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Yesterday, I talked a little bit about not basing your career around the information you hear around the hallways.

Today, we’re going to talk about those teeny factual inaccuracies coming from the people you work for.

In my career so far, I’ve been lied to, lied about, and then lied to some more. I’ve had companies being sold with the upper management saying, “Not much will change. No layoffs are planned. Everything will be like it was, but better!” Before they laid off a third of the company.

I’ve had coworkers lie about my work (taking credit for it and getting paid for it) to my boss since they were both at headquarters and I was out in the field.

Like most everyone here, I’ve been lied to about a job I was interviewing for. You know the spiel: “It’s a great work environment (if you don’t mind people trying to get you fired so they can take your cube) with lots of challenges (like how to do your work without any tools, funding, or authority) and excellent career growth potential (mostly when you leave here).”

And I know I’m not alone in being a Designated Lie Recipient.

So, why do employers tell these lies that will obviously be found out? How can you trust anything coming out of the mouth of these people? And how do you make good career decisions with bad information?

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Recently, I read an article in the Wall Street Journal about how people not only believe myths they’ve heard, but attribute them to credible sources.

In one example, the Center for Disease Control issues a flyer to specifically contradict certain myths about the flu vaccine (i.e. “the side effects are worse than the flu” and “only old people need it”), but people just remembered many of the myths and now attributed them to the CDC.

This reminded me of the workplace.

A lot of people are passing around and believing myths about their own workplace. And it causes them to base their career on lies and misinformation.

Are you doing this in your career?

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Forbes Recently published a list of interviews with “self-made billionaires”. Yes, with a “B”.

I figured that if anyone knew about succeeding in their careers, it’d be these guys. You should read all of what they had to say and see how it applies to your own life.

The interesting questions for me were:

How Much of Your Success Do You Attribute To Sheer Luck? - Most of the men interviewed attributed at least a small part of their success to luck. However, many of them also believed Henry Ford’s statement, “The harder you work, the luckier you get”

In other words, don’t envy these men because they got a lucky break. Work hard to prepare yourself for your own lucky break when it comes. I’m convinced that most of us don’t get ahead because we have to pass up the lucky breaks when they come knocking.

What is the Hardest Lesson You’ve Had To Learn? - The most interesting things about these lessons is that - for most of them - they are lessons that you can start learning now, before you’re a billionaire.

I also think that the one hardest lesson that was most interesting given what most people are striving for comes from Michael Heisley: “Wealth is one of the most corrupting influences in my life.”

Think twice before you sell your soul for money…

Hat Tip to Business Pundit


Enjoy the Search!

Dan
—–
Daniel R. Sweet
Chief Cook-And-Bottle-Washer / Technical Recruiter
FRACAT.com - Free Resume and Career Toolbox
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielrsweet
Call me on Jaxtr: http://www.jaxtr.com/fracat


Photo by: aloshbennett

There has been a spate of writing in the Blog world recently about visualization and mission statements.

And when I say a lot of posting, I mean a lot of stinking mission statement posts.

There’s even an online personal mission statement builder out there.

So, is this all you really need to be successful in your life / career? A happy statement about what you want to be / do / become?

Difficult Dan, while he hates to pop everyone’s shiny, happy bubble, still says, “NO! Get a life! You’re going to need more that that!”

Read on to find out why I’m being so difficult today…

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Allow me to tell you a Career Fairy Tale, complete with moral at the end.

It is a tale of princes, lords, respect, revenge, and dog guns. Yes, dog guns.

Once upon a time in a land far away and a time many, many years ago, there was a handsome prince (yes, that would be me). The kingdom wasn’t as big on providing for all of the prince’s needs as you might think, so he got a job.

In his new job, he worked for an odd couple of guys. They both owned the business together, so it was like having two bosses. But, they were pretty easy-going bosses, and frequently not present, so it wasn’t so bad.

At times, as often happens, the bosses had a different idea of what needed to be done and how it was to be done than the prince. While our prince was young and did not yet fully comprehend that the boss was the boss (and, as a result, got very annoyed at these changes), he still managed a respectful attitude and made the changes requested.

“Don’t they understand,” the prince thought to himself, “that I’m doing all of this work for them and making them look good for their clients, despite their own efforts?”

Whether or not the bosses understood this, something was about to happen that would change their relationship forever.

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The younger the worker, the more that they think this is a true statement: “I can do several things at once without it hurting my productivity.”

In fact, there is a big discussion over a Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist Blog about what managers “shouldn’t tell twentysomethings”, and it includes the attitude that “I can listen to my iPod at work and function just as well as without it”.

Just for the record, it isn’t Ms. Trunk that’s saying that. She’s apparently lent her blog to a whiny twentysomething. Why? I don’t know. You’d think she’d lend it to a crotchety old recruiter like me instead, wouldn’t you? Perhaps you should e-mail her and let her know…

Sorry. My ADD is kicking in again.

To get back in track, here is a newsflash for the multitaskers of the world: “…a core limitation [of the brain] is an inability to concentrate on two things at once….”

That’s not from me, that’s from honest-to-goodness scientists. What’s more, they say that you can get 28% more done by stopping the multitasking.

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Let me ask you a question about this week. Did you see July 4th in the middle of this week and think to yourself, “Self - We could go on a 9 day vacation and only have to take 4 days off from work!”?

I know a lot of people have done just that. Well, here’s my newsflash for you:

Congratulations! You’re now a month behind and many dollars poorer.

What’s more, if you had thought more strategically about your vacation, you could be way ahead of your colleagues, have a ton of work done, and saved a bundle of money on your vacation. All at the same time!

Don’t believe me? Read on.

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There aren’t a whole lot of places you can work where you can just erase your mistakes, pretend they never happened, and get promoted for it.

Apparently, being a stock broker is one of those careers.

But, what about the rest of us? What do you do when you’ve forgotten things and been labeled, “The Forgetter”, at least in your boss’ mind. Or “The Young Kid”. Or “Dumb Blonde”.

It isn’t that you can’t correct the mistakes. However, very often, the mistakes will live on in your boss’ mind forever. For instance, has your boss subtly referred to your mistakes in meetings or when it was time to hand out assignments?

Do you have to leave the company to get away from your mistakes? Or can you eventually erase the mistakes from your boss’ mind?

There’s no single answer, since all bosses are different, but I do have a list of “The 6 Steps To Erasing Your Mistakes and Getting Your Career Back On Track” that should work for most situations.



Find Diversity employment at DiversityJobs.com.

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Did you know that yesterday (Thursday, June 21st) was the official First Day of Summer? So, Happy Summer from FRACAT!

There are two ways to look at the first day of summer:

1) Hooray! Summer is here! Put away the coats and boots and get outside! Cookouts! Vacations! What could be better!?

2) Oh. Summer is here. That means every day until December is getting shorter (if you’re in the Northern Hemisphere, anyway). My family wants to go on vacation. I have to go to more of my kids sports events. I’d better figure out how to get some work done!

Now, maybe it’s the fact that I live in Houston and summer means 95+ degree days with 95%+ humidity, but I tend to take the second view.

Something that I’ve started to do without a lot of conscious effort to make the most of my days is specifically limit the amount of work that I do while setting up a system to get the most out of that time.

Because I’m such a nice guy, I’m going to share that system with you.



Learn about Hispanic Recruiting at LatPro.com.

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While we normally stick to job-seeking / career improvement here at FRACAT, I thought I’d also let you know today about a imminent identity theft threat that you will soon face.

In Texas, I read about how our friendly legislature is actually making it easier for people to get our social security numbers (hat tip: Martin McKeay).

Aren’t they nice guys? And, to think, I contributed to elect some of them once. Once.

Anyway, this is part of a trend to reduce the burden on governments as well as their liability should your SSN slip through their fingers. It would seem that this problem with privacy is happening so much that they’ve just given up on keeping your SSN secret any more.

What’s worse is that you could be contributing to the problem of your own Identity Theft.

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