Making it Work

With a little surprise, I observe that it’s been nearly a month since my latest post. (Well, in fact, it’s been only a few minutes since my latest post, a little froth that I whipped up based on Yet Another Strange Internet Observation this morning. I mean it’s been several weeks since my last post before, er, my latest post.)

I shouldn’t be surprised, though. About five weeks ago I started a new job several months after being downsized from my previous employment of nearly a decade (“Gainful Employment”, September 10, 2010), and it’s been pretty hectic with learning new responsibilities, new personalities, new routines, a new corporate culture, and so on.

And of course at the same time a guy still has all “the usual” going on—you know, life and stuff. Even after only eight months I’d forgotten how much formal employment cuts into one’s day.

While this is going on in my little corner of the world, I have a couple of friends whose employment situations are less shiny. One probably won’t be in that situation much longer, thanks to various external forces; the other shouldn’t be, since the situation is completely untenable and intolerable, to the point of creating some pretty alarming health issues.

Pondering my friends’ cases and contrasting it with my own recent good fortune, I reflected again on the value of being valued in one’s employment—a feeling I had all but forgotten in the waning days of my previous employment. “You’re a real asset to the office, that’s why we’re throwing you under the wheels” strikes one as something of a discrepancy, and does little to foster a sense of worth or value to the undertaking. Add to that the fact that a sizable percentage of what I had dedicated myself to for the better part of a decade simply went away when I left, and one comes away with the nagging feeling that he’s wasted a considerable amount of time and energy for no lasting good. Having now come into a workplace where it seemed from the get-go, and still seems, that my contribution is welcomed and appreciated, I see how much I had missed that before. And how important it is to one’s well-being and self-esteem.

I’ve reflected too on how much employment is like a personal relationship. You have to put yourself out there, expose yourself, make yourself vulnerable, at least to an extent. Maybe you’ll be accepted, maybe you’ll be rejected. It’s a little like asking for a date. Then there’s that whole getting-o-know-you phase, during which time you start to see the cracks a little. And you don’t know—and probably won’t for awhile, and maybe not ever—how long it will last, how real it will be, how compatible you’ll prove to be, how much you or they will or will not change.

Just like real life.

As in a personal relationship, our relationship to our work, and our workplace, can be a source of affirmation, contentment, even joy. Or it can be a living hell. Or, I suppose, all of the above.

So far so good, for me. I like what I’m doing, I like the people I’m working with, I like the conditions and the culture. (Office gets a little hot in the afternoon, but I’ve decided to wait and see how it is in the dead of winter before I start to whine about it.) But I have to say that I feel bad for my aforementioned friends, and a couple of others, who aren’t experiencing that sort of contentment or affirmation in their work or work environment. It’s a real shame. It’s a real shame for everybody in that position. We spend so much time and invest so much of ourselves in our work; it should be worth more than just a paycheck. (Even though a paycheck is indeed what brought me to my current engagement. I’m not against paychecks, mind!) Certainly it should not be soul- and psyche-crushing.

I think of that every time I hear some deep thinker profess that “any job is a good job.” Naturally, they’re always talking about someone else when they say things like that.

And they’re wrong.

For must of us, employment is necessary. But it shouldn’t be a necessary evil.

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Gainful Employment

This past week I started a new job, just a week shy of the eight-month anniversary of my having been "downsized" from my previous gig of nearly a decade.

The new job continues a pattern that runs through my entire employment history: Only once have I landed a job that I saw advertised and then pursued; the rest have all been the result of the phone ringing and my answering it.

It's not what you know, and, it turns out, it's not who you know, either. It's who knows you.

I am back on the religion beat, and back among my Lutheran chums. After being thrown down the stairs in my previous position, I commented that I would not be in too big a hurry to work for a religious organization again. It was true eight or nine months ago, and I'd be kidding if I didn't say I approached what is now my current position with some wariness. Once bitten, and so on.

But it was nice to be thought of, and the interview went very well (you can always tell they're going well when you get offered the job on the spot), and the old exchequer acted like it could use some positive cash flow again, so...

The week has been exhausting, as I always find the first couple of weeks in a new job to be. But the people I am working with all seem very nice--more to the point, genuinely nice, since "nice" is a pretty cheap commodity, I've discovered, and although the week was colossally hectic (everyone kept telling me it isn't usually like that; sure hope so), I never had the feeling that I was in the crosshairs, which was a pretty constant feeling in the old job.

There is, of course, a great satisfaction in gainful employment, especially in an area in which one is experiences, which one likes, and which one can do reasonably well (specifically, communication: Publications and website, mostly). But there is a deeper satisfaction, it develops, in being in a setting in which one's contribution seems to be valued, where one's co-workers appear to respect and appreciate whatever expertise and experience one may bring to the table--even though one is still a virtual stranger to them. I'm only four days into the job, yes, but I have gotten the feeling from every single one of my colleagues--the top guns as well as my fellow staffers--that they are glad to have me on board and appreciate my contribution.

I felt that occasionally, and from certain individuals, in my previous assignment, but for the most part I felt that my role was viewed as merely another interchangeable cog in the machine, just some quasi-anonymous someone pulling one of the oars. That feeling was driven home rather keenly when I was informed that my reward for nearly a decade of loyal service would be the privilege of being the first to be thrown overboard when revenue grew tight. Nothing personal, of course, but we've decided we can get along nicely without your invaluable contribution. This way to the plank...

So it is refreshing--and, I must say, surprising--to feel that my work actually counts for something, actually has value in the eyes of someone other than myself alone, and to have that sentiment expressed in attitudes and demeanor rather than in platitudes that ring hollow since they come while one is simultaneously being given the bum's rush.

Yes, I realize that I am still in that golden "honeymoon" phase. But that hardly diminishes the pleasantness of it all.

Work should be about more than just a paycheck. This feels like work that could be that. Time will tell.

In the meantime, I'm very glad that my phone rang. Glad I answered it. And glad that, despite my recent sour experience, I did not dismiss the current opportunity out of hand.

---

Climbing to Nowhere?

Has anybody reading this (either one of you) had any experience with Climber.com? If so, does it seem as pointless to you as it does me?

Disclosure: Some months back I signed up for the limited, free version of Climber.com. Maybe the stuff you have to pay for is more useful, or pertinent. But my observation to date, from the regular Job Alert Newsletters it sends me, is that it's pretty off-point.

For instance, the Job Alert Newsletter for July 1 lists among the "Freshest Jobs on the Net" (!) "targeted" for me based on the information that I provided when I filled out my profile, "Managing Editor Jobs in SOUTH DAKOTA (16 New)." Wow--sixteen new Managing Editor positions right here in South Dakota. Who knew? Well, I was a magazine managing editor in a past life, so obviously the category is spot on.

So I click through to the "fresh" listings. There's a bunch of them, all right...but only one is actually in South Dakota. And on the other end of the state at that, but it's nothing to complain about since the newsletter promised positions in this state, not my town. But the other listings...here's one in Houston. Here's one in Minneapolis. Here's a "self-funded" job in Des Moines. Here's one in Basking Ridge, New Jersey. Oh, and there's only seven listed, not sixteen.

Not all that helpful, really.

But more helpful than another, somewhat enigmatic listing, "Mac Jobs in SOUTH DAKOTA (15 New)." No idea what a Mac Job is, but I suppose it has to do with my being a Macintosh computer owner of long standing. Could be fun. So I click through..

Your search - Mac - did not match any jobs.

Um, okay. Then what's the deal with the "Mac Jobs in SOUTH DAKOTA (15 New)" you were telling me about in the Job Alert Newsletter? Further, what's the deal with the helpful "suggestion" you offer:

Suggestions:

• - Make sure all words are spelled correctly.

• - Try different keywords.

• - Try more general keywords.

Yes, nothing brightens your day like being given suggestions to improve "your" search when in fact it was their search that didn't work.

So it is that Climber.com doesn't strike me as any sort of useful tool. If the idea is to get me to pay money to see the good stuff, then perhaps they should take a leaf from Classmates.com and NamesDatabase.com, which are forever telling me that people have searched for me and they'll tell me who those people are if I give them money. Climber.com doesn't tell me it's found my dream job and will share the info with me in return for cash; it tells me it's found a suitable (indeed, "fresh") job, then gives it the lie when I go to check on it. Some kind of strange, sick ongoing April Fool's joke, perhaps?

Back to the original query, then: Anyone had any experience with Climber.com? If so, was it a useful experience? Or am I right in my belief that I might as well pull the plug on it?

Close-to-Home-ish

It's all over the news today that, in an effort to survive, Chrysler LLC has filed a motion with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court to effectively close 789 dealers by early June.

Although I have no sentimental ties to Chrysler--my family never owned one, and to the best of my recollection I have in three decades of driving piloted precisely two: A late-1970s Plymouth Arrow that belonged to a college friend, and a 2008 PT Cruiser rental that I had last week when my CR-V was in the body shop--I was curious to see if Chrysler had announced which dealers would close, and if any were nearby.

Somewhat to my surprise, I see by this list at ConsumerReports.org that a number of those dealerships are in South Dakota. It often seems--or the local boosters would have it seem--that the local economy is something of a bubble floating atop the raging seas. Not this time, I guess.

Here are the lucky dealerships:

BIEGLER'S INC 1502 6TH AVE SW ABERDEEN, SD 57401-3703

FLANDREAU MOTORS INC HWY 32 WEST FLANDREAU, SD 57028

HILLS EDGE AUTO SALES INC HIGHWAY 385 N HOT SPRINGS, SD 57747

LIBERTY MOTORS INC 600 CAMBELL ST RAPID CITY, SD 57701-3002

PALACE MOTORS INC 219 EAST FIRST AVENUE MITCHELL, SD 57301-3425

S.J. MARNANCE INC DBA SCHOENHARD DODGE 101 SECOND STREET SOUTHWEST HURON, SD 57350-2502

SPEARFISH MOTORS INC 1910 NORTH MAIN STREET SPEARFISH, SD 57783

I have no idea how many of those, if any, sell cars other than Chryslers, or how easy or difficult it may be to switch to another line, especially in times of a downturn. Doesn't sound like a good deal for the people who work at these dealerships.