HMC BusyBeeNews - Service Awards Edition - Dec. 2020

december 2020

WELLNESS TIPS DRINK A GLASS OF WATER FIRST THING IN THE MORNING Coffee’s great too, but it’s best to start your day by re-hydrating with a full glass of water. Hydrating first thing in the morning helps to aid digestion, enhance skin health and boost energy. by: Elaine Self

TAKE THE STAIRS Taking the stairs instead of the elevator is a simple way to get a little more physical activity in your daily life. It also strengthens and tones your legs and core while you’re at it!

SWITCH TO NON-TOXIC HOUSEHOLD CLEANING PRODUCTS Conventional household cleaning products are full of harmful chemical ingredients that are not good for our health (or the health of our kids or pets!). Switching to healthier alternatives is a simple way to reduce your exposure to environmental toxins in your home.

STAND UP EVERY 30 MINUTES WHILE WORKING Reduce the harmful effects of sitting (like at your desk job) by standing up and moving around for a minute or two every half hour.

GET SUNLIGHT EVERY DAY Vitamin D is one of the most important nutrients for overall health and sunlight is one of our best sources of it. Aim to get at least 30 minutes of sunlight each day—preferably in the afternoon and without sunscreen. Not much sunlight in the winter where you live? It might be worth supplementing with a vitamin D supplement and/or other food sources of this essential nutrient.

FILL YOUR HOME WITH HOUSEPLANTS Houseplants help to cleanse your indoor air (sadly, it probably needs it!), they’re pretty, and research even shows they improve mood, creativity and problem solving.

WORK HARD & BE KIND Enough said!

SPEND TIME ALONE Spending regular time alone helps to get to know and stay in touch with yourself (we’re all constantly growing and changing!). Alone time is an opportunity to check in with how you’re doing and what you want, so you can live your most intentional life. Some people enjoy hiking, going for a walk or run, meditating, or even sunbathing as a healthy source of alone time.

Have you ever thought about how many different customers HMC serves?

As of July, HMC had over

6,200 unique, active customers in its database!

Christmas trees were originally used in German homes and date back to Roman winter solstice celebrations. They became popular worldwide starting in 1848 when the Illustrated London News published a drawing of a Christmas tree in Buckingham Palace (Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert, was German).

President Benjamin Harrison had the first wWhite House Christmas tree in 1889.

The first known candy cane was made in 1670 in Germany. They were white and shaped like a shepherd’s cane. The first candy canes appeared in the US in 1847, brought by German immigrants and were first manufactured in the US in Albany, Georgia, in the 1920’s.

Santa Claus is based on a real person, Saint Nicholas. He lived in Greece in the 4th century and was known for gift-giving. His feast day is on December 6. The name Santa Claus came from the Dutch name for Saint Nicholas, Sinterklaas. Washington Irving first used the name Santa Claus in his book, History of New York. The modern image of Santa Claus as a rotund man wearing a red, fur-trimmed suit was created by Thomas Nast, an illustrator responsible for many of the Coca-Cola ads featuring Santa.

CURRENT JOB OPENINGS: Account Manager – Albuquerque Account Manager – Little Rock Factory Service Team – Central Texas (Austin or San Antonio) Warehouse Associates – Carrollton

Tales from the

Outdoors

by Pat Armstrong

It was a warm night on the water and the fish weren’t biting… (many of my stories involve the fish not biting, but let’s continue, LOL).

Many, many years ago my grandpa had a cabin cruiser boat that he kept on Lake Whitney.

This was his second boat…remember the first one that sank? Well, this one was much bigger and didn’t sink, in fact it was the coolest boat in the world to us boys because you could sleep on it! Great times!

This one night in particular, it was me, my brother, my dad, and my grandpa and we went out fishing and spent the night on the boat anchored in a cove.

As I said a minute ago, the fish weren’t biting for most of the evening, but then all of the sudden Dad hooks into a big one! Keep in mind that my brother and I were about 10 and 8 respectively, so even a 5 pound fish was a BIG FISH to us, but this one was huge! It weighed over 15 pounds easily.

High fives all around, and jubilation, at Dad’s only fish of the night, and of course we wanted to hold it, but NOOOO, Dad wouldn’t let us. Like I said, it was late at night, so Dad tied the fish to a heavy duty rope and tied that rope to the back of the boat because he didn’t want to clean it.

Well, it got later and later, and it was time to turn in, so Dad and Grandpa turned in and told us to turn in, so we did. But for two excited boys, going to sleep without holding and admiring this beautiful fish was out of the question.

So we waited until Dad and Grandpa were asleep and then very quietly snuck out to the back deck to look at the fish. The rope was tied in a very difficult knot to untie, but it proved to be no match for two determined kids. Looking back, I still wonder why we didn’t just pull the line up to see the fish??? But we didn’t. We untied the rope from the cleat and hoisted the monster up to admire it and then we quietly lowered it back down and retied the line to the boat… or so we thought. Well we did retie it, but we let the fish go back to the bottom. We gave it too much rope!

Catfish are squirrely buggers and this one was not happy. So, since this fish had plenty of rope, he wrapped that rope around a tree at the bottom of the lake!

Fast forward a few hours and its morning. Dad goes to lift the fish up and it is STUCK! I mean STUCK LIKE CHUCK! He pulled and pulled and pulled and pulled some more. Nothing. The line was tight and it wasn’t budging!

So Grandpa gets the idea to tie the rope to the cleat again and use the boat’s motors to pull this fish free. Sounded like a great plan. So he ties the rope to the cleat and engages the motors. We could feel the RPM’s rev-up, we saw the huge props churn the water below, smoke was starting to come out of the motor hold, and we felt the vibration… NOTHING! This fish had, in fact, tied us to the bottom and we weren’t moving. We almost ripped the cleat off the boat before Grandpa shut the motors down. The only choice at this point was to cut the line and drive away heart broken.

Dad couldn’t figure out how this fish got loose and wrapped itself around a tree and we weren’t saying anything!!!

The life lesson we learned from this is that no matter how well meaning and innocent our actions and intentions were, we still lost the fish, and almost sank another boat.

So the bottom line is: If you don’t know what you’re doing, don’t untie a fish.

Cheers!

-Pat

Manager’s Update Debra Dingess Information Systems From Y2K (if you are old enough to remember that) to web chat, to Zoom, there is never a boring day. From the time you walk into the office, to whenever you go home or go to bed, there is always something that IT needs to do. It’s a journey where you will not be bored and the landscape is ever changing. I was fortunate when I started my career here at Hugh M. Cunningham Companies (HMC). David Cunningham loves technology. Twenty-one years ago, when I started and took over the IT Department on November 1st, 1999 (two months before Y2K) the Internet was in its infancy, we had dial up modems, Windows 3.1, and green screens for our ERP which was run on a UNIX box. We had pagers and Sprint cell phones with radios. Lots of changes in 21 years…now fast forward to 2020.

2020 has been a challenging year. Arranging associates to work from home was like pulling a rabbit out of a hat. Trying to find enough laptops, printers, phone bricks, and cables, when everyone else in the world was doing the same thing, was nothing short of miraculous. But we pulled it off. And I say we as the IT Department is a team. Stephen and I, and now our newest contractor, Ashu Kathpalia, whose expertise is in SAP B1, try and keep the lights on. As you all know, we are changing our ERP (not an upgrade) to SAP B1. This is a most difficult process and even more difficult with half of the team working from home.

But it’s a team effort and everyone is plowing through it. We are hoping for an early spring launch.

Most companies, especially those in the digital realm, rely on the IT Department to ensure that their network of computers function properly and connect well. The IT Department has three major areas of concern which include governance of the company’s technological systems, maintenance of the infrastructure, and functionality of the systems overall. Beyond that, the professionals within the IT Department work internally on computer software and hardware in many ways that allow HMC to be successful.

Whether the IT team is composed of two members, or twenty, there always seems to be a never-ending list of tasks to be done. Most don’t realize that the IT team is responsible for much more than fixing computer problems and helping log back into the computer when they forget a password.

Each member of an IT Department fulfills an important role for the company. Some are responsible for multiple areas of the IT Department, especially in smaller companies. In other circumstances, there may only be one IT professional within a company. Here are the some of the responsibilities within the IT department: Administration IT administrators play an integral role within a company and the IT department itself. They are the go-to person when someone needs help with a technological issue or has just joined the company and needs help navigating new equipment. The duties of an administrator may overlap with other team members at times. Maintaining computer infrastructures of the company, assisting new users with computers and software issues, training employees on new systems, performing software updates, renewing licenses and other legal documents, monitoring ongoing contracts with suppliers, completing statutory forms, ensuring compliance with quality standards, assessing potential threats, overseeing data storage and nightly backups.

Technical Support Tech support professionals are especially handy at fixing problems related to hardware and software issues, though their role within the company does not end there. Another large part of their job involves educating people and answering questions relating to the technologies they use. Tech support involves installing new software or hardware, researching and procuring IT hardware and supplies, participating in IT inventory asset management, troubleshooting network issues, configuring phone systems, installing video and audio conferencing, installing and configuring new printers, copiers and other equipment, providing and installing cloud-based applications/services, and repairing hardware.

Communication In a business setting, there are several instances where the IT team helps facilitate successful communication between all parties involved. Companies may need to communicate with potential or existing clients through different methods of technology. Zoom meetings, remote assistance, cell phones, iPads, and conference calls assist IT with not only associate needs, but also our customers as well.

Programming The roles within a programming department of a company utilize the skills of a web developer, programmer, and possibly other IT professionals in creating new programs that ultimately help companies achieve their goals. They often work with software developers and engineers to translate company designs into workable code.

So, as we move forward into 2021 and beyond, our use of technologies needs to support and carry us into the future. Every day, someone is creating the newest tools to support our business. Technology advancements will continually help you do your job better. What can we do to assist you, our customer, in making your job easier?

by Pat Armstrong

The dictionary defines ‘marketing’ as: “The total of activities involved in the transfer of goods from the producer or seller to the consumer or buyer, including advertising, shipping, storing, and selling.”

That about sums it up… What does our Marketing Department do for us? Great question! In the above definition, each of those activities can be broken down, and many pages have been filled describing each process, but it basically boils down to a simple concept… Good marketing makes our goods and services more attractive to our customers, making them want to buy from us. Good marketing also conveys product information in a way that is informative and easy to understand using various media platforms: print, digital, e-mail, as well as various social media platforms.

They do a wonderful job of telling the ‘HMC story’…the perseverance of the bumble bee, the history of the company, the integrity of our members, as well as our dedication to the industry!

They are often the link between our manufacturers and our customers when it comes to product offerings and announcements. They support our sales force! They also coordinate and support our tremendous trade show efforts with literature and signage. But to really understand all that marketing does, one would have to just sit in a meeting and write down all the ‘action items’ that Marketing is responsible for, much of which goes on behind the scenes in order to accomplish a task, say a new product launch.

They also publish a fantastic monthly newsletter with global circulation! (pretty sure) Michelle Mitchell – Marketing Manager Cynthia Henderson - Marketing & Communications Coordinator Jonathan Bunch – Digital Media Graphics Designer Here are some quirky questions that we like to have fun with. All of us are on the same team and the folks in Marketing are just as weird as the rest of us!

michellemitchell

hire date - 10/28/19

(she was also an hmc marketing consultant from 11/19/13 - 10/28/19)

What type of car fits your personality best?

SUV – Nothing too fancy, reliable, & something big enough to fit my family in for long road trips.

What amusement park ride are least likely to ride?

The Power Dive – This is an awful pendulum ride where you get stuck upside down for a long time and your head feels like it will explode…bring on any roller coaster though!

What accomplishment are you most proud of?

My three wonderful, kind, and funny grown children are my pride and joy and raising them has been my favorite accomplishment. If I weren’t their mom, I would choose to be their friend.

If you didn’t have to work for a living, how would you spend your time?

Traveling! I have been to some wonderful places, but there are so many more destinations that I want to experience (Hawaii, England, France, Ireland, Germany…)

What is something peculiar about you that no one knows?

I hate tomatoes, but I love ketchup and salsa! left to right - Samantha, Glenn, Danielle, Will, Michelle, & Glenn Jr.

cynthiahenderson

hire date - 7/15/13

What is the worst job you’ve ever had?

I have had a few jobs that I didn’t particularly enjoy, but never a worst job. I believe each job gave me experience and a different perspective that I didn’t have prior.

If you didn’t have to work for a living, what would you be doing?

I would get more involved in community outreach and church organizations, make art and exhibit them, adopt more dogs, and have a real workout routine.

If you owned a company, what type of company would it be?

A fun, crazy, weird, extraordinary arts and crafts store.

What are you most proud of?

The Marketing department at HMC of course. We work very well together and produce a lot of great stuff.

If money was no object, what kind of car would you drive?

A DeLorean with a flux capacitor

jonathanbunch

hire date - 09/12/11

What’s your favorite hobby?

Playing Drums, Shooting Pistols, and oh yeah that thing with the toy collecting…

What’s a favorite childhood memory?

My Dad irritating the crap out of my Mom with his humor.

He always sang to her too.

We all love the folks we work with, but what do you enjoy most about your job?

I’ve been allowed to do a lot without many boundaries in Marketing. As a result, I’m more motivated than ever to create cool stuff and solve problems within our teams, and that’s worth more than money to me.

What is 1 thing most people assume about you that isn’t true?

People probably think that I reuse socks like a normal person.

I literally put on a new pair of socks every day. Just gool ole’ Hanes crew socks. Not fancy name brand socks. …because that would be weird.

If you could go back in time and change 1 event in history, what would it be?

That’s a hard one.

Probably something that could have stopped COVID-19 or 9/11/01.

<Jonathan & Meredith Bunch

Dear Dan, I’m a single female and I want to get my car ready for the winter. Do I need snow tires?

What all should I do to my car to get it ready?

Dear Dan, What do you recommend planting for a small outside garden for the winter?

Signed, One Headlight Dear Single Female,

Signed, Black Thumb Dear Black Thumb soon to be Green Thumb, Give these plants a try…carrots, radishes, rosemary, and some spinach varieties. I have a weird pepper plant that has survived two winters. I don’t recommend pepper plants though. Good luck!

First things first, fix your headlight! Next, you don’t need snow tires, just chains to wrap around your bald tires. Have your battery and antifreeze levels checked by going to an Auto Zone or O’ Reilly’s. They do it for FREE. Keep a DG ice scraper in your car, along with a blanket and battery cables. I was only kidding about the chains on your tires… Good luck this winter!

JONATHAN BUNCH completed a graphic design program at SMU! After nine solid months of hard work and dedication, he earned his certificate on December 1, after presenting his Capstone project to the faculty and his peers.

Great job JB! CONGRATULATIONS!!! a note from jonathan Some of you may know that I’m the guy that takes all the awesome newsletter content and designs the final layout. It does feel a little funny adding this section, because it feels kind of braggy, and 2020 is all about your feelings (*sarcasm). My journey began back in Aug. 2019 and I was very frustrated because I had reached what I thought was a big plateau with my design skills. I started the program in March 2020. The “VID” kept the students from meeting each other in person and there were no in person classes. The classes were held on Zoom, and I learned a ton about the graphic design industry, along with in-depth training using the Adobe Creative Suite.

I ended up doing almost all my classes after hours in my office on Tuesday/Thursdays from 6:30-9:30pm for 9 months. That meant that some days I sat at my desk from around 8am to 9:30pm! I had a lot of work to do on nights and weekends, and I got through it. All A’s baby!

My favorite thing I did was to interview a classmate, create a fake company, and brand it. My experience at HMC made this fairly easy! Click the PinkOwl logo to view the case study.

Thank you for all the kind words! If you want to change your path in life, please know that you can, and it’s worth the grind!

- jonathan

by: Pat Armstrong

P.S. The current subject is asked to pick the next 5 random numbers. Thanks to all who have participated.

1. How long have you worked for Cunningham? One year and a smidge 2. How many teams or departments have you worked in/on? One 3. Name a movie that if you see it on the guide or are flipping thru channels you will always watch?

Pride and Prejudice 4. What’s your favorite holiday? Easter 5. Are you a beach person or mountains person? Mountain, preferably.

6. If you could pick any style of house to live in, what style would you pick? Farmhouse 7. Do you have any pets? Yes…. a lot!

8. What do you like to do in your spare time? Hobbies? Home remodeling, crochet, work outdoors.

9. Are you married? Yep. 10. What was your favorite toy as a kid? Tubelox…. seriously, the BEST toy EVER! If you have kids, grandkids, nieces, nephews, etc.…. get this for them. I think that my parents bought me 2 or 3 sets.

11. Do you root for a particular sports team? If so, which one? Not really.

12. If you didn’t have to work for a living, and money was no object, what would you be doing?

Charity work – building homes, raising money for good causes, volunteering.

13. What accomplishment are you most proud of? Personally, or professionally. My kids and that I worked hard to complete my education while working /raising a family.

14. What have you done to combat the Co-Vid lockdown blues? House projects!

15. What’s your favorite meal? Sushi!

16. What home chore do you like doing the least? Taking out the trash.

17. What was your best vacation? A family ski trip a few years ago.

18. What was your first car? Toyota Tercel – I asked if I got to pick another car when I graduated from HS (my dad laughed and told me absolutely not!), so I picked something economical.

19. What advice would you give to your 18-year-old self if you could go back? Stop being in such a hurry.

20. What do you do to ‘decompress’ from work or life stress? Something physical – yardwork, clean the house, or walk.

Last month’s subject…. Whom you recognize by her laugh was… Lori Poindexter!

WHAT THE HIVE CAN TEACH BUSINESSES ABOUT

LEADERSHIP, EFFICIENCY,

& GROWTH LESSON #11 - DESIGN “FLEXIGID” SYSTEMS THE WISDOM OF BEES by: Michael O’Malley, Ph.D. Organizational responsiveness is best fulfilled by staffing plans and deployments that can be stretched and adapted as conditions warrant.

Division of labor was practiced within the animal kingdom many millions of years before manufacturers of the new industrial age began producing widgets for the masses. Division of labor is extremely beneficial in constant environments but can be maladaptive in changing ones.

Honeybees have developed a pliable division of labor, a fixed structure that is modifiable according to circumstances. The biological machinery of the hive may be described as “fexigid”: at once flexible and rigid, malleable and taut. Honeybees have two types of division of labor: temporal and functional.

Temporal specialization refers to bees that develop over time according to maturity and experience.

Bees progress from serving inside the honeycombed walls of the hive to the world outside. Eventually, the top bees become foragers, demonstrating a form of specialization in which maturing abilities are matched to more challenging and risky tasks.

Functional specialization refers to the physiological attributes of bees that enable or limit what they can do. For example, drones physically cannot carry nectar even if they wanted to. Certain jobs in hive can be done only by bees that are physically equipped to do them.

Honeybees have instituted three mechanisms to avoid the calamity of executional breakdown. The first is prevention through prediction. Not even honeybees can afford massive losses in their specialized workforce.

Second, bees have embedded staffing plans. These are embedded in the overall strategy of the organization and are a fundamental part of the planning process. Honeybees know how much of which type of labor is required to supply the colony with the resources required to thrive.

Third, colonies are able to adjust their workforces. One way they incorporate flexibility is by maintaining a limited number of precocious reserves.

In addition, many bees are able to switch between tasks, pitching in when needed. Companies similarly demonstrate workforce flexibility when, for example, they reduce the factory times of employees and reassign them to maintenance tasks or enroll them in training sessions during down periods.

No job is beneath the honeybee when it comes to the survival of the hive. One effective means of retaining flexibility is to have managers who are willing to roll up their sleeves and help the team when needed.

by adam merritt

Watts Drains

DRAINAGE

Little Giant

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

TO YOU!

DECEMBER

Jim Oetken 12/2 Juan Hernandez 12/3 Eddie Self 12/9 Neil Key 12/14 Michael Crawford 12/15 Jim Ambery 12/23 Charles Hempstead 12/23 Donald Moon 12/31

Congratulations Sabrina Sankadota (InsideSales/CustomerService-Team12) on the birth of your precious son!

this month’s newsletter committee debra dingess • elaine self • adam merritt • adrian ollie shannon highsmith • dan banaszek • pat armstrong michelle mitchell • cynthia henderson • jonathan bunch I know we all hoped COVID-19 would be over and we could gather for the Annual HMC Service Awards and Christmas Party.

We are still going to reconize our award receipients this year in this newsletter.

- jonathan I’m pretty excited about DG’s service awards this year, all eight of them, but a little sad we were not able to present them with our skits this year. They were always fun for everyone…damn COVID! The eight associates have over 125 years of HMC/DG experience. I’m a pretty proud papa. We have been through a lot over the years from family and associate tragedies, to marriages, kids (meaning a new generation of HMC associates being born into this world) some of which have already experienced working in DG. I would like to thank them for their dedication, tenure, talents, and efforts over the years. They are all intricate pieces that make HMC a top notch Rep firm.

Here is a quick walk down memory lane, alone, with some fun facts about this years recipients… - Dan