08 Oct 2011
Miscellaneous

The Privilege of the 99% Protesters

The flurry of picketing and protests sweeping across major cities of the United States, and the equally vehement flurry of verbal responses coming from over-paid and under-brained Republican talk radio pundits, has me wondering who is really protesting?

The discussion arose at company happy hour the other night – would you take part in the protests? The general consensus was “sure … if I didn’t have a job I needed to be at”. The fact of the matter is that the luxurious misfortune of having time to protest Wall Street, and all that is evil in America and elsewhere in the world, means one of three things: you’re either unemployed (not by choice), so wealthy you don’t need to work, or you’re wholly irresponsible and are reneging on your actual responsibilities, in order to jump on the hipster bandwagon. I’m ignoring the fourth group of people outright – students who don’t understand what it means to have a job, be paying off debt (versus accruing it), and so forth, because as anyone knows who has survived the college experience, reality doesn’t kick in until some time after you graduate.

If we think about the productive man hours alone that have been lost to the Wall Street protests we could probably have cleared the country’s beaches of trash, taught some underprivileged children how to read, and had time to take a shower in between. Instead there are vast swaths of lemmings camped out in downtowns across the country, enjoying media coverage and the mild amusement of bored police officers as they are forced to “monitor” the situation.

The most ironic part of the whole operation? We walked by our local homeless resident the other night, as we normally do on our dog walk, and exchanged the usual pleasantries. I alluded to the “surround sound” emanating from the protests a few blocks away, and asked how he was enjoying this publicly provided sound track. His response? “The damn protesters kept me up all night. I couldn’t get a minute of sleep.” The 99% protesters should remember that they, too, are privileged.

CulturalRehabilitator | No comments
10 Sep 2011
The Self-Entitled Generation Y

Yes, But Can I Have More?

While the company I work for may be small, the size allows someone in my position to be intimately involved with hiring and HR in general. Many fascinating lessons can be learned by observing the awkward interactions that have a tendency to occur around hiring situations.

In the past few weeks and months I have begun to notice a fascinating trend in both the people that already work for us and those we have looked at hiring. I am calling this the “Can I have more?” syndrome.

This syndrome, without fail, is isolated to the age group of roughly 27-37. It is the age group where people have maybe had 1 or 2 real, grown-up jobs before, and so they are feeling important. At the same time they are so financially “free” (read: irresponsible) that they are not burdened by things like owning their own home or funding a retirement account or, in some cases, paying their own rent. (Silver spoon? Anyone? Anyone?). Therefore they become overgrown brats, living paycheck to paycheck, and indulging their every whim for superficial living.

… And this is where the syndrome develops. When these people are offered a job they’d like to know how important they have become. When they are offered a raise they would like a bigger raise. And when they are given a paid holiday they ask if they can’t turn it into a full week of relaxation.

There’s the old joke about the dictator – give him an inch and he thinks he’s a ruler. For this generation you give them ANYTHING and they want more.

Not to be crusty but isn’t it maybe time that people were grateful for what they have?

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18 Aug 2011
The Child's View

“We have a GOOD plan … “

When I was growing up road trips consisted of irritated our parents by singing 99 green bottles completely out of tune, playing “I spy” while driving through the same monotonous landscape for hours on end, or generally poking, prodding, and irritating one another.

My mother, nephews, and I were recently fortunate enough to spend several hours together in a beat-up Corolla navigating the countryside of north-west Iceland. Prior to embarking on this journey there had been repeated requests from the 4-year-old and 6-year-old nephews to be allowed to play on my “computer”. They were referring to my newly acquired iPad 2. The allure lay in the desire to play one of the many delightful racing games that had magically appeared after the iPad 2 was left unattended for a short while. (It should be noted that the older nephew was just learning to read, but somehow could navigate the App Store with ease …). I suggested that perhaps, if they were good during the drive, they could negotiate some iPad privileges. But only if they were good.

Needless to say, put a 4-year-old and 6-year-old in the back seat of a car so old that the radio crackles and the tape deck is long since defunct, and you’ll have some boredom sinking in fairly quickly. However, since this was reminiscent of my own childhood road trips, I felt it was only appropriate that the junior contingent suffer through the boredom. A rite of passage, if you will. There were several polite requests from the backseat for “computer” time, and there were several equally polite refusals from yours truly, as I told them they should just enjoy the drive for now, and we’d see about it later. Two or three hours passed, and at regular intervals the polite requests were made … albeit somewhat less polite as time dragged on. I was starting to worry that perhaps the patience of the wee ones would snap at some point, when I became aware of whispering taking place behind me.

All of a sudden the 6-year-old pipes up “hey, hey hey, we have come up with a GOOD plan!”

“Oh?”, I responded, and turned to face the two of them, who were looking suspiciously angelic.

“Yes! We have decided that if we can play with the computer, then we will be really, reeeeeally good.”

Needless to say, their idea of coming up with a “plan” was too enticing to turn down. The “computer” was fished out of my bag and passed back so that play time could commence.

About five minutes passed before I heard from them again.

“Could we have your phone too, so we can both play at the same time?”

So much for sharing, and the really GOOD plan.

CulturalRehabilitator | No comments
16 Jul 2011
Humorous Strangers

Do You Need A Magazine?

The other day I was fortunate enough to experience a five hour delay on a flight I was scheduled to take to return home. Instead of getting home to be picked up by my significant other to enjoy a nice dinner I was now getting home to grab a cab and come staggering in around midnight. Not exactly the ideal return, but what can a person do?

The fact of the matter is, it was a rather nice airport to be stuck in. Plenty of food and drink around, comfortable seating, outlets readily available to charge my various electronics, and I was well stocked with entertainment on my computer. In brief – I didn’t mind this delay much at all.

Finally we were about 40 minutes out from the new departure time. I trotted over to the gate – which I was sitting a ways from in particularly comfortable seating – as I saw a rather large and loud airline worker get ready to announce boarding preparations. After he made his announcement that they would soon be getting ready to board I caught his attention and asked – as I thought rather reasonably and politely – whether there was time to use the restroom before boarding? I was greeted with a startled look, followed by, “well I don’t know … what you gotta do? I mean … do you need a magazine? Will you be lighting a match? That ain’t my business! But you got about 5 minutes. It’s your call.” This was followed by guffaws from my large airline worker friend, and entertained looks from folks on the sidelines.

Uh, thanks pal. Glad I could provide some late night entertainment …

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03 Jul 2011
The Self-Entitled Generation Y

I’d Like To Unquit

As the title may suggest this post is around the concept of “unquitting”. A concept which I find quite ludicrous, in fact. There are some things in this life that I don’t feel a person should be allowed to come back from. Let’s say you sit down in front of your husband and tell him you cheated on him. You can’t just “uncheat” a few hours later when you see how angry he is. Let’s say you give your friend a Christmas present, and you don’t feel they’re sufficiently excited to receive it. You can’t just “ungive” said present. And likewise, let’s say you sit down in front of your boss and say you’d like to quit, because you have the emotional maturity of a high school freshman. You can’t just “unquit” when you realize you need the money and it’s a pretty good job.

So why is it, in this day and age, that the general age group referred to as Generation Y feels that they are so special, so highly qualified, so under-appreciated, so under-paid, have bigger fish to fry, etc. that they now think a job is like an on-again, off-again teen romance.

You sign your W-4. You log your hours. You hand in a time sheet. Congratulations – you’ve officially become a grownup. What’s that? Oh right. Your parents raised you with the crazy notion that everyone’s a winner, you’re oh-so-special, and any job is lucky to have you. So no, you have not, in fact, become a grownup. What you’ve done is managed to get to a point in your life where the age your driver’s license reflects has nothing in common with the age your actions reflect. Do we blame this on your helicopter parents? Or do we blame it on your own ability to recognize real life for what it is? I’ll leave that debate to the true scholars, and not the armchair critic that this blog allows me to be.

In my line of work, I run into a lot of people from Generation Y. In fact, I am one of them. Which I feel makes me even more qualified to judge them for their delusions of grandeur. How often do I hear “I’m underpaid” or “This is the worst job I’ve ever had” or “I have options, you know”. If you’re so wonderful, then please, by all means, go get yourself some other employment. During a time when there are over 13 million unemployed Americans, I’m sure you’ll have no trouble finding work. But do me a favor, and when you say you quit, I’d prefer you meant it. Because in my world, there’s no such thing as “unquitting”.

 

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01 Jul 2011
Bitchy Little Girls • My Job Makes Me Important

We Only Work With Our Top 20

I had the recent fortune of attending an industry conference not too long ago. While typically I enjoy these types of events – and certainly, this one was quite enjoyable overall – I ran into an unusual number of Bitchy Little Girls. The type of person who has decided they are part of an in-crowd, which none of the rest of us are able to see. (Perhaps because we are so uncool that we are not privy to such secret activities as middle-aged cheerleading).

The incident in question really got me thinking. I headed over the exhibition booth/table of one of our partners, for whom we generate an “OK” amount of traffic. They’re somewhere in our top 200, of well over 2000 partners, so while they are not our bread and butter they are as important as the next guy. There is always room for growth, for a relationship, for the ability to improve on what is already there.

I introduced myself to the lady behind the booth, gave her a brief background of our relationship, and said I’d love to chat about opportunities for the upcoming months. Now keep in mind, this is a casual sort of conference, where certain folks will wear cargo pants, while others will wear $5000 dresses, but most of us will just wear regular business-casual, and there is nothing wrong with comfort and practicality over obscene heals and shape wear. Given the air of casualness, the true value in these conferences is found in the not-previously-scheduled, happened-to-be-there conversations.

After my 30-second introduction of the company, and background to our relationship, I was greeted by a blank stare. Very reluctantly this woman passed over her business card. It clearly pained her to do so. She sighed deeply, flicked her eyelashes back (yes, that is actually physically possible, and appears to be a tactic used by short-haired women), and slowly responded to me (because I’m clearly somewhat challenged intellectually and need to be spoken to like a three-year old). “Sure” she said. “You can reach out … if you want.” She let the words linger before saying, “but we really only work with our top 20 partners.”

I thanked her for her time, and said I’d follow up in email. As I walked away I mulled over where my own company would be if we only worked with our top 20 partners. After brief reflection, I concluded that if this were the case, we’d probably only have 20 partners. Because who wants to build a relationship where you set an artificial cut off for ‘worth my time’ status?

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