In Sympathy

I want to thank you for the sympathy cards and letters I have been receiving. The floral wreaths were nice, too. For those of you who were worried for my well-being, I want to assure you that I am doing better now and expect to live, even though I didn’t get the job.

Sure, I was excited about it. Certainly, I thought that the interview went pretty well, although in retrospect I suppose I should not have revealed my addiction to The Bachelor and Dancing With the Stars. I knew that the job required long days and some late nights and I just wanted to reassure the boss that I could tape those shows and watch them later. I should have kept my mouth shut.

I tried to dress in a businesslike manner, but maybe I overdressed. I’m not sure. I thought the glasses would make me look smarter and more serious but…… I just don’t know. Getting lost in the parking garage didn’t help either. Bummer!

It was a great job, too. It paid so little that when they warned me how low the salary was, I told them I didn’t want to know. Seriously. I knew that it would only depress me and the truth is, the money wasn’t the most important consideration, although, I’m sure my landlord would disagree. It was just a terrific, kick-ass job and it would have kept me out of the bars.

Long hours, lots of stress, low pay. Who could resist? Besides, it only lasted as long as the legislative session and then it would end. Most of us can do anything if we know that there is light at the end of the tunnel. Working right in the middle of all that legislative action. Watching the trading and the voting and the lying and the lobbying and the poor legislators trying to do the right thing for their constituents during this lousy economic meltdown. It’s like watching a 24/7 poker game where everyone is bluffing and no one ever wins. What an education!

The people who ran the office were great, too. I knew the “big honcho,” although we are not best friends or anything. I hoped that would help. Maybe I do better with people who don’t know me.

I tried not to get my hopes up. My late mother-in-law would have been proud. Her motto in life was, “Don’t get your hopes up.” She taught it to her four boys and even though she is gone now, they still cling to the concept that the glass is always half empty. Maybe completely empty.

But in the end, I didn’t get the job. Bummer! If I discover that it went to some entry-level 22-year-old I am just going to slit my wrists.

By the way, tulips and daffodils with a somber black ribbon are always appropriate for situations like this, if you’re wondering…..

Social Networking – Sometimes You CAN Pick Your Family

I have a dirty little secret. I have a second family stashed away in cyberspace. I didn’t choose them on purpose – at least not at first. But when I became unemployed, my friend Kathy Kamauu pushed me to use LinkedIn for business networking. So I joined a couple of professional Groups. This is as close to a sorority as I’ll ever get. I had to “apply” and I got positively giddy when I was accepted. Let’s face it, I’m not getting that much positive reinforcement these days.

In one of the groups, I was seduced by a subgroup – Professions and Industries. Now this is hard-core – sort of like joining a gang except you’re not required to wear your pants below your underwear which, I think you’ll agree, is a blessing for all of us.

There are lots of things that you can do in a LinkedIn group. You can go to the Job Board to see what’s available; you can check out the Promotions for free webinars and upcoming events; you can search other members’ blogs; or you can join a discussion group on a specific topic. I gleefully started discussions of my own and participated in others. I made some interesting on-line acquaintances. And then one day I stumbled into the greatest LinkedIn Group of all time: The CAREER INSIDER NETWORK.

And I was home.

There’s no explaining it. This is a group unlike any other. Some discussion “threads” have strict rules. This one has no rules at all. We give each other advice (some of it actually worthwhile). We uncover recruiting scams and gleefully name names to warn others. We cheer each other’s victories – be it a full job offer or merely a 2nd interview. We dispense sympathy when an offer falls through. We are a support group! We welcome newcomers with open arms, but woe to the newbie who wanders into “The Thread” and attacks someone personally, because we are fiercely protective of our family unit.

Serious friendships have developed. People have met face-to-face as a direct result of this group. Members pass along confidential information privately when they hear of an opening that might be right for someone. We bitch. We cheer each other up. We occasionally tell “Knock Knock” jokes. OK, that’s not totally true. Sharn in Thailand occasionally tells KK jokes. The rest of us groan. Professional recruiters and employment consultants such as Rick in Los Angeles and Kim in North Carolina regularly dispense advice both publicly and privately to members, generously giving away what others pay good money to get.

Swifty in the UK tells us that outsourcing is such a problem over there, he fully expects the government to outsource the Queen to China. Mark Dennis in the Philippines is our resident wisecracker and pun enthusiast. Marissa in San Antonio shares great Tex-Mex recipies and George “Stud Muffin” Gurney tells terrible jokes but since he owns the discussion, there’s not really much that we can do to stop him.

This, folks, is social networking at its finest. It is different from “social media” where people use blogs and discussion groups to try to sell their products or drive traffic to their websites. And it certainly isn’t FaceBook, which I have always considered to be a strictly “social” kind of networking between friends.

This is one of those rare instances when lightning strikes; when all of the windows turn and line up perfectly. An unusual occurrence when a business group turns into a family while remaining within the context of conducting business. We in this dysfunctional little family are virtually all in the same boat. We are all formerly middle or upper-middle management types who have, as a direct result of the economic collapse, inexplicably found themselves unemployed, often for the first time in our lives. From that misery has arisen a support group unlike any other. With people from at least 20 different countries, we have forged a bond and discovered that frustration and disillusionment is the same the world over.

This is pure social networking on a business level. It’s not for everyone. But to quote Lynn, one of our newest members, as she said this morning, “I don't know what I would do without you all. I love this board :)”

The Land Beyond O’Hare

Before I moved to Paradise (i.e. high cost of living, lousy wages, no jobs, but absolutely fantastic weather), I used to live in Chicago. Not the “greater Chicago tri-state area,” but CHICAGO. Right downtown. Across the street from Water Tower Place.

I make this distinction because in Chicago, as in many places, people get very defensive about their territory. In truth, it’s not really about geography but about the mindset that accompanies the geography. Rather like the famous 1976 New Yorker magazine cover that depicts a typical New Yorker’s point of view of the U.S., with everything west of the Hudson River lumped into one small barren blob.

In Kansas City it’s important to know if you are from the Kansas-side or the Missouri-side of town, because the Missouri side is chic but the Kansas side is not. Although my cousin Courtney claims to live in Cincinnati, she really lives across the river in Covington, Kentucky; but she would be as horrified if you referred to her as a Kentuckian as she would be if you had suggested that she marry her brother.

In Chicago, there are the city-folk, i.e. Chicagoans, and the suburbanites, whose suburb-names are not even differentiated in the city as anything other than “The Land Beyond O’Hare.” (O’Hare Airport sits just inside the city limits.) Chicagoans don’t like to go to the suburbs. They get lost. There are these vast expanses of nothingness, called “fields.” Very disconcerting. Then there is Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg, whose 278 sq. mile parking lot has it’s own “Woodfield Mall Parking Lot, I Hate You” Facebook page with 3,887 members. Really.

In return, my Uncle Donn and Aunt Char lived in The Land Beyond O’Hare (OK, technically it was the suburb of Northbrook). They avoided the city like the plague. When Uncle Donn was forced to attend a dental convention at the Palmer House in Chicago, he hated every minute of it. Driving in the city made him nervous. Parking was always a problem. The prices drove him crazy. When they spoke of going to the “theater” they meant Drury Lane Dinner Theater in Evergreen Park to see the 156th revival of “Guys and Dolls.”

See, it’s a mindset. In business and in life, we don’t like that with which we are unfamiliar. We tend to do business with folks we know, which is why networking is so important these days. We want to see multiple references on your job application, hopeful that we will recognize one of them because we don’t like to deal with strangers. I am currently job-hunting and I keep avoiding “straight” for-profit postings, even though I was once President and CEO of a large Midwestern corporation with offices on both coasts. But that was years ago and now I feel more comfortable in the nonprofit world where I know where all the bodies are buried (one of them may be mine).

I don’t eat food that Norman Rockwell didn’t paint. My mother always read Roger Ebert’s review before deciding whether to join us at the movie (that way she would guarantee avoiding something that wasn’t upbeat). My son no longer dates, because he knows that eventually whomever-she-is will dump him. My husband has projects in the house that he has promised to fix for three years but has never even attempted, because he is worried that he won’t know how and he would rather be seen as a lazy bum than a failure.

Think of all of the things that we are depriving ourselves of because they are unfamiliar or uncomfortable or might make us appear to be less than competent or question our preconceived values. In defense, we mock the unknown as beneath us, uninteresting or tasteless. (My West End Avenue Manhattan friends, upon hearing that I had a ticket to see “The Addams Family” could not have been more appalled or horrified if I had intentionally smeared excrement across their white designer sofa.)

No matter the cost, we stay in our little boxes where it might be damn uncomfortable but at least it’s familiar. It defines us; who we are and what we do. It is our neighborhood, even if the geography is actually located squarely between our ears. Because, let’s face it, it’s pretty scary in our own neighborhood but it’s really scary out there in The Land Beyond O’Hare.

The Biggest Mistake Employers Make When Filling a Top Job

Job Opening: Looking for an Executive Director. Must have minimum of 5 years top management experience. Prefer candidate be aprox. 5’7” 155 lbs. with dark red hair and a deep, throaty laugh. Send resume to: Blah, blah, blah.

Would anyone really place an ad like this in the Jobs Section? No. But they might just as well, because subconsciously that’s what they want.

There’s a mistake made by employers nearly 100% of the time when looking for a new hire. They seldom think of themselves as hiring a new employee. Instead, they seek to “replace” the old employee with a clone. They do this because:

1. That’s the way we’ve always done it (official company motto: “Live and Don’t Learn.”)

2. It’s easier that way.

3. If things go badly, the responsibility is easily diffused.

But I disagree with this philosophy. (You knew that I would.) And here’s my rationale: When an employee leaves, for whatever reason, if the employer just thinks in terms of replacing that employee they deprive themselves of an chance to wipe the state clean and begin anew. Perhaps, 12 years ago, when that position was first created, there was an excellent job description written. In fact, I’ll bet that they are still working from an updated version of that same job description to this day! Maybe that’s swell. I doubt it.

Nonprofits are particularly bad about this, by the way. Small staffs and volunteer board members who can’t afford to “waste their valuable time” tend to think in terms of the immediate problem rather than the big picture.

We all know the definition of insanity: continuing to do the same thing and expecting a different result. During this current lousy economy, everybody has to start thinking outside the box. What worked in 2007 probably won’t work in 2010. When a person leaves, it creates a remarkable opportunity to re-think the job with something that is more appropriate with the changing world of doing business.

By the way, this same axiom is true with Board members as well. There are a startling array of lousy practices that are used when replacing an exiting board member. But one of the worst (and most popular) among female-heavy boards is to let the person who is leaving nominate her friend or co-worker to replace her slot. That would work well if this were a sewing circle, but with a Board of Directors, not so much. Men do this to some extent, too, but with men the nominee is more likely to be someone that the outgoing member has worked with on another board. Men are more incestuous; women more friend-driven.

Frankly, ladies, it’s just this sort of thing that is holding us back in business. A Board of Directors isn’t about “friends.” It’s about who can do the job. A vacancy on the board is an opportunity to look at where the organization is at that moment and define what is required to take it where it needs to go. If an organization is having governance problems, then maybe a strong HR person is needed. If funding is the overriding issue, then the board needs to understand that each member has a responsibility to give or raise a certain amount each year. (This is a very common procedure in nonprofit boards.) If the organization is having branding and image difficulties, then you need to pack the board with high profile, heavy-hitters to create credibility within the community.

Whether it is an employee or a board member, the company must have a really clear picture of what it needs today, as opposed to what was needed three years ago; because the likelihood of them being the same is very low. And what better opportunity to reassess that situation than when an opening occurs.

Now where did I put that dark red hair dye?

No Shirt. No Credit. No Employment.

A few years ago, I suspect that I lost the chance at my dream job because I refused to grant permission to check my credit history. My refusal actually had nothing to do with my credit history. In fact, I have no idea what my current credit score is or how I am rated, nor did I then. (Yes, I know that it is foolish and irresponsible not to keep track of this stuff. But that’s a future blog.) I refused on the grounds of privacy issues and the fact that credit reports are notoriously inaccurate. Today they couldn’t even ask - In July 2009, Hawaii became the second state, behind Washington, to limit the use of credit histories in pre-employment screening.

Last week I wrote about some of the insidious devices that human resource people are using these days to make the determination of whether to hire you. Some of these tools are just the natural evolution of technology, such as LinkedIn and Google. They can be both helpful and, in some cases, misleading to the point of pure untruth. But of all these contemporary screening techniques, none is more invasive or abused as the practice of using credit checks as a litmus test for hiring.

SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management) states that 43 percent of companies conducting any type of pre-employment screening use credit checks for some or all employees. And those numbers are from their last study which was done in 2006. Credit score screening has skyrocketed since then, so we can only imagine how rampant it is today.

In the other 48 states, employers can (with an applicant’s permission), pull a credit history and decline to hire a candidate based on what they find – even if the information has absolutely no relation to the job responsibilities, such as the handling of money, confidential financial information or having access to the personal property of others.

Employers claim that your credit history is a gauge your level of responsibility. Whether that is a valid assumption or not, some employers believe if you are not reliable in paying your bills, then you will not be a reliable employee. That philosophy might possibly have held some water in 2006, before the economy tanked, but in today’s job market it is just a cycle of discrimination against the jobless, whose lack of employment contributes to their financial woes. The worse their debts, the harder it is to get a job to pay them off.

As for me, my refusal to allow the potential employer access to my credit records was twofold:

1. There are long-standing concerns about the accuracy of information contained in consumer credit reports. One study by the U.S. Public Interest Research Groups (U.S. PIRG) examining credit reports found that “70 percent of credit reports investigated contained incorrect information; 29 percent contained errors significant enough to have serious adverse consequences on the consumer’s credit”

2. It’s the principle of the thing. If I apply for a job that involves national security, FDIC clearance, or significant financial responsibility (such as a bank manager) I expect that my credit history will be relevant and required. Otherwise, unless I’m trying to buy your house, it’s none of your business. It’s personal. It’s private. This is America. Is nothing sacred anymore?

Excuse me while I take a moment to get myself under control….. OK, I’m back. My husband claims that I am an Olympic contender in “upstream swimming.” Never one to just go with the flow, he calls me his personal Don Quixote,* tilting at windmills and thwarting injustice wherever it rears its ugly head. He has a point. But I am not alone in my belief that accessing credit history to make employment decisions is a bad idea. Go to the American Civil Liberties Union website and see what they have to say on this subject.

In addition to the laws that Hawaii and Washington have already enacted, the states of California, Ohio, New York, Missouri, Texas, Michigan, Illinois and Connecticut all have similar restrictions in the works. “In my opinion, it’s a clear case of discrimination,” says Representative Jon Switalski, the Democrat who proposed legislation in Michigan. “If you miss a few payments or you have medical debt, your skills as a pipefitter or an electrician don’t diminish.”

Many in Washington D.C. also agree. On July 31, 2009, members of the U.S. House of Representatives introduced the “Equal Employment for All Act,” a national bill that would amend the Fair Credit Reporting Act to prohibit the use of consumer credit checks in relation to current and prospective employees for the purposes of making employment decisions under all but a few circumstances.

Employers would also be prohibited from asking applicants to voluntarily submit to credit checks (as they are currently able to do).

The bill (technically entitled HR 3149) is endorsed by over 25 organizations, including the NAACP, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, National Consumer Law Center, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, National Fair Housing Alliance, Consumer Action, those pinko commies over at the National Association of Consumer Advocates, Unite Here, National Employment Law Project, U.S. Public Interest Research Group, Legal Action Center, National H.I.R.E. Network, Community Legal Services of Philadelphia, Center for Economic Justice, Asian American Justice Center, Communication Workers of America, AFL-CIO, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, International Union (no good can come from unions), United Automobile, Aerospace & Agricultural Implement Workers of America (more unions!), National Employment Lawyers Association (lawyers!!), and worst of all - women -- National Organization for Women, National Partnership for Women and Families, National Women’s Law Center and Women Employed.

I guess a lot of people would have agreed with me when I refused to sign on the dotted line. If I had a do-over, I’d still refuse although the money sure was tempting. Still is. But we have to draw the line somewhere and there’s always a price to be paid for sticking to your principles.

In doing research for this blog post, I discovered other dark things living under the rocks of the credit card industry. Things I didn’t want to know, such as the fact that every time a potential employer or third-person party pulls your credit report, they are making an “inquiry” into your credit. These inquiries or credit checks are recorded in a list on your report. Having too many credit inquiries tends to lower your credit score, so don’t go applying for a credit card unless you’re sure you don’t need it.

Also, I learned that insurance companies use your credit score to set your insurance premiums so that if you’re poor (or unemployed and credit-challenged) you pay more for your insurance. (Yes, there’s legislation pending all over the country to stop that, too.)

There I go, getting all upset again. I gotta lie down. No, what I really have to do is find a new job. But maybe I should check my credit history first, since employers seem to think that my ability to make my car payment on time is the key to my reliability as a nonprofit manager or my good character.

I wonder what Bernie Madoff's credit score was?


*The main character in “Man of La Mancha”

Google Yourself – You’re in for a Shock

Remember the days when a potential employer would read your resume, interview you, check out your references, maybe query one of your peers at a Rotary meeting as to your reputation in the community and then decide whether to hire you?

Today it’s a whole new ball game. When you’re under consideration for a job, one of the many tools that human resource people are using these days is the internet. They check your credit score and credit history. They track what you have been “tweeting” and posting on LinkedIn . They track your comments on other people’s posts. They check out your Facebook page. They Google you.

Should this bother me? Nah! I’m into total transparency. I’ve never said anything online that I wouldn’t say in public, because I understand that the internet is a public forum. So I’ve always assumed that I had nothing to fear. I was wrong.*

This morning, just for chuckles, I Googled “Kay Lorraine Honolulu” and what a shock – On just one “information gathering” site (Pipl.com) I discovered that:

• I come from Monterey, California and have a criminal record
• I am a former truck driver (18 wheeler)
• I am an attractive African American who is a Facebook fan of jazz festivals (and a bad speller, to boot!)
• There are two of me living at different addresses in Jacksonville, Florida, and it appears that there is a bench warrant out for one of us
• I tragically died on December 31st in Easton Hospital after being stricken in my home (whatever that means)**
• I was born on January 4, 1927 in Chicago, Illinois
• I was born in April of 1935 and currently live in Gresham, Oregon
• I was born June 27, 1936 in Princeton, Illinois
• I was born on June 5, 1937 in Wheeler Township, Iowa
• I was born on September 29, 1940 in East Dubuqe, Illinois
• I was born on January 12, 1941
• I was born in 1943 and live at 2333 Kapiolani Blvd. in Honolulu, Hawaii
• I was born August 26, 1946 in San Antonio, Texas
• I was born in 1947 and live in McKinleyville, California
• I was born on November 28, 1981 and I live in the Philippines
• I currently live in Owosso, Michigan
• My father was Leroy Eugene Sellman
• I am the daughter of Stuart Basil Minchlin
• I am currently the Information Technology Director of the Barnes Group Inc. in Lansing Michigan
• I am currently a Producer at kay-net productions and have been since 1998
• I am a running character in a book called “Romantic From the Heart” which is written in tagalong, a primary language of the Philippines
• I work with lower functioning and developmentally disadvantaged youth at the Oregon Adolescent Sex Offender Treatment Network and have authored a very interesting paper on treating youth who have a parent incarcerated or have a history of abuse by a parent or others
• I was a former singer who can be seen on YouTube in an old clip of the 1942 movie “Sweater Girl,” singing “I Don’t Want to Walk Without You”
• I am cited in four scholarly publications

Here’s the problem, folks: Absolutely none of the above information is true about me. None of it. It is evidentially true for somebody with my name (and I’m not including folks named Lorraine Kay or Kay Lorraine additional-surname). Just Kay Lorraine, which I always assumed is not a common name.

I was a former professional singer, but not in 1942 (I hadn’t been conceived yet). I do not have a criminal record. There are no outstanding warrants for my arrest (at least none that I know of). Last time I checked I was still alive, job hunting in a tough market and now worried that some human resources person will reject my resume on the grounds that I am possibly a social security-aged, former felon with a history of working with sex offenders. And that was just one search site. How scary is that?!

This is not to say that all of the information printed about Kay Lorraine on Pipl.com is false. On that same site I also found the following true facts:
• I was a film producer for 20 years
• I am the lone woman recipient of the Jay Eisenstat Award of Excellence, which was presented to me at Gracie Mansion in New York City (all other winners have been Caucasian males, often awarded posthumously which confirms the rumor that I am officially a dead white guy)
• I have 16 years at the executive level in the Hawaii non-profit area
• I am known as an aggressive problem solver with a passion for community service
• On the side, I used to be a professional film critic
• One of my film reviews was quoted extensively in a scholarly publication about South Pacific Island culture, but it wasn’t any of the publications cited on Pipl.com
• I do subscribe to Brazen Careerist and read it regularly
• I do occasionally comment on blog posts
• I am my religious congregation’s liaison to the Family Promise Homeless Shelter
• Yes, I’m sorry but that really is a photo of me dressed as Martha Washington, on the steps of the Queen Emma Summer Palace at a charity historical function in 2006 (don’t ask!)

How can potential employers separate the fact from the fiction when there is so much information available today? The truth is, they can’t. And that’s the problem.

My friend Emma Littman had an interesting experience along these lines. She is also currently job hunting (she’s a bright, young attorney - e-mail me ASAP if you have an opening). Emma decided to Google herself and to her horror discovered a list of “known associates.” It was a list of all of the residents of an apartment complex where she briefly lived before she started law school. They were certainly not “known associates” and of those few she did know, Emma suspected that some of them were “quite dodgy.”

If you want to read more about what employers can find out about you online go to http://jobsearch.about.com/od/jobsearchblogs/a/privacy.htm to read a fascinating article by job search expert Alison Doyle.

And just for the heck of it, Google yourself on Pipl.com and check out your prison record, outstanding warrants, known associates and drug rehab references. And don’t even get me started on potential employers accessing your credit rating. That’s a future blog.

Are we having fun yet?


*Please don’t tell my husband that I have ever uttered that phrase.

** In lieu of flowers, please send a donation in my name to the Hawaii Women’s Business Center, 1041 Nu’uanu Avenue, Suite A, Honolulu, Hawaii 96817. Thank you.

Try Not to be so…..You.

I was headed to a job interview for a position that I was excited about. My friend, Professor Robert Littman, was giving me advice. “Try Not to be so....You.” I knew what he meant. I am unique/effective/charming/nuts/in-your-face/funny/weird (you choose – they all apply). I like to think of myself as just having too much personality for one body. But in a job interview, I should temper my sense of humor. I need to talk more slowly. I need to wear subtle colors and be careful not to overshare.

In the end I, of course, ignored his advice. Because if they had hired this serious, subtle, unassuming, low-key persona, in a few weeks the real me would have slipped out. I like to think that it would have been a lovely surprise for them but maybe not everyone would agree.

Do you know that if you Google “How to behave on a job interview,” you get 222,000 results? Really! There are whole articles written about how to dress, controlling your body language, never using slang, employing the proper handshake, the use of eye makeup, and correct nail polish colors.

You can hire a consultant to use for practice sessions. You can take multi-level courses on interview techniques, learning inside hints such as the initial interview is probably with a low-level HR person designed to weed out unqualified candidates so gaining “rapport” is a waste of your time. You learn how to cock your head ever-so-slightly and arch your eyebrows so as to appear "interested" in what the interviewer is saying. One special tip is to carry a thick portfolio with the client’s name on it, inferring that you have done a lot of research on their company. (It can be filled with blank pages – it’s the impression that counts.)

Sometimes the advice is contradictory. “Never cross your legs or your arms. Sit straight and at attention.” “Be careful not to look too stiff or uncomfortable. Crossing your arms just at the wrist conveys a comfortable but businesslike composure.” “ Smile; it’s a fact that smiling makes other people happy and comfortable around you.” “Don’t smile too much. It may look like you are not taking the interview seriously” Whew!

There are a lot of rules about your attire, too. Dress slightly better than the interviewer. Men should always be clean shaven. Never wear more than a watch and one ring. (Women are allowed to wear earnings that are small and do not dangle.) Never show any piercings and be careful to cover all tattoos. (Here in Hawaii, to comply with that last rule, all interviews would have to be conducted in Hazmat suits.)

If everyone were to follow even the basic advice of the “experts,” we would all end up looking and sounding like Stepford interviewees, rolling off a conveyor belt direct from the factory.

When I first moved to Hawaii 15 years ago, I tried very hard to fit in. Back in 1994, a potential employer actually suggested that I would do better in the job market if I would dye my hair brown and learn a little pidgin. More than one headhunter recommended that I “dumb down” my resume so as not to intimidate potential employers.

I finally had to give it up. In the words of cartoon character Popeye, “I yam what I yam…” I am a successful businessperson who is terminally haole (Hawaiian slang for Caucasian), terminally optimistic, terminally unique and I decided that those who couldn't handle that really shouldn't have anything to do with me. (There is a reunion of people who choose not to deal with me each year. It fills Aloha Stadium.)

It’s tough times for job interviews these days. There are so few jobs and so many candidates. And I worry that all of this interview advice is bad for everyone involved. Each side is trying so hard to put on a “good face.” Don’t kid yourself – the employers are doing the same thing. Employers are glossing over their financial difficulties (I have had some experience with this one) and purposely failing to disclose arduous job expectations in an effort to lure the best prospects.

Transparency is more important today than ever before. This corporate culture demands an almost unrealistic work output in order to keep afloat (unless, of course, you work for the government or a bank). We just can’t afford to play games with each other in the job market. Both employers and employees have a right to know what they are getting themselves into.

So if you interview me over the next few months and you frankly don’t feel up to handling that much personality without a couple of stiff drinks, just warn me and I’ll try not to be so, you know……me.

When Immediate Gratification Isn’t Fast Enough

Email, Facebook, Twitter, Tweets, LinkedIn, Texting, Skye, PDAs, wiki, blogs, Ryze, Tribes.net, Jabber, IRC, etc. The hottest topic in business these days is the importance of leveraging social networks as a business tool. It seems imperative that we join groups and communicate RIGHT NOW!!! I can’t help but wonder, is this really a good thing?

True story: I was editing a job at a video house in Los Angeles a few years ago, and I took a minute to run down the hall to the bathroom. Three minutes tops, I swear. When I got back to the editing suite, I discovered that a Hollywood producer had called my cell phone and was livid when I didn’t answer. Not annoyed - livid! I immediately returned his call and got an earful. “I went to the john. Did you really expect me to take my phone into the stall?” I joked. Yes, he did. I believe that his exact words were, “Your bodily functions shouldn’t be an inconvenience to me.”

Now admitedly, this was Hollywood, where everyone has an inflated opinion of the value of their self-worth. But still…..

My husband and I have a friend, several friends actually, who upon failing to reach one of our cell phones immediately calls the other to ask, “Where is Kay/Brad?” My mother used to do this constantly, hunting me down like a bloodhound on an escaped convict. When did it get to be my responsibility to be available to everyone 24/7?

I understand the concept of social networking. I’m trying to embrace it – really I am. But it’s getting to be a fulltime job.

E-mail is bizarre; even with my spam filter, I get about 60 to 70 emails a day. Those are divided fairly evenly between

1. opportunities to get a Ph.D. using only my “life experience,”

2. notifications of terrible deaths of government officials in Nigeria who have inexplicably left $6,000,000 of absolutely legal money and desperately need to run it through my bank account and, finally,

3. friends who send me jokes, YouTube clips, photos of cats, links to newspaper articles and, very rarely but occasionally, some actual information of interest.

I have a question: Does getting a link to a YouTube clip constitute legitimate social networking? Even if it is that really amazing clip of Chris Bliss juggling to a Beatles medley? I doubt it.

Facebook is an actual social network although it’s awfully time-consuming and I’m not sure just how it’s going to help me further my career.

I still don’t get Twitter. Although I actually do tweet from time to time, but I’ve never learned a single interesting piece of newsworthy information from a tweet and I’m beginning to think it’s a complete waste of time (please don’t tell Aston Kucher, though). And if you’ve got a PDA, you can text your tweet to Twitter. Furthermore, my friend Kathy Kamauu (who is an expert in this stuff) assures me that I can automatically update my LinkedIn status every time I post a tweet in Twitter via a Ping.fm account. Because it’s terribly important to revise my user timeline faster! Faster, faster, faster….

Why? And at what cost?

Lots of employers will now only accept a resume via email. Remember when you agonized over which paper stock would make your resume stand out from the crowd? Forget that now. You have lost control over how your resume will look or how their particular printer will format the pages.

A few years ago I was between gigs and already had a big trip to France planned and paid for so, on a lark, I applied for a temporary month-long telemarketing job. I scored well in the written materials but during my face-to-face interview, right out of the gate the guy asked me, “Quick, what is your worst fault?” I paused for a moment because, frankly, I have an array of crappy attributes from which to choose and I was trying to decide which was my most despicable. After exactly five seconds (he was keeping track) he told me, “Never mind, you already failed the test. You can leave.”

“Gee, what just happened? I wanted to give you an absolutely truthful answer.”

“We don’t want a truthful answer,” he explained. “We want a fast answer. If they have even five seconds to think, they might realize that buying a timeshare on Kauai is probably not a practical thing to do. We don’t want ever want you to stop to think because it allows them to think, and thinking isn’t good for business.”

In other words, thinking is a bad thing. Speed is a good thing today typing w/out capitals or punctuation is faster UR seeing the future of tomorrows business letters LOL

Didn't Their Mothers Teach Them Anything?

These are strange times in business. OK, these are strange times in life outside business, too. But I am particularly interested in the ethics and the basic courtesy that seem to be disappearing in the workplace: endless personal phone calls while clients stand waiting to be served; blatant abuse of sick days; monitoring employees’ personal emails; firing employees by email.

Didn’t their mothers teach them anything?

As a long-time business executive, I have witnessed all of the above and so much more taking place on a daily basis and I shake my head and wonder, “When did this sort of rude and, occasionally, downright unethical behavior get to be normal business practice?”

Last Friday, a friend of mine was fired. She has spent this weekend in tears. I feel terrible for her, but I recognize that people are losing their jobs every day. My problem is the manner in which she was fired: She didn't do anything wrong, she was merely the victim of the current economy. Last hired - first fired. I live in a state where employees are "at will," which means that they can be outsted with no notice and for no reason whatsoever. And there’s the rub.

My friend had no advance warning. They waited until the end of the business day on Friday and then called her into the office, confiscated her keys and escorted her out the door. Over the weekend, she discovered that they had made the decision to cut staff (primarily her) several weeks ago, but kept it to themselves. With a two-week warning, she could have started looking for a new job. She could have avoided buying that terrific but expensive new outfit, canceled her hair bleach (a blessing in disguise because, let's face it - it makes her look cheap) skipped the recent weekend Vegas getaway (he's only using her), and started tightening her belt. But instead she was blind-sided, shocked, humiliated. She was later told that this is just “standard business practice.”

When did this kind of callous, unconscionable behavior become standard business practice? Am I the only person shocked by these policies?

I am a virgin….well, OK, technically I have been married several times. But I am a virgin blogger who would like to discuss these strange times in life and business. I am hoping that others will share with me their adventures in the trauma unit that has become modern business and, with any luck, we will try to impart a few survival skills for coping in what is becoming an increasingly strange working environment.

And, along the way, maybe we can figure out the answer to the question: “Didn’t their mothers teach them ANYTHING?”