It’s Saturday!

Ah, Saturdays. Don’t you just love the weekend?

I’m happy to say I survived the rest of my week, even after my crazy Wednesday. And, while I’m thrilled it’s Saturday and I can leave the office to fend for itself for a few days (or protect it from my insanity, depending on how you look at it), I’m still on-call, now with the family job, manning all my dad’s business calls for him while he’s on vacation.

While I work (and work, come Monday), here are some career-related blog posts that I enjoyed over the past few days. And, stayed tuned! Wednesday, I’ll be hosting the 21st Carnival for the Money Hackers Network, filled with some great articles–it’s not too late to submit your good stuff, too; go here!

How to Make Money This Summer for College Students at Broke Grad Student

Tweaking your resume? Here are some great action verbs to get you going, per Boston College

Woman to Woman: How to Get the Raise at Jezebel

I know a lot of people dream of walking out on their job. Green Panda Treehouse did just that. Read about it at I Resigned from my Job!

Image: Bonsai Butterfly

Do You Do Dumb Stuff at Work?

So, in the course of yesterday’s work day, my behavior was borderline freakish, I’m being serious. I honestly don’t know what was wrong with me, but I embarrassed myself not once, not twice, but a grand total of six times.

Here’s the rundown:

1. I misunderstood a caller’s name, talking with him for a good 10 minutes before realizing he wasn’t who I thought.
2. Once said caller realized I’d gotten confused and called me on it, I fumbled all over myself trying to explain.
3. After getting off the phone with him, I decided it was, definitely, a order-out-food day. So my coworker and I headed out. I took a wrong turn and got us almost lost.
4. Paying for my takeout at the restaurant, I knocked over the metal lid on the toothpick container, sending it bouncing onto the tile floors. Every head in the packed place turned to me.
5. I went down the parking lot lane the wrong way, almost hitting a car.
6. I messed up something in our records for the day.

And these are just the things I remember right now. Let’s be honest: I’m forgetting something, for sure.

Quick, someone: make me feel better. Tell me you do dumb stuff, too. Please?

I spend about $.10 per mile to commute

Squawkfox posted a handy tool the other day, the Gas-Mileage Calculator, which will show you just what gas prices are costing you.

I drive about 15 miles each way to work (give or take) and spend roughly $.10 each mile. In other words, I spend $3 a day (not counting tolls, which add another $1.60 each way) to commute to work.

On top of which, there’s the time factor: I spend 30 minutes there and 45 back. (TRAFFIC!!! AHH!)

Still better than public transportation for me, if only for convenience: I can leave as soon as work is done and get there just as it begins.

What about you?

New Goal: I want to buy a house with cash! (or, I hate debt)

I feel somewhat hypocritical talking about debt as a bad thing, seeing as I never went into it. It’s a little like a skinny teenager lecturing a Weight Watchers group. True, I have no debt… BUT my parents paid my college tuition. BUT my parents let me live rent-free while I was in grad school. BUT I grew up in middle-class, affluent America, with all the comforts and privileges therein, and I didn’t pay for them.

The truth is, if I had had to pay for all the blessings I’ve been given, I’d be indebted up to my eyeballs. From orthodontia to college to eating out to my car, there’s no way around it: I’ve been given a lot. But instead of asking me to pay for it, it’s as if someone’s wiped my slate clean, forgiving all I could have owed. I get to be debt-free, not because of hard work, but because of grace. This is true in other areas of my life, too, but I digress.

What I’m getting at here is that I know I’m no expert, no authority. I know people in debt have many reasons and situations that have gotten them there, and many times, it’s the same kinds of things I’ve done. No judgment here, OK?

But I HATE debt.

I hate that it traps people, I hate that it takes away people’s homes, I hate that it makes us spend more than we should or buy things we can’t wait for.

After more than a year in the PF world, I’ve only just now read Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover. I’m not saying I see eye-to-eye with him on everything, but a couple things he writes really, really clicked with me. Things like paying off all debt with gazelle-like focus. Things like having an emergency fund in place. Things like not buying a brand-new car unless you have the liquid funds to do so. Also:

*Our society accepts debt as normal.
*Going into debt = paying interest = a larger purchase price at the end.
*There are a lot of things I don’t need; it’s possible to live on less.

Which leads me to the culminating announcement: I’ve made a change to my future home-purchase goal, and here’s my new plan:

When I buy, I’ll put down the largest down-payment I can afford (formerly aiming for 20%, now thinking closer to 50%, though 100% would be ideal and obviously would not require a mortgage).

If I do need a mortgage, it will be a 15-year. I will not purchase the home if my monthly mortgage payment is more than 30% of my monthly take-home pay.

My sidebar goal will stay at $50K, as that’s my 2008 goal. But I’d secretly like to get it up to $60K by December. A lot of people would say this is crazy, that going into debt for a home is not wrong (I agree!). But I’m thinking this: I’m still young, I have a great living situation, I have few expenses.

Why not set higher goals like these? Why not dream of a life with no debt?

Photo: sugu

I Asked for a Raise, and Here’s What Happened.

OK, blogging buddies: Thank you again to everyone (especially Full-Grown Single and Ronnie Ann) who weighed in on my March post, When Do You Deserve a Raise?

I had written it to express my frustration with an employee who wanted, but I didn’t think earned, an increase, and you wrote back with strong instructions for my own future raise-wanting. In my head, I was fully with you, planning to ask for an increase when I hit one year. In the three months since then, though, I’ve grown less sure, as the company struggled and made cutbacks.

Today was my one-year anniversary, so this morning I Googled: How to Ask for a Raise When Times are Tough and found this Forbes article.

Logistically it’s easier to e-mail my boss than meet in person, so I followed the Forbes tips, via print rather than face-to-face. I bulleted my contributions and explained what the median pay rates are in our area for jobs like mine. I said I thought a raise would be fair.

He wrote back immediately and said he totally agreed. He needs a little time but will fight for me.

Stay tuned.

Advice from Dostoevsky

“…a youth of our last epoch– that is, honest in nature, desiring the truth, seeking for it and believing in it, and seeking to serve it at once with all the strength of his soul, seeking for immediate action, and ready to sacrifice everything, life itself, for it. Though these young men fail to understand that the sacrifice of life is, in many cases, the easiest of all sacrifices, and that to sacrifice, for instance, five or six years of their seething youth to hard and tedious study, if only to multiply ten-fold their powers of serving the truth and the cause they have set before them as their goal–such a sacrifice is utterly beyond the strength of many of them.”

Every day, I am more and more convinced that all of the worthwhile things in life, I mean the really worthwhile ones, take hard work, discipline, faithfulness and TIME. Dostoevsky, back in like 1890, understood something he wished the young people would: sacrificing time now will mean gain later.

In other words:

THE NOW: Working hard, putting my time and effort into a 9-5. Hiring, managing, working, learning. Giving a few years, maybe five or six, to really growing as a writer, editor, manager. Setting aside large amounts of money from every paycheck. Not having my own house or a new car.

MEANS, THE LATER: Skills and experience, and the accompanying benefits. Character. Huge financial savings. The ability to buy my own house or start my own business or whatever (i.e., more options, more freedom).

Inspired by the speaker who shared this quote and who advised the audience to be its own worst boss (setting higher standards for your work quality and job performance than your employers), I am inspired for the future. I’m encouraged that, no matter what I have or haven’t already accomplished, if I’m willing to sacrifice, other things are possible.

Who Am I? (and other 20-something reflections)

Sometimes I feel like I’m still trying to figure out my place in the world, like where I fit, which is weirder and weirder as I get older.

City life, country life and suburban life all have strong appeal, and I could see myself doing any of them.

I like Europe and I like America; I like my career but I like the idea of working from home; I like living with my parents yet I think I’d like living on my own.

Is this how it’s supposed to feel to be a grown-up? Or is this a sign that it (the whole adult thing) hasn’t happened to me yet?

I have friends who, I’d swear up and down, feel completely at peace and confident of their life’s decisions. Friends who, for example, grew up knowing she wanted to get married right out of college or sooner and start a family. Friends who knew he would work in marketing and live downtown in a swanky condo. Friends who knew their dreams, all along, and made them happen.

I feel like those people are really blessed, because, at least in my opinion, the idea that you should just know what your real dreams are is a gigantic, enormous delusion that we’re told from childhood. Maybe it happens for some people, like the friends I mentioned, but it seems like a lot more people have to struggle to figure it out, with bumps along the way.

A friend of mine from college works two part-time jobs, both somewhat secretarial, while she holds a degree in linguistics. She is starting, stopping, starting, stopping plans on a daily basis: sending resumes and calling places where she could move and start something different. Thing is, how is she supposed to know what that something different should be, if it should be something?

Right now, I’m saving money, living with my family, working at a job I like and worked hard for. I hold two college degrees and like my resume. I have friends and entertainments and love and true joy. All in all, a very good, very blessed life.

And I can see what today, and tomorrow roughly, look like. It’s good. But ask me what I’ll be doing five years from now? 10? Absolutely no idea. Is this strange?

Then again, there’s a larger part of me that thinks maybe admitting I don’t know what will come is the actually most honest way to live, despite my age/career/income/family/etc. Even if I had a specific life track, a 15-year plan or whatever, I wouldn’t hold the future.

And, now that I think about it, maybe that’s a really valuable thing to learn and hold onto, especially when you’re all of 25.

photo by John Mueller

Job-Hunting while Employed: the other perspective

In the PF-blogging world, they tell you never to let an employer know you have another job offer/possibility unless you’re serious about leaving. This is because you’ll essentially be telling your employers you’re hunting and they’ll assume you’re not that committed to your current position. Makes sense, right? I’ve planned to follow this advice, should the situation every come up where I needed to.

But something I haven’t read a lot about in PF blogs, and something that I’ve not planned a response for, is the flip side of this circumstance: what it’s like to be the manager who finds out your employee is hunting.

Remember my employee-survey idea and how it gave me clues as to what my employees were thinking? As a result, I fought hard to get someone promoted, and my employee was thrilled to take our offer.

So you can imagine my surprise, then, when this same employee told me last week, just days before the transition to full-time (and its accompanying pay increase) took effect, that there was another job possibility now on the table–a job possibility that would be better than ours.

This isn’t an issue of pay, or of work responsibilities, or work environment, or anything that I can control. In fact, it’s a simple issue of the-other-job-is-more-line-with-desires. Less money, but different perks, potentially more prestigious ones.

I’m glad when someone pursues his or her dreams, but I have to admit it’s hard not to resent the way this has panned out. Now, we’re understaffed for the next few weeks until I can find another part-timer to fill in the hours my newly FTer would have been working. Plus, I have a only-somewhat-committed staffer who could up-and-leave at any point.

Times like these, I remind myself that these are the growing pains of experience. There’s a lot you can plan and prepare for, a lot you can do to motivate and encourage. But when push comes to shove, you’re not in control of other people or their motivations/desires.

You do the best you can, and you come out wiser for it. For now, I’m preparing for the worst, hoping for the best, hiring again (ugh) and making new plans, albeit penciled ones. I think that’s all you can do.

photo by ~Prescott

Claiming Authority at Work

A few weeks ago, my blogging friend Full-Grown Single responded to some questions I had about, essentially, how to be a manager:

She writes, “You have a different set of stuff to work through: how to claim your own authority, maybe, and then, how to get other people to want to do what you want.”

She was right.

I have this feeling that I’ll be working through this for a long while, but I have good news: it’s getting better. The first big step came when I hit a new point of resolve, where it was OK if I didn’t stay at my company. I updated my resume, I polished my portfolio and I started looking around. I even applied for a few things. This gave me a feeling of freedom, where I wasn’t as concerned about making my boss happy as I was about making things better.

So first: I did some research online, and I found an employee survey that I tweaked a bit and sent to my department. They could fill it out if they wanted, with or without names. It helped me see how they thought things were going, what they wanted improved, how satisfied they were. I learned one person wants to work different hours (no prob), another really wants to be full-time (possible), another wants more editing, less writing (done). In my mind, I don’t know why they wouldn’t just tell me this anytime, but inviting them to do so really worked. This gave me the opportunity to give them something.

Then I met with my boss. He explained again all the reasons for the salary freeze. Then I told him, especially since we have this freeze, I think we should be getting X, Y & Z, these things being other benefits that wouldn’t relate to money but that would make a big difference. I felt like, what did I have to lose? He was so reasonable, as he has been from the beginning, and he gave me what I wanted.

Result: For the first time in a long time, I feel really good about how things are going. Lessons learned? a little research and willingness to try/ask/invite feedback can make a big difference.

what’s on my mind today

The nicest man I work with, the one who treats everyone with respect and fast became my all-around favorite 60-something, is having major surgery today. Major, major surgery. And I know he’s scared.

I hadn’t seen him around lately, and I thought his performance had been down and maybe he’d been let go. Apparently I was half-right. He was let go, in a way, but he also is having serious health concerns, with an aneurysm last week.

If you pray, would you pray for him today? I’ll try to post an update when I hear news. Times like these, I have to admit it’s hard to care much about the little nitty-gritty day-to-day work stuff I have to do. It’s hard to think it’s that important, other than the principles of work ethic and earning a living, etc.

At the end of my life, or at a time when I know it could be the end, I doubt most of my work stuff will matter, save for the relationships and the ways it mattered to those relationships. The ridiculously out-of-proportion responses I see in business to things that are kind of trivial (i.e., money, the making of it, the spending of it) will be just shadows.