Getting to Work : Getting Real (About My Job Situation) – II

In 1987, I’d just left school and was entering the full-time job market for the first time. I was living in the New York metropolitan area, quite a ways away from where I’d grown up, geographically and culturally. No sooner did I start looking for employment, than the stock market crashed and the good jobs just didn’t seem to be there. But I temped for a while, then managed to find a temp-to-perm job, and things worked out.

A few years later, I moved to Philadelphia to start a new life. The plans I had went south, and I found myself pretty much on my own, in search of new work that would pay me a living wage. I figured it out and connected with some great headhunters who could get me regular temporary assignments. I was able to not only have a flexible lifestyle, but also earn enough to live in a 3-story townhouse near Fitler Square.

A few years after that, I moved from Philadelphia to northern California. I had friends to live with, but no job. No car, no savings, nothing. I rolled up my sleeves, looked around and found work, and things came together. Again, I went through an agency that got me into a temp-to-perm situation.

But within another couple of years, the little software company where I’d been Head of Documentation had gone under, and I found myself standing in line at the unemployment office. It was 1994, and now I found myself in a very tough job situation. I was living in a rural part of northern California, and I was running out of job options. I was also moving into a completely different set of work circumstances. While I’d been on the East Coast before, I hadn’t had any career aspirations beyond finishing my novel and finding a publisher. But after working like crazy and having no luck for more than five years, I realized I needed to get real – quick. I didn’t just need a job, I needed a career. And at the software company, I’d found just that.

The only problem was, that company had gone under, so I was on my own.

I looked high and low for comparable work, but the nearest permanent tech writings jobs which paid well were in the San Francisco area. There were a lot of full-time tech writing jobs in the Bay Area, but they were at least an hour and a half away, by bus or by car, and even in those areas, competition was very tough. A life of commuting appealed to me about as much as a life of root canals (I think I would have preferred the root canals, actually). I really needed to stay local.

So, I contracted for a while, editing documentation for medical software publisher, writing a purchasing guide for a national mortgage company, and documenting hardware for a supplier for Intel. But they were short-term contacts, and even the best contracts must come to an end.

Eventually, I did manage to find some temp work at a big technology company that let me do technical training – but that was when I wasn’t doing menial filing and clerical work. It was a paycheck and it was a big name company, but it was just a stop along the way to something far bigger. It also didn’t pay very well. In terms of my career path, it seemed like little more than a detour down what looked like a dead end.

Then I got wind of a multi-year contract writing ISO 9000 documentation for a new electric car company that had been formed by executives from several big name Detroit auto manufacturers. They had a whole new concept that was well-funded and was good to go. They needed someone to write their ISO documentation, so they could do business worldwide, and I could make myself available in two short weeks. It was a great opportunity, and I considered myself lucky to get it. I gave notice on the temp job, so I could get back to doing what I actually did for a living – writing documentation, instead of filing. It was a real deal, on the cutting edge of new technology, and it was right up my alley. Things were really looking up. Psych.

Alas, before my fabulous new ISO-writing contract started, the company folded. They had the money, they had the business plan, but there were just too many cultural differences between the execs. Maybe too many cooks in the kitchen. Who knows? All I know is, I had to go back to the temp job grind, hat in hand – and I considered myself lucky that they took me back.

All the while, I refused to give up hope. Surely, there had to be something I could get, that was more technical, more challenging, and in keeping with my career path. I went to networking events. I called former colleagues and pounded the pavement. I checked the papers. I looked high and low. But for that area… well, there just wasn’t anything that suited me.

That’s a time in my life I don’t care to ever repeat again. It was pretty awful. There’s nothing like being drastically under-employed, and having your exit routes cut off, one by one, as you watch yourself get deeper and deeper into a hole… no matter how much I worked, after all the bills were paid, it seemed like I was constantly ending up with $35 to last the week. Times were very tough, and money was very tight. I had to do something.

But what?

Getting to Work : Getting Real (About My Job Situation)

Gotta have it…

To tell the truth, I’m not sure my job situation has ever been what you’d call “easy.” I can’t recall ever being in a situation where it was a given that I’d find work – or that once I found it, I’d be hired. The idea that going to school was going to land me a decent-paying career was never really on the horizon. After all, I had decided to study Anthropology and German, neither of which seemed likely to land me a healthy salary, back in 1987 when I got out of school. Accounting, yes. That would get you a starting salary of $35K at an insurance company in Hartford, CT, at that time.

Anthropology and Germany… not so much. Add to that the fact that despite four years of study, I never landed an actual degree, and things get even more interesting when I left college.

It’s wild, when I think back about it — returning from Germany with four years of college behind me, two of those being at a great German university, studying as a regular student, not an exchange student with the requisite handicap (as in golf handicap, not as in physical/mental handicap). I had a great four years, and I learned a lot, overall, but in 1987, funding was drying up from the government, and my parents were unable to pay for my tuition. They probably wouldn’t have paid, anyway, even if they’d had the money — that’s not how we rolled in our neck o’ the woods at that point in time.

So, half a semester’s worth of credits short of a degree, and flat broke without decent prospects, I took the Steve Jobs Option and decided to go find a job. I figured I could always go back to school and finish up later, once I was on my feet. But first I had to get on my feet. I needed to eat. I needed to pay rent. I needed a life. I was sick and tired of sitting in a US-style classroom, trying to figure out how to convince my professors that I agreed with them, sick and tired of having so much opportunity to learn but being deluged by an insane workload that made any real learning possible. I just wanted to get on with my life, degree or no degree.

Needless to say, everyone around me despaired. Friends, family, just about everyone I talked to. I was ruining my prospects. I’d never get ahead. I had wasted the last four years of my life. Yada yada yada… Yet I was undeterred. Somehow, I was convinced that things were going to work out for me. Or that I’d manage to figure out how to work things in my favor. Even if things were tough, I wasn’t convinced that I would be high and dry. For long. I was pretty sure I could figure something out.

I mean, I’ve been figuring this stuff out for a long time. So I had some experience to go on. Take, for example, my entry into the adult workforce. I say “adult” because I’d been working some job or another from the time I was 12 and got my first paper route. I’d worked jobs in greenhouses, factories, restaurants, and in computer rooms for 10 years prior to my 9-5 christening, so, I was no stranger to work. I was also in the habit of “beating the bushes” to find decent opportunities. I’d managed to find jobs that allowed me to stay in New York State year-round, so I could get my residency there (and get lower school tuition). I’d also managed to find part-time work with an American translator in Germany, so I could have enough money to stretch one planned semester of study into two full years of year-round occupancy (and have a lower cost of living as a year-round resident, which enabled me to travel widely in Western Europe for next to nothing). Finding work had always been my ticket to having a life – and doing things that many of my peers didn’t think was possible. A job wasn’t just a job. It was a stepping stone to a whole world of excellent experiences that were inaccessible to me without some cold hard cash in hand.

That was no different, when I left school.

I knew, quite frankly, that I’d be able to figure something out.

Getting To Work – More Introduction

Ridin’ that train… all aboard?

I really feel for the folks who are really struggling with the economy. With so many people out of work for extended periods of time and/or stuck in jobs that they have to keep to pay the bills, and a whole generation of college grads struggling to find a job, not to mention the dynamically tricky employment scene (where the heck do you put your attention, in terms of training?), and the crazy economy, I’ve really wanted to help out a bit, to reduce the quotient of human suffering.

I’d have to be a block of wood, to not be affected by all the pictures and stories of recent grads (and their parents) buried under mountains of ridiculous amounts of debt.

What to do? I fix everyone’s situation, and I certainly can’t fix the world… but a book about how I overcame the odds to get on my feet, lo those many years ago might help, I figured. I thought I’d write something that could help people rise above their circumstances and get outside the little boxes that have been built around them… and take concrete steps to get on with their lives.

Sounds positive and promising, right?

Well, yeah. And I was pretty excited. I crafted the outline. I wrote the chapters. I got more than ¾ of the way through the initial first draft. I was really cookin’. And then I stalled. In the midst of one of the most crucial (or so I thought) chapters which detailed the specific things I did in 1995 to get myself a whole new job situation in a whole new city in less than a week, this little project veered way off the rails. And just shy of the end of 2011, I put the book down and walked away to do other things. Like celebrate Thanksgiving and the winter holidays and welcome in the New Year. You know, live my life.

Well, it’s the new year now. 2012 is well underway, and we’re rapidly approaching the end of Q2. And it’s time to resume the book.

But this next go-round is a bit different than the initial one. As most living things will do, this book is evolving. It started out as a professional-how-to-guide-for-the-unemployed to help people kick-start their careers. But you know what? Dispensing life lessons to eager job seekers under the mantle of “professional expertise” isn’t really my style – not here, anyway. Heck, I may know how to do a ton of stuff, and I may be able to offer you some tips and tricks and pointers from my own experience, but from where I’m sitting, it’s not my job to tell you how to do anything. Especially find a job. ‘Cause truth to tell, though I may have had a lot of success along my own way, I honestly have no idea how to tell you what you should (or should not) do to realize your own dreams and, well, get a job.

There are plenty of people in the world today who make a career – and a handsome living – out of being experts who tell others what to do to find work, impress employers, and stay in the game. But I’m not one of them. Nor do I want to be one of them. I’m one of you – a member of the working public whose luck is only as good as today’s circumstances, and who knows the whole shootin’ match could go south in an instant’s notice. I’m not one of the folks who has a sure-fire recipe for achieving the success you desire and the riches you deserve. I am one of the folks who has her own share of dreams and hopes and wishes, who’s willing to work her ass off for them… who’s been fortunate find herself in the path of opportunity and interesting people… AND who’s been blessed with a keen eye for how to make the most of those opportunities, be they obvious or hidden.

So, in that spirit, I’ve decided to forgo the how-to-guide theme. This book is really meant to be a memoir. It’s not about Ultimate Truth. It’s not about building the perfect job-seeking toolbox. It is about my life and what I did about a really crappy situation that needed to be fixed. Some of the “facts” which I’m quite sure I remember correctly might turn out to be a little off the mark. It’s been decades since a lot of this went down,and fact-checking is sorta kinda out of the picture. I’m pretty sure about 99% of it, and I’ll do my best to be as honest as I can be. But I don’t want to spend a ton of time fretting about the precise veracity of all my assertions, polishing legal disclaimer language, and fielding complaints from folks who blame me when they can’t land the job they’re looking for. Plus, I’m not in the mood to take responsibility for anyone’s success or failures, other than my own.

If nothing else, this is a story. It’s meant to be interesting and fun. (We’ll see how that works out.) It’s the account of how I moved across the country from California to Boston, and had a job within about a week of arriving. I pulled into Boston on a Wednesday night in May, got on the phone and interviewed on Thursday and Friday, and by the following week I was working. In an almost amazingly short period of time, I went from being a new transplant with precious little money in the bank and a bunch of bills to pay, to being gainfully employed and making an okay living. And within a few months of arriving, I had landed a full-time salary earning more than twice what I’d earned in California, only months before.

So, this is my story. As far as I can recollect, it’s all true. I won’t intentionally mislead you, but some of the details have gone a bit fuzzy in the past 18 years. I’ll do my best to both recount them as accurately as I can, and where I can’t, I’ll let you know that my memory is not what it once was. I’m not making any wild promises that if you do what I did, you’ll be fine. Everyone is different, and you might not have the gumption, drive, and resources that I did. Or maybe you have more — and you’ll do better for yourself than I ever will. The point is, this story is real. It happened. And if you get something out of it, so much the better.

Now, let’s get on with it. Let’s have some fun.

Getting To Work – An Introduction

Get to work!

Around last Thanksgiving, I announced I was going to write a book about how I moved to Boston on a Wednesday, interviewed Thursday and Friday, and was working by the following Monday.

Then the holidays happened.

Then the New Year came.

Then I got really busy.

Then I contracted a serious case of writer’s block.

I’ve been meaning to write this book for quite some time. ‘Cause I know a thing or two about getting to work — how to find jobs where there appear to be none, how to make the most of jobs that don’t seem that hot, and how to actually land a job that suits you and your temperament. I’ve been so successful at it over the years, it didn’t seem right to just sit on what I know, when plenty of other folks might be able to benefit from my own experience.

When I first conceived of this book, I envisioned it as being a kind of how-to guide for folks who are out of work and are looking for fresh ideas for how to find work. I thought it could be a combination of steps to follow that would show people how I’ve managed to land jobs under some pretty extreme conditions, plus a motivational you-can-do-it! message that would encourage even the most resigned, thwarted job-seeker to begin their quest anew with rekindled hope – and a few more tips and tricks in their professional toolbox.

After all, I’ve been in bad job situations a number of times. From the time I left school in 1987, I’ve done my share of scrambling, on and off, looking for work. I’ve had some breaks along the way, which have paid off in the long run. Now and then, I’ve also managed to be in the right place at the right time, thanks to keeping my ears and eyes open. But it hasn’t been easy going. And I’ve learned over the years to not take anything for granted.

Yes, the past 25 years have definitely taught me a lot about how to get out and find work, how to make career changes, and how to make the most of whatever resources crossed my path. It’s pretty much worked out, too. Since 1988, the longest I’ve been out of work has been 2 weeks – back in 1993. I’ve been working continually, pretty much since I left school – never mind the stock market crashes, truly slim job pickings, unfamiliar surroundings, and fierce competition for the kinds of jobs that suit me. I’ve known a lot of people over the years who have been out of work for 6 months to 2 years… and beyond… Thankfully (and I do consider myself incredibly lucky, as well as crafty and resourceful) I have never been in that situation. And hearing about those cases makes me certainly appreciate my own situation all the more.

So yeah, it’s time to write about it. And blog about it. ‘Cause the whole “write the book first, then tell the world” thing is not working out – I’ve got to get moving with this, and putting it into blog form makes it not only more accessible to people, but it also gets me off my butt (thank you public scrutiny) and pushes me to keep working at it. It’s a social world, so my old habits of writing in isolation are going the way of the dinosaur — or the typewriter, as the case may be.

Yes, it’s good to have a job. Speaking of which, it’s time for me to get going. More about the book Getting To Work in a bit…

Thought for the day

… Comes from W.H. Murray, from the Scottish Himalayan Expedition:

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets: “Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”

Everything I needed to know to stay employed, I learned in high school

I'm workin' here...

I’ve been thinking a lot about college, lately. As in, my two interesting but and somewhat useful years at the US school I attended, followed by two much more interesting and much more useful years in Germany.

I did a lot of scrambling when I was going to school in the US — trying like crazy to keep up with genuinely stupid levels of reading and coursework (who the hell has time to digest everything they have to read — honestly?) and eventually giving up, learning to just stay afloat and tell professors basically what they wanted to hear.

When I was in Germany, it was the exact opposite — I had plenty of time to read and digest, and my schedule was set by … me … so I could learn — and retain — as much as I wished. I still remember lots of things from my two years in Germany, that never would have lodged permanently in my brain if I’d been in the US. Real learning requires rest and integration. I got precious little of that in the US. What a pity. What a terrible pity.

When I think back over the past 20 years, I have to say that I probably learned more about how to really work when I was in high school — working both an afternoon paper route and 10-20 hours a week at the restaurant in town. The “Big A” was THE place to work — it meant something if you worked there. They didn’t just hire anyone, and it was a good bunch of folks.

I learned an awful lot about how to work there. How to focus in and do the job. How to put up with truly tedious work and make the most of it. How to behave like a member of a team. How to talk to your boss. How to deliver. Granted, working in the back kitchen of a restaurant doesn’t seem like the kind of training you’d need in the white-collar world, but not a day goes by that my “Big A” experience doesn’t do me some good.

The biggest thing I learned there was, It’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice.  That was literally tacked up on the wall of the kitchen, in plain view for all to see. People didn’t get to be prima donas there — some tried, but they didn’t last long. The restaurant was popular, especially on Sunday mornings, when tour buses would stop in and tens of customers would stream through the doors. I can remember few days when things weren’t busy. Even when the dining room wasn’t full, we spent an awful lot of time catching up — cleaning things and scrubbing and sorting and arranging, and making sure that stuff stayed in order.

Everybody pulled their own weight equally, and nobody was above anybody else. Not the hostess, not the line cooks, not the pies and cakies ladies. Everybody was on equal footing. Because we had work to do.

I look around me at the rest of the world, especially to those who have no solid work ethic, and it makes me a little sad. Some folks treat hard work like it’s beneath them. As though it’s a sign that they’ve not “made it”. As though it signifies that they are somehow subservient and subordinate — and they’re better than that. Sad. The loss is really on their side. I wonder what gives their life meaning and purpose… What provides structure? What reminds them who they are?

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I can tell you this – doing the job, and doing it well is about the most satisfying thing in the world to me. Never mind the type of work. It can be rearranging papers, or rearranging release schedules for websites all across the world. It can be cutting my grass, or knocking out the to-do items on my project schedule. It can be work I do for myself, or work I do for someone else. The thing is — it’s work. And when done well and to completion, it’s about the best high a person can get.

College, I suppose, was about adding knowledge of certain kinds to my general fund. And there was a lot that I learned. But in terms of real-world working skills and attitudes, high school wins, hands down.

An open letter to new job seekers

To all those presently finishing up their college education and hoping to find a job…

So, you want to build a career in the professional world…

Good luck with that.

As of this writing, the American economy has been in the crapper for quite some time. After a number of wildly (and foolishly) prosperous years, we got our come-uppance and plunged into chaos. Market down-turns… the dot-com bust… terrorism fears… multiple wars… massive unemployment… huge deficit spending which somebody (that would be you, the younger generation) needs to pay off. And that’s not even counting your student loans, or your parents’ second mortgage they took out to put you through school.

Who can say if things are going to suck any less, anytime soon? Nobody can tell, and anyone who pretends to know, is lying. Companies are either laying off workers or not hiring — or, worse still for you and me, they’re finding offshore alternatives (contractors, or employees hired by their foreign subsidiaries) who offer skilled technical and professional labor at a fraction (sometimes to the tune of an 80% discount) of the cost of hiring an American to do the job. You just can’t fight the finance department on those grounds. It’s literally cheaper for a company to lay off one US-based worker and hire four folks overseas — even if one or two screw up, the others can fix what’s wrong for less money than the company would spend to have an onshore American do it right the first time.

Frankly, it’s a really shitty time for you to be entering the workforce. Don’t let anybody tell you different. I’ve been out here in the trenches for the past 20+ years, and it’s worse now than I remember it ever being. You (or your parents) probably have hefty college bills to pay off, which is a daunting prospect by any estimation. Sweet jobs that can give you the funds you need to pay down your debt are hard to come by, and competition for those sweet jobs is fierce.

Chances are, you’ve been competing with your peers for many years already, but guess what — I’ve got more troubling news. Now you have to compete for work with folks in your parents’ age group. It might not seem like a big deal, but consider that a whole generation of folks had intended to retire in the next few years, but now they can’t — because their retirement funds got sucked up by the market crashes. These are people who already know how to do the job you want to get, and who aren’t letting go of it, anytime soon. Never underestimate the importance of your elder co-workers’ retirement funds vanishing — it will keep them in the job market 10 – 15 years longer, than they intended (and you hoped) they’d be there. And they have the competitive advantage of knowing what the hell they’re doing.

What to do? All is not lost, actually. At least, not if you get smart and start using your own head, your own judgment, and take matters into your own hands. To get ahead, you’ll need to differentiate yourself from others around you, and in the coming days, weeks, and months, I’ll be talking here about how to do just that. You’ll need to find new and inventive ways to get your foot in the door, so you can have the chance to enjoy lasting success in a work environment. You’ll have to get pretty creative to take advantage of what opportunities you find. You’ll also need to acquire the skill of recognizing those opportunities when they come — ’cause they don’t always come.

Make no mistake — The world is changing dramatically, and you need to figure out how to work with solutions, not problems. It’s a cliché, but it’s true — the old production economy is giving way to the new Information Economy — and the most successful players are masters of knowledge. Knowledge is about more than information — it’s knowing what to do with that information.

So, tune in, subscribe to this blog, and learn more about how you can save your ass in this awful job market.

Hello world! It’s time to get a job!

Let's get back to work!

Welcome to my new mission – to help people find jobs in what looks like a very challenging job market. I say “looks like” because as far as I’m concerned, the job market has always been challenging, and we’ve never been able to take things for granted. And when we have, it’s gotten us into big trouble.

Let’s be clear – I’ve been working steadily since 1988, and it has never been easy. That’s 23 years of hassling with job searches, with varying degrees of success… but a long history of success, period. I first got into the full-time job market in northern New Jersey in 1987 — around the same time the stock market tanked for the first time in recent memory. Watching the evening news and seeing interviews with people who were pink-slipped that same day (along with 600 of their co-workers) was absolutely surreal, as I scanned the want-ads for job possibilities. I would go on my Sunday morning walks around some very well-to-do neighborhoods in the town next to mine, and see BMWs with hand-written “For Sale” signs in the window. I was personally acquainted with someone who lost something like a million dollars in the space of a day. (For the record, he was smart, not greedy, and that million was a relatively small portion of his overall holdings.)

It was a terrible time to be looking for work… in a terrible area… and my own situation was less than stellar.  I was out looking for any old regular full-time job, with an academic background in anthropology and German, two years spent living in Germany attending university there, but no college degree (I ran out of money and had to come home before I could complete the coursework). On top of it all, I had no idea what I actually wanted to do. Make no mistake, times were tough.

But I had to find a job. I didn’t have a choice.

Why?

Because I needed to get on with my life. I couldn’t live at home with my parents, and I sure as hell couldn’t just sleep on someone’s couch. I had to live my life. Come to think of it, more than any other survival impetus, what really pushed me forward was an all-consuming desire to get on with it. Live. Have an apartment of my own, and control over my own destiny. I’d been living under the thumb of others for way too long — first parents, then school. I wasn’t willing to trade my new-found freedom for the security of my parents’ home (there wasn’t much room for me, anyway — the house had always been small, and I couldn’t move back). Maybe it was my pride… Or the knowledge that if I stayed in that in-between space that spans youth and adulthood, there was no telling when I would get out. I had to get out.

In any case, I did what I’ve always done — I pulled myself together, figured out what worked (and what didn’t) — and I went out and found work. I had some fits and starts, and I had a lot of trouble finding my feet at first, but by early 1988, I was working regularly, and I haven’t looked back since. If anything, I could really use a vacation

I think a lot about my first months out job seeking, when I read the news. Unemployment is at all-time record highs. And apparently the numbers are under-reported. At the same time, I know of employers who are having a terrible time finding candidates who are qualified for the positions they are offering. What the heck is going on, America? I don’t get it. I look on Indeed.com (just to do a reality check – not to look for another job) for nursing jobs in Lancaster, PA (where my family lives) and I find 1,526 listings broken down by the following salary estimates:

• $30,000+ (1200)
• $50,000+ (901)
• $70,000+ (330)
• $90,000+ (140)
• $110,000+ (69)

Or, I look for Electrician jobs in Indianapolis, and I find 31 jobs, ranging in salary from $20,000/year to $90,000.

I hear stories about former colleagues of mine being out of work for months, even years, and so I look for Software Engineer with Java jobs in the Boston area, and 8,124 jobs come back, ranging in pay from $60,000-$140,000/year.

And yet people aren’t finding work.

What the heck is going on?

Well, I’m certain that people are going to protest that not all the jobs out there are what they are cracked up to be. Some of the electrician jobs I’ve found (in Boise, ID, for example) are actually located in Afghanistan. Or they have requirements around them that make them very difficult to actually do. I personally talked with a hiring manager once who was looking for someone who knew Java, Perl, C++, dotNet, and a host of other programming languages, and they were paying less than half the going rate for that work. Not a liveable salary.

But at the same time, I have also come across my share of very promising positions, and some of them worked out great.

I think about this a lot — especially last night, as I was looking at We Are the 99 Percent, a site that features pictures of people who are either occupying Wall Street right now, or who support those who do. The stories are really heart-rending at times — lots of medical problems, lots of debt, lots of troubles. Homelessness, bankruptcy, and more. Suicide, too. And looking at these pictures of people who have college educations, but no jobs, I have to wonder — how the hell is it that I have no college degree (four years of school and plenty of book-learning, yes, but no piece of paper to show for it)… how is that I have no particular connections, no overwhelming entitlement beyond what many of these folks have… how is it that the economy has been in the crapper regularly over the past 25 years, on and off… and yet I’ve always been able to find work when I needed it?

Lucky?

Maybe. But I’m guessing there is more to it. Perhaps I’ve learned a lot (the hard way) over the years, that somehow others have escaped having to learn — and those lessons have stood me in good stead. Perhaps there’s more to it than being in the right place at the right time, having the right skin color, having the right socio-economic background, etc.

Maybe, just maybe, the things that have helped me can help others as well…?

Make no mistake — I am deeply sympathetic to the plights of the people over at We Are the 99 Percent, along with the thousands upon thousands upon thousands of Americans who are struggling, who are homeless, who are suicidal, who are at their very wits’ end… who have no hope for their future, and whose only alternative seems to be ending their lives, so their kids can eat and have a roof over their heads, thanks to insurance money. In their darkest, poorest hours, who wouldn’t wonder if they are worth more $$$ dead than alive?

I understand the pain and the isolation. I’ve been there, too. In fact, for a brief time in 1992, I was actually homeless in Philadelphia (one bitter cold night in February, I was walking around Center City, looking for a doorway where I could shelter till the morning – fortunately, the one friend I had was home, so I crashed at her place… and I was on my feet again, with my own apartment about a month later). I also know what it’s like to struggle under thousands of dollars of student loan debt… to default on the loans… and then have to rebuild your credit from the ground up. I also know from personal experience that there tends to be a different way to do things — and sometimes you really need to shake up your approach to get where you’re going.

That’s what this blog is about — shaking up approaches and assumptions to get people back to work. It’s an offering to Americans (and anyone else, for that matter) who need to find a better and more effective way to do things. I know the job market is tough out there. I have been on the edge of it a number of times. But I’ve also figured out how to get it to work to my advantage, and so far, so good. I can’t say where I’ll be in another year — in this market, who can say? But I will tell you that finding a job is not a worry for me. Because I’ve figured out how to do it. And I might be able to show others how to do it, too.

I’m on a mission, here. It’s a mission to help people who bought the hype about their professional prospects, and thought they could safely assume certain things — much to their detriment. It’s a mission to help people who haven’t learned about the cold, hard realities of job-searching in a cruelly unforgiving and unsparing job market. It’s a mission to train people to use the new tools that are right at their fingertips, day in and day out, but that are invisible to them, because they don’t know where (or how) to look.

And it’s a mission to let people know that there actually is hope.

I’ll be talking about the things you can do to help yourself. I’ll also be talking about the things you do that hurt yourself (probably without knowing). In my many-varied “career” I’ve worked for lawyers, and I’ve been in the thick of Human Resources. I’ve hired people and I’ve fired people — and I”ll tell you why. I’ve developed a certain sensitivity to the things that really piss off managers and HR folks, and I’d figured out ways to make the most of bad situations.

I’ve learned a ton about how to keep working, since 1987. And I’ve learned a ton about how NOT to keep your job. Why should all this stay with me and only me? I don’t think it should.

So, check back often and see if it helps you. And if it seems worthwhile, tell your friends. There’s no sense in all of us suffering from these massive disconnects between people who need jobs and employers who need workers. I’m willing to step into that gap and do my small part to put an end to it. If you can help me, all the better — remember, you won’t just be helping me. You’ll be helping us all.

And that can’t be wrong.