September 28, 2007 2:34
I was in a commuter marriage
It was no commute a sane person would fathom. From early 2001 to late 2002, I lived and worked in Tokyo--6,737 miles (10,840 km) away (according to this useful calculator) from my husband, who remained home in Leonia, N.J.
Why would either of us even contemplate such a crazy set-up? Work, of course. I was offered my dream job: Tokyo correspondent for TIME Magazine. He was (and is) a freelance classical clarinet player who had toiled many years to establish a career in the New York area. Neither of us felt we could give up our own opportunities--and, what's more, neither of us wanted the other to.
In this week's TIME, I wrote about other couples facing this challenge in a story I called "Till Work Do Us Part" (thank you; it's a cut above my usual crap headlines). I thought our year and a half of marital misery was unusual. Turns out I'm just part of a trend.
How's this for a 21st century romance: Dr. Laura Minikel met Bent Balle on an airplane in 2000--she returning to the U.S. from practicing medicine in Africa, he escorting his parents on holiday from their native Denmark. Minikel and Balle chatted throughout the 11-hour flight and later met for coffee near her home in San Francisco before Balle returned to Denmark. They fell in love (through e-mail) and married in 2005 (in person), celebrating in four cities with friends and family. Are they happy? Yes. Are they together? Not exactly. Minikel, 37, remains in California to practice obstetrics and gynecology, while Balle, 44, an electronics technician, still lives in his homeland 5,500 miles away. She gets to work herculean hours at a job she loves; he gets to help raise his two teenage kids.
Check this out:
Unconventional? Yes. Unusual? Not exactly. Commuter marriages, in which couples live apart for long stretches, are multiplying. Their number jumped 30%, to 3.6 million, from 2000 to 2005, according to an analysis of census figures by Greg Guldner of the Center for the Study of Long-Distance Relationships, a Web-based clearinghouse for research in this nascent field. While military deployments, migratory jobs and economic need have long forced couples around the world to live apart, in America today, it is more often the woman's career that drives the separation. Technologies like instant messaging and Skype make the parting easier by facilitating virtual pillow talk that keeps couples in touch.
Let me say that again: the number of long-distance marriages jumped 30% between 2000 and 2005! What's more, the largest percentage of those relationships--27%--live more than 1,000 miles apart. (Buy the magazine to see the chart, why dontcha.)
As I note in the piece, couples have had to split up to provide for their families since the beginning of time. The interesting twist these days is that, in the U.S., at least, it's often as not the woman who's doing the leaving (or insisting on the staying) to pursue her own career. Stacie Nevadomski Berdan, author of Get Ahead by Going Abroad (who's also just started a blog by that name), says she interviewed many women for her book conducting long-distance relationships while working in high-powered executive jobs overseas. And Jaime Cangas, whom I found through his blog Commuter Family, is evidence of men agreeing to the role historically left to women--to stay home and man the fort.
What I didn't delve deeply into in the TIME piece (for reasons of space, not propriety) is how much this set-up sucks. Don't get me wrong: it's awesome for your work. Being on my own in another city halfway around the world freed me to, say, fly off for a week to the southern island of Okinawa to report on the culture of sex and race fetishism in the aftermath of a rape of a local woman by a U.S. soldier. Or set out at 2 a.m. with my photographer Stuart Isett to the red-light district to talk to girls who had left home. I could work stupid hours, and did.
But I won't lie to you: it was rough on the marriage. That's why I ultimately ended the arrangement and came home. At the time, I had a job offer in Tokyo that was even more attractive than the one I had, plus a lot of pressure from people I admired to take it. I didn't have a job lined up back in the U.S. I saw one career path ahead of me that blazed like Shibuya at midnight. I saw another crooked with uncertainty, but that led back to the man I married. I chose that one.
I also won't feed you the line that some of my sources did: that our long-distance stint made our marriage stronger. I think our marriage started out strong, and remains so with a lot of effort on both our parts. I think we survived the distance. Period. Oh, sure, it was fun sometimes, reuniting in Hong Kong or zipping off to watch the World Cup in Korea. But our marriage works best when we get to sit our tired butts down on the same couch, side by side, to watch The Daily Show.
As for the career, it turned out differently than it would have had I stayed abroad. But I can't say it's been dull. The commuter part of my commuter marriage ended, and for that I'm pretty glad. After all, there's this:
September 26, 2007 11:34
Guaranteed job security? What's that?
So the striking workers at General Motors got off the picket line today after their union reps hammered out what some are calling a historic deal with management, says CNNMoney.com. The historic aspect had to do with the agreed-upon creation of a trust fund to be managed by the union and that would assume the costs of retiree health benefits. But that wasn't all, said United Auto Workers president Ron Gettelfinger:
Gettelfinger said Monday the union needed job guarantees for its members before it could agree to the cost savings sought by the company to return its operations to profitability. On Wednesday, he termed the job guarantees won by the union as "outstanding."
A big part of the dispute revolved around guaranteeing job security for GM's unionized workers, which is likely to involve the opening or reopening of auto factories in the U.S. rather than moving those jobs abroad. That's critical for the UAW:
As recently as 1994, it had nearly a quarter-million members working at GM alone. But plant closings and the spinoff of GM's parts unit Delphi have shaved its membership working at the company by 70 percent since then.
Okay, so not to harp on this like the grump I am. But I don't get lifetime retirement health coverage. I don't get guaranteed job security. I wish I could just get over my petty jealousy, be happy for my fellow worker and applaud his historic gains. As Gerry said in a comment to my earlier post on this subject, "If a private company wants to spend gobs of cash on salaries and medical insurance for retired workers they should go ahead. If they can make a profit and still pay people not to work, that's great."
But the point is GM can't do that and make a profit. Back to CNNMoney:
In July, the domestic brands of GM, Ford and Chrysler had less than half of U.S. auto sales for the first time in history, although a good sales month by GM in August got them back over the 50 percent market.
GM itself has seen its share fall from just under a third of the U.S. market as recently as 1995 to just under a quarter of the market so far this year. The automaker fell below 30 percent of U.S. market share in 1998, the year a strike at two UAW locals in Flint, Mich., shutdown most of its North American operations for seven weeks. It has never gotten back above that benchmark. It is unlikely to have lost any sales from this short strike, though.But GM lost nearly $13 billion on its core North American auto operations in 2005 and 2006 combined, as it paid more than 30,000 UAW members up to $140,000 each to leave the company.
What's Liz Edwards doing there, anyway? Shilling for her hubby, that's what:
September 25, 2007 10:17
GM strikers play a dangerous game
Here are two industries I don't closely follow: automotive and labor unions. That latter is one I should probably watch more carefully, seeing as unions have historically played an important role in American work life. I certainly get a lot of press releases from them announcing new bills in Congress or lawsuits against employers.
The fact is that, like many white-collar workers of my generation, I'm deeply ambivalent about labor unions. Take this General Motors strike that began yesterday. (For a thorough analysis, read this excellent article in this week's TIME by Jyoti Thottam titled GM's Get-Well Plan.) According to our Ag:
The United Auto Workers called its 73,000 GM workers out on strike yesterday for the first national industrial action at the company since 1970. GM and the UAW are at loggerheads over wages and job security for U.S. workers worried about jobs moving overseas.
If picketing workers were hoping the strike would rally the public to its cause, that didn't seem to be panning out. Here's what Bloomberg's Doron Levin writes:
For those who believe General Motors Corp. is in the midst of spectacular turnaround from its many woes, yesterday's walkout by the United Auto Workers union was a dose of reality.
The No. 1 U.S. automaker still hasn't resolved the central threat to its future: an acrimonious relationship with GM factory workers in the U.S. Workers ought to be a team, united with one another in pursuit of common goals on behalf of the company. Striking workers, instead, are the adversaries of managers, shareholders, dealers and lenders.
That's one columnist's opinion. Me, I side with workers by default in any dispute with management. So why does a union-led strike rub me the wrong way? I'm trying to figure that out myself. After all, the GM workers are only asking for what they were promised, like health insurance upon retirement. But when I see the salaried schlubs filing past the picket lines, it makes me wonder if they're working for two different companies.
I'm aware of how much unions have done for workers' rights--in gaining us better pay, status and time off, among many other things people my age take for granted. In fact, as a non-manager at Time Inc., I'm covered by a union, though I'm not an active, paying member. I know this union battles management on my behalf. But as a professional, I have more say--not to mention the ability to vote with my feet. Unions exist to represent the underrepresented, the hourly workers who don't have the voice or the luxury to quit.
Lord knows management will take every advantage possible of lowly workers, and that their motives can be ignoble (shareholders are NOT more important than employees). But it seems to me striking workers at the already staggering GM risk cutting off their noses to spite their faces, if you'll allow me the boring cliché.
I don't have a magic solution (do you?), but I do know that as a consumer, I'm less likely to patronize a business that I know to be involved in employee disputes. That's why a strike is a union's trump card: it threatens the business and therefore gooses a reluctant and stingy management. But if the business wanes, then it follows that payrolls must too necessarily tighten. And I don't think anyone wants to see 73,000 autoworkers out of work.
September 24, 2007 5:20
I just got recruited through LinkedIn
I very rarely get recruited. So rarely that sometimes I wonder what I'm doing wrong. When my colleagues were getting picked off by that new Condé Nast magazine Portfolio--all right, all of two TIME writers defected--I got nary a phone call. Not that I would have gone. If I had, I probably would have regretted it, considering all the tabloid fodder that magazine's generated: massive masthead turnover, a leader adrift, boring articles. Yeah. So there.
Imagine my surprise, then, to have gotten not one but two recruiting calls over the past month. One came via a beloved mentor who recommended me to another respected magazine company. The second came via LinkedIn, the professional networking service that's even lassoed Barack Obama. The first one flattered me immensely. The second, not so much.
Like everyone else I know who's on LinkedIn, I occasionally get requests to link up from complete strangers. If the stranger appears to know my work and has a legit reason for wanting to connect--say, a professor who studies workplace issues--then, heck, link me. But it was the first time I received a solicitation from someone identifying himself as an executive recruiter.
"I have a position that sounds like a good fit for you," he wrote.
Huh. The first thing I did was check out the firm's web site. It appeared to focus on jobs primarily in the legal and marketing professions, which obviously have nothing to do with me. When I pointed that out in my response (of course I responded; wouldn't you?), he assured me he had an opening for a writer.
I agreed to take his call (wouldn't you?). He sounded like a nice, young man. The opening, he began, was in Purchase, N.Y. Would that be acceptable? I thought that was a weird way to start, but what do I know? I've never been headhunted.
"What's the job?" I asked.
"It's in Purchase," he repeated.
"I understand," I said. "But what's the position?" I don't care if the job's in Newark; if it's the New Jersey correspondent job for Vanity Fair, I'm in!
The job, he said, was for a major credit card company, writing articles presumably for internal and client consumption. "Does that interest you?" he asked.
I took a moment to respond, mainly because I was so baffled that he would have to ask. "Uh, no," I said. "No, it doesn't."
He persisted (admirably, I thought). "You would interview CEOs," he said.
What does he think my job is now? Which led me to wonder: why had he thought of me in the first place?
"Well, your LinkedIn profile says your aim is to be a writer," he said.
Oh. Dear. And here I thought I was fulfilling that dream.
"But I work at TIME," I said, as if this made my point. Maybe it doesn't anymore. Maybe he's never heard of TIME. Oh. Dear. Things are worse than I thought.
"Well, some people like a change of scene," he said. He had a point. There's probably someone down the hall who'd give his firstborn for a job writing PR copy for a credit card company in Purchase. You couldn't blame him for trying.
But I didn't mean to put down the job--or the recruiter. It's probably a great job that pays scads more than mine. The recruiter was just doing his own job, and making creative use of social networking sites at that. Purchase is lovely in the autumn. I wanted to help. I suggested he try the journalism schools, or perhaps look on LinkedIn for folks in PR jobs, or even freelance journalists. And as soon as I got off the phone, I e-mailed a few friends asking if they knew of people who might be interested.
I guess the lesson here, to mangle Groucho Marx, is that I wouldn't want a job that would have me. I really have to get over myself.
September 24, 2007 11:54
How solid is Working Mother's seal of approval?
Tomorrow, Working Mother magazine will release its annual list of 100 best employers for working moms. There'll be much fanfare as the magazine's editors blanket the airwaves and employers around the country tout their placement on the list. I myself just got a pitch asking if TIME would care to interview the magazine's editors, and tomorrow some HR people from one of the ranked employers is visiting me to discuss the honor.
But what does it mean, exactly, to land on the WM list? And how solid is this seal of approval?
According to this report on Marketplace from American Public Media radio, there's reason to be a bit skeptical. As Amy Scott reports:
Companies spend a lot of money and time trying to get on lists like Working Mother's. It's great PR and helps them attract talent. HR departments devote hours to collecting data and filling out questionnaires.
But how good are these companies for working women, really?
Of the 100 best last year, eight of them didn't offer any fully-paid maternity leave. Two award-winners didn't offer paid leave at all.
What! How could a company that doesn't let new moms stay home with their newborns without going broke be considered a great place for moms to work? She goes on:
Then there's the cozy relationship between award-winners and the magazine. By Working Mother's own calculation, 65 percent of the winners buy advertising. Many of them sponsor the annual awards dinner.
Now, as the employee of another ad-supported glossy publication, I can't fault a magazine for taking or soliciting advertising based on content. Sometimes I'm placed on assignment to service an ad that was sold "against" my beat (though never my topic; in other words, an advertiser asks to be placed near a workplace article, but it can't choose the subject matter). But you can't fault a reader for wondering if a giant opening spread in WM this month for some major employer had anything to do with its top placement on the list.
Carol Evans, CEO of Working Mother Media, argues:
Not that we won't ask you to advertise. Because it's a real opportunity for companies to get their commercial message out right in the same environment where they're also getting a very strong editorial message.
When I heard that, I winced. So along with the letter informing you youv'e landed on the list, you get a media packet asking you to shell out for some ad pages. Hmm.
I'm actually a fan of these rankings. Putting a spotlight on employers that do well by their employees can do a lot of good, as PR-starved companies strive harder to squeeze into the public's good graces. Their motives aren't necessarily warm and fuzzy; studies document that companies that treat workers well also tend to report better earnings and stock-price growth (investors increasingly sift their portfolios for good corporate citizenship).
Working Mother's rankings in particular are a big boon to us working moms; it's one of our few allies in the battle for good working conditions. I wholeheartedly agree with the practice of patting employers on the back publicly for offering paid maternity leave and promoting women. But I want to know the standards for the rankings are rigorous and uncompromised. Don't you?
September 20, 2007 9:49
What to do if your boss is Isiah Thomas
I don't follow basketball, but Isiah Thomas is one of those larger-than-sports figures who transcended the court into business and cultural prominence (hmm, kinda like O.J.). As the head coach and the president of the New York Knicks, he's gained a respect and admiration in this town above and beyond that reserved for most former athletes. Plus he seemed like such a nice guy--always smiling, always professional, always friendly (hmm, kinda like O.J.).
That's why it was such a shock when Anucha Browne Sanders, a former top marketing executive with the Knicks, filed a $10 million sexual harassment suit against the club in January 2006. The harassment, she said, came from Thomas himself. In court this month, she testified (bad word alert):
"He was always starting sentences with the word 'bitch,' " Sanders testified in Manhattan federal court.
"Bitch, I don't give a f- - - about the sponsors. Bitch, I don't give a f- - - about ticket sales. That's your job," Sanders quoted Thomas.
This CNN report shows a clip of Thomas's video deposition, in which he describes his thoughts on the B word, as well as his later denial of having used it at all:
Sanders says he kept up appearances in public:
In court, the former Knicks senior vice president managed to maintain her cool when Isaiah Thomas bizarrely laughed while she was talking.Sanders recognized that in public, Thomas is "very pleasant and personable”, but behind the scenes he often lost control and targeted his rage at her, Knicks’ only female vice president, she said.
Seems to me Sanders faces a tough fight; Madison Square Garden is sparing no expense to discredit her claims about its star property. Her former boss testified in court yesterday that he fired her for impeding the very investigation of her complaints:
Jurors heard Madison Square Garden Chairman James Dolan explain in his own words why he fired a female Madison Square Garden executive, in videotaped testimony played yesterday in federal court in Manhattan.On the tape, Dolan said Anucha Browne Sanders was fired because she willfully interfered in a company probe of her sexual harassment allegations against Knicks coach Isiah Thomas.
I thought Dolan's attitude was telling in this comment:
Asked if the use of the word "bitch" was appropriate, Dolan said it wasn't. Browne Sanders has testified that Thomas routinely addressed her with that word."No, it is not appropriate, it is also not appropriate to murder someone," he said, without further explaining the analogy.
Is that an O.J. reference, or is it me? Anyway, negotiating expert Michael Donaldson happened to stop by my office yesterday, so I asked him what he thought. Handling difficult people is a topic of his new book, Fearless Negotiating: The Wish-Want-Walk Method to Reaching Agreements That Work, and Donaldson has years of experience advising clients on dealing with jerks at work.
His advice comes down to four steps: focus on the problem; acknowledge it; ignore the behavior you dislike; and report what's untenable. "Personally, I think she should have quit," he says. "No one should have to put up with that. But if she really wanted to keep that job, she would have to have undertaken as a major project the changing of his behavior." (The advice is partly based on the experience of a cousin who trains animals; more on that and on Donaldson's book in a later post.)
But here's a sports and corporate reality: as Chris Mannix of SI.com, who's following the court case, writes,
No matter what happens, Isiah isn't going anywhere.
It's becoming comical, really. Short of morphing into the next Ted Stepien, Thomas' job as both the Knicks coach and general manager appears to be safe. Regardless of the outcome of this trial, Thomas will travel with the team to South Carolina for training camp next month and begin his second season as the Knicks head coach.That's not to say there won't be consequences. Based on conversations I have had with league sources, if Thomas is indeed found liable for sexual harassment, it is very possible he will face some sort of punishment from the NBA, possibly in the form of a suspension. Like the rest of professional sports, the NBA has become an image-conscious enterprise and it does not reflect well on them when the face of one of their flagship franchises is declared by a jury to be, well, a shady character.
September 19, 2007 10:58
Really dumb excuses when calling in sick
My husband Chris is a football freak. And by football I mean the game you play with your feet, the one Americans call soccer. So he calls me today to tell me about the eye-rolling saga of Manchester City midfielder Stephen Ireland, who called in sick to work--in his case, on the Republic of Ireland squad--with the plausible-sounding excuse that his dear grandma had passed on. When team officials called his family to express their condolences, the fib began to unravel. Here's the whole tale, as explained by Ireland in a statement, which in fact does involve a tragedy.
"When the game ended our manager, Stephen Staunton, took me outside the dressing room into the corridor, along with the Ireland team doctor. He told me that they had taken a call from my girlfriend, Jessica, and she said my grandmother had died. I was deeply shocked because I believed it was my maternal grandmother, who had brought me up from when I was five. The manager went back into the dressing room to get my phone and when I got it I immediately rang my girlfriend to get more details.
"My girlfriend was distraught and explained that she had just suffered a miscarriage. Jessica said she was very lonely and wanted me to come home. She said she thought they might let me come home quicker if they thought my grandmother had died."
Here's where Ireland messed up: instead of correcting the lie, which his understandably distraught girlfriend had made, he thought it wise to perpetuate it.
"When I finished the call I told the manager and doctor that my grandmother had died and, because we were very close, I wanted to go home immediately. The manager said that was no problem and he would get the FAI to sort it out."The FAI hired a private jet to get me home and I flew out of Bratislava the following morning. Before I left I told the FAI media officer that the name of my grandmother was Patricia Tallon. Early on Monday morning I got a phone call from Stephen Staunton telling me that the FAI had discovered my grandmother in Cork was not dead.
"He wanted to know what was going on and I told him that there had been a mistake and it had been my father's mother. I told him her name was Brenda Kitchener, that she lived in London."
Problem: Brenda Kitchener wasn't dead, either. Ireland continues:
"Jessica and I were still very upset over the miscarriage so we flew home to Ireland for a few days.
"On Thursday, I got a phone call from Manchester City stating that the FAI had discovered that my grandmother, Brenda Kitchener, was also alive. I decided at that stage that I must tell truth and admit I had told lies."I realise now that it was a massive mistake on my part to tell the FAI and Manchester City that my grandmothers had died and I deeply regret it."
Now, only a thick-headed young man would think that his girlfriend's miscarriage wasn't a legitimate-enough reason to call in sick to work. But his deep and evident embarrassment, not to mention that of his family, likely ensures he won't make a similar mistake again.
But stupid excuses aren't exclusive to young Irish footballers. Following are some tongue-in-cheek suggestions by the editors of CareerBuilder.com and Second City Communications, authors of a new book called CUBE MONKEYS: A Handbook for Surviving the Office Jungle. You'd only use them if you've got a football for a brain. (Got any of your own--either excuses you've made or heard? Add 'em on in the comments.)
Top Excuses for Calling in Sick1. "I have a stomach thing. I think I ate some bad chicken. Or else it was the wine. Or the beer. Or the Scotch. Or the Ouzo. Or the cough syrup. But I think it was the chicken."
2. "I think I have a bug in my system. I mean a real bug. You see, I yawned when I rode my motorcycle over the weekend."
3. "I have disco fever. I just can't stop dancing."
4. "I've got a ringing in my ears, so I can't hear what you're saying. If it's okay if I take off sick, just let me know. Wait, I can't hear you. I know, if it's okay if I take off just don't say anything. Did you say anything? I'm just going to hang up. Is that okay? If it is--"
5. "I have a cold beer in my hand. Psych!"
6. "I have a computer virus. Did I ever mention I was bionic?"
7. "I've got one of those 24-hour things. What's it called--oh yeah, a day off."
8. "I have a sudden case of Attention Deficit Disorder. So I won't be able to--look, a bird--I like chocolate--oh, my show is on. Bye!"
9. "I took an overdose of placebos and I feel--well, I don't know how I'm feeling!"
10. "I broke my leg. But I think it will be okay by tomorrow."
September 18, 2007 11:40
Public speaking do's and dont's
Monday's lack of a WiP post was not an indication of WiP's growing laziness. WiP in fact spent the day speaking to a couple of hundred undertakers at a convention in Atlantic City.
(WiP enjoys referring to herself by the name of her blog and infrequent magazine column. It makes her feel like a branded entity, not a sad and uncelebrated individual.)
Why undertakers, you ask? Ah. Often I wonder the same. I spoke at the behest of the New Jersey State Funeral Directors Association at their annual convention. My topic was a one-hour discussion of 10 things I thought the funeral consumer of tomorrow would want funeral directors to know today. (To book me as entertainment for your child's next birthday party, contact my agent.) The gig came about not because of my brilliant blog and magazine contributions but rather because last year I penned a book about the funeral biz called Remember Me: A Lively Tour of the New American Way of Death (out in paperback today--buy it now!)
As I stood before hundreds of funeral directors, I realized not a one of them wanted to be there. My presentation would count as credit toward the continuing education they need to maintain their licenses. In fact, the bar codes on their convention nametags would record when they entered and when they left, allowing just a few minutes for bathroom runs. Talk about a captive audience.
But they weren't a friendly one. Many sat with their arms crossed, faces set in frowns, minds perhaps on the poker tables at which I was keeping them from playing or the salt-water taffy I was keeping them from enjoying. At least it was cold; I wasn't keeping anyone from a dip in the Atlantic. No doubt some of the antipathy was aimed at me personally (a non-undertaker deigning to tell them their business) and deepened by my message (in essence: change or die).
Some of you do this for a living. Some of you get up before large crowds and impart your business lessons, dazzling 'em with PowerPoint and videos and your shiny, spotless suits. Me, I am just a frazzled writer mom with a book to shill. I dazzled nobody. But I did come away with some public speaking do's and don'ts--aimed mostly at myself, as reminders for the next time I ever open my mouth in the presence of others.
DO prepare ahead. What idiot arrives at a large convention without having written her speech? A hopelessly harried one, that's who. I spent the evening preceding my presentations filling in an outline I'd made months prior. I even reread parts of my book. What idiot has to reread her own book?
DO incorporate visuals. In my line of work, PowerPoint is an application that has no use. Or so I thought. We're all in the business of image-creating now, and public speaking is part of that, and visuals help keep a dead room awake.
DON'T exhibit any physical tics. An elderly white gentleman (there were many in this mostly white, mostly older crowd) approached me afterward with a comment: "Stop picking your nose." I swear to God. I was totally startled. He said I touched my nose a lot. I don't remember doing so, but I know I gesticulate a lot in conversation, and apparently to an older gentleman sitting 30 feet away it appears I pick my nose in public.
DO search the crowd for friends. I beseeched one favorite source from my book, an American Airlines pilot with a side business in ash scattering, to come down. Boy, was I glad for that one friendly face in the audience. He laughed at my jokes and had tea with me between presentations. And I got lucky: being that I conducted much of my research in New Jersey, there turned out to be a handful of other friends in the crowd. An entire family of undertakers I plagued for a year turned up. I don't know if this warmed me to the rest of the crowd, but it sure made me feel like less of a loser.
DON'T make hasty travel arrangements. In my hurry I neglected to print out MapQuest directions, and thus wound up halfway to Philadelphia. Screwed-up travel can add layers of stress to these already stressful situations.
DO choose wisely from the room-service menu the night before an engagement. My stomach said soup and toast, but my eyes said shrimp cocktail. I regretted my ultimate decision.
DO speak in public. Despite the stony silence of the crowd, I actually had a good time. I said what I thought, and I said it passionately. I shared research and ideas I thought would be useful to their businesses. I conveyed a consumer-driven message to an industry that has in the past been accused of ignoring consumers' wishes. I even sold a box of books. And you know what? I was glad I did it. It was worth taking a personal day from my precious allotment of holidays to drive 260 miles (plus a 40-mile detour) for an exercise in brand-building. Really.
September 14, 2007 10:41
Once again, resumé lie snags serial liar
It all began to unravel with the whopper about the doctorate from the Sorbonne.
ABC reports that the TV network is reopening an investigation into former consultant Alexis Debat's work. The impressively credentialed Debat had claimed to interview a journalist's dream list of bold-name political stars:
Former President Bill Clinton, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan have added their names to the list of people who say they were the subjects of fake interviews published in a French foreign affairs journal under the name of Alexis Debat, a former ABC News consultant.
The French publication Politique Internationale had published dozens of articles under Debat's byline, including a June 2007 interview with Barack Obama that the presidential candidate's office is now saying never took place. The lies were uncovered by Rue 89, a terrific online journal.
What galls me is that it took so long for this guy to be outed. The ABC Blotter online reports earlier red flags:
In fact, Stephane Dujarric, the deputy communications director for the U.N. secretary-general, said he called the fabricated interview to the attention of the editor of the magazine, Patrick Wajsman, in June 2005.
"I told him that if he went ahead with it, we would denounce the interview as a fake," the U.N. official said. "This was not some obscure guy. This was the sitting secretary-general of the U.N., and the magazine was told it was a fake," he said.
The magazine's editor, Patrick Wajsman, explains his inaction:
The magazine editor, Wajsman, told ABCNews.com he thought the problem with the Annan interview, one of the first he submitted, was "maybe a technical one" or a misunderstanding.
Now wait an eye-poppin' minute. If someone called my boss and told him I had completely fabricated an interview with a VIP that ran in TIME, you can bet I'd be out on my butt before I could say boo. I suspect Debat's golden credentials afforded him a shield of credibility that even his bosses didn't want to crack. And yet--here's the kicker--his creds were faked, too, as we learn from this New York Times piece by Bill Carter:
ABC fired Mr. Debat in June after discovering that his claims of having earned a doctorate from the Sorbonne were false. The network then investigated the reports Mr. Debat had participated in and found “they absolutely checked out,” Mr. Ross said.
This really makes me wonder. How many sterling careers are built on the backs of resumé lies? Or do we only hear about it when the lies belong to superstars?
September 13, 2007 11:08
My car is disgusting
I drive around in a used 1998 Toyota Camry. It ain't pretty. Last week I scraped the front right fender on our narrow garage opening. Its white exterior is plastered with bird poo. And the interior--whoa, mama. The floor is crusted with bits of pretzel, animal cookie and curled-up art projects. The back seat is sticky. Somewhere in the darkness are a cellphone, sunglasses, tax forms, almost empty juice boxes, MapQuest directions to an interview I drove to in Maplewood, pens, and at least one piece of cheese.
I don't need to pimp my ride. I've already mommed it. Jealous? Want help? Here you go.
I don't usually commute to work in this stinkmobile. But when I do, I park it in a garage near my office in midtown Manhattan. I love pulling up behind the investment bankers in their immaculate Jags and spotless Beemer convertibles. My muffler is shot, too, so I sound like a tractor. When the men step out, they reach in and shake out their hand-cut suit jackets before heading off to the office. Me, I shake off the Cheerios stuck to my somewhat clean Top Shop jeans.
Such is my life. And you know what? I don't care. I'd rather be a working mom than a pimp.
September 12, 2007 11:43
Like an eHarmony for jobs, but not
I'm lazy. You are, too. If we had our way, everything would come to us via silver platter at the snap of our fingers: groceries. Clothing. Jobs. So when a new online jobhunting service promised to do all the work while I sat here, bony ass on my grubby non-Aeron office chair, I decided I would do a favor to all you other lazy workers and give it a whirl.
Let me back up and say this new business has creds. It's founded by Rob McGovern, founder of CareerBuilder, the No. 1 jobs site on the web. He made a sick amount of money upon its sale and patiently waited out the noncompete term until he was free to reinvent himself as--the founder of another jobs site on the web.
This one is different, McGovern insists. "At CareerBuilder, 5% of job listings result in a hire," he says during our phone interview yesterday. "That means a 95% failure rate." Clearly, the idea needed tweaking. His new model, called Jobfox, is "like an eHarmony for jobs," he says. By requiring both job seeker and employer to input specific information about the kind of job and candidate each sought, the system would ensure a far better match.
A cool feature of the site is the trackable resumé; you get notified via text message if and when some employer is checking you out. It's sort of like knowing you're being gossiped about.
I was hitched by the time the online dating sites took off, but I always thought eHarmony sounded like work. And, being lazy, I wanted to know where's the part where I get to sit on my bony ass and await job offers. I was initially encouraged by a tool I likened to a resumé dump, in which the job seeker uploads her C.V. onto Jobfox and Jobfox dumps the info into its database. Only it didn't work so well. All my data info was wrong, so I had to go in and manually enter my various positions, along with the duties. I stopped at two jobs ago, so lazy am I.
I liked the "Boss Over Shoulder" feature, which is like a digital eject button: hit it, and a Google screen pops up. But the input pages on Jobfox are so plain that bosses are likely to think you're just filling out some boring HR form online.
Take the meat of the site, where job seekers select job preferences. It's as lazy-friendly as possible, requiring users only to check boxes. My beef is that the preferences were along the lines of things like health coverage (duh, check), 401(k) matching contributions (are you kidding? check), an ESOP plan (I forget what that is but yes, check). Nothing about if I want P&L responsibility, management training, an active community of diverse affinity groups.
In other words, though McGovern denies it, Jobfox is better geared--for now--toward entry-level workers. Also, it's currently beta-testing in only four markets (Washington, Boston, San Francisco and Atlanta), a fact I did not know until after my tryout. I was thus stunned to find that, within a 10-mile radius of New York City, absolutely no employer wanted me. No one. Zip.
Once Jobfox launches in my market, though, I'm counting on the dental-plan-offering, 401(k)-matched, gym-membership-subsidizing offers to pour in. Meantime, I'm sitting on my butt and contemplating my snack drawer.
September 11, 2007 12:53
A former FBI agent is vetting your resumé
If you're a hotshot angling for an exec job at a big New York City company, chances are Ken Springer is on your tail. He's the president of an innocuous-sounding outfit called Corporate Resolutions, and it's his business to dig out your dirty laundry, give it a good sniff--then tell your prospective boss all about it.
Springer visited me here at TIME last week to talk about his work, tell tales of unnamed execs with big background booboos, and give advice on how to avoid getting snagged in his net. He's an amiable guy with a brushcut, not the sort you pin as a 12-year FBI agent who hunted white-collar criminals. He started up his private business 16 years ago conducting background checks on high-level executives as well as on suppliers and clients.
In the age of Google, of course, any yahoo in HR can do a background check--of sorts. But Springer's checks transcend that level. Of course, his staff of two dozen might begin with the web, trawling Facebook or old newspaper clips. But he also looks at legal histories, finding, for instance, cases in which the candidate has settled--"stuff that won't show up on legal records," but is meaningful to an employer as it might signal a lawsuit-happy candidate. In 29% of cases, he digs up something "significant," he says--such as a CFO candidate who's filed for personal bankruptcy (bet that bit wasn't high up on the resumé).
You IT guys think you're exempt from the probing eye? Think again. "Lately, that's one of the biggest problems," Springer sighs. Employers don't consider the geek squad key employees. "And yet, they have the keys to the kingdom, don't they? They can access the CEO's e-mail if they want to." His group spends a lot of time vetting IT candidates resumés for fakeries; phony online degrees are big. "They say they have a master's when in fact they just paid some guy for it online," he says.
If you don't have any skeletons in your closet, you're home free. But if you do? "The absolute best thing you can do," says Springer, "is come clean in the interview process." He cites the case of one CEO candidate whose approval for the job was one rubber stamp from the board away. Springer found an arrest--for domestic violence. When Springer sat down with the exec, he quickly owned up, then explained his side: his former wife had called the cops during an angry spat, and had since dropped any charges. After confirming the information with the ex, Springer cleared the exec for approval.
"Look," he says. "We're going to find out anyway. There are always two sides to the story--wouldn't you rather we hear yours?"
September 7, 2007 1:09
I'm too lazy to return our toxic toys
I know, I know. Sitting innocently in my child's playroom is a pile of brightly colored, ticking time bombs. Having read Jyoti Thottam's story in this week's TIME, "More Trouble in Toyland," I should be nauseous with the fear so familiar to my generation of neurotic parents:
Mattel's recent recalls of more than 19 million toys--including a Sept. 4 warning about lead paint in 675,000 accessories for its iconic Barbie dolls--were the largest in the history of the world's largest toymaker and have put the entire industry on high alert. "This year's recalls were not a happy thing for us," says Carter Keithley, president of the Toy Industry Association (TIA), a trade group whose 500 members make about 85% of all the toys sold in the U.S. Even companies that haven't been hit with recalls are scouring their production lines for problems, and testing labs say they have been deluged with work. "We're looking at everything right now," says Wayne Charness, a senior vice president at Hasbro.
I read with relief that the most recent recall involved Barbie accessories. Mika hasn't yet discovered the busty blonde babe. But we own at least a half-dozen things on this list on the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission web site, the most helpful I found because of the product photos. Both Elmo and Dora the Explorer have played important roles in my only child's circle of imaginary friends.
The more I read, the more I'm starting to freak out. Check out this piece, also in this week's TIME, by Claudia Wallis, one of our star science reporters, titled "When Lead Lurks in Your Nursery." I don't know about you, but I'm finding the experts simultaneously reassuring and totally alarming. Dr. Courtney Mann, the director of WakeMed Children's Emergency Department interviewed in the News & Observer of North Carolina, starts off on a calming note:
"Since chronic lead poisoning typically requires long, regular exposures, parents should not panic if their child has been playing occasionally with a toy recalled due to lead paint," she said.
Then, this:
However, lead poisoning can be serious. Lead is a heavy metal that, when ingested by children, can cause developmental delays and behavior problems. In cases involving acute, large amounts, lead can cause seizures, or even death.
Mann said that younger children, especially those 3 years old and younger, are more at risk of lead poisoning."The younger you are, the more susceptible your brain is to the toxins found in lead," she said. Still, if an older child has played with one of the recalled toys, parents should call their doctors to determine whether a blood-lead test is necessary, Mann said.
Symptoms of lead poisoning include irritability, loss of appetite, weight loss, sluggishness, abdominal pain, vomiting and constipation.
Gah!
Here's what I know I need to do:
a) Print out the list of recalled toys from Mattel's web site.
b) Match it to the product numbers on the toys in Mika's playroom--at night, when she won't catch me and put up a stink.
c) Pack the toys up in a box.
d) Attempt to return to Mattel for the promised credit.
Two dollars says I get to step C this weekend, then poop out at the refund stage. More anxious--or thorough--parents than I would also buy one of the lead-testing kits now heavily advertised online and carefully weed through the toy chest. I think I'm just going to get a large Glad bag and toss stuff that's Made in China.
So thanks, Mattel, for giving working parents just one more freakin' thing to obsess about not getting to yet. I watched CEO Bob Eckert's apology video on Mattel's site, but I thought this version on YouTube, placed by an org called Mediacurves, was more interesting: the graph running over Eckert's face shows his level of believability as gauged by the audience. Interesting note for you HR/PR/executive coach types: his credibility spikes when he talks about his feelings, and dips when he outlines the concrete steps Mattel's taking on the fiasco.
September 7, 2007 10:33
Pew feeds working mom "wars" with dumb question
Are working moms a good or bad thing for society?
What kind of numb-nut question is that?
No less vaunted an organization than the Pew Research Center asked that question. Here are the results:
Pew concludes:
In the span of the past decade, full-time work outside the home has lost some of its appeal to mothers. This trend holds both for mothers who have such jobs and those who don't.
Among working mothers with minor children (ages 17 and under), just one-in-five (21%) say full-time work is the ideal situation for them, down from the 32% who said this back in 1997, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. Fully six-in-ten (up from 48% in 1997) of today's working mothers say part-time work would be their ideal, and another one-in-five (19%) say she would prefer not working at all outside the home.
Not only is this "debate" boneheaded, it's also damaging to the already strained psyches of the 75% of women ages 25 to 54 who work. That's right, three out of four of us participate in the labor force, same as a decade ago, despite all the hoo and ha about moms opting out. There's been a slight decline among working women with children under three--from 62% in 1998 to 59% in 2005.
Pew asks working moms and stay-at-home moms to rate themselves on their parenting skills. Here's how they responded:
Now, is anyone surprised by this? Of course if your job is to care for your children, you're damn well likely to give yourself higher scores on that one job than if you were juggling two. Most working parents I know feel they're not acing either of their two roles. The thing is, to us, it's worth it to suck a little bit at your job-job for a while so you can participate in the life of this precious new person; it's also worth it to kiss the precious person good-bye every morning, painful as it might be, so that you can go into the world and provide for her.
I wouldn't give myself a 10 as a parent. And I certainly wouldn't give myself a 10 as a worker. But between me and my husband and our various caregivers, I know my child is being carefully and lovingly raised. As for work, I believe that my job as a parent informs my job as a writer, giving me more empathy for my subjects, a clearer voice, and, heck, better material.
Are working moms good or bad for society? Bah. We're here, like it or not. Now help us cope by coming to the house and doing a load of laundry.
September 7, 2007 9:54
Borat's guide to jobs
Success is working in an office with lights. (Viewer warming: it's crude. As expected.)
September 6, 2007 11:31
My daughter's career plans
This morning in the Cullen kitchen:
MIKA (daughter, age 3): Daaaa-ddy. (Big hug. Pause.) I need some money.
CHRIS (husband): What do you need money for?
MIKA: I need money so I can go to the money store and buy some money.
CHRIS: Where do you think we can get some money?
MIKA: From the piggy back.
CHRIS: Well, I think you're a little young for a piggy bank. But you could get a job if you want.
MIKA: What kind of a job?
CHRIS: What would you like to be?
MIKA: A princess.
CHRIS: That doesn't always pay very well. How about an astronaut?
MIKA: No, thank you.
CHRIS: How about a doctor?
MIKA: No, I can't.
CHRIS: Well, what would you like to be?
MIKA: A paid princess.
September 5, 2007 4:30
What if your CEO was gay?
So there's apparently this blogger who outs politicians. I'm probably the last person who's heard of Mike Rogers and his blog, BlogActive. He's gaining mainstream notoriety because he was the first to home in on Sen. Larry Craig for his anti-gay stances in this October 2006 post.
Some might say the personal lives of politicians are off limits, but those people probably live in trees in the Appalachian mountains. The public has a legitimate interest if these politicians are, say, bashing gays while leading homosexual lifestyles on the DL.
But does the same apply for corporate leaders?
I think of this as I view the car wreck that is Craig's career. I don't know or care about this pol; I just can't help looking at the mess. He's apparently wavering on the matter, but I think the smart money's on him losing his job right quick. And that made me wonder: should a person lose his job over his sexuality? Does Craig's outing--if indeed his declarations to the contrary are hogwash--mean he can't do his job?
In Craig's case, I think you'd agree that the issue here isn't his gayness or straightness, but his jaw-dropping incompetence in dealing with this crazy episode. It's Mark Foley all over again.
A corporate boss isn't elected by the people, and his salary doesn't come from the taxpayer till. Still, I might question the competence of, say, my own CEO if he were caught in some debacle like this and created a tabloid ruckus. No one cared that BP CEO John Browne was gay, although the fact hadn't been public. He stepped down in July not because his gay lover had come forward but because said lover was about to publish allegations that Browne had misused company funds.
It's all about doing the job, people. Color, creed, sexual orientation--no one gives a poop. Just keep it out of airport toilet stalls.
September 5, 2007 12:43
You think your workplace is sexist
Try Moira Cameron's--she's the first woman to guard the Tower of London in 522 years.
My family just got back from holiday in London. We took my mother-in-law, an ardent Anglophile who had never before been. She and my husband took in a day at the Tower, where they were guided by a yeoman of performance skills rivaling Albert Finney's (or so mom-in-law gushes). Here he is, snapped by my hub:
Workplaces in the United Kingdom aren't any more sexist than, say, in the U.S. That I know of, anyway. But this one was. Beefeaters must serve 22 years in the Royal Army to be considered for the storied post, and also must have earned medals for long service and good conduct. That's a pretty sexist rule in and of itself; it's much harder for a woman to serve two decades uninterrupted, especially if you factor in children. Still, there are a handful of women with that distinction, others of whom had applied for the job before Cameron finally snagged it.
Cameron, 42, started yesterday, but won't lead tours until she completes the mandatory training next year. The British press yukked that she's already made a change in the dress code by opting out of the traditional beard. They also itemized the things she carried in the giant pockets designed by Henry VII to hold yeoman's cash (here, from The Guardian):
Lip gloss, mirror, mints and several sets of keys - including the ones to her sentry box - were all tucked away, she said, in the floppy compartments sewn into her blue and red tunic.
To me, that's kind of the equivalent of detailing Hillary Clinton's outfit at a campaign debate without making note of other candidates' clothes. I mean, would you ask a new woman CEO what she carries in her briefcase?
Besides making history, Cameron will earn a nice salary of about $50,000, plus use of a subsidized apartment on the grounds. That, to me, was the best news: another decently paying, well-regarded job opened up to women. No small thing in a country where an ice cream cone can cost $6.
About Work In Progress
Nina Subin
Lisa Takeuchi Cullen is a staff writer for TIME. She blogs about work. Why? Because TV was taken. Think of her as the grumpy colleague ranting by the water cooler.
More about the Author
Email her here:
lisa_cullen at timemagazine.com
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