Mardi Humphreys

You Call THIS Having it All?

We’ve gone from Helen Gurley Brown in 1986 telling women we can have it all: career, family, social life, etc., to Oprah Winfrey in 2018 telling us we can’t have it all at the same time. I feel like the narrative of the American Woman is: Have a demanding career, a successful husband, active children, and manage all these things with no support; otherwise, you are not a “real” woman. And, it’s not men who are judging us. We do this to each other. It needs to stop. NOW. As usual, I have more questions than answers:

Why is this even a goal? I’ve spent the last 21 years hoping by the time our daughter was old enough to hold a full time job, marry, and start a family, the environment in America would be conducive to parenting while working full time. It isn’t and I don’t think it will be in my lifetime. Do we really need government policies that force companies to not fire a woman for taking time off to give birth and recover from it? Apparently so: FMLA. Now why would any company do that? Work for women is not a luxury. If we have to legislate to keep women employed, how about policies more like the ones in Great Britain ? When I gave birth to our daughter, I took a 12 week maternity leave. I saved up my sick days and rolled over my vacation days for two years in order to be paid for most of that time off. I trained someone to fill in for me while I was out, but mostly I trained him to call me when he had questions so I could log these calls and prove the company needed me to return. Yes. I’m one radioactive spider bite away from being a super villain.

Why do we assume women want to marry? I blame the media. I had this conversation with a couple of female friends on different occasions recently and both of them were hard pressed to come up with reasons why their daughters should marry their current boyfriends. We all finally landed on the African proverb, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” Marriage encourages couples to work out their problems and stay together. Relationships are hard. They require you to put the interests of your mate ahead of your own. Not every woman is willing to do that, nor should society expect her to.

Why do we assume women want to have children? Sometimes looking at Facebook feels like watching a mommy contest. I see posts of locally sourced organic meals served to the entire team after the pee-wee ballgame accompanied by a comment about rushing off to answer work emails after her player is in bed. I’m exhausted just reading it. If you’ve got one foot on the corporate ladder and one foot in the kitchen, you’re doing the splits, and that gets real painful, real fast. How do you excel at either one? As a society, we need to stop asking women why they don’t have children. Personal reproductive choices are no one’s business.

Is work-life balance an illusion? So you have to work and you want to have children. Why do women feel guilty for getting help? Why is it shameful to have a cleaning lady? What is wrong with hiring a full-time baby sitter? Why can’t a husband be the primary care-giver? Are women just control freaks? Do you want to control both doctor’s appointments and staff meetings? Why does childcare cost so much? How do we stop hiring managers from looking at women of child bearing age during interviews and think to themselves, “I wonder how long she will be on the job before she gets pregnant?” Now that I’m past child bearing years, I have advanced faster in my career since my daughter started college than in her lifetime up to now.

Do you teach your daughters to plan their futures? Have you laid out a schedule for them? For example, “Okay honey, here’s what you do. After high school, go to college. Graduate in four years with a Bachelor’s degree then get an entry level position at a corporation. Work there for three years and get promoted. Work three more years, then get married. After three years of marriage, get promoted to manager, then have your first child.” This makes your daughters about 30 years old when they have their first child, by the way. Why do you even have to contemplate giving this kind of controlling counsel to your daughters? Does it even occur to you to give that same advice to your sons? What skills should you teach your daughters to cope with trying to have it all? Should you warn them that their choices will involve sacrifice? For example: You can have both a career and kids, but both will suffer. How are women ever going to achieve equal pay for equal work if we can’t work? How do we promote more women to the C-Suite if we are penalized for child-bearing?

Share your thoughts, suggestions, and experiences here:

The Robots Are Coming! The Robots Are Coming!

We joke about robots taking over our jobs. “They can have it,” we say. But when a Google search returns about 841,000 results to my, “robots taking over jobs statistics,” query, we should seriously think about how we can add value to our employers. It’s not enough to just do the tasks in your job description. Your company expects you to contribute to its bottom line. You are an investment to them. They expect to get a return. If they get a good return on your work, you have grounds to ask for a raise and/or promotion, and you have a good reason to expect job security. Here are five things you can do to add value to your company:

Be Extra – Doing just a little bit more than what is expected of you can impress your manager in a big way. For example, one of my coworkers had an unfortunate coffee spill. And when I say unfortunate, I mean all over him, the walls, the window, and the carpet. The office smelled like latte for a week, which I loved. But coffee stains, so I searched the internet for carpet cleaning services and emailed my manager links to my top three choices. She didn’t ask, I just did it. It only took seven minutes. You don’t have to take on difficult projects to stand out. Taking the next logical, thoughtful, extra step leaves a good impression.

Pay Attention – Google your company. Read Activity Reports. Do a little reconnaissance. Is your company moving to a new software platform? Be the expert. Learn new skills on your own time. I’m taking a Mastering Excel class on lynda.com. I audited a financial accounting class from The Wharton School of Business. Neither of these cost me money. You should learn enough business acumen to ask intelligent questions and to look good at your next performance review. Why sit at your desk and try to look busy when you could actually be busy?

Be An Encourager – Did a coworker’s grandmother pass away? Buy a sympathy card and pass it around for everyone to sign. Did a Customer Service Representative bring a potential problem to your attention? Give her points using your company’s reward system. Life is about relationships. Companies don’t hire people. People hire people. You never know who will be in a position to hire you some day. Random acts of kindness are memorable. Make sure you have a reputation of lighting up the room when you walk into it instead of when you walk out of it.

Make Your Boss Look Good To Her Boss – This is not brown nosing. This is making your manager look smart for running a strong team that accomplishes major goals for the company. That spotlight is big enough to shine on you too. No one meets Key Performance Indicators by themselves and if your organization is not smart enough to recognize that, find one that does.

Be Part Of The Solution – One of my favorite lines from the television series Leverage is, “Don’t bring up a problem unless you have a fix.” Does your company have a vision statement? Make decisions using it as a filter. It’s way too easy to put the urgent before the important day after day after day after, well, you know. At least once a week, look at your task list and organize it using your company’s vision statement. Prioritize what is important to them. See a problem brewing? Formulate a solution before speaking up in Staff Meeting. You want to be known as a fixer, not a complainer.

Any suggestions on how to keep the robots from taking our jobs? Share them with me here:

Can You Keep a Secret?

Maybe you were at the wrong place at the wrong time and overheard something you wish you hadn’t. Maybe you received an email that wasn’t meant for you. However it happened, now you know something about a coworker you wish you could forget. So unless you can perform Gilderoy Lockhart’s Memory Charm on yourself, here are four suggestions on how to keep a secret:

Don’t Think About It: If it’s in your head it’s likely to come out of your mouth. Put it out of your mind especially when the coworker in question is around. Do something that diverts your attention: Go to the ladies room, work on the next client presentation, proofread the activity report, watch a puppy video. Whatever the secret is will burden her and there’s nothing she can do about it right now. It isn’t your place to tell her, so don’t. You may feel sorry for her, protective of her, outraged for her, but don’t let your non-verbals betray you. It won’t be a secret forever. When it comes to light, THAT is the time to release your emotions. Until then, keep them in check.

Don’t Tell Other People: You’re not supposed to have this information, so pretend you don’t. If another coworker suspects something and asks you to confirm or deny, don’t fall for it. Juicy gossip is tempting, but almost always hurtful and not just to your coworker. Oprah Winfrey says, “When someone talks to you about other people, know that they’re talking about you behind your back, too.” The last thing you need is a reputation for gossip. You want to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

Do Be Helpful: A member of your team is being attacked. Part of your job is to protect the team (think Michael Oher in Blindside). If the attack is unjust, then there should be evidence that your coworker is a good employee. Have you received emails congratulating the team on a job well done? Flag them for future reference. Did a customer tell you he appreciated your coworker’s help? Ask him to email the manager his comment. Building people up not only helps them, but also makes you look good.

Do Be There For The Big Reveal: The thing about office secrets is they don’t stay secret for long. Not even in Vegas. So after this secret is revealed, be a support to your coworker. A chain is only as strong as it’s weakest link and right now your weakest link is your coworker. It’s in your best interest to not let the team falter because of this distraction. If the criticism is founded, gently identify how she got into this mess, figure out how to prevent it from happening again, then encourage her and the rest of the team to rally and repair any damage. If the criticism is not founded, now is the time to remind her of what she’s doing right, stay focused, and in the immortal words of Taylor Swift, “shake it off.”

Have you had to keep a secret at work? Share your story here:

Relax Like You Mean It

My husband and I recently returned from a vacation in the Great Smoky Mountains, Gatlinburg, TN. We couldn’t remember the last time we took a week off to travel alone together. Oh, we’ve staycationed and taken time off work to do home improvement projects, but for years our vacation time and budget was devoted to club volleyball tournaments. Since we didn’t intentionally prioritize getting away together, it’s been years since we’ve done it. Does this sound familiar? It should. According to Project:Time Off, 52% of American workers did not use all their paid vacation in 2017. Don’t you be one of them! Here is why you should take a vacation:

Vacation Increases Your Creativity: Travel forces you to be emotionally agile. Problems will happen. You will have to think instead of react, look at your options for solving the problem, and decide on a course of action. For example: A few years ago while in Las Vegas, my husband and I went to see Danny Gans, a comedian famous for never missing a show. Guess what? For the first time ever, he was too sick to perform. Now what do we do? We took to the Strip where we were treated to plenty of free entertainment: dancing fountains, sinking pirate ships, and people watching. When you travel to a location you have never been, eating what other people eat, listening to their music, seeing their art, it rewires your brain to think about problem solving differently.

Vacation Enriches Your Relationships: If you can travel with someone you like, you get to see them at their best and worst. It’s an adventure, but it’s also practical. The trip is cheaper because you split the cost of gas and hotel. You don’t pack as much because you share stuff: You pack the toothpaste, she packs the straight iron. You can encourage each other out of your comfort zones. Help each other try something new. Obviously there is safety in numbers, but you can also help each other stick to your budgets or remind each other you saved for this trip so splurge on that once-in-a-lifetime souvenir. You’ll both probably be interested in the same activities and want to move at the same pace. Traveling brings perspective to your relationship. Making memories together uniquely bonds you.

Vacation Makes You Better At Your Job: Do you avoid taking a vacation because you’re afraid of what will happen while you’re are away: projects with short deadlines piling up on your desk, coworkers resentment over covering for you, the team realizing they don’t need you? Is paid time off one of your job benefits? If you don’t take it, and it doesn’t roll over at the end of the year, it’s just gone. That means you’re working those hours for free. Do not underestimate the power of leisure. On vacation you’re not sitting at your desk stress eating while worrying about tomorrow’s client meeting. On vacation, you focus on slowing down and having fun. This leads to better sleep and maybe even weight loss. The study I site in my first paragraph says frequent travelers are 18% more likely to report getting a promotion in the last two years. Besides, how can your manager miss you if you won’t go away?

Vacation Gives You Something To Look Forward To: Oprah Winfrey said in her magazine, “I always give myself Sundays as a spiritual base of renewal —a day when I do absolutely nothing. I sit in my jammies or take a walk, and I allow myself time to BE —capital B-E— with myself. When I don’t, I absolutely become stressed, irritable, anxiety-prone, and not the person I want to be in the world.” Relaxation doesn’t just come. You have to plan for it. Take time off even if you don’t go anywhere. If paid time off is not one of your job benefits, and you can’t afford to take a whole week off or travel, put $10 aside every week until you’ve saved up a day or two’s pay and take that time off. You can use that time to: Learn a new skill to put on your resume, work on a side gig or personal project, get out of your comfort zone with a new experience, take a walk and contemplate your next five years, or start a new healthy habit.

Vacation Gets Better With Practice: If you have paid time off and this is new for you, start small: Take a staycation. Encourage your partner/family to participate. Then do what they plan and don’t complain. Resist trying to control everything and express gratitude, especially for the effort. During this staycation talk about bigger plans and brainstorm for your next longer trip. Then, look forward to it: Calendar it, start a budget, make a packing list, research the area, make sure you have the necessary clothes, car food, and books for it. Learn a bit of a new language if necessary. Start giving yourself affirmations now: Expect surprises both good and bad, plan to enjoy and make the most of good ones, and roll with the bad ones. You can spin them into stories to tell your friends. Prepare to document the vacation: To take lots of pictures, do stuff you’ve never done before, eat foods you’ve never eaten. Promise to collect or buy souvenirs and live in the moment: No work emails! It’s not too late to request time off for this year. Get out there and relax like you mean it!

Tell me about your vacation here:

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (and Breakfast and Lunch)?

My friend was very excited her daughter’s boyfriend’s apartment was finally move in ready after a month’s delay. He’d lived with her family for almost a year. He had a job, but did not pay rent, utilities, groceries, etc. Nor did he help around the house. My friend cooked his meals, did his laundry, washed his dishes, etc. He accompanied the family to the grocery, put items in the cart, and went to the car when they got to the cashier. She didn’t feel like she could impose consequences on him because of his relationship with her daughter. She said, “I know you would’ve sat down with the two of them before he moved in and talked about expectations. I wanted to, but we never found time. Now it’s too late.” Honestly, I don’t know whether I would’ve thought to do that or not. Pretty to think so (she gives me waaaaay too much credit). Do you have adult children who need a place to crash for a while? Maybe you have a recent college grad and his girlfriend, or a daughter and her partner moving back to town and unable to afford two mortgages. If you have adult children coming to live with you, maybe try a before, during, and after approach:

Before:
Have a family meeting over lunch or coffee and discuss arrangements:

Sharing – If they are not married, are they allowed to sleep together under your roof? Are you an early bird and they are night owls? If they blast the television volume at 1:00AM, is that going to disturb your R.E.M. sleep? Do you need a shower schedule so everyone gets to work on time?

Eating – Will you buy all the groceries? Plan all the meals? Fix three meals a day? If they drink a pound of Starbucks coffee you brew at home every week, are you paying for it?

Cleaning – Will you clean up after them in your common areas? Will you put the used dishes they left sitting on the living room table in the dishwasher? Are you doing their laundry?

Working – Do they have jobs? If not, are they looking for employment? Will they use your computer, printer, ink, paper, Wi-Fi, to search for employment? Will they use those resources for free? Do both of them have to get jobs before they can move out? How long will they stay: Three months, six months, a year, indefinitely?

Paying – Will they pay rent? Will they pay the electric bill? Will they buy groceries? This is tricky, but important to discuss. They need some skin in the game. They are using your power, water, appliances, maybe even your car. Your household expenses will go up and part of adulting is figuring out how to pay your expenses.

If you have house rules, now is the time announce them and define the consequences for broken rules. Acknowledge that mistakes are inevitable and will be forgiven. You can be a gracious host and have harmony in your home if you set boundaries and steel yourself to enforce them. Human nature being what it is, they will most likely test your boundaries. Stand your ground and demand respect. You do not want to make your home so comfortable for them that they never want to leave.

During:
Keep talking. What are their plans for leaving? How are the job searches going? Can they make dinner tomorrow night? Don’t do their laundry, dishes, taxes or anything else. Show them how to use the washer and dryer, dishwasher, stove, vacuum, coffeemaker, etc. Give them opportunities to contribute to the running of the house. Enforce consequences and be specific. For example: If you have to ask them to wash their dishes, set a time limit: “These dishes need washed, dried, and put away by the time I get up in the morning.” Is much clearer than, “Please clean up your dishes.” If this becomes a habit, there needs to be a consequence: “You can’t use our dishes anymore. Buy yourself some paper plates.”

After:
If they are still living with you after the deadline you set has passed, have another family meeting. Are they ready to go? Are they stalling? Do they need a Plan B? Was the deadline unrealistic and needs pushed back? If so, what is a more realistic deadline? If they are packed up and ready to go, now is the time to settle up. Do they owe you money? If they do, but can’t pay at the time, set up a payment schedule. Was living together pleasant (or at least tolerable)? If so, celebrate! Take everyone to dinner, help them move out, or just be gracious upon their exit.

Are you currently living with your adult children or vice versa? Tell me how it’s going here:

Thanks Mom!

My mom once said to me, “I feel like I taught you how to be a good mother, but not a good wife.” I hope my husband disagrees with her on that point, but what I know for sure is she taught me how to be a good human. I apply her lessons to my roles as mother, wife, daughter, friend, employee, etc., everyday. I’m surprised how often Mom’s wisdom pops into my head at work. As Mother’s Day approaches, here is some of that wisdom:

People Come First – Mom was 18 years old when I was born. I was an unplanned pregnancy. She could have chosen not to have me. Instead, she raised me while going to college, getting her degree, then working as a nurse. Watching her journey, I decided to wait until I was 30 years old to become a mom. Yes, I watched her life and judged her choices. Your life and choices are being judged too; at your job. Do you put the interests of the company ahead of your own, or do you do as little as possible because that’s all you think it deserves? Do you enable the team’s success, or do you look for ways to take credit for the team’s work? Your manager will make decisions regarding your job performance based both on what you do and what you don’t do. The best practice is to both make sure your manager knows you “took one for the team,” and share credit for the success of the project with the team. Mom put my life ahead of hers. She teaches me that people come first.

Pick Your Battles – My Grandmother turns 90 years old this month and her health is fading. She lives on her own and Mom and my uncle share the responsibility of helping her stay in her house. They sometimes disagree on the best way to handle situations. Sometimes my mother chooses not to fight a battle that, in her place, I would choose to fight. Sometimes she lets my uncle take the lead and handle the task. I was reminded of this recently at the office. I kept getting frustrated with a colleague’s work. I thought, “Why does he do that? “Why doesn’t he do this?” Then I realized my circumstance was very similar to Mom and my uncle taking care of my grandmother. I chose to follow Mom’s lead and not only let the coworker do his job, but also offered to help. He took me up on the offer, which was a lesson in humility, but that is another blog for another time. Anyway, does this sound familiar? Do you have associates that can use your help instead of your criticism? Mom trains me to pick my battles.

Always Choose Generosity – Mom has a friend who is fighting cancer. She spends almost five hours every other week with this friend as she undergoes immunotherapy. Every Easter, Mom and her Sunday school class make “Widow Baskets.” These are filled with goodies they purchase like candy, lotions, and gift cards, then deliver to widowed ladies from her class. Mom volunteers tutoring students ages elementary through High School who need one-on-one attention in a quiet area in order to learn. I could go on, but I’m running out of space here. Does she reap any rewards from this generosity? Yes. People, particularly her Sunday school class, show their appreciation. But that’s not why she does all the things she does. Because she is a Christian, Mom always chooses generosity. At work, look for ways to be generous. Stop typing and listen when your cubicle mate is upset. Help colleagues with projects that are in your wheelhouse. Encourage your coworkers when they are struggling. Is someone’s mom sick? Set a task on your calendar to ask him about her once a week. Compliment your boss on a job well done. Use your company’s employee incentive program to reward team members for helping you. Generosity actually benefits you. People are more likely to help you when, in the past, you’ve helped them. Mom’s example inspires me to always choose generosity.

Be So Good At What You Do That You Are Impossible To Ignore – Mom is a life long learner. I vividly remember as a kid sitting at a desk in our kitchen with a blue colored pencil in my hand tracing veins in a picture of a human skull in Mom’s Grey’s Anatomy Coloring Book. She studied it for one of her nursing classes. Mom loves The Bible and has spent the years since her retirement from nursing studying it. She is also a natural leader. She is a wise communicator with both listening and speaking skills. This combination made her the obvious choice to permanently teach her Sunday school class when the need arose. Also, because of her years of training, Mom has a steady stream of women 40 – 50 years younger than she is asking her to disciple them. Her example taught me to hone my skills, work hard, and produce results. It’s difficult to be a woman in the workplace, but results are genderless. If sales are up 12% because of your efforts, the boss isn’t thinking about whether you are male or female. Be the Subject Matter Expert at something at your job: PowerPoint, customer service, patient follow up, whatever your passion is. If you to study it, practice it, and be the best you can be at it, others (your current employer or your next one) will pursue you. Mom proves you should be so good at what you do that you are impossible to ignore.

It’s Good To Have Hope – Mom has fibromyalgia. This makes every day unpredictable. Stuff gets on her nerves. Literally. She finds ways to cope like art journaling which has garnered her some attention and fans. What began as a coping mechanism has given her opportunity to show others how to use it as a creative outlet. When she faces a difficult day, she moves through it trusting God and hoping tomorrow will be better. She relies on one of my grandmother’s sayings: This too shall pass (again, another blog for another time). Mom’s approach teaches me to keep going and not give up. Don’t you throw in the towel either. Keep going to work. Keep looking for ways to improve process, to please the client, to give value to the customer. Whatever you do for a living, put in the effort and know it will eventually pay off and probably not in the way you expect. Mom shows me that none of us know what the day ahead will bring, but it is definitely more pleasant if you face it with a positive attitude. Mom knows it’s good to have hope.

What about you? What lessons did your mom teach you? Please share them with me here:

Who’s the Boss?

When I got my first “big girl” job after graduating college, I had one supervisor. She was the boss. She gave me my schedule, my paycheck, and approved my vacation. In the 11 years I worked for that company, it transferred ownership a couple of times and was restructured three or four times. I got passed around to different departments, but always had one person to whom I answered. Fast forward a few years: I was hired to work for a church who cobbled together a full-time administrative assistant position out of two part-time administrative assistant positions. I reported to two supervisors of completely different ministries and things got complicated. Robert Sutton, professor of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University and author of Good Boss, Bad Boss*, says, “as you go to a matrixed structure, you can easily have between one and seven immediate supervisors.” If this is your situation, here are three suggestions:

Organize: Be ahead of the workload. Take good notes. Keep your calendar updated. Color code assignments. Revisit flagged emails weekly. Are there production goals you need to meet? Are there sales goals for which you are responsible? Do you know what your KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) are? Find out what your managers’ priorities are. Write them down if you have to and refer to the list when choosing how to spend your time. Projects usually take longer than you anticipate, so leave yourself margin whenever possible. Over promising and/or under delivering quickly gives you a bad reputation. If you get to set a deadline, forecast completion of the project a day after you think you will actually complete it.

Communicate: Meet with each manager weekly to discuss expectations, priorities, deadlines, short term and long term projects, and what you are doing for your other managers. This may seem like overkill, but when you report to more than one supervisor, it’s almost impossible to communicate too much. Be vigilant with follow up. Create a shared spreadsheet listing your projects for each manager so all of them can see it. If you work for managers who do not work out of the same office as you, they will wonder how you spend your time. When they are stressed about one of your projects, convey a sense of urgency. Email regular updates regarding your activity. Even if it’s just a couple of lines at the end of the day, “Here is a list of the steps I took to complete your project today.” If your time is billed to multiple clients you need to do this anyway, so it’s really not extra work. If you fail (IE: didn’t meet goal, missed a hard deadline, etc.), don’t wait to be called to the carpet for it. Be proactive. Go to the manager, tell her you screwed up, and why. Then tell her how you plan to fix it and your trigger to avoid making the mistake again. Are your managers competitors? Don’t talk negatively to one about the others. If they bait you, ask: “If I tell you what Manager X and I spoke of in confidence, how will you ever trust me not to talk to Manager X about what you and I talk about in confidence?”

Prioritize: There are 168 hours in a week. Even if you work all of them, it’s unlikely you can get everything done for everyone. Do you work on the projects you like best first? These may not be the projects your managers want done first. If you ask them to prioritize your projects and they say all the projects need to be done, refer them to your previously mentioned spreadsheet and say, “As you can see, I have A, B, and C all due for you today, as well as projects due for Manager X. Of A, B, or C, which one is the most important to you?” If you don’t receive a clear response, complete a task you know is important to him. Send an email informing him you completed the task, and ask him what he wants you to do next. If you consistently do this, it will become a painless habit for both you and your supervisors. When your managers’ plans for you conflict, use an email thread, conference call, or meeting to get everyone on the same page of your shared spreadsheet (see how handy this is?). If all this doesn’t work, determine who the Elvis is and finish his projects first. The Elvis is the manager who is ultimately responsible for you – the one who does your performance reviews is probably him. At the end of the day, this is the manager you need to be most loyal to if forced to choose.

Do you work for more than one supervisor? Use the form below to tell me some of your coping strategies.

What to Expect When You’re Not Expecting

Awkward: The word that best describes the time period between a coworker’s dismissal and his departure. Even if it’s someone you don’t like, you wouldn’t wish job loss on anyone. Restructuring happens. Downsizing happens. Finding out someone’s role is eliminated makes you realize it can happen to you. It’s scary. It makes it hard to concentrate and do your job well. Not doing your job well puts you in danger of losing it, creating a vicious circle. You can’t control the corporate machine, but here are some things you can control:

The Obvious – Google what current resumes look like. If you haven’t had to search for a job for a few years, you may be in for a rude awakening. Employers want the story of your career in numbers, so you need to quantify yourself: How much revenue do you generate for your company? How much time have you saved your company through process improvement? Quantifying your job performance in percentages can be tricky if you are in an administrative role. You may have to get a bit creative. Can you quantify how much time you saved your supervisor? Can you quantify how much money you saved the company through frugal purchasing? You no longer have to put every job you ever held on your resume. Hiring managers only want to see your experience relevant to the job they need to fill. So, first create a master resume with every job you’ve ever had including dates, supervisors’ names and titles, the previously mentioned quantified percentages, referrals and contact information. Then, revisit it every six months to update any outdated information. If it becomes necessary for you to apply for a job, you can easily cherry pick the relevant experience from this document and create a fresh resume tailored specifically to the job for which you are applying.
Don’t forget the cover letter. Plenty of job coaches are on the fence about whether or not the cover letter is dead, but most agree it doesn’t hurt your chances if you send one. Polish yours, then save it as a template. Make it a marketing piece that tempts a hiring manager to read your resume. Hopefully, you won’t need it for a while, so leave notes for yourself in it. For example: include several ways to contact you; at least your email address and phone number in the signature block. Leave a note to yourself in the greeting to go to LinkedIn and find out the hiring manager’s name. In the body, leave a note to yourself to choose three key phrases from the job description then give examples of how your experience fills those needs using the quantifying percentages from your master resume. If you unexpectedly lose your job, just having a foundation to build on can calm your panic.

The Not so Obvious – Get on a job posting website and check out positions that interest you and companies at which you’d like to work. Check out the job descriptions. Do you have the skills to do the jobs that interest you ? If you don’t, go get them. With Massive Online Open Courses (MOOL), there’s no excuse not to have up to date skills. And yes, I’m putting my money where my mouth is (or where my fingers are, in this case). I took an online Introduction to Financial Accounting class from The Wharton School of Business through a MOOL. It’s not only on my resume, but also on my performance review.
Join LinkedIn. Do more than fill out your profile and upload a picture. If you need advice on how to use LinkedIn, search your public library’s database for a how-to book and check it out. While you wait for the book, read this article: https://www.themuse.com/advice/9-surefire-ways-to-boost-your-linkedin-profile-when-you-only-have-10-minutes
Network. This can solidify your current position as well as help you make connections in case you need to quickly find out who is hiring. Does your employer participate in networking groups? Wrangle an invitation or offer to manage your company’s table at the next event. You can pass out business cards and collect them for your own future use while simultaneously promoting your company. And don’t forget to follow up with new contacts on LinkedIn.
Do you know someone who has suffered job loss and bounced back into a new position? Buy her a cup of coffee and ask how she did it. Most people like telling their stories and smart people listen. Ask if in hindsight she knew the elimination was coming, what would she have done to prepare? When she gives you suggestions, do them.

Get a Side Gig – Take on an additional (part time) job, or a find a side hustle. At the very least, you’ll feel like you have some control over your destiny, and you’ll have a bit of income to fall back on if the worst happens. If the worst doesn’t happen, you’ll have a little extra cash; which leads me to my next point…

Save Your Money – This is not the time to purchase luxuries. Take this opportunity to pay down debt. Every month make an extra payment on your: car, credit card, student loan, mortgage (Get the idea?). Being debt free gives you so many options and peace of mind. No debt? Congratulations! Put the earnings from your side gig in your IRA. You DO have an Individual Retirement Account, right?

Keep Calm and… During uncertain times, you need to keep your wits about you. You can’t do that in panic mode. Need help getting down off the ledge? Grab your notebook (paper or computer) and start writing. Here are some prompts: What exactly are you afraid of? What is the worst that could happen? Seeing the words in front of you not only gives the feelings less power, it helps you form a plan. Then go for a walk, run, swim, yoga class, spin class or whatever. Do something to get your body and endorphins moving. Wear your body out to lower your stress so you can think more clearly.

Do Your Best Work – The company is going to do what the company needs to do. You cannot control that. The only insurance you can give yourself is to be the best at your job. Don’t give up. You’ll either keep your job or you won’t. And if you don’t, you’ll want to use your manager and coworkers as references. Let them be able to honestly tell your next hiring manager that you have enough emotional intelligence to show grace under pressure.

Please share your stories of living with job insecurity here:

Let’s Talk About Sex(ism)

Warning: Heavier subject matter than usual.

Phrases my friends have heard men say out loud in their offices in 2018: “Jim doesn’t realize he’s talking to a woman.” “She’s in charge (insert eye roll here).” “Joe doesn’t know how to talk to women.” “Give it to the office girl.” (Side note, the office girl is over 50 years old and is the speaker’s supervisor.) Do they not hear themselves? Do they not get it? Do they not care?

Most men would tell you they are not sexist because they sincerely believe they aren’t. Here’s an interesting (and scary) article about unconscious sexism: https://www.forbes.com/sites/amyanderson/2016/12/14/no-man-is-above-unconscious-gender-bias-in-the-workplace-its-unconscious/#2dc4e1d612b4. Take the last United States’ Presidential campaign for example. During a stop in Virginia in February 2016, The governor of my state, John Kaisch, said, “And how did I get elected? Nobody was, I didn’t have anybody for me. We just got an army of people who, um, and many women, who left their kitchens to go out and go door-to-door and to put yard signs up for me,” (http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/22/politics/john-kasich-women-kitchen/). When female voters protested the women-leaving-their-kitchens comment, he said he intended no offense, if you listened to his whole speech you’d understand the context, and “Everybody’s just got to relax.” While we’re on the topic of sexist comments by men in government, let me just state the obvious and get it out of the way: President Trump. Enough said. I’m pulling a Mick Jagger. “If you start me up I’ll never stop.”

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been told I’ve just got to relax. If a female gets offended by a sexist comment made by a male coworker, we are told it’s because we aren’t chill, we didn’t understand what he meant, or we have no sense of humor. Getting offended and pointing it out eventually renders anything we say ineffective. In nearly every job I’ve held so far, I’ve had to decide how much standing up for my gender will cost me. My most extreme example: One of my supervisors used me as a scapegoat to chronically spend over budget, took my ideas for his own, then nicknamed me Pandora for asking too many questions. It’s difficult to just relax when the industry’s general consensus is a woman’s career is not as important as a man’s career.

My biggest angst is how to prepare our daughter for this reality. When she was born 21 years ago, I really hoped by now sexism would no longer be an issue. But just in case, I intentionally pushed to name her Casey, or another gender ambiguous name, so that when hiring managers saw her resume they could not possibly know what gender she is before they saw her. That coupled with the fact her resume lists her position on her university’s power lifting team REALLY confuses hiring managers. One came to the lobby to bring her back for an interview, looked right at her, then asked his administrative assistant if Casey Humphreys had shown up yet. Casey said, “That’s me.” After looking over her resume, he expected to find a muscular young man sitting in his lobby, not a petite young woman.

I usually have some encouragement for you at this point in the post, but this week, all I have are questions. Little questions like: When do you speak up? When do you shut up? Is there any point in saying you’re offended? Is any change going to take place if you do? Should you keep hitting your head against this wall? Then there are the huge questions: What are your coping strategies? Has speaking up kept you from advancement? What do you tell your daughters?

Please tell me your stories here:

Keep it Kind

Associate of the Quarter — Photo Credit: Pixabay.com

For a year, I was employed part time for HomeGoods in addition to my full time job. Why? For the money, the distraction, and because I grew extremely fond of the people with whom I worked. During a seven day week, I put in about 20 hours. Spending this much time at the store introduced me to tons of people and the experience was heady. I never met so many interesting individuals gathered in one place: married, single, younger, older, poor, well-off, sick, healthy, educated, trying-to-get educated, shy, exhibitionist. They had so many stories to tell and I had so much time to listen while we categorized a thousand and one throw pillows by color. Culturally, at the time, kindness was trending. So I decided early on to make this job an experiment in kindness. Could I be kind to every person I encountered: managers, teammates, customers? If I did, how would I measure success? Would this be an experiment everyone could do? The answer came quickly and blew my mind. Here is what you can do and what I did:

For Your Managers: Show up on time and do what they ask you to do. I checked out resources, like the merchandising handbook, on my breaks and studied them. I let them know I used some of my vacation time from my full time job to support the store during holiday seasons. I adopted an “it’s easier to be forgiven than approved” attitude. Like Philip McKernan says, “In the absence of clarity, take action.” In order to learn, I offered to do things (returns, merchandising, etc) beyond my job description until someone higher up than me told me I didn’t have the authority to do it.

For Your Teammates: Listen to them and ask follow up questions. Do the tasks others don’t want to do – within reason. For example: I didn’t judge and I pretended not to be shocked by anything they said. (“Are your decisions getting you what you want out of life? L’chaim.”) When a chronically complaining coworker started up, I spun her complaint into a compliment. When a high maintenance customer overwhelmed a new associate, I offered assistance. When an associate felt stuck in her position and wanted to move up, we discussed resume writing and networking. When an associate was grappling with another job opportunity, we talked about the pros and cons of retail life vs. office life. I set boundaries like time limits for listening and offering a choice to unmotivated teammates: “Here are two things we need to do right now. Which one do you want? I’ll do the one you don’t want to do.” (Please excuse the overuse of “I” in this post. I couldn’t think of another way to give real-life illustrations.) Bottom line: Treat others the way you want to be treated.

For Your Customers: They are always more important than the task. Take the time to serve them. Here are some things that happened to me: A grumpy older man wanted to use a dolly (which is forbidden by the company) to haul a Christmas mailbox from the back of the store to the front. I offered to do it. When he said, “Are you going to pay for it when you drop it?” I said, “Sir, your confidence in me is underwhelming,” and hauled the mailbox. Sassy? Yes. Disrespectful? Not quite. Another customer pulled out a dozen throw pillows, trying to decide which three to purchase. I put them in a cart and took them over to a couch the color she was trying to match and we spent twenty minutes choosing the perfect ones. Another customer asked for help finding sheets and every option I pulled for her either was not the right thread count, or not the right size, or did not include enough pillow cases, or was too expensive, etc. I did not kill her.

I had to give up HomeGoods when my full time job began to require more flexibility in my schedule. The results of the kindness experiment have stuck with me and, I think, made me better at my full time job. The first result was a realization that my age is finally coming in handy. I was used to being the youngest person in the group. But at the store, I was one of the oldest. I was depressed at first, but tried to roll with it. I mean, what’s the alternative? Death? The second result was that the challenge of finding ways to be kind to everyone I came in contact with at the store energized me. I found I could work 60 or so hours a week and still function. The final result was the most unexpected. Two months into my employment, it was time to choose the Associate of the Quarter. The majority of my teammates voted for me. Their kindness flatters me even now. I received my name on a plaque, a framed certificate, a visit from the district manager, and a gift card. But the real gift they gave me was practice communicating with customers, teammates, and management. Kindness as a communication strategy. Brilliant. Thank you teammates for the valuable lesson!

How about you? Ever find yourself in a situation where you can choose to either invest in people or just keep to yourself? What did you do? Are you happy with your decision? Tell me about it here: