesterday, we were discussing a few new features that we are in the process of adding to the system, and early on in the meeting Cam asks me if I could find a CD for him. The CD was “The Rage of Angels,” a “Christian” heavy metal band that no longer is playing. After that I wasn’t so sure about Cam. Don was like, “Sure, we’ll find the CD for you.”
It’s amazing how much confidence ALP has in Morning Star Interactive. We have direct access to their server in their office and to their QuickBooks, financial documentation. I guess it’s because M.S.I. has transformed ALP, by improving their marketing and so forth. The first time I went to the ALP office there was a handful of cars in the lot, but yesterday there were hardly enough overflow parking places for vehicles. The president of ALP was saying that they are now having inventory problems, meaning, as I understand it, that the demand is exceeding supply at times. (I told Don that we’re making everyone grow except for ourselves! MSI has remained relatively small.)
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This morning I was reading Ezekiel 9, which I haven’t read in a long time. This verse struck me: “And the LORD said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.” I was asking myself, “Do I properly deplore the wickedness in this country?” The murdering of the unborn! Sodomy! Witchcraft! On and on the list goes. “Abhor that which is evil,” God tells us. I think this abhorrence of evil begins with personal sin, really. When we detest our own sins, we can then properly grieve over the world’s sins and the lost--and speak against the evil as we have opportunity.