Reinke Faces Life

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/26292488-8360-11dd
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http://tinyurl.com/6lb9dl

Shocked Lehman staff told to ‘move on’
By FT Reporters
Published: September 15 2008 21:42 | Last updated: September 15 2008 21:42

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“I’ve had people calling me from telephone boxes. In the old days you’d just pick up your Rolodex and you’d bugger off. Now everything in your life is with the company,” said a former employee.

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You gotta be kidding me. Anyone, who doesn’t prepare for the axe, can’t expect sympathy when it comes. Disaster Recovery means you should be able to operate “You, Inc.” from  wherever you are. It’s very nice that you use the boss’ computer to do all your stuff.

But what happens when you are cutoff?

When you own it, they can’t “steal” it from you. You need your own computer!

When you keep a copy of all YOUR important data in the cloud, any inet café can become your base of operations.

So what’s your plan. Do you need a hurricane like Ike, or a meltdown like Lehman, to convice you to protect yourself?

Turkeys never learn!

{gobble, gobble!}

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http://www.careerhubblog.com/main/2008/09/job-security–.html

Job Security – Six Types, and More . . .

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6. Continued Perception of Employment: To some, “perception is reality.” Employers will sometimes agree to give an employee the right to (a) keep their title, (b) use their office, (c) maintain email and phone answering, and the like, in order to maintain their appearance of being employed. This prevents the substantial diminution of “perception of value” in the employment marketplace that comes from coming to an interview “hat in hand,” and also precludes the interview question, “Why were you fired?”

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Tis probably should be an “ask” when you get the nuking that is coming. Eventually everyone gets the axe!

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update your resume month

TECHNOLOGY: Using freedownlodmanager, mp3split-ght, and some batch files to make life easy

What a great idea from these folks. With some logic why this particular month. As the Master of Turkeys, I’d say every month should be “update your resume month”, but that wouldn’t slap the uninvolved into awareness like a specific month. All too often I find ‘baby turkeys’ wandering the high and by ways of the inet in shell shock. Nuked, streeted, and abused. An excellent reminder, if you don’t need your job, dont worry, be happy. Everyone else, update your resume. Everyone is a risk of the unemployment line. imho!

the big fat old turkey hisself

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http://www.dailyblogtips.com/are-social-networks-like-the-fashion-industry

Are Social Networks Like the Fashion Industry?

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The question then becomes: will it ever stop? How many times you joined a social network, created a profile, invited friends to join, and then abandoned it completely after a couple of months? Are we looking for something that will add real value for our lives, or we are just following what everyone else is doing?

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TO WHICH I ADD MY COMMENT:

“Social Networking” a la MySpace, Friendster, Facebook, and LinkedIn has a wisp of value. If you can catch it?

It does allow you to “reach” people you would not normally see, speak to, or even know about in the hum drum drone of daily activities.

Where folks delude themselves is that: this is the “networking” that all the career counselors urge people to do. You know, to “tap the hidden job market” and make a grazillion dollars per year. Or was that per month?

In a recent experiment, on LinkedIn, (Disclaimer: I am not an open networker who will exchange LinkedIn links with just anyone to generate a high number. I have standards. I’m not a connection slut.) Anyway, in my recent experiment, I was only able to exchange an email, phone call, im, or visit with about a third of my LinkedIn “network”. I was stunned at that!

In job search terms, one seeks to harness the power of weak associations by creating a granfaloon of people who will alert you when they see “YOUR JOB” go by on their radar.

What that third meant that I had about 600 less of those “weak connections” to use when I get laid off than I thought I had. AND Yes, I said “when I get laid off”!

That’s another delusion that people have. That employment is not transient. The days of the gold watch and pension is long gone. The only paycheck you are sure of is the one you’ve cashed.

So social networking gives these soon to be fired fools the illusion that they are “networking” like all the employment gurus tell them to do. What one really should be seeking to capture is a “conversation” with these people to get that “weak link association” working for you.

The social networking site that becomes the lingua franca of social networking sites will really have capture that value proposition IF and ONLY IF it encourages conversations. Then we can stop “churning” and start (to misquote an old I Luv Lucy episode) “conversating”.

imho

p.s., Speaking of delusions, we can add to the list of jumbo shrimp, Military Intelligence, honest lawyer and my all time favorite “a politician who wants change” to that list. Delusions are just memes that are wrong. Unfortunately government is one meme that can kill and impoverish us. Where my pitchfork and torch! Get the tar and feathers. The tax and spend folks of BOTH parties have escaped the asylum! We need to put them back in the nut house; not vote them into political office!

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FROM AN EMAIL TO A TURKEY

It’s a new reality; jobs don’t stay around long. Every employee has to realize they are just a consultant, with a gig of undetermined length, without a contract or an agreement.

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http://davidmaister.com/blog/548/Compensation-Systems

Passion, People and Principles
post # 493 — Friday, January 25, 2008 — a Managing, Strategy post
Compensation Systems

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I’m thinking of writing a monograph or a book on compensation systems. As part of it, I began a list of some of the things a compensation system needs to accomplish. It’s a long potential list of objectives – too long, since no one system can accomplish all too many objectives – and many of them are contradictory!!

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The compensation system should not be “game-able” by the company. You’ve focused all on what the company needs; what does the employee need? A “crystal’ box process that can’t be “past posted” by the company. Two of the most demoralizing experiences I’ve had was when I did hit a “home run” which should have paid a multi-million dollar bonus the rules changed AND, another time, they decided what they wanted to pay and “backed in” to that by tinkering with the formula. Argh!

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http://glcavalier.wordpress.com/2008/01/18/networking-is-sexually-unbiased/

January 18, 2008
Networking is Sexually Unbiased
Posted by G. Lane Cavalier under Networking

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Lillian D Bjorseth had the following article in her newsletter today. I chose to put it up here for two reasons.

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WHICH PROMPTED

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Well, it would seem that women have a long way to go to overcome all those hurdles. Having a young girl within my sphere of influence, I was thinking about getting her an address book, a universal day book, and some stamps. I was think of paying her a bounty for every name, address, phone number, birthday, and anniversary that she could collect. What do you think? Can one manufacture a “networker” the way you can a basketball “player”? A lot of Dads manufacture many of the ladies who play college women’s basketball to get free tuition. My wife and I can pick them out. They are “wooden” and are deadly shots if all alone. So, can we some how create master networkers from a child’s greed? Hmmm.

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So, what would I need to do?

* An “address book” to record names and dates.

* A calendar for her to record names to be remembered.

* A roll of stamps.

* A box of various cards.

And, of course, a plan.

I want her to do this to learn what I should have been taught. I want to make it “fun” so she doesn’t think it’s a chore. I want to make it “challenging” since I don’t think she’s ever been challenged like this will.

I’m figuring a loose leaf binder for an address book. With a simple form to fill out. (Full name, address, phone number, email, birthday, anniversary, siblings.) For which, I’d pay a dollar. If she sends cards on time, then maybe another dollar.

(I’d get one those inventory rubber stamps to ensure “honesty”. She’s not old enough yet to be devious enough to scam me undetected. She’ll learn soon enough. She’s a girl!)

I almost have the idea thought out enough to discuss.

:-)

Thoughts?

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From AN EMAIL

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Well, it’s always time to move forward.

Stay in XXXXXXXXX or do something else? Full-timer, consulting, road warrior?

Geographic comfort zone? Relo?

Have you figured out your elevator speech yet? (Mine is “I extract value it large-scale usually legacy or brown-field IT infrastructures.”)

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For newly minted Turkeys, it’s always the same drill: What do you want to do, where do you want to do it, and how do you want to be compensated?

Ain’t life a kick in the ass?

Someday, the first contact with a newly axed turkey will contain the answers to those questions. Until then, I’ll just respond to them asking for help, by asking them.

Then, I’ll buy a lottery ticket.

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>Re: resume falsification
>Posted by: “Liz Ryan”
>Thu Jan 3, 2008 7:13 pm (PST)
>Did you know department: many universities treat false reporting of degrees
>or earned credits as a criminal matter, as fraud. One time, I contacted a

While your example did expose a cheat, I’d tread VERY lightly in verification processes. Personally, I have had my undergraduate degree IDKed by my alma mater once. I had to fax them a copy on my diploma and my official transcript. And, got a “oops, we’re sorry” in return. Also, I have had a previous employer do th old IDK as well. In that case I had my last paystub in my tax folder for that year that I whipped out as proof. Yup, all I got was another “oops. it was a subsidary payroll account — XYZ-ABC; not XYZ itself”. Yeah, right. So in self-defense, I tell new diplomates to get an oficial transcript and a copy of their diploma for their “brag book”. As well as their first and last paycheck from ANY job. Fore warned is Four Armed? fjohn

p.s., What’s a “brag book”? I firmly believe that seekers should have a binder book that has proof of EVERY assertion that they make on their resume. I like to use it as a prop during interviews. So for example, I claim that I ran a group of over 300 people in 31 states in my AT&T days; in my “brag book”, I have an old org chart. So for example, I claim that I managed several large databases; in my “brag book”, I have screen shots of several splash pages that identify and size the db. So for example, I claim that I managed a big project at CSFB; in my “brag book”, I have the first and last “waterfall” charts. It’s all about building credibility. I joke that my Mom probably has my First Grade report card, if they need it. You don’t want to appear anal. But you do want to establish the image that you don’t make wild claims. Then, people believe you when you are on the margins. So, when I say I managed a large Oracle db later in t he interview, they believe it. They don’t have to know it was Oracle v1, rather than the v26.39 that they are running. Maybe that’s “cheating”, but I don’t think so. I’m not responsible for their assumptions.

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FROM AN MLPF POST

>Late Introduction
>Posted by: “Joseph S Vinci”
>Tue Jan 1, 2008 4:46 pm (PST)
>Hi all I’m Joe Vinci, I have been a member of the group for a few months,
>I am a 48 Year old IT Director with over 28 Year’s of experience in various
>I have been recently laid off due to “Off-Shoring” after 25 years on the

Hi, Joe, I’m a few years in front of you in the “race to the finish line” in the same discipline, but no rug rats to take care of me in my old age. :-( Guess I’ll be depending upon social security. Hah!

Assuming that you’re not a “lotto winner”, I’ll tell you what I wish someone had told me two decades ago.

“Age discrimination is rampant! Get ready for it now.”

:-)

I work with out-of-work execs, mostly IT, despite being a full time employee executive in IT. (Although the way life is, I could be unemployed tomorrow!) My “turkey farm” is at http://tinyurl.com/lxu93 for your use. (Turkey is what we called each other at my first outplacement experience.) The thing that all these folks have in common is that they were totally unprepared for the axe to fall on them. I pontificate to anyone who will listen that “awareness” is the first principle to success. I say things like “you’re only sure of the last paycheck you cashed”, “when is your turn at the unemployment window”, and “like at the poker table, if you don’t see the sucker, you’re it”. When you’re aware and expecting it, you’ll have a big emergency fund, a tuned up network, and lots of options. When you’re not, it’s a bad fire drill. I can make all the usual suggestions — a branded email, website, blog, elevator spiel with geographic and financial comfort zones, network using Lucht AND LinkedIn, as well as do EVERYTHING at once. But, you’ll hear those said by others.