All Dressed Up and No Place to Go

Being out of work has a number of down sides – the ability to pay the rent comes right to mind. But an additional disadvantage is the lack of opportunity for business travel. Since this is, first and foremost, a business blog, it behooves me to bring to your attention a new survey conducted by Hilton Hotels and printed in the March 9, 2010 issue of Inc. Magazine revealing that women love business travel more than men do, and why.

It turns out that women like to have someone clean up after them. This is not so important to a man, probably because he already has a maid at home that does that for him every day (it’s called a wife). For a woman, having someone make her breakfast is a huge treat. For a man, it’s just another Tuesday.

I don’t know about you, but one of the first things I do when I check into a hotel room is dump the entire contents of my purse on the bed (hopefully the second bed in the room). I never get the chance to clean out my purse at home, but in a hotel room, the night before the conference starts, I have time to do those things that I can't do at home.

For instance (and this may seem gross to some people, so just avert your eyes if you can't handle it) the second thing I do is cut my toenails. Yes! It isn't like I couldn't do it at home, but there is always something more pressing to do. But alone in a hotel room, I can do as I please. I can watch TV till 2:00 a.m. without anyone bitching at me about turning out the light. I can wander around naked without fear that my son will bump into me on the way out of the bathroom. I can order room service and I don't even have to wash the dishes afterwards.

I can "organize" my makeup, because in a good hotel there is always lots of room on the bathroom counter. My bathroom at home never has that much counter space. So I lay all of my makeup out for the next day, lining up my brushes and wiping the stray eyeliner shavings off the lipsticks with a Kleenex. I know that I am not alone in this ritual because it’s the exact same thing that George Clooney did when he checked into a new hotel in Up in the Air.

Another great thing about business travel is luggage. I have a confession: I am a luggage slut. I have stupid amounts of luggage. I like the “features.” The pop-up handle; the four wheels that spin in every direction; the multiple pockets with zippers…..ooooh, I love the zippers. I have a lot of black luggage, because then when you travel with multiple pieces, they all match….sort of. But lately my favorite is a bright red carry-on. I used to over-pack like crazy but no more. Now I can (and did) travel from my home in Hawaii to a mainland business conference and then directly on to a three-week vacation in Europe with nothing more than a carry-on. I’ve learned to co-ordinate everything around one color. Thus, when I travel I wear more black than a Muslim widow.

I’d like to say that I came upon this wonderful Hilton survey all by myself, but the truth is that I got turned on to it by a business contact, Carol Margolis, who writes about travel at Pearls of Travel Wisdom (you can find her link in “My Favorite Blogs” on the right side of this page). I like Carol partly because she always has good info but also because she is the only person I know with even more luggage than me. How can you not love any woman who actually features photos of her luggage collection on her website?

Anyway, you can read the whole article about the Hilton survey in Inc. online at
http://www.inc.com/news/articles/2010/03/survey-suggests-women-like-business-travel.html, but be prepared to be shocked when you discover the bizarre array of stuff that people steal from hotel rooms. We’re not just talking about the occasional robe (although Carol does admit that a particularly soft pair of Fairmont Hotel slippers “just fell into my bag …. seriously!”). According to this survey, 2% of the guests admitted to filching the iron, alarm clock, lamps, even artwork. Artwork???

In any case, I believe that the main reason women such as myself like business travel so much is that it allows us to pamper ourselves without feeling guilty. It’s the one time I don’t have to put someone else’s needs ahead of my own. For just a few days, I’m king of the castle and I’ll do as I please. Hey, maybe I'll take a big, long, undisturbed BATH! But you can be assured that I won't take the towels or the bathrobe. Hey, I have standards – they are low, to be sure – OK, real low, but still.......

All this talk about business travel is reminding me that I need to go out there and find a job – preferably one that requires occasional travel because my purse is getting out of control, my suitcase collection is lonely, and I have an extensive business wardrobe (I’m a bit of a clothes horse) that is currently gathering dust. Frankly, I’m all dressed up with no place to go. Bummer.

How to Avoid Doing Anything

OK, I admit it: I’m “stuck.” I’m out of work; I’m depressed; I haven't blogged in nearly two months; I’m not answering people’s emails; I’m not cleaning my house. Frankly, I’m not doing anything. I’m stuck.

I’m not stuck physically, although if I gain any more weight or go another day without mopping my kitchen floor I may just get stuck there as well, unable to move my feet in the grime – much the same way that I am now unable to move my mind.

So, in the interests of continuing to provide good information to my readers (if I still have any readers left after this long period of inactivity), I am going to share my many helpful tricks to avoiding doing practically anything.

It helps that the Olympics are on, because watching all those bobsledders, and skaters, and skiers, and luge sliders is a full time job. And is it just me, or are those German luge guys just plain nuts? I’m happy for their five medals but still…. 95mph with no protection but a helmet? How crazy is that? In any case, as a proud citizen it is my patriotic duty to watch each and every competition, rooting for America. Plus it keeps me from being able to do much else right now.

Of course, if you are not doing anything then it stands to reason that your housekeeping is something less than spiffy. So there’s the problem of hiding things when you have company. Sure, when you’re as depressed as I have been you avoid having company as much as possible, if for no other reason than the general messiness of the house. But sometimes people do show up – maybe to watch the SuperBowl or the Olympics. How can you avoid letting them see how dysfunctional you are right now? The answer: Costco grape boxes! These things are not only free but they are amazing. They are really strong and will take a lot of weight. They run about 23½ inches by 15½ inches and they are technically nearly 5½ inches tall, but you really don’t want to fill them up higher than 5 inches because then it makes them hard to stack. And stacking is the best thing about Costco grape boxes. They have these four tabs that make the boxes interlocking. You can stack these suckers up to the ceiling!

So when someone is coming over and you haven’t the time or the mental capacity to actually go through all of that crap that has accumulated on every single flat surface in your house, you just sweep it into a Costco grape box. My personal system is to keep the surfaces separated so that you can later dig items out of the boxes more easily. The stuff from the dining room table goes in one box; the scraps of paper all over the coffee table into another; the magazines and mail balanced precariously on the chair goes into a different box; junk lying around the floor into another. See!! Brilliant. When I need something, I recall that I’m pretty sure it was somewhere on the dining room table. So you just go to the “Dining Room Table” box and dig thorough that. It actually helps a lot if you label the boxes as you stack them but there’s two problems with that:

1. It requires time and effort and the whole point of sweeping everything into Costco boxes is the elimination of time and effort.

2. The minute you start labeling them, there is a sense of “permanency” to the process. You are admitting to yourself that you’re not really going to immediately “unbox” everything as soon as your guests leave. Even if this is true (and let’s face it, it probably is), admitting it will diminish your self-esteem even further, make you more depressed and cause you to have to lie down….. some more….

So now that you have everything swept away, where do you put the boxes? Well, my current favorite is the garage. That garage will never see a car. My husband and I joke that our whole life is “somewhere in the garage.” Whatever we are looking for – our sunglasses, the 800-number to order a ShamWow, the title to the car, our overall sanity – is “somewhere in the garage.”

I didn’t used to have a garage. When we lived in an apartment in the city there was no storage whatsoever. So you know where I stashed the stacked-up Costco boxes? In the spare bedroom. You just throw a large white tablecloth over the stack, toss a flower arrangement on top and who is to know? Hey, when you live in an apartment you have to make due. I used to know a couple who kept a little studio apartment in Atlantic City. It was so small, that on laundry day, they pulled the tablecloths off of their bed-side tables and voila! One of the bed-tables was a mini washing machine and the other was a little dryer. Seriously. You make due.

Even worse, when I lived in a one-bedroom apartment, hiding the Costco boxes got more difficult. Where did I put them? In the shower in the master bathroom. Of course, that makes it harder to ignore them once the guests go home. But, hey, you make due.

I should mention that occasionally your crap is taller than 5 inches? The answer: The Costco Dulcinea PureHeart seedless watermelon box or the Tuscan-style cantaloupe box. It’s a full 7½ inches tall (for those extra bulky items). And the tabs still fit neatly into the grape box slots for stacking convenience.

I have lots of other tips for avoiding doing anything. You can put off laundry forever as long as you have lots of underwear. You have a choice. You can do the laundry and face all that work (2-4 hours minimum) or the next time you’re in WalMart or Macy’s, just grab another couple of packs of underwear (32 seconds maximum). You do the math.

Of course, these days the obvious way to avoid getting any productive work done is social networking. Between email, participating in LinkedIn discussion groups, Tweeting, making witty remarks on your friends’ FaceBook pages, and answering the DM’s you have received from your many “business friends” across the country….. well, it pretty much consumes the day. And you have to do this stuff because this is the way we do business in 2010. (Or don’t do much business in 2010 – I’m not quite sure.)

I could give you more tips, but all of this blogging is exhausting and now I have to lie down …. some more. Maybe I should double up on my Prozac. But that would require walking up the stairs. Never mind. I think the women’s figure skating long program is starting. I’d like to return a couple of important phone calls, but unfortunately I’ll be stuck lying on the sofa for the next three hours. It’s my patriotic duty.

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?

Twitter “Croaks.” Gone Phishing!

Last week, I had to apologize to Miss Universe. Twice. I hate it when that happens.

You see, she had taken exception to a couple of DM tweets that I had sent her, inviting her to check out an LOL video that “made my day,” and daring her to beat my IQ score. Frankly, I feel pretty confident that I could have held my own on the IQ score. The trouble was, I didn’t send either tweet. Nor did I taunt her with, “Did you know you were in this video?” Or offer to hook her up with Viagra at dirt cheap prices. At least, not on purpose.

Somebody hacked my Twitter account. What a mess! Multiple DMs (Direct Messages) had been sent to virtually every one of the hundreds of people who are “following” me. Bummer. Actually, Miss Universe was pretty nice about it. Others, not so much. I got some fairly nasty “croaks” from people I’d never even heard of. I just this minute invented the term “croak” because the whole word “tweet” has a kind of a nice, fun, upbeat sound to it. And there was nothing nice about some people’s reactions.

I felt real bad about it. At first I was just plain confused; then it became clear what had happened. I was the victim of phishing and I felt violated. Using my account, some hacker dropped a virus in my cookies (goodness, that sounds downright unsanitary) and sent out messages to everyone in my database.

Here’s the deal: social networking sites are tripping all over themselves to embed powerful features that most subscribers will never use, such as digital image or media files with the ability to download content from third-party Web sites. These features are not the kind of worms or viruses that shut your computer down. They just send out messages using your own friend list, or something similar. 99% of them are harmless advertising spam that result from wandering around in YoVille on your Facebook. (Hey, you gave them permission when you adopted your first cow.) But a moderately-proficient hacker can use the features to phish your network with files that, when opened, transfer the virus through that person’s network, and so on, and so on…

Mostly, the public doesn’t hear about nobodies, like me, who get phished. We just change our password, run a virus protection scan, clean out cookies in the browser, and a write a lot of apologies to people like Miss Universe. But I did some research and discovered that having your Twitter account hacked is not nearly as rare as you might have hoped. (Actually, Twitter tries never to use the word “hacked,” preferring instead to speak of having your account “compromised.” Sounds nicer, I guess.)

My research turned up 10 large-scale “compromisings” so far in 2009, covering thousands of accounts. Some of these include high-profile folks such as President-Elect Barack Obama (in January, before the swearing-in), Britney Spears (3 times in 2009), and the official feed for Fox News. Yikes. My personal favorite took place in mid-July, when a hacker broke into the online accounts of various Twitter staffers, including Twitter CEO Evan Williams’ email account. How embarrassing! The attack exposed all sorts of internal documents which were distributed widely and gleefully reprinted by the French website Korben.

As unique as I like to think of myself, my own experience targeted about 750 people, including New York Jets Wide Receiver David Clowney. I only hope that I’m not going to have to apologize to him as well.

Did I bring this upon myself? Well, maybe partly. It turns out that I’m not the only one who can’t retain anything but water these days. The systems are designed as they are because huge numbers of us with college degrees and reasonable IQs are unable to remember a single four-digit PIN number without “hints,” let alone a unique password for every application for which we ever sign up. The result is that 41% of internet users unwisely use the same username and password for numerous internet services, including online banking accounts. Couple this with apps like Ping.fm, which automatically triggers your message to your profile on FaceBook, hiF, MySpace, Plaxo Pulse, Plurk, Pownce, Tumblr, Twitter and Xanga simultaneously, hooking them together like an ecosystem – when one account is “compromised,” the others are likely to tumble like dominoes.

Would I do something as stupid as this? Well…. not any more. Additionally, giving the user an option to guess the name of a pet in lieu of actually knowing a password has just dramatically shortened the odds for an attacker. Does the fact that I had three dogs as a kid, each one named Skippy, show continuing sentimentality on my part or an incredible lack of childhood imagination? You choose. Would I actually stoop to using “Skippy” as my password, let alone my “hint?” Well…..not any more.

There are some things that we simply can’t control. The kinds of DDoS attacks that occurred on August 6th managed to slow both Twitter and Facebook to a standstill by using a network of computers (dubbed zombies) to flood the server with requests for data until the server overloads and comes crashing down. No amount of firewalls on our end can protect us from this, but I so loved the security experts’ analogy of likening a DDoS attack to 15 fat men trying to get through a revolving door at the same time, that I just couldn’t resist working it into this post. Sorry.

I discovered two other interesting miscellaneous pieces of information in my research: The first is that there are Hacker Conventions. Lots of them. All over the globe. The world’s largest annual hacker convention is called DEF CON and it’s held in Las Vegas. Of course it is!! Federal law enforcement agents from the FBI, DoD and other agencies regularly infiltrate DEF CON but they just can’t keep pace with a couple of 18-year-olds with too much time on their hands.

The final remarkable thing is that this past April, University of Wisconsin doctoral student Adam Wilson, by wearing a cap outfitted with electrodes that monitored changes in his brain activity, managed to tweet 23 characters just by thinking. Yup, by focusing on the letters, he spelled out “USING EEG TO SEND TWEET,” among other messages.

You know what this means, don’t you? It will only be a matter of time before some dweeb in a party hat will be able to stand across the room from me at a cocktail party and tweet spam into my head; words that will, no doubt, come rolling uncontrollably out my mouth like a gumball dispenser.

With my luck, I’ll be chatting with Miss Universe at the time. I could just croak!

Why We Don’t Need Another Nonprofit

Those of you who have been following me for the past couple of months know that I recently lost my job as the Executive Director of the Hawaii Women’s Business Center. It was nothing personal. Federal funds were cut to such a point that they could no longer pay my salary, or that of our office manager. I was sad to leave the Center, because I am still passionate about their mission, but the board and I were in agreement. In a dwindling economy, you can’t squeeze blood from a turnip.

Since then, a surprising number of friends and colleagues have suggested that I should start a competing non-profit. Bless their hearts, I know that they mean well. But I consider this to be a mistake of astonishing proportions on a number of levels.

First of all, frankly there are just too many non-profits already out there in the marketplace. They often have similar goals and even though the work that they are doing is altruistic and necessary, the administrative costs involved in overlapping services ultimately hurts those who need them the most. As an example, I googled “drug treatment youth Hawaii” and quickly found 124 separate rehabilitation facilities and programs – and I didn’t even try very hard.

Let me be clear about this: I am not suggesting that we need fewer addiction programs in the state. I haven’t studied this situation enough to make a judgment such as that. But I do strongly suspect that we don’t need any more programs. I believe that we would get better ROI by putting additional funding into the programs already in place rather than by starting yet another.

Funds are dwindling – everywhere. There’s just not enough money to go around. The pie is smaller; the need is greater. In the past, it has been difficult for moderate and small-sized nonprofits to recruit suitable leadership, simply because nonprofits traditionally pay substantially less than their counterparts in the for-profit marketplace for positions of equal responsibility. Often the best candidates don’t even bother to apply. Of course, there will always be those of us (particularly baby boomers) who feel a calling for working in the nonprofit industry, despite the monetary downside. But the hard fact is that resources are diminishing, even for those of us committed to the altruistic goals.

In April of 2009, a survey of over 1,100 nonprofit leaders in markets nationwide was released by Nonprofit Finance Fund (NFF). The key findings were pretty bleak:

• Only 12% of nonprofits expect to operate above break-even this year.

• Just 16% anticipate being able to cover their operating expenses in both 2009 and 2010.

• 31% don't have enough operating cash in hand to cover more than one month of expenses, and another 31% have less than three months' worth.

• 52% of respondents expect the recession to have a long-term (2+ years) or permanent negative financial effect on their organizations.

• 93% of lifeline organizations that provide essential services anticipate an increase in demand in 2009.

According to the Washington Post, a recent survey of member nonprofits by the D.C.-based Center for Nonprofit Advancement revealed that:

• one-third have no operating reserves or endowment

• 41 % are suspending or closing down programs

• and 44% are laying off staff.

So where will the nonprofits that do survive get their funding?
Oh, oh….more bad news:

It probably won’t be from foundations. On November 4th, The Foundation Center located in New York City reported that their latest survey shows foundation giving will likely decline in 2009 by 10%, slightly worse than their 8% estimated earlier this year. And as if that isn’t bad enough, the Center predicts further declines in 2010.

The extra money needed probably won’t be coming from the public either. According to a November 16, 2009 Associated Press report, only 38 % of Americans say they are likely to give at least one charitable gift as a holiday present this year, compared to 49 percent last year.

Looks like Santa is going to be skipping a lot of 501(c)(3) chimneys this year.

So will nonprofits fold up their tents and close their doors? Some will. But the smart ones will quickly discover that there is safety in numbers. Savvy nonprofits will band together with like-minded organizations and share costs. They will disclose strategic planning information so as not to cannibalize each other’s programming and educational bases. I predict that the ones who will succeed are the ones who understand their clients’ needs and allocate their budgets to doing one thing really well rather than trying to be all things to all people.

Those who sit tight and pray for a white knight to gallop in and save them won’t stand a chance in this economy.

So, to all of my dear friends who have encouraged me to start a women’s business center, bless your hearts but don’t hold your breath. I may be neurotic but I’m not stupid. The world doesn’t need another nonprofit right now. Let’s just support the ones we already have, OK?

P.S. This holiday season, the world probably doesn’t need another $16 scented candle, either. But there are families around the globe whose lives would be changed by the gift of a goat or a chicken. May I suggest that you check out Heifer.org or Oxfam.org, two nonprofits that help families in third world countries become self sufficient while providing nutrients for their children. Or give the gift of a smile – The Smile Train performs free cleft palate surgery on children around the world, changing their lives in societies who shun those born with deformities. With nonprofit organizations like Doctors Without Borders, Project Hope, Mercy Ships or your local Shriners Hospital for Children, there is very little excuse to spend money on candy (it rots your teeth and makes your butt fat), knickknacks (they collect dust) or jewelry. Do something good this holiday season. Please. Thus endeth the lesson

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.