Community – Page 3 – mardihumphreys.com

Boxed In

When anyone asks me how old I am, I reply, “I stopped keeping track at 30.” It feels a bit defensive, but once I’m labeled as of a certain age I’m immediately put in a certain box. I’m hyper-conscious I have two strikes against me in the American workforce: I’m a woman over 35 years old. It’s harder for my tribe to get potential employers’ attention with every passing day. Some of the children who were taught to help old ladies across the street and carry old men’s groceries to their cars have grown into adult hiring managers who label anyone with a touch of grey hair as weak, forgetful, and when they’re your employees, expensive. Three examples come to mind:

1) People are considered elderly at 65 years old, but the full retirement age in America is 67. Rumor has it the retirement age will be raised to 70 pretty soon, so there are plenty of people who need to work for at least three more years and be carried on their employers’ insurance policies. These employees typically use more insurance benefits than their younger coworkers, raising the cost of premiums for all employees. But there are loads of healthy older employees positively contributing to their organization’s bottom line thanks to adopting healthy lifestyles, preventative medicine, and a mindset of perpetual learning; especially about emerging technology. We should be judged on our contributions and considered for the same opportunities as anyone else.

2) The general assumption is older workers require a higher wage. This seems to be especially apparent in the tech sector. Dan Lyons recounts his experience of getting laid off in his book, Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Startup Bubble. He was informed the company could use his salary to hire five kids out of college. But if the company is full of recent graduates, who has the experience and wisdom to guide the team? Where are the mentors? The Subject Matter Experts? These are the people who, when crisis hits, fall back on their training to carry the team and save projects. With the growing interest in encore careers, workers in their 40’s and 50’s are making more lateral moves in terms of salary. We consider benefits like flex-time, working remotely, paid time off to volunteer, and employer paid higher education, at least as important as wages when negotiating a compensation package.

3) Ageism affects everyone. We assume we’re talking about older workers, but remember when you were considered too young to do something? Like rent a car at 22 years old? If we have to be 25-35 years old to be employable in America, we’re headed for an economic crisis. Ageism comes from inside an organization. It’s systematic and terrifying.

We’ll all be in boxes eventually. Cemeteries are full of them. Can we please be judged on our accomplishments and character instead of our statistical potential to drain the company’s resources? How do we combat ageism in our companies without getting fired? I’d love to see your opinions in the comments section.

Going Solo

adult-audience-celebration — Photo by Pixabay from Pexels

Thank you for all the tips you gave me after my post on networking solo. Some of them came in handy at events I recently attended. Like finding someone sitting alone who looked as scared as I felt. It worked! It turned out he works at a business for which my company recently subcontracted. This led to using another tip: find something in common to discuss. With the experience of attending a couple more speed dating type events under my belt, a pattern is emerging. Here are some of their common elements:

Gobs of people on their phones
Carbohydrate loaded snacks
People continuously scanning the room for other people they already know
The chair at the end of the row is always claimed first
Booths stocked with swag to lure attendees into conversation
An extrovert working the room like a circus ringmaster (“Register for our mailing list!”)
Opening remarks asking if this is anyone’s first time (not cool to out us newbies, btw)
Presentations that were WAY too busy (Slides with lists and pictures crowding the screen so badly they are exhausting to read)
Speakers who seemed to be fund raising (Sponsoring a hole for your next golf outing will guarantee me revenue. Really?!)
Microphone issues
Dignitaries telling us how great we were, how they appreciated us, and now go forth and connect!
Help desks staffed by knowledgeable and friendly people

One event offered an app with PUSH notifications which came in handy when one of my scheduled meetings cancelled because that’s the only way I knew it was off. Another event had great signage from the moment I pulled into the parking lot. I made the most connections talking to the vendors, eating lunch with other attendees, and talking to other participants waiting in line around me for our turns at the popular exhibition booths.

These events felt like Kindergarten recess. You walk up to the tetherball pole (in this case a booth). You wait for someone to make eye contact, then you say, “Hi! I’m (Your Name Here), what’s your name?” and the game begins. It’s not so painful since a connection is all you’re looking for. You just need someone who will hit the ball back for a few minutes, am I right?

Any more networking tips for me? What about for following up after an event? Please leave your advice in the comments section.

Dollars and Sense

Our daughter moves to Chicago next month to begin her first full-time job. She’ll earn more money than she’s made in her entire life. There are lessons my husband and I taught her about managing money that I feel good about and lessons I wish we’d known we should teach her, like:

How to use a bank: When our daughter was sixteen years old, my husband helped her open a debit account and linked it to ours. We not only see how much she’s spending, but can also transfer money between our accounts in case of emergencies.

Save your allowance: We struggled to develop a satisfactory allowance plan. One one hand, when she asked for the latest iPhone, we said, “Save your allowance.” On the other, if you get $10 a week just for existing, what does that teach? Some chores you should just do because you’re part of a family: clean your room, put your dishes in the dishwasher, do your own laundry, etc., right?

If you have a car, you have a job: My parents gave her money to buy a car and we paid for insurance, but gas and oil changes were her responsibility and her allowance wasn’t enough to cover those. My husband and I think working either in retail or food service should be mandatory and the earlier in life, the better. Those industries teach excellent customer service lessons. Our daughter got a job at an ice cream shop. We got discounts. 🙂

You need skin in the game: We had a Roth IRA to pay for college. She used it up freshman year. To pay for future years, she had a scholarship, financial awards, and student loans, but these didn’t cover all her expenses. So we made a deal. We’d make up the difference for the next three years. Any classes beyond four years, grad school, and student loans are her responsibility. She also had to work part-time. As a result she figured out how to get her bachelor’s degree in four years, sought free money (e.g. she received a grant for being a vice-president of her campus activities board), and worked; sometimes three jobs at a time. In other words, she learned how to hustle.

Be generous: When you’re comfortable giving money away, it loses its power over you. Growing up she helped us give and serve. Today she is known for her generosity and volunteerism.

Good credit is important: We intentionally avoided helping her get a credit card until her senior year in college. My husband counsels her on what to charge, how to check her balance, and when to pay the bill.

There are a few things I wish we’d done: Taught her how to make a proper budget, forced her to save for a goal (e.g., buying her own car), and avoided student loans. Last week she was at the grocery looking for something over the counter to take for her allergies. She texted me a photo asking if the drug would make her feel better. The package revealed she’d chosen a generic instead of brand name; maybe she learned something after all.

How do you teach your children the value of a dollar? Please share your story in the comments section below.

Stay in Your Lane

Photo by Markus Spiske temporausch.com from Pexels

“Hi. My name is Mardi and I’m a chronic over-thinker.” *Hi Mardi!*

Sometimes, my thoughts spin so fast they trip and fall into rabbit holes leading to people that (I think) need my help. Much like Glinda in Wicked, this does not make me “Popular.” (See what I did there?)

While commuting to and from work, cars constantly merge onto the highway. I usually stay in the middle, but there are plenty of people switching lanes. Sometimes they don’t use their signals. Sometimes they race each other to see who is going to get in front of whom. All the time I’m yelling, “Stay in your lane!” This reminds me that (figuratively speaking) I have a tendency to veer out of my lane and merge on top of those around me. There are three reasons I get all up in people’s business. Do any of these sound familiar?

I know better than they do. When someone is going through a situation I’ve been through, I assume their experience is identical to mine. You know what assuming does. (If not, ask me in the comments section below.) For example: Last fall, our daughter hunted a full-time job she could start after graduating from college this spring. Been there. Done that. Three companies recruited her. She accepted the first offer. I wanted her to wait and see if something better came along. Here’s what I should probably do instead: Listen; don’t talk. Ask questions; don’t lecture. Keep my opinions to myself. People ask for my advice when they are ready to hear it, not when I’m ready to give it.

I can save them. I’m a fixer. When I see someone making poor choices, I want to step in and correct their course. For example: A coworker was struggling with potential clients. I edited her pitch to increase her close rate. I even went with her to a few meetings and demonstrated. But, instead of viewing it as process improvement, she felt discouraged. Here’s what I should probably do instead: I need to resist the urge to fix, step in, or think my intervention will save the day. If I see a butterfly struggling to shed a cocoon, and I tear it open, do you know what happens? I kill the butterfly. The struggle strengthens it. Sometimes I just have to sit on my hands and not say everything I think.

I want their attention. I want to feel like I matter. For example: I’ve unpacked pallets of boxes weighing 20lbs each, stacked them in a storage unit, and sent pictures of my work to my manager. Here’s what I should probably do instead: Rein it in. If my work is consistently good, I will get a reputation as a valued member of the team. That is not to say I shouldn’t let my manager know I’m working hard, but weekly one-on-ones would be an appropriate time to do that.

Do you have trouble staying in your lane too? Please share your tips for self-restraint in the comments section below.

What Goes Around Comes Around

You’ve no doubt heard of paranoia, the feeling someone is out to hurt you. I’ve even blogged about it. But have you ever heard of pronoia? Psychologist Brian Little defines it as: “The delusional belief that other people are plotting your well-being or saying nice things about you behind your back.”

Maybe it doesn’t have to be delusional. Could it be controlled and perceived as reaping what you sow? I’ve been on the receiving end of what I interpret as pronoia. Someone actually WAS plotting my well-being and saying nice things about me behind my back to someone with the power to change my situation.

Pronoia is a foreign concept because we’re much more likely to notice and discuss negative behaviors than positive ones. Why is that? Why is it we hear and repeat the negative? Why is that more attractive than hearing and repeating the positive?

Because it’s easy; it makes us feel important by being the one “in the know.” Even descriptions of negative impacting words are cooler than positive ones: Juicy gossip; spill the tea (gossip is NOT worth your T.E.A. btw) vs. sweet nothings and honeyed words. Wouldn’t we benefit more by training ourselves to choose to have hope, trust, and faith in our coworkers? Leon F. Seltzer, Ph.D. says doing so makes us more inclined to have a disposition of optimism and resilience and not just at work. He also lists the problems of taking it too far, so let’s balance pronoia with healthy skepticism.

Let’s look for hints of the best in our coworkers and entice it out of them. If someone is being difficult, let’s assume it’s a symptom of a problem and investigate instead of assuming she just has a difficult personality. Call it what you want: Karma, paying it forward, or just plain practicing kindness, but let’s steer our companies’ cultures toward empathy. It can only benefit the team.

If the Beatles were right, and the love you take is indeed equal to the love you make, will plotting our coworkers well-being increase our chances of being on the receiving end of pronoia? What does this look like at work? We can assume our teammate isn’t trying to dump an unwanted project on us, but just needs a hand. That attitude improves our mindsets more than hers. Remember to set boundaries though. For example: Once the project is doable for our coworker, stop helping. Be a pronoia instigator. Did someone in another department give us a viable sales lead? Send an email to his manager. Has the team hired a new member? Take her to lunch and answer her onboarding questions. Does the intern need help polishing his resume? Give it the once over.

Expecting the best from people doesn’t change them. It actually changes us. It causes us to treat our coworkers differently. Think of it as the Golden Rule on steroids.

What do you do at work to spread pronoia? Please share your suggestions in the comments section below.

Dirty Glasses

I can’t tell when my glasses get dirty. At some point, my vision gets clouded and I’m unaware of it. Smudged spectacles give me a false perception of reality. “Wait, that’s not a pile of dirt in the middle of the road, that’s a speck of dust on my glasses!” One minute I’m blissfully ignorant and the next I can see all the stuff coating my lenses: dog nose prints, eye lashes, dried hair spray droplets, etc. I should clean them every day, but I don’t. Just like my lenses collect grit and grime, so does my work life. I let my good habits slide, I ignore my bad ones, I rationalize my lazy behavior, perhaps throw myself a wee pity party, and before I know it, I’m in trouble. So, I have to stop and “clean my glasses.”

When I realize I’ve made a mistake, the first thing I do is figure out how I created this big mess. For example: Recently, I had a bad glucose test result.

Why? I miscalculated the number of carbohydrates in the serving of chicken enchiladas I ate.
How? I talked myself into believing the serving size was safe because I wanted to eat the yummy chicken enchiladas.
Now what? After the pity party, I buckle down. No chicken enchiladas for a while and the next time I make them, omit the tortillas.

I use this same pattern to recover after a mistake at work. For example: I ignored the auto-generated emails from the company’s ERP notifying me of undone tasks because I was pretty sure I did them and documented them, plus the ERP was famous for sending erroneous automated you-have-a-task-awaiting-you emails. I finally got a minute to recheck my documentation against the ignored messages and discovered an error on my part. How did I fix this? I asked myself the chicken enchilada questions:

Q: Why did I make the mistake?A: Overconfidence in my assumptions.
Q: How did I make the mistake? A: Quickly checking my documentation instead of paying attention.
Q: Now what? A: Do the tasks and set up a process for paying closer attention to comparing the tasks to my documentation.

Sometimes I need help cleaning my glasses. My mom says my dad is the best glasses cleaner she knows. Every time I’m at their house, I ask him to clean them. Sometimes at work I need help from someone I trust to be honest with me, in order to help me progress; more an accountability partner than a mentor. For example: A coworker who sees me surfing my social media during the time I’m usually making client calls and asks me about it; and who would appreciate my doing the same for her. Performance reviews are great for preventing long term crashing and burning. But for ensuring I’m on the right track before I talk myself into “eating the enchiladas,” an accountability partner is great for helping me “clean my glasses.”

Do you have an accountability partner at work? Please share how you help each other in the comments below.

All by Myself

I recently attended a symposium for work. Alone. This introvert was terrified. My face flushed, my eyes darted around the banquet room, my hands shook; to look at me, you’d thought I was being chased by Freddy Krueger. “This is ridiculous,” I told myself. “You are a grown woman. Snap out of it!” Do you feel the same? Do you attend networking events solo? Here are three things I did to make myself feel (a little) more comfortable:

Loners – Surveying the room, everyone I saw had a companion. I looked for a table in the center of the room, where I could face the podium without turning my chair around, with no other tables between it and the beverage tables, and with one other person sitting at it, preferably a lone female like me. (Not that I’m picky or anything.) I found the situation I was looking for and approached the lone female. She just happened to be the organizer. At first, it was a good thing because it gave me a topic of conversation (“Oh, you’re Jane? You’re the one sending the helpful emails?”), but soon she was distracted by all the details she had to handle. She also attracted a couple of out-of-town participants who ended up sitting at our table for six, and now the three of them had business to discuss. Two other women sat with us, but they were from the same company and immediately started talking shop. If you don’t see a familiar face when you walk in the room, I recommend going to the refreshment table and listening to the conversations while you pick up food and/or a beverage. See if you can discover someone else who is attending alone, or people who are talking about something you’re interested in. Try to keep the conversation going and gravitate to a table with them. On arrival, ask if they expect anyone else. If they aren’t, sit down. People usually won’t be so rude as to ask you to leave.

Speechify – I’m new at my company, so I don’t have a good elevator speech yet. I tried my latest version on my table mates. When they asked me questions, it gave me the opportunity to hone it. Their questions revealed where the speech was weak and allowed me to revise it for the next delivery. It also gave me an opportunity to ask them for theirs to see if I could incorporate any of their style into mine.

Commonality – I looked for common ground. It was brutally cold that day and an impending polar vortex was headlining, so talking about the weather was a no-brainer. One of my table mates got on her phone and made transportation arrangements to dance class for her daughter, so asking her about her children was obvious. Another table mate had a Louis Vuitton tote, so complimenting her on it was easy. I also asked follow up questions. When they talked about the suspicious chicken salad at lunch, I asked one of my table mates for her chicken salad recipe. When my husband texted me a funny meme featuring a dog, I asked my table mates if they liked dogs and showed it to them.

I lived through the event and congratulated myself for hiding my social awkwardness for eight hours. I have another one coming up. If you have any suggestions for me, please leave a comment below!

Get S.M.A.R.T.

It’s come to my attention that I often endorse setting S.M.A.R.T. goals, but have yet to explain how. Oops. Since the acronym S.M.A.R.T. varies, let’s define some terms, give some examples, then discuss how to set and sustain them.

When referring to S.M.A.R.T. goals, I mean:
Specific – Answers: Who? What?
Measurable – Quantifiable results
Achievable – Can be planned
Realistic – Makes sense
Timely – Has a deadline

What a S.M.A.R.T. goal is and is not:
Specific – Is: “I will read for at least 15 minutes every day.” Is not: “I will read.”
Measurable – Is: “I read 15 minutes yesterday.” Is not: “I read yesterday.”
Achievable – Is: “I will read 15 pages every day.” Is not: “I will read 500 pages every day.”
Realistic – Is: “I will read for 15 minutes every day.” Is not: “I will read for 25 hours every day.”
Timely – Is: “I will read for 15 minutes by the time I go to bed.” Is not: “I will read for 15 minutes by the time I go to work.”

The above illustration is a template. It may not be true for you. I read for 15 minutes by the time I go to work, but that might not work for you. On the other hand, reading 500 pages every day may be achievable for you. It isn’t for me.

How to set S.M.A.R.T. goals:
First figure out what you want to accomplish. Start with a small goal, (IE: a low risk goal with a short deadline like reading more) then move up to big goals (IE: managing diabetes with lifestyle and not drugs). This way you can practice and document, make adjustments to your process, and gain confidence.

This blog is a real life example of how to set a big S.M.A.R.T. goal:
Specific: I want to launch a website that houses my resume, book, and articles. I want it to be a place for a community to gather for encouragement.
Measurable: I can track the number of posts I publish.
Achievable: I can plan for how much money and time it will take.
Realistic: I can publish one post weekly for the foreseeable future.
Timely: I want to launch the website on January 1, 2018.

I broke the process into steps:
I took a year to write content: blog posts in various stages of completion, copy for the Bus Stop Devotions page, updated my resume, etc.
I researched: read blogs by people I admired, checked out hosts, platforms, domain name providers, and security providers for cost, ease of use, and support.
I thought about what I wanted it to look like (theme, colors, layout, etc.), its purpose (advice for my daughter? Finding my tribe? Both?), and would it be worth my T.E.A.M.?

How to sustain S.M.A.R.T. goals:
This website has just passed its one year mark and I feel like I’m achieving this S.M.A.R.T. goal. It gets tricky some times. I post on Sundays and they come with excruciating regularity. To sustain it, I reward myself for achievements both small (IE: publishing a post) and big (IE: the one year anniversary), and I celebrate wins both small (IE: weekly linking on social media) and big (IE: asked to be a contributing writer for Fairygodboss.com).

Give S.M.A.R.T. goal setting a try. With performance reviews right around the corner, set a small one right now for practice and bookmark this page to refresh your memory come performance review time. Your manager will be impressed when you bring S.M.A.R.T. goals to your meeting. If you need support as you prep for your review, get in touch. I’m happy to help. Tell me about your progress setting S.M.A.R.T. goals in the comments section below.

Auld Lang Syne

Should old acquaintance be forgot,
 and never brought to mind?
 Should old acquaintance be forgot,
 and old lang syne?
CHORUS:
For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll take a cup of kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
By Robert Burns 1788

Is Auld Lang Syne stuck in your head too? It’s okay. It’s just once a year. As Grammy used to say, “This too shall pass.” As 2018 passes into history and we wax nostalgic, here’s my Top Ten List of things I hope you’ll remember:

You have plenty to be thankful for – At the very least, you can read; 2,620,710 Americans can’t.

What makes you different is your super power – The pressure to fit in is strong and wrong. Embrace what makes you unique.

You have more influence than you think you do – Use that super power for good not evil.

Kindness is always the right thing to do – People won’t always appreciate it, but do it anyway.

Learn from the past – Every year is filled with ups and downs like a roller coaster. It’s the downs that tend to come to mind first. Don’t dwell on them.

Look to the future – Use what you didn’t like about 2018 to inspire your 2019 goals.

Make wise choices – You reap what you sow; both good and bad. Choose to sow good things even when it’s hard because good decisions lead to good opportunities.

Ignore the haters – When your critics push you toward depression and negativity (notice I wrote When and not If), turn away.

Focus on the positive – You have to train your mind to see the good in every situation, it won’t drift there automatically. Here’s a start: “Some people grumble the roses have thorns; I am grateful that thorns have roses.” – Alphonse Karr.

It’s good to have hope – It’s the only thing stronger than fear. Hang onto it. Remind yourself that tomorrow can be better than today and you have the power to make it so.

This is my blog’s one year anniversary. Thank you so much for your kind attention in 2018! I look forward to continuing our conversations in 2019, and I trust you will make it your best year ever!

Are there topics you’d like to discuss in 2019? Tell me about them here:

How Far I’ll Go

We all need help at work from time to time. Whether the client wants a last minute presentation, a coworker goes on maternity leave, or a problem halts production, there are times when the team has to pull together to accomplish its goals. But how far should you go to pitch in? Before you volunteer to once again help that coworker who always seems to be behind the eight ball, ask yourself these questions:

How far are you willing to go? Find out how big the task is and how long you’re expected to stick with it. Do you have a part in the process or will you be responsible for the entire project? To be motivated, do you need to feel like your coworker is working as hard as she can? How do you know she is? For example, will you be frustrated if you’re cold calling in the snow in February while she’s setting up her home office? Is she asking you to do things she could easily do herself? IE: If she asks you to order file folders and have them sent to that home office, will that tick you off? It’s hard to persist completing her tasks in addition to your normal job if you dislike them. Are you friends with this person? It’s both easier and harder to help out a friend. She’s counting on you to meet her needs and you feel guilty when you have to put your work first. Will you lose this friend if you refuse to help or if you make a mistake?

Is there any way this can backfire? If helping someone else endangers one of your projects you have to say no, even if it causes conflict with your coworker. Is this task temporary or will you end up her permanent unofficial assistant? When you take on a responsibility, there’s always a chance it will become part of your job and you won’t be compensated for it. Are you okay with that? Is this coworker infamous for trying to give her work away? Helping her could give you a reputation as a doormat. Do you already help other people? If so, you may want to limit your assistance to performing the same task for everyone. For example, If you proofread team members’ activity reports, you not only define your boundary, you can also position yourself as a Subject Matter Expert. If you help on this project and it fails, will you be held responsible? If you help on this project and it succeeds, will you get credit?

Can you take advantage? If you’re going to take on extra responsibilities temporarily, make sure they’re a good use of your precious time. If it’s a way to learn new skills, allows you to stretch out of your comfort zone, pay it forward, makes you a value added employee, increases your visibility to the company in a positive way, and/or makes you look good at performance review time, you should consider it. Maybe you currently have too much time on your hands. Is this project a way to keep busy? It’s actually easier to be busy than to try to look busy. Maybe this temporary responsibility is something that comes naturally to you. If it’s easy for you, go for it.

Like the Beatles, we get by with a little help from our friends. But serial assisting does not get you promoted; it gets the person you’re assisting promoted. Find that boundary between helpful and doormat and don’t cross it.

Share your stories of how far you go to help your team here: