People often ask me for quick hit advice on how to get ahead in their company. They ask me because I have a decent track record.

I graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, which is almost worthless except for the fact that you can often attach "English" or "Communications" to the subtext of the degree.

So, after graduating college, I started off pretty much where everyone else did: responding to job ads in the paper and taking an entry-level position.

I started off on the phones, talking to hospitals and doctors' offices about their healthcare claims. I eventually worked my way up to claims adjuster and then something very strange happened. The company I was working for began rolling out a new claims processing and payment system.

The old system had been in operation for about ten years and was working well but the company was looking to significantly expand their presence in the national health administration market and therefore had to upgrade to a more robust software package.

I started in July of 2000 and they began rolling out the new platform in the summer of 2001; in fact, I was in training for the system on 9/11 and heard about what was happening well after the fact.

What happened when they began rolling out the new system was akin to a corporate frontline coup of the noobies over the operational experts. See, these operational experts were people who had become experts working on the system for the past ten years and when the new system was being gradually rolled out, they were needed on the phones to make sure the transition was smooth. It made no sense to send operational experts into training for a new system and leave the noobie scrubs on the old system--you would then have set loose two groups of amateurs onto your client base. It made much more sense from a Risk Mangement point of view, to keep your operational experts on the phones and processing and adjusting claims on the old system and train the noobies who weren't wedded to the old system and could then help transition the old experts to the new system.

So what happened is that I effectively blew past the operational experts on the older system and once that happened, the addition of my degree launched me far beyond what I would have been able to achieve had this event not taken place.

As a result, I effectively doubled my salary in only three years through four promotions. Not bad.

And what I learned from this was that I could never marry myself to a system or particular process of doing things because these things always change. Rather, I began focusing on learning the raw business analysis and leadership skills that would allow me to become a versatile commodity, valuable in almost any business venture.

Now I have left the health insurance industry (thank [Enter Chosen Metaphor Here]) but my hard work and careful study of business practices and skills proved invaluable in allowing be a mostly smooth transition into a field completely unrelated to health care for relatively same pay.

Take my advice, don't stake your success on becoming expert on any particular caveat of a system or as a guardian of a some stupid business practice or protocol because eventually you will become worthless as that practice, protocol, or system gets put to pasture.

Here's a simple truth about business: You can't manage people; you can only manage the processes that people work inside.

People must ultimately manage themselves and any manager who doesn't understand this has defeated their purpose before they even begin.

Managers must engage processes by studying, analyzing, and streamlining them so as to make it as easy as possible for people to manage themselves within these processes.

Anything else in business is egotistical tom foolery.

Check this out.

(CP) - A stay-at-home mother of three who created a website to alert the government about allegedly dangerous environmental problems in her southwestern Ontario neighbourhood is facing a $2 million libel suit by one of the developers she reported on.

Louisette Lanteigne of Waterloo, Ont., said she grew sick of what she saw during construction in her new subdivision and what appeared to be questionable building practices and labour-code violations.

Companies getting attacked in the blogosphere comes with the nature of an online world. If you offer shoddy customer service or threaten the safety of individuals then you should be called out and brought to task.

Of course, one must always consider the possibility of being sued for libel when publishing online but this must also be balanced with the ability to tell the truth in all aspects.

If you're a company that has someone bad mouthing you online, the worst thing you can do is sue them. This is because even if a court verdict comes out in your favor, the damage is done and will continue to grow progressively worse as the social network of the individual/site you are suing grows more agitated and begins to swarm around you online.

You will do far more damage to your brand than if you were to ignore the charges altogether.

The best way to handle a situation like this is to contact the blogger directly or leave a comment on their site inviting them to present the proof of their charges or print an immediate retraction--just like newspapers.

Of course, there are some bloggers out there who are just unscrupulous worthless bastages who seek to do damage to any kind of corporate entity they can draw virtual eyes and attention towards. Don't pay attention to these people because they will self-destruct and eradicate their own credibility eventually; it's as inevitable as objects falling to earth after a descent that doesn't break the graviational pull of the planet.

You need to be aware of what's going on in your name online and be prepared to get out in front of it and tackle it head on. This means you need a corporate blogger who researches your online brand every day and defends you against attacks while promoting the good things and gap fixes going on in your company.

If you're not thinking like this, you've already lost the next ten years of business and you don't even know it yet.

Donald Trump skewers big oil in his latest blog post.

I've gone back and forth on this issue. On the one hand, I really want to believe that the oil market is controlled by supply and demand and that the reason for the outrageous oil prices are because of increased world demand--and part of me does believe this.

But when you see oil companies reporting outrageous profits at a time when the consumer is getting the sharp end of the stick, you can't just chalk it up to the free market.

And the more I think about it, the more pissed off I get. And I don't want to see the big oil companies punished; I want to see their industry rug pulled out from under their feet totally.

I want to see some serious research being done into cold fusion and other progressive energy technologies that will wean our dependence on fossil fuels. I believe that anything man can imagine can be done with the right time, resources, and collective attention.

We must remove the corporate interest from this shifting of energy paradigm and replace it with a human civic interest--because corporations who control vast wealth and resources are not going to willingly give up their position as the wielder of the axe and the stealer of the purse until a bigger man with a bigger axe comes bearing down on them first.

Trump is right. Heads need to roll over this...

Check it out. This is a third party that offers this but eventually UPS and Fed-Ex will catch on and offer this as a standard service. RSS is so much more robust and efficient when it comes to pushing information out to people on a consistent basis that all corporations will have to embrace RSS as the technology for disseminating information.

Check these three modern marvels out:

• Pulsar Advanced Technologies announced last week that it will soon launch the Vulcanus MK4 water heater which uses microwaves to heat water on demand, drastically cutting heating costs to any family smart enough to install them once they've been approved for use by the general population.

  Powered by electricity and unaffected by the volatile gas markets, the Vulcanus MK4 can heat water from 35 degrees Fahrenheit to 140 degrees Fahrenheit in seconds and can source multiple applications at once: showers, dishwasher, sink usages and more. The Vulcanus MK4 is the size of a stereo speaker with a sleek modern look, making it ideal for condos and apartments, while powerful enough to serve the needs of any size family.

• The man who completed mapping the human genome is now starting a new company which, "plans to create new types of organisms that, ideally, would produce hydrogen, secrete nonpolluting heating oil or be able to break down greenhouse gases." This could be a major solution to the dependency on foreign oil and the Third World market demand which is driving up oil prices around the globe.

• In a move that would have made Malthus smile, China has approved the usage of the liquid female condom. This article doesn't reveal the name of the company who makes this product, but if any of you find out, let me know because if they're public--I'm buying stock in them right now!

Normally, I detest being around large groups of people. But I make two exceptions: Ohio State football games and shopping the day after Thanksgiving. It has been a tradition for my wife and I to get up at 04:00 the day after Thanksgiving and trek off to Best Buy, Kohls, and whatever other store holds our fancies for the day.

The first year we went was 1999 and Best Buy was absolute bedlam. People were grabbing shit away from one another, there was no order to the lines and people were elbowing, nudging, stomping toes and behaving like general lunatics.

But Best Buy has come a long way from then. Today, even two states away, the process was orderly and efficient. We got the Illinois Best Buy at about 10 minutes until 05:00 and there were, I'm not kidding you, no less than 500 people in line. By the time we got to the end of the line, it was moving inside.
And by Gawd, it was orderly.

Now, lots of people are down on Best Buy. My parents and my grandmother have had horrible customer service experiences there which have caused them to got to Circuit City instead. And while I've never had a negative customer service experience, I have had negative product experiences there. For example, I bought a Series 1 Tivo back in 2001 as a floor model and the hard drive was completely frozen. At first, Best Buy didn't want to take it back and replace it; but after a severe tongue lashing from my soon to be wife, they agreed to give us a brand new Tivo for the discounted floor model price. I considered that to be satisfactory and represents the outcome of every product issue I've had with Best Buy--it may have taken some teeth pulling, but it's always come out right in the end.

And forget shopping at Circuit City--it's like a marketplace in the Third World and you must resort to guerilla tactics to get a salesperson's attention, orderly lines are non-existent, and good luck even finding a register. At least, this was my last experience with Circuit City the day after Thanksgiving because I haven't been back since.

In the six years I've been frequenting Best Buy on the second busiest shopping day of the year, they have become a model of consumer efficiency and I have never not gotten something that was advertised and that I went to buy (and came out with a sheeite-load of impulse purchases).

This is the one day of the year where I almost have carte blanche on DVD purchases and sometimes I even throw in a CD for good measure. Today, my CD purchase was The Legend of Johnny Cash (affiliate link).

My DVD purchases were:

• 8 Mile for $3.99
  

• beautiful girls (one of my top 20 all time movies) for $6.99
  

• The Program (no link) for $6.99
  

• Meet the Parents for $5.99
  

• Meet the Fockers for $5.99
  

• Apollo 13 for $5.99

I also picked up a sweet Time magazine collection The Making of America which looks very promising. I picked up their World War II collection last year and it was fantastic; they really do a great job compiling these articles into handsome collectible books which are well worth the $10 price tag.

All in all, it was a successful Black Friday shopping spree. I hope your's was just as fruitful.

You can find it over there in the left sidebar. This should make it easier for you Google homepage and reader users to keep up with Boys Wear Pants while you're stuffing yourself with tryptophan over the holiday and while I'm getting carpal tunnel from my wireless XBox 360 controller.

Hat tip to Darren.

I was in Best Buy the other day and was walking past the music section. I was approached by a young burly black dude who offered the seminal Best Buy greeting, "Is there anything I can help you find today?"

Normally I just say, "No thanks, I'm just looking." But today, for some reason, the guy reminded me of an old rap album I had been looking to add to my collection for some time. I asked him if they had The D.O.C.'s album No One Can Do It Better (affiliate link). He said they had one copy of it left and that he was considering buying it himself just the day before. We stood for about two minutes, examining the track titles and reminiscing about how hard "Whirlwind Pyramid" was and how smooth the bassline was in "The Formula." And after he walked away, I went to put the disc back and something stayed my hand.

It would have been an insult to an enormously talented musician to put that disc back. So, I picked it up and haven't regretted it since.

The D.O.C. was a major literary player in the formation of Eazy-E and N.W.A. as rap megastars, writing a lot of their lyrics (although he admits he never wrote for Ice Cube). Eazy-E reached enormous success in 1988, followed shortly by N.W.A, which gave the rappers prominence in the rap world and allowed Eazy-E to executive produce with Dre handling the beats and production aspect of No One Can Do It Better. The album went multi-platinum and The D.O.C. was set to be the next big thing until he fell asleep one night at the wheel and suffered a terrible car crash which crushed his vocal box and effectively ended his recording career (he is the scratchy-voice on Dr. Dre's The Chronic).

He's had a couple more albums come out since this one, but I haven't had the heart to pick them up and listen to them. It would be too much like watching a champion boxer step into the ring at the age of 65.

But I was amazed at how well this album held up after sixteen years (my Gawd I'm getting old!). The beats are still there--the diction is flawless and the subject mattter still applies. As the D.O.C. says on the album, "You may think I speak of music but I speak of comin' up."

In a world before Tupac and Biggie Smalls, the name of the game was the lyrics you spouted and there were few greater than those of the diggy diggy doc. Consider these lines from the title track of this album:

Knowledge is the key, and hard work is the fee
For me to be The Great at the start and remain to be
A threat, til the opposition is warned
As long as a song, cause I was born
With instincts to kill, a grave mentality
Over the edge and you say you want to battle me?
At your own risk, approach and be hosted
And in the end you may win or be roasted
But seeing that it's part of a game, you think if you hang
Close to The One and you'll claim, but that's lame
And I'm "Damn, another loser"
Without an apology, so next time I'm a use a
Little more force to get the message across
It's the D.O.C. on the boss
Creating, demonstrate some realate to easy listening
But here's a christening of what you've been missing
An exhibition, a hip-hop introduction
Smooth lyrical gab and I do the conducting
Drop it on a rhytm, suckers face it
But new to the masses, it's like I'm starting classes
Better bet I understand the direction
That I'm going, in fact when I'm flowing
The news is a constant change from one minute to the next
I'm different cause I always show flex
And it's essential, that's why I got it together
To the letter and

No one can do it better.

I highly recommend you pick up this album.

TAGS: Rap Music, The D.O.C.

The UN is tried to take control of the Internet and they are going to continue sieging the fortress until they are destroyed or the walls crumble.

See, I don't know if you know it yet, but the Internet is the next Holy Land, much more so than any physical structure could ever be. This true for several reasons, among them:

• The Internet allows communication to billions of individuals instantly--a power previously reserved only for od.
  

• The Internet obliterates the obstacles of power which served as stalwarts of information flow to the frontline masses--this is a danger that many (especially in the UN and totalitarian regimes) desperately want to gain control of to shut off the valve.
  

• The Internet allows for multiple viewpoints, multiple belief systems, and multiple realities to exist side by side in a collective reality that is far more diverse and accepting than many short-sighted, small-minded, and weak spirited humans in power today are capable of fathoming; therefore they fear it as a major threat that must be mitigated or removed completely.

These are three reasons off the top of my head, but if you can think of anything else, please share in the comments section.

It is of the utmost importance that the virtual Holy Land be preserved as an open arena of communication for all human beings to congregate and utilize to further the cause of human freedom and understanding--and this means you too, McCain-Feingold.

Almost everything is restored. I ran a final antivirus scan before wiping the drive using Drive Washer 2005 by Stomp Soft (affiliate link), which I highly recommend because of its ease of use; there is even one choice of drive wiping that uses 35 passes and takes several days to complete (I used the Department of Defense method which took about three hours to complete.

Then I reinstalled Windows, all of my Office software and the the little nooks and crannies. I use a 250 GB external hard drive to store all of my data because it's huge and portable.

The only major setback I had was with Microsoft Money. They backup I made will not open up after reinstalling the program on my new OS and I'm pretty pissed about it. I have about five years of financial data in that file and it would really, really suck to lose all of that.

But anyway, Boys Wear Pants is back in black and on the attack, so never fear dear readers--the keyboard isn't cold any longer...

I've got a stinking computer virus! It's inevitable that this will happen to all PC users after a time. So, I appreciate your patience as you bear with my poor widdle laptop gets better.

I believe this will mean a complete back up of pertinent data, a complete wiping of the drive, and a reinstallation of Windows.

This should really be SOP after a year or so on every PC because Windows gets so bogged down with crap after a time that it's like crawling uphill just to get standard stuff done.

One of my favorite Joseph Campbell quotes is related to computers and he said this The Power of Myth to Bill Moyers just after he had purchased his first PC (probably an Apple IIe). He said, "Computer are like Old Testament gods--a lot of rules and no mercy!"

I'm shitting you not here, my friends--you can read it for yourself if you don't believe me.

Listen, I love 2Pac too. I have most of his albums and still feel that All Eyez on Me is one of the top five best rap albums ever made (see bottom of post for my top five).

But, c'mon. I believe Tupac and Biggie were murdered by an unscrupulous rap producer who had deep connections with corrupt police officers that executed a contract hit on both of them.

I believe that Tupac and Biggie were two of the most talented artists of my generation and I'm still pissed off that their genius was ground into the dust without a second thought.

But we could say the same thing about Jimi Hendrix, right? It sucks and it's shitty and it's unforgiveable on many levels. But I'm not seeing where this becomes a government matter that wastes the time of our collective legislative body.

Cynthia McKinney has to be the worst public servant in recent history. She has consistently followed special interest whims and radical conspiracy theory nonsense that wins her sensational press.

But after everything is said and done, the world already has the best that Tupac and Biggie Smalls had to offer us. They didn't bring peace or a sword--they brought bumping beats, filthy language, and left music that I can never play in front of my child without feeling embarassment and shame (but which stays on my iPod at all times, if you can dig what I'm saying).

Some things are better left alone and the voters in her district should have put Cynthia McKinney in that category.

I received this e-mail last week from a fellow high school alum and I finally found a nickle of time that I could spend on replying to it:

Haven't had a chance to read much of your site yet, but a couple things caught my eye and I have some thoughts for you to consider. There seemed to be a common theme of support for the Bush Tax cuts and support for Neal Boortz Fair Tax system.

I know you probably have way more to read now than you can keep up with, but if you are going to make commentary on federal budget items, you should make a better effort to educate yourself on the facts.

I highly recommend reading everything that comes out of the Congressional Budget Office

As well as another site that interprets that data (admittedly partisan) and puts clearer perspecitive on it.

Be sure to read the slide show, putting tax cuts into context.

The bottom line is this, I am all for returning money to people at the same weighted percentages as it is taken in, whenever there is actually money to give back. But having to borrow money year after year to put it in the pocket of your richest people is complete insanity. A good percentage of that borrowed money is from foreign governments. Now you tell me how the hell it makes sense to have to borrow money from China to fund a new tax cut that Bush wants for rich people.

As for the "Fair Tax" thing, that has so many holes and flawed assumptions in it, I can't even get into it here, but I encourage you to look for the opposing viewpoints and understand them. It's a ploy to take the current tax structure as it exists today and shift more burden away from the rich (as most Republican tax ideas are). A noble concept, except when you take into account the fact that there HAS to be a fixed amount of money coming into the system each year, if you are taking money out of what is being paid by the richest people, it has to be coming from somewhere else.

Of course with the fair tax idea, you have no where near any guarantee as to what your tax revenues will be for the year, it puts it all in the hands of the people instead of the law. What if we fall hundreds of billions of dollars short, I guess we are just supposed to borrow it? Hell, that's what we do today, so I guess everyone is already used to that no matter how wrong it is.

Anyway, read up for yourself and form your own opinion, but keep the perspective that having to borrow money to make up for policies in a tax system is WRONG. Deficits of this magnatude are BAD for the economy in the long term. The % of debt we have related to our GDP is rising every year, this is BAD. It's too bad that most of the US doesn't realize this, because it is a slow moving problem that is really going to bite us in the ass 10-20 years from now, and it's only getting worse every year because we continue these ridculously stupid tax cuts.

I don't think we have a disconnect here. I agree that the problem is totally with the spending on the part of Congress. Imagine if we held Congress to the ninth Amendment and didn't allow them to run buck wild with the public's check book.

But the present system of taxation is really nothing more than a system of wealth redistribution which started as a weapon of class warfare back in the early 1900s and has pretty much remained the same ever since then.

I believe that the Fair Tax proposal, despite all its theoretical flaws (we'll never know the execution flaws until it's executed), is the best model of taxation because it is dependent on the actual purchasing of goods and services (first time only, no used goods get taxed under this plan).

Those who think in terms of "rich" versus "poor" (when in reality many people considered rich now were poor once) should be more than pleased with a taxation system that not only leverages greater taxes against those who buy higher priced frivolous items (the wealthy), but also reimburses every family for the basic cost of the necesseties of life.

I don't think that traditional tax and spend Congress can ever reproach the Fair Tax proposal except by ignoring it. But I absolutely agree that the root cause of the problem in our country is the wild-haired congresspersons set loose in a free-for-all with the public debit card in their hands.

And I'm serious about this. If I were a wealthy man, I would order two subscriptions to The Library of the Presidents series from Easton Press and give one of them to Antimedia, one of the hardest working bloggers in the world.

I think he deserves it because even though he may seem conservative, the truth is that he is very egalitarian when he hammers out written justice online.

And because of that, I hope he takes my advice and treats himself to this fantastic gift. The Easton Press is, hands down, the most magnificent book publisher on the face of this wide earth. I received the entire Lord of the Rings collection for my birthday and I still get them down just to hold them. Their weight, the quality of the leather, hell the smell of them just make me fall in love with them over and over again and I wish I could spend every minute of my day reading them.

But the Library of the Presidents series actually contains the story (some of them autobiographies) of every President, in order. In fact, three of the books (those written by Carter, Ford and Bush '41) are all personally signed. Now, you may brush this off as not a big deal; but imagine for a moment leaving these books to your grandchildren in your will. Imagine a 45-year old man (because we'll live to be 140 in the future) receiving these beautiful leather hand-crafted books that was personally signed by a President of the United States (long dead by then).

What would you think having a personally signed copy of Teddy Roosevelt's biography? Exactly.

I would recommend everyone get at least one book from the Easton Press but I hope Antimedia takes my advice and signs up for this series. It's not cheap (each volume is over $50 and comes monthly) but in my opinion, there are few things more worthy of allocating your money towards than knowledge.

And when knowledge comes in a package beautiful enough to be called art, you have a talisman worthy of spiritual worship and I could think of no blogger besides myself who would enjoy this series than Antimedia. So, if I win the lottery before he signs up for it, he can expect them to be shipping to his house.

...right behind The University of Minnesota with 51,175 and two spots behind the new master, the University of Arizona at Tempe which clocks in at 51,612.

OSU currently has 50,504 students and you can read this article here.

Dennis Prager published a kick arse piece in the LA Times where he asks the global Muslim population five questions in the wake of the Paris Muslim riots. You can read the entire article here, but here are the five questions he asks:

1. Why are you so quiet?
   

2. Why are none of the Palestinian terrorists Christian?
   

3. Why is only one of the 47 Muslim-majority countries a free country?
   

4. Why are so many atrocities committed and threatened by Muslims in the name of Islam?
   

5. Why do countries governed by religious Muslims persecute other religions?

I would like to hear these questions read before the entire UN in a globally televised session and those bastards shouldn't be able to the leave the room for food or bathroom breaks until they get answered. After all, we are the ones financing this war and losing our soldiers along with Muslims striving for individual freedom. Shouldn't we know who we're fighting and why they must be ultimately defeated for the sake of the future of our species?

...and the retailer will be forced to slash the prices. Take a look at what is happening in the video game market. No one is buying games and uber-maker EA Games has decided to slash prices by $10 in the hopes of spurring sales.

I am predicting this will be a successful strategy because they are doing it one week prior to the release of the XBox 360, which will be a huge seller and will dominate the video game market throughout the holiday season and well into next year when Sony releases its own next-generation system.

It's also no mistake that EA games has several titles on the backward compatibility list for the 360, so slashing titles should open them up to a new market of XBOX users (like me).

But beyond video games, this is just a good lesson in consumerism because basic economics dictates that people want to pay for something at the lowest price possible and that manufacturers, retailers, and suppliers want to sell it at the highest price possible. Where the will of these two sides meets determines the fair market value and millions of these negotations happen each second to allocate scarce resources to their most efficient uses.

Well, when consumers pull back on what they are willing to pay, the other side must either pull away completely and scrap the service or product being bartered for, or they must come farther over toward the consumer's demand and the price is lowered.

Of course, the flip side to this is that these price lowerings are generally temporary because basic economics also dictates that low prices are generally followed by higher demand for the product or service which puts a strain on the scarce resources which go into its production and cause a rise in price to curb consumer demand (look no further than the recent gas price spike and the choices we each made in our personal financial situations to demonstrate this).



So, if you want video games for $5, shut up about them and wait around. Of course, once all the profit potential leaves the industry, this means we'll all be sitting around playing pong again--but we'll do it cheaply!

• Here is a .pdf of the new XBOX 360 Owner's Guide
  

• And here is a list of Best Buy allocation sheets for the XBOX 360 around the country

Hat tip to Digg for these two links.

TAGS: Video, EA, XBOX, Marketing, Economics

At first I was reticent, having been disappointed by celebrity blogs in the past. I was shocked to discover how many "celebrity" blogs are outsourced to PR firms. But here I can still hear the voice of the Donald in this blog. The blog posts are short and meant for a wide audience interested in business success so this may not apply to many of my readers. But the bottom line is that Donald Trump is a cultureal icon. He has been more successful and more of a failure (sometimes at the same time) than most of us will ever be; he's pushed the envelope both ways.

And, he has the balls to publicly take on the New York Times (which my man Antimedia should love). So, check out his blog and give it a chance, see what you think. And if you decide to blogroll the Donald, tell him the J-Man sent ya.

One of my favorite comrades from my undergrad writing school days has finally broken a several-month hiaitus and posted an entry about the (way) under-privileged 16 year olds that he's been teaching in Cleveland, Ohio.

Check out his post and leave him comments if you can because I want him to realize that blogging is just about the best way to keep oneself writing and we would be losing a valuable commodity if my Vietnamese friend halted his literary explosions and rants.

Long live the Tran!

I have been saying for awhile that this was a game to watch and that was all based off of one screen shot and after reading this MSNBC article, I know it is.

What's fascinating, though, is how intensely Peter Jackson has been involved in the actual making of the game and the crafting of the gameplay storyline.

This really shouldn't surprise anyone who has played the EA Games video games for the Lord of the Rings movies (the last two). Jackson encouraged his actors to become directly involved in the games' creation and the product was far superior than what they could have churned out and sold under the brand.

I am interested to see how the "cinema" aspect of the game will play out because there will be no on-screen icons to reference. The makers said they want the look and feel to be like you were actually playing someone in a movie.

Plus, I really liked the concept of doing a sideline story (ala Enter the Matrix) and the fact that one of the possible characters to play is Kong himself just sets the tone for a perfect game playing experience in my mind.

At any length, this is definitely a game to play on the XBOX 360 and I'll give you another review once I get my hands on it this Christmas (it turns out this will be a launch day game).

TAGS: Peter, King, XBOX

If you're already a subscriber to the Boys Wear Pants Newsletter (formerly the Joshua Minton Newsletter), you will be getting an early Christmas present in your e-mail inbox in a couple weeks. I am giving away free electronic copies of the 2nd Edition of Flipping the Temple: Win the Information War Using the Internet to Achieve Fantastic Success as an Artist (ignore the pricing; newsletter subcribers are getting it for free).

But this gift isn't just for existing subscribers.

If you want to get the book for free, send a blank e-mail to moreminton@aweber.com and make sure to click the link that will come to your inbox immediately (this verifies that the address is valid and that you are giving me permission to contact you.

My goal is a 100% increase in newsletter subscriptions in the next 6 months. And if you're worried about me selling your name and e-mail address to anyone, don't. I protect your info like my balls and no one is going to get their hands on it, rest assured. What you will get is The Boys Wear Pants newsletter in your inbox every two weeks.

The newsletter includes a short essay from me, a recap of my "greatest hits" from the blog for the past two weeks, a recommendation of a product, service, or activity (products generally have an affiliate link associated with them but I don't recommend anything I haven't personally used, read, or played) and links to the most recent podcasts, etc.

So, sign up today by sending that blank e-mail to moreminton@aweber.com or just put your e-mail address into the sidebar section on this blog, click the link that comes to your inbox right away, and you'll get two of my fiction books (...And the Third Floor Magistrates Took the Rape and Black Crash Bitchbox) and a book of my published poems (Breaking Tradish: Poems by Joshua Minton).

And in a couple weeks, once the revision is completed, you will get the updated copy electronically with the understanding that any questions or comments you have will be directed back to me so that I can further improve the book and get it ready for a mass audience.

Consider this a partnership. You are giving me permission to send my thoughts and recommendations to you every two weeks and I'm going to give you one of the most comprehensive books written yet on how to establish yourself online and thrive.

As always, thank you for your continued support and I look forward to collaborating with you on the next edition of Flipping the Temple.

According to this Capitol Hill Blue article:

the Bush Administration has compiled dossiers on more than 10,000 Americans it considers political enemies and uses those files to wage war on those who disagree with its policies.

The “enemies list” dates back to Bush’s days as governor of Texas and can be accessed by senior administration officials in an instant for use in campaigns to discredit those who speak out against administration policies or acts of the President.

The computerized files include intimate personal details on members of Congress; high-ranking local, state and federal officials; prominent media figures and ordinary citizens who may, at one time or another, have spoken out against the President or Administration.

The article goes on to connect Scooter Libby to the whole Joe Wilson affair through the use of this list.

Would it really surprise anyone if the administration kept a list like this? We know Nixon did it.

If you look at corporate America, there are things going onn there which are just as shady. If you've seen the movie The Corporation (affiliate link), you've seen the interview with the "secrets stealer." This guy sets up fake offices and fake headhunter businesess, puts phony ads in the paper and cold calls high level executives with big fake offers. Once he gets the guys into his fake office, he starts pumping them for proprietary information about their company and then reports the whole thing to their major compeititor.

Yes, people--the shit has gotten this bad out there.

Companies are forever trying to steal people away from competitors, vendors, subsidiaries, and sometimes even from within their own ranks.

Back in 2000, I remember thinking and even saying, how good it was that our President was a CEO type and would run the country like a business--cracking skulls and getting to the bottom line.

Unfortunately, the bottom line for a country is its ability to tax its citizens, spend their money, and make war on other countries--that is the business of democracy today (or at least what's called democracy).

Now, before you paint me a liberal naysayer, please know that I truly believe that the state of political and economic affairs in the world do not have to remain this way. It is the responsibility of each of us to sow democracy, freedom, and goodwill in the relationships we build and maintain with those around us each day.

Trust me, all it takes is ten connected people with access to the necessary resources to start a wave of revolutionary change in the hearts and minds of millions that will spread like a West Texas wildfire.

It begins with you and I and no "Enemies List," however long and intricately footnoted would ever be able to stop a Great Awakening of the magnitude of which I am speaking.

TAGS: Politics, President, Enemies, Scooter, Joe, Richard

He has finally chosen to make an honest woman of his long-time girlfriend, Fanstatic Bastardette. As you can see below, he spent a considerable amount of money on a beautiful engagement ring that has caused him to switch from Guiness to Schlitz for several months now.

So, many yips of joy at their choice to dedicate their lives to each other and I hope their first child will be a masculine child...


PS: In the picture, Fantastic Bastard is the one with the hairy arm...

0 Hour: A Time to Live, A time to Die…

There was a meeting request in my inbox when I came in, sent by my manager the previous evening, for a meeting with her and her supervisor. It has been my past experience that whenever someone is being fired, a supervisor is always present. The meeting was set for the following day at 07:30 which is considered before normal operating hours. This lent further credence to the notion that I was being fired (the reasoning being that they wanted the unpleasantness over with before the other team members came in for work).

So, assuming that I was being let go, I began packing up my personal items, books, pictures, personal office supplies, etc. The manager walked by my desk and noted that I had packed up all of my things; they immediately went back to their desk and sent a rescheduled meeting request for 09:00 that day (about fifteen minutes from the time she noted I had packed up my things). I read the meeting request wrong, thinking that it had been rescheduled later the next day, and so I was taken aback when the manager approached my desk and asked if I was ready for the meeting.

I collected a pen, a writing tablet, and my water and followed Judy into the meeting room where her supervisor was already seated at the conference table. As the manager began speaking I noted that they were shaking and obviously emotional in the same visual sense they were when they approached my desk about the personal laptop issue.

They said, “At this time, effective immediately, you are being let go because you were surfing the Internet during work time, looking at Monster.com.”

They slid a slip of paper down the table with a phone number written in pencil. She said, “I’m sure you have a lot of questions and you can call HR at this number to get answers.”

I took the slip of paper and said, “I just want to say that you are the worst manager that I have ever worked for and you are a terrible human being.” I still stand by both of these assertions. I also informed them that I had filed a formal complaint and that they would have to answer for the egregious act of taking a verbal warning which had already been given and blowing it up into a firing offense as a retaliation against someone filing a formal complaint.

I was told that my personal belongings would be couriered to my home later that day (because the manager and her minion wanted to go through everything and inventory it to make sure I wasn’t stealing anything from the company).

I was then escorted to the elevator by the supervisor and my last words to the worst manager in the world were, “The best thing about this is that I never have to see your face again.” I do regret this last barb as it was pure emotion that was speaking but by this point I had been driven past my professional breaking point.

The building superintendent met us at the first floor elevators and I was escorted to the front doors. I shook his hand, thanked him, and he wished me luck.

Later that day, my personal belongings were delivered to my home intact with a hand-written inventory list signed by the manager and the supervisor.

I contacted HR the next day to ensure that a case file was created and would be escalated accordingly given the fact that I was fired in retaliation for going through the formal complaint process the company ensured would allow no retaliation.

I have currently spoken with HR twice and have a meeting set up with them and the Vice President of the organization under which I was employed with the company (this person is two levels above the manager who fired me for surfing the Internet after they had already given me a verbal warning).

Here is what I’m asking for:

• That this manager be given sensitivity training to help them deal with different personalities in a professional environment (this is an easy and politically correct way to punish management in today’s corporate world because it’s a tedious and pretty much worthless waste of time on their part)
  

• 7 weeks of pay to compensate for the three weeks I took to get my background check and an orientation schedule finalized for my introduction to the company and the four weeks it took for me to begin gainful employment once again.

Now, I’ll never know if they company put the manager through this training because that is really a confidential personnel issue between the company and the manager. Frankly, I don’t give a log what they do with them because it’s their liability—they have a ticking time bomb working for them who will continue to drive away good people with a curmudgeonous attitude.

And I’m not counting on the money either, although that would be the right thing for the company to do, considering they’ve wasted two months of my time hiring me for a position I could have done blindfolded and then subjecting me to the worst leadership experience I’ve ever seen.

But we’ll see…

TO BE CONTINUED TOMORROW...

TAGS: career education, career change, career, healthcare, health insurance

Day Minus 1: Keep Your Friends Close....

The company sent me a welcome package before I started working there which contained a DVD that explained the different benefits plans the company offered. Then, during my first day I was supposed to participate in an HR conference call that no one in HR bothered to show up for. So, a week later I was rescheduled to go through this overview yet again. Now, I had already opted not to participate in the company’s health plan, so very little on the call applied to my situation.

The call was scheduled to last three hours and took place during the time that I normally took my break. So, while on the conference call, I elected to work through my break and was surfing Monster.com when my manager walked up to my cube to hand me something I had tried to print hours earlier when the printer was out of order and had since been fixed. They saw that I was surfing the web and demanded that I show them my Internet screens. I tried to play it off but once I realized that I wasn’t going to get out of it without showing her the screen, I relented.

Before I could even explain that I was working through a break, the manager started in on a loud lecture which everyone around me could hear. They went on about how employees aren’t supposed to be surfing the web while working, etc. By that point, I was done with this person and instead of explaining the situation (which wouldn’t have done any good), I straight up told them that I was feeling harassed by their behavior and that I was going to file a formal complaint.

The manager looked at me in utter disbelief and stormed off without saying a word. I knew it was put up or shut up time after that and since I had verbalized a course of action, it was something I had to follow through on.

I hung up from the conference call and took a real break, leaving the building to walk outside and call my wife. She was very upset to hear about what had happened and thought that I had acted too rashly in announcing to the manager my intentions to file a complaint. She was right but hindsight is always 20/20 and I had stated that as a reaction to an emotionally distressing moment (although I had pretty much decided on filing this complaint after the meeting the previous Friday).

I spent the rest of the day documenting everything that had happened into the formal complaint process as outlined on the HR website. I copied and pasted full text of the e-mails along with descriptions of the major events which outlined an escalation of harassment by this manager towards a new hire employee who dared to have a voice and use it.

Ten minutes before I left that day, I heard the manager pick up their phone and have a conversation that basically consisted of them thanking the other person for getting back to them so soon, saying that yes it was an unfortunate and tense situation but that sometimes these things had to be done.

I knew this was not a good thing.

On my way out, I tested the waters by saying goodbye to them in the nicest kiss ass voice I could muster without puking into their cubicle and the response was frosty disbelief that I would have the gall to dare speak to them at all.

Something told me that this would be the last 17:00 I would ever see at this company. I was right.

TO BE CONTINUED TOMORROW...

TAGS: career education, career change, career, healthcare, health insurance

Hammer is a great journalist (and writes some smashing poetry as well). He's also an underground indpedendent music expert and in this interview for Broken Dollz, he interviews the porn star Devvin Lane who turns out to a pretty normal gal that has made an, ahem, interesting career choice.

You can read the interview here and there could be a few boobies that pop up on the page so that if that kind of thing offends you, you've been warned.

It's great to see Hammer getting more online press--he's a fantastic writer and I look forward to many more successes coming from where's he from.

TAGS: Mike, Devvin

..which means it's time to reflect and set some new goals.

Ever since Google reformatted their search engine rankings, this blog has skyrocketed in traffic. All that reading up on search engine optimization and how blog post titles should be content-based and each post should include several content key words that search engines can pick up, and all that Technorati tagging and pinging has truly paid off.

This week saw three major milestones get hit for this blog:

1. This blog finally surpassed my old blogspot platform in web traffic. Consider that I posted 1,051 posts on the blogger site before coming over to the Powerblogs platform (thank God I did!) and these pages have still been receiving traffic in the three months that I have had to basically start over from scratch after purchasing the Boys Wear Pants Dot Com domain name and transferring all my older posts here and working on Search Engine Optimization, and bringing what was formerly the Joshua Minton brand under the blanket of the Boys Wear Pants brand which is wholly owned by my company Family Bliss Enterprises, Inc. This has been a lot of work, considering that I still have been posting (what I believe is) quality content that will keep people's attention, teach them things, and keep them coming back.
   

2. This week, I passed the 10,000 visitor mark. This is significant because I am not linked by a whole lot of sites (although the ones I am linked to are quality sites and I'd like to thank them for their support once again). Unfortunately, web sites are still ranked heavily by which sites link to who and if you look at some of these so-called big bloggers, you'll see thousands of links in their blogrolls which just proves to me that they are link whores and couldn't possibly be reading all those blogs. To me, the whole purpose of a blogroll is to introduce others to your social network online and not to whore yourself out to become the Prom Queen or King in some kind of online popularity contest. Your content should speak for itself and if you are the one doing more of the speaking about you, then you're a putz and the search enging results should mirror that. So, 10,000 hits in three months without a great deal of networked support online is something I'm very proud of and which I hope turns into more networked support by legitimate sites who actually read what I write.
   

3. Yesterday, I passed the 1,000 hits in one day mark. We've been receiving a sheeite load of traffic from a simple post about the movie/book Jar Head that was posted by Fantastic Bastard a couple weeks ago. But exposure is exposure and we will absolutely take what we can get.

So, in my mind, this blog has graduated to a new level whih requires new demands. One of my major goals is to more clearly define this blog's niche which is wide compared to that of other blogs. This blog has three main niches that I will be focusing on in the future:

• General social analysis as measured by the core values of this blog which are for individual liberty in all avenues of life provided that one is not infringing upon the life or property of another citizen.
  

• Professional development that will allow any reader to better understand the business world so they can position themselves to achieve greater and greater goals.
  

• Light-hearted criticism and discussion of popular culture stuff like movies, video games, books, etc. where people don't feel totally stupid when they get done reading it but who are also enlightened beyond what they were before they read it.

One of my personal blogging goals as a writer is to start posting content that begins more discussions as opposed to the dictatorial tone that I have been writing in for over ten years now. This tone has served me well in the past but it doesn't make for very good conversation because it cuts a lot of the audience out of making a contribution (in fact, Fantastic Bastard has been one of the only people who have taken me to task successfully on a consistent basis and I am proud and humbled by his continuing participation on this blog).

The fact of the matter is that I don't know everything despite the fact that my writing tone may convey that I do. I do consider myself a below-the-surface thinker but there are people far more observant than I am and I want to attract just that type of reader and commentor here, so I look forward to molding my blogging style to accomodate and build exactly this type of audience.

I'm sure there will be more goals as time progresses and I will be sure to share them with this audience as they arise.

Thank you so much for readership and support these past three months. Here's to many years of successful collaboration.

Day Minus 2: In the Lion’s Den

I arrived at work 30 minutes early and had my laptop out working on personal documents until my start time of 08:00. I did this per the conversation I had with the manager the previous day about working on non-work related documents on my own time. I was no longer using the laptop when work began, but it was still sitting on my desktop, next to my PC (because that’s where the surge protector is). The screen saver was on when my manager walked in and we exchanged greeting pleasantries.

About a half-hour later, they approached my desk and demanded that I put the computer away because it was a security concern. They were extremely rude, given the understanding we had reached the previous day and I immediately sent them a request to have a private meeting to clear the air (as advised to do on the company’s HR website).

They responded by immediately setting up a half-hour block of time for that morning. Here is my recollection of the conversation:

• We were cordial on our way into the room
  

• I began the discussion by expressing my purpose in calling the meeting, which was to convince them that they had not made a mistake in electing to hire me
  

• I then reaffirmed that our last few exchanges had been negative and left me feeling deflated and they agreed
  

• I asked them what their thoughts were regarding this situation and they said:
  • That they resented feeling they were being made to defend corporate policy at every turn with me
    

  • That they were completely offended by my attitude and actions over the past few days
    

  • That they felt like I was ‘very demanding and aggressive”
    

  • That I thought I was being hired in as something far more than I was (“not that what you are doing is unimportant”)
    

  • That my suggestions from the previous day (MS Project and Knowledge Management) were no good because they would require the purchase of new software/licensing and training
    

  • That the rest of the team would resent me because of my headstrong approach
    

  • That I was trying to come in and change processes before I even learned what they were
    

  • That “You think you’re better than everyone else” (please note that my major interactions even to this point have been only with this manager and the trainer)
  
  

• I asked them if they trusted me and they said, “Not as much as I did on Monday”
  

• I expressed that I felt there was no trust between us
  

• I told them I felt like I was being nickled and dimed at every turn (I gave the example of the gym pass to which they they said they didn’t know this particular individual used the gym)
  

• They told me the situation was far more serious than just personal conflict and that they had reported my use of a personal PC to the Security and Compliance area and that they were waiting on a call back. They told me they reported this because they were concerned that protected health information (PHI) could have been compromised (basically calling me an information thief)
  

• I expressed my shock and outrage that they would have done this given what they knew of the situation and without having a follow-up conversation with me about it prior
  

• This was only my fifth day of work and I hadn’t even been trained on a system that would allow me access to PHI. This manager was well aware of this, having approved the training schedule, and it was at this point that I was sure I was being unfairly targeted
  

• I asked her what her definition of a leader is:
  • They believed a leader was someone who came into a new situation and learned what the processes were before they made waves and tried to change everything; and someone who was a team player, etc.

• I shared my vision of a leader:
  • A leader is someone who sets the goals and vision for the organization; assesses people individually to determine what their passions, skills, talents and strengths are, and then unite those individuals with the overall goals of the organization, unleashing human potential. A leader always thinks in terms of Win-Win and, once having assessed the individuals they are leading, they provide resources and inspiration to those people and get out of their way so they can thrive in their tasks

I told them that I considered my prior boss to be a leader in this fashion and if I would have expressed a request in the same manner to him for access to a software program that the company offered, I would have had it the next day without all the red tape and excuses

I told them that I had no idea where we were going to go from this point because there was no trust between us and this would be near impossible to build any kind of successful working relationship upon

I said that I would be willing “to put up with anything” for nine months until I could transfer out of the department. They said, “Putting up with something isn’t any way to work.”

They iterated that I was an “At-Will” employee and that I was free to leave at any time and I confirmed that this was something I would need to discuss with my wife

We both agreed that the ball was in my court at this point and the conclusion was that that I was free to quit at any time. This was not a successful resolution in my mind and I began to ponder filing a formal complaint through the process outlined on the company’s HR website

After the meeting, the manager sent me an e-mail telling me not to bring my personal laptop onto company premises at any time. There was no mention of what the third module said about documents on your personal PC being property of the company.

I didn’t feel that I failed to comply with corporate Integrity and Compliance policies and I resent the implication. In my last position, I was a direct report to an Executive Director and a Regional Vice President and was privy to a great deal of highly privileged and confidential information and I protected the integrity of the company and my bosses at every angle.

This manager used this policy to unfairly target me for termination and that this is completely unacceptable behavior from anyone who is supposed to be leading people toward a common goal.

Fifteen minutes before the end of the work day, the manager sent out a broadcast e-mail to all of their staff, asking anyone who hadn’t yet filled out a gym form to please see them and do so. I felt this was an obvious attempt to cover her self should she need to justify harassing me with these nickel and dime formalities that no one else had to undergo despite being “company policy.”

So this day ended with me being free to leave the company whenever I chose to with the understanding that there would be no compromise on their part whatsoever and that there wasn’t any trust that could possibly be established between us. The theme of the day was basically; “Josh, you aren’t welcome here any more. How much of this can you stand?”

TO BE CONTINUED TOMORROW...

TAGS: career education, career change, career, healthcare, health insurance

This episode is Josh's second conversation with Jason Patterson and beings with a discussion on why you must have good friends looking out for you.

There is also a short translation into song of a brilliant short essay in Seth Godin's latest work The Big Moo titled They Say I'm Extreme.

Compare this news story:

The House voted 225-182 for a bill that would have excluded blogs, e-mails and other Internet communications from regulation by the Federal Election Commission (search). That was 47 votes short of the two-thirds majority needed under a procedure that limited debate time and allowed no amendments.

The vote in effect clears the way for the FEC to move ahead with court-mandated rule-making to govern political speech and campaign spending on the Internet.

To this one:

Chinese authorities have blocked a pro-democracy Web log after it was nominated for a freedom of expression award by a German radio station, a press freedom group said Thursday.

The freedom of expression must be protected, provided that it doesn't infringe upon the rights or property of other citizens. There is no such thing as protecting the integrity of the political process because there is no integrity left in our political process.

The waste of resources to adminstrate and regulate free expression online would be staggering and dwarf those needed in vital areas of domestic welfare (like the War on Terror, building up our civil defense measures, and establishing a healthcare system that actually works to provide access to quality care to the most people possible).

This is a large step down a very dark road for our country...

This is an interesting event but unfortunately it's not much more than a conciliatory gesture because marijuana possession is usually enforced according to state-mandates which are controlled by the Congress of each state.

Another unfortunate fact is that Federal enforcement has become the trumping factor in the possession of marijuana when, in reality, according to the Ninth Amendment, this is one of those responsibilities which should fall back to the states or the people, respectively.

The legalization, standardization, and taxation (cha-ching) of marijuana wills solve untold numbers of adminstrative nightmares that been forced upon local enforcement officers as well as decrease the numbers of alcohol-related fatalities and violent incidents, not to mention pay for the civil defense of our nation and give us the funds to wrap up the Iraqi Phase of the War on Terror and move on to the next one.

It's going to take dozens of cities in dozens of states to change the lies and propaganda that have been systematically instituted upon a fearful public about the cultivation, personal and social effects of responsible marijuana use.

I have to say that I'm very impressed by what I've seen at Google print, which went online today.

This will be a vital resource to anyone performing research in any area in the future because you can read the text of thousands of public domain works from the past as well as check out the cover, back cover, index, and table of contents of thousands of copyrighted books (which you can still do on Amazon.com but it's convenient that it's in the same location ast he public domain works.

I can't wait to sink my teeth into this site...

TAGS: Google Print

Day Minus 4: Little Monsters

When I came in at 07:30, I found an e-mail from my manager that was sent the previous night after I left (remember I left a half-hour early because I came in a half-hour early. They wanted to know “what my intentions were” because I had left early after being told that I couldn’t have a flexible training schedule. I was taken aback by the confrontation because we had never discussed a 5:00 end time or an inflexible training schedule prior to my start date. They also said that this job could require fifty hours of work a week and that they were afraid I was under the assumption that this was a nine to fiver.

So, I responded with this e-mail that was very courteous, thanking them for the opportunity to explain myself further about the situation. I explained that I had recently spent two years reporting to an Executive Director who went on to become a Vice President and that I was basically told early on not to mince words or try to spare their feelings. In essence, I learned that when communicating up the chain of command in an organization, it is usually more effective to be blunt (while still being professional).

I explained all about how I had to drive 45 minutes to work and that by leaving early, I could drop my son off at day care and get to work in minimal traffic, etc. and that arriving and leaving a half-hour early would make working their much easier on me and wouldn’t be depriving the company of any of my services.

I explained that I would be more than willing to put in extra hours when the business need dictates but that I didn’t see the justification for three hours of busy work which wasted company time as well as my own. I also told them that understood that the job would demand more than 40 hours at times; but that I also remembered saying in my initial interview that if 50 hours became the norm we’d need to sit down and have a conversation about that.

I told them I was baffled by their arbitrary decision to negate a flexible training schedule when a flexible schedule was one of the job perks stated in my initial panel interview. I told them that, while a flexible training schedule was important to me, it wasn’t a deal breaker. I closed the e-mail by complementing the outstanding team they had put together.

I felt that I was still very courteous and trying to reach out and achieve a common understanding. But the manager didn’t respond to this e-mail directly and was short and huffy with me the rest of the day.

As for the second battle campaign, I brought my laptop in to convert that Word document workflow into a Visio document that would be much easier for me to understand. I set my personal laptop up right next to my work computer because I wanted to be able to monitor work e-mails while I converted the workflow.

About halfway through the day, my manager approached me and was visibly shaking and angered. They told me that it was unacceptable to have a personal PC on during working hours and that nothing work-related could be put on a personal PC. Now, this directly contradicted what was stated in the Intellectual Property module of Ethics and Compliance online training. They told me to destroy the document and put the laptop away, and that I was only to use it on my private time for non-work related tasks.

I destroyed the document and put the laptop away and my manager sent me a snide e-mail that documented the discussion we had just had. I followed up with my own e-mail restating my purposes for using my personal laptop with a work-related document.

The manager came back with some BS response about how the other staff couldn’t utilize a Visio document because of the software incompatibility between Visio 2003 and Visio 2002, but this statement was actually false because the standard PC setup for that organization came with a Visio reader that allowed any Visio document to be read in Windows Internet Explorer. The discrepancy they were referring to was actually a file incompatibility between two separate editions of Visio and the truth of the matter was that that the entire team (and anyone else in the organization) would have been able to open and read this document.

Either way, the issue was a moot point because I clearly explained that my primary purpose in converting the document was for my personal use in training and trying to understand the new process by which I would be assessed in terms of my effectiveness with the company.

There was a staff meeting that day and the manager handed out a set of blank calendar pages that they expressed were to be used to compartmentalize our projects into stages and steps that would allow each of us, as auditors, to begin thinking in terms of projects and be able to plan out our work at least a month in advance.

Another item that was brought up during the meeting was the space issue the team was having with large files on their server, the fact that there were several duplicate files, and that there was no common file naming convention that everyone was following. The meeting concluded with the manager stating that she would welcome any and all ideas on how to better solve these problems.

So, after the meeting, I sent the manager an e-mail with some great ideas:

• Regarding the Project Calendars: That they might want to consider licenses and training on MS Project for the auditors. This is an outstanding tool for being able to break even the smallest project into components with key stakeholders, barriers, time utilization and forecasting as well as a calendar function that could produce very detailed reports along the lines of what you’re looking for. It’s also be useful in going back to identify where the stop gaps are in the audits being performed across the board so that you can develop metrics and process changes to manage around those gaps. I offered to show them one of my own personal project plans and demonstrate the effectiveness of the tool.
  

• Regarding the Network Drives and Communication Issues: One of my primary tasks in my last position was to set up Knowledge Management (KM) systems for use by high level project and leadership teams on a constant basis. The KM tool I had the most experience with was the Quickplace database and so I included a link to their website.
  • Knowledge Management systems are Intranet-based and appear very much like web pages. They are secure in that only specified members may join. In our team’s case, there would be about fifteen members. The database has an overall security but also allows for the creation of “rooms” which can have their own security to which only certain members can be added (e.g. you, Judi, and Jeanne could have your own Leadership room for the storage of sensitive documents, conversations, etc.).
    

  • You can store pertinent job aids, announcements, team meeting agendas, PowerPoint’s, excel docs, etc. and you can even compose forms for monthly reporting (or Audit Summaries). The tool integrates with Lotus Notes as far as scheduling meetings, announcing updates, and sending messages. It also integrates with Lotus Sametime instant messaging for a complete virtual team communications model that could truly solve every one of the shared drive issues you’re having, leaving that space for raw files and bulk data.
  
  

• The proper implementation and use of this tool could make any unit a trendsetter in any organization and any leader bold enough to embrace it would be looked upon with respect (or envy depending on who we’re talking about) as leading a communication revolution that unleashed the communication and information storage and retrieval processes in your area.

The manager approached me later that afternoon about filling out a waiver form for use of the gym, which I signed. Later, I asked one of my peers, who I know uses the gym, if he had been asked to sign a form for gym use and he said that he hadn’t. I felt like I was being targeted at this point.

When she spoke to me about the gym sheet, the manager’s tone and body language communicated a dislike towards me because I was working out during my lunch time. My feelings was she was acting this way because working out somehow made her feel I thought that I was better than everybody else and she verbally confirmed this suspicion in a meeting I called with her the following day.

They had no idea that they would be walking into a lion’s cage.

TO BE CONTINUED TOMORROW...

TAGS: career education, career change, career, healthcare, health insurance

Day Minus 5: Pop Goes the Evil

This is the day that everything started going downhill.

The training schedule for this place was ridiculous. My trainer was in another state and another time zone. Everything was done telephonically using a screen sharing program. Now, this format actually worked better than I initially thought it would because it allowed the company to create virtual training rooms for every new associate in the organization. I respected this flexibility and efficiency. But the problem was that the training actually only lasted about four hours of each day. The rest of the time was spent with busy work and some of that nothing to do time which I always fill with self-directed learning of some kind.

The previous afternoon I was struck with a sudden bout of homesickness and missing my wife and son. I dreaded the thought of staying in that office so long doing work that was menial at best and would only pad the pocket of the company (instead of improving the quality and access to care like health insurance administration should be focused on). So, I decided to drop in on my son’s singing class that night and surprise he and my wife (you can read about that in this post).

So, wanting to balance my desire to be with my family with the desire to stop spending what I considered to be “wasted busy work time;” when I came in on the third day, I sent an e-mail to my manager, requesting a flexible training schedule.

According to the documented schedule, the day started out with two hours of this self-directed “busy work” and ended with an hour of the same. I didn’t think that would be such a big deal to request reasonable alternate scheduling arrangements, but apparently even asking was a major breach of protocol in this manager’s mind because that became the spark that turned into a situation that turned into outright harassment.

I asked to be able to come in a half-hour early and leave a half-hour early. My training over the phone wouldn’t have been affected and I was still performing the same amount of busy work, just starting it a half-hour early.

Apparently, this was some breach of major protocol with this person because their response was basically “No.” They offered no justification for their decision and wanted it to stand at that. So began the pissing contest and she had no idea that I had been groomed to engage in just such a war in a professional environment. This is a campaign where smiles become weapons and platitudes become maneuvering tactics to gain ground and drive your enemy into retreat.

This is the reality of life at the top of corporate America and if you ever want to be sitting in the big seat, you must master this type of politic and that means your favorite gangster movie must transition from Scarface to the entire Godfather Trilogy--you’ll never make it if you can’t survive this transformation from direct confrontation to getting enemies to defeat themselves by making tactical mistakes that result in professional suicide.

Believe me, I didn’t intend for my relationship to sour with this manager and, in hindsight, my biggest mistake was that I didn’t take a second to speak to her face to face about this, instead opting to sending an e-mail request.

You have to be careful about e-mails and instant messaging in a professional environment because it’s very difficult to convey emotion especially when emotions become involved. In this particular situation, this manager wasn’t used to being approached in such a brash and straightforward manner and they reacted defensively and tried to secure their position through dictatorial decisions that came off as arbitrary and trite.

…and this is exactly the wrong move for any person in power to make when dealing with a subordinate in today’s politically correct corporate environment.

Now, as for my request to arrange a flexible training schedule, I felt that I was very courteous and reasonable in my requests. I felt that I explained myself very well and addressed the company’s needs as well as my own. I felt that this was a Win-Win proposal and that this manager would have no reason to deny it, provided there was some major reason I was unaware of. I felt that their negative response, while semi-courteous, was unreasonable and had more to do with my “audacity” of asking for a negotiated schedule on my third day than it did with meeting the company’s needs or violating company policy in any way.

Since I came into work a half-hour early with the assumption that this wouldn’t be a big deal, I left a half-hour early with having worked eight hours and ten minutes plus an hour lunch.

In an unrelated event to scheduling, I tried to engage this manager in a conversation about getting the program Microsoft Visio pushed to my PC. For those of you who’ve never used Visio, it’s a mapping and diagramming tool which allows you to create flowcharts, relationship maps, cross-functional maps, engineering diagrams, and a bunch of other tasks. I know this program very welll and have used it countless times to compose key workflows for my past employers. After a while of using these tools, you begin to think in terms of them and it becomes difficult to use lesser methods to learn new processes.

That day in training, I was given a flowchart that was composed in MS Word and was bullet-pointed and numbered. There is no greater insult to a new employee than handing them a cheap word document and saying, “Here’s what you’re going to be asked to do. Good luck with that!”

So, I wanted to use Visio to convert the crappy Word document of the process flow into a visual flowchart that would be easier to interpret and analyze for my own benefit in learning the task.

My manager’s response to this request was, “perhaps once you’re established.” This response did nothing to help me out in learning this process, so after watching the company’s online Ethics and Compliance training titled “Intellectual Property,” and reading the part about the company owning any company-related document that is stored on a personal computer--I interpreted that to mean that it would be acceptable to create a work-related document on my personal PC (I own the complete Office suite) as long as one understands that the company owns that document.

The next day I brought my laptop into work and so began the next great campaign in my war for corporate independence in which I would lose the battles but ultimately retain the high ground.

TO BE CONTINUED TOMORROW...

TAGS: career education, career change, career, healthcare, health insurance

What if overnight the world starting speaking a totally different language and moving at a much faster pace than you?

Well, that is essentially what has happened to artists all over the world. Most are still thinking in terms of gallery showings and call backs from publishers through agents.

But the reality is that the artistic audience is speaking a whole new language and is moving at a much more rapid pace. This is both a blessing and a curse.

It is a curse because this means that artists have to learn to speak this language and move at this much more rapid pace.

It is a blessing because learning this language and moving at this faster pace means that artists will become the gallery owners and the publishers. This means they will also be reaping the lion's share of the profits (with the lion's share of the operational and financial headaches). Another good thing is that the Internet is a medium where you fail fast for free; so while the learning curve is pretty steep, the cost is relatively cheap.

Let's imagine that a painter has just started a new project based on an experience he had on vacation. They first start a blog and make daily entries on their thoughts about the painting, their experiences in the creative process, and include digital photos each day to demonstrate the progress.

This artist purchases their name as a domain name and engages in effective online marketing to drive interested traffic to their site. Several of the surfers keep coming back each day, growing more and more interested in your work as time passes. Please note that it's not necessarily your work which attracts them; rather, it's the vision behind your work which unfolds over time that becomes attractive.

Eventually, your masterpiece is completed and you send a notice out to your newsletter subscribers and post an entry on your blog letting your readers know that the auction for this piece will be on e-Bay and will last one week and will include a bound copy of every blog post and newsletter that you put out regarding the piece (and which will, of course, be signed and dated by you the master artist).

You have just made what would have been one more canvas into a legend in the minds of your readers and possible customers. You have created value where there was none. And you used the Internet to open up a virtual gallery which allowed you to keep all the profits and continue the process with your next painting, gathering more and more readers who will be future potential customers.

This is a new age of opportunity for the artists driven enough to take advantage and the first ones to do so will be the most successful.

Day Minus 6: What I Look for in a Business Leader:

It seems like there is no such thing as loyalty in big corporations any more. The unspoken truth feels like these corporations become mega-conglomerates by rolling over people (other companies and other employees) all the while giving them happy talk about how much they care about their development and future career paths. And while this likely is the normal operating culture for most companies, there isn’t a leadership failure across the board.

You just have to know what to look for.

I have often told people, individually and in my presentations, that companies are not doing you a favor by hiring you. Companies do not instill value inside you; it is the other way around. You are a major component of the value of the company, especially if you are a front-line associate. This is because front line associates create the face with which vendors and customers deal with the company on a daily basis.

If you’ve read books like The One-Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard (affiliate link) and First, Break All the Rules by Marcus Buckingham (affiliate link), then you know that the effective manager is much less of sheep dog or prison warden than they are a potent source of inspiration and access to resources for the advancement of their direct reports.

The role of a truly great leader is to assess their direct reports for their talents, strengths, skill sets and most importantly their individual passions. The leader must find out where each of their people want to go in life and then help to unlock the doors that stand closed in their path. It is not the leader’s job to open the door and push people through, but rather to unlock the doors and point the way—each person is responsible for walking through these doors in their lives and many of them lack the initiative or the vision to take advantage of this type of leader.

I was lucky enough to have worked with a mentor who understood this type of leadership and I was smart enough to take advantage of it. This is why I focused on building my inherent value in terms of experiences, skill sets, and focusing on improving my strengths rather than trying to fix my weaknesses. I was able to use my strengths to manager around my weaknesses.

For example, I inherently dislike the small talk that is a vital component of all social networking. But one of my greatest strengths is my ability to read widely on vast array of subjects and then apply that knowledge in my professional and personal life. Therefore, I am able to use this gained knowledge to cut through all the “How’s the weather” crap and tailor my questions and comments to strangers according to the most bland and minute details. I then take mental notes based on their responses and keep a profile on what their interests may be, etc. so that I can continue to approach these people based on their interests and passions. This means that my social network is much stronger than most of the weather-talking schmoozers out there and I don’t have to waste valuable hours of my life engaged in nonsensical dialogue which serves neither their needs or mine.

So, I’ve become an excellent judge of leadership character in those I report to and it was a great culture shock for me to go from working for a leader of this caliber to working for a myopic and curmudgeon whose entire professional life revolved around cracking whips around figures and monthly reports.

The second day was more of the first. I didn’t quite know enough to get myself in trouble. This was to come on my third day with the company which started a down-hill slide to the seventh day judgment that would see me out of work yet again.

TO BE CONTINUED TOMORROW...

TAGS: career education, career change, career, healthcare, health insurance