When Gallant has a question for someone, he walks down the hall and asks it. Goofus keeps fruitless email threads going for weeks. Here’s an excerpt from the comment thread on a trouble ticket regarding a database record with an incorrect status code. comment 7563 posted by goofus on 2008-09-10 8:53 AM I did change the status code in test and this did fix the problem. However, we need to speak with JS regarding this issue as to how this will be affected in production. comment 7611 posted by me on 2008-09-12 9:15 AM Let’s get JS’s response so we can close this. comment 7621 posted by goofus on 2008-09-12 9:52 AM Emailed JS regarding this issue. Waiting on a response. comment 7637 posted by goofus on 2008-09-12 2:49 PM JS is out of the office until Tuesday, 9/16. comment 7773 posted by goofus on 2008-09-18 2:05 PM Sent another… Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Work
Wishing and Hoping: A Metaphor
“Where’d you get the Wish Hope Dream Post-Its?” I ask a co-worker. “Why?” she asks. “Is that your mantra?” “No, I was thinking more along the lines of wishes, hopes and dreams being peeled away one by one until you’re left with nothing.” “That’s an optimistic way of looking at it.” “It sure is.” Read more →
You Don’t Say
One of our exercises in Crucial Conversations training was to “think of a person who is really frustrating to work with,” and to describe in writing a recent interaction with that person in terms of what was actually said, and what you were thinking or feeling but didn’t say. My responses included the following: What I Actually Said This project presents some unique challenges. What I Didn’t Say I have a lot of experience managing IT projects, but not in running a day care center or a mental institution, which is what this project requires. What I Actually Said That’s not quite the way I would have phrased it. What I Didn’t Say Everyone else in these meetings seems to feel constrained by a sense of professionalism and decency that you appear not to possess. One of my colleagues at our table of four claimed that based on those responses,… Read more →
How Not to Succeed in Business
Come to the office on a weekend — when you’re not allowed to be there — not to work, but to store some of your personal belongings. Fall down a flight of stairs. Then file a worker’s comp claim. I’m not saying I know someone who actually did this . . . Read more →
Early Shift at Starbucks
I walked into Starbucks at 5:30 this morning, ordered a drink . . . the Starbucks guy asked my name and wrote it on the cup, despite the fact that I was the only customer in the store. Whether that would be considered a training success or failure depends on whether Starbucks trains its people to always ask for the customer’s name, or to use situational judgment. I was hoping the barista would call my name when the drink was ready so I could do a comical “who, me?” take, but she just set it on the counter . . . Read more →
Career Advice for the Deluded
If you don’t have something that is overwhelmingly important to do, then you probably don’t have anything that you’d absolutely rather be doing than getting up and going to work every day. So just start doing that. In any field. And stop deluding yourself that you have so many interests that you can’t choose. Really what you have is no clear interest and only a bunch of things you would consider if you had nothing to do. — Penelope Trunk, “Steps to figuring out your next career move” Read more →
Slipping Away
We may work more hours at our jobs without realizing that the childhood of our sons and daughters is slipping away. Sometimes these doors close too slowly for us to see them vanishing. — Dan Ariely Read more →
Trash by Any Other Name
Sometimes it’s hard to tell if boxes, etc., sitting around the office are supposed to go out with the trash. In Southern California, you’ll often see BASURA written on these things because the probability that a Spanish-speaking person will be taking out the trash is high. We couldn’t seem to get this box removed by writing BASURA on it, so one of our tech support people came up with this sign . . . Read more →
Playing the Expert Game
If . . . you are able to get important things done you are seen learning things on your own you are seen trying to do things even if you aren’t sure how you share freely the things that you know you don’t hide your ignorance, but also don’t rest on it you honor what other people know you know more often than not how to find out what you don’t know you know how to ask for help you offer to help people on their own terms Then . . . no one will care whether you succeed by learning or succeed by already knowing no one will care if you mess up occasionally because they assume you learn from it no one will mind if you forget (or don’t know) any given fact or method at any given time you will be treated as if you’re smart and… Read more →
Disturbing Sight of the Day
A fat woman at the office, sitting at her desk finger-fondling a frosted gingerbread man, whether because it was “male” or because it was edible, I’m not sure. It’s no less disturbing either way. Parenthetically: I don’t think she knew anyone could see her . . . Read more →
Open Enrollment
One of the HR reps at my new company is explaining Accidental Death and Dismemberment insurance. “What if someone intentionally dismembers me?” I ask. “Could happen.” “Do you work in IT?” she asks. “Do a lot of people in IT get intentionally dismembered?” “Just something about your line of questioning . . .” Read more →
A Message That Sticks
John F. Kennedy, in 1961, proposed to put an American on the moon in a decade. That idea stuck. It motivated thousands of people across dozens of organizations, public and private. It was an unexpected idea: it got people’s attention because it was so surprising–the moon is a long way up. It appealed to our emotions: we were in the Cold War and the Russians had launched the Sputnik space satellite four years earlier. It was concrete: everybody could picture what success would look like in the same way. How many goals in your organization are pictured in exactly the same way by everyone involved? My father worked for IBM during that period. He did some of the programming on the original Gemini space missions. And he didn’t think of himself as working for IBM–he thought of himself as helping to put an American on the moon. An accountant who… Read more →
What Am I Thankful For?
I’m thankful that I have a job! A lot of people don’t! I lost my last job a few months ago, along with 9,499 other people in the Orange County real estate/finance industry over the past year. We all got to compete against each other to find another one. The Orange County Register ran a story yesterday on how some of these folks are doing . . . Delia DeYulia, a grandmother, was recently forced to take her first retail job. For the holiday shopping season, DeYulia, 53, is working part-time at Kohl’s, placing clothes on racks and cleaning dressing rooms. She resorted to taking the temporary work after not finding other employment. After 15 years with Fremont Investment and Loan, she lost her mortgage job in Anaheim Hills in March. “I’m used to sitting in an office,” said DeYulia, who audited loans at Fremont, a firm from which she… Read more →
Got a Job
After three months on the dole, I got a job offer from the IT director of a local non-profit healthcare association here in Orange County. I start next week. As Gerald Ford used to say, “Our long national nightmare is over.” It’s a small IT group — 8 people, including the director. I’ve got to admit I’m a little burned out on big corporate IT shops. I got out of hands-on programming and into leadership roles because I thought I could do a better job than the people I saw doing it. I wanted to develop teams that got things done using their skills and their collective intelligence, but in practice, you typically get locked into some corporate process standard. A process may be good for delivering consistent results, but they may not be consistently good results. Like at McDonald’s, every Big Mac is just like every other Big Mac… Read more →
Lost
As I arrived for an interview today, the hiring manager asked me, “Did you have any trouble finding the place?” As it happens, I did not have any trouble finding the place and said so. I had printed out a map from one of the numerous online map sites and the building was right where it was supposed to be. But even if I had had trouble finding it, my answer would have been the same. “Some people have trouble finding it,” he told me. Interesting. As an IT person, I consider myself a problem-solver — actually, I could make a case that any person in any job is hired as a problem solver — so I wouldn’t start out an interview by admitting that I got lost on my way over. “Don’t hire anyone who can’t find the building,” I said. Read more →
Job Posting
My days of unemployment may be over: No, wait . . . I just read the rest of the story and it turns out not to be a job advertisement . . . Read more →
Offshoring: What Can Go Wrong?
You might wonder whether the Linux operating system provides evidence that offshoring can pay off. I had often wondered about this point myself, so I put the question to Linus Torvalds, founder of the Linux project. Torvalds replied that the two models of software development aren’t comparable: I don’t think the Linux model works for offshoring in the commercial sense, or really ends up even being very relevant. The problem ends up being communication and the mental model pretty inherent in offshoring. My belief is that when you say “offshoring,” you very much mean “control the project on one shore, work on the other.” That is, the implication of the offshore work being “subservient” is very much there in the notion of offshoring. In contrast, the Linux model (and open-source in general) is that there’s no one-sided control, and that when work gets done overseas, it gets done because it… Read more →
Be Prepared, but Don’t Overdo It
Since I’m currently unemployed, my friend GL asked me to write something about the job interview process. The problem is, there’s already so much written about the job interview process, it’s hard to think of anything to add. Which brings me to my point: It’s easy to overprepare for interviews. For example, we have a book here that my wife bought called Best Answers to the 201 Most Frequently Asked Interview Questions. Two problems: Who has time to prepare answers for 201 interview questions? What if the interviewer asks a question that’s not on the list? Where is your God now? But wait! It gets worse! If you go to Amazon and look up this book, you’ll find a list of similar titles like More Best Answers to the 201 Most Frequently Asked Interview Questions The 250 Job Interview Questions You’ll Most Likely Be Asked 301 Smart Answers to Tough… Read more →
An Open Letter to My Former Employer
No hard feelings, but I’m looking at the company president’s new employment agreement on EDGAR . . . the stock’s down 50 percent, the bond rating’s been lowered to junk, you laid off 400 people end of July and announced plans to lay off 1,000 more, and yet shareholders will still be paying for a really fabulous set of benefits for this lout: luxury automobiles, first-class air travel, $35,000 a year for financial planning services, and not one, but two, country club memberships. The rest of the peasants — er, employees — have to pay for their own cars, green fees, financial planners, etc., which is even tougher when you’ve been laid off thanks to my man’s (lack of) stewardship at the mortgage bank. Let them eat cake! I challenge you post a link to the employment agreement on the company web site and see if he isn’t guillotined within… Read more →
I Love My Work
The notion of meaning as a guiding principle for happiness explains some interesting facts about what actually compensates workers in their jobs. . . . For example, people who think their work allows them to be productive are about five times more likely to be very satisfied with their jobs than people who do not feel they can be productive. And those who are proud to work for their employers are more than ten times as likely to be very satisfied with their jobs as those who are not proud. In contrast, money matters relatively little, and the amount of leisure time a job allows has no significant effect on satisfaction at all. — Arthur C. Brooks, “I Love My Work” (emphasis added) Read more →