When I was growing up, and even into my adult life, I would help my dad with electrical projects for my family and friends. One thing that used to give me fits was wiring a three way light circuit. For some reason, I could not get my head around the wiring of those stupid circuits. I could wire a standard outlet, a breaker panel and any number of other types of circuits, but I could not remember the three ways. My dad in all his wisdom would just say, “Stop and think about it in its basic parts and figure it out.” After a minute or two, with a little coaching from dad, I would get the wires straight in my head and wire it up as it should be. The funny thing about wiring them is that you can wire it backwards and it will work…sort of. You can turn the light on at the bottom of the steps and it will work just fine, until you try to turn it off at the top. So, dad’s advice of breaking it down to the basics and figuring it out forced me to be able to diagnose a problem by asking what it should do. Once you know that, you can break down the individual components and visualize how it should be wired in order for it to work like you know it should. His lesson was really Troubleshooting 101. We often overthink a problem and forget to focus on the basics. My dad died way too soon, but his lessons have helped me to not overthink a problem, but to break it down and visualize a solution first, before taking action to achieve the solution.
That’s how the “Smart Guys” here at Clearfield tackle problems. I can recall a problem that was brought to us as we were having a “meeting of the minds.” We were all at the home office or “Mothership” as we like to call it. The problem was proposed, and all of the application engineers attacked it by taking it down to its basic parts and developed an answer based on how it should function at that base level by simply reassembling it. It is interesting to watch as each of us developed an answer to the basic problem in our own way, and then assembled these parts into a whole.
That is what sets Clearfield apart from our competition. We don’t overthink or over-design a product. You might remember our pencil promotion from a few years ago. Don’t use a pen when a pencil will do the job. The good news is that you, as a customer, get the benefit of the Clearfield team’s knowledge and troubleshooting skills when you bring your problem to us. If you have a problem, simply provide the smart guys with as much information as you can and let us go to work. Odds are you’ll have an answer pretty quickly.
Oh, by the way, I’m good with a three way switch now. I guess dad’s lessons sunk in after all.
By Scot Bohaychyk – Product Marketing/New Markets