Posts Tagged ‘work’

March 4th, 2010 Word of the decade: Reinvention

Yesterday I spent the afternoon with a friend reviewing our resumes and bemoaning the state of  working for a living in a world gone mad. We compiled all our collective wisdom, and painful experiences, and advice we’ve gathered from others, and still could not make sense of it. I concluded that the only comfort one can derive from this situation is in communing with others for whom the experience is the same. When you can bear witness to other brave souls finding a way to live without losing their humor or desire to be who they really are, then there is hope. There are millions of us. Yes, it is unfathomable.

That leads me to yet another realization. The business of giving aid to job seekers is a mushrooming industry! No surprise there. In fact, I find myself part of it as well, and I have to admit it intrigues me.

After reviewing my resume Chris told me: “You’ve reinvented yourself.” I quickly added: “Yes, but I’m still in the process, and I’m still not ‘there’ yet.” And here is where the real object lesson comes into play.

Are we now, as many people have already concluded, living in a world where long-term employment of say, three years or more, is a thing of the past from here on out? If that is true, are we ready to live in a world of constant work search? If that is also true, then war, health care, the elderly and the recurringly unemployed could easily suck the economy dry in our life times. If we could delete just one of those, say, war, we could fund the nation’s well-being so much better. But I digress…
I love being part of this industry. My reinvention has been transformative in ways I can hardly comprehend. Five years into it and I can finally say it has been for the better, but I’m still in uncharted territory, and I’ve got lots of company.

The other night I was at a networking event and more than one person I was talking with was wondering: How can this economy settle into anything reasonably sustainable when you have literally millions of adults constantly going in and out of cycles of work and non-work?

This much is certain: No one knows. 

November 2nd, 2009 Worker’s lament / The power of tribes

    When employees are placed as contingent staff or taught to think of themselves that way, it forces them to maintain a preoccupation with the security of their livelihoods to a very unhealthy degree. We’re often told to think of ourselves as so-called “free agents”, a very interesting choice of words. I often wonder which set of conditions would alleviate the nearly constant need to either look for work or consider acquiring more skills in order to be more highly valued in the labor marketplace.

    Some think labor unions are the answer, and feelings run very deeply for or against attempts to establish collective bargaining. I’m ambivalent about the presence of labor unions. I was once a clerical worker at Harborview Medical Center when AFSCME was voted in and my job category was included under its “protection”. I was young and knew nothing about unions. The result was an additional deduction on my pay statement for union dues. Having my take home pay reduced by an additional amount made no sense to me for benefits to which I felt entitled.

    Rightly or naively, I believed that a society with common agreements about work in general would allow the application of laws to do the necessary work, making unions obsolete. Unfortunately, human history bears me out to be a fool in this belief. The power of tribes, (unions, the ruling class, the wealthy, etc.) and identity within them is stronger than the total collective altruism of any group of people, and laws are but blunt instruments for promising justice.

    How can this not challenge anyone’s belief in self-determination? Curiously, it seems only to reinforce it. By some accident of birth you fall into the rich tribe or the poor tribe and from there universally providence smiles on us and the paths at our feet are forever of our own choosing. But, we are like the pigeons in the reward/frequency psych experiment. If the pigeon pecks on a certain spot on the wall a speck of food will be released from the hatch below it. However, the pigeon’s desire to peck at that spot on the wall is reinforced to a greater degree when he is not rewarded with food every time he pecks. He never knows when he’ll get the food, but he’ll keep pecking just in case. We maintain the same belief about humans. Keep ‘em guessing and they’ll keep coming back for more. Can we act smarter than pigeons, and learn ways to create sustainable livelihoods that are not dependent on constantly seeking agreement from a second or third party on the value of our existence?

    Whether you are a direct hire, go through a staffing agency, or are represented by a labor union, is protection under the law uniformly applied and exercised? This is laughably not the case and works remarkably well at keeping efforts splintered in trying to maintain a sane, healthy workforce.

November 2nd, 2009 United Professionals

(from the UP homepage) ~  America’s white collar professionals have long since lost the job security and middle class status that were supposed to go with a college education and hard work.

    My career is often morphing and presenting me with opportunities, decision points and slack times. I am constantly seeking a point of reference from which I can feel confident that those who interpret the corporate zeitgeist are doing so accurately and with useful insight. So, I was pleased last summer when I found United Professionals. This Web site is the brainchild of Barbara Ehrenreich, a writer who always grabs my attention with her observations about popular culture.

    Looking over the board of directors and their work, I came across excerpts from R. William Holland’s book Are there any good jobs left: Career management in the age of the disposable worker.

Here is a sampling:

1. “…the ability to create value is the personal currency for career advancement. That in turn relies heavily on the ability to keep one’s skills updated and adaptable to new circumstances.”
2. “The lack of corporate sponsored career development is a substantial threat to traditionally trained middle managers who now may neither understand nor be ready for the new employee value propositions in place today. Their jobs are less secure than at any time in their careers and their mind sets and skill sets are about to atrophy.”
3. “Controlling costs is rational behavior, as is managing individual career opportunities. For individuals this means they should treat their employment opportunities rationally against the backdrop of their personal brand in the marketplace. Companies are often careful not to act callously toward workers for fear of doing damage to their employment brand. Likewise, individuals who develop reputations for being unreliable complicate their chances for re-employment. Accepting or not accepting new opportunities that come along is more a question of brand management than of ethics, and the ability to recognize the differences is an essential first step in the mind-shift process.”

    Consider excerpts #1 and #2. I understand that keeping up with new knowledge is an unavoidable requirement, and that more than likely, if I need to acquire additional skills, it is up to me and at my expense. However, is the goal of capitalism inherently different now? Driving dollars straight to the bottom line is still the goal as far as I know, so which new employee value proposition is any “traditionally trained middle manager” not going to understand or be ready for? Skill sets may atrophy but mindsets become outdated and occasionally irrelevant. Insecurity in one’s job can come from people, places, and actions about which you may know nothing.

    Then consider excerpt #3. The idea that all this shucking and jiving is to protect a company or individual “brand” is cruelly absurd. Since when are companies careful not to act callously toward workers? Ever known someone who had to figure out what to do when a job offer was rescinded? So much for career management at that point, my friend. What is the definition of treating an employment opportunity “rationally”?

    And now for a little reality check. Many people who are lumped into the class known as support staff are painfully aware that they are seen as little more than a necessary evil, simply a cost to the corporation. No matter how good their skills or institutional knowledge, they can be cut at any time without notice when the billable hours or units sold etc. dips below the comfort level of the principals. All your resolute propositions of value to the company can be summarily erased when the strategies of say, Kerry Killinger, of Washington Mutual infamy, come back to roost and destroy a once reputable firm. Greed? Poor decisions? Perhaps, but let’s not forget all that was in keeping with brand management, too.

    So now we are left with our ever developing number of skills and if we’re lucky, our sense of self still intact. I am to believe that the question before me is one of brand management and not ethics, when any corporation I join is very likely to be unethical in ways in which I have never dreamed.