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…..
Showing posts with label failure. Show all posts
Showing posts with label failure. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
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.
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.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
The Sadness of the Hawai‘i Women’s Business Center
Brief disclaimer: Feel free to skip this. It isn't funny. It isn't even very interesting to anyone but a handful of people. It's just that occasionally you have to get something off your chest and say what needs to be said. That doesn't make it important to anyone other than me. I understand that.
I haven’t written anything lately because, frankly, I just don’t feel very funny. My heart is heavy as I mourn the closing of the Hawai‘i Women’s Business Center (HWBC).
I have been careful not to speak about the Center since leaving as its Executive Director last summer. But with its passing, I think that there are a few pretty serious problems that should be brought to light and discussed. They have to do with Washington bureaucracy run amok, the failure of community support on the most fundamental of levels and a political circumstance that makes it impossible for a federal agency to go to bat for a local not-for-profit organization that it helped parent.
The Hawai‘i District Director of the Small Business Administration (SBA), Jane Sawyer, was one of the founders of the HWBC. She and co-founder Cherylle Morrow, HWBC’s final program director have both done superlative jobs in holding things together through the devastating economic storm of the past couple of years. As far as I know, HWBC was the only free economic development center in the state whose mission was assistance to Moderate to Low Income (MLI) women.
This is a loss to me, personally, because I worked so hard to build the Center up and I have so much invested in it. The loss is overwhelming to clients who depended on the Center to assist them in becoming self-sustaining. But it is an even greater loss to small business in Hawai‘i and the community as a whole, whose government and financial industry have let them down once again.
(I hate acronyms and it pains my fingers to type them but there are going to be a lot of them in this article because the federal government is an organization that has never met an acronym it didn’t like.)
The Structure of the Operation: The HWBC had two funding mechanisms:
1. a national component, as part of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA)
2. a local component, as the Center is required to match all federal funding with local dollars
Congress created and funds the federal Women’s Business Center (WBC) program through an earmarked line in the SBA budget, much like the federal Small Business Development Center (SBDC). The SBDC is similar but much older and better supported.
The Hawai‘i Women’s Business Center was funded in part through matching funds from the Office of Women Business Owners (OWBO), the division of the SBA that oversees the WBC program. Unfortunately, only about 30% of our funding came from the SBA and all of that was in “matching dollars,” which meant that we had to find outside funding for every dollar that was “matched” by the SBA – and then only for a limited amount each year. That still left approximately 70% of the HWBC operating budget coming from outside resources.
The Hawai‘i Women’s Business Center was unusual in several ways, all of which have to do with community support. Many WBCs are attached to their local Chamber of Commerce or other local economic development organization that provides on-site staffing. The Department of Economic Development in the administration of Mayor Mufi Hannemann was generous in allowing us space within a city-owned building at a substantially reduced rent. As much as that was appreciated, HWBC was one of the few stand-alone centers with no assistance from an on-site partner. (We did not share a receptionist, an accounting staff, pooled record-keeping resources, etc.).
Community Investment: Additionally, many WBCs enjoy strong economic support from their local banks, often as a part of the financial institution’s federally mandated Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) requirements. Much has been made of the fact that the Center opened in 1998 with startup money from American Savings Bank. True and appreciated. But it has been years since any local financial institution has made a substantial donation or grant to the Hawai‘i Women’s Business Center. This was always a mystery to me since all banks are required to reinvest in their communities by federal law. It is also to the advantage of financial institutions to see that entrepreneurs applying for SBA-guaranteed loans have been nurtured to a degree that their success is better assured.
How the CRA Works: The CRA was created by Congress in 1977 to prevent banks from excluding or “redlining” low-income or minority communities from access to credit. It was designed to encourage banks to meet the credit needs of the “entire” community in which they operate. In 1997 the ways in which banks could meet the CRA mandate were broadened to include investments in the community as well as loans. There were also provisions for special consideration of minority and female owned institutions and partnerships as well as broader interpretation of community investments aimed at economic development of LMI segments of society.
So What? As Dr. Seuss once said, “Things like this are important to know – and that’s why I’m bothering telling you so.”
At virtually every other WBC, they enjoy a partnership with a variety of local financial institutions through grants and donations. Some are programs to support a bank's CRA performance evaluation, others are donations from the banks' foundations. Either way, this makes sense to me, since non-profit WBCs help women start businesses (which will need a bank), improve financial literacy (good for banks), become self-sufficient and increase family assets (also good for banks and S&Ls). Additionally, the HWBC assisted clients with a variety of SBA loan applications as well as working to obtaining traditional financing through a local banks or other lending institutions by helping to develop a workable business plan, raise credit scores, and fill out complicated paperwork and other forms of assistance. All of this is good for banks both directly in the formation of services and indirectly by creating a stronger community economic base.
So why did Hawai‘i banks fail to support the HWBC in ways that other communities were able to take for granted? I don’t know. I never figured it out. This is not a criticism of the local banking industry. It’s just what’s so.
State funds: Unlike our sister-organization, the SBDC, which receives funding from the Hawai‘i Legislature through a line-item in the state budget, the HWBC has never been part of the state’s funding plans. Many other states have included WBCs in their economic development budgets or fund the WBCs through grants-in-aid. The state of Hawai‘i, however, has never given the HWBC a grant-in-aid, despite many requests. Why doesn’t the state support the HWBC in ways that many other WBCs are able to take for granted? I don’t know. I do know that money is tight and there have been practically no grants-in-aid given over the past several years. But even before the current economic crisis, the State of Hawai‘i has never seen fit to award a grant-in-aid to the HWBC. This is not a criticism of the state legislature. Once again, it’s just what’s so.
Federal Funding: When the SBA began funding the WBCs through OWBO, the allocation was $150,000 per year. In the two years that I was Executive Director of the HWBC, we faced significant and steady annual cuts in the per-center program budget. Annual allocations have now fallen from an average of $150,000 per year per center to as low as $80,000 per center.
During this same period, the demand for services increased wildly. Historically, small business creation runs in a counter-cyclical fashion to overall national economic health. When the economy is running well at “full employment,” fewer people are thinking of starting their own businesses. When economic conditions deteriorate and layoffs increase, people launch their own ventures in increasing numbers. WBCs are on the front lines of this situation; as the economy tanked, women turned to entrepreneurship as a way to provide for their families. Walk-in traffic increased dramatically at the very time when our funding was being cut.
Loan Programs: Between the initial funding pool enacted in February 2009 and three additional appropriations, the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) funneled a total of approximately $730 million to temporarily eliminate fees for SBA loans and increase the portion of each loan that the government guarantees, up to 90%. That has supported more than $27.5 billion in lending to more than 60,000 small businesses nationwide.
This was terrific news for small businesses in America, but it created a serious problem for already under-funded Technical Assistance Providers (TAPs) such as the Hawai‘i Women’s Business Center. TAPs are vital to the SBA program because small businesses such as one and two-man operations often need extra help in putting together a workable business plan, a fiscally responsible cash flow chart, an accessible back-up strategy and other tools required to guarantee that the borrower will be able to replay the loan in a timely manner. This is a labor intensive process on the part of the TAP and it is often accompanied by stringent time deadlines.
TAPs are required to attend seminars, participate in phone conferences and review reams of written information in order to learn the specifications of each different SBA loan program (I believe there are somewhere between five and seven different ones currently, including ARC). The TAPS then work with clients from helping them find the right program for their needs to actually submitting the paperwork. When the ARRA was first passed, it contained $25 million for staffing-up to meet demands for new programs. Unfortunately, not a cent of that money trickled down to the WBAs. The result was a LOT more work with another cut in funding.
Anyone who understands physics knows that you can’t cram 10 lbs of work in a 5 lb. bag. And, anyone who understands finances will appreciate how important the Technical Assistance Providers are to the program: A government-backed loan reduces the risk for the lender because if the small business borrower defaults, the government eats the guaranteed portion of the loan (in some circumstances, that’s up to 90% of the entire loan amount). So the less assistance small business folks are getting, the more likely they are to default on the loan. This would be a disaster for the federal government. This is federal bureaucracy at its most inept.
Buried in Paperwork: While we are on the subject of federal bureaucracy, let me point out that because of its legislated structure and funding, the WBC Program is complex. The paperwork is overly complicated and inefficient. In report after report, huge chunks of the exact same information is required to be typed into forms, in defiance of the federal Paperwork Reduction Act of 1980. During my period at the HWBC, I can honestly say that there were large periods when I was so inundated with redundant federal paperwork, I didn’t have time to do my job.
Untimely Payments: SBA grant payments are supposed to be made to the WBCs in quarterly installments (more or less). When I first came to the center in the summer of 2007, it was not uncommon for a Center to go four to six months (or more) without a payment. OWBO recognized that they had a problem and instituted new procedures designed to fix the problem. On September 20, 2007, Anoop Prakash, Associate Administrator of the SBA’s Office of Entrepreneurial Development testified before the Senate Committee on Small Business & Entrepreneurship. Prakash talked about “…grant disbursement backlogs and delays, and other customer service issues that have affected at least one-third of Women's Business Centers and have periodically placed them in difficult financial circumstances.”
Even after the restructuring that was intended to fix the system, testimony related to SBA Entrepreneurial Development Programs and the Role of Women’s Business Centers in an Economic Recovery submitted to the U.S. House Committee on Small Business on February 11, 2009, admitted that huge problems remained. “While there has been some significant improvement in the speed with which grant monies are disbursed, the paperwork burden remains exceedingly high – especially when compared with other federal, state and local procurement procedures that WBCs follow – and the program grant disbursements are not always made in a timely manner. In recent years many WBCs have waited months before they received the funds for the services that they were delivering throughout the course of the year.”
Can you imagine how difficult it would be to maintain reasonable cash flow in your business if your primary client regularly withheld all payments for half a year at a time? How would you meet rent and payroll? How would you continue to provide your services and products to your clients? How can any federal agency that purports to “provide business training, counseling and other resources to help women start and grow successful businesses,” withhold payments and behave in such an un-businesslike and unconscionable manner?
In the end, the loss of the HWBC is more than just unfortunate. It is a blow to small business in Hawai‘i and should be a serious concern, as it is indicative of several significant problems in both Washington, D.C. and in our community.
Shame.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
We're Not Limping - We Just Walk Funny
Long, long ago in a Galaxy far, far away (OK, Chicago in the late 1970’s) my husband, the marketing guru, had a coffee client. McDonald’s was introducing their new coffee standard to the country and this high-end coffee client was the anointed supplier. In the end, Brad (the husband du jour) wrote a heck of a darn strong campaign that spelled out, in plain terms, just exactly what it was that made his client’s coffee so superior to the competition that McDonald’s would be proudly featuring this coffee exclusively. And the client just shit.
“You can’t say that,” was their response.
“Why not? Isn’t it true?” Brad retorted.
“Of course it’s true. But nobody outside the industry understands that this is the way the industry has traditionally processed coffee beans. If we tell the public, our peers in the coffee business will be furious.”
They were dead serious. In the end, they chose to go with a much weaker campaign that sounded more like puffery than truth, because they would rather keep peace in the industry than sell more coffee.
I’ll bet you think that this is an unusual case. Not necessarily. I’m always surprised at clients who will pay good money to shoot themselves in the foot and then pretend that they are not limping.
Back when I was in the film production business, we were casting a spot for a water heater company. (Hey, they can’t all be big, glamorous clients. Some days it’s United Airlines and some days it’s water heaters; the bank just doesn’t care.) Anyway, we looked at a lot of actresses to play the nagging, harpy wife. In the end our client insisted on casting an inexperienced newcomer who, frankly, gave a crappy audition. We were mystified and none too pleased.
On the day of the shoot, the actress was so nervous that it took nearly two hours to get a decent reading of one lousy line. It wasted time and cost us thousands. But the client didn’t care because when she first appeared on set, ready to shoot her scene with her hair in curlers, cold cream all over her face, wardrobed in an unattractive bathrobe and ratty pink slippers, our client stood up and proudly declared in a loud voice that carried across the whole soundstage, “Yes! She looks just like my ex-wife. I hate her!!”
How that helped sell water heaters I will never know, but the client was thrilled and we all limped to the bank.
I used to have a wonderful friend, Susan Gillette, who was President of DDB Needham, a big Chicago advertising agency. One day at lunch, Susan admitted that, “We agency people award a million-dollar-spot to a director based on what he can bring to the party. We then proceed to spend the rest of the project trying to protect our egos and thwart his efforts.” Thank you, Susan. At last, truth in advertising.
I wonder if there are other businesses where clients pay good money to shoot themselves in the foot?
Sure there are: I recently worked for a nonprofit that was sinking deeper and deeper into financial trouble. Part of what I was paid for was the ability to raise money. But the Board of Directors refused to allow me to tell anyone of our problems. “Keep a positive attitude,” insisted the Board. “We have to look like a winner.” If we had been a high-profile player on the New York stock exchange, that attitude might make sense. But when you are a nonprofit that depends on grants and contributions for your sustainability, it’s hard to go to a grantor and say, “We’re just great. Everything’s terrific. Couldn’t be better. And by the way, could you please give us a big sweaty wad of money? Please? Not that we need it or anything……”
Bang bang, they shot me down
Bang bang, I hit the ground
Bang bang, that awful sound
Bang bang, my client shot me down...
(with apologies to Sonny Bono, as I limp slowly into the sunset)
“You can’t say that,” was their response.
“Why not? Isn’t it true?” Brad retorted.
“Of course it’s true. But nobody outside the industry understands that this is the way the industry has traditionally processed coffee beans. If we tell the public, our peers in the coffee business will be furious.”
They were dead serious. In the end, they chose to go with a much weaker campaign that sounded more like puffery than truth, because they would rather keep peace in the industry than sell more coffee.
I’ll bet you think that this is an unusual case. Not necessarily. I’m always surprised at clients who will pay good money to shoot themselves in the foot and then pretend that they are not limping.
Back when I was in the film production business, we were casting a spot for a water heater company. (Hey, they can’t all be big, glamorous clients. Some days it’s United Airlines and some days it’s water heaters; the bank just doesn’t care.) Anyway, we looked at a lot of actresses to play the nagging, harpy wife. In the end our client insisted on casting an inexperienced newcomer who, frankly, gave a crappy audition. We were mystified and none too pleased.
On the day of the shoot, the actress was so nervous that it took nearly two hours to get a decent reading of one lousy line. It wasted time and cost us thousands. But the client didn’t care because when she first appeared on set, ready to shoot her scene with her hair in curlers, cold cream all over her face, wardrobed in an unattractive bathrobe and ratty pink slippers, our client stood up and proudly declared in a loud voice that carried across the whole soundstage, “Yes! She looks just like my ex-wife. I hate her!!”
How that helped sell water heaters I will never know, but the client was thrilled and we all limped to the bank.
I used to have a wonderful friend, Susan Gillette, who was President of DDB Needham, a big Chicago advertising agency. One day at lunch, Susan admitted that, “We agency people award a million-dollar-spot to a director based on what he can bring to the party. We then proceed to spend the rest of the project trying to protect our egos and thwart his efforts.” Thank you, Susan. At last, truth in advertising.
I wonder if there are other businesses where clients pay good money to shoot themselves in the foot?
Sure there are: I recently worked for a nonprofit that was sinking deeper and deeper into financial trouble. Part of what I was paid for was the ability to raise money. But the Board of Directors refused to allow me to tell anyone of our problems. “Keep a positive attitude,” insisted the Board. “We have to look like a winner.” If we had been a high-profile player on the New York stock exchange, that attitude might make sense. But when you are a nonprofit that depends on grants and contributions for your sustainability, it’s hard to go to a grantor and say, “We’re just great. Everything’s terrific. Couldn’t be better. And by the way, could you please give us a big sweaty wad of money? Please? Not that we need it or anything……”
Bang bang, they shot me down
Bang bang, I hit the ground
Bang bang, that awful sound
Bang bang, my client shot me down...
(with apologies to Sonny Bono, as I limp slowly into the sunset)
Friday, April 9, 2010
How Not to Get Promoted.
People sometimes send me unsolicited questions, asking for mentoring or just advice. I’m not sure why folks do this, as my personal life is a mess and I would be the last one I would approach for counsel. Nonetheless, they do. So let’s open the mailbag today and see what is in it. Oh, look! It’s a nice young lady complaining that she has been working in a company at the same job level for 7 years and is sick of getting passed over. What advice can I, as a longtime President/CEO/Executive Director/boss-type, give her to help her get promoted in today’s business culture?
One might ask the more obvious question, “Why is she asking me? Has she not noticed that I, myself, am currently out of work?” But that trifling aside, I have been a boss at various companies for about 28 years total, and I can definitely reveal the top 10 ways NOT to get promoted (if that’s your goal). In just the last five years, I have been faced with every single one of these situations with one employee or another. Seriously, folks! Here they are, in no particular order:
1. Talk stink about me in the workplace. Word will never get back to me and even if it does, I will admire your forthrightness.
2. Hide information from me. What I don’t know won’t hurt me.
3. Fight with your co-workers. There’s nothing like a constant stream of distraction to keep the productivity juices flowing.
4. Refuse to share your job skills with anyone else in the office. That way, when you get sick or go on vacation, no one will be able to update the website, or access the administrative calendar, or batch the credit cards or figure out your filing system. It may play havoc with the commerce but it will make them appreciate just how valuable you are around here!
5. Dress for comfort, not for business. Sure, low heels and a skirt might be more appropriate than fleece pants and tennis shoes, but you work best when you are relaxed. What do they think this is, a business?
6. Be late every day. You will know that you have reached your goal when your co-workers have a daily pool to see who can come closest to your actual arrival time. (Again, keep in mind that I’m not making this up.)
7. Adhere tightly to your job duties. If it’s not on your job description, why should you do it? It’s not your problem. And if you find yourself with extra time during the day, use it to check in with your grown daughter, write funny e-mails to your friends or play on-line solitaire.
8. Do a requested task when it is convenient for you, not necessarily as soon as I ask. After all, who am I to dictate your schedule?
9. Bring your problems to work with you. Share them with everyone – me, your co-workers, our clients. The more the merrier!
10. Don’t offer to help me with anything. If you had wanted my job you would have applied for it.
I hope that this has been useful to you. Personally, if I had a job right now, I would thank my lucky stars and not worry about crawling to the top until things calmed down. I’d hunker down, kiss my boss’s feet and cash those paychecks as fast I got them.
Meanwhile, keep those cards and letters coming. Next week’s blog: How many ways can I, as a client, shoot myself in the foot and still pretend that I’m not limping?
Happy weekend!
One might ask the more obvious question, “Why is she asking me? Has she not noticed that I, myself, am currently out of work?” But that trifling aside, I have been a boss at various companies for about 28 years total, and I can definitely reveal the top 10 ways NOT to get promoted (if that’s your goal). In just the last five years, I have been faced with every single one of these situations with one employee or another. Seriously, folks! Here they are, in no particular order:
1. Talk stink about me in the workplace. Word will never get back to me and even if it does, I will admire your forthrightness.
2. Hide information from me. What I don’t know won’t hurt me.
3. Fight with your co-workers. There’s nothing like a constant stream of distraction to keep the productivity juices flowing.
4. Refuse to share your job skills with anyone else in the office. That way, when you get sick or go on vacation, no one will be able to update the website, or access the administrative calendar, or batch the credit cards or figure out your filing system. It may play havoc with the commerce but it will make them appreciate just how valuable you are around here!
5. Dress for comfort, not for business. Sure, low heels and a skirt might be more appropriate than fleece pants and tennis shoes, but you work best when you are relaxed. What do they think this is, a business?
6. Be late every day. You will know that you have reached your goal when your co-workers have a daily pool to see who can come closest to your actual arrival time. (Again, keep in mind that I’m not making this up.)
7. Adhere tightly to your job duties. If it’s not on your job description, why should you do it? It’s not your problem. And if you find yourself with extra time during the day, use it to check in with your grown daughter, write funny e-mails to your friends or play on-line solitaire.
8. Do a requested task when it is convenient for you, not necessarily as soon as I ask. After all, who am I to dictate your schedule?
9. Bring your problems to work with you. Share them with everyone – me, your co-workers, our clients. The more the merrier!
10. Don’t offer to help me with anything. If you had wanted my job you would have applied for it.
I hope that this has been useful to you. Personally, if I had a job right now, I would thank my lucky stars and not worry about crawling to the top until things calmed down. I’d hunker down, kiss my boss’s feet and cash those paychecks as fast I got them.
Meanwhile, keep those cards and letters coming. Next week’s blog: How many ways can I, as a client, shoot myself in the foot and still pretend that I’m not limping?
Happy weekend!
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Go Ahead -- Dare to Fail
My friend’s Broadway show is closing on Sunday after only 45 performances. He’s a big star and it was a major show, but it never sold more than 23% of the seats. It will probably lose money. Speaking of losing money, another friend of mine in New York City discovered last week that his new business partner has stolen $50,000 from the company. He’s filing a lawsuit this week.
We’ve all heard that old phrase, “Failure is not an option.” Horsefeathers! Failure is always a possibility. The only way to avoid failure is by never trying and if we never try, nothing will ever move forward.
Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.
Me, I’ve got experience up the wazoo. Horrific failures (my ex-husband comes right to mind). But it’s OK. Because I learn a little something every time I fail. And as we all know, going to school isn’t free. It costs something to go to school – money, time, self-esteem. But it’s a necessary process to avoid repeating something stupid, like marrying another scummy lawyer. (And, trust me on this, that’s a lesson that you want to avoid at all costs!)
The only guaranteed way to avoid failure is by never taking a chance. At the same time, the only guaranteed way to avoid success is by never taking a chance. The economy sucks (this is big news?) and the odds are against your success. People will disappoint you. They will break your heart. But what’s the option? To never experience the thrill of seeing your face on the cover of New York magazine? To never expand your company? To never find true love or the job of your dreams?
Roll the dice. Be willing to fail – it’s not the worst thing that can happen. After all, you could be married to a lawyer.
We’ve all heard that old phrase, “Failure is not an option.” Horsefeathers! Failure is always a possibility. The only way to avoid failure is by never trying and if we never try, nothing will ever move forward.
Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.
Me, I’ve got experience up the wazoo. Horrific failures (my ex-husband comes right to mind). But it’s OK. Because I learn a little something every time I fail. And as we all know, going to school isn’t free. It costs something to go to school – money, time, self-esteem. But it’s a necessary process to avoid repeating something stupid, like marrying another scummy lawyer. (And, trust me on this, that’s a lesson that you want to avoid at all costs!)
The only guaranteed way to avoid failure is by never taking a chance. At the same time, the only guaranteed way to avoid success is by never taking a chance. The economy sucks (this is big news?) and the odds are against your success. People will disappoint you. They will break your heart. But what’s the option? To never experience the thrill of seeing your face on the cover of New York magazine? To never expand your company? To never find true love or the job of your dreams?
Roll the dice. Be willing to fail – it’s not the worst thing that can happen. After all, you could be married to a lawyer.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Let's Blame Amy!
Long ago, I owned a film production company and we had a summer intern named Amy Kohn. She was only with us for a few months and she didn’t have much in the way of job responsibilities but Amy was a lovely young lady and we all liked her a lot. After Amy had gone back to college for the fall term, whenever something went wrong around the office, it became a running joke to blame it on some bonehead thing that we pretended Amy had done or forgotten to do or, more often than not, something with which she had never even been involved. It was just a handy way to avoid taking responsibility for anything problematic.
This became such a useful pretext that years later employees who had never even met Amy regularly blamed things on her. It was part joke and part convenient excuse. Paperwork that was long overdue was in a folder labeled “Amy’s file.” A broken drawer had a post-it note stuck to it that said, “Amy, would you PLEASE fix this!!” Sometimes you would only need say, “Amy,” and roll your eyes and everyone understood that someone had screwed up big time but it sure wasn’t going to get hung on anybody present.
Everyone has an Amy in his or her office or life – a scapegoat for whatever is going wrong at the moment. Something for which you just can’t bring yourself to take responsibility. I don’t have a job right now, but it’s not my fault. Between the economic downturn and the cutting of federal funds, they couldn’t pay me so my position was eliminated. See, totally not my fault! I haven’t gotten a new job yet but in this dismal job market that’s not my fault either. In fact, I have several friends who are out of work and dead broke but they are not to blame. I also have a couple of friends who are single and wish that they weren’t but there’s nothing they can do about it. Their inability to get a mate or even a steady date in no way reflects their looks or their self-centeredness or their arrogance or boorish mindset or lack of commitment or (insert your excuse here).
Taking responsibility for your own actions is a bitch.
I’d like to write more about this but I really ought to be plowing through the heap of unironed shirts that are sitting on my dining room chairs. I meant to finish them yesterday but then we took my visiting brother-in-law out to brunch and it was so hot out that we escaped into a movie theater and by the time we got home it was too dark to iron. I mean, am I responsible for the sun going down? Of course not. The sun is up now but it’s getting hot again and, to tell you the truth, I didn’t sleep all that well last night. Also, I’m pretty hungry. I think I’ll wander into the kitchen and make myself a sandwich and then catch a little nap. After all, I gotta eat and get some rest. Who could blame me for that?
“Amy, would you PAH-LEESE get to the ironing?” (head shake and deep sigh here).
This became such a useful pretext that years later employees who had never even met Amy regularly blamed things on her. It was part joke and part convenient excuse. Paperwork that was long overdue was in a folder labeled “Amy’s file.” A broken drawer had a post-it note stuck to it that said, “Amy, would you PLEASE fix this!!” Sometimes you would only need say, “Amy,” and roll your eyes and everyone understood that someone had screwed up big time but it sure wasn’t going to get hung on anybody present.
Everyone has an Amy in his or her office or life – a scapegoat for whatever is going wrong at the moment. Something for which you just can’t bring yourself to take responsibility. I don’t have a job right now, but it’s not my fault. Between the economic downturn and the cutting of federal funds, they couldn’t pay me so my position was eliminated. See, totally not my fault! I haven’t gotten a new job yet but in this dismal job market that’s not my fault either. In fact, I have several friends who are out of work and dead broke but they are not to blame. I also have a couple of friends who are single and wish that they weren’t but there’s nothing they can do about it. Their inability to get a mate or even a steady date in no way reflects their looks or their self-centeredness or their arrogance or boorish mindset or lack of commitment or (insert your excuse here).
Taking responsibility for your own actions is a bitch.
I’d like to write more about this but I really ought to be plowing through the heap of unironed shirts that are sitting on my dining room chairs. I meant to finish them yesterday but then we took my visiting brother-in-law out to brunch and it was so hot out that we escaped into a movie theater and by the time we got home it was too dark to iron. I mean, am I responsible for the sun going down? Of course not. The sun is up now but it’s getting hot again and, to tell you the truth, I didn’t sleep all that well last night. Also, I’m pretty hungry. I think I’ll wander into the kitchen and make myself a sandwich and then catch a little nap. After all, I gotta eat and get some rest. Who could blame me for that?
“Amy, would you PAH-LEESE get to the ironing?” (head shake and deep sigh here).
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