Category Archives: Work

end of the road

April 11, 2019 8:29 PM , Leave a Comment ,

(Adapted and expanded from a Facebook post from May 2018)

I don’t quite remember when I first began doing these “end of the trip” personal summaries.  Certainly as far back as the turn of the century when I was coming back home from Baltimore though I might have done it prior to that. I just remember that particular time sitting in a mostly empty Baltimore airport terminal scribbling some random thoughts about the trip into a notebook. Since that time I have done summaries for most personal vacations and some work trips.

I’m standing in front of my hotel in east London at 4 AM waiting for my Lyft to arrive. On the last day in the UK I finally get to see just a wisp of one of those famous London fogs that everyone goes on about.  Not impressed. I do however suddenly have a craving for a cigarette.  Maybe it’s the urban setting that’s doing it but the craving passes by fairly quickly.

I decided to give myself a treat after two weeks of ‘roughing it’ and got a room at an upscale hi-rise hotel. A glass and steel spire with nice new streets, expensive roof top restaurants, and all night bars and clubs where the current crop of stylish 20somethings hang out. So this is how the other half lives.

The temptation to stay another two or three nights was strong but all vacations have to come to an end and soon the night wound down fairly quickly as I had a dawn flight out of Heathrow.

The next morning up pulls an E-class Mercedes and the driver comes out wearing a peaked cap. I didn’t ask for a fancy car and I suddenly felt rather scruffy in my travel-worn clothes and my travel backpack.

We whisk down the empty streets of London towards Paddington station. Even on empty streets it would take about an hour to get to Heathrow. The Paddington express would get me there in fifteen minutes.

The driver turns on the radio. A morning DJ is doing what morning DJs all over the US would do. Playing songs, talking to callers, getting people pumped up for the work day to come.

I could live here. I could get used to using the underground and walking everywhere and the smaller houses and running from one small store to another to get things instead of finding everything in one store.

I could probably make a go of it in any of the countries that I visited. You can learn local languages and customs fairly quickly if you want to or are forced to.

At the Airport I swap out the last of my English pounds, Euros, and Korunas for good old American dollars.

I’m thinking about how I’ll get home once I step out from Hobby airport in Houston and what the weather will be like.

My mind is shifting back out of vacation mode. I planned everything beforehand so I had little to think about during the trip. I just went to my next destination and it was there waiting for me.

While people around me went about their jobs and lives I wandered round with nothing to do. Except… joggers. Walking around London and Paris in the middle of the day I would encounter joggers and I would wonder what kind of job that they had that allowed them to take a jog in the middle of the day.

For the last two weeks my room was cleaned, my bed was made, my food was cooked, and my transport was arranged but now I’m going back to the real world.

Bills to pay, appointments to arrange and keep, checklists and schedules to make. Beds to make, meals to cook, places to drive to. A life.

My first real vacation in four years. My first real mental break since my dad died. I have come to terms with the fact that he will no longer play a part in my decision-making process.

For the past five years I’ve planned my life round his needs and now that chapter is closed. I can now put my needs in the forefront. The thought frightens me a bit.

I feel a bit like a soldier that’s just come home from a war with no clue about the future.

I had my daily routines, my schedule, the course of my life all built around him and putting him ahead of everything else so that he’d never want for anything or that his health might suffer. But that’s gone now and I have to do things for my benefit and I find that hard to do.

During the vacation I tried to remember what my ‘life plans’ were before I committed myself to take care of my parents. Those notions of what was “going to happen” seem like they belong to some other person.  My life path has gone onto a totally different course.

Twelve years ago I realized that my dad would need care and what and who I could depend upon to help. Ten years ago I bought a house to take care of both of my parents, a big Four bedroom house with front and a back lawn. Totally impractical for a childless bachelor but something that would give them the space that they had been accustomed to.  Five years ago they came to live with me.

I gave up a normal social life. The invites to events and parties trickled down to a few and then to none. No point inviting me if I always said I couldn’t go. I’ve become contented with a movie or a play on the weekends.  The parents and the job filled most of my waking hours.

The job I didn’t particularly like but it would let me work from home and stay close to them so I had to keep going. This came in particularly useful in the last year of my dad’s life when I had to rush him to the hospital more than once.

But now I’m coming home tabula rasa, with a clean slate. My dad is gone, my job is gone. I lost my job in March.

Maybe my mind couldn’t concentrate on the work anymore, or maybe I didn’t see the point in staying at a job I didn’t like with no compelling reason to stay, or maybe after 15 years of doing inside sales I just burnt out.

Sales was never a good fit for me. I’ve never been a born salesman. Somehow I kept it going because I had to. But I don’t see myself going back. Not to that company at least and probably not to the sales field.

Don’t ask me what’s to come for me. I don’t know. I’ve got savings so I’m okay for a while. I told myself that I was taking this trip to get some inspiration or some new idea of where to go and what to do. I think I knew that wasn’t true.

Truthfully I just needed time away from me.

Maybe now I can force myself to look at my situation and see something that I wasn’t seeing before. Get a clue about what to do.

Landing in Ireland and running to my next destination.

(Errata – June 2019.  One of my British correspondents rightly pointed out that Lyft does not operate in the UK. I went back through my Uber ride records and confirmed that it was Uber.  All I can say is that it was 4 in the morning and I earnestly remember that it was a Lyft but I was mistaken.)

Posted in: life in general, memories, travel, vacations, work

Old school ties

August 12, 2015 6:50 AM , 2 Comments ,

Every once in a while someone will send in a resume through our sales inquiry form or they’ll call the main line and ask if we’re hiring.  I suppose when you’re looking for work you need to try every approach and take any opportunity to ask.

Once in a really long time I will get a professor from my old school contact me about a protegé that needs work experience or some recent grad will look through the former student rolls and randomly call people and push the “old school ties” to see if they can land a job.

“A” for effort but that’s not going to work with me.  I suppose it may have been possible at one time that going to a particular university may have insured you landing a good job no matter what your qualifications may have been.  I’ve personally never met anyone who claimed this dubious honor.  I know I wouldn’t brag about it if I had landed a job like that.

Nowadays I really can’t see this happening anymore.  Employees are investments as well as resources.

An employer will spend a significant amount of money recruiting, paying a salary to, setting up benefits for, and providing training for a new hire.  In small companies every employee is crucial to the success of the business. Many times employees in small companies have to take on a wide variety of different jobs and there really isn’t room for such favoritism based on something so arbitrary as having the same university in common.

You need people who can do not just the work assigned to them but be flexible enough to take on other responsibilities as well.

If I see a resume from a fellow former student (There is no such thing as an Aggie alumni) I will wish them luck.  I will reminisce with them about the school.  I will acknowledge that they went to a good university.  I know that they are willing to work hard.  But that’s all I know.  I can’t draw any other inferences from the university that they attended.  I don’t know anything about their ability to think or how they work with other people or what their particular strengths or weaknesses are.

Old school ties belong at reunions, they belong at tailgate parties for football games in the fall, they belong on maroon t-shirts but they definitely don’t belong in the job interview process.

Posted in: business, career, relationships, school, work

Getting out there

July 11, 2015 6:33 AM , Leave a Comment ,

I was chatting about work and life the other day over tea at Starbucks.  The conversation drifted in the direction of business networking.  Not the computer kind of network but the personal type of network.  The type that’s hard for me.

Networking really hasn’t changed at all since the first business office was set up.  Having a wide circle of friends and acquaintances always pays off.  Although we may live in an interconnected world of instantaneous communications we still have to initiate contact with other people in order for it to work.

I don’t mean just send emails back and forth or maybe even have a phone conversation but actually “talk” to the other person.  Whether that person is a client, a colleague or even a competitor at another company.  Being more than just a contact card in an email directory is important.  It means that you’re an actual human being that the other person might think of when it comes time to ask for a job, a business opportunity or an introduction to someone else.

Initiating contact doesn’t have to be a big production involving flowers or lunch or whatever.  You can just initiate contact by asking the other person how they’re doing during the course of your regular work exchange.  Do some “industry gossip”.  Talk about that other third company that has nothing to do with you or speculate on the future of your field.  Ask about their goals and plans.

The main thing is that you become a known quantity, that you have a personality, and that you’re a factor in their life.  Not a giant factor but a factor.  You’ll never expect them to break down and cry on your shoulder and you should not expect them to lend you money but at the very least if things go bad you can send out resumes to them, you can ask them if they know about any open bids, you can query them about some job applicant that they may know.

This is the way that the business world works, folks.  It always has and always will be this way.

Posted in: business, career, friends, goals, jobs, opportunities, plans, relationships, social networks, standards and practices, work

The holiday hustle

July 1, 2015 6:41 AM , Leave a Comment ,

Sometimes people can be so ridiculous.  The 4th of July is coming up and people are already plotting and planning on how to get the most of a single day off.

They shuffle extra days off, doctor’s visits, vacations, and any good excuse to stretch out a three-day weekend into five or six days.  I’ve already had to reschedule phone conferences, projects, and have had to move quickly to get proposals out to people before they leave.

I have to say that some people really have some gall and don’t really care what this does to co-workers and colleagues that suddenly have their work lives altered to suit their needs.

Things really get bad around the end of the year with Christmas and New Year’s.  In these cases I’ve known companies to shutter for up to 2 weeks at a time.  Granted, the holiday period is a traditionally dead time of the year business wise.  Budgets have already been spent, new budgets don’t kick in till January and there seems to be a collective expectation that no one else is doing anything so why should we?

But wouldn’t it be better if instead of trying to make every short holiday longer why not cancel holidays and just give people more days off during the year.  Maybe instead of 2 weeks off during the year, why not 21 days to do with as you want.  Break it up into 3 one week vacations.  Plan ahead and do all 3 weeks at once.  Take the time off when it suits you instead being forced by convention to take certain days off.

I think if you let workers have more control over their time that they will reward you with being more productive during the time that they are there.

Posted in: business, holidays, work

the new 20s

June 1, 2015 7:09 AM , Leave a Comment ,

I was listening to an NPR program about retirement and they touched upon my generation (Generation X) entering into middle age.  This reminded me of a one-off phrase that a friend of mine had used the other day.  Namely that “the forties are the new twenties”.

Thinking about it I certainly don’t feel like what I imagined I would feel like when I hit my forties.  Growing up in suburbia I didn’t really contemplate my future that much but when I did I imagined a stereotypical suburban future with button down shirts and khakis and minivans and whatnot.  My career would be well underway and would probably be spent at a single company for more than twenty years and would be backstopped by some sort of pension plan.  My family life would be typical suburbanite and traditional.

Little did I know what the future would bring.

But then again I don’t think anyone really knows what the future will bring.  Sure there are folks out there that do have that sort of lifestyle but it’s becoming rarer and rarer these days.

I never imagined a multigenerational household or that I would have to guard, tend, and cultivate my own retirement fund.  I never imagined that I would have to be more dynamic and keep abreast of the latest developments in my field and several related fields in case I had to change jobs.

“the forties are the new twenties” sounds positive but really I think what it means is that you have to not only think like a twentysomething to keep your head above water but you also have to have the strength and flexibility of a twentysomething in case you find yourself in a tough position.

The new economy is not only leaner and meaner, it’s more dynamic and requires us to think fast and move even faster in order to keep pace with developments around the world.

Thinking about my future I don’t see myself retiring at the “traditional” age of sixty-five.  Not only is it something that I don’t think I will manage to do.  I don’t particularly want to limit myself.  I want to believe that I can continue being active for as long as possible and to take advantage of my life right up to the very end.  Things are just to interesting right now to retire.

Posted in: activities, aging, culture, thought, work

Making the most out of your travel experience the online way

May 26, 2015 6:40 AM , Leave a Comment ,

Travel can be a nightmare sometimes.  Whether it’s for relaxation or for business, at best travel is a chore that you have to get through in order to get on with your plans.  At worse it can be a nightmare that never seems to end.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. I get the fact that years ago when you had to rely on travel agents and paper tickets and possibly misbooked hotel rooms that things could often go awry but nowadays we have robust and well-developed and refined travel systems out there.  You really have almost no excuse not to have a good trip.

Let’s start with booking the trip.  If you just watch an hour’s worth of TV or listen to radio or read a magazine you will come across advertising for some sort of online travel agent.  I’m not saying you need to book through them but you can at the very least get online and compare prices for days and days and find those cheap tickets to almost anywhere.

You can take advantage of government security programs that let you minimize your time at security checkpoints in airports.  You can do a lot of the annoying paperwork that you had to do at the kiosks online and just drop your bags off and walk calmly to your plane with plenty of time.

Once you get to where you’re going you can arrange ground transport by taxi or über or airport shuttle.  You can tell people where to pick you up and if you’ll be late.

With hotels you can look at the actual properties where you’ll be staying and see how well you like it.  You can find online reviews or ask other people if they’ve stayed there before.

The most exciting thing about our new online life is that we can look at a location and see if there are attractions, restaurants, and other things that we can do besides what we expected.  We are no longer bound to be stuck in a hotel or an attraction.  We can now explore all the possibilities that a location can offer.

Weather of course is so obvious that it’s almost not worth mentioning but any little advantage can help.

So look at where you currently live and think about all the possibilities around you.  If you were a stranger what things would you like to know about your location?  Make up a list and then apply that to wherever it is you want to go and find out that information.

 

Posted in: activities, advice, hotels, travel, vacations, work

Making time

May 6, 2015 6:34 AM , Leave a Comment ,

It may seem odd but I have found that when you’re the busiest and have the least time, that’s when you need most of all to have some time off for yourself.

I can’t claim to be the busiest person I know.  I know plenty of other people who are busier but I’m no slouch.  I’m basically up and moving around from four in the morning till 10:30 at night.  I have a ton work and family things to do and I never have enough time.

Work, exercise, and home life take up my time during the week.  In what few time gaps I get I do every day chores and take care of things that need to be done but I always keep busy.

Sometimes it seems that the weekdays roll into each other and that my “morning” began on Monday and my “afternoon” ended on Friday.  Not that healthy for a person to do that all the time.

The weekends have their own set of responsibilities but it’s not as hectic as the week so I use them for what they were meant to be used.  I take a “break” from the weekly grind and I try to do something different.

Doesn’t really matter what you do.  Go clubbing, a hobby, go dancing, read for an evening.  The point of a “break” is just that.  To break the monotony of the routine and let the pressure on your mind ease up.  Let it breathe a bit.

Don’t kid yourself that you can keep going all out all the time.  Maybe you could when you were in your twenties or even your thirties.  But one thing I’ve found that in my forties that I can’t keep doing that all the time.  It gets unhealthy not to let the pressure off your mind.  You start missing obvious problems, you start accepting “less than the best” efforts, you get despondent.  I find that over time my dynamic thinking skills deteriorate and I start just doing the “wash, rinse, and repeat” type of cycle every day.  Unless you work at a fast food place that’s no way to work.

Think of this as maintenance or a tune up for your mind and body.  A way to keep going throughout the year at peak efficiency.  This is probably the cheapest way that you can keep yourself going without having to take a full-blown vacation.

 

Posted in: activities, family, life in general, work

vacation work

December 1, 2014 7:04 AM , Leave a Comment ,

Even vacations can be work.  Well not really but yeah.

My daily routine and my life doesn’t end just because I’m going on vacation.  If anything, my life gets concentrated.  Those little breathers that we all have built into our daily routine disappear and I find out just how much I can really get done when the pressure is on.

I have to dig out the suitcase and take out of it all those things I “temporarily” stored in there and move them somewhere else.  Think about and find whatever clothes I will take on the trip and acquire those things that I don’t have and will need and if the place you’re going to is out of season, good luck finding beach wear in the Winter.

Some things I will buy for the trip and some things that I normally use everyday will go with me.  But which ones?

The personal kit.  That tube of toothpaste is dried out, get a new one, that razor is rusty, these pepto bismol pills are out of date, those band aids are all stuck together. Most hotels carry things like soap and shampoo but you know the one time you don’t pack them…

Cram it all into the suitcase.  Put the socks into the shoes.  Packing cubes are great but no matter what you only have so much space.  Play Tetris and try to change cubes around to get more things in.

Electronics.  How much to take and how much is overkill?

Besides all of that, like I said my life doesn’t stop because I’m going on a trip.  I have work to juggle round.  Clients that need to know you won’t be there and arrangements to make at the office.  At home I have to tag people to come check on things at home while I’m away.  I have to make sure my bills are paid and up to date till at least a week after I return so I don’t get caught short on time.

I still have to eat of course so grocery shopping.  Some of the items I will take on the trip, I need to use everyday.  I can’t pack them yet so I have to make sure I have space for it in the suitcase and not forget to pack it at the last-minute and hope that it doesn’t disrupt all the packing.

The seconds tick away as the departure date draws near.  Nerve wracking in a way.  Once the day arrives whatever gets done, gets done.  Everything else you will have to do without.

Then of course once your vacation is under way the clock starts running again and you’re counting the minutes till you have to go back.

Posted in: life in general, plans, vacations, work

performance reviews

November 13, 2014 6:44 AM , Leave a Comment ,

Anyone that’s worked in an office for a boss has had to go through one of these at some point.

In small companies it’s usually a one on one informal and unannounced get together.  Basically the boss stops by your desk and asks “how are things going?” and gets to the point in a roundabout way.  One thing you should know about your boss is that they rarely do something without a reason.

In larger offices of course it’s a more organized and formal affair.  You might have to talk to your immediate boss or an HR person or maybe you even have a peer review system in place and discuss matters with your co-workers.  So it might be useful to know what a performance review is and what it is not supposed to be.

So what’s the point of a performance review? it’ basically the opportunity for those that you work with or work for to let you know how you’ve been doing at your job. We all like to think that we’re doing things the best way possible and that we don’t have any flaws in our work habits.  But even the best and most conscientious of workers has a lapse from time to time.  In other cases, such as when you’re just starting out, your boss or your co-workers can share with you their accumulated wisdom and may be able to improve your workflow or make things easier for you.

So what is a performance review not supposed to be?  It’s not a beat down session where people take free shots at you.  Sometimes it’s hard to hear that you’re not perfect or that you could be doing things in a better way.  Sometimes when you’re starting out in your career a performance review seems like everyone is ganging up on you and trying to pick on the least little flaw.  That’s not what business is about.  Remember you and everyone there at the company is there to make money for the company.  Personality issues are not conducive to that end.

Take this as the opportunity not only to learn from any flaws or mistakes in your work rhythm but also to think about how you fit into the general scheme of the company.  Is the way that they do things comfortable for you?  Is it totally bizarre, alien, and not at all your way of working?  They’re basically telling you what you’re supposed to do and how you’re supposed to do it.  Think about all of this and take this opportunity to decide whether you want to continue on at this company.

The performance review should be an opportunity for you not a dreaded event.

Posted in: business, career, work

If it was easy everyone would…

November 5, 2014 6:50 AM , Leave a Comment ,

I’ve been getting an education these last couple of months into some of the inner workings of real estate and banking.  I have a real estate side project that has finally begun to get going after being stalled out for a couple of months.

Sure it looked simple and easy in my head.  Just sign a couple forms, a little paperwork, and suddenly all your plans will move ahead and before you know it you’ll be a real estate tycoon.

HA!

I thought some of the terminology in my line of work was esoteric.  Well.  It is.  But it turns out to be nothing compared to all the terminology used in the real estate game.  More than once I walked out of my realtor’s office with my head spinning from all these new terms that my realtor was throwing out at me.

Then there was the lovely business of securing a home equity loan.  Bouncing back and forth between lenders till I had them pinned down to their final and best offers.  Free hint.  They will never give you the best offer on the first go round.

Never.

Then you have to let go of one lender and they react as if you’re breaking up with them.  Not fun.

Then of course the reams of paperwork at the title office attesting to this that and the other thing.  Everything copied, notarized and duly delivered.  I sign and initial here, there, and everywhere.  In the back of my head a quote from the play Faust keeps repeating over and over.

“did we force ourselves on thee, or thou on us?”

So finally it’s all in and now the fun part starts, right?  Now comes haggling with property owners, finagling with contractors, paying for a dozen little items here and there that you hadn’t considered.  Crossing your fingers that you find a tenant.  Doubly crossing your fingers you find a tenant that won’t wreck the place.

No, not that simple.  But is it worthwhile?  Ultimately only time will tell but I think it’s something I had to do and I wouldn’t have done it if I had not thought it wouldn’t succeed.

My hope for this first time out (besides the hope of making money) is that I will be better prepared for the next time that I do this and better mentally armored for this type of business.

 

Posted in: business, opportunities, thought, work