In our Watercooler Spotlight series, Business Operations Manager, Quincy Cooper, catches up with Consero employees on the unique hobbies and activities they are involved in.
Watercooler Spotlight: Scott Sheriff
Scott Sheriff, Senior Director of VPF Operations, is an endless source of useful finance and accounting knowledge and enjoys learning about how things work at every level. Both in and out of the office, he never passes up an opportunity to get a little greasy under the hood.
Q: You're into cars. How did that start?
S: I don't really know. I was just a typical blue-collar boy. Fast cars, booming exhausts, smoking and squealing tires, stoplight drag races, American musclecar V-8s. There's really no sense to any of it. Why do you need to burn donuts in empty parking lots? You don't! It all seemed like great fun to me, so that interest led me to getting my own muscle car.
Q: You have a car right now that you spend a lot of time with.
S: Yes, I have a 1968 Ford Mustang GT Convertible.
Q: How did you end up with this car? I don't even know how this process works.... being "into cars" and fixing them up.
S: I was in college and I needed a vehicle. I told my parents I was getting a motorcycle because it was all I could afford, and some of my military buddies had bikes so I wanted to be part of their little sportbike gang. My parents were deathly afraid of their son owning a motorcycle, so they agreed to go 50/50 on purchasing a car instead. I bought a '69 Mustang coupe and my parents ended up paying for it 100%. I used my cash to get it repainted and I put new mags/rubber on it. Now I had my own hotrod and I loved it, but eventually I wanted to upgrade. I wanted a convertible, a big block V8, manual transmission... that was the origin of buying the convertible during my senior year. Then I moved to a cold part of Canada where winter was six months of the year so it was totally impractical, plus I didn't have any money to fix it up when something went wrong. It was kind of a big paperweight stored in my parents' garage for a long time while I was in the army on the other side of the country. As my career advanced, I realized, "Oh I have some money now" and I could finally afford to put some money into upgrading the Mustang the way I wanted. That's when the tinkering started and it has never stopped.
Q: With the tinkering.. Are you self taught then?
S: Yeah earlier in my life I was never into power mechanics. Having to hold the flashlight for my old man when he was working in the garage bored me to tears. But now with the internet, there's so much information out there on whatever it is you want to do. Suddenly it was very accessible in a way it hadn't been before. You didn't need to find someone to personally take the time to show/mentor/coach you how to fix something. Now you can find videos and chat boards and tips and tricks that you use to teach yourself. As you do more and more, the experience & knowledge builds and suddenly you look in the mirror and see a grease-monkey. I've even posted my own how-to videos to help others.
Q: So it wasn't a day one passion; it evolved into that.
S: Yeah. My parents didn't have any money when I was growing up. My dad fixed the family car because it saved money. His buddies would come over to help and I was their little assistant. I didn't come at it from a hobbyist standpoint, so now it's kind of funny that it is one of my hobbies. It's so different from everything else I do. It's mechanical, physical, nothing is electronic, rusty old parts. It's interesting to get in there and see, for instance, how a door works with the latching mechanism, handles, remote-controlled mirror, and windows. Even the door fitment is adjustable in three dimensions, which is fascinating (and frustrating to adjust ... part art & part science). I find it really satisfying to learn how something functions and then fix it or improve it. I like the contrast to the virtual world of spreadsheets and accounting processes I work in most of the time.
Q: Have you ever FUBAR'd something you were trying to fix?
S: It's kind of common for that to happen. You are going and going and then you're in over your head. It's really frustrating ... but you don't really have an option but to keep going if you want the car reassembled. I've always found a way in the end, but it often takes much longer than I planned. Sometimes you have to deviate from what you know you should do or the 'proper' way. For example, I rewired my entire car, and the wiring harnesses under the dash are a jumble of wires. Everytime I work under the dash I think, "I should really clean that up." It's not complex, just a matter of neatly organizing wires and running them to the correct places. But I'm lazy and it's only visible when the dash is ripped apart, so I just laugh and think, "I know the idiot that left that mess under there" and promise myself to tidy it all up the NEXT time...
Q: Does your car have a name?
S: My wife named the car after a quote from a Guy Ritchie movie ("RocknRolla") that goes, "Beauty is a cruel mistress." Old cars are brutal, you know? They're always broken down or about to break down, they don't do what you want, you never know what mood they're going to be in. So that's what I call her... my Cruel Mistress, because she is beautiful, but also cruel. It's a package deal with these classics.
Q: Has she broken down on you before?
S: Oh, plenty of times. The worst was when I was driving across the country once and suddenly smoke is coming out from under the dash and from under the hood. I jumped out with the fire extinguisher fearing a fire, and I then I smelled the smoke ... it was steam from coolant (which means it isn't a fire) evaporating. I'd thrown a con-rod that cracked the engine block (the heart of the motor). I remember being on the side of the road, just south of the Montana border at 11 pm in the darkness, with the tow truck picking up the car, and I could see coolant coming out both exhaust tips. No bueno ... the green tears of the Cruel Mistress matching those in my broken heart (and wallet).
Q: How did you get home?
S: I had to fly to the military course out east, and from the military course I hitched a ride with a woman heading back west and convinced her to take I-90 so I could retrieve my car. I jumped out in Sheridan, Wyoming, then drove my car (with a fresh new engine) back east to Montreal (around 2,000 miles).
Q: Hitchhiker serial killer over here. Honestly I can't even understand how you get any satisfaction out of this hobby. It seems like a chore that's never done.
S: I like knowing how things work and there is a huge sense of accomplishment to fix/improve something. It's also often very difficult and frustrating, so that also makes the payoff that much better when you triumph. A car used to mostly be a big black box to me, now I feel like I look at with X-ray vision because I understand all the systems and I know how it all works and connects. I've removed and reassembled most things on it at one time or other. Cruising on a lovely day with the top down and that V-8 purring is awesome.
Q: What do working on your car and finance and accounting have in common?
S: I think you have to be systematic, methodical, and thorough. You have to educate yourself about the topic at hand and ensure you have the full solution. You have to do it the right way and you can't shortcut it.