Cube RulesTag: Ireland | Cube Rules

The Review, 2008

Scot Herrick — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 09:00:51 +0000

2008 was a tulmultuous year for most everyone. Layoffs, recession, changes in income, how work is done and how we approached opportunities changed in 2008. We were forced to struggle more and finally decided that change was needed.

Here’s what I’m thankful for in 2008:

A new President here in the United States. If 30% of the agenda is enacted and implemented, there will be significant changes for all of us in how we go about work.
Being laid off by Washington Mutual. It has provided me the kick I needed to create my own company and focus on changing what I do for work.
My wife, Kate, being laid off from Washington Mutual. There are challenges to being laid off together and we really found out the strength of our relationship.
Our trip to Ireland. What a fabulous country. Great people. Great work. They are showing how great Ireland is to the rest of the world.
Our trips to the Oregon coast. What a fun place to visit. The scenery is stunning and the people are gracious.
Practicing what I preach. When you write about career management all the time, it is a challenge to live as you advise. Most of it has worked out better than planned.
My friends. There are many more this year who have shared their lives with us. Plus even more from the online world who I have been able to meet with and share our stories as if we had been seeing each other since the beginning.
The supporters of Cube Rules. All of this would mean nothing without your support of the site, the advice given, and the building of community that you bring when you share your experiences through the comments on the site.

Thanks for a great year. Kate and I are going to take some time and enjoy the end of the year. I’ll be posting again on January 5, 2009. I have a lot planned for next year and can’t wait to get it going.

No related posts.

Career advice in the face of a meltdown

Scot Herrick — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 20:52:27 +0000

In predictions, there is this statement when it comes to financials: give them a number or give them a date, but never give a number and date together.

I’m not going to guess a stock market number, but since this is a career management site, I think it is important to give you my predictions on what happens from here.

Quick summary of today’s events

The “bailout” plan fails a vote in Congress with both Republicans and Democrats not presenting a united front for the plan.
Wall Street fell about 777 points (DOW) and there were equally big losses on the NASDAQ and S&P 500 stocks. This was the largest single day drop in the DOW. Like one point for each billion in the bailout plan…
Wachovia’s bank assets were bought by Citibank. WaMu failed last week.
The mess has spread worldwide with Europe taking over three banks today. The Ireland (Dublin) stock market was down 13% in a day. A record.
The Fed is adding billions more dollars to the money markets (where are they getting them and how long before they have to print them?).
And we haven’t gotten to Asian markets as I write this.
Plus many, many more that would, on a normal day, be huge news, but today is merely more of the same.

What do these events mean for the Cubicle Warrior?

Here come the predictions:

Renegotiate the bailout in Congress by the Bush Administration. That will take more time. It may not happen at all. There is a large part of Congress that does not want to bail out anyone for the excesses of the past. That includes a large slice of the US population. The result of that stance is significant destruction of businesses – and jobs.
The liquidity issue is one where banks don’t want to lend to each other and, in turn, don’t want to lend to anyone else. This means that your checking, saving, and financial accounts backed by what your bank already has for capital. Sure, the FDIC is there, but they are doing these takeovers (like WaMu and Wachovia) based on someone else buying assets for pennies on the dollar and not using the FDIC insurance dollars. JPMorgan Chase got WaMu’s $300 billion in assets for $1.9 billion. Wachovia’s bank assets sold for $1 per share to Citigroup. Even I can do the math.
Business liquidity will drop. Because banks want to hold cash, there is the strong possibility that revolving business lines of credit won’t renew. If your companies credit line isn’t renewed, that significantly impacts their capacity to stay in business (think of financing 30-days of receivables or two months of inventory through credit but now you can’t).
Psychologically, people will pull in their spending even more than they have already. Since most the economy rests on consumer spending, the economy will tank into a recession. When you go into your local mall, look and see how many spaces are available. For the stores that are there, look how few clothes they have on the racks going into the critical holiday season and how soon the sales are already starting. They know.

But what about my job?

Here’s the advice:

You need to analyze the strength of your company. That means reading about your publicly held company on sites other than your own company “drink the kool-aid” internal web site. Not the discussion boards, but the financial news sites (for example, Yahoo finance – just plug-in your company’s stock symbol to get all the news).
You need to interpret what your management team is telling you. And I don’t mean follow them, but listen to them. If your management team is giving you corporate spin, you need to ask the hard questions: what is the company’s cash position compared with a year ago? What about revolving credit lines? What about receivables compared with a year ago? What about sales and inventory compared with a year ago? If your management team simply tells you they are in a strong position but can’t compare that with a year ago, you’re in trouble. WaMu consistently talked about how strong they were capitalized, but casually forgot to mention that since September 15^th through the day they were taken over their bank deposits dropped by over $16 billion.
You need to do your work. Performance counts, even in the face of a bankruptcy or other difficult times. Managers will want to keep – and other managers will want to hire – those people that continuously perform.
Decide your accomplishments. Your manager and other hiring managers want you know what you did – including numbers – in your last position. If you can’t state your accomplishments with the results, you need to write them down and get the numbers.
Continue networking. Networking with others keeps you engaged and informed on what is happening in other departments and companies. And if your only networking is in your own company, however large, start getting contacts in other companies now.
Manage your finances. Sure, the worst event for the economy is to have consumer spending stop. But you having a year’s take-home pay in the bank and then supporting the economy is priceless – to you.

You can only control what you can control. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be watching out for yourself, family and friends. When the world is falling apart, doing what you can control — having prepared for the worst already — and watching for opportunities is black belt career management.

Scot

Related posts:

Serendipity Saturday, August 23, 2008

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 09:00:20 +0000

Ring of Kerry, Ireland

Scot

Related posts:

Serendipity Saturday, July 5, 2008

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 10:00:52 +0000

An arrow slit in a castle. Kilkenny castle, Ireland

Related posts:

Serendipity Saturday, June 28, 2008

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 10:00:22 +0000

Jeremy, here, is a race horse that’s done well. Now he’s at Ireland’s national stud farm. It is astounding how much money is spent on horse racing — not only by the fans, but the horse breeders. Fly your horse from Australia to Ireland for a date with Jeremy? No problem.

Related posts:

Serendipity Saturday, June 21, 2008

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 10:00:34 +0000

Frost on the trees on a February day. On the road to Kilkenny, Ireland.

Related posts:

Serendipity Saturday, June 14, 2008

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 10:00:08 +0000

See the guy holding up his hand in the middle left of the picture? He is oyster hunting and just found one. In the Ring of Kerry, Ireland

Related posts:

Serendipity Saturday, June 7, 2008

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 15:04:32 +0000

Glass-making. Waterford Crystal plant, Waterford, Ireland

Related posts:

Serendipity Saturday May 24, 2008

Sat, 24 May 2008 11:00:09 +0000

Downtown Drogheda, Ireland

Related posts:

Reference Points for Your Job

Scot Herrick — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 11:00:18 +0000

This year my wife and I had the privilege of taking a two-week trip to Ireland. You will note that Europe uses the Euro for money, Celsius for temperature, and the metric system for measuring everything (except, interestingly, Ireland has a European Union exception where they can still measure pints, as in pints of Guinness…).

The reason this is important to Cubicle Warriors is this: we lost most of our reference points for how we went about our day. Cold or warm outside? How fast were we going (100 km per hour, we found out, is about 62 mph…)? How much was 50 Euro — in dollars?

It took us a while to get used to seeing 10-degrees Celsius instead of 50-degrees Fahrenheit, 10-Euro instead of 16-dollars (the exchange rate really sucks), and knowing that if we were going somewhere 100-km away and driving 100-km per hour, it would take us about an hour to get there. We adjusted.

When we change managers, positions or companies, our reference points that provide our levels of certainty on how well we are doing our jobs significantly changes. There is feedback, but we can’t relate the feedback to the work we’re doing like we used to. Sure, money is money, but the Euro and dollars still mean different things.

When you change jobs, companies, or managers, you’ll feel lost for a bit because these reference points change. Until you know where the new reference points are, you won’t be able to operate on cruise control.

How do you know you’re doing a good job when your manager, company, or job changes?

Scot

Related posts: