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You Can’t Always Get What You Want

While researching for last week’s article, I came across Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” How have I gone my whole life, including college English and history classes, and not known about this?! I fixed that oversight in my education. The 20-page letter is an eloquent expression of indignation and disappointment. How demoralized King must have been every time he banged his head against the brick walls of racism. His determination to wield his disappointment as a catalyst for change is a master class in rhetoric. His example can inspire our behavior at work.

Open Your Mind

When you are disappointed because you didn’t get the reaction you wanted, pause long enough to let the emotion finish its cycle. Then, analyze the situation with as much objectivity as you can muster. With that particular door closed, what window just opened? For example, if you were rejected for a promotion, then you need to consider your role in the organization through the selection committee’s eyes:

Did you work really hard at projects they consider housekeeping?
Did the person who received the promotion spotlight themselves more than you did?
Is the promotion political instead of based on merit?

The answers to these questions plant another decision tree:

Will the selection committee give you feedback regarding why you weren’t promoted?
Are you willing to do what it takes to get promoted?
Do you want to remain an employee of this company?

When eight fellow clergymen publicly criticized King for his Birmingham Campaign, he chose to use his time in jail to write a treatise that still speaks to us today. Even though his body was incarcerated, his mind was free.

Practice Emotional Intelligence

When you are disappointed because your expectations are not aligned with your coworkers, communicate.You are probably not alone in your disappointment. You can state in a meeting or an email what you perceive, then ask for clarity. For example, Does everyone on your team know what their role in a project is? Do they know what each other’s roles are? Does everyone know which project has priority and when it is due? Not all projects are equal. The client who supplies your organization with the most revenue will receive most of the team’s energy even if they are not the team’s favorite client. “Letter from Birmingham Jail” is King’s comprehensive effort to communicate with his fellow clergymen and align everyone’s expectations.

Level Up Your Goals

When you are disappointed because you failed to reach one of your S.M.A.R.T. goals, use the setback to refine and iterate your next one. For example, is the system you’re using to qualify leads not helping you meet your monthly quota? Analyze your process. Are all the elements sound? Did you not make quota three months in a row? Were any external circumstances negatively impacting your process? In his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” King broke down his process of the non-violent campaign into four basic steps and gave examples of how he and his coworkers for justice moved through them.

How do you use disappointment to push yourself forward? Please share in the comments.

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.

(White) Christmas Break

Everyone needs a break from work now and then, so this week let’s talk about our favorite Christmas movies. My favorite is “Elf”, but a very close second is White Christmas. Every December I think, “This is the year I’ll get tired of watching White Christmas.” And every year – “Nah.” In fact, sometimes I watch it in July too. Why is it so appealing? It’s a long movie by today’s standards clocking in at two hours and twenty minutes, and it doesn’t have any special effects to keep your attention. Although, it was the first film shot in VistaVision and when you throw in Technicolor and Edith Head’s costume design, it produces some special effects (vivid colors, sweeping scenery for the dance numbers, etc.). I realize I’m not the only one in love with this movie. Back in 1954 when it was released, it was one of the top earning films that year grossing $12 million which was a haul back then. It came in as the second highest grossing movie that year (Citizen Cane came in first). Why do we love it so much?

Is it the characters? The main characters are easy to identify with and every year I feel like a different one. Bob Wallace: Who hasn’t owed someone a favor and keeps repaying it over and over again? Phil Davis: Who doesn’t want their ideas and hard work to succeed? Betty Haynes: Who hasn’t felt responsible for another person’s happiness? Judy Haynes: Who hasn’t wanted to get out from under someone else’s authority?

Is it the music? Two words: Irving Berlin. Last year, a local independent movie theater in the town where I live hosted a sing along version of the movie the second weekend in December. If you ever get a chance to go to one of these, do it. That black dress Rosemary Clooney wore for the Carousel Club scene makes me want to dress up and go to the theater a la Rocky Horror. Grab a baby blue ostrich fan and join me! Singing “Snow” with a theater full of people (it didn’t matter that none of us could win “The Voice”) was practically a religious experience.

Is it the chemistry? The actors seem to genuinely like each other and are having a blast. Did you know the scene where Wallace and Davis “dress up like dames” and lip sync the Haynes sisters’ famous “Sisters” number was not in the original script? Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye were just messing around and the director (Michael Curtiz) thought it was so funny that he wrote it into the script.

Is it the story? It’s a simple one, really; with elements like patriotism, friendship, and kindness. Wallace and Davis argue, but they don’t leave the argument unsettled. The Haynes sisters make up quickly after Judy’s deception of a fake engagement to Phil. Both my grandfathers fought in WWII and one was a POW for 11 months, so the General Waverly storyline gets me right in the feels every time. Especially when his granddaughter, Susan, sees him coming down the stairs to go to the show in his dress uniform.

During this busy holiday season, watching a Christmas movie is a great way to practice self care. So take a well deserved break, then tell me about your favorite here:

Old School

My Grandmother passed away last Saturday. I didn’t expect a viewing for a 90-year-old woman to be heavily attended, but over 100 people came with their condolences. It’s a testimony to her influence and legacy. She was 36 years old when I was born; young to be a grandmother. Consequently, I got to study her life for many years. Grammy was one of my first examples of working mothers. She was married, ran a household, volunteered at her church and raised two children all while working full time and she made it look easy. Here is what my grandmother taught me about work.

Take Your Passion and Make it Happen: Grammy loved Jesus Christ more than anything or anyone. Spreading His Gospel was her side gig. Grammy didn’t believe in addition. She was a multiplier like the old Faberge Organics Shampoo commercial (“I told two friends; and they told two friends, and so on…”). Grammy’s church was the biggest outlet for her love and during the years she was a member, hundreds of people benefited from her efforts. She taught the Ladies Sunday School Class for over 50 years. She managed funeral lunches. She sang in the choir. She made cookies for Vacation Bible School. When her kids were grown, did she mourn her empty nest? No. She took a turn in the nursery rocking babies on Sunday morning so parents could attend the service undistracted. When she retired, did she take it easy? No. She coordinated retreats for her Sunday School class to get away together and bond. When her husband passed away, did she shut herself off to grieve? No. She started a widow’s group. Does all this sound like work? It was. Grammy was always at church or working on its behalf, and for many of those years, simultaneously worked full time. She taught me to make time for what is important. Am I stuck in my career? Maybe I need to take an online class to improve my Excel skills, meet with my mentor, or update my LinkedIn profile. If advancing my career is important to me, I have to make time for it.

Whenever I Call You Friend: Grammy knew what everyone in her family was up to: brothers, sisters, in-laws, out-laws, children, grandchildren, great-grandchild, etc. She did it old school: personal encounters, snail mail, and on the phone. She did not own a computer and she had no social media accounts. Some of my most prized possessions are notes Grammy wrote me in birthday cards and voicemails she left on my cell. Grammy went to family reunions, church pot lucks, parties, recitals, and ball games. At these events, Grammy cultivated relationships. She asked questions and was interested in people. She taught me how to network. Social media is convenient, but it just doesn’t replace the impact of face to face interactions. I never know when a former coworker or a fellow volunteer is going to have an open position in her company, remember me fondly, and facilitate a job interview.

What’s Love Got to do With It?: Once I received a job offer over the phone while at Grammy’s house. I told her I was not thrilled about the position, but I needed the employment. Her response was, “You don’t have to retire from it.” I know “Find a career you love!” is trending, but the fact is, two-thirds of American workers are disengaged from their jobs. Grammy did not go after a high profile career. She had employment that paid bills so she could spend money on her church, her family, and herself (Man! That woman LOVED Longaberger baskets). She worked to cover her family with medical insurance and to earn a pension. She taught me if I don’t love my job, I need to find something else I do love. If I can do it as a side gig, even better. The right side gig might eventually turn full time.

One of Grammy’s favorite sayings was, “This too shall pass.” She said it in reference to whatever problem I was going through at the time. But, it’s not just problems that pass. It’s people. I’m grateful God allowed Norma Lee Maple Pelfrey to pass through my life.

Did your grandmother teach you anything about the workforce? Tell me about it here:

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:

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:

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:

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: