Archive for September, 2009

Don’t Bite Off More Than You Can Vomit

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

Catfish_ball

 

What is particularly revolting about this picture? 

 

 

 

I’m sure you’ve gathered that this is a very ugly, very large fish swimming with a basketball stuffed in its mouth.  But what really flips my entrails is that this fish, a flathead catfish, thrives by being the bottom feeder.   It  skulks about at the bottom of muddy rivers and stagnant, trash-infested pools and slurps up whatever it bumps into.

It takes whatever is in its immediate path and attempts to slurp it down without any sort of consideration about the consequences.  But of course, this dumb fat fish hasn’t the brains to understand consequences.   It only knows, in some deep primordial way, that in order to survive it must gorge and imbibe.  To keep on keeping on, it takes whatever it is presented with, without question.

I have to say, for quite a long time, I felt like that dumb fat fish lolling about in the cesspool of the workplace, compelled to swallow whatever crap was rammed down my mouth.

And I wonder, in demeaning myself so willingly, just so I could survive – so that I could bring home a paycheck and keep myself employed- how many others viewed me as no more than a bottom-feeder, biting off more than I could possibly swallow, shoving more on my plate than I was realistically capable of digesting.

To be frank, at the end of some workdays, I wanted to vomit. 

For a generation now, the careerists have been overworked and underpaid, all to the point of decreased job security, increased under and unemployability, and unfulfilled lives.   This reality has much less to do with wages, and more with the concept of control.  Indeed, the definition of class in our post-industrial, pseudo-technological society comes down to who really has control, and who does not.

Who is a bottom feeder, and who swims at the surface?

I don’t pretend to have ready answers for breaking the mold.   But that’s what it’s about:  recognizing, first of all, that you may be the silt-and-sludge devouring ‘careerist’ who has to break to the surface.   That may be as simple as getting up out of your cube more often and forcing yourself to talk with someone.  Or,  God forbid, requesting an informal one on one with your boss, assuming he (or she) is the type of person with whom you can have a productive discussion. (see the Bosses post category)

Or it may very well come down to walking away from your cube, your job, your career, even some or all aspects of your life.   I’m sure that some people would respond that we all have to make a living.  I would reply that gorging on the trash that is rammed down your gullet everyday is not a living -  it is a harsh imposition.

We owe it to ourselves, to our loved ones, and to society, to not become mindless bottom feeders. 

Thoughts anyone?

Jake desJardins

Posted in Break The Mold | 11,829 Comments »

The Boss from Hell

Sunday, September 27th, 2009

We all know one.  The glaring, scowling, mealy-mouthed, mean-spirited, phony-smiling, berating, intimidating, micro-managing, growling excuse for a superior who rules our every action and breath with his tyrannical presumptions to lead.

The Boss from Hell

boss from hell

I know.  At my last company, I spent almost two years contending with a real maniac.  He had a talent for raising blood pressure, just by being within a person’s visibility.  He insisted upon daily meetings that dragged on well beyond the working day, where he would do all the talking, (shouting, really), and jab his finger at his subordinates and cut them down, a piece of their ego at a time.    He was as close to experiencing Hitler as I’ll ever come. 

The measure of his effectiveness as a HellBoss was indicated in the rapid graying of hair and the intensity of water cooler and stairwell ranting among his employees.   The tragedy of his reign was in the fact that he, fairly or unfairly, outlasted those who either quit or got laid off.

He was protected, of that I am sure.   But that realization has allowed me to understand the mistake that I made in the first place, one that I hope readers of this colum will not make:  Understand the company culture.

Make no mistake about it;  when bosses from hell proliferate, it is because they have been allowed to do so.  And this condition could be from design, or it could be from sheer senior-level incompetence.  In either case, it is imperative upon the jobseeker to find out about the culture, before becoming a part of it.

If you don’t want to go to Hell,  don’t be tempted to take the wrong job.

I knew about  this particular company before I joined it.  And its culture of long work hours, demanding, unreasonable bosses, and systemic abuse towards lower echelon employees, was a part of its outside reputation.  I knew about all this.

And yet, I took the bait.  And spent a chunk of my life being miserable to myself and my family.  When I was laid off, my wife and I actually breathed a sigh of relief.  I had been cast out of Hell onto the plains of Purgatory, and although the netherworld of unemployment has its own degrees of stress and uncertainty, it is a period in which to digest what has happened, to reflect, to correct and re-invent. 

And to keep clear of the Boss from Hell. 

It is no coincidence that this particular company has a hard time making the grade as a Fortune 100  GreatWorkplace contender.  But that’s one of the areas to research, when trying to find a culture where employees truly are valued, respected, and treated fairly.   It’s likely that the company is successful, in more ways than just profitability. And it’s likely that HellBosses are in short supply. 

I’ve discussed a bit about how to avoid bad bosses.  But how do you deal with a bad boss in the first place?  How have others dealt with a Boss from Hell? 

Jake desJardins

Posted in Bosses | 253 Comments »

Work Will Set You Free…NOT

Sunday, September 27th, 2009

It wasn’t that long ago I was putting in  60, 70, sometimes 80- hour workweeks and handling ten projects at once.  And this was before the economy dive-bombed and the labor force had less laborers from which to choose. 

I was miserable.  At the end of long day, I would look at my to-do list and see how many items had been checked off and consider how many items were still pending and realize that regardless of what I got accomplished, that list would not go away.  It would grow in inverse proportion to my efforts.  Like Sisyphus, I felt that no matter how much I pushed the boulder up the hill, I was condemned to watch it roll back down at the end of my day’s efforts, forcing me to start all over again.  Knowing that the next day, my sweat and misery would be rewarded the same way. 

Add to that the fact that I slaved for the Boss from Hell.   That’s a different category altogether.  But like Sisyphus again, the angry gods were constantly looking over my shoulder, berating and demeaning me, and making sure that I knew that my efforts would be entirely in vain. 

Many of us are screaming silently in our cubes.  scream

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Normally, career coaching professionals would say that it doesn’t have to be this way.  I would ask instead:  does it have to be this way?   I think the real answer is problematic.  I think we all make choices, a series of choices – some logical, some not so logical – but all mistakenly predicated upon the idea that we can anticipate the future.  That destiny is within our grasp.

I would have liked to gaze into a crystal ball and seen the outcomes of the various choices that I have made in life.  Any given series would have led to, perhaps, a degree of happiness that I once experienced, long ago, when I was a child, without a care in the world.  Without the necessity of pushing the boulder up the hill, anticipating that sense of accomplishment that never comes…

But we don’t have the benefit of foresight.  We only have the universal prospect of our fallibility.  And that directs us to our life’s work, which can very well become enslavement. 

It’s necessary that we figure out, early on, how to change.  Not just in our careers, but in life.  We have to be our own life coaches, our own mentors.  And hope that our life’s trajectory takes us to a better place.

Jake desJardins

Posted in The Nature of Work | 360 Comments »

The Immaculate Perception

Saturday, September 26th, 2009

I spent a lot of time in my cube, not attuned to work, but to daydreaming.  And now that I’m not working, I spend a lot of time outdoors or in front of my computer, not doing anything but daydreaming. 

We don’t place a very high premium on daydreaming.  Our society looks down upon those who daydream, because daydreamers don’t do anything productive, at least as surface perception would have it.

And if anyone has sat down with a his or her boss for any length of time to discuss performance – that dreaded word that comes up during appraisal time and is on par with the Inquisition or Terminal Diagnosis – perception is everything.  Perception, more than productivity, makes or breaks career success.  Perception determines market worth, not necessarily day-to-day or week-to-week or month-to-month metrics. 

Metrics get lost in the massive exchange of data and information, the plodding Powerpoints and swing curves and histograms and Excel tables and charts and .pdf manuals.   Metrics look pretty at quarterly financial meetings and weekly management ‘gong shows’.  Sometimes, those charts and graphs blend colors with astounding lucidity and a glittering appeal to those who show an addict’s glazed-over fascination with sensory input. 

But real lasting pretty is the young fresh-faced office gal with the sleek legs who turns heads wherever she goes.  

 And powerful is pretty, as the ‘powersuit’ guy dashes between meetings and presents his all-so-powerful case to his all-so-important superiors, and everyone in their dingy little cubes peek over the top to see him dashing back and forth, power handshaking, power talking in a loud commanding voice, power strutting up and down the aisles, power walking to the on-site gym to power workout before going to his power lunch. 

 

Pretty is allure and power, and perception is immaculate.   Wherever there is the perception of the pretty and the powerful, there is success.

But for you and I, plain and unpretty, the perception has been sullied.  We sit in our cubes or stand on the floor of a factory or drive a truck or a cab, unknown and unperceived;  and therefore,  we remain addicts to our misery.

How do we reinvent ourselves?

Jake desJardins

Posted in Reinventing | 54 Comments »

Is there help for the Working Waste Cases of the World?

Friday, September 25th, 2009

Those of us in the 40+ category, somewhere between Baby Boomers and Generation X, have all been in one of two places.

I’m talking about getting strung out in a futile job where the prospect of being downsized, right-sized or outsized right out the outdoor is possible, probably probable, and probably already about to happen.

And I’m talking about it having already happened.  And like myself, rampaging through hundreds of job boards, zapping resumes through cyberspace, attending scores of job fairs and job clubs where free bananas and cookies abound, and waiting for that one call, for that one interview, that might just lead to that one job, where again..

We get the next fix at the next job, and go through the same hell, again, grateful to be employed to pay the bills and keep the roof over our heads, miserable to know we are there in the first place, and how we ended up there in the first place. 

Well, we’ve been strung out as working addicts for too long, frazzled almost to death in our cubes or out on the factory floor, wondering what we’re doing there in the first place.  We know that no matter what, our jobs are not secure.

We are burning ourselves out, for the sake of being burnt at the stake.

KW322685

(And why does this man look so forgiving?)

It’s the intent of this site to for us not to be so forgiving.  It is my hope that we can vent, inform, rage, recuperate, and find a way to move our class – the class of the middle-aged, unappreciated man and woman – to front and center of the social and political arenas. 

It is my hope that here, the dying class that is the backbone of America, the working 40+ Joes and Janes and the almost out-of-work Jims and Jessicas and the out-of-work Jerrys and Jennies, can revitalize itself and take back its right as the core of this country’s greatness. 

It is my wish that we waste cases of the working world get ourselves off of the addiction of working futility and reinvent the idea of career.   Because there was a time when career meant upward mobility, success,  pride and stability.    And we can get back to that idea.

 As a network, as a force, as a movement, we can get back to that idea:  work as a right, as a source of pride and inspiration.  Let’s get it going, now!

 Jake desJardins

Posted in Beginnings | 80 Comments »