I had my mid-year review yesterday. The title of the post is something my supervisor said. It pisses me off because I believe it's a reflection of a need, in corporate America, to appear always busy. If I am on Hubski, I am wasting precious company's time.
I talked to a former professor about it. She opined that in corporate America, you're going to hear this unless you continually bitch about how slammed you are. She may be right but that ain't my style.
I plan on discussing this with my boss in the near future and saying, politely, that if I am indeed putting out the high-quality work that she insisted I was, but don't seem to be trying very hard, perhaps we should consider giving me a promotion to a level where I will have to try hard.
It is not my fault the work is easy to me. It is my obligation to do it well. I think it's bullshit to look at someone and tell them "I completely trust that you can do any work we have upcoming, including new work that's never been done before and complex work that would be difficult for others, and I trust that you will do it well and accurately - I just don't think you're trying hard enough. "
What bullshit do you encounter in every day life, Hubski? What ridiculous double-standards do your friends, co-workers, family, etc, perpetuate on you without being aware of their hypocrisy?
Or, what are your corporate bitch-tales?
Short Example B: I have a weird uncle. He doesn't want me to get my MBA because I'm a writer, and "that's not me." Later in the same conversation he told me I should seriously consider switching to fiction/prose writing because "that's where the money is." He didn't consider the potential that fiction/prose writing maybe "just isn't me."
Side note: There is, of course, more to this mid-year review than is described. I have a few different plans and ideas for the next six months which may help my boss arrive at a different conclusion. I am not looking for work advice right now - because I am really irritable and hate everything this morning and any advice, while assuredly good, will probably rub me the wrong way despite its potential to help and the undoubted good intentions that come with it. I would prefer this not become a work-advice thread for ref if you guys don't mind. Misery loves company. Give me yours.
Wow, this is incredibly well-timed. Yesterday, I too had my midyear review with my boss. I have never had one go as badly. I have never had a year in my 10 years of business development where I have ended below 140% to goal. Right now I'm trending to end around 100%. There is still time for me to change this and end the year better. Thing is, every year they raise our goals between 10-20%. This year I received a 40% increase in goal. That's huge. Also, they've given me 3 new lines to represent as part of my "score card" and in some areas I'm leading my team and in others I'm not. One of the areas involves a product that many people have 10-20 leads on, I have 4 (cue any scene from Glenn Gary Glenn Ross). So, I'm in a tough spot. If I hit 125% to goal or higher my income raises SIGNIFICANTLY. I'm not sure I'll get there. My boss mentioned in my review that I'm not giving 100%. He asked if I disagree. Thing is, I don't. It's hard to run a race and feel like you can be 1st place when you've been given weights strapped to your ankles. But fuck it. I'm gonna win in spite of it. 5 months left dammit! I can do it.
My boss gets his goal from his boss who gets it from his boss and as the goal gets passed down it gets dispersed amongst us. You don't disperse it where you don't think you'll get it. So yeah, I think there's a bit of what you suggest in there. I will say I'm not the only person that had such an increase. It's an odd year for a number of reasons. Lots of uncertainty where I work and in my industry.
Another item I consider a bad - in fact, poisonous - business habit is the policy some corporations take about year-end ratings - you know, like "meets," "exceeds," etc - and their prevalence. More succinctly, companies who decide that departments should provide such ratings on an enforced bell curve, much as in say a high level college math course. Only so many people can exceed, meet, and so on. Not only can this potentially produce false ratings (we have filled our quota of this rating so we are giving you a different one) but it can create an extremely competitive atmosphere. It almost encourages fucking over your teammates to ensure that you're not unfortunate enough to be the least-best at your job, even if "least best" still means "working up to requirements and/or satisfaction." In addition I posit it's more harmful than a math class or similar; you don't get to graduate or leave the scenario at the end of a semester. Instead you are continually, for years even, competing with the same people. I think this can lead to an entrenched atmosphere of "every man for himself" as well as long-held resentment. It also, in a weird way, makes me grateful for the obviously incompetent people. I see someone flailing and I think "well, I know who's getting 'does not meet' and it ain't me, it's this jawn." I shouldn't have to rely on other people to be incompetent in order to feel secure about the status of my year-end review and general performance.
Know who should get an MBA? NOT YOU! Seriously. You've started to figure out it's bullshit. More than that, you've developed the sense that bullshit is undesirable. Know who should get an MBA? People who cherish the bullshit and can't wait to claim as big a portion of bullshit as they can stuff down their gullets. I won't tell you what to do, but I will caution you that the uneasy feeling you have about the corporate structure you inhabit is going to grow stronger the more you learn about it. There are other things you can do with your life. You're likely to enjoy them more. It's okay to spend some time figuring out what they are.
Today's bullshit: I missed a VA meeting. (It was at a different site than the one I'm located at and immediately before another, day-long meeting I wasn't invited to that most of my VA coworkers were. I didn't realize it was at a different site.) It was free breakfast and a meet-and-greet with some top exec. My VA boss doesn't care that I missed the meeting, but I spoke to my real boss and her disappointment that I didn't get "face time" with this exec was palpable. I don't give a shit about face time with your fucking top execs
compare and contrast. It's like this: Either you want to do this in which case you should get good at it, or you don't want to do this in which case you need to figure out what you do want to do. And you need to do it quickly. There's no point in treading water; time you spend in pursuit of someone else's goals is a gift to them and if they aren't worth giving gifts to, they aren't worth giving your time.
Yeah, well, I do like to yell at pabst and ask him why in the heck he thinks he wants to go into investment banking from time-to-time. Tentatively, this special project that I'm down here for could lead me to a new job [role] and a move to VA. It would be something. I've been talking about moving south for a long time.
My boss mentioned in my review that I'm not giving 100%. He asked if I disagree. Thing is, I don't.
and it's not like you're the kind of guy who lies and says that selling widgets is more important than anything else right now. Listen, tng, hubskina seems to be running ok right now (if you ignore the little flare-ups of discontent). We have your back. So let's get back to work. (me too).
I hate power plays at work. I once worked a corporate gig where the new boss didn't introduce herself for two weeks and then had a meeting where she wanted to Lay Down the Law. During this meeting I basically said, "hey, my name is humanodon and we've been doing just fine without a boss for six months and are actually more profitable than any of our other eight locations, so who the fuck are you?" Anyway, that resulted in more strong-arm tactics and within a month those of us that were bringing in said profits, had quit. Now before I quit, head office decided to have the new boss lady observe me over several days and in the end they found nothing wrong (and in fact found that I was not only accomplishing their goals, but exceeding them) but accused me of prepping the observation sessions, thus skewing the results. I then created a program at another company that ate into my original company's profits significantly and many of my clients followed me to my new place of business. Make all the power plays you want to, but in the end services are all about people.
I supported $22m worth of business as the only person in the company capable of doing the engineering design necessary to support the company's goals at the company's budgets. It cost me 90+ hours a week. They held a board-level meeting about what to do about "the kleinbl00 problem." The result was an "efficiency expert" following me around for a week, writing down notes about everything I did. She kept asking me how I knew to do what I did. I pretty much had to say "folklore and experience" or variations on that theme. Day 3 she started to cry at rare moments. Day 4 she went deadpan. Day 5 she stared off into space. A week later I discovered two of my 22" CAD monitors had been stolen "to put on a project" by another engineer. Well, not an engineer. A CADmonkey with a years' experience that got dragooned into fucking up other peoples' projects because we simply didn't have the manpower. I didn't notice for a day because I was so busy training the receptionist how to be a project manager. Lovely girl, tried hard. But she needed to understand distributed audio systems and video over IP and hadn't taken algebra. I spent half an hour trying to teach her Ohm's Law but gave up shortly thereafter. A week after that they laid me off and gave my job to the CADmonkey's husband, who had never done more than hook speakers up. He was certainly cheaper. The "efficiency expert" had known, and had known that any solution the company tried would lead to catastrophic failure. A month after that the company lost $22m in business. I was on a beach in Thailand solemnly swearing to the Universe that I would never, ever work in a cubicle ever again. That was eight years and a substantial chunk of a million dollars ago.
That had me laughing! Oh, I would have loved that.The result was an "efficiency expert" following me around for a week, writing down notes about everything I did. She kept asking me how I knew to do what I did. I pretty much had to say "folklore and experience" or variations on that theme. Day 3 she started to cry at rare moments. Day 4 she went deadpan. Day 5 she stared off into space.
Humanodon, I love you.I then created a program at another company that ate into my original company's profits significantly and many of my clients followed me to my new place of business. Make all the power plays you want to, but in the end services are all about people.
>"I wanna go to medical school and see where it takes me!" >"Wow, how nice! Do you have a field of interest?" >"HAHAHA. No. I mean, I'm going to go to med school, find the cutest guy, then marry him and drop out." >"Hah right, nice." >"No no, I'm serious, that's what my mom did with my dad!" > Admitted this year to John Hopkins with ~$100,000 school donation from parents. (edit: the implication was, first-hand experience of an American in the absolute shittiest culture on earth, the American one. ) (edit2: my ignorance in the previous edit is hereby successfuly reputed. Quarter-Pounders with curly fries for everyone!)
Funny story: When I was 17 and almost flunking so badly I didn't graduate on time my mom asked me what the hell I was thinking? My response, "I'm going to be a rock star." Her reply, "...and if you're not, what then?" Me: Then I'll marry a doctor. Funny part is, I'm not a rockstar and I'm married to a doctor. It just sorta happened. That said, we've been married 10 years and she's still not making doctor money. Residency is a bitch. You get slave wages based on how much time/effort goes in to it.
I'm wondering: Do you actually believe that Americans have the shittiest culture on Earth? And if so, why? In fact, do we really have our own culture, or are we home to an incredibly diverse range of constantly-evolving cultures? I'm an American, though I've never been very patriotic or whatever. I recently spent two months in Europe to study and to travel. I expected to return from Europe feeling very fed-up with America and Americans, but quite the opposite occurred. While I found much of the social and political awareness and atmosphere in Europe refreshing and far better than what I often see at home, I missed many, many things about American culture and people. And I don't think it's because I was feeling extra foreign; I visited countries where I can speak the native language fairly well. I found, upon my return, that I was actually happier than ever to be an American, and maybe even a little bit proud of being an American. This is a foreign feeling to me, but I feel it nonetheless. That being said, other cultures are doing A LOT of things right, and we should take note. I am an active advocate for all sorts of change in The States, and I think that's the mark of a real patriot anyway. A real patriot wants to change his nation and people for the better. I would, however, never say our culture is shitty. Anyway, I'd love for you to expand on that, and maybe we can talk about it more.the absolute shittest culture on earth, the American one.
You know what man, you're right. Thanks for putting me in my place. I'm neither nationalist-- though I talk about Armenia a lot on Hubski-- nor a patriot to any country particularly, though I was born and raised here in America. I've met a lot of very patriotic 'Muricans who are awful, hideous, vile human beings. However, I've met some incredibly charismatic doers and thinkers, motivators and inspire-ers, warm-hearted Americans who just want the best for everyone around them and themselves. Such is the case for every other place I've visited. Needless to say, it just becomes very easy to toss aside all the things we have and take them for granted, when we get the awful lot of bad news shoveled down our throats all the time. Disaster makes easier headlines than Success, and eventually we get caught up in it. I think we're alright.
I didn't put you in your place, it is very frustrating sometimes to think about American politics and social situations :p But I'm glad you liked my comment! You're right that there are far too many "'Muricans" who really do make it difficult to feel anything but shame about The States some days. I think that they are actually the minority (Maybe the majority in a handful of southern states), but they are the extremely vocal, ignorant, and offensive minority. So of course they stick out. I sure hope that the "doers, thinkers, motivators, and inspire-ers" will end up with the lion's share of influence, but it isn't going that way right now. Disaster makes easier headlines than Success, and eventually we get caught up in it. I think we're alright.
Right you are, but I'm afraid that if more of the level-headed Americans don't get a little more vocal, things really may be headed toward a bad place.
Countries are always judged by their people. I've got a theory that I want holes shot in so I'll put it out here. Lesser (hideous vile) people naturally associate themselves with things that will hide their quality of character. They lose themselves in the group - the KKK, Nazism, bad cults. Often they misappropriate a good cause and turn it into shit - I'd say the Black Panthers might fall here. Nationalism is no different. It can attract highly outspoken morons easily. Like moths to light, and they swarm to it in clouds. Patriotism is generally viewed as a good thing so it gives them a mask to wear. Meanwhile the good people - by their inherently tolerant nature - tend to rise above national boundaries and instead focus on people. Because they're concerned with everyone, it's hard to tie a nationality to them. Eventually this translates into a global redefinition of what an American patriot is where the loudest group dominates the news people see.
once you let the vampire in... I think you're neglecting the relativism of morality. Those you view as lesser are often those that consider themselves the most pure - the KKK aren't a bunch of nefarious racists in their minds, they're Aryan purists out to unify and preserve the hegemony of the master race against the lesser species of God. The Nazis were only creating lebensraum for the Ubermensch. Aum Shinrikyo didn't spread nerve gas on a Tokyo subway because they were supervillians; they were hastening the coming of the apocalypse and the enlightenment of all mankind. I think you're closer to a defensible argument if you state that those without a strong internal moral compass seek strong external reinforcement. "Lost" people "find" themselves in strict organizations all the time - it's an organizational trope. This is why shiftless adolescents are often shunted into the military. There's nothing inherently bad about nationalism. Problems occur when it transcends morality. You're right - for those with a stunted internal compass, it's a lot easier to argue that torture is OK because The President Said So than to bulk up your conscience and decide you've been following the wrong leader. But that doesn't mean Scientologists join Scientology because they're shady.I've got a theory that I want holes shot in so I'll put it out here.
I think you're right. That's a pretty important distinction to make too. This doesn't make everyone who joins a group like the Manson Family a shit person. It also explains whistleblowers and informants as people who grow stronger moral fiber - or had it to begin with - and become dissatisfied with the organization. That's much more inclusive. I like it.
Just my two cents, I think that kind of sentiment is pretty new. Nationalism in my mind is at an all time low in favor of trans-nationalism, or more generally humanism.Meanwhile the good people - by their inherently tolerant nature - tend to rise above national boundaries and instead focus on people. Because they're concerned with everyone, it's hard to tie a nationality to them.
That's the infuriating bit. She could actually pull it off. Mildly hot too. Oh well.
Okay, so mildly hot, no ambition, expects to ride her parents' money until her husband takes over? Yeah, fail. She's gonna have to trade down especially since JH is a Tier 2 school. She's at the apex of her life right now unless she develops some drive. It's all downhill from here.
Mildly hot, so 7-8/10 plus I'm picky. Still nothing? edit: I believe her emotional capacity peaks at the equivalent in color of sand dunes in a desert. Does the transparency of a Proterozoic jellyfish add points?
Dude. You live and hunt in Manhattan and you're calling her a soft 8? If you're a moneyed rentier slumming it at Johns Hopkins, you're not putting up with a soft 8 every bit as rich as you are. You can pillage all the 10s that actually give a shit that your BMW is less than 8 months old. A soft 8 with shit tons of money becomes interesting only to aspirants on scholarships, who are exactly the prospects she's looking to dodge. You need to read you some Brett Easton Ellis. It'll never be as good as it is now.
Yeah, but an 8 in Manhattan is probably a 9.5 elsewhere. I've gotten some high class tail there in my life that were basically castaways for the New York elite. Maybe your view is skewed too, since you live in the one other place in the US that's on that level.
guys there are girls here but, to be clear, she's an 8 from my school in new jersey. Here round my work, in Midtown Manhattan, she's a generous 4. Not joking.
The numerical rating system is gender-agnostic. And, not to put too fine a point on it, but we're discussing a girl who intends to use an internationally-renowned medical school as her singles bar. The crassness of the topic matches the crassness of the language.
i would be happy to alleviate you of your curiosity
Point taken. I just want the lad to know that his views of which women are attractive are probably skewed by circumstance, as relativity matters. Back in engineering school I used to drool over girls I wouldn't hold the door for in high school (figuratively speaking). Gotta take advantage of what you can while you can; that's always lost on young men. Note: Don't get a big head about the Redondo thing, insomniasexx.
As someone currently in engineering school it's the beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeest.Back in engineering school I used to drool over girls I wouldn't hold the door for in high school (figuratively speaking).
As someone currently in a high school that's 85% male, I feel you. You just have to join up all the clubs and groups you can find relating to your interests and hope to meet someone. Unfortunately that's far easier said than done, especially when you're my age. But you aren't, so congratulations, I guess.
What kind of a high school is 85% male? That's a bit unusual, no? My post was a bit sarcastic, I've done quite well considering I mostly avoid my college of study and have been heavily occupied in two organizations plus our center for leadership and community service, and the music scene of the city at large. You are right though, it is all about the extracurriculars. Much easier to find people of common interests while still having them come from a diversity of genders, sexualities, cultures, etc.
Yeah, it's a tiny private school with some pretty serious privilege issues. It's 90% white, 85% male, etc., probably due to a combination of the surrounding area, the high tuition, and the stated mission (school for the gifted - not that white males tend to be more gifted, but I wouldn't be surprised if white males were more often designated gifted).
Ah, we have a high school like that back home and I recently worked about a mile away from Phillips Academy. Talk about privileged. But you know, I'd like to think that while they're not exactly melting pots, that places like those set a person up to go almost wherever they would like, and open up a lot more doors down the road. I'd think a lot of it has to do with socioeconomic standing as well.
The other nice thing is that composition shifts with the scale. A Seattle 10 is a different kind of beauty than a Los Angeles 10 than a Denver 10 than a Utah 10. I find women in Los Angeles to be a lot more tan and a lot more put together than women in, say, San Francisco... but also a lot deader behind the eyes.
Another thing I've noticed is the disparity between weight in different places - across both genders. You don't often see awfully obese people in NYC or Manhattan Beach. Go to Portland, Maine or Central MA and I'm a fraction of the size. I'm never the skinniest person in NYC or MB though.
I'm actually from Manhattan Beach and live in RB now and I think I kept up in NYC. Soooooo. What does that make me?
I've actually met _ref_ and I can attest to the odd gonad shaped fish protruding from her head. It took some getting used to, but by the third round of rye whisky's, nobody noticed anymore.
you're the most beautiful anglerfish there ever was ref. you're a rainbow anglerfish. A golden rainbow anglerfish dolphin shark.
You're right, shit. Shit shit shit. I need to get rich stat. But I don't want to work hard :'(
We do PMPs at my work. We don't give a fuck about PMPs at my work. One person fills it out and then we all moderately change it and consider the review complete. It's a great place to work, and I love my bosses because they, perhaps due to being foreigners, perhaps because they're great people and understand logic, don't subscribe the the US corporate culture of 'always busy', they prefer the 'it got done, it got done well, that's what matters'. Additionally, I think the corporate culture of 'always busy' is more detrimental to productivity and results than anything. It encourages you to work less so you always have something to do, and discourages you from taking time to explore other things that would bring new ideas into the workplace. It always reinforces the hierarchy or a workplace. You can never be close to your bosses in that environment because instead of working with them and sharing ideas as equals, you feel you are entirely a subordinate and they are the master and you should feel fear towards them and lie as much as possible for the appearance of productivity. And it's silly, because everyone at every level knows it's all bullshitting. I picked up a second job for the summer. I work in tech, so it's very much white collar, and I've been there for a while, but I used to work in the service industry, for years, dealing with the worst kinds of rich people, so I thought I'd have no problem slipping back into it. I quit last week. It was a restaurant and I was to be a bartender, but I couldn't handle the corporate feel of the company. I couldn't stand the ridiculous, over-the-top restrictions, the way they want you to hold your shoulders, the little tiny things that make no difference in experience for the customer, especially when it intentionally interferes with my ability to connect to guests and cultivate their experience, but instead shoves it into a box, that if I go outside, I'm reprimanded for. On top of that, there were non-stop exams that added no value to the employee or the employer, and everyone was aware and open about that fact. I understand having your way of doing things, but that level of 'locked-down, always busy no matter what, stop spending time with the customers' kills everything that's good about working with people.
Everyone is all about "where the money is". That's all it's about. That's all they told me about growing up. That is the pursuit of life. Money. I hate it. "You need a college degree to be successful."
Here I am on the cusp of a 65k/y job as a 22 year-old drop out. "Go into computers where the money is."
... but all the time spent on the computer is unhealthy and wasting time. I've been flip-flopping between unemployed and employed for the last couple of years and things with people go from constant "you're worthless and a detriment" to "you're doin' good" all based on how much money I make - but nothing about me changes. Kinda fucked up! It's also incredibly funny telling recruiters and HR people who are "impressed with my resume" that I don't have a degree. I've had people end the phone call because of it. It's absurd.
Happiness has nothing to do with money, but money does certainly make it easier at times. The thing is, perspectives change as your life changes. At 22 years old I don't think I would've given a shit about my income in the way I do now. Back then my income meant that I could buy things whereas now my income means I can provide stability to my family. It's a very different perspective. I definitely do not think that a college degree is the only way to get to income stability. However, it certainly doesn't hurt to have one. That said, it can be very expensive to get a degree and depending on what you are studying it may not be worth it. It's certainly a complex issue. Good luck in your endeavorsIt's also incredibly funny telling recruiters and HR people who are "impressed with my resume" that I don't have a degree. I've had people end the phone call because of it. It's absurd.
It may be funny now because you're 22 years old. But I got to a place in my career where I hit a ceiling I couldn't get beyond because I did not have a degree. I ended up going back to school and getting my degree in business management. After that my earnings tripled. Was it because I was magically more proficient and had abilities I didn't before have? No. But I don't make the rules I'm just playing the game. Until the game changes, I would highly recommend that anyone that wants to succeed in this game get their degree.
Oh, I don't mean I do it on purpose as a joke or something. If they ask, I tell them - then they'll either go "oh well not a big deal" or they'll tell me I need a degree and end it. It's just amusing how arbitrary it all is. I'm able to do as much if not more than some fresh college graduate tenderfoot because I've been in this industry for years, but he's gonna win over me because he had tens of thousands of dollars 4 years ago. I can't help but be bitter about that. Well, I guess I can. I'm just bitter!
I hear ya, I was bitter too. I'm not justifying it, but I realized I couldn't change it so I bit the bullet and got the degree. I learned a good bit about business getting that degree, but honestly the amount I've learned by doing far outweighs that which I've learned in college.
There are people who can thrive in a "boss" culture. There are people who can't. I did that TPS Report bullshit for ten years and didn't bail on it until it totally hung me out to dry. The culture may not be for you. The thing about performance reviews is that, at the level you're at, they're a bullshit kabuki exercise in "come up with a reason to not give this person a raise." It appears that you aren't wearing enough pieces of flair. So to answer your question: I avoid bullshit. I have crafted my life in such a way that bullshit is optional. This means that while it is never completely avoided, it is generally ephemeral and its scope rarely surprises. Do you know how good it feels to fire clients? Here's my advice: If someone needs to have a meeting scheduled and a procedure invoked before they give a shit about how you do your job, they don't actually give a shit how you do your job. If you want to continue to do your job, continue doing your job. If you want to fit your peg into their hole, do whatever kabuki bullshit they require of you to beat it to fit but recognize fully that you're doing kabuki bullshit, not doing your job. And if you don't much care for your job, you really aren't going to care for the kabuki bullshit. I worked for 7-11 in college for a whopping six weeks. Put on the little vest and everything. Maintained the slurpee machine. Six weeks into it the owner of the six stores I worked at (my de-facto supervisor) pulled security tapes and discovered I was reading a magazine at 3am. He told me that if he caught me doing that again I'd lose my job - I told him not to bother snooping security tapes, I was fuckin' done. This is your life. You are actively choosing how you spend it. Perhaps the work review isn't the only review this week.
Vague attacks are so destructive and they are everywhere that feedback lurks. Generally a vague attack is covering up something else -- maybe something unformulated. Maybe something a higher up mentioned in a totally separate conversation with the vague attacker. Even if the source of feedback seems well-intentioned, does anyone see a problem with responding like this: "I completely trust that you can do any work we have upcoming . . I just don't think you're trying hard enough." The trick is to not sound sarcastic, and say "What do you mean?" or "When you say it doesn't look like I'm trying hard, do you mean that there was something I missed in my report or should it have been longer? Is that it?" Following this response, I would hope for either a clarification or an opening to a different conversation. Another possibility is this: "You're right. I seem to be doing well at this. Is there something more that you'd like me to do? Were you thinking of a promotion or transfer?"I am not looking for work advice right now -
Well then, this isn't for you but for anyone else on the receiving end of vague criticisms. (Seriously, ref, don't read.)
I have worked for a couple of different sized companies ranging from very small 5 person startups to what was at the time the largest company in the world, including a few somewhere in the middle. I'm at my second large corporation gig and each has lasted for longer than 5 years. So when it comes to corporate bullshit I have a masters degree. The thing is though, there is bullshit everywhere. Straight away I can hear people say "Oh no, I escaped man, I'm my own boss, I gave up all that crap and I live free and swim with the dolphins in paradise". BULLSHIT. There are different types of bullshit in different types of jobs and companies but rest assured they all stink. But guess what, I LOVE my job, had a great mid-year review, recently been promoted, getting to work on interesting projects. You can let the bullshit get to you and allow it to sour things completely or you can accept how things are and try to make the system work for you. Now if you were in a Manager position a level above your boss, someone who has no direct relationship with you other than saying "hello" in the hallway, and you saw someone spending a significant amount of time reading a website. Would you expect them to have a positive opinion of you? I'm not defending the opinion that everyone needs to be busy all the time but the reality of the situation is that this is how Managers think and unless you can change the world its something that you will have to tackle or suffer the consequences.
I don't disagree which is partially why I added the bit about how more was discussed than just what I am presenting. It was nice to hear that my boss thinks I am naturally gifted in the work I do. Frankly, when I started (at a different company) I was pretty convinced that my day-to-day work could be done by monkeys... but as I have changed companies I no longer think that. My current job could not be done by monkeys. It is also nice to know that my boss realizes that if she gives me easy work I will dick around, and as a result she gives me the hard work - not in her words, of course. And, for what it's worth, I always ask to be put on the hard/new projects. I'm not trying to dick around 24/7. It's just that if I get assigned easy work I won't be entertained. I like difficult jobs - I find them much more interesting. Recently my boss has caught on, and she has begun putting me on projects I want (for their difficulty) before I even ask. That is honestly kind of great. What other people consider difficult I consider fun. As kleinbl00 mentioned I generally drink the koolaid while trying to be fully aware that I am drinking koolaid. I think what my boss was trying to tell me, in many more words, was essentially that I need to drink more. I just really do resent the fact that because this work comes easily to me I am expected to work harder in order to "exceed" expectations when, with coworkers who it does not come easily to, they are rewarded for their effort. For their sweat. So what if I am not putting in 100% effort? I am, simply put, doing the job better than they can, every single day. If you want to see me sweat give me a job that will make me sweat. Don't insist I sweat over things I can knock out with ease, in order to make you feel like you are fully utilizing your team. Don't refuse to promote me because, essentially, this job is too easy for me. (To be fair: I am and always have been someone who works best and puts out the most effort when challenged. If I am not challenged I put out mediocre effort. I know this about me. I am glad my boss has realized this about me because it's why she's giving me hard work.) (I just feel like I am being mildly 'corrected' because for me, the carrot doesn't look as good as it does for those other donkeys, and damn it, they all want that carrot more than anything whereas I am like "well, you know, I already got some oats here, and they are pretty good, so...uh...yeah I'm going after the carrot but only because you told me to.") For those of you that know me on Hubski it may also tickle you to know that my boss told me, essentially, that I need to be less of a hardass. "You catch more flies with honey than vinegar." (I did actually say "Let me put this in my own words...Don't be a hardass, right?" to her.)
You just repeated the exact comments that have given to me by several people. I don't get out of first gear unless the problem presented has a level of difficulty to peak my interest. I have made that perceived weakness into a strength by seeking out difficult problems and solving them, if nothing presented itself I went over and above to come up with problems others are having and 'fixing' those. Now this may be specific to our particular jobs, working as a developer I may have more scope to do that but it should still be something you could try (If you want to of course). The other problem I had which is the hardest for me to overcome is self-promotion, letting others know when you have done a good job and preventing others from stealing your thunder (bosses, fellow co-workers included). For me that was the most difficult thing to change but its a life skill that yields the most return.(To be fair: I am and always have been someone who works best and puts out the most effort when challenged. If I am not challenged I put out mediocre effort. I know this about me.
Become the kool-aid and let others drink you. Some guy did that a while back and I hear his company has been pretty successful over the years (this is a Jesus thing). A joke, but still . . . . . . yeah, I can't be the only one who inferred that you would be that type. It's not a bad thing. Hell, I've been like that too, especially in roles where I had a personal stake in the thing. That job I was talking about elsewhere in the thread, I was pretty tough on both my employers and on my clients and at times it did hurt the way that things went. I think that this is something a lot of young professionals go through.As kleinbl00 mentioned I generally drink the koolaid while trying to be fully aware that I am drinking koolaid. I think what my boss was trying to tell me, in many more words, was essentially that I need to drink more.
For those of you that know me on Hubski it may also tickle you to know that my boss told me, essentially, that I need to be less of a hardass. "You catch more flies with honey than vinegar." (I did actually say "Let me put this in my own words...Don't be a hardass, right?" to her.)
It's important to me to represent myself as accurately as possible on Hubski, and also as honestly. I recognize that not everyone will like that, but it's more important to be true to myself and my opinions, and speak up even if I'm some what asshole-ish, than to bite back the bile - for many years I bit back the bile and I realized that it implied at minimum acceptance if not agreement. What doubly-harms me in work is that I do tend to get passionate about how I spent my time, even if it's not my passion, and as a result I can get very agitated about perceived injustices or law-breaking. I tend to be very black-and-white about financial regulations: either you have broken the law or you haven't - and I don't favor interpretations that are more forgiving, such as "Well we technically broke the law but it didn't actually hurt anyone so it's okay." I'm more like "these fuckers are trying to get away with shit, let's NAIL THEM!" Considering that I am working for a Big Bad Evil Corp., I would rather try to get them in trouble for their transgressions any day over letting them go because technically what they did wasn't harmful. My secret goal is to write student loan reform as I think I'd excel at that but alas, I shall never be a politician.
Right. Well, there's this: The pharma reps I've known have been Barbie and Ken dolls. Nice people, but the ones that actually care whether or not their shoes are Mephistos or Claibornes. The ones that have four different kinds of cologne and wear different ones for different clients. The ones that not only know how to get the good table at Spago, but are very proud of the fact that they have a career path where it's actually an asset. None of them have nose rings. Do I think you could do it? Sure. Do I think it'd kill you on the inside? A little.
I know a lot of pharma reps. It's a crappy job, it pay pretty well but then there is a fast ceiling that you cannot go beyond. Your job is essentially that of a cheerleader. You're not really "selling" anything, but handing out free samples and catering office lunches. Lame. Also, like you mention, it's about looks. Your job has a shelf-life based on how good you look. No kidding. I've known several good looking women that went in to Pharma sales to meet a doctor to marry. They did, it worked. Now, Med-device sales is a totally different ballgame. In Med-Device you can make a shit-ton of money. $250k a year plus. This requires you to really know a device though. I have a friend that sells a special table made for spinal surgery. He has to know the engineering of it etc and he's in the operating room when the surgeries occur for the first few times. This is a cool job imo. That said, the Pharma job requires very little sales experience and the Med Device job requires a lot. Interestingly, most good organizations to sell for won't even consider former Pharma reps. If _refugee_ was serious about getting in to Bus Dev, I would suggest something in her field, i.e. selling software to banking institutions. There are companies that would pay her $80k base, company car etc with rev share that could equate to $50-100k a year depending on how she does. But it's a busy, stressful life with a quota that never goes away or gets smaller. Bus Dev is where the money is, but it's not for the faint of heart. There's never a break and if you don't produce, you are gone.
For the record, I'm perhaps a surprisingly good salesperson. (Good enough to surprise me when I did it, anyway.) However - no, not really serious. But sometimes an idea comes along and I like to think about it for a while. It sounds appealing - even though in reality it's not. And yes, I get uglier the older I get, and I'm well aware you need to be model-pretty to be a pharma rep.
Who would want a job that superficial anyways? And for the record, you are far more beautiful than the women I was referencing in my comment. I have no doubt that you would be wonderful at most things that you set your mind to, sales being no exception.
3 biggest assets for being a good sales professional: 1. Listening skills 2. Not afraid to challenge assumptions 3. Follow up Simple stuff really. Dig the audio in that ad, nice work! I remember those "side kicks." -I have a number of friends that are talented artists that are in advertising/branding.
Hubski: Get the vote out (Seriously, it's the piercings, tattoos, and way-too-liberal/way-too-legally-damning past history that too many people know about, as opposed to my personality itself. Maybe things will change, I mean it's all just hearsay anyway right? In addition I'm not good at playing power games, but that's not really here or there.)
"We want X to do Y. Make X do Y"
"Y is a stupid thing to do. You do not really want Y."
"Y is what we want. Do it, minion"
6 months later
"X keeps doing Y! It didn't do Y before! Why on earth would you make it do Y? Y is a stupid thing to do!"
I really wanna see "The Expert's Revenge". Being surrounded by people with money and without clue isn't a bad place to be. You start by assisting the client in defining "perpendicular" (and charging them for it), move on to assigning a scope of "red" "green" and "invisible" while also exposing your client to the cutting-edge work your lab is doing in infra-RED ink and then talk them into an RFP for cats v. kittens and the ideal target market age for feline maturity. You spend a year flying out monthly (on Marketing's dime) to blow up balloons and shake hands, then when their money is almost gone you give them three red links of a heptagram, tell them the rest of them are infragreen and show them a survey that says 50% of those polled prefer their kittens seven sided within 2 degrees of standard deviation. Been there, done that.
It's the future, no doubt. Thing of it is, you need a "channel" and that becomes your job. So it's not so much about making videos as it is about running a TV station... with no budget, very little money, and an alarming share of the profits going to the FCC.
Yeah, I suppose so. When I hear that an institution has a stranglehold on something, I'm always curious about ideas people who have experience in dealing with those institutions might have or what kinds of things people might be doing that I'm aware of, that's all.
The problem isn't one of strangleholds, unfortunately. The problem is that what used to be a highly-profitable specialist industry has become a commodity amateur industry. It used to be that dabbling in broadcast media involved jumping through the hoops necessary to make it onto public access TV - and then, it likely stopped there. Now, anybody can put anything on Youtube and maybe 20 million people watch Bed Intruder. I had an agent tell me yesterday that Amazon adds 250,000 self-published e-books a month. A couple of them will find real success but for the majority of authors they'd have more success with scratch tickets. Youtube, meanwhile, adds 100 hours of footage per minute. Every thousand views is worth about a dollar in revenue for content creators. You don't throw Elie Kazan into that mix and expect him to make money. there was a vetting process to broadcast media that the Internet will never have... although the specialist video channels (Crunchy Roll, Chiller, etc) might get there if people are willing to pay for them. I've had two short films on Chiller. I've yet to see a dime.
I dunno, how much time do you have to listen? HAH, I'M HILARIOUS okay so anyways one double standard I can think of that I get a lot off the bat that I dislike is the one where people judge how you use your free time. It's like, yeah, when I have a moment, I like to play me some vidjagames. That's as much "wasting time" as going shopping or playing a sport or etc. etc. etc. Now obviously if you spend 4 of your 3 hours of free time just doing one thing that'd be bad, and I'd hope you expand your horizons a bit and switch it up every other day with something else, but as soon as you drop the games shtick it's like "oh man 8bit games are a waste of time go out and meet girls." NO THANK. If I'm enjoying myself/content than I'm not gonna sugarcoat it and by that I mean fuck you I do what I want. Everything is a waste of time. We're all going to die. No one actually has it magically figured out when they turn 20 and we're all stumbling through the soporific dust cloud that is daily life. Thank you and tune in next time for our hit show, "Too Young to Have a Midlife Crisis." Side-note I just worked out and I'd like everyone to know that my pecs feel fan-fuckin-tastic, TMI, YOU DECIDE. Edit: This isn't that big of a deal but you gave me a platform and I used it.What bullshit do you encounter in every day life, Hubski?
Word, though. I went through a long ascetic phase (more masochistic, really) where every time I indulged myself or wasn't being productive, it was always accompanied with guilt. I've since swung the pendulum the opposite way, but in all honestly, it's the same shit, just make some vague attempt at being aware and being happy, exert a little focus when you get excited about something and you'll go farther than you think. I even played some video games recently, which I denied myself a long time ago. Totally worth it, except for Dishonored. Fuck that game.Everything is a waste of time. We're all going to die.
Hahaha, Dishonored is cool for about five minutes when you gasp and think will this be as good as Deus Ex? and then realize that you're so, so wrong after blinking everywhere and exploiting the game's piss-poor AI and bad execution . The physics were fantastic in a horrible sort of way, though.
It was seriously the prettiest disaster of execution I could imagine. Jesus christ I just now read a couple of reviews and they are so goddamn dead wrong it's ridiculous.
The professors who expect my input because I test well. These guys ignore everyone for the first 3 weeks and then pick favorites based on assessment scores. And goddamn If your name is in good standing, expect to be heckled and prodded amd nudged for input for the rest of the term. To be fair, it's nice to know someone's looking out for you, but if they make the jump from, "Ah, he's not a bad student!" to, "You're not applying yourself like I think you should be." That's when it gets fucky.
I've never understood what the best approach to take is when it comes to running low on work. I've tried talking to the next-up in the hierarchy or other people who could use help, but outside of that is it better to slow down on your tasks and stretch them out, but still get them done by a deadline? Or to get the task done in whatever a normal time is and spend the rest of the time researching whatever interests you and could be beneficial down the road?
My personal experience with my boss is that she likes it when work gets done quickly, but the flip of that is we've pretty much always got something we could be doing. In those rare moments there isn't anything to do, there's this sort of unspoken agreement that I can hit up Hubski and no one will judge me for it. But I also have my own cubicle so I don't think anyones judging anyways. I've never been in a cubicle. As soon as my coworker stops co-using it this week I'm decking it out in Daft Punk merch.
It's just more of the 'if you have time to lean you have time to clean' mentality. more on this later, I have to get to class.
Edit!
So, I don't know when the concept of 'work' changed (Or maybe it never changed, I just don't know) from 'I will give you X currency to do Y/give me Y' to 'I will give you X currency to give an enthusiastic 110% of your effort in the process of doing Y.' I'm very transactional in my nature. Inputs, outputs, and that's all that should matter, at least in professional contexts. In my own context, say I'm working with two new agents, Alfred and Bernard. Alfred is a joy to be around, a really nice person, and always puts great effort into his work, you can tell he is modestly challenged by it and produces say, $4000 in sales in a given week. Bernard is slightly less likeable and breezes through his work with absolutely 0 apparent difficulty and in half the time as Alfred, but produces identical results, $4000 in sales. Should these employees be compensated differently? OF FUCKING COURSE NOT. And because of the commission structure in my company, they wouldn't be, but I understand that this is somewhat unusual. In a professional environment I don't understand why anyone would give half a damn how much effort someone puts into their work, as long as their results are satisfactory? Should we give that person who has no difficulty more work? Pay them less? Because they don't 'struggle' like some of the other members of the company? I have another thought, half-formed about some strange forced notion of 'everyone's equal, especially when they are most certainly not equal' that is raring to get out, but I can't find a good way to express it right now. That and I have a dinner-date in a few minutes so I'm not exactly giving my enthusiastic 110% into my hubski-ing.
I agree - so I'm going to try and work on that - it's also the fact that if you give me a deadline and either hard work or easy work, the work is done by the deadline (on-the-face acceptable) - but really I could be more impressive, take less time, and wrap up the easy work fast. It's just that then, I feel like i have this abyss of "no work" staring at me that is impossible to ignore and blatantly obvious to my boss. There are times I can legitimately do nothing directly related to the work I've been given at the job, and then it's a matter of "finding stupid random shit related to what I do so that I look busy," and I hate that. But that's the clean/lean policy you talk about.