Failure to engage

As you know, I’m fascinated by how people behave on social media, especially those who tout themselves as influencers, thought leaders and mavens. Very often they are the ones who follow you and then unfollow as soon as you’ve followed them back. They’re all about self-amplification, and only self-amplification, regardless of what they claim.

Here’s one of my latest subjects. I don’t even know why Larry Kim followed me (or when), and I don’t know why he has a blue checkmark. But the fact that his profile claims he “popularized Unicorns in Marketing” [his capitalization] gave me a clue as to what to expect.

He loves to post Wisdom of various sorts, viz:

Note the highlighted directive WRT engaging. Then know that when I commented on another of his Unicorn Droppings:

…He never responded.

#fail

Monkey business

Let’s have a break from local copperheads and Rams; time for a commercial break. So I’ll give you a couple of bits of business news.

This week, General Electric—that erstwhile powerhouse of American blue-chip manufacturing—was tossed out of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Its place on the exchange will be taken by Walgreen’s.

GE was a founding member of the Dow, so this has got to bite. As recently as the 90s, under CEO Jack Welch, the company was held up as an example of how to company. One of their divisions once flew me up to Connecticut for an interview; I wasn’t offered the job but I never held it against them. However, in recent years, they’ve pretty much screwed the pooch and last year it was the worst-performing stock in the Dow.

They put out a “things are going to plan” statement after the banishment was announced, but the plan involves a lot of pulling in of horns and selling off of businesses, from the railroad to the lightbulb divisions. Sad times.

And at the other end of the business weird-shit-o-meter, yesterday the Kleptocrat might have overdosed on Ambien, causing him to accuse those wily Canadians of…well, I’ll let him speak for himself, in his own word salad:

(I'm not even going to comment on #SpaceCadetBoneSpurs' announcement that he's creating another branch of the military—separate but equal—to conquer and occupy space. And he's calling it Space Force. Because of course.)

It took GE 120 years to screw the pooch as badly as the stable genius Chaos Monkey. God help us all.

Drains, snakes & nature

Just as I was getting home yesterday we had one of those gullywashers of a rainstorm. I noticed that the parking lot of my cluster doesn’t seem to have gutters or storm drains, which means that the parking lot could have floated the Forrestal’s battle group.

But it abated after a while and I was able to return to watching the birds at the feeders while my socks dried on my feet.

The rain broke some of the heat, which was nice. (Summer storms don’t always do that around here.) But it also left diamonds on my giant hosta leaves, which I love.

I’m a little leery of those hostas, which are right outside my front door. Last year I found a letter carrier standing on the sidewalk side of the plants; he told me he’d seen a snake slithering under the leaves. And there have been copperhead sightings around the People’s Republic—reptile as well as human—so I’m thinking I might want to trim the big leaves back so the snakes can’t hide.

I’m all for sharing the environment with others of God’s creatures. But really—it’s a big world; they don’t have to be that close to me.

Baaaaaaa

A couple of weeks ago I was parked at a construction road stoppage. I was gazing idly about, as one does, when I noticed the big, tough Ram pickup truck in front of me.

First of all, I can never look at a big, tough Ram pickup truck with a straight face since it was pointed out that their ram is the spitting image of a diagram of the internal female reproductive system.

But then I twigged to Mr. Tough Ram Guy’s stickers:

And I thought, “Yeah—that trade war your Kleptocrat hero’s getting us into is going to take down Harley, along with a good chunk of Flyover Country’s agriculture. How’s that vote of yours workin’ out for you, eh, bud?"

Gratitude Monday: reciprocal thanks

My vast experience with the job search has taught me many strategies for getting through the soul-sucking esteem-smashing slog. Beyond optimizing your LinkedIn profile and spiffing up your résumé—and there are as many definitions of optimal and spiffed as there are subject matter experts (SMEs) ready to sell you their guaranteed Nirvana—and the dreaded networking.

(It’s interesting: networking one’s way into jobs is by far the most successful methodology, as agreed by researchers, hiring managers and SMEs alike. And yet the vast preponderance of job seekers I’ve met would much rather—and do—repeatedly revise their LinkedIn profiles and submit online applications for jobs they find on job boards, and waiting like the refugees in Casablanca to be contacted by recruiters…anything but suit up, get out to Meetups and industry events, ask connections to coffee and rinse and repeat.)

One of the strategies that I personally found helpful was regular sessions with other job seekers—either weekly or bi-weekly—to encourage one another, but also to be accountable. If you don’t have to report on progress against your stated goals and tasks on a regular basis, it’s way too easy to just…not. And I know this because I’m guilty of it.

Under the aegis of one of the Valley They Call Silicon job search support groups, run by a church as one of its ministries, I used to participate in a couple of what were called “success teams”—weekly meetings of about five to eight people looking for work, where we’d go around the table, reporting on what we’d done over the last week, and list what we planned to do in the coming week. People gave encouragement and made suggestions. But importantly, someone took notes and disseminated them, so everyone knew what we would have to report on.

The problem with such groups is that you always have members who are basically phoning it in, for one reason or another. One of them, in Mountain View, was a surgical nurse who’d been fired for some reason and was in the process of a union claim. She had no intention of actually looking for a job; she was merely riding things out until the claim was resolved and she could return to the hospital that had fired her. She’d show up week after week, take up time talking about what she hadn’t done, listen to suggestions the other members would make, write nothing down, parry ideas, and make no contribution to anyone else’s report.

At another group, in Cupertino, the dead weight was a Drama Queen of a self-described entrepreneur-engineer (and expert in everything from baking to economic theory). He’d show up every week with a long list of everything that had prevented him from doing anything, declaimed with full histrionics; his greatest skill, as far as I could see, was his ability to explain (as though to children, with slowed speech, careful enunciation and bugged eyes) why any and all of our suggestions just wouldn’t work in his very special case. He once handed round his résumé; it went back to 1973. And he assured me that he could not possibly cut one single bullet point, because everything on it was incredibly important.

Well—but aside from clangers like those, accountability partners are a good thing. So, back in the day when I was looking fulltime, and a couple of friends were also looking (one in North Carolina and one in England), I’d Skype with each of them every fortnight, just to give support, encouragement and reality checks.

Okay—all this is by way of introduction to my actual Gratitude Monday post. Because one of my colleagues from my stint at Monolithic Networking Corporation seven years ago reached out to me a month or so ago to ask for some advice in his latest job hunt. He was treated shabbily by MNC—a not extraordinary thing for that outfit—but always maintained a positive demeanor, and helped me get a much-needed mouse, which enabled me to do my job. Since then he went to work for Phillips in IoT technology, and when his division was basically shut down, he thought he might like to see if he could marry his experience with IoT to his passion for wineries; we’d once talked about analytics and such, so he thought I might have some suggestions.

Well, I Googled “IoT and wineries”, “AI and wineries”, and “data science and wineries” on my hour-long Metro ride home, and there’s some interesting stuff going on. We had a good long chat, I made some suggestions, I asked if he’d like to go the bi-weekly check-in route, and that’s what we’ve been doing. It’s a bold thing to pivot one’s career in this way, and I really admire him for stepping back to look at the possibilities and work toward them. He’s making great progress with his mother-of-all-spreadsheets to wrangle all his research and his conversations with people on the winery side and on the tech side, and I look forward to our calls.

Well—as you know, last week was a bummer for me, and on Wednesday I was feeling well and truly discouraged over the realization that I just can’t count on my current employment to last. But then an email from my friend appeared in my queue:

“[Bas Bleu],

“I hope that you are having a great day. This morning, after my workout in the gym, I was going through my list of things and people that I am grateful for.

“You were on the top of the list this morning. I really do appreciate your support in getting on solid ground in my career transition. I am very fortunate to have your help in this journey. Thank you.”

Well, that just brought me up short. He’s grateful for me. He’s grateful for me. Huh.

What a wonderful thing to read, on any day, but especially last Wednesday. I am so grateful that he took the time to write it. (And also, kudos for keeping a list of gratitudes!)

But I’m also grateful for our calls, that I can give support and encouragement, and also that my experiences can be turned to something valuable for someone else. It is truly a blessing to be able to help. And I give heartfelt thanks for this reminder.

Everlasting stream

After this crack-brained week, I’m not quite sure how to view Friday. So, two things to brighten the weekend:

The New York Attorney General has filed a lawsuit against the Kleptocrat’s bigly bogus foundation for a whole spectrum of fraud, surprising absolutely no one with three synapses firing in sequence. She has also sent referrals to the Federal Elections Commission and the IRS, basically inviting them to start digging for election and tax violations. 

Anent this: let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everlasting stream.

Second: it’s apparently chipmunk season—I’ve seen them in my backyard, in the ‘hood and on my walks. They are such cute little buggers; you cannot watch them without smiling.

Peace out.

Tick-tock

So, this happened. Again.

I reported in January the sudden, ah, pivot in my employment status. And when last I updated you three months ago, it looked as though at least someone saw a future for me with my current employer. I mean, clear communication does not seem to be a cultural strength in this outfit, but I had understood that there would be use for me once the business plan is done this month.

With that thought in mind, I’ve been beavering away on the plan (a process that includes a not inconsiderable element of cat herding to get a straight—or even only somewhat wavy—story around what, exactly, this program is going to do). I’d got signoff from my manager to attend the Grace Hopper Celebration in September. (I went last year as part of my work managing innovations.) In fact, I got literal signoff on my expense for registering for the conference at a meeting with her on Monday, where I presented the mother-of-all-financial-models. Everything seemed fine.

Then, Tuesday evening, an email appeared in my queue from the woman in HR responsible for managing benefits—the one who balances being out of the office more often than in with seemingly being unable to deliver on your benefits choices. (It took repeated emails and visits to her office from June to November last year before the money being taken out of my paycheck for retirement got into the right accounts.)

(Look: my Outlook folder for correspondence with HR is labeled Clown Car. ‘Nuff said.)

Here’s the text of that email: “I was made aware that you may be leaving at the end of the month due to funding for your position. Do you have any questions regarding your benefits?”

Why, yes—yes, I do have questions.

So I forwarded the email to my manager, basically asking, WTF? The response I got was not entirely reassuring. The company funds covering my salary do end on the 30^th, but she’s scrambling to cobble together monies from various sources to cover me until October, when some big grants are expected to come in. “It would not make sense to stop this work now when we are getting traction and funder interest.” And she said we could talk in person yesterday “if you like.”

Well, yes; yes, I would. I mean—WTF?

In person, she started off by saying, “Your issue is a non-issue.” Well, no, it’s not; not to me. But the gist of it is that she recognizes that what I bring to the table does not otherwise exist in her organization, and it’s a necessary skillset. Great. (She also was pissed off at HR for jumping the gun in their size 11 Doc Martens. “They’re slow on everything except what they should be slow at.”)

But I do not like the notion of continually scrambling around to find funds to pay my salary, and my travel expenses and my bloody benefits. It means I’m working under a sword of Damocles, and that does not bring out my best work. So I have to up my job search game. Again.

(More and more I feel like Sergeant Murtaugh: I am too old for this shit.)

I also don’t like that she doesn’t have enough money on hand from existing grants to get me through to October, and needs to ask the CEO, through his boy-wonder chief-of-staff, for half the dosh. The only thing good about this is that I don’t have to be present at that particular discussion.

Oh—and when I replied to the benefits chick yesterday to advise her to deal with my manager, I got an automated out-of-office reply.

Because of course.

Hiding the bodies

Here’s the thing about English sparrows: as much as I decried their predations (before the grackles arrived), if you’ve ever got an unsuccessful baking project, they’re always happy to police the area for you.

Example: some time back I was making scones for a friend and I forgot the salt, so they came out more like hockey pucks than cream biscuits. I was going to dump them, but then thought, “Maybe the birds would fancy them?”

So I put them out, and, hey-presto, the sparrows were all over them like a rash. Viz:

 I was grateful for the laughs and the disposal service.

Plurality

You know, given all the mishegoss flying around on Air Force One, I think I’m just going to leave this here for you.

We do need all the laugh’s we can get.

Gratitude Monday: girlz in the 'hood

I’ve been trying to up my exercise game, mostly by walking—easing myself into it, as it were. I shared my adventure in Great Falls National Park last week; this time around, it’s the People’s Republic.

Let me preface this by noting that this town has the most bizarre thing going WRT sidewalks. I don’t know whether the government intends to discourage people from walking, or you’re supposed to walk along the paths that meander around instead of along the roads, or whether they’re just too cheap to put sidewalks along streets. But I’ve noticed for years that finding sidewalks is a complete crap shoot.

For example: you’ll emerge from your cluster to discover a sidewalk on the port side of the street. For maybe a tenth of a mile. Then it stops and there’s a sidewalk on the starboard side for half a mile. Then—for no discernable reason—that stops, and there’s nothing at all, and nowhere to walk but in the street. 

(Note pedestrian walking in the street because no sidewalk.)

Given the speeds at which the SUVs fly around the People's Republic in general and on this road in particular, this is not for the faint-at-heart.

As for the non-street paths—if you don’t already know where you’re going and how the trails map, you’re pretty much stuffed.

However—as I said, I need to start somewhere, so I just tied on my trainers, grabbed my camera and set out. Mostly, the only thing I care about is avoiding the golf course; I prefer neighborhoods and woods.

So, a couple of interesting sights. One family set out this bowl of water so neighborhood dogs could have a slurp while out walking their humans. That was nice.

And I don’t know the origin of this very well-tended bench (complete with umbrella):

But here’s the view that the peering dude (and anyone sitting on the bench) sees:

Further down the street, someone's got a gorgeous crop of oregano going. I'm so jealous:

It’s going to be more challenging to go on walks as we push into summer here in the environs of the District They Call Columbia—so far it’s been extremely mild, but that can’t last. Still—it’s always nice to have variety in any exercise regimen, and I’m grateful for it.