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 →
EppsNet Archive: Work
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 →
Advertisement for Myself
I was laid off recently by a mortgage bank here in Southern California. Times are tough in the mortgage business, as you may have heard. First, some tips on how not to do a layoff: Call the layoff a “rightsizing,” which suggests that there was something “wrong” with the people who were let go. (Actually, the company I worked for has already announced another “rightsizing” in which 1,000 more people will be laid off over the next few months. They just can’t get these “rightsizings” right.) Overnight a layoff information packet, including a 20-page severance agreement, to the home of laid-off employees, asking them to sign and return it via the enclosed UPS envelope. Don’t enclose the UPS envelope. The next day, overnight a second packet to employees’ homes, containing the UPS envelope and a letter correcting phone numbers, email addresses and other misinformation in the previous day’s packet. Include… Read more →
Life Lessons
My friend PE was laid off recently. He’s leasing out his house and renting a smaller place in an effort to keep his finances under control. This should be a good lesson for that boy of his: Work hard all your life, try to do the right things, and you too can wind up with no house, no job and a wife who hates you . . . Read more →
A Waste of a Morning
The California Employment Development Department — aka the unemployment office — scheduled a meeting for me this morning at the Orange County One-Stop job center. I thought it was going to be a one-on-one meeting to discuss appropriate employment opportunities for someone with my outstanding qualifications as a technologist. Instead, I found myself placed in a room full of misfits and losers, none in professional attire, and many of them dressed for a day at the beach — shorts, sandals, Hooters T-shirts — while we listened to a presentation on how to make $50,000 a year selling cars. (“Sounds pretty good,” my son says, and for someone with a junior high school education like him, it probably is.) In the course of the meeting, three people asked to borrow my pen because they didn’t think to bring one. Of course, I was wearing a shirt and tie, so I could… Read more →
If the Shoe Fits
I hobbled into a job interview today like a man whose shoes were too small for his feet. No, wait, let me back up a little bit . . . I can never find anything around the house because people keep moving my stuff. Why everyone can’t keep their hands to themselves, I don’t know, but I don’t even try to keep track of things anymore. I just look for something in the last place I put it, and when it’s not there, I ask someone. “Don’t ask me. I didn’t touch it.” So I look some more and it always turns out that my camera is in my son’s room, or my keys are in my wife’s purse, or the important document is in the trash, and everyone still maintains that they have no idea how it got there. Living with people is a mixed blessing, I’ll tell you.… Read more →
Why Men Make More Money Than Women
Another study quizzed graduating master’s degree students who had received job offers about whether they had simply accepted the offered starting salary or had tried to negotiate for more. Four times as many men — 51 percent of the men vs. 12.5 percent of the women — said they had pushed for a better deal. Not surprisingly, those who negotiated tended to be rewarded — they got 7.4 percent more, on average — compared with those who did not negotiate. — Washington Post A Carnegie Mellon professor has figured out why men make more than women for the same job. I actually figured that out myself the first time I heard about it. Salaries are negotiable. You can’t pay someone less than they’re willing to work for. Hence, women must be willing to work for less money. It’s the only possible explanation. UPDATE: I should have emphasized that 7.4 percent… Read more →
Hat Trick
My son’s hockey team didn’t do so well at NARCh this time around. They got knocked out in the round-robin portion of the tournament. That left us with some extra time on our hands, some of which we used to drive up to Tampa to watch the Angels get worked by the ordinarily hapless Devil Rays, 7-2. We got good seats though! — right behind home plate about 10 rows up. Completing the hat trick of futility, I arrived back in California to find that the mortgage bank I worked for had laid off 400 people, including me. The good news is that I did get a severance package, unlike the last time I got laid off (from a dot-com company), when all I got was a handshake and an escort to the parking lot. Oh, and I’ve got more time to read the last Harry Potter book. I’m really… Read more →
Why I Got Into Management
My first 10 years in the software business, I had great managers. They did the management thing and I did the programming thing and we got great results together. Then, after the dot-com boom torpedoed industry hiring standards, I got tired of working for managers who should not have been allowed anywhere near a software project, people who were not fit to direct a professional software developer to a table at the Olive Garden, much less direct their activities on a complex project. I couldn’t possibly have continued to work for people like that — it just made a mockery of all the work I’d done over the years to actually learn something — but I still miss being a developer . . . Thus spoke The Programmer. Read more →
Overheard
A male and female co-worker are bickering, as they often do. An onlooker says, “You two are like a married couple . . . but without the sex and everything.” Read more →
Up the Organization
You know what I saw at the bookstore this afternoon? A 35th anniversary edition of Robert Townsend’s Up the Organization! If I’ve ever read a better business book, I can’t remember what it was. Townsend was way, way ahead of the curve in both style and content . . . Highly recommended! Read more →
The Perfect Boss
In addition to the timely pay for acceptable services he offers, there are a few additional conditions that he imposes on you, if you are one of his subordinates. These are: What actions you take, you believe in. What commitments you make, you keep, What resources you have, you use. What words you say, you believe to be true. What you create, you intend to be great. He knows that if you buy something from an expert, you are wise to let them to deliver it on their own. . . . He requires that the team credibly believe itself to be doing something great, and also insists that all involved relentlessly pursue – and always adopt – what they think is the best available idea. . . . He never allows people to say, “People say…” If unidentified “people” have something to say, they can come say it.… Read more →
Overpromise and Underdeliver
I heard one of our salesmen on the phone this morning telling a customer that “we underpromise and overdeliver.” I understand the strategy, but doesn’t telling a customer that you underpromise and overdeliver neutralize the whole game plan? Haven’t you now promised to overdeliver? And if you do overdeliver, you haven’t really overdelivered because you promised to overdeliver in the first place . . . Read more →
The Halo Effect
The halo effect is a cognitive bias whereby people tend to make specific inferences on the basis of a general impression. It was first identified by psychologist Edward Thorndike in 1920. I read an interesting article this weekend by Phil Rosenzweig, the author of The Halo Effect: … and the Eight Other Business Delusions That Deceive Managers, on the halo effect in the business world: Imagine a company that is doing well, with rising sales, high profits, and a sharply increasing stock price. The tendency is to infer that the company has a sound strategy, a visionary leader, motivated employees, an excellent customer orientation, a vibrant culture, and so on. But when that same company suffers a decline–if sales fall and profits shrink–many people are quick to conclude that the company’s strategy went wrong, its people became complacent, it neglected its customers, its culture became stodgy, and more. In fact,… Read more →
Roseville
We have a company directory, including photos, on the intranet, so when I do a project with people in a different office, I like to go to the directory and look at the photos to see who I’m dealing with. Today I started working with some folks in the Roseville office. “Where’s Roseville?” I asked anyone within earshot of my desk. “You know where Sacramento is?” someone responds. Do I know where Sacramento is? What a question! It’s the capital of the state I’ve lived in my entire life. “Duh, no. Hang on, let me get a map.” Geez, if I want to be insulted, I can get that at home. The reason I asked: After clicking on a few of the photos, the kindest thing I could think of to say was “Maybe people in Roseville don’t photograph particularly well.” Read more →
Some People Should Be Allowed to Work at Their Own Pace
Speaking of motivation, today’s Orange County Register has a story about a guy who really knows — or knew — how to light a fire under his employees. According to the story, Woo Sung Park, a landscaping supervisor, told day laborer Ernesto Avalos that he, Avalos, was not pulling his weight on the job. The pep talk so energized Mr. Avalos that he beat Mr. Park to death with a shovel and a pickax. This happened right here in Irvine! Tragically, one of my rich neighbors is now two men short on his beautification project . . . Read more →