Young and Employed

My grandmother, and for that matter all the adults in my life as I grew up, told me it is easier to be nice to everyone than it is to be rude or mean.  This is true in the workplace as well.  While we all know we should be nice to our co-workers, bosses, customers and for that matter everyone we encounter at work, there are four groups of people you especially don’t want to annoy. What is amazing is that these very same groups of people are the same people I have witnessed professionals being rude to time and again. Below is my list of the four groups of people you should never be rude to, why you shouldn’t and guesses on why some professionals think it is ok to treat these people poorly.

Group 1: The people who clean the bathroom

Or the people who fix the air-conditioning, or the lock on your office door, etc. It may be because I come from a blue collar family, or maybe it is because my grandmother would throw her shoe at me if she saw me being rude to anyone, but I am shocked at how people treat maintenance and facilities staff.  Does it make these people feel good about themselves to look down on or be rude to someone who makes a living with their hands? I refuse to look down on anyone who takes pride in their work, even if that work means climbing into an air-duct every once in a while.  Witnessing this type of rudeness is one of the few things that can get me angry enough to tell someone off. Besides, who in their right mind thinks it’s a good idea to be a jerk to the guy who fixes the toilets? They have the real power in a company.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen someone being rude to a maintenance person only to need something (like a new chair or their air-conditioning vent fixed) five minutes later. The response “yeah – I’ll get to it”.  I’ve also seen it go the other way. If you are nice to the facilities staff and treat them like the human being they are, I bet you’ll see your requests move to the top of the line. Like I said these people have power you can’t even imagine.  For this reason alone you should be nice to facilities staff, not to mention that being rude to these people is just plain mean.

Group 2: the CEO’s assistant

Or any other assistant to an executive. Once again, being rude to the CEO’s assistant baffles me. There is no one – the me repeat, NO ONE, at any company who has as much access to the CEO as his or her assistant. So why in the name of all that is holy do people write off the assistant. They’ll stand outside the CEO’s office waiting for a meeting and not even talk to the assistant, as if she isn’t there. Yes, he or she is busy and doesn’t want to debate politics with you, but it can’t hurt to ask how this person is doing and say hi. Again, I think this might have something to do with some professionals thinking they are “better” than others because of their profession. Let me tell you, the assistant to the CEO has one of the most challenging jobs you can imagine. This person has to mange a hectic schedule; plan trips for the CEO cater to their every need and in some cases produce presentations and other materials for important meetings. So why look down on them. Plus the moment you leave the CEO’s office the assistant will say something like “wow that person was rude”.  Often times CEO’s value their assistant’s opinion higher than anyone else’s – especially if they have worked together for several years. Why would you want the extension of the CEO to dislike you? Being pleasant with the CEO’s assistant has always served me well. Because the assistant likes you, the CEO likes you. Plus, these people have a stressful job, they don’t need grief from you.

Group 3: Human Resources employees

Employees in the human resources department make hiring decisions, proceed over the review process, the vacation and time off policies and many other decisions that impact your daily life. At larger companies you may only see the HR department twice; when you are hired and when you leave. But at mid-sized and smaller companies this is different.  You’ll probably have to put in vacation requests with the human resources department and they can deny requests. Also, they can make your life difficult in other ways. If you leave early one day they can tell your boss, or they can monitor when you come and go. If you are friendly with the HR staff they are more likely to let little things go.

Group 4: everyone else

The law of the universe dictates that if you are rude to someone, you are guaranteed to need something from them in the near future. Besides, why be rude? Life is so much more pleasant for everyone if we treat each other with respect – no matter what our positions are. When I see someone being overly rude or even mean my first thought is that they must be insecure about something so they are over compensating by being a jerk. And no one wants to work with a jerk. If you have a reputation of being rude and thus difficult to work with your career will suffer, and no one will mourn your loss when you are laid off during the next “work force reduction.”

A few days ago I watched a great movie: Revolutionary Road. The point of the movie is about finding happiness in your life – especially when you thought you were destined for greatness and your life is pretty normal. The leading male character (Leonardo DiCaprio) hates his job at the beginning of the movie, but after winging a project and getting praise for the results he suddenly takes a new interest in his career. Eventually he is so happy in the direction his career is going that he is actually satisfied with his “normal” life and abandons his dream of moving to the Paris and doing something he finds meaningful.

Wow – is that all it takes to be happy at work – a little praise? As I stated in an earlier post about the connection between happiness and job satisfaction you don’t have to have a perfect job to be happy with your life. If the only thing going wrong in our life is you don’t LOVE your job, then you are doing OK. But the man in this movie blames his boring job for his life being dull, and then when his job get’s better he expects his life to improve – and it doesn’t.  What does that tell us? It tells me that if you want a truly fulfilling life than work is only one part of the equation. If you work for a company that makes boring software and you want to feel like you are making a difference in the world volunteer!

At the next party you attend listen to what people talk about. The people who seem happy don’t talk about work all that much do they? This is because they have other aspects of their life to talk about.  Conversely, the people with the crappiest jobs talk about their work the most. Why is that? Because they feel like they aren’t happy so they feel like they need to “talk up” their job.

So here is my unsolicited advice for today, if you hate your job, if it really makes you miserable, get a new one. But don’t look for a new job to change your entire life for the better. I’ve heard so many people say it before, “if I can just find a new job I’ll be so much happier”. Then what happens, they get a new job, they are happy for about five months and they want a new job again. Because it is really their outside of work life that needs to be fixed, not their job. I know what this is like because I was one of those people who focused so much on finding the perfect job that I thought a new job would perfect my life.  I still slip into this mode every once in a while, but for the most part I try to remember “you’ve got to love what it is and not hate what it isn’t”. Which means, learn to love your job for what it is and stop thinking about what it could be. Unless it is really a horrible job or you have a boss that treats you poorly, and as long as your job offers you challenges and opportunities to learn there your job is ok. If your job is ok but not exactly exciting, do things outside of work that are. There is no reason your job has to be your only source of joy. If your job is only good enough, make the rest of your life exceptional.

Since I’m now writing about my experiences and opinions of being young and employed, I figured that it would make sense to share some knowledge on how to work with your PAYCHECK!

No one makes enough, that is a human fact, but what you do with your money is even more important than what you make.  Its not about living with in your limits, but living without suppressing the same.

I’m in a mathematical mood (geek alert),  so I want to share some calculations on the stupid ways most people throw away their money:

The Dunking Donuts frenzy that has hit this country more than any other in the world.  I have a friend that drinks 2 Dunkin Iced Coffees every day, including weekends; so I decided to do the math.

2 coffees
x $4 bucks each
x 7 days a week
x 52 weeks
=s $1,456.

WOW, that’s enough money to travel for a few weeks, or a Big ass LCD TV, or new winter tires for your car, I don’t know, whatever makes you happy.

So ok, whats $1,500 bucks; nothing?  Since The Average American salary is $42,000, $1,500 is  about 2% of the American salary; next time you complain that they don’t want to give you a 2% raise, you could think of where you have a 2% that you could be enjoying.

I know what you are thinking: “Frank, I don’t drink that much coffee…”  But I bet you like beer.  I’m not calling you a drunk or anything, but lets say you like to go out on the weekends with your friends and have a few beers watching the game or over dinner (don’t get me started with dinner); you know you do. What?  Yes, I’m doing some math for that one too:

3 beers (right)
x $5 each
x 2 days a weekend (right)
x 52 weeks
=  $1560

Alright, another 2% of your salary, I hope you don’t like wine or any other mixed drinks because that would be $2,496 or more.

You got the point; most people waste their money in things that end up in their intestines (and out of their body; not to be too graphical), but I want to show you how that math grows in time, and how you could use that growth for your benefit.

Doing some quick math if you go out to eat once a week and have a couple of beers like I illustrated above you would have spent an average of $31,200 over the last 10 years.  Suddenly not that irrelevant anymore.  Those are the bad news.

Now lets go over the good news.  If for the next 10 years you put that money in Bonds with a 5% interest rate for example, at the end of your 10 years you would have a total of $51,44 which means an extra $20,000 you never worked for, only because you ate out less and went to the liquor store and not the bar.

That is the most basic calculation in the world (for better finance advice go to www.Moneyand Investing.net), but that money could probably pay for an MBA, or part of your kids College education, or a down payment for a house, or a long trip through Europe, or a car… you get the idea.

Im obviously not here to tell you to stop drinking coffee or beer, or stop doing whatever you do to enjoy life, it’s just to get you thinking about all the money you may be throwing away that someday you will need for more important things.   DVD’s (that we never watch more than once),  Fancy Clothes, makeup, SHOES, fancy technology stuff you dont need, online services… A lot of things that we don’t really need that often.  So the next time you are struggling to pay the rent or complaining about how fast your check disappears, think about all this stuff…

The examples I gave you add to an average of $10,000 a year out of commodities that you may not need (you are good at math and already figure out that is $100,000 dollars over the years), and I can’t help myself and have to invest it at the same bonds, it’s more than a $164,872 dollars.   Your kids are going to Harvard!!!!!!!!!!

Do whatever you want with your money,; this is just something to think about.

Not too long ago, a wise man  I truly respect with business advice, told me: “in business, anything you would say during a normal conversation, will be accepted as networking…“; today I got to prove it.

Someone gave my name as a reference for a service I use as part of my marketing efforts (not to mention that I made some profit out of it) and I managed to turn the call into what seems to be a great opportunity in disguise.

It took me 10 minutes on the phone to learn that everything I’ve heard about the Research Triangle Park in N.C. is true, and at the same time I managed to make a contact in the Marketing world over there, someone nice to talk to and who could open some doors for me.

We have all heard about Networking activities, dinners and such, but could it be that just having your eyes open for the right kind of people would prove more successful than walking around with your resume in one hand and a martini in the other to one of those networking cocktails?

I would like to hear some networking experiences.  How do you network your professional career?

A few days ago a colleague of mine came to me with a rather interesting question. He wanted to know if complimenting a female co-worker on her cloths was sexual harassment.  This colleague is not one of those men who consistently objectify women or judge them solely on their appearance. He just liked a co-worker’s dress and wanted to know if it was ok to say so.  After a short pause I gave my answer … “it depends.” I know he was looking for a simple yes or no but the answer just isn’t that simple. I told him if he said “hey, that’s a nice dress” or something to that affect that isn’t sexual harassment, but if his comment was more along the lines of “hey, you look really hot in that dress,” that was a different story.

This incident made me think about sexual harassment and how none of us really know what it is anymore. We all know that creating a hostile work environment is a big no no. We all know that asking someone for a sexual favor in return for career advancement, unwanted touching, and constant comments about sexual orientation or sex in general is forbidden at work, but beyond that even the most enlightened among us is stumped.

We’ve all signed those sexual harassment policy papers at work, but rarely if ever do they really help us understand what sexual harassment is – if you even read them. Training Time recently wrote a post about the importance of sexual harassment training, but in my experience these sessions are usually thought of with disdain. This comprehensive fact sheet can help you understand what sexual harassment is and isn’t.

I’d like to offer my own opinion about sexual harassment.  When trying to decide if something could be considered inappropriate ask yourself these questions “how could this be taken the wrong way?” “would I like it if someone said this to me?” “would this make me uncomfortable if someone said this to my sister?” and the often forgotten “who am I talking to”. Try to ask yourselves

Now a word to the ladies – As a young woman I’ve been subjected to behavior that may be considered sexual harassment in the past. However, 99% of the time the person doing the harassing isn’t aware of his actions. Again, we aren’t talking about dense middle aged men grabbing my ass and then claiming they didn’t know that was wrong – we are talking about subtle comments. For example, a man at work once told me that I looked like I lost weight.  Now coming from a friend that is a compliment, but at work this compliment could create an awkward situation. What did I do – I completely let it go. This person wasn’t judging me on my appearance, they just made a comment they probably thought I would like. I try to keep this in mind in most situations because the definition of sexual harassment is so broad. In some cases you can even use it to your advantage. Sometimes, if the person is a common perpetrator, I’ll let them know, nicely, that what they are doing is inappropriate, but if it is a onetime occurrence I try to let it go. BUT I implore men to remember that any woman who takes her career seriously doesn’t really want comments about her appearance because it will make her feel marginalized – no matter what your intent is. And while we are on the subject – don’t make comments about women to other men either. You never know who is listening (I have a funny story about that for another post).

One more thing – Women can sexually harass other women and even men, so this advice isn’t limited to men. Woman, remember who you are talking to and think before you speak or act. I’ve seen so many woman who think it is ok to touch their male co-workers (touch their arm, pull a fuzz ball off their shirt). Not only could this make the man uncomfortable, but it also makes you look like a floozy or airhead.

Any thoughts on what is and isn’t sexual harassment?

Most of us have a dream of what would we do if we wouldn’t be working for “THE MAN”, but few of us actually take the bull by the horns and peruse that proverbial bull;  Today I want to talk about someone who did.

Cavata Clothing Co. was born out of a dream of a really young entrepreneur, that once asked me: “What do you think of this idea?” to which I replied with my common saying of “you got nothing; so you got nothing to lose…”   Right out of College, starting Grad School and her first real job, she decided that she didn’t only wanted to run her own business, but she was going to have fun at it, and give back to the community.

They make trendy T-shirts that encourage music and art for people of all ages.  As part of their marketing campaign and company mission they give 10% of their revenue to music and art programs around the State of Massachusetts, as they in their website: “Creating A Voice About The Arts…one tee at a time!”

I encourage you to go and take a look at their products, but mostly to take a look at your dream or idea and ask yourself: “What do i have to lose?” If anything you will gain the experience you will never gain at your 9-5 job.

Kudos to Cavata Clothing Company and this young busy entrepeneur; another company that started as a what if, and its still on business doing well and growing.  Visit Cavata at www.CavataClothing.com

This is the basic idea of most things in life, and we all learned this either early in school or early in our careers; whatever you are selling, you should make it easy to buy.

This weekend I had the misfortune of breaking the rear glass of my Mustang Convertible (yes, I’m bragging), and spent some time this morning trying to find someone to replace it.  It ended up being almost an adventure to find someone who seemed at least willing to do the work.  From voice mails, to angry operators that obviously didn’t know that the Mustang was made by Ford, it seemed like I would have to wait almost a week and a few trips to adjacent towns to have the damn glass replaced.  That until my brother shared some of his experience with me and steered my search into the right direction.

JN Phillips website has an easy to fill out form that was followed by a call immediately; the conversation was literally shorter than 2 minutes:

“Hi Mr. AAA, this is BOB from JN Phillips.  Would Wednesday morning be ok for you?

“Sounds good”

“Alright Mr. AAA, we will call you when we get there, have a good day.”

THAT WAS IT!  I couldn’t believe it.  At this point I cant review on their  quality of work, but so far this customer is already impressed and will keep them in mind whenever I or others need some glass replacement.  Kudos to this company and others like it, that engage in such great practices.  I sure will keep it in mind in my future business and marketing ideas.

Hope you all do the same.

I recently watched a video titled “To succeed in any job you need to create work” and I couldn’t agree more, especially for those just starting their career.

My first job out of college was at a software company where I was a Marketing Associate. I started in this position literally one day after graduating college, so to say I was green is almost an understatement. Sure, I had completed plenty of internships while in college, but even though I worked really hard at those internships at most they were a 20 hour a week job and I had specific tasks assigned to me.

At this new job I had a short list of core responsibilities, and I would complete my daily tasks by lunch time each day. I would spend the rest of the day bored and I would often ask for more responsibility or more things to do.

I ultimately left this job because I wanted a position that would allow me to be more creative and that would offer more responsibility. Looking back I realize it wasn’t the company that needed to change it was me. Instead of sitting around waiting for more work, I would have been more successful creating my own projects. In fact, as I move along in my career I find that the best jobs out there offer this kind of opportunity.  Unless you are a heart surgeon or some sort of stock broker there will be times in any job that you find yourself without a lot on your plate. Use this time as an opportunity to develop project that you find interesting and that will benefit the company in some way. Not only will you be more satisfied in your career, you’ll be seen someone with initiative and drive.

Some of my best ideas have come to me when I am sitting around at work with not much to do. Instead of checking Facebook surfing other sites, I try to “create work” for myself. I can honestly say it works, and it does impress your boss when you knock on their office door and say “I have an idea”. Of course you can’t just have the beginnings of an idea, you have to have a well thought out project with goals, objectives, benefits and a plan on how you will execute the project.  Try creating work for yourself when you have little or nothing to do, and watch your career bloom. I’m also willing to bet that if your organization needs to “down size” at some point they are less likely to cut the person who comes up with creative and beneficial projects on their own.

What are your experiences with creating work for yourself?

Not too long ago, in a pretty good career place, I discovered a very popular technique for some companies; the Fake Promotion.  Let me explain, a fake promotion, is a promotion with a useless title that usually includes terms like Manager, Director, Team Leader, Super Duper, The Omega Specialist, etc.; but nothing else.

We all dream of the moment when someone recognizes our hard work, and this is one of those moments.  Your boss, and sometimes his/her supervisor will realize that they have a valuable employee on their hands, but he/she is incredibly underpaid, therefore they go for these “Fake Promotions” to keep us happy.

But Promotions are like Santa Claus, you can believe all you want, but if that Fat Jolly Bastard don’t bring you some toys, he won’t be getting any cookies next year, because you stop believing (we could use the analogy of “The boy who cried wolf” also, but let’s save that one for some other day).  Promotions with no monetary or benefit increment are as useless as a new pair of “Business Socks”, they will make you feel good for a couple of days, but that’s it.

I’m not complaining, but I like to share with the new generation, that though these Fake Promotions are a big compliment, I advise everyone to let their superiors know that they are not naive enough to fall in love with your company because of your new title, and though you are flattered, you will continue your search to achieve your goals, monetary or otherwise.

This may be a good time to ask for a raise, you may not get it, but after all, it was their idea to promote you, not yours.

Back in the day when I was fresh out of Grad School, I landed a Job as a Marketing Manager for a company that had NO Marketing Department, and working directly under a President that had no knowledge in the subject.  He wanted me to do some “Marketing” but had no idea of what the goals were or what options I had available.

I always thought that I was a special case, but recently a good friend got laid off after only a couple of weeks of being hired, and the little information I have, makes me think that it was under the same premise. I did OK at that job that I mention and left on my own to start my own firm, but I would have loved some guidance at the time, and in some part I feel responsible for not guiding my young friend this time, so here is some unsolicited advice on the subject:

• Never start by making ugly things pretty, those only impress yourself. (ex. Websites, Letterhead, etc.)
• You are not supposed to generate money, or so they told you in school, but the truth is that if you don’t bring some dough in some way, you will be gone soon.
• You are the sole Marketing Dept., bring business, and generate leads.  There are dozens of ways to generate leads, think cheap (there is a phone next to you, and you probably have an email account)
• “Act your age, not your shoe size.”
• Make an action plan with deadlines and make it public.
• Report your success (I hope you have some).
• Don’t look busy, make yourself busy. Learn as much as you can about the product/service and your company’s history.
• Educate yourself in the industry you are in, chances are you know nothing of selling tampons if you are a guy.
• Try to enjoy your time at you new job.
• Let your boss know that you know what you are doing (even if you don’t).
• Make sure to talk to everyone, let them know who you are and what your goals are.
• Make some friends; it will make lunch time more fun.
• As soon as you sit on that chair, start looking for a better job.

And there you have it, some unsolicited advice for the young and employed.  I wish you the best of luck.