March 30, 2008 9:02
I'm the turkey in this sandwich
Sometimes life just squeezes you from all sides. On the one there's the impending birth of my second child, bearing down on me (no pun) (okay, pun) from a rapidly decreasing number of weeks away. On the other there are my parents, one extremely sick, one just old, and both 8,000 miles away. Somewhere in between there's new responsibility at work brought on by the departure of one of my editors, into whose enormous vacuum I'm being offered up like some ridiculously inadequate Band-aid.
Not to keep piling on the metaphors, but it's the classic sandwich experienced by the modern-day worker of a certain generation. I believe I'm the turkey in this sandwich. I can think of a less savory filling, but this is a family web site.
The thing with these Dagwood-style hoagies is that the insides tend to spill out.
I'm heading home to Japan tomorrow to see my mother off into hospice. She's lived with advanced cancer for so long that we'd lulled ourselves into thinking this day was somewhere in the hazy future. My dad, who is 10 years older, can't be home alone; thus the grossly pregnant daughter can offer something of assistance, if only by cooking his supper.
It's not a good time, of course, but is it ever? I'm huge, for one. For another, this is the second time this month I have had to leave my three-year-old in my husband's care for an extended stretch. Lastly but not leastly, I have new, if temporary, responsibilities at work, which is to say I will have actual responsibilities at work for a time. My bosses and colleagues are being incredibly understanding about my sudden leave, and no one's even mentioned the horrid timing. Not that this lessens the guilt much.
When I'm home, though, none of this will matter, as I'm pretty sure grief trumps guilt.
So, friends, this is all to say I won't be posting here until my return in mid-April. Happy spring. Me, I'll be hoping for a seasonal moratorium on grinders.
March 28, 2008 9:00
Ladies, lead not your male colleagues astray
And what I mean by this is: Don't look at him, don't talk to him, and for the love of Pete cut out the smiling.
This from LiveScience, via my (male) friend Gerry: "Clueless Guys Can't Read Women."
More often than not, guys interpret even friendly cues, such as a subtle smile from a gal, as a sexual come-on, and a new study discovers why: Guys are clueless.
Researcher Coreen Farris of Indiana University's Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences found that men, especially young men, have trouble distinguishing friendliness from come-hitherness. Interestingly, the study, to be published in the April issue of the journal Psychological Science, also found that
it goes both ways for guys - they mistake females' sexual signals as friendly ones. The researchers suggest guys have trouble noticing and interpreting the subtleties of non-verbal cues, in either direction.
Farris conducted the study on college students, but no doubt this extends to the work world as well—particularly for Gen Y workers. I'd think such doltish inability to read nonverbal cues has real-life significance beyond the horror of mistaking your female boss's kindly encouragement as an invitation to her bedroom, although surely that would torpedo your job. Interpreting colleagues' and managers' behavior is key to getting along and getting ahead in the workplace, is it not, friends?
Anyway, is this true? Any tales of young men mistaking female colleagues' friendliness as something quite else?
March 27, 2008 11:00
Stupid office trick: carpet skating
Love to hear what you HR pros and workplace attorneys have to say about this kooky product. The Hula Chair is one thing; it's silly and totally impractical. But Carpet Skates from Funslides could break your behind. Not that I wouldn't mind seeing one of these goons laid up for a while. (Would you believe a PR person for the product sent me this link? She writes, "There are some obvious safety issues surrounding the use of Carpet Skates, but I wanted to give you a heads up about fun, unique way that employees are breaking up the workplace monotony." Seriously.)
March 27, 2008 9:30
Switching jobs—again? It'll cost ya
Early in my career, I was a habitual job hopper. I held my first four jobs in five years. The restlessness wasn't without source; I was in the midst of a search for a vocation that would define me, if I want to be all existential about it. The good news is I found it. Here I am, an 11-year veteran at the same dang employer. The bad news is I've been eating the same cafeteria food for over a decade now. You know you've been here too long when you've memorized the daily soup special.
It's nice to settle down, job-wise, if only to avoid the hassle of ordering new business cards every 12 months. But it turns out I'm also scoring major financial gain by staying in place. New research finds that workers who change jobs a lot wind up earning less than those who stay put.
The study, published in the February issue of the American Sociological Review, the journal of the American Sociological Association, sought to determine the impact of career mobility on worker’s wages. Sociologist Sylvia Fuller of the University of British Columbia tracked nearly 6,000 workers during their first 12 years in the labor market.
Here's why job-hopping costs workers:
• In the first five years of a job, Fuller found each year of tenure is associated with approximately 2.4% higher wages for men and 2.9% higher wages for women. In other words, earnings, like interest, compounds; if you miss the raises that come with tenure, your later earnings will reflect that loss.
• Job-hoppers tend to spend a greater proportion of time unemployed.
• A greater proportion of their job changes are the result of layoffs.
Fuller doesn't address the oft-heard argument that the best way to get a raise is to take a new job. But she does find that job-hopping "can be a wage asset when it is concentrated in the early years of employment and not coupled with layoffs, discharges, employment gaps or family-related leave. In this case, moderate or even high levels of mobility can lead to equal or better wage outcomes than stability."
So hop away, young 'uns. Just settle down before too long. You could always skip the caf and brown-bag a sandwich.
March 26, 2008 3:02
Do women bully women at work?
Buried in a Science section column about workplace bullies by Tara Parker-Pope of The New York Times yesterday:
A large share of the problem involves women victimizing women. The Zogby survey showed that 40 percent of workplace bullies are women.
That survey on workplace bullying by Zogby International had found that half of working Americans have "suffered or witnessed workplace bullying -- including verbal abuse, job sabotage, abuse of authority or destruction of workplace relationships."
But women—bullying women? The Zogby poll quotes Dr. Gary Namie, director of the Workplace Bullying Institute in Bellingham, Wash.:
When bullies are women, they choose other women as their prey in 71% of cases. Bullying, or status-blind harassment, is four times more prevalent than illegal, civil rights, status-based harassment. Same-gender harassment defines the two most frequent categories of bullying. Gary Namie said, "It was legal when we started the movement in '98 and it still is today."
Workplace bullying is a serious problem, with victims suffering real harm to their mental and physical health—not to mention its effect on the workplace as a whole. No doubt you've read Bob Sutton's excellent argument for eradicating office bullies, The No-A--hole Rule (I put forth a much lamer argument against such a ban in TIME). If you think you're being bullied, read Allison Van Dusen's Forbes.com piece: "Ten Signs You're Being Bullied At Work."
But let me repeat the Zogby findings: three out of four times, women choose to harass other women instead of men at work.
As Keanu Reeves would say: whoa. I need corroboration here. Anyone with stories of woman-on-woman workplace harassment?
March 26, 2008 8:00
What a (good-looking) woman wants
She gets the best man—and the best jobs. / SAG
When it comes to getting what we want—or wanting what we get—women, it turns out, are realistic.
A study published in this month's Evolutionary Psychology says that we women calibrate what we desire in a mate according to our own perceived degree of attractiveness. According to ScienceDaily,
"When reviewing the qualities they desire in romantic partners, women gauge what they can get based on what they got," said [David Buss, psychology researcher at The University of Texas at Austin and a co-author of the study]. "And women who are considered physically attractive maintain high standards for prospective partners across a variety of characteristics."
The researchers identified four categories of characteristics women seek in a partner:
• good genes, reflected in desirable physical traits,
• resources,
• the desire to have children and good parenting skills, and
• loyalty and devotion.
So according to this research, if I think I'm Angelina Jolie, then I'm gonna look for a man who scores top marks in all those categories (well, hello, Brad Pitt). If I think I look like Rudy Giuliani in drag, then I'm gonna ratchet my expectations waaay down.
Got me to wonder: does this apply when job-hunting, too? Studies have found that good-looking people score higher in job interviews (what, this surprises you?). Do the Natalie Portmans and George Clooneys of the business world go through life with certain expectations about the caliber of work they attain?
March 25, 2008 10:50
Mixed-race issues in Obama's race speech
The news cycle has shifted its focus to the 4,000th American soldier killed in Iraq, to James Carville turning all apostolic on Bill Richardson and Hillary Clinton's slightly revised version of a trip to Bosnia.
Yet I'm sitting here at work, hours past deadline, still thinking about Barack Obama's speech on race.
You of course have heard it by now. If you're hankering for another viewing, here's the video again, via CNN:
There's an excellent article in this week's TIME by Amy Sullivan and Jay Carney about why Obama would choose to attend a church like Trinity. But beyond the whys and wherefores, I, like no doubt many Americans, find myself still chewing over the meat of the issues he brought up—just like he intended. To me, his speech was above politics (at least until the very end, when, in an oratorically effective but plainly pandering crescendo, he appealed to voter constituencies to reject race baiting—"not this time"). To me, his speech was about not just race but about the mixing of races. To me, his speech was about...well, me.
My parents married in 1969, only two years after Loving vs. Virginia, the landmark ruling that outlawed bans on interracial marriage. In other words, my folks could not have married in many states only a few years before I was born. Yet interracial marriage is still no fairy tale, as my colleagues attested at a recent workshop I attended for minority journalists. As Heather Wood writes in Sirens Magazine (via Alternet),
Interracial relationships represent approximately seven percent of couples in the country, which is incredible progress considering they represented just .07 percent in 1960. But for our ever-diversifying nation, these are alarmingly low figures. For the most part, everyone is still sticking to their "own kind." Is this intentional segregation or just cultural tradition? Could be both. But one thing remains certain: Every interracial couple entering into a serious relationship knows what struggles lie ahead. Maybe that 93 percent would just rather avoid them.
As Obama said, we are as a country far from over this hump. We are far from beyond the struggles of our ancestors. We are a long way from not having to have this conversation with our children: who they are, what others are and what it all means.
March 25, 2008 10:28
A top entrepreneur's e-mail tips
Take this guy's e-mail advice. / GuyKawasaki.com
Guy Kawasaki needs no introduction. What tech-world superstar does? I bring him up because I've been scanning through one of the top entrepreneur's newer projects, a blog aggregate that's really useful and easy to use (check out the Career aggregate here, called Career Alltop; notice WiP way, way down the list). I wanted to e-mail him to ask about it, and when I Googled him the very first link was to this post on his own blog: a February 2006 posting titled "The Effective Emailer."
He lists 12 top tips for effective e-mailing. Most of his rules seem completely obvious upon first reading, but then you realize, nobody follows them! As I've been crabbing lately about poor e-mail etiquette, I think it's worth a read not just by soon-to-be new grads but by just about anyone who works. And I strongly recommend it to any and every PR person; these are tips that would increase your chances of getting your message read by my colleagues by, oh, about 1000%.
For instance, here's Kawasaki's Tip No. 1:
Craft your subject line. Your subject line is a window into your soul, so make it a good one. First, it has to get your message past the spam filters, so take out anything about sex and money-saving special offers. Then, it must communicate that your message is highly personalized. For example, “Love your blog,” “Love your book,” and “You skate well for an old man,” always work on me. :-) While you're at it, craft your “From:” line too because when people see the From is from a company, they usually assume the message is spam.
Let me tell you, anyone who leads with the subject, "Love your blog" is going to get their e-mail opened. As for "love your book," I guarantee you a mental hug. Maybe not so much the old-man-skating line.
But here's a really good one that applies to me. "Keep it short," urges Kawasaki. "The ideal length for an email is five sentences." Five sentences! You'll have to click to his post to read his reasoning, but trust me, it's sound. I'm going to start practicing electronic brevity right now by cutting this post sho
March 25, 2008 10:07
Talking to yourself at work is normal
I talk to myself.
Like just now, when I opened an e-mail with the intriguing subject line: "Recruitment?" Here I am thinking, Finally! Someone in the outside world has noticed my untapped talent and seeks my services for a disgusting amount of money! But when I open it, I realize the author is offering me his services to fill the many IT positions I am apparently filling. I mutter: "Wha?" Then: "Doofus." Then: "IT, my @#$%."
You do it, too. According to Jared Sandberg of the Wall Street Journal today,
...in your cubicle-bound life, researchers say as many as 96% of people talk to themselves aloud, and deaf people have been observed signing to themselves while answering test questions.
Why?
Among the things it's useful for is what's called self-regulation: goal-setting, problem-solving, decision-making and planning ("When she says, 'You already got a raise,' I'll say, 'Which didn't keep pace with inflation' "). These conversations with one's self tend to increase, research shows, with the complexity of tasks and when someone's having a bad day.
Imagine the monologues Eliot Spitzer's having right about now.
Me, I'm a social creature. I grew up in a large, garrulous family. Every workplace I've had prior to this one has placed me in an open pool of other like types. But here I sit in a small office with no one in close earshot. I don't pick up the phone unless I recognize the caller's number. I foray out of my cave only to go to the bathroom or refill my tea mug. So when I have something to say, either I post it here—or I mumble to myself.
Tell me I'm not alone.
March 24, 2008 11:00
Hiring of new grads to drop this summer
MonsterTRAK, the student division of job board Monster Worldwide, released its 2008 Entry Level Job Outlook today with some sobering news for '08 grads. Among 1,117 employers surveyed,
59 percent of employers plan to hire 2008 graduates in the spring or summer, a decrease of 17 percent year-over-year, while 29 percent are still unsure.
But there's some good news on the pay front:
One-third of employers with hiring plans will increase starting salaries – driving employers’ anticipated average salary for 2008 graduates to $39.5K, up from $36K last year
College students, being college students, remain optimistic:
73 percent of prospective graduates expect to receive two or more job offers upon graduation.
Uh huh. But they're realistic when it comes to their living prospects:
48 percent of prospective graduates expect to “boomerang” and spend at least some time living with their parents, continuing a three year trend.
So what's the best way to snag employers' interest for those few available jobs? The survey yields some clues:
Often-overlooked, making a professional impression on employers is a critical part of the hiring process – in fact, 43 percent of employers report personal characteristics as most important when assessing college graduates. However, only 19 percent of 2007 graduates recognized it as such.
Never mind the two-page resumés detailing years of experience at the Dairy Queen. Get to the interview on time, dress appropriately, smile often, don't belch, and make a good impression on the interviewer. Forty gees, here you come.
March 24, 2008 9:22
If the e-mail isn't urgent to me, then it's not "urgent." Period.
I learn some really useful things from Real Simple magazine.
That's the publication that was at first derided as Martha Stewart Living for lazy people—until it surpassed MSL in ad pages and started racking up awards. It's one of our sister mags, so I get to peruse it for free. And while it's usually a breezy, brainless read for me (so this is what my bedroom would look like if I could see the floor), I always pick up a nugget or two that's actually useful in the workplace. That's because, unlike MSL, RS recognizes an audience that may in fact hold the kind of jobs that perhaps did not allow them to spend Easter weekend creating triple-lacquered blown-egg objets.
The current RS has a one-page quickie titled "the art of polite stalking" (I guess lower-case headlines are real simple). It begins,
If your best friend doesn't call you back, you just keep leaving messages untl she does. But how many e-mails or voice mails can you leave someone you have a more formal relationship with before you look like a stalker? And what's the best way to get a response?
I take "formal relationship" to mean work-related. It's pretty typical for me to come in on a Monday morning to more than 100 e-mails in my in box. And that's even with me checking e-mail multiple times over the weekend to make sure I read and respond to truly urgent missives from work. I'll tell you what my in box consists of: maybe 50% solicited news round-ups from various media, business and academic outlets; 40% unsolicited press releases; 10% messages from colleagues, sources and/or readers regarding my various articles and projects. Our spam filters are fairly powerful, judging by the relative infrequency of offers to enhance my bank account or my penis size.
A handful of e-mails come marked with a red exclamation mark, signaling the contents are urgent. I don't have to tell you they never are. They're always press releases about some study, book or product that interest me not at all, which leaves me wondering: what precisely is the e-mail etiquette for the use of that attention-getting punctuation mark? Here's the answer I got from Real Simple:
...despite your own feelings, designate an e-mail as "urgent" only if the recipient would view it that way. As [Art Ramirez, assistant professor of communications at Ohio State University in Columbus,] notes, "It's obnoxious."
Are you a habitually urgent e-mailer? Do 'fess.
March 21, 2008 8:50
TGIF book review: Why Women Should Rule the World
Women should rule the world.
That's the assumption behind Dee Dee Myers' new book. You know who she is: the first female White House press secretary; the blonde/brunette who delivered President Clinton's message at the very beginning of his reign; the talking head from the weekend political shows. Turns out—as it so often does in the tales of powerful women—there was more to that story. (Read my recent Q&A with her here.)
In Why Women Should Rule the World, Myers reveals the less-than-glorious back story to her meteoric rise to become the world's most prominent flack. She had been running publicity for Clinton's presidential campaign with great skill, despite her youth and her lack of any Washington experience. Once he won, she kinda sorta hoped she might be tapped for the White House job, but nevertheless was floored and grateful when she did.
Only she didn't. Not really. George Stephanopoulos would rank above her (never mind his own youth and then lack of experience); she wouldn't get the press sec's traditional office; oh, and her pay would be way lower.
Why does all that matter when you've landed the job? Because in Washington, the capitol of status consciousness, people treat you according to your perceived worth. Turned out everyone knew Myers didn't score all the perquisites of her office, and that cut into her credibility. In one particularly wince-worthy story, she tells of stomping into chief of staff Leon Panetta's office upon learning that she made even less than a deputy in another office, a man with far less responsibility and lower rank than she. She demanded a $10,000 raise. Panetta flatly refused. His reasons: the guy took a pay cut to leave his previous job as a lawyer. "Plus, he has a family," Panetta said.
It's not that inequity in pay, job status and respect would instantly right itself with more women at the helm—or even with one woman at the helm, the one in Myers' former workplace. (By the way, she studiously avoids endorsing her former boss's wife.) But Myers' point is that more is more when it comes to women in power: more visibility, more accountability, more say. We could hope for worse for our daughters.
Myers' book is a lively and thought-provoking read, chock full of scholarly research about working women and the forces that hold them down. But the best bits are the insider tales of goings on at the White House. No, they don't include the Monica years—though I gotta say the blue dress, not to mention the more recent escapades of other men in top office, is as good an argument as any as to why women should rule the world: most of us don't think with our lady parts.
Here she is the other night on the Colbert Report:
March 20, 2008 2:00
Why I hate Lexis-Nexis
In this day and age of Google, I simply can't understand why the world's best-known database of news and legal documents is so super bad.
As any of you who has worked in academia, journalism or the law know, Lexis-Nexis has long been the go-to source for previously published information on your topic of interest. I've used it for years, since way back in the Paleolithic era when it was accessed only through small, red computers. Today, it's web-based, and it's undergone countless upgrades.
But when I logged on five minutes ago and typed in the name of a well-known person I'm researching, it spewed out all of eight articles, most of them unhelpful. Narrowing the search won't help (how much narrower can I get than eight articles?). Adding Boolean connectors and expanding the search period give me 83 articles, but many are totally off point.
So off I go to Google, where typing in the subject's name and title gives me 52,700 hits. Google News is just one click away, where I land only 18 articles—but all of topmost relevance.
Nexis has a competitor called Factiva that's owned by Dow Jones and whose specialty is financial news. But both are pricey, and, if they weren't covered by my employer, would be inaccessible to me. No big loss, I'm thinking.
March 20, 2008 11:22
Ew alert: bedbugs at Fox News!
From a small item the other day in The New York Times:
In an interview on Monday, Warren Vandeveer, senior vice president for operations and engineering at Fox News, said the cable channel had realized it had a problem a few weeks ago, when an employee “caught a bug and showed it to us.” An exterminator determined that the incursion was limited to a “very small area in the newsroom.”
Naturally, the blogs piled on: here's Gawker speculating just who brought the critters in (Shep Smith is their best guess). Turns out it's an ongoing problem: I found a November 2007 item in TVNewser that reported bedbugs in another area of the Fox newsroom. But lest you blast us for picking on Fox, they're not the only org with a sanitation problem: HuffPost points out that the ladies of The View complained recently on air to ABC CEO Bob Iger of a rat infestation in their dressing rooms.
Even the hallowed halls of TIME aren't safe. Last fall I (with the aid of two colleagues) battled a woolly mammoth of a cockroach skittering across my office floor. Its scarred carcass somehow wound up in the crevice between my desk and the window, where I believe it still rests in peace. It's okay; we're moving offices next week, so I figure the next tenant can contend with its decomposed ghost.
Here's a really scary film about bedbugs from BraveNewFilms. Best watched over lunch.
March 20, 2008 7:56
Bosses say get healthy...or get lost
I have a piece in this week's cover package about mandatory health at the office. Check out the issue; it's a serious-but-fun, thinky take on 10 ideas that we think will shape Americans' lives in the year to come.
In my piece, I talked about the trend among employers to get serious about workers' health. Why? Duh: money.
Health-care expenditures in the U.S. totaled $27 billion in 1960; in 2005, $2 trillion. Oh, workers paid their part, in the form of premiums and co-pays. But as benefits grew more generous, employees' contributions shrank.
Here's what I'm talking about:
The latest innovation may wind up having the biggest impact of all: a crackdown on workers' poor health habits involving both the carrot and the (cancer) stick. See, American workers today are about as fit as caged hamsters with all-day access to the nut bowl. Our collective obesity, inactivity and refusal to part with the smokes have led to diabetes, heart disease and cancer.
Yep. Friends, we're as fat and lazy as pet rodents. And our bosses don't like it.
Verizon Wireless, Microsoft and Dow Chemical dangle cash bonuses for workers who lose weight or stop smoking. A growing number of employers assign "health coaches" to monitor workers' diets and lifestyles. Two-thirds of companies offer so-called wellness programs. Office-furniture maker Steelcase is marketing a treadmill equipped with a computer: a hamster wheel with e-mail.
But here's where it gets scary:
Some bosses are done being nice. They're firing workers for smoking, and they're screening job applicants for nicotine. Your home is no haven: Gary Ross of San Francisco was canned by a telecommunications company for using legal, medically prescribed marijuana to ease chronic back pain from injuries sustained in the Air Force. In December, a state court upheld the firing.
That's right. Not only can your employers scold you for your nasty habits; they can fire your butt. Is this right? I mean, they do foot the bill. Or is it another example of The Man turned Big Brother?
March 19, 2008 12:00
Happy 40th birthday, cubicle! Now die
Fo' real: it was 40 years ago that the geniuses in office design came up with the soul-destroying workspace we call the modern cubicle.
In celebration, office designers IDEO have teamed up with Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, to create the ideal cubicle. I swear. No punchline. Check it out here. My favorite feature: the hideaway hammock. Adams is also contracting with Namco Networks on a Dilbert Cubicle computer game, which tells me his kids' college tuition payments must be coming up.
Dilbert designed this cubicle. No joke. / IDEO
From the IDEO press release:
Practical considerations include modules for a seat, a computer, and a display (complete with “boss monitor”). The floor modules lift for storage or flip between artifical grass and tatami mats; the light modules at the top mimic the sun’s movement throughout the day. Other, more whimsical modules provide a hammock, an aquarium, and a punching bag.
I once wrote a feature in TIME about the "newbicle," or the future of the much-hated office space. Soon afterwards, my company moved to a brand new space filled with—surprise!—gray, fuzzy-walled, ugly-as-sin oldbicles. Now that we're preparing for our second move in two years, I'm holding out hope. I'm thinking Joe Klein could use a punching bag.
March 19, 2008 9:00
What to do when your mentor sucks
Being in the company of outstanding minority journalists at a leadership workshop last week made me realize: I need a mentor.
I'm at that sort of halfway point in my career where I'm often tapped to be a mentor to entry-level journalists, but no one really thinks to offer me the same kind of guidance. My company, in a shockingly uncharacteristic move, assigned me one out of the blue a few years ago. But, in an unshockingly characteristic move, it assigned me exactly the wrong person: a very nice man with whom I had little in common, and whom I thought highly of but always felt did not reciprocate my admiration. We had lunch once. It was nice. I'm pretty sure he came away thinking, Yes, she really is a retard. He didn't seek me out again.
I thought of this as I met some of the highest-ranking men and women in my business last week. Each of them spoke of people to whom they owed their careers, whether for their guidance or their advocacy or their superior management.
I too have had these people in my life. One in particular has long outgrown her mentor title and ascended to "mom." But my point is that as our careers and our workplaces shift and redirect, we need to resupply our mentor pipeline. Some ideas:
• Seek out mentors through an employer-sponsored program. Some companies have well-established systems; General Electric assigns employees not just one but a handful of mentors to cover various aspects of their work lives. For instance, if you're a minority, you might be paired with someone of your ethnic group, so you can vet your concerns about how to navigate the workplace with someone in your shoes. But you also get someone higher up in your own division to teach you how to succeed in that particular team.
• Join a professional association with a mentor program. I belong to an Asian affinity group at Time Inc. called A3, as well as to the Asian American Journalists Association. I've offered my services to both organizations for years as a mentor (you'll be shocked to know I'm a hot pick), but it occurs to me: Why shouldn't I get to sit on the other side? I'm hardly at the pinnacle of my industry, and my industry offers plenty of senior people I could learn a lot from.
• Cultivate mentors at your own workplace. Like many offices, mine has a revolving door. Just today I learned a favorite editor whom I look to as a role model is leaving. She wasn't assigned to me as an official mentor, but I've looked to her for advice and guidance. Now I've just got to widen my net.
What do you do when your mentor—or lack of one—sucks? You go find yourself one, dammit. They don't come looking for you.
March 18, 2008 1:16
Cut Samantha Power a break
Samantha Power makes me acutely aware of my shortcomings.
Unless you travel in certain hifalutin circles, you probably never gave her much thought or notice until this month. She's a journalist/academic/human-rights activist who is one of the world's leading thinkers on genocide. She's one of Barack Obama's senior foreign policy advisers. Did I mention she has a column in my magazine? She's accomplished all this by 37, which is the age I'm turning next week. Also she has really great hair.
The reason you came to know of her recently may have to do with her first real public gaffe. It was a whopper: in an interview with a Scottish newspaper, she called her boss's rival, Hillary Clinton, a "monster." (Here's the original article in The Scotsman, which leads subtly into the interview with this headline: "'Hillary Clinton's a monster': Obama aide blurts out attack in Scotsman interview.")
Though the quote was clearly off the record—the article even quotes her saying, "that is off the record"—the resulting storm forced her into a swift public apology and resignation from the Obama campaign. In recent days, Power has emerged again—because, as the gods of timing would have it, she's just published a book and she's got to flog it. I bet her publicists are smacking their lips, delighted at all the free press; booking Power will now seem like a "get" worthy of prime time instead of the obligatory morning show interview-with-a-smart-person slot.
I say, cut the lady a break. I admit I'm not given to sympathizing with privileged, overeducated people with great access to power, particulary when they also have pretty hair. But she's too smart to toss out with the bath water. Plus she's a chick, and I admit I am given to admiring broads who tread where few of us get to go.
Here's Power last night on the Colbert Report:
March 18, 2008 10:05
Bear: retirement dreams go up in smoke
I totally feel for the workers at Bear Stearns. Sure, my annual salary probably equals the lunch budget for the summer interns. And I bet their company cafeteria serves sushi every day—and real sushi, not some b.s. involving avocado and spam.
But to watch your retirement savings go up in smoke—and to realize simultaneously that your company too, and thus your career, is in flames—that's a heck of a day.
As you all know by now, Bear's stock tumbled from the mid-$80s in late February to $4.81 yesterday (the offer from JPMorgan prices it even lower, at $2). Like many employees of large companies, Bear's 14,000 workers had much of their finances tied up in the stock, in the form of 401(k) plans and stock options. Here's what that means: as ABCNews.com reports, the average Bear employee who had $200,000 in a retirement fund now has just $2,000.
Let me repeat that: your $200,000 nest egg—with which, say, you might have bought a cozy condo in Florida—is now worth $2,000. What will that get you? Maybe a plasma TV. Too bad you won't be able to afford cable.
I feel for Bear workers because we here at TimeWarner underwent a similar shock not so long ago, when top management sold us down the river to AOL. Our stock went from trading as high as $90 to $14 and change today. My stock options? So far under water that when I received a recent statement offering me a strike price of $54, I laaaaghed.
A lingering effect of debacles like that one is this sense that the jokers in charge have little regard for the livelihoods and security of the thousands of workers in their charge. I mean:
As investment bank Bear Stearns collapsed, and was sold to JPMorgan Chase for a scant $240 million, its chairman James Cayne played bridge at a tournament last week in Detroit over two critical days, like Nero fiddling away as Rome burned.
Bridge. Bridge! Oh, sure, he'll feel a pinch:
Cayne still owns a 5 percent stake in the company. Before last week he was estimated to be worth about $1 billion. Cayne, 74, stepped down as CEO in January after 15 years and much of the blame for the collapse has been placed on him. He owns 5.6 million shares, which last month were valued at $80 a piece or $449 million. The JPMorgan Chase sale values those shares at just $11.2 million.
Aww. Poor man. At 74, how will he live for a few more years on just $11.2 million? Here's a suggestion: dole it out to your soon-to-be jobless workers as penance. Then go say 14,000 Hail Marys.
March 17, 2008 10:54
Recession-proof job: ain't no such thing
I'm getting a lot of pitches lately from this expert or that, offering to enlighten us (meaning me and thereby you) on recession-proofing your career. A lot of media outlets are taking the bait, judging by the meme wave of articles purporting to tell us such secrets. Which made me wonder: just exactly what does qualify a line of work as immune to downsizing?
U.S. News & World Report claims to tell us in its brand new cover, Best Careers 2008. I don't mind using our space to tout a would-be rival because, heck, we're all in this together, right? Besides, if the journos at USNWR lose their jobs, they might come after mine.
Here's what they say are the most "recession-resistant careers":
• Optometrist• Clergy
• School Psychologist
• Physician Assistant
• Biomedical Equipment Technician
• Locksmith/Security System Technician
• Hairstylist/Cosmetologist
• Higher Education Administrator
Optometrist? Really? I find that curious. If I'm downsized, then I'll lose my vision-care reimbursement plan. So instead of replacing these glasses my daughter recently repurposed to accessorize her tiara, I'm going to bend the wiring back to fit a human head rather than spending $300 out of pocket for a new pair. What's more, the one optometrist in my town doesn't seem to be doing much business. Of course, it could have less to do with economics than with his aptitude for his job. One time, while inspecting my husband, he asked which one was the glass eye. For the record: neither.
Equally curious was USNWR's list of "overrated careers":
• Physician• Attorney
• Medical Scientist
• Architect
• Teacher
• Chiropractor
• Chef
• Real Estate Agent
• Small-Business Owner
I don't know. I'm pretty sure illness and lawsuits aren't going away (often because one leads to the other). I'll tell you what's an overrated career: rating other people's careers.
What do you all think—are your jobs and industries recession-proof?
March 14, 2008 1:43
What power means
The word "power" is ringing in my ears tonight, perhaps because I just wrapped up a 14-hour day spent cogitating on the topic.
Ron Brown, diversity consultant to corporate powerhouses like McDonald's, Procter & Gamble and General Electric, picked the word apart letter by letter over the course of the day at the leadership training program I'm attending.
So it speaks only to my slowness of mind that I still fail to grasp fully what it means.
Asked for a definition during the session, I said power is control over my own destiny. Sure, power for others may mean control over others' destiny. Not for me. Power is freedom. Power is independence. Power is the ability to call my own shots.
According to Brown, these are the three tenets of power:
1. it drives every organization;
2. it is achieved and maintained through politics;
3. it is attained by convincing others of our loyalty to the organization.
He defines power as the ability to impose one's will upon others. Like by taking their lunch money. Or demanding a seat upgrade on the airplane. You must practice and hone that ability to impose so that when the demand truly matters—say, for a raise or a promotion—you impose with ease.
Is he right? How do you define power?
March 13, 2008 10:27
Don't put hookers on your corporate card
The Eliot Spitzer debacle reminds me of a tale from my first job.
That first job was as a cub reporter at Adweek. It was about as insane a workplace as you could dream up, peopled by crusty hacks, artists making the rent and wide-eyed young things trying to learn the trade. We worked in a vast, drafty newsroom crowded with A-Tek computers and takeout cartons. One time I brought my sister's basset hound puppy to work and he peed all over the rug. No one cared. I loved it.
The journalists there at the time lived hard and worked harder. They took sources to steak dinners that began at 10 p.m. They smoked cigars in the office. There were inter-office affairs. Their expense accounts were winked at because a) they cracked open a story like nobody's business, and thus b) business was good.
The line item on one account expensing the hooker would probably have gone unnoticed. Except for one little problem: the staffer in question forgot his corporate card in the hotel room, and the lady decided to go on a little shopping spree.
I'm not telling tales out of school; this story's already been told. I sat a few desks down from a graphic designer named Alan Ball, whom we all knew aspired to write screenplays. A few years later, he did. It was called American Beauty, and included a scene in which the Kevin Spacey character blackmails his boss at a trade magazine with his knowledge of an escapade involving a hooker and a corporate credit card.
There's a lesson here, boys and girls: everything is material.
Hookers and corporate life don't mix.
March 12, 2008 11:30
What makes teams work?
It turns out I'm not a team player.
So I'm out in San Francisco attending a leadership training program for minority journalists. Why, you ask? Yes. I ask that, too. I'm not a leader—at least by title, in that I'm not a manager. I have no plans to become a manager. I need to be the boss of someone like I need a bullet in my forehead.
What's more, I find corporate training programs suspect. I am suspicious of team-building exercises that involve physical contact. I don't like the idea of strangers judging me and my career choices. And the very thought of spending five days—five days!—away from my family makes me feel like throwing up.
Now that I'm here, though, I'm prepared to embrace the experience. (Really, boss. You'll get your money's worth.) Being a leader, I've discerned, doesn't necessarily mean I have to run my news organization, or even aspire to. I can learn valuable things from the line-up of trainers, including what makes teams work. This is what the other participants said:
What makes teams work?
• selflessness
• a leader
• collaboration
• consensus
What makes teams fail?
• self righteousness
• infighting
• lack of direction
• crazy people
• surly, exhausted, deeply cynical, seven-months-pregnant team members
No one said that last one, but they could have—especially after my assigned team decided to get a jump on our group project this evening. At the tail end of 12 hours of team-building exercises and workshops, I am all teamed out. Which would have been fine with everyone, should I have just kept my surly, exhausted cynicism to myself. So now I am the surly, exhausted, deeply cynical team member no one likes.
I'll be posting updates on what I learn as the week grinds on. See, boss? The airfare's already paying off.
March 12, 2008 8:00
Should reporters be slammed for technique?
There's a brouhaha brewing on the left coast over a keynote Q&A conducted by BusinessWeek reporter Sarah Lacy. The thoughts, plans and opinions of her subject, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, was of great interest to the attendees of the South by Southwest Interactive Festival held in Austin, Texas, this week. But, as Wired reports:
They came expecting a civilized, one-on-one discussion, but they got what some attendees described as "a train wreck."
What happened?
Using her unique, friendly style of interviewing -- closer to two friends chatting than a straight question-and-answer session -- Lacy tried to get the notoriously tight-lipped Zuckerberg to open up. But the discussion rarely strayed beyond the usual business fare and eventually descended into a string of awkward moments punctuated by the audience's heckling.
Nick Page of AdAge.com is more detailed:
Early in the interview when Mr. Zuckerberg started talking about Facebook's Spanish-language expansion, Ms. Lacy interrupted to talk about her enthusiasm for Spain; when Mr. Zuckerberg got the floor back he explained that the expansion was more about his site's popularity in Colombia. At another point she told a story about a previous interview she had done with the 23-year-old billionaire at Facebook's office, relating that when the session had ended, Mr. Zuckerberg was drenched in sweat, and that he had a prevalent facial tick "like a little bird."
Let me say that I have conducted some terrible interviews in my 15 years as a paid reporter. The worst: in 2001, when the legendary and legendarily press-shy animator Hayao Miyazaki stalked off during a hard-won face-to-face, proclaiming my questions stupid and dull. He was right; they were. Having stayed up all night crying and watching the TV was nothing I could bring up as an excuse; the events of Sept. 11 apparently had not had the same effect on him. (He returned after a smoke, cheerful as day.)
My humiliation was semi-private. Though witnessed by his entourage, the anime-loving public didn't weigh in on my meandering questions and long, panicked pauses. No more. Even us dorky print reporters must succumb to the reality that our work in progress is now often podcasted, YouTubed and blogged.
I feel for Sarah Lacy, whom I don't know. Ten, even five years ago, a spacey keynote would have remained the chitterchatter of the few hundred attendees. What do you think: should reporters' technique be criticized by the masses, or is it the result that matters?
March 11, 2008 1:00
Dress code at Fox News: no pants
Pants suits, that is. TVNewser over at MediaBistro caught anchor Ainsley Earhardt proudly undoing the journalistic legacy of Katie Couric, Diane Sawyer et al: