Haiti and the Indulgence of Hate

The earthquake which ravaged Haiti this week has been used by a number of people as an excuse to make attacks on their political enemies. Some of the attacks have been generic, like the ubiquitous media insinuation that the delay in aid must be due to First-World disregard for the suffering of poor Haitians rather than the chaos of Haiti’s weak government and lack of emergency management planning, to the specific attempts at character assassination on Rush Limbaugh and Bill Clinton. At this writing I do not know whether the talk show host or former President of the United States made the remarks which their enemies claim (I am inclined to think not), but in any case the fact that such people use their voice to attack enemies rather than build coalitions to help people in need, speaks about a sad situation indeed, and to my mind the chief cause why we shall continue to see needless, avoidable suffering in places like Haiti.

There was no real way to avoid the earthquake, and given Haiti’s history of corruption and political feuds, it was perhaps inevitable that when a disaster struck again, the men in place to request and direct the flow of help would prove far inadequate to the need of their people. For example, Texas Task Force One and Ohio Task Force One, urban search & rescue groups with long experience assisting FEMA, international search and rescue groups, and the Red Cross in disaster relief, were in position at Ellington and Wright-Patterson Air Force bases within hours of the news of the disaster, ready with medical and surgical supplies, construction equipment to move debris, and together more than 160 experts and more than 120 tons of critical equipment to find survivors, provide on-scene surgical care and build shelters, bridges and repair phone and utility lines. The teams, however, have not been able to be deployed, because the Haitian government has not authorized their participation, even though these groups are arguably the most expert large-scale search and rescue groups on the planet, (having assisted in Hurricanes Ike, Rita, Katrina, and Wilma, the Tsunami which devastated Indonesia in 2004, other natural disasters like floods and earthquakes, and even terrorist acts, like recovery at Ground Zero in New York City; Texas Task Force One’s first assignment was recovery work at the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995) they have not been allowed to even leave for Haiti. Not because they are not needed (both teams performed an earthquake scenario in the summer of 2009, for example), or because the United States has not requested their help, but because the Haitian government refuses to allow them entry. This is not to impugn the Haitian government, but it is a sad reminder that even the best intentions are not going to be enough to overcome some of the difficulties to be faced here.

The real problem for Haiti, however, is the same as from past disasters, like death-dealing storms in every year from 2002 through 2008. In fact, one reason Haiti was so unprepared for the present disaster, was that it was still reeling from 2008, when four tropical storms or hurricanes hit the nation. There simply is no Haitian equivalent of FEMA, no emergency response network of first-responders; people are left to fend for themselves as soon as a crisis hits. Because Haiti is so poor, roads and utility lines were never developed beyond the most primitive conditions, and building codes, even for schools and hospitals, are non-existent. In such a condition, blame and bitterness are perhaps inevitable, but solutions cannot be produced unless anger, justified or not, history, however painful, and personal pride, however habitual, are put aside in the interest of building for the future.

Because in the end, Haiti’s future depends on building. Not only rebuilding homes and businesses, but putting together a functional infrastructure that allows families and towns to have confidence not only in a given project, but in a system of financial, political, and personal responsibility that makes the nation viable, not only to its own people but also to its neighbors, in order to bring in the capital that leads to growth and stability. The one hope from this disaster, is that because Haiti has been building a government more responsive and accountable to its people, it may also build confidence in its nation through financial cooperation and the equity of the infrastructure it builds in recovery now. To that end, we all may lend help as best we can, but whatever our politics and ideology, this is no place to make political attacks or attack those who are trying to help the people now in pain and peril.

What’s an Online MBA Worth? My Perspective

Back in 2005, I finally decided that I needed to go back to school. The problem was, my job required me to stay late some evenings, I did not want to take on a lot of debt from a student loan, but I wanted to go to a school where I would not only earn an advanced degree, but really gain resources and tools beyond what I had accumulated in my career. After looking at my options, I decided that I would go after my Masters in Business Administration, and after doing a lot of research, I enrolled at the University of Houston at Victoria. I chose UHV for a number of reasons, one of them being that I could attend school online. I started classes in the Fall of 2006, took the Spring of 2007 off to deal with my cancer treatment, then finished my MBA with a concentration in Accounting in the Spring of 2009.

So, I got my MBA, and for a lot less money than most students have to pay. But what’s it worth? It’s one thing to get a degree, but you have to make it work to get its real worth, and on that end the economy threw me a curveball. My original plan had been to stay with my company, move over to the Accounting department, work as an internal auditor for a while and earn my CPA license, then use my MBA/CPA combination to move up the ladder to a $100k job by 2011. To that end, I took a tax course at Houston Community College to begin to prepare for the CPA exams, along with a box of flash cards and reading up on everything Accounting.

Then my company got bought out. The new company had no retail experience, and worse for me, had their own back office functions at their headquarters in New Jersey. The rumors were that the new company would slash headcount in Houston.

The rumors were right.

On September 18, I was told that my services were no longer needed. After 9 years, I was out. At that point it seemed my MBA had not done much for me, certainly it had not protected my job.

Looking for a job is pretty much a no-fun affair, especially when it comes from being laid off. It could be worse, of course, but my point is that you are suddenly very sensitive to the economy and how difficult it can be to make yourself stand out. All of a sudden, it seems that for every job you find, there are a dozen solid candidates in line ahead of you. Certainly, it was aggravating at times, to find a job that seemed a good fit, only to get not even a response to my application. Beta Gamma Sigma? Didn’t impress. 3.94 GPA? That and four bucks will get you a latte. Over twenty years of management experience? Just means you’re old, hombre.

Waah.

But of course, the facts are a bit different than the way things look. Sometimes that’s a bad thing, I saw a number of people who were not willing to do what they needed to do to get interviews or serious consideration, and I saw a lot of people who were doing everything right in their job search but having to deal with adverse job-hunting conditions. A recession, the end of year slow-down, and a system that was just plain slow to hire; I heard more than a couple recruiters warn me that if I did not find something by the week of Thanksgiving, don’t expect anyone to make an offer before the New Year. That was depressing, but I began to notice a few things, as well.

First, in discussions with my outplacement group, I realized that I seemed to be getting a better response than some of my colleagues. By itself, I could not say what that meant, but I also noticed I was getting good response from recruiters, and one of them seemed very intent on getting me a position. All of a sudden, I had several interviews lined up, they all went well, and just 10 days after the first interview at one company, I had a job offer, for 25% more than I had made at my last job. I later found out that I was their first and only candidate. The difference, they said, was my MBA.

Boom.

Look, I’m not about to try to sell you on my path as the best way to go; what worked for me was right because of a number of factors. If I was younger and willing to take the debt for a bigger payoff down the road, I might say take the debt and try to get into a Wharton, a McCombs, or a Harvard Business School. But at the same time, there’s nothing really magical about those schools; everything they teach there you can learn at other schools and your work experience is critical to your career success. Know your own strengths and limits, and that will help you find the right fit. But what I will say about UHV, is that a degree that pays for itself in the first year is a pretty good deal, and one I will not be shy in recommending. The University of Houston at Victoria may be inexpensive and convenient, but it is also AACSB-accredited, its association with the University of Houston is useful in name recognition regionally, and the tools I acquired in my MBA program have direct application in my work. In other words, I am using my MBA in real work, and it’s as real as anything I could have earned from another school.

The online degree may not be for everyone, but everyone considering school should consider it as part of their initial set of options, at the very least.

Good luck!

Judgment Day at Work

As the new year begins, managers all face that difficult time of the year. You made it through the holiday slow-down of income, the empty budgets and staffing problems from everyone demanding the same days off, but now you have to face a bigger, nastier pair of monsters: Key Performance Metrics and Employee Evaluations.

Sorry, I know those are ugly topics, but we have to deal with them, because they only get uglier if we put off dealing with them. Of course, some managers have no problem setting up KPM or issuing evaluations, but too often that’s because they don’t really make the best use of those tools or worse, don’t care about their people enough to do the job right. What I mean, is that if a manager plans his groups’ metrics effectively and handles evaluations in the best way, he not only satisfies a requirement but can also improve his groups’ performance and his own results.

Let’s start with the metrics. First off, every manager struggles to produce effective results. All too often he or she is under pressure to produce results which assist some other group which has gained influence in the company structure, some politically correct goal, or which is based on the modern idol of “efficiency”. I do not dislike efficiency, except that efficiency does not necessarily mean achieving effective results, is not necessarily profitable, and is not necessarily the best focus for long-term strategy. That’s not to excuse sloppy or poor performance, it’s about making sure your numbers are relevant and in line with the company strategy. While many managers will develop metrics based on what their superiors say they want to see, and you have to be responsive there, it’s important to have a real sense of how your group contributes to the bottom line and what measurements reflect how well you are doing. Knowing this not only helps develop relevant metrics, it also helps managers focus on things they can actually control and assign the right people to key tasks and responsibilities. For example, perhaps your company is emerging from the recession and plans to enjoy a good year of growth. In that case, you’d look for metrics that increase revenue and traffic, whether production, acquisition, volume of communication or speed of response. On the other hand, perhaps your company is dug in, expecting hard times for a while, in which case you need to control costs and waste, reduce exposure to risk and be able to defend the expense for your group. You would want to assign roles and direct priorities for your team to match the company’s needs and goals, even when the company leadership may not have announced them yet. That requires careful attention to the company’s stated vision and strategy, as well as how well the company and your department have performed with respect to past goals. I know that’s vague, but I think you can see what I mean.

Once you know your group or department goals for the coming year, you can decide specifics on who will be assigned what, who needs to be cross-trained or brought up to speed to make sure bases are covered, and how you plan to reach your targets. And that gives you information for your planning and strategy meetings with your people, which brings me to the employee reviews.

There are, actually, three parts to the annual review for employees, and I strongly suggest you handle them in a non-chronological manner. That is, a lot of managers try to handle everything at once, and so the meetings turn into long unfocused sessions which glance at the year past, provide only general discussions about the coming year, and focus for the most part on raises, bonuses, or why they aren’t being given this year or are not larger. That’s natural, of course – we all show up for work in large part because we want to make money, and we want as much money as we can get. And so, we are not surprised when our people see the annual review in the same light. But the actual performance from the prior year is important to review, the coming year is critical to accomplishing the goals which will give you the best chance to produce the results which bring in those coveted raises and bonuses, and so the three parts should be held in separate meetings. Yes, that can be difficult when you have a large staff, but if there’s ever a time when it has to be done that way, this is that time.

First, schedule reviews for the year just past. I personally recommend an hour for each of your employees. Not that you’ll need that long for everyone, but having it available is a good idea, and if you use less time than you have scheduled, it frees up time for some of the other work you have to do. But if you need the full hour for an employee, it’s important to show them that they are worth a significant amount of your time. Speaking for myself, I try to not be obvious about the order of the meetings (some managers speak to their employees in order of review grade, in essence telling the staff how well someone did by when they see them), but I will mix in my more difficult employees on the same day as I plan to meet with some of my better employees, if only to help keep a balance to the mood. Then again, sometimes my best employees have the most questions, take longer to speak to, and may object to something in the company policy that seems (or is) unreasonable.

This is, of course, when you will inform the employee how he was rated, graded, or otherwise judged. These days, just about every employee in a good-to-large-to-freaking-huge company will either be given a grade of some kind, a ranking among his peers, or both. And most managers despise the grading system for the same reason that employees often hate it – it seems a useless sacrifice to bureaucracy, and too often the review amounts to little difference between the best and the worst in how the company rewards effort. So, the obvious thing to do is to think about the review in terms of what it should do for your goals, for the group’s effectiveness, for justifying raise and bonus requests, and for documenting the accomplishments of your people.

While I am opposed to the notion of formally ranking your employees (after all, your worst may still be better than average for someone else, and a sub-average performer one year might improve significantly with experience and coaching), when addressing the review of you employees I prefer to start by separating my staff into the generally average, generally below average and generally superior employees, then start with the weakest employees. This is because you will want to identify where things went wrong and if several of your “bad” employees have the same problem, that indicates that the problem might be yours, not theirs. And this group (hopefully small) is where you will want to focus your teaching skills – except for ethical conflicts, many performance issues can be resolved with time, clear instruction, and optimism. It will also help you identify strengths in your better employees. Whenever you write about an employee’s work, whether in praise or criticism, be specific. For this I strongly recommend you keep a journal, and anytime something stands out – good or bad – make a note so you can use it to counsel or commend the employee. Obviously, I also recommend mentioning it soon after it happens, but also at the end of the year so the employee will see that you remember. If you think the employee was average, explain why. If they failed at something, explain why. And if you are impressed with them, explain why. This will make your coaching more effective, it will strongly improve their chances of getting the bonus or raise you propose to upper management, and it will show that you are objective and perceptive.

Schedule the coming year assignments and planning the same way as your prior year review; an hour each person so you will be sure to have enough time. This is an area where you want to be clear, direct, and complete in your instructions, because you are laying the foundation on which your entire year of work will be built. Since these meetings come after you review the prior year, you will have a fresh idea of how well each employee should be able to take on duties, and you may note any promises of improvement or request for greater responsibility you receive from your staff. Be specific, and make sure each employee knows what he is expected to do, and what defines “above expectations”. Write down everything promised, by the employee and by yourself. Let each person know they will be held by their promise, and that you will be accountable for your own. In addition to meeting company and department goals, this is also the time where you should try to find out where each employee wants to go and become, and to provide them with opportunities for growth and learning, so that they have a full opportunity to increase their skill set and show what they can do. This is not just being ‘nice’, it helps you identify leaders and provide resources for your company and group that were not available the year before.

Now we come to raises and bonuses. Obviously, I have no personal power in how your company will compensate employees, but many manager have a say in how well their people are treated. Even in lean years, it’s important to stand behind your people, especially the ones who have done exceptional jobs. Most executives will understand that they need to keep their very best, so if you can be specific and enthusiastic in saying what your top people have done, you can and should fight for the best raise and bonus you can get each of them. If for no reason than the fact that top managers produce top performers; if you can show your people are excellent, then that is evidence of your own worth and quality. And believe me, your people will know if you fight for them, and if you do, it will be repaid in their future results.

Kings, Villains, and the Personage

I was re-reading Roger Zelazny’s Amber Chronicles this week past, and it occurred to me to wonder about an eternal country built on what amounted to a feudal system. The problem in any fictional work, of course, is that any system will have its flaws and so any form of government described will have failings which readers will discover and announce. Then again, some are better than others – J.K. Rowling is a very good writer, for example, but her attempt to create a believable magic world parallel to the mundane world we know falls on its face as soon as any critical thought is applied to the matter. Zelazny’s Amber and Chaos realms function relatively well as monarchies, even if that include byzantine rules and Machiavellian conspiracies. The focus is on the royal person, and the story works because the reader focuses on him naturally as the protagonist. That, in turn, made me wonder how much we have really advanced in our sense of democracy.

Far and away, the voter who supported Barack Obama for President in 2008 did so because they liked the man, not because of his qualifications. Because frankly, one incomplete term in the U.S. Senate, some talk show appearances to plug his books, and a network of cronies in Al Capone’s old neighborhood do not begin to qualify a man for the most powerful political office on the planet. President Obama is far from the first President, however, to win office over more qualified opponents. America’s history is full of men who became President because of eloquent speeches, wartime heroism, or even physical appearance – some voters said to the press that they voted for Warren Harding in 1920 over James Cox because they thought him better and more honest-looking. Critics from the media and rival political factions have noted the royal demeanor of Presidents Reagan and Kennedy, and even of far earlier men like John Quincy Adams and Thomas Jefferson. In that manner, Barack Obama is merely acting in a pattern long established, though a strange one for a nation conceived in the notion that men should build their own fortunes and the government work for the people. This brings up the second class to consider, the villains.

In modern parlance, “villain” means the bad guy, but for many years a villain simply referred to a person in a village – that is, a common and crude person. The inference was usually that the villain was a hindrance to the hero of the story (usually noble), because he was unable to understand the hero’s mission and did not properly respect the noble for whom he was. Vestiges of this thinking still continue – in most movies and TV shows, the villain is not especially smart, and is almost never good looking or successful, while the hero is smart, wise, good looking and conveys a clear biological superiority over everyone else. So naturally, in politics the major players always try to cast some villains, in order to shine in comparison. It was not enough, therefore, for Barack Obama to cast himself as the hero of his story; it was necessary for him to mock and insult Senator Clinton, and after winning the part nomination, to do the same to Senator John McCain and Governor Sarah Palin. Since winning the White House, Obama continues to deride anyone who stands in the way of his policies and proposals, rather than defend his position or prove that his position is the best course or even well-considered. It’s just easier, and no doubt more fun, to rail at his enemies a la Richard Nixon.

The problem is, there are a lot more ordinary people than privileged people. And eventually, folks decide that they get a bit tired of a privileged person lording it over them, especially since he already enjoys a life with more luxury and comfort than they have. The glamour of supporting a charismatic hero fades if that hero is only seeking his own advantage.

As we open 2010, one can only hope that we can finally find leaders who can grow beyond the one-dimensional pretense of fictional leadership.

The Meaning of Blogging

I have been blogging for about seven years now. Like so many others, I started by blogging at my own site, lost interest for a while and spent some time posting comments at larger blogs. I am happy to say that some of my comments produced a great many responses and some support, so that I was invited to be a regular poster at a major blog, Polipundit.com, an enterprise of group blogging which lasted several years with great success. Along the way, I found myself quoted in the Wall Street Journal and interviewed by a Japanese news agency, and received attention, both support and attacks, from a number of prominent bloggers. Unfortunately, the site owner had a regrettable change in opinion regarding freedom of expression and he ejected all of his writers and got himself a new cast. That incident led to some additional publicity and attention in the blogosphere, but in the end it was an unfortunate turn of events.

I received a number of offers to blog on other sites, and soon thereafter joined the team at Wizbang, an eclectic and upbeat right-of-center site. One thing I particularly liked, was that I could post when I liked, on a great variety of subjects, including my faith, my fight with cancer, and my return to school. Wizbang readers know they can see not only political commentary, but a community of conservative thought, including topics that appeal to common life issues.

You may have noticed that it’s been nearly a month since my last post. Sorry for that, it comes down to my Mom’s hospitalization and rehab therapy, my new job, and the fact that I don’t want to repeat old things long said or just parrot popular themes. But as I tried to write posts earlier this month, I also became aware of the flood of blogs and bloggers, and it occurs to me that we might discuss the issue of what blogging has become and where it is going.

One thing which drives me to distraction is the amount of unwanted mail I get in my email. Not the junk mail from people trying to sell me things, that’s just a dismal fact of life, but the constant deluge of links to posts and entire columns reprinted for my “convenience” that I never asked to receive. If you are one of those people, let me say for your own good that SPAM is not good writing. If you are sending your stuff out by email to people who never asked to be on a mailing list, please just STOP. You are not making anyone happy or improving your reputation. Spamming folks through email blog updates is just plain creepy.

Now as to blogging itself. Bloggers frequently criticize the print and broadcast media, and with good reason – there’s a lot of bias and inaccuracy in what is commonly called journalism, and some of it is just plain fraud (Ra^thergate, anyone?). But criticizing media requires the blogger to demonstrate a standard of conduct himself, and a lot of bloggers are deficient in that regard. Some post opinion while pretending it to be fact. Some bloggers cannot tolerate any difference of opinion, even from allies. Some bloggers are egocentric fools, speaking bluntly, who imagine that they alone have perfect wisdom and are the next Reynolds or Limbaugh – such bloggers are usually deficient in humility, insight, and humor, but I will leave it at that. As a result, bloggers are commonly read mostly by other bloggers and by a select audience; we must accept that even today, most people are unfamiliar with blogs at all (not to mention twitter), and unless/until blogs demonstrate a social value great enough to attract the attention and respect of the public, they will remain of marginal interest only. That, by the way, is just one reason there are no “blogger millionaires”.

Blogs are sometimes trivial and have the staying power of say, a snowball in Houston. But some are well-written and are potent accounts of seminal issues and represent serious thought on a range of subjects. To a large degree, bloggers respond to readers and they thrive on reader support. This is one reason most blogs allow comments. It not only provides a forum for people, it also allows the blogger to receive direct feedback, something so lacking in print and broadcast media that it’s killing off a number of the media businesses. It also provides the energy that many bloggers need to keep posting – there’s a real incentive to produce when you know someone’s paying attention.

But it comes down to a symbiotic relationship between the blogger and the readers. What matters to you and why? Any good blogger wants to build on that basis, and any blog worth reading will pay attention not to superficial bilge that can be supplied by TMZ or the like, but the things that keep you up at night or provoke the ageless question, “What if?”

A Personal Perspective on Health Care

10 days ago, my mother fell while visiting her primary care physician. He had to put three stitches in the back of her head. Last Monday, she fell in the porch outside her house, and it was necessary for her to have surgery on her arm, which was broken in two places and the elbow was dislocated. The hospital did the surgery Wednesday and kept her overnight for observation. She was released Thanksgiving morning and my brother and I drove her home. I went to my home where my wife was preparing Thanksgiving dinner, and received a call from my brother around 345 PM; Mom had fallen yet again and hit her head.

Mom spent the rest of Thursday in the Emergency Room at Memorial Hermann Hospital, and she was admitted into the NTICU around 1 AM Friday morning. Her vital signs were unstable and the tests showed a possible aneurism. Fortunately, her condition improved over the next couple days and today Mom is being transferred to a different ICU. She has insurance through Medicare and a supplemental provider. The costs of the multiple stays will be expensive, but for the most part Mom’s costs will be controlled. On the one hand, my Mom paid for many years on insurance she never had to use, but now it is an invaluable resource. Overall, in my Mom’s case the system seems to work the way it is meant to do.

Health Care needs reform; there is no serious argument on that point. The rules can be burdensome, the costs rise more quickly than anyone can really afford, and there is real concern that a large segment of the population is underserved. The solution, however, cannot be found through simple application of a mathematical formula, or any political theory. Medicine, first and foremost, is about people. The patients and their families, the doctors, nurses and other providers, and the general public all have authentic interests in health care and how it is provided.

There are economic and political reasons why I do not like the reform plan proposed by the Obama Administration and the Democrats in Congress. But the main reason is far more personal – the Democrats make a lot of promises, in general and lacking substance, about access and choice, but they refuse to have a serious debate about the cost, effects, and conditions of their proposed changes. I need to know what the changes will mean to a 76-year-old woman who needs multiple trips to ICU. I need to know what the changes will do to my continuing treatment for cancer, a type which at this time has no known cure. I need to know what the changes will do for my other relatives, including my wife and daughter. The proposed plans seem focused only on cost reductions, with no protections for significant demographics, like seniors, people with chronic and incurable conditions, or people who are healthy now but face a history of serious problems. The problem is not that these questions have not been answered yet, it’s that the Democrats refuse to even admit those problems exist, that they have to address them in public discussions. Debate and disagreement have been suppressed and punished, with constituents locked out of allegedly public meetings, with alternative proposals by Republicans denied consideration and debate. The only plan offered to the public is the Democrats’ plan, with no serious attention given to flaws.

Until the Congress listens to the people who are affected by this plan, and serious effort is made to improve the plan to create an effective, functional plan, I cannot support it on any rational basis. Nor do I think that anyone who lives in the real world will find the proposed plan acceptable when they understand how it works, or more to the point, will not work.

Why the Wife Does All The Cooking

Back in 2007, my wife was tired and did not want to cook a big turkey dinner for Thanksgiving.

“No problem,” I said. “I’ve got it covered.”




Well, on the plus side it was the talk of the neighborhood for quite a while.








[ disclaimer - the above-mentioned event never actually happened, but my wife assures me that if I were to actually try making Thanksgiving dinner on my own, it would ]

The Precautionary President

One of the more Orwellian concepts of the Twenty-First Century has to be the so-called “Precautionary Principle”. The harmless-sounding concept is described by proponents as a simple extension of ‘better safe than sorry’, and is most commonly explained as actions taken in the absence of complete scientific proof when there is significant risk of serious harm if the action is not taken. Such advocates point out that this is similar to the reasoning for insurance, locking doors and inoculations – a small action taken to ward against more serious possibilities if you do ignore the danger. The disciples of Precautionism claim that they represent a reasonable sense of caution. And President Barack Obama has been an eager acolyte for the cause, whether the venue is Climate Change, American Imperialism, the Corporate Greed Culture, or the Need for More Guilt among Ordinary Americans. President Obama is all about “We Can’t Wait”.

The main problem is that the Precautionary Principle is self-contradictory in practice. The stated premise for the Precautionary Principle (PP for short), is that once a reasonable argument exists that a certain action is necessary to prevent a serious danger or likely event which would cause serious harm, it is necessary to act immediately to mitigate that danger. The reader may note that key words are ‘reasonable’, ‘necessary’, and ‘serious’ – all words which have subjective meanings. As a result, the decision on just when an argument is reasonable rather than merely an opinion, what defines the necessity of an action rather than its advocacy, and when the possible consequences of continuing on the present course are serious enough to require change are variables that even the most intelligent people may differ upon. Conclusive evidence has been the standard for many years, precisely because demonstrated proof of cause and effect, not only of the problem but of the proposed solution, is the only valid means for establishing a valid consensus. Anything else is no better than mob psychology. PP is self-contradictory, because in actual practice it is invariably applied to demand radical and risky change, on nothing more than emotional contention. It’s not that conclusive proof is not used in the theory, but that no real tipping point exists at all; the activists decide what they want to do and make what amounts to a mix of Chicken Little paranoia and Hitlerian thug tactics to get what they want.

PP’s self-contradictory practice can seen in how activists in the Ecology and Trade Regulation debates are demanding radical action with no substance whatsoever to either their claim of imminent danger, or that their demanded actions will have the effects they claim. Climate Change radicals, for example, not only refuse to provide defense of their sweeping claims of imminent catastrophe if humans don’t abandon their cars, living standards, and capitalism, they become apoplectic if anyone suggests they demonstrate how their proposed actions will actually improve the Earth’s climate to any extent – the theory of Climate Change is practiced as Modern Fascism, and there’s just no pretending otherwise. In fact, every major social effort based on PP is practiced in the Fascist mode, where government acts in thuggish manner to demand compliance, where evidence which contradicts the party line is suppressed and opponents marginalized and harassed, and where the true focus of the effort is political gain.

The Precautionary Principle guides Barack Obama in his major decisions. Rather than go to the trouble of weighing all of the rational options, their costs and known or likely effects, Obama simply chooses policies which benefit his friends and crafts his argument to support what he wanted to do in the first place, as was the case with the first Stimulus Bill – almost a trillion dollars stolen from the American people in order to help his cronies. When he does not have a chosen plan, Obama listens to the people who can make or break him to make his decision, which is why he is having such trouble coming up with a plan for Afghanistan or how to address consumer confidence. Like the Precautionary Principle, Obama is not concerned with the evidence in any major issue, nor with the cost of his intended actions, since he plans for others to pay for his policies.

Career Calculus

When I was a teenager, my friends and I gave little thought to what we would do for work. We all had vague ideas about what sort of careers we wanted, but no specifics. Part of this came from a lack of experience with the working world, but some of it came from the sense that we were still in development, which implied that once we were finished with our preparation we would find our proper role, where we ought to be. Of course, the real word does not work that way, and most of us discovered that as we finished college and tried to find work in our chosen fields. Top students enjoyed multiple job offers from prominent companies, good rewarding jobs that many people would have found satisfying, but most of us had to search and struggle to find any offers at all. Turns out that you have to have the experience to get anything but entry-level posts, and even the entry-level jobs were a matter of several applicants for each job. It was difficult to stand out, and to get a serious look you had to stand out. I mention this here, because from my experience and the stories I have heard from friends and colleagues over the years, most of us have had to work at jobs that were not our first or second choice. Not that the jobs were bad, but they were not the career path we expected.

I have always been aware that my perspective was unusual. I could not always tell if this gave me an advantage or a handicap. For instance, I have long heard that the average tenure at a job lasts somewhere between three and four years, so in 26 years of working I ought to have had about eight jobs, but in the actual case I have worked for only four companies. In three of my jobs, I stayed an average of over eight years, generally because I am a strong believer in loyalty to my employer. I have also worked in three different industries, which again is off the normal track, although I used similar skill sets in all of my work.

So after a person has worked for a while in a job, and they either choose or need to find a new position, what they find is that there is a range of choices. Two such ranges, actually, which is where the calculus comes in. Normal math is about finding a specific answer, but Calculus produces a range of possibilities, and your answer lies somewhere within that range. This is how a job search works – you determine the range of positions in which you have interest, and determine the range of positions which you fit, and the intersecting range provides your options.

So far I’m playing Captain Obvious. Everyone knows that they won’t apply to every job that is available, and that not every company they apply to will show interest in them. But understanding why you select a company for application, and why companies choose certain people for interviews and final-selection interviews, will help you refine your search effort to target jobs where you have a better chance of winning the job, as well as jobs you will be more likely to enjoy.

There are basically five stages in the hiring process:



1. Company posts a position
2. You apply for the position
3. Your qualifications are screened
4. You are interviewed for personality and skills ‘fit’
5. An offer is extended, and following negotiations accepted (if the offer is not accepted the offer falls into the 4th category, as something was not a good fit)

The fun part is that you have to prepare for four of the five stages, and to understand that you have little direct control in any of them. Instead, you may influence the decision through your choices and presentation. If you’re like me, you will send out a lot of resumes that never get response, but some will see a return, but not immediately. I sent out, by my count, over a hundred applications in two months, got calls from 8 recruiters or placement firms, met with five different such firms in interviews, had 11 phone interviews, 8 face-to-face interviews with real companies, 3 second interviews, and finally a job offer that was good enough to accept. The significance of the numbers was that my early efforts were kind of broad, but I soon learned to target my resume to specify what I did really well; Credit & Collections. That cut out a lot of jobs that I could technically do, but where my experience was not enough to make me a top contender. I still sent out my resume to jobs that were not C&C positions per se, but only one of my company interviews was for a position not tied to Credit & Collections work. And I was one of very few candidates chosen for interviews in those applications:

Co. 1: One of 4 interviewed, not invited to second interview
Co. 2: One of 3 interviewed, only 1 offered second interview, received offer and accepted
Co. 3: One of 2 interviewed, received second interview, withdrew when offered job at another company
Co. 4: One of 4 interviewed, not invited to second interview
Co. 5: One of 2 interviewed, received second interview, withdrew when offered job at another company
Co. 6: One of 3 interviewed, accepted job offer with another company before second round
Co. 7: One of 4 interviewed, offered second interview but accepted job offer at other company so withdrew

It’s interesting to see that in those situations, no more than four candidates got an interview, and twice only two were considered. It pretty much makes you a finalist right from the start if you are considered. So the trade-off is that you get a smaller pool of companies for your targeted applications, but the response for specializing is a much better rate, and those interviews are pretty close to the goal.

The Future of Islam

Yesterday, I wrote an unpopular piece reminding readers that anger against Islam for the actions of a non-representative few is a dangerous thing, a vicious prejudice that is not only contrary to the American spirit, but also works against American interests in the long term. I presented two contentions in that article, that prejudice against Muslims in general is immoral and foolish, and that Islam needs to recognize the need to define its creed and standards in order to prosper and grow in the long run. This article examines the possible courses available to Islam in the next decade.

Islam was created through the teachings of the prophet Mohammed in the 7th Century. The faith spread through conquest of territory and the coerced conversion of defeated Arabs. In its first century a major dissent rose in Islam after the death of Husayn in 680, and the creation of the Shi’a sect. Islam continued to invade and conquer territory, entering Africa proper and also Europe, the campaign stopped at the Battle of Tours in 732. A short age of prosperity began, but the conflicts between Sunni and Shi’a sects continued, and the Shi’a also split, with Isma’iliyaa extremists rising within the Shiites. The rise of the Fatimid caliphs in the 10th Century was soon followed with a schism between the Fatimids and the Umayyads, diluting Islamic political clout. The Crusades came after that, further fragmenting Islam until the reign of Saladin, which proved to be the exception to the decline of Islam’s potency. The Mongol invasion in the 13th Century ended significant Islamic power outside of a few regional pockets. Although Islam continued to expand as a faith, by the 14th Century the original Islamic territories became the property of the Ottoman Empire, which remained the case through 1918.

The 20th Century was noted for political instability and the rise of Fascism and Marxism. Islamic political theorists bought into both concepts to varying degrees, which is why Middle Eastern militants aligned with both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, especially Palestinian front organizations. At the same time, Muslim extremists tied religious fervor to political goals, especially through the proto-terror Muslim Brotherhood, which was connected to extortion, election fraud, and assassinations as early as 1924. This led to a shadow government effect in most regional governments through 1972.

Muslim extremists had pressed for the exit of all “colonial” powers from the region following World War 2, and after the United Kingdom began to withdraw from the Gulf in 1971, the United States became the focus of Islamic Nationalism, especially during the time of the short-lived United Arab Republic. Political and economic pressure mounted, along with escalations of violence against businessmen, but with negligible results until the Iranian Revolution. Islamic terrorism became more and more organized as the PLO’s mercenary strategy was replaced by groups like Islamic Jihad and HizBollah, and nation-sponsorship of terrorism became the norm. Withdrawal of US forces from Lebanon, and the futility of the campaigns in Sudan and Somalia encouraged Islamic Fascists to pursue aggressive strategies targeting any government or leader allied with the United States or Western democracy. The key to Islamic Fascism is that it represents the views of a small minority of Muslims, but achieves its goals through brutality and threats. Islamic Fascists promote their political agenda through a campaign touting nationalism and supposed piety, counting on the lack of a focused political identity among Muslims to preclude effective rebuttal. Democracy is anathema to Fascism, and so democratic parties and coalitions are the natural target for Islamic violence. The battleground for the past three decades has been cultural disinformation versus globalism.

Following the fall of the Soviet Union, Islamic Fascists played on the old myth of American Imperialism and the inconsistency of American policy regarding Islam. The Fascists have been able to play up the lie that Americans don’t respect Islam or Muslims to have equal rights. It was this thinking that inspired Al Qaeda’s campaign of 9/11; Osama bin Laden made no secret that he hoped to spur a US-led invasion of Afghanistan, in the belief that the US would fare as poorly as the USSR in that campaign. The Islamic Fascists have basically followed the same strategy for 85 years, which makes it simple, but not easy, to defeat them. The trick is to convince Islam to create its Renaissance.

Islam is a religion built as much on a cult of personality and on political ambition as it was on faith in a God of truth and righteousness. That said, most Muslims are peaceful and wish no harm to other people. The splintered organization of Islam, however, and the cultural suppression of dissent by lay people has allowed for the Fascists to gain an advantage in polemics and in control of the major political organizations. Damascus and Teheran may not look very much like Tammany Hall, but there is no mechanism for grassroots political movements in most Middle East countries, nor any venue for reform. Part of that comes from the lack of history in most political parties. People in the West too often forget that democracy is uncommon in Islamic countries. The royal families did not want to encourage parties they could not control, and Islamic-focused parties similarly expect to direct their members and voters, not answer to the public. A caste system continues to exist in many countries, and there is genuine fear of the potential chaos which might ensue if democracy were given free rein. The contrived support for Palestine, the drummed-up hatred of Israel and the Jews and America, the contempt for western-style protection of due process and law, and the imbalance between contemporary moral values and the harsh conditions under Sharia are artificial constructs likely to fail if given a true public choice. And despite the history of rigid control by Muslim hardliners, the trend since 2001 has been for reform. While by Western standards there is much work to be done, governments in most Middle Eastern nations have adopted a more pro-American stance. Students have shown public support for democracy and opposition to dictatorships and oligarchies. And most important, revenue from foreign organizations in support of terrorist groups has diminished, been cut off completely in some quiet but vitally important efforts. The reduced effectiveness of terror as a political instrument has freed an increasing number of government officials to make decisions freely on the basis of the commonwealth, the good of the nation and its people. The tide is shifting, but more fundamentally, the channel now exists for Muslims to decide where to take their religion.

The Christian religion has made its way through debate, dissent, schism, internal conflicts and more than a few wars. But the faith grew most steadily and achieved its best results when politics was kept separate from the doctrine. Islam may do well to learn that lesson.

But can Islam, which was founded on political goals as much as religious beliefs, accept a foundation of pure spirituality and ethics? The answer to that question is the essential directive for Islam. The evidence against the Dar-al-Islam campaign is overwhelming; the Islamic Empire reached its zenith less than a century after the death of Mohammed, but never came close since then. The Islamic standard of living, once praised as the highest in the world, has also fallen far behind many other nations and cultures. If governments are based on historic Islamist objectives, the most likely consequences are violence, instability, and poverty. From that perspective, it would be absurd and cruel to the world’s Muslims to pursue what is a hopeless strategy.

The problem comes from the belief among extremist Muslims that world conquest is the only strategy acceptable to Allah. While certain verses in the Quran have been used to claim holy direction for such a bloody plan, many more condemn the unjust and cruel practices of terrorists and Fascist regimes. Many of the arguments made by the Islamist Fascists are actually based on controversial interpretation of statements alleged to have been made by Mohammed or early Islamic leaders, such as Ali. This is significant, given how Christian militants during the reign of leaders like the Emperor Constantine or Pope Leo X tried to justify Christian conquest in verses from the Book of Daniel or Revelation. The Muslim quandary is more difficult, given the historical example of Mohammed himself, but the Muslim faith can adjust its goals according to its precepts. If peace and goodwill are incorporated into the faith through active discussion of the morals and plan of Islam, leaders in major mosques and madrasas can begin to lay a foundation upon which Islam can continue its growth, while at the same time accomplishing its secular goals through advancement of the human condition.

Why should the leaders of Islam choose to do this? In the first place, many imams have urged that a simple reading of the Quran leads the individual to accept Allah’s will, which is peaceful and just. Abandoning the historical excuse of violence and focusing on the healing and constructive teachings of Mohammed would strengthen that argument and make Islamic apologetics more effective, and defang many of the splinter groups which have hijacked major sects in the past. The hashasheen are a thing of the past; there is no reason why terrorism as a path to the will of Allah should not also be rejected.

Second, Islam remains splintered across the world. In addition to the continuing schism between Sunni and Shi’a, a number of extremist cults have poisoned many schools of theology. Just as there are Christians who do not agree completely with their denomination’s dogma and there are Jews and Buddhists who have not been temple in years because they find the stricter requirements burdensome, there are many Muslims whose commitment to the pillars is strong, but who have doubts about what their role is in Islam. A leader who advances the purpose of democracy as service to Allah may be able to gain a great deal of the public trust. Certainly even within Islam there are gen-Y people, who demand to be persuaded rather than accept orders without good reason.

And third, the huge growth in Islam comes from its promise to believers, that Allah’s will is made manifest in the faith. True imams and mullahs will recall that for most of history, the work of teachers in the faith has been to help families and communities, to protect the innocent and advance hope. Conquest has always been the aberration, and it only takes a charismatic leader at the right time to lead Islam to its rightful, peaceful, place in the world.

The Balance Between Judgment and Hysteria

Thursday's shootings at Fort Hood have naturally evoked strong emotions. And the media and some prominent political leaders have taken all-too-predictable postures, two of which I feel compelled to address. The falsehood that Islam is aligned with terrorism and malice, and the falsehood that Islam is a victim in such situations as this, with innocents who worry about an unreasonable backlash. Both contentions are wrong.

First, about Islam. There are over 1.5 billion practicing Muslims in the world. So far, there have been 221 terrorist incidents in 2009 through November 2, so even if we say that every single one of those were committed by a Muslim (including attacks in Greece, Ireland, South Africa, and the Starbucks bomb in New York) and that two dozen Muslims were involved on average in each incident, that only implicates 5,304 Muslims and means that over 99.999% of Muslims worldwide had nothing to do with terrorism so far this year. Frankly, if even one percent of Muslims worldwide had it in for America, or even against Israel, we'd see an unprecedented level of violence and murders, because even one percent of Islam would be a force of 15 million terrorists, and no realistic estimate of terrorist activity has ever come close to a million total, much less 15 million. Between Iraq and Afghanistan, over 50 million Muslims have come into close and regular contact with U.S. troops. While there are places of hostility against the West and the U.S. in particular, and some spots rank with pure evil and hatred, the soldiers who have been there will tell you that it has much more to do with culture and politics than religion. For most Muslims, their faith is a private matter between them and God, a question of living honestly and by their best ideals, and hatred towards another human is a sin to be avoided. Most Muslims love their families and their nation, and have a generally tolerant outlook towards everyone else.

So what happens when someone like Nidal Hasan (allegedly) decides to kill innocents while screaming the name of his god? To me, once you get past the emotion and look at the facts, pretty much the same thing as any fanatic who goes psychotic. Hasan had no wife or girlfriend, he had no close friends, even his family and those at Fort Hood who had the most contact with him note that he was distant and aloof. While Hasan complained to some family that he was being mocked for his Muslim beliefs, other Muslims at Fort Hood emphasized that the military accommodated them at all times and they felt proud to serve with the men and women in the U.S. Military. When you dig down to the bottom of it, Hasan was a lot like another Islamist Loser: Khalid Sheikh Muhammad.

Does this look like a chick magnet? A guy who wants to raise a family and be a good husband and father, someone who thinks first about his moral duties and personal integrity?

No. In any culture, this guy is a loser, albeit a clever and dangerous psychopathic loser. He and the real world were quits, so he joined up with a group of other losers who tried to compensate for their personal failures by blaming everyone else. And that is what hapened with Major Hasan. He became bitter about his place in the world, and decided to punish everyone else. That's really the only way to explain how someone could decide to kill a roomful of innocent people, most of whom he had no grievance whatsoever, including a 21-year-old pregnant soldier, a band member, two soldiers who had just returned from Iraq, and two others who were being deployed to Afghanistan just as Major Hasan was scheduled to go, among others. This was not a blow against some imperial power, it was the impotent scream of a coward.

Islam has its share of such cowards, to be sure, but so has Christianity and other religions. Remember the cowards who bombed abortion clinics in the name of Christ? Anti-war protesters who think nothing of attacking soldiers in the name of peace? Look at the troubles in Northern Ireland for nearly a century - there is nothing in either the Anglican or Roman Catholic dogmas to excuse the kidnappings, torture, bombings, and murders that happened there for so long. Consider the tribal conflicts in Rwana and Burundi not so long ago, or the cold-blooded extermination practices of Miloslavic and his Serbs. Even Buddhism, founded on clear commitment to reverance for life, has its share of extremists, including Triad groups who see conflict in murdering people then going to temple to be 'spiritually cleansed', so they won't feel bad about their crimes. My point is that some people will abuse the tenets of any religion.

So why do Muslims not march in outrage over the hijacking of their faith? For one thing, I don't believe they feel they should have to state what they think is obvious. Even though most serial killers are white males, I have never felt it necessary to point out that most white males would never commit murder. Even though many crimes were committed in the name of Christ over the years, most notably during the various Inquisitions, even atheists and Muslims recognize that Christianity in its essence had nothing to do with the spirit of evil which tortured and killed in the name of the Prince of Peace.

It is true that certain teachings of Mohammed are troubling to non-Muslims, but let's not forget that other beliefs have had similar problem areas. Most Mormons today live exemplary lives of charity, tolerance and humility, and so have very little in common with the racist, xenophobic Joseph Smith. Many Scientologists are open-minded and just want to live by their creed, and so have almost nothing in common with the arrogant and greedy L. Ron Hubbard. Come to that, I am a Southern Baptist but have little in common with most of the denomination's leading ministers. I'm not saying they aren't fine men and honest, but a man whose career focuses on only one creed and point of view has trouble seeing things the same way as a working man who sees real life from the perspectives of the street and the diversity of a truly global community.

Also, Islam is rooted in the culture of the Middle East. While American Muslims live in the modern world, their faith comes from a place where women and the young are expected to give way to the men and the elders, where criticism is uncommon because it so often leads to conflict and escalation, and where challenging those in authority is seen as rebellion rather than reasonable doubt and skepticism. Even the Roman Catholics have their Jesuits to challenge assumptions; Islam has not yet reached the point where theologians can help the faith become relevant to changing social and cultural conditions. Whatever he was, the prophet Mohammed did not prepare his people for a world of cultural diversity and demographic trend shifts.

That brings us to the second problem. Islam likes to play the victim card, even when a Muslim is the criminal. It is very difficult for a Mullah to explain why a man like Osama bin Laden, educated and from a good family, would countenance the murder of innocents on a Hitler-like scale. So they evade the question and try to leverage a sense of guilt from the victims, because the United States is a generous and open-minded country, one of very few willing to examine its own behavior in a critical way. No one in the Saudi royal family, for instance, has ever shown an interest in criticizing their own policies and behavior in the past, and the Palestinans are even worse. These guys have made the wrong choice in every major decision, since they chose to back the Nazis in World War 2. But rather than consider the foundation of so many bad choices, Palestinian leaders chose instead to insult and attack Isreal, precisely because Israel is careful of its behavior and considerate of the rights of Pelstinans in most cases.

In the Unted States, Islam has always shown that it sensed its place in America as a tolerated segment of the population, rather than a welcome member of the community. This comes to some degree from a certain discomfort with the way Muslims speak and act and dress, but it also comes from Muslims' self-chosen segregation. Muslims do not eat the same foods as most Americans, do not attend the same entertainment and recreational events as most Americans, and do not treat Americans as close friends in most cases. Islam is not liberal in the traditional sense, many Muslims act as if Americans carry a kind of infection, and so it is difficult for a non-Muslim to be close friends with a believer. Even in the heart of America, Muslims often act is if they must live apart. This happens with other faiths, of course. Hasidic Jews, for example, also cordon themselves off from contact with Gentiles and they have strict dress and dietary codes which set them apart. Some fundamentalists also dress, eat, and behave in ways that seem strange to most Americans. But there are many more Muslims than Hasidic Jews or fundamentalist Christians, and so the segregated culture becomes more obvious.

The acts of a Hasan or other psychotic Muslims is an issue that has no easy answer, but it is important for non-Muslims to recognize that such behavior is anomolous to Islam, just as it is important for Islam as a whole to recognize that these extremists must be denounced in the interest of understanding what makes someone a Muslim, and what does not.

The Good Grudge

Job hunters are under a lot of stress. In the first place, few people are looking for a job as a luxury, and almost as few feel that they have most of the control in getting the job they want. For all the books, seminars and classes in pursuing your ideal career, I’d venture to say that while most people like their jobs for the most part, fewer than one in forty would say they are in the job of their dreams, and that they accomplished their job through a disciplined job search. Luck plays a role, for bad as well as good fortune. Accordingly, it seems reasonable to me that people whose job search is slow or less than satisfying may display indications of their discontent. It’s only human to reflect the stress of the endeavor, exasperation of the bull-headed bureaucracy, and anger at a system which seems to reward appearance over substance, and style over real ability. Oddly enough, many hiring managers also suffer the same stress, of trying to find truly qualified candidates in an ocean of poseurs. But it’s more difficult for the individual than the business.

The people trying to help job seekers, pretty much unanimously, emphasize the need for an upbeat, positive attitude. Generally, they are right. It is important not to be negative about your past work experience when speaking to recruiters and at interviews, it is essential to be positive about your skills and what you can do for your company if they offer you the position. But at the same time, a lot of things get attacked as “negative” when they are actually important, in more than one way. For one thing, the people offering advice are sometimes wrong. One discussion board I joined had an administrator telling everyone that they needed to join groups, then make sure to use their groups as a network to find leads towards jobs. Having been part of a number of groups apart from professional societies, I can promise that such behavior is a very poor idea, and would likely kill your credibility and poison your network. That’s because special interest groups exist for the specific purpose of the group, and members don’t like or respect people who join just so they can advance their own interests, especially when those interests have nothing to do with the group’s purpose. For example, I spent a number of years as a high school official in three sports, and each sport had a local chapter with weekly meetings to go over events, rule changes and interpretations, game films, and anything else related to the sport. A member of any of these chapters is expected to come to the meetings to learn about how to be a better sports official. While it’s fine to discuss informal and personal items, even then those topics tend to be related to sports; loving the sport is why these guys become officials in the first place. So some first-year member who starts trying to find out if the chapter members can help him find job leads, is not going to be considered legitimate; the topic is just plain wrong. And many groups I have belonged to have demonstrated a similar attitude. So the administrator of that job-seeker group was absolutely wrong, and was actually hurting members with her advice. So while positive attitudes and finding inventive ways to expand your professional network are good things, it is also important to rein in wild, untested theories and assumptions. It’s also necessary to deal with your grudges.

With very few exceptions, everyone in a job search situation has some bad feelings lurking around. While I agree that you should focus on your skills, experience, and positive attitude when applying and interviewing for a job, it is also important to deal with the things which cause you anger, resentment, or other negative emotions. After all, in most cases the person who lost the job did not deserve to lose his job, and even those employees who could blame themselves for their job loss often have good qualities to their work which they may feel should have been considered. Also, the way in which the company lets employees go is often a cause for unhappiness, and then there is the difficulty of the job search itself. Put it all together, and you have a condition where the stress and frustration needs an outlet, ideally in a way where it helps the individual move forward in their work search. Rather than tell people to suppress or hide their grudges, assistance groups should help people find ways to turn their grudge to good purpose.

As I mentioned earlier, I agree that when making an application or in an interview, the focus must be on how your skills help the company and how your attitude is positive and team-centered. But you need to deal with the weight and fire of your negative side, and find ways to use that to your advantage. For instance, I once had a boss, pretty high up in his company, who was afraid that his managers would discover they were underpaid and quit on him. His solution was to attack, harass and demean those managers at every opportunity, really rip them up so they would be in constant fear of being fired for some trivial (or even nonexistent) mistake, and never realize their rights, even though any one of us would have been fired on the spot if we had treated our staffs the way we were ourselves being treated. At first, I and the other managers just took the abuse, but years later I reflected on the behavior and used it to remind myself of the importance of actively listening to my people, to make sure my behavior was as ethical and courteous as I believed it to be. This not only helped my relations with my staff in my next three jobs, it also helped me get promoted when my consideration earned me credibility as someone who did what he preached.

Finding positive uses for negative experiences is one way to deal with your grudges. Another important use, however, is to talk about them in a confidential setting. Let’s be clear, I am not saying you should ever give potential employers indications that you might be a malcontent at their company or that you can’t let go of bad experiences, but it’s important to recognize valid events, and frankly just as every company sooner or later suffers from a bad or dishonest employee, so too most of us have had the misfortune to work for a company which was unethical and dishonest. Imagine someone who quit working at Enron in 2000, before it came out how corrupt its officers were. Imagine someone who left WorldCom, or someone who was an auditor for Arthur Andersen, who quit because of how those companies did business. Looking back, not only would it make no sense to praise a former employer whose business practices are now documented in ethics textbooks as egregious examples of criminal behavior, it would also make perfect sense for these individuals to feel that they had been badly used for staying true to higher ethical standards.

When you have to find a new job, you also look at the horizon in every direction, and that includes things you did not like about past jobs, things you hope to avoid the next time around. In a best-case situation, you can apply those lessons at your new job, avoiding the damage done in the prior experience. Recognizing that high-level bosses tended to berate and ignore the floor staff at one job helped me focus on selling bosses on opening informal feedback channels at another, beyond the usual ‘open door’ claim that is made so often. The experience of support for a project evaporating because the superior forgot about it, reminded me to include update reports on pending projects to superiors, including reference to their prior written support, to keep the idea fresh and familiar. Almost any bad experience can be useful in building tools to prevent it from happening later on. So even a grudge can be a good thing, if you use it to positive effect.

Finally, it needs to be said that humans are not machines. The facts of a situation can be handled rationally, but the effects carry emotional weight. There needs to be a way to deal with mistreatment and injustice suffered in a job, even if it’s just that you were sometimes under-recognized or happen to be one of the employees in your group laid off in a company reorganization. I notice that the help groups always point out that there is no “stigma” in being let go these days, which is a help on one level, but being laid off always has impact, and while you may intellectually understand that there was no personal insult meant, being laid off when you have been doing good work and were relatively happy at your job will always carry the emotional weight that you were selected to be let go, a sense that the work you did was not recognized the way you hoped it should be, that your skills and experience were not valued enough to be kept on board. If you’re like me, at some point you may even wonder why your value to the company was lower than the old furniture in the reception – there are chairs that have almost no value anymore, yet they are kept forever, yet in any downturn there are many good employees let go. Understanding the economics of the variable cost of human capital does not satisfy the sense of injustice which comes from being considered not only not indispensable, but as disposable assets of little consequence. We all like to believe that we matter, and being let go is an assault on that sense. It is only reasonable, therefore, that while the sense should be managed in a productive way, there is a valid need to address that grudge. The grudge is authentic, even if the help groups say it must be suppressed. I would argue that it is far healthier to recognize that the grudge is real, that it exists for valid reasons, and that it can and should be applied to good purpose in personal reflection and planning for the future. The short version may be as simple as 'don’t get fooled again’, but in a less cynical sense it also carries the value of hard-earned experience, unique lessons that can be applied to real world situations, and which may have specific value to your new company and team.

Regional and Industry Recession Effects

Patrick Jankowski, the Vice-President of Research for the Greater Houston Partnership, spoke Tuesday about the recession and its effects, both nationally and in Houston. His lecture was informative and fascinating, as it reminded our group of an important point about economics – local economics are influenced by national economics, but are not directly controlled by it. That is, while the entire nation is in a recession, different regions, industries, and demographic classes are effected by that recession, and the recovery from that recession is of varying lengths and difficulty, as well.

Take Detroit, for example. Detroit stands out among U.S. cities because, according to economic data, the city has been losing jobs (that is, fewer jobs have been created than have been lost in consecutive months) since May 2000, and currently suffers a 22.2% unemployment rate, one of 13 metropolitan areas with unemployment of 15% or higher, and 117 with unemployment at or above 10%.

This gives Detroit the unfortunate distinction of having one of the highest unemployment rate among metropolitan areas in the United States, as well as the longest recession specific to a metropolitan area. El Centro, California, has the worst unemployment at 30.1%, but El Centro is about one-three-hundredth the size of Detroit and has been in a condition of recession only since 2008.

It’s interesting to note that El Centro’s job base is agricultural, with significant retail and service sectors, while Detroit’s job base was heavily committed to the auto and truck building industry.

The flip side would be to consider those metropolitan areas which are not suffering badly from the recession. 12 metropolitan areas have unemployment rates ranging from 4.8% down to 2.9%, which would be envied by most of the nation. Three cities in North Dakota, two in Nebraska, two in South Dakota, two in Iowa, and one each in Utah, Kansas, and Montana make up that happy club.

It is reasonable, on the available data, to say that smaller towns have handled the recession with lower unemployment and shorter duration of job loss than have the major cities.

Industry matters in unemployment, as well. The highest unemployment by industry is in construction, durable goods manufacturing, leisure and hospitality services, business services and information technology, in that order. As a sector, government workers have by far the lowest unemployment rate, at 4.2%.

The landscape from the industry unemployment shows that all businesses are cutting non-essential costs, including research and development, growth activity, and service activities. Government, following its historical pattern, is making no effort at all to scale back costs or headcount. The problem there is that as foreclosures rise and tax revenue from income and sales falls, an inevitable shortfall will occur at most government levels, creating an incentive to raise tax rates at the time when taxpayers would most resent such actions. Possibility of a political backlash increases significantly for the 2010 and 2012 election cycles.

Mr. Jankowski also presented his forecast for economic recovery from the recession. In general, the recession will technically be over for most of the country by mid-to-late 2010, meaning that the economic conditions which define a recession will no longer be in place, but the effects of the recession will linger for some time afterwards. Specifically, Mr. Jankowski warned that it will take from one to four more years for the jobs lost in the recession to be replaced in full, to the extent that each metropolitan area will produce GDP equal or greater to what it was prior to the recession. That means it will be anywhere from 2010 to 2013 before the jobs lost in this recession are replaced at the same professional and wage level. And that cheery projection does not address the loss of career growth; the projection is that people who lost/lose their jobs in 2008-2012 will spend between 12 and 48 months finding a position equal to where they were when they lost their job; the savings lost while unemployed and the career growth which ordinarily would have happened in that time will be permanently lost, which may have significant meaning when the individual retires. Young workers will be competing with people still younger and cheaper than themselves, but with no superior experience or position to use to their advantage, and older workers will have to delay retirement or forget it altogether, as their savings decay from the cost of being unemployed. As a result, the effects of this recession will be felt by many people for a long time to come. In many situations the damage may be permanent.

Defensive Staffing

Many job seekers get frustrated by the time and effort it takes to get a response from potential employers. Many times it seems that the HR departments of most companies exist only to prevent applicants from actually speaking to people who need new employees, and the nature of the process is not unlike a minefield – you have to find out about the position, successfully apply and make your way past the computer screener, the phone interview, the initial interview in person, to make it to the point where you are speaking to someone – perhaps – who would actually be making the hiring decision, all the while risking immediate elimination if someone inside the company is given the job, someone reaches the hiring manager personally, or the company decides not to fill the position after all. But for all of that, companies have worries as well, and the big one is the fear that someone may interview well enough to win the job, but prove a bad choice when they have locked in the position. It’s difficult for a company to let someone go once they have hired them without committing to a period of training and review, and even then the position has to be opened and applicants considered all over again, losing time and spending resources. Most companies would love some way to insure their choice, especially for a position that needs to be filled quickly but which needs both competency and a good fit with the company. And that brings me to the professional contract-to-hire position.

Many companies use contractors, but most often for low-level responsibilities and without the option for permanent hires. That is, a contractor often has to be exceptional to be offered a permanent position. This comes from budget concerns and the types of jobs filled, as many of them are seasonal or specific to a limited project. However, in recent months that thinking has changed a bit, as recruiters have offered a more enticing option – a sort of ‘no long commitment’ contract for managers and skilled professionals. The contractor in these cases would be hired for a specific project, usually lasting six months to a year, but the company would fill not only staff positions but management positions as well, and if the contractor performs up to a certain level, they might be offered a permanent position at the same level or even higher. For instance, a contractor might be hired to head a strategic project lasting six months, but if he surpasses a certain level of proficiency and ability, he might be offered the role of managing the whole department. This can be done most often in companies where managers have shifting responsibilities, and a new manager may be brought on to ease the workload of existing managers. While specifics have been closely guarded by the companies involved, informal accounts exist of even senior managers being hired in this way at some companies. While the practice is too new to be judged on its strategic value to the companies, the concept demonstrates a way by which a firm may take on high-level talent without committing for a long term until the new hire proves his or her worth.

Career Building: A Look from Reality

Every so often, I have read up on the latest books and articles on the subject of career building. The idea seems simple enough; we all understand that the ideal job situation is much more than just getting a job somewhere and hoping for the best. We all would like to believe that we can improve our opportunities and find, if not the perfect job, a position which meets our ideal or at least where we enjoy the work and its benefits. Trouble is, most of us are working somewhere where we dislike something about the job. It may be the pay, the company culture, the office politics, or maybe it’s the location or some of the specific duties, but for most of us there’s always something. Speaking for myself, I have always been able to enjoy my work and I have great loyalty to all the companies which brought me onto their teams, but even then I could not ever say the position I had was “ideal”.

Some of that was education. My BA was in English. That’s a long story, but generally it came down to indecision and a counselor who assured me that I could do “anything” with an English degree. The real world, it turns out, differed in that opinion. So, it became clear to me that I needed a better degree. Since I love Accounting, I decided I wanted to earn a CPA license, and to do that required not only a slew of Accounting courses, but also a set of Business courses as well. So, I pursued and earned an MBA with a concentration in Accounting. Did it with a 3.94 GPA too, which got me into an honor society, Beta Gamma Sigma. I felt pretty good about my progress.

The plan at the time I graduated with my MBA was this: One reason I love Accounting, is that every business needs accountants, good ones. But more, a successful business needs accountants with management experience, for the plain reason that you have to see first-hand the effect of accounting decisions. You can talk about Activity-Based Costing, or Managerial Accounting strategies, but they need to be understood at the pointy end of the business to really grasp how the decision will affect the company. That’s something I knew I could provide for any employer, the ability to connect real-world effects to theoretical decisions. So, I figured that after earning my MBA, I would try to transfer to the Accounting department at my company, maybe work as an internal auditor while completing my educational requirements to sit for the CPA exams. My manager at the time was very supportive and genuinely wanted me to succeed in this track. However, when my company was bought out by another company in May of 2009, that all changed. The new company has its own accounting staff, and they do not plan to expand the Houston staff. That left me in a sort of drift for my career plans. Until reorganization and layoffs came in late September. Being laid off changed my career search from keep-this-job-until-I-get-a-better-fit to must-find-work.

That was more than a month ago. In job search terms, five weeks is not so very long. But when you go that long without much success in even getting interviews, you begin to get tired and frustrated. Part of it is the economy; in a down economy, professional positions are not usually filled in the last quarter. Part of it is the nature of a professional job hunt; if you have higher-than-average salary expectations or specialized skills, there will be fewer positions available that match what you are looking to find. And part of it is the stress of just having to find a job; many companies which have had to fill an opening complain about how hard it is to find qualified applicants, while job seekers similarly complain about the difficulty in finding a suitable position. Since the day I was laid off, I have searched every day for jobs, read about more than two hundred positions open for employment (and screened out more than half which either demanded qualifications I did not have, or offered unreasonable compensation – who seriously expects to get an experienced Credit Manager for $30k a year?), applied for more than eighty positions, and had a total of three phone interviews and two face-to-face interviews, counting the one I have tomorrow morning. It’s not a strong return on the effort.

That’s not to say that you should not do everything you can, when searching for work. You never know when, where or just how your next job will turn up, but the one thing I can say for sure is that it won’t show up looking for you while you sit around waiting for it. You have a degree of control in your search, in that you choose what area of work, which companies to apply to, and which jobs to try for. However, unless you happen to have a pile of money from your lottery winnings sitting around, you have a limited amount of time in which to find your next job. Also, the psychological weight of not knowing exactly when your next job will begin makes the passing of time feel longer and more ominous. Intellectually, you understand how long your savings can last, but emotionally the uncertainty is poisonous to your confidence. As a result, after a month or two you begin to question whether your goals are too high, whether you are being too picky in how much you want to be paid, or whether you should accept a position that you would earlier have rejected as a bad choice for your skills and experience. As time passes, the likelihood that you will hold out for a ‘perfect’ fit decreases until, unless you are lucky or very well-connected, it becomes just another thing that would have been nice but does not happen in real life. We all want a perfect job, but we have to pay the mortgage and the bills, and for most people the idea of building a career is not really feasible.

The New Reality

Sorry for the hiatus. Turns out being unemployed is hard work, at least if you’re serious about trying to get your next post and, like me, are made aware of the many things you always knew you should catch up on but now are compelled to address. Career foundation preparation is a lot like going to the doctor, physical conditioning, or preparing your own tax return – you always knew you should have been working on it all along, that it was best done in a smooth, consistent manner, but somehow it was always put on the back burner, until of course you suddenly discovered you need it right now.

Ouch. In my case, the pain comes from networking. I am, as you may suspect, pretty old school in a lot of ways. I don’t twitter, I don’t even IM, in fact I need to start up my cell service again, I stopped using a cell when I realized no plan offered what I really wanted – a simple way to make and receive phone calls about 8-10 times a month. No texting, cameras, no calling everybody I ever met in a single month, just simple means for emergency calls and accessibility when I’m out of the office or home. So now I have to catch up on that. Yes, I know about pre-paid plans, but my general opinion of them is not much better than the kid-centered packages most services offer.

So anyway, I updated my LinkedIn account, started my WorkInTexas searches, updated Monster of course, started service with Jobfox, and started up with SimplyHired. I am also taking courses from an outsourcing company on my resume, interviewing, and naturally I am learning about networking as well. I have also been working on my references. Odd, that. As a manager I know how important references can be, but despite my blogging I am pretty much a private person, so the number of people I know well is limited to family and recent work colleagues. The fun part there, is not just that no potential employer is going to be impressed by a reference from your wife and kids, but the company I spent the last decade working for has a policy against specific references; they will release general data confirming your department, title, and dates of employment. So the people I have known for the last nine years in my work are not allowed to offer a recommendation for me. So that means I am chasing down some folks I know who left the company years ago. Hardly optimal, but better than an empty page on that score.

It’s also hard coming up with a really good resume. What I mean, is that while I can post my skills and what I have been doing, it’s not easy to convey what I have done that sets me apart. I’ve always been a team player, not least because rarely does one person do the whole job in a major project, so I have not spent a lot of effort looking for ways to brag about why my role made a key difference. Resumes, of course, are built on such accomplishments, so I have had to think and write about those places where my efforts and work created real results. There have actually been many situations where I am justifiably proud of my work, through leadership, initiative, or just plain being willing to do what was needed to get the job done. The hard part is explaining that in a way that still respects my team and colleagues. That takes a while and a bunch of rewrites.

So here I am. In case you did not already know, job hunting means a lot of effort for no real apparent return. I’ve sent out about a hundred applications and resumes so far, with almost no response. Part of that is the economy, I am told, but part of it is just the continuing problem that any job seeker finds; there are always a lot of people applying for any job, especially if the company and/or the position appears to offer career potential. You come to feel like a salmon swimming upstream after a while.

And then there are the sharks, the people who offer job-hunting assistance, especially the resume writing companies, who make promises just vague enough to be legal but whose ethics are clearly absent. Also present are companies which try to hire at wages far below industry scale, which seems extremely short-sighted to me in terms of strategy. I had a laugh early on, as I received an email invitation to interview for a sales position at a Saturn dealership. It sounded like an ad to join the crew of the Titanic, you know?

More later, and hopefully something more interesting than my personal career pursuit, but I owed an update to a few friends who had asked. And to those friends, thanks for thinking of me.

Economics Perspective of the Unemployed

I have been laid off three times from jobs. Oddly or not, all three times came when a Democrat was President. The most recent condition came a couple weeks ago, when my company decided to ‘reorganize’, a useful word that can mean anything from making judicious use of your resources to maximize effectiveness, to panic-induced blunders that will eventually hurt everyone involved in the matter. During the settling of things after the decision, I put my resume on the internet and was soon invited to interview as a salesman for Saturn. Since I am not a sales person by nature, along with – hmm – things I have read in the news, I have decided not to pursue that wonderful opportunity.

I also have been making adjustments in how I live. Since my healthcare coverage was going to end soon, I made sure that I, my wife, and my daughter all had trips to the doctor, and my daughter’s dentist visit was also moved up, just to be sure. Which brings me to that unending fountain of joy, COBRA coverage. When I say ‘Cobra’, I don’t mean that venomous snake or the nemesis of the G.I. Joe team – or at least I don’t think there’s a connection – I mean the “Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act”, also known as the ”you want how much for health insurance?” plan.

Near as I can make out, the way COBRA works is that the government has set up health insurance coverage for people who lose their jobs. The formula for what you pay is really very simple; simply calculate how much you could realistically afford, double that then add another 20 percent, and that’s your COBRA premium. I think it’s mean to remind us how nice our employers were to offer us healthcare coverage, and to punish us for losing our jobs. Here’s a place where I actually give out some props to the Obama Administration – that Stimulus bill that passed earlier this year includes a government subsidy for some of the COBRA cost. The bad news is that the process is a bit long and complex, and my insurance contact said they’d “get back to me” when they knew what COBRA would cost with the reduction from the subsidy. I sure hope that subsidy money didn’t end up being used for Cash For Clunkers, instead.

Obviously, losing your job makes you very conscious of how much everything costs. I haven’t exactly been living hand-to-mouth, but the sudden end to an income, even with a severance package, means that everything is considered in terms of budget life, how long you can live on a certain asset if you need to do so. The first order of economics is really determining how much you have to have, and where you will get what you need. The short-term is no problem, but until interviews and job offers come in, you really become much more aware of the financial horizon.

Ironically, you also become cautious about what sort of job you will consider. I don’t mean that you become overly picky about jobs you apply for (I’ve sent out about three dozen applications so far), but you consider all the aspects of a job, including elements that did not seem important before, such as how far you would have drive to get to work, how much travel is involved, whether you would be willing to relocate and if so to where, what base bay is acceptable, what working conditions are must-have, what nature of work you would consider, and the like. I found some surprises already, like two jobs for different companies which are very similar in their requirements and duties, yet one pays barely half of what the other pays. Or the company which is extremely particular about whom they will even consider, which explains why the job has been open since May. For the same general responsibilities, some companies are very demanding about who they want, which makes it hard to get in but at least you are clear about what they want, while other companies are very general, even vague, which may seem attractive until you ask whether they know what they are looking for in a candidate. I’ve already had one job in my past where the business owner did not know what the job needed. You have to consider everything in the job posting, to make sure you understand what you are walking into in a job.

The economy is a big topic of discussion among the unemployed. The Workforce office is jam-packed, so is my out-sourcing company, and so are the employment recruiters I have talked to. Pretty much no one believes that the economy is in good shape or that finding work is easy. The rotten economy is also punishing the poor more than anyone else. People on the low end of pay and position get let go more often than anyone else, and they get less in severance as well. All the fine speeches spinning how making businesses pay more in taxes will be good for the economy somehow gets no traction when all you see is belt-tightening. What’s interesting, to me at least, is that most folks just want to work a decent job. No one is looking for a free ride that I have met, and they are all getting pretty disgusted with a government that spends so much time on spin, that it never considers the effect its new laws have on regular people.

Sooner or later, it will dawn even on Congress that unemployed people vote too, and they are in no mood to continue on the present course.

Bambi Meets Godzilla 2009; President Bambi and Nukes

Somehow I knew this one was coming.

Notice the observation, “In a first for a U.S. president, Obama presided over the 15-member meeting”. Yep, that’s President Bambi leading the charge to rid the world of nukes. Wattamessiah!!

I mean, it’s a given that no thinking person likes nuclear weapons or wants to contemplate the consequences of even a ‘minor’ nuclear exchange. All leaders in government, religion, or any beneficent social effort would love to see nuclear weapons be removed from the world. So what’s wrong with the U.N. Security Council voting to move towards doing just that?

Reality.

The science behind nuclear weapons is well-established. That’s why, for decades after the U.S. and U.S.S.R. both came to the conclusion that an actual nuclear exchange could never be allowed to happen, both sides not only maintained their nuclear stockpile, but created new weapons and delivery systems for them. Because back when adults were in charge, they understood that deterrence was not only the status quo, but a critical mission. If either side reached a point where it held a commanding advantage in such weapons, the temptation to use them in a first strike to eliminate the threat would rise significantly. And even after the Cold War ended, the U.S. and Russia still maintained nuclear stockpiles, because other nations, some of them unstable and belligerent to civilization, possessed or were pursuing nuclear weapons, and the stockpiles of the greater powers was necessary to dissuade the development programs in many countries who otherwise would see their chance to claim territory and regional influence through the threat of nuclear war. Which brings us, of course, to the flies in the soup for even today’s naïve contestants.

“North Korea tested a second nuclear weapon this year, and Iran has resisted greater international oversight for its nuclear program. Iran says its nuclear activities are for peaceful purposes, but the United States and other major powers fear they are a cover for a weapons program.”


Yeah, and the sun came up in the East this morning. Call me cynical, but I worked in electricity for nearly nine years, and it’s just silly to pretend that a breeder reactor in the middle of nowhere, not even connected until very recently to any external delivery grid, much less established step-down distribution stations to industrial factories or metropolitan residential areas, is somehow meant to provide lights and power for ordinary folks. Never mind the fact that heavy-water plants like the ones used by Iran are now used exclusively for weapons-grade plutonium and uranium production. As for North Korea, anyone who thinks Dear Leader would be willing to give up his ambition to possess a nuclear arsenal is in need of a jacket with the sleeves in the back, the kind which tie together to prevent self-injury.

Bambi thinks he can wish the nukes away. He is dangerously wrong in his most recent fallacy.