rain, rain go away

here in the northeast, so much rain…it has stunted the flowers, and has my daughter thinking she wants to move to san diego… she is less afraid of earthquakes than the lack of sun…

I have a new job - finally, and it is a joyous job – smart, ambitious, and demanding, just like I like…and I can wear blue jeans, one of the serious considerations I have been enamored with since the days of ‘casual fridays’ ..remember those days?

so, with all the people who are still not working, and the economy still rushing around like a chicken without a head, I add my advice to the swarm of advice-givers to the remaining jobless –

1. don’t ever give up….the creeping loss of confidence is your worst enemy..
2. don’t not try something different…keep your brain and spirit alive…rage if you must, cry if you want to, let it out or it will really make you sick.
3. don’t feel bad for feeling bad…you are human, you are divine, you are given these feelings to explore and …nothing lasts forever.
4. make new friends – look in unusual places, find the one person you may have overlooked in your panic – expand your attention – even one new friend expands your world by 100 %.
5. don’t listen to advice-givers – they are not in your shoes, only you can make the best out of this bad situation for yourself…(with the help of one new friend)
6. remember advice # 1.

short story:
I took this waitress job, I was totally out of money, my house teetering on foreclosure, borrowing money, going on interviews, no hope, but needed a little money to pay for gas and milk. So, this lady who runs this tavern/motel gives me a job waitressing in her tavern. I’ve done this before, when I was a student, so ok, I can do this. it won’t pay my bills, but it will keep me busy, and I get free dinner.

I was pretty good – never dropped dishes, or made an error on someone’s check, got along great with the kitchen staff, the customers…I am a naturally gregarious person occasionally, and I can turn on the charm. So, I am happily into my third week – I made enough money to pay my car insurance, which if canceled, causes major problems, as you know…

On Sunday, after my shift, she fires me. I was ‘untrainable’, in her words. What went wrong?

I knew she was the kind of person who likes for people to think she was important. I was always polite, never confrontational, but I did not think she was any more important than anybody else. That was the problem. So I was not kissing her ass, or uncomfortable asking questions during my training. I was also making friends with the customers…it was a pretty casual place, and the customers liked me.

Beware the jealous boss…They require you to keep yourself constrained, beyond the standard ‘we are in civilized company’ kind of restraint we all have to practice. In this situation, she never asked me any questions about myself, so she did not know I was taking a job ‘below my payscale’, or one I was way overqualified for. She didn’t want me to be an intelligent, creative, hardworking person…she wanted a sycophant.

So, I was fired. Something in me irritated her so much she could overlook the good work I was doing.

So, I wondered about that. I realized there was a pattern…I’ve had several jobs that ‘didn’t work out’, and I had always thought it was my fault, my lacking something, my not being good enough.

I have finally realized the truth – I just don’t get along with people who need to subjugate other people. I have flourished in environments where the work is what matters, not the politics. Because that sounds like an excuse, I had rejected the thought. I was more attached to thinking it was some thing wrong, than seeing that it was right.

So, back to advice # 1 – never give up – never give up working to understand, to see the truth, even when it hurts, to strive to become more than you are, to treat others as you want to be treated, to reach for your own specific star…

I can still find many opportunities for justifiable rage, I don’t have to give up my angry engine…I’ve just now learned to aim it at targets more worthy than myself.

the remote job – it really is remote

Why is is so hard to get away from the office when we can work from anywhere?

Years ago, a while before this current catastrophe, I was looking at how I could ply my craft while staying at home, and investigated telecommuting. I was convinced that

1. I could do more/better work from home (I am very self disciplined)
2. Any body I worked for would be happy to have me working those extra 2-3 hours I’d save in commuting
3. The technology was ready – with a phone line, a satellite dish, and electricity I could connect to any computer anywhere.
4. it was the wave of the future – no cars, no weather, no problems

BUT – I found out at the time (and unfortunately it’s still too true):

managers manage people, they don’t manage work.

So, I decided to try to teach managers how to manage work, even when they did not know what work their people were performing.

Of course, this is in technology, back office, support services fields..manufacturing and other fields still need people on site.

I made my cases, presenting (I make really good presentations) to my former as well as new clients, but I was met with a startling resistance…

Managers did not want to learn the details of what their people did! In technology, it used to be true that the Managers came from the business side, and the techies were from Saturn. There was fear. There was lack of understanding of the tools needed.

This is not so true any more. Many (most) managers are tech savy, even proficient, but there has been a only small increase in virtual-offices, and jobs available in those offices. I expect there will be more, with this current situation.

So, I renew my offer – Any managers out there who would like to save rent on office space, and learn how to manage the work their workers work at, remotely, let me know. I can help you make it happen, and your workforce will love it. I can train them too. It can work, with the right structure.

p.s. A lot of companies have out-sourced operations – these off-shore companies are not all bad, but the many problems experienced (language, inefficient communications, and customer dis-satisfaction) have left them in a hard place. They’ve grown used to the savings, but yet need to improve productivity to survive, if they have not yet died…

We have the talent, the skills, the need and the time, right now, to pull this all together. But we don’t do it alone. Use the bandwidth! Use the tools and technologies we’ve built up all these years! Put America to back to work! let the empty cube be moved to cyberspace! The rent is cheap.

The Problems well outlined: Virtual Office
Advice on how to implement telecommuting without losing productivity