Whitney Lippincott III and Chelan Lippincott

00:00 Whitney Lippincott, Whitney Pandora and listen to third I am 62 today is May 28th 2020 in Boise, Idaho. I am having this conversation with my daughter. My oldest child Chelan and I've always said that she's my daughter. My name is Chelan Lippincott. The first I'm 30 years old. Today is Thursday, May 28th, and I'm also in Boise, Idaho, and I'm having this conversation with my dad Whitney.

00:40 So did you just retired last week? So I wanted to

00:49 34

00:51 Day for up to you through storycorps is because throughout my whole life. You've always been really like work has been a really big part of a you know, what I see you all the time. And so this is like a huge life change for you and I just wanted to ask you about it cuz I don't know another space where I can just sit down with you like tell me about your work so

01:21 Can you describe what you did for a living?

01:29 Well, it was 40 plus years. So I did a lot of different things.

01:37 I started is just a summer employee working in a Fab shop, which is a metal working shop sheet metal machine shops and just odds and ends jobs for them like a shearing sheep mayo and you bend it to forms and then through three Summers. I progressed to being a more of an engineer where I do designs and then that of course it was a it was great three Summers except for the last summer. I didn't get along with my boss and we mutually decided that we hated each other and we never worked with each other and

02:25 I said this is HP. I want nothing to do with it. He said that this is Whitney. We want nothing to do with him and just through dumb luck. I ended up iron-on with HP anyway in California and then I was What's called the process engineer, which is doing all the engineering for running a printed circuit board Factory chemicals processes. But after about three years of that it became obvious to me. I was just never going to be a really good engineer. I didn't know love it and what I'd already figured out I love was just working with people and so I went to the general manager and told him I thought he ought to make me a manager and he laughed and he was pretty surprised at my

03:19 Brazen nature, but about six months later. He made me a manager and then threw about the next.

03:29 15 or 20 years. I did a number of more responsibility management type of jobs in production operations. And I did the same thing when I we closed the factory in California. We moved I moved back to Boise. It was your mom's first moved here. And then I was doing a production manager for a pretty big operation with 250 people building in disk drives and that was great fun. But that's Factory also closed and then again, I went to the general manager of a different operation that I had done some work for and told him I thought he ought to make me a materials manager which is buying

04:29 Which is working with all the vendors that sell material to you raw material for you to build stuff with and I've never done it before but I I knew I was good at talking people into things and I knew I was good at just

04:47 Getting to know people really well and surprisingly he agreed to give me that job. So I did that at the start of our program which was linear tape open, which was the Consortium between HP IBM and Quantum and I didn't have anything to do with the Consortium at that time.

05:12 It was buying all it was setting up all of our vendors and fighting and arguing over deliveries and processes and prices and contracts and I did that for about

05:30 5 years

05:32 And then I made the mistake of complaining to my boss one time about how lousy we were doing at running the Consortium working with IBM Quantum. I just felt like they were taken advantage of us on a lot of things and so he said well, let's fix that will give you that job and that's what I did for pretty much the last 20 years was fighting arguing having good fun with IBM and it was Seagate and ultimately became Quantum after company buyouts. And so I've spent most of the crib just arguing and fighting this evening. So some of my liked Fondest Memories are you talking about the Glory Days at Hewlett-Packard and just like what it was like to be at a company in California as they were growing really rap.

06:32 All of the crazy stuff that you guys used to get away with that would never fly in the workplace now, so could you describe what?

06:44 What it was like like what their culture was like at Hewlett-Packard in the early days.

06:52 Well, the culture of Hewlett-Packard was

06:59 Keep in mind I don't have any other perspective. So I hear people describing other companies and I'm only able to describe what HP was like for me, but I always kind of believe that I was smart enough to know that people were describing someone accurately.

07:24 How just what he'll wholesome places were and HP.

07:31 You know, we had our share of unlikeable people just downright miserable people but largely.

07:42 Because a culture just gave people freedom to do their jobs without having to spell you know, their boss is saying tell me exactly what you're going to do and how you're going to do it and I don't like it. They just say go do this thing. It was called, you know, they coined the term management by objectives MBO and pretty much every manager tried to do that with to varying degrees of success. But but most of them at least most of my managers just said I want this result accomplished and then go do it and it resulted in you feeling like you you owned most of it. It also resulted in me making a lot of mistakes and you know getting scolded getting told that's not the right way to do it.

08:37 But you you also you learn more than the ever will by doing something right doing it wrong. You just figure out right away. And when I do the first big job I had was managing production workers. These are the people that just do the work there the the lowest level Labs pay people and a boy everybody ought to do that. I think cuz you deal with not just the job you deal with a million different kinds of personal issues and throughout my whole career. They allowed me.

09:23 To do the job the way the best way I could and it was it was an environment really that I learned how to verbalize somewhere along the line that my boss didn't hire me to do the job. Like they would they hired me to do the job the way I would do it cuz they thought I was good at something and so and me it really just allowed me to do stuff the way I thought best and and you shared a lot of information with people it was generally a pretty open organization as opposed to what I heard from some other organizations were people hoarded information and people kept stuff to themselves. We'd all say here's where I screwed up and I wouldn't do that that way again. So it was just a it was a very enjoyable environment and we changed a lot over the phone.

10:23 3 years and were a lot more like

10:28 Other companies but at its heart it's still had the basic. I I believe the basic foundations of letting people do the job the way they best stock fit.

10:44 Now outside of outside of that environment you though just stuff the eat that you'd never get away with today. The best description that that is is the beer bust when I was a production section manager. I had to do three beer bust starting at 5 a.m. Drinking beer eating food.

11:06 Doing stupid stuff and then the graveyard one would and it about 7:30 or 8 and you go to work and then you'd have a swing shift. You'd have a day shift beer bus which was like started at 2:30 and went till 5 and then I was young enough weed usually go out with the day shift crew somewhere and then we have to go back at 10:30 for the graveyard beer shift being graveyard. It wouldn't end till the bars closed at 2 a.m. And that made for a long day and it made for some really stupid things being done particularly of the graveyard.

11:47 So in a lot of ways work now like it work in 2020 is really changing in. What ways do you think it's changing for the better? And in what ways do you think is changing for the worst?

12:06 Well

12:10 It's changing. So I'll start with the worse. It's changing for the worse. I think in that people just don't have an opportunity.

12:26 To really get to know each other by being together. No coronavirus is a good example of how people have figured out how to do that. But I met I had something for someone to do about three three years ago and I contacted this person and and they said they were happy to help me but they needed their bosses approval and I asked how we go about do that. And he said well it we ended up saying let's have a phone a call would this person and we got the three of us together and to my utter shock. This was the first time this person had ever talk to their boss. They had never they had never even talked to them and because of me, but they got together and and I just thought man would have it's because neither one of them felt particularly interested in reaching out.

13:26 And saying let's get to know each other a little bit different locations.

13:34 Yeah, yeah one was in Houston one was in, California.

13:39 And if you if you leave.

13:47 The average personal loan now, there's a distribution and there's people at one end like me who are just really personable and we'll get to know someone in 10 minutes whether they like it or not. And then you have people at the other end who just will never pick up the phone. If unless they're forced to but an overall in between there's a big swath of people that very but it but on average if you leave people to themselves, they'll be less inclined to talk to people as much as they would if they were sitting right next to him. Like when I was first started HP everybody you dealt with was

14:30 You know within a pretty close range of you the farthest I'd have to go when I was in the Bay Area was 15 miles to the South and so from that point of view. It's worse. However

14:50 All of you young people are figuring out how to do this in ways that are good. And so you're using technology better better than I ever will.

15:05 Like I've had the ability to do video conferences forever, but I don't I've never used them. They just scared the crap out of me. You don't have to shave work I did today.

15:28 Well, nothing really scared. I guess I just didn't feel like it.

15:33 Yeah, I just didn't feel like it and

15:40 Well, it's been just what's obviously better is everybody smarter cuz cuz I was way smarter than my dad's mom and dad's generation in terms of what you know about people and what you know about processes and how to

16:00 How to do things like what when I started nobody ever spent time talking about emotional like you what the heck was that it don't bother me with nonsense like that. I've got a result to get and so

16:19 It's better from the point of view that.

16:25 More younger people are are much more interested. And at least a where most people are knowledgeable. But at least aware that there's different personality types and

16:41 You need to try to work with those different personality types differently.

16:49 I remember you telling me once that before you decided you were going to be an engineering major that you had this other idea that you were going to be a social worker which is which is so opposite of like what I know about you. So do you ever think about what it would have been like if you would have followed that career path, which is just so different in every way.

17:18 No, I I would have been a total flop it it just points out now. I I told Whitney this once her brother by my son cuz he's a lot like I was he's just very cocky. He thinks he knows everything and it's just a good.

17:42 Reference for for me to look back at what I told him is when I hit 30, I look back at stuff. I done without was 20 like going to be a social worker and I said my God you were so stupid. You were just such an idiot in in ways you work with people and things you thought things you thought you knew and what I told Whitney was

18:12 Here is the most amazing thing of that when I turn 40, I look back at the stuff I done when I was 30 and it was embarrassing what an idiot. I was stupid. I was and then I did it again at 50 and I'm just my God, you just don't ever seem to learn but you do learn you just don't learn everything there. So many other things that you are going to do wrong and it it really was just a testament to

18:42 Similarly felt the same way cuz I'm 30 now, right? I look back at 20 and I was just like I have these horrible horrible memories of the things that I did as like a general manager of my College radio station where I where I just think I can't believe I did that and so I wonder whether this is a human experience or just a Lippincott experience something that we alone just look back and we're very embarrassed.

19:17 Well, I gotta believe it's a human experience to some degree, but and I got to believe also that some people are just not as introspective or care to look back that much.

19:34 I guess I think that we're a bit blessed that were better. I anyway I'm able to see.

19:44 How inadequate I was when I was younger because it gives you a better view of going forward and just say man. I still got.

19:57 Some things to learn about and and apparently the level of embarrassment just does not change very much cuz

20:07 I've got a lot more of where things were outright.

20:15 The big lessons that work is taught you.

20:26 Well

20:29 I have a somewhat unique Outlook, I think and I'm happy to pass this on as you well know. I'm happy to pass the same people pause. Yeah, I people just pause for a second. I'm happy to give it but how you work with people? I I believe how you get people to do what you'd like them to do or

20:59 How you get results you want?

21:02 There's only one place and work taught me this but it was things I got from work and in some of it was from some kinds of classes. One of them in particular was just a class. But what I did with it afterward was from work that the only place

21:26 To start in terms of how you're going to do it is to take your finger and pointed at yourself and just say the only way that you you're not going to get it by blaming other people use you say, I'm the one that has to figure out how to do this. I've got to change my behavior and one of the most important things I learned in this class. I described what's this woman offered a perspective. What if you approached every single person every single person from the point of view of their trying to help me how would it affect how you dealt with the world and it really made me think what if you approached it from the other point of view. Everyone was trying to hurt me you'd be just the worst you be the most poisoned individual in terms of how you

22:24 Interacted with people and it would be hell on Earth. It would just be horrible. And if you go the other end you're liable to get burned once in awhile, but way more often these people that they'll just sense it from the way you're dealing with them that they're going to try to help you. They're going to do what they can to help you and

22:51 And if you if you put it more in terms of a request, I'm asking you to help me here and you give them the right to decline or counter offer. You just get a lot more out of them. So so out of that I came out with some I call it the champ challenge of leadership and it's just about how you interact with people how you listen to him. And you don't you just listen to him. You don't start filing saying that person's

23:25 I pooped cuz they're just trying to get get him the benefit of me here. You just listen to him and try to understand what they're saying try to understand from their point of view.

23:40 How they're trying to do their job and the other thing is no matter how unlikely will someone is if you look at them and and just start from the starting point that they are trying to do the best job as they understand it that they can then it makes their unlikable nature be less important. It's just it it's a less important thing and and out of that what I what I realized somewhere is that there's all kinds of different personalities and some people have person that they're just not very personable. They're just not bubbly and and it's just the way they are. You don't need to hold it against them. It's the way they are. I sometimes wonder whether other

24:33 Father-daughter relationships talk about work as much as you and I do cuz I think we actually talked about it a lot.

24:43 And I wonder

24:48 I wonder what your perspective is on my career because we have very different jobs. You know, your your job is process related management related. My job is you know, I'm a fundraiser. I am very relationship-based as I'm settling into.

25:15 The middle of my career, you know, I've done the first 10 years of my career and now I'm getting into the the middle age of my work life. What advice would you give me?

25:28 Well first off I could just I should be crystal clear that I'm horribly proud of you. I think I've told you the story about how Carl and Dave both their oldest kids really struggled to get through college to I mean, they took 8-10 years and

25:55 So that six years after four years was still ahead for them. But when I was helping you after 4 years of college graduate in 4 years and after helping when I was helping you go through your benefits package and your IRA at your 401k.

26:20 Yeah, just when I was helping you go through that. I was I was just beside myself with.

26:29 Well with pride because all my friends had kids who were still trying to get through school and here I was you got exactly what you what your passion was from the first year college. You were doing a job like that and I was helping you go through that and it was so cool. Of course, I made the mistake of gloating the Carl and Dave about this and then Whitney came along.

26:59 But my advice would be that there really isn't a middle of your career because like I said when I when it became clear to me that I was just not going to be a great engineer I said, but I think I can be a great manager, but I don't know until I went and told my boss that I thought you ought to make me a manager and then I did it again when I done the

27:29 Management people management aspect of it when I said I want to go try to be a materials manager. No training at all. No experience at all. I just had my my with send my abilities and and I didn't even know but then I said I'll go ask. I'll go see if they can if they'll help me out here and they did and so and that was when I was about 40, I think when I get that, yeah that had to be around when I was 40.

28:00 And then I I got the other job so it's for me.

28:06 My career just it just went in all kinds of different places that I could not have predicted and it would have been silly for me to try to predict it. So the best you can do.

28:19 Is take what you know, take the day to you have to take every bit of information you have and then say can I go somewhere else? Can I be better doing something else? Can I will that's it. Can I be better doing something else and you got to learn something you got to be able to make a a big contribution and they've got a really want you. Those are the three things that if you can get that and you're in good shape to try something different this type of relationship where you're constantly giving me advice and I know that you want the best for me and sometimes it's overwhelming cuz sometimes it does feel like oh he thinks I'm not doing the right thing or I made this wrong decision. So it's nice to know that like even

29:12 At the end of the day when you think I could do better somewhere else or at something else that you're so proud of me, and I do still contribute to my IRA. So

29:24 How do you say so how many years did you work at Hewlett-Packard? Like how how many years did you put in before you retired last week?

29:39 43 by the calendar but forty years is HP recognizes it because apparently just based on how poorly my three summers in Boise turned out they didn't give me credit for those.

29:55 How do you want to be remembered at work?

30:00 I would I would like to be remembered very much like the Kudos board the that the way people did describe me as someone who made work. Just great fun. No matter how hard it was to try to get some enjoyment out of it to

30:27 To always be the one that was saying let's get ourselves organized and prepared before we ever have any interactions with people. Let's know what we want. What what's know what we'll ask for and I think most importantly as someone that people could very comfortably come with any problem any kind of thing and say I've got a problem and I like to get your thoughts on that are not and I know that there I know that I was able to do that. I know there were a lot of people that that I work with it just said

31:13 I got this problem and I'd like to get your view on it and because as you know, if

31:23 If I get asked something I'm pretty happy to say. Well, here's my view on it and it just take it for what is it feels pretty good to be remembered as someone who can help people.

31:40 What is just the absolute worst thing that happened to you at work?

31:55 Absolute worst thing

32:08 Well

32:12 I have I had a manager not the first one not the summer one.

32:21 Who just did not like me and

32:26 There was only now I told you how my view that everyone that I work with was trying their best to do their job the best way they knew it and there's only been two exceptions to that my whole life and this one person was my manager and I

32:53 I knew they weren't trying to do the best job for HP. They could I knew they were trying to

33:03 They were trying to harm me they were they were really trying to harm me and it was a it was a very poisonous relationship it I didn't exactly know how to solve the shy of just quitting which which I was going to do because I said listen the only peep the only person that can fix this is me. It's I've got if I don't like it, I need to just change it and it it's not even possible to to say what they did but it's it is possible for me to say that it was a poisonous relationship. It was not good for me. It made me a worse person as a result of it.

33:51 And it was a very difficult year and a half to year. Of my career.

34:03 I'm glad to say that person ultimately left HP.

34:07 Why didn't you ever leave HP?

34:12 So long

34:15 HP just they always

34:25 Gave me what I wanted. They it it it it gave me what I needed to feel.

34:32 Like I was making big contributions. I was making a difference. I was always learning something new and with the exception of that manager pretty much everyone I work for wanted me really bad. They really wanted me in the job and and and that's my three criteria and it it always it always work.

35:03 You always got to learn something now. You can now I'm on the spot. I got to remember what I said. You've all you always have to be learning something new. You always have to be able to make big contributions make a big difference and they have to really want you.

35:22 That was that was right.

35:26 Do you have any questions for me about work?

35:34 No, I didn't plan to have any questions. This is your gig. I think you described like the dream job dream career dream work environment, but you're retired now, so I know that right now your plan is to golfalot hang out with the dog.

36:00 But what do you think your day is going to look like a year from now, once you gotten over the like the honeymoon phase of being retired?

36:10 Well, I don't know, you know you and others keep asking me what I'm going to do and my Outlook right now is it is it's like when I was in 7th grade going to 8th grade it was the first day of summer. I got my summer buzz cut that my dad always Well, everybody's neighborhood guide for some reason. We all got Buzz Cuts it was mandatory. And the first day of 8th grade was a distant future that just didn't even need to be considered about and nobody asked each other. What we were going to do. We were going to go play in the woods. We were going to go dig up some ant hills. We were going to go mess with the farmers pigs. We were

37:08 We were going to go shoot some birds. Wait, we had a million things we could do and a year from now if it turns out I'm bored. And I feel like I need to do something else will then I'll I'll think about it then.

37:30 Keeping busy is my only objective now, which I'm typically pretty good.

37:36 Well, this was really fun Dad. It was nice talking to you about work because as I said before I feel like you are my like career consultant and also like the consultant on my car or making any financial decisions or anything that I need your advice on.

38:00 Yeah, it was fun.

38:03 Thank you.