Unfettered Blather

I appreciate that it’s difficult to keep work and personal separate. With the convenience of modern technology, it is all too easy to take care of personal business during working hours. Considering how often work tends to intrude on personal time I’m pretty apathetic to employees, co-workers, and supervisors who tend to personal business during work hours. I used to feel differently until I met someone who was always browsing the web that got assigned to my project. I used to think he was the biggest slacker I ever met, but he was an incredibly hard worker. He got his assignments turned in on time, he was always willing to help, and was quick to pick up the concepts I was trying to teach. I never quite figured out how he was spending so much time surfing the web and getting his work done, but I decided it wasn’t worth pursuing. He was getting his job done.

That is what I care about. Are you getting the job done? As much as businesses obsess over personal phone calls, surfing the web, posting to blogs, and other activities, I can’t help but notice that there are some people who simply don’t accomplish much even though they appear to always be busy. Yes, there are people who goof off on company time as well. As far as I’m concerned, someone’s output and accomplishments are the real measure of their worth to the company. So I have quit worrying about what people are doing.

At the same time, there are some lines that just should not be crossed. I don’t mean fine lines but rather lines that would be analogous to the double yellow line on a highway that clearly marks you should not cross them. In my mind, one of those lines is e-mail. Specifically, using your company e-mail address for personal business.

I keep a Yahoo! account for personal reasons. If I want to send something to my wife, respond to a friend, or attend to an important matter that is not work related, I use it. Even if I need something urgently I don’t use my work e-mail even though the Yahoo! mail is not actively open all the time. Honestly, if I need to know something urgently I’ll probably use a cell phone for that. I get really peeved when I see someone has sent me something from their work e-mail. Why? Why is that necessary? Why are you cluttering up the company mail server with your personal crap? Are you telling me that joke couldn’t wait till you get home? Did you really have to send all those attachments? Is your boss ok with this?

I’ve walked in on employees before and caught them with gmail or Yahoo! mail open on several occasions. I’ve never said a word. Cracking down on that would just encourage them to cross a line I’d rather they not. If you’re going to engage in personal business during company time, make sure you keep it as separate as possible. Do you really want some network weenie possibly reading your personal business? At least if they check server logs all they’ll see is you used webmail. Thankfully, our company doesn’t block that. Even when I worked at places that did I simply waited till I got home and did my personal business then. Now, I do make an exception if this is internal and someone decides to share something with their co-workers. We don’t all know each others personal information, but I have someone outside of work who sends me stuff to my personal e-mail from his work account all the time!

Look, in the white collar world where you typically get paid well above the median salary work and personal does tend to intermingle. At the same time, out of a sense of professionalism it’s a best practice to keep the two as distinct as possible. For one thing, it’s mentally healthier. For another, it just sets a much more professional tone. No, it doesn’t look good on the surface to be caught sending something via Hotmail. On the other hand, it is a more professional tactic to do so. Besides, the technically savvy know you can send e-mail by phone now, it’s not like companies can stop it. Technology makes it too easy. If your boss gets this, there is no reason to be using work e-mail for non-work related business.

I like the idea of becoming a “life coach” but I’m not sure I want to make a job out of having people ignore everything I say. I’m already a parent and just having two boys who ignore my advice is enough frustration already. I’m pretty good at spotting a person’s problems, but since they are almost always the cause of their own problems no one actually wants to do anything. I’m not proclaiming this from some golden pedastal but speaking from experience. Once I realized that no one has done more to make me miserable than myself I became a lot happier. Unfortunately, human beings are not so good at introspection. We’re really good at spotting the flaws in other people but have this weird sort of selective blindness when it comes to ourselves.

Career mobility in technology is treated like some kind of Holy Grail that doesn’t exist. I honestly get treated like some kind of freak because I actually used to develop software but have held two different leadership positions that were entirely hands off and did it before I was 40 and without holding an MBA. Not to brag, but I didn’t find it all that hard. The problem with trying to be upwardly mobile in technology is that the skills you need to advance and the skills you traditionally use for your job are rarely found together. That is why technology has an “architect” path, so that people who possess excellent technical proficiency can use their skills at a higher level and leave the grunt work to the college grads. Still, true technology architects are rare but almost every business has a manager or supervisor at some point, and everyone wants to become a CEO someday.

I don’t think they really want to be a CEO, I think they just want the money.

I have people ask me what the secret of my success is. This is funny to me because I know what they mean but the real answer isn’t what they’re looking for. The secret of my success has nothing to do with work, but has everything to do with accepting my flaws and either embracing them or minimizing them. Yep, I said embracing them, because I know there are aspects to the person I am that I have no interest in changing right now. Maybe on my continual road to perfection when I’ve eliminated all my other flaws I can tackle them, but with so many other chinks in my armor I’d much rather focus on the ones causing me actual pain.

However, I don’t define success as a job title or a paycheck. Down that path lies madness. You want to climb the corporate ladder? You can’t do it by getting your MBA, a certification, or just being great at your job. The people I know who rose quickly up the ranks did so by working ridiculously long hours and when they weren’t working they were networking with managers higher then them. Their entire lives revolved around the corporation they worked for and everything else took a backseat. I mean everything. Wife, kids, hobbies, friends, entertainment, pets, or anything else you might enjoy now was nothing more than a distraction. They worked their butts off, grabbed every opportunity, made sure their name was heard everywhere, and often had to step on the backs of friends and co-workers to get to that next rung. You want to know why you’re not climbing the corporate ladder so quickly? You don’t want it bad enough.

I’m not saying you can’t succeed unless you sacrifice your life, I’m just saying it may not happen as quickly as you like. If that’s not your priority then don’t complain because you’re in your 30’s and your boss is 28. Don’t resent him because he works 80 hour weeks and you’re a ghost when 5pm comes. He could very well be a soulless automation, but unless you want to be the same there is no way you’re going to achieve the same level of success so quickly. Well, you could get lucky, but that’s not a career plan either.

All that is really irrelevant to my success though. The secret to my success is my family. I put my family first. I don’t mean like those people at work who use that as an excuse not to stay late and help the team. I mean I put my family before myself. My wife’s happiness and health is important to me. Making sure my kids are healthy and growing into stable human beings is important to me. I’ve changed careers twice to place myself in a better position to help my family, yet I’ve also been able to find jobs that I truly enjoy so that I don’t bring misery home with me. Putting my family first is one part, but making sure that I’m working at a good job is the other. Too many people toil in misery and never ask themselves if this is what they want to do. Too many people believe if they just work long enough that they’ll maybe get promoted and then it will be better once they get to management.

Heh. Sure.

Get your priorities in order. You work to survive, which means that sometimes the work has to come first. To support yourself or your family you’re going to have to volunteer to do extra tasks that put you ahead of the competition. You don’t have to live at work, because that would defeat the purpose. You are going to actually have to work though, and if that idea repulses you then I promise you will remain miserable. Also, you need to decide what is important to you. For me, it’s my family, for others it is their hobby, some people have animals. I’m not going to judge. What defines you outside of your job? I’m assuming this is a valid question because if you were a workaholic then you wouldn’t have read this far. Whatever defines you outside of work, whatever value it is that drives you must be adhered to 24/7. No one doubts that my family is important to me. I have made hard choices at work. Sometimes I have to say “no” at work, sometimes I have to say “no” to my family. All of this depends on circumstance, but I’ve made it clear that what I do is driven by my need to care for them. If you are driven by nothing then what are you toiling for?

If climbing the corporate ladder is important to you then you’re going to have to work a little harder than your co-workers. Your team mates might work by you side-by-side but that is also your competition for future promotions. You can achieve success without leaving footprints on the backs of others but to do so you’re going to have to rise above mediocrity. Everyone believes they are good at their job but very few people demonstrate it. If you routinely find yourself giving excuses for why you can’t do a task or why a task failed then how are you distinguishing yourself from your co-workers? Maybe that promotion isn’t what you really want and I’ll bet a pay raise isn’t going to bring you happiness either. Maybe the real question is, how do you define success?

On my desk is a leadership primer that was written by Colin Powell. I received said primer back when I was a consultant and prior to being in a full-on managerial role. Back then I was happy to be a team lead and felt I had found my calling. All I really wanted to do was be involved in technology and lead a technology team, software development being my preference. The other great thing about being a team lead, even though it is often an unofficial position, is that I was still “one of the guys”.

There are a number of people on my current team that I really enjoy spending time with. This always concerns me because I don’t want to play favorites. I have been burned there before when I was the favorite and then my manager moved on. Maybe I worry too much. I try to keep a professional distance but at the same time I want to get to know some of them better. I visit with people at work and I encourage other people to visit. I had one individual who would come to my office and camp out at times. While that could be annoying, I am extremely busy after all, there was something about their natural friendliness that made me reluctant to chase them away. I have another individual who is a hard worker, extremely good at their job, but also popular in their own right.

I fear people questioning my motives, I fear people’s perceptions, and I still have to be the boss to everyone on my team regardless of my relationship. I care about every person on my team so it’s not as though I feel nothing for anyone else. I just seem to click with these people and yet I feel like I have to keep them at an arm’s distance. For some reason I feel like I have to protect them from me, and considering how much heat I can draw that may not be a bad way to be.

Friendship to me is not to be taken lightly. I do not easily call someone my friend. I guess that is the gist of it. I may be forced to make a business decision some day that affects one of these people. I may have to discipline them. As a professional I can do that, but not everyone can keep professional and personal distinct.

The truth is, because I care for them and can do more good as their manager than as their friend I have accepted being lonely in order to better serve their needs. I realized the other day that choosing their friendship over business was selfish. They have put their jobs and careers in my hands and I have an obligation to do the best I can for them. It can still be lonely at the workplace though.

I love to blog. I love to write on principle but I also love to share ideas and discuss those ideas with other people. I don’t even mind if people disagree with me because that’s how I can learn new things and challenge my own perspective. I didn’t start this year with a commitment to blog everyday but I still feel the lull when the site doesn’t get updated. Buddy is just as busy.

I had to release my two contractors at work about 4 months early on Friday. I had an uncomfortable meeting with the head of our business unit where he told me to give him a plan for how we could transition them out and to do it as quickly as possible. I did all this and then went to a kick-off party where I had to put on a happy face and not give away the fact that I was releasing two hard working individuals the next day, all while in a drunken haze. I did do my part to stimulate the economy and bought a drink for all my employees that attended and then left a $30 tip for the bartenders when my tab came up a mere $18.25.

I have never had to do this, and there is no good way of saying it. Terminating your contract, firing, letting you go, laid off, etc. The end result is the same. I know at my last employer there is someone I would have gladly fired if her contract had not already been expiring. She had not done a damn bit of work in 5 months. The two guys I am losing at the end of the month? Hard workers, team players, people who will get an excellent recommendation. People we should not be releasing and would not in any other time.

That was just the end of the week. The first three days I was doing my usual management schtick by day and then a development project after business hours to get us some relief. The team I run is all Microsoft technology specific and we have an interface written in Java, which is my forte. Not that I’m looking at getting back into development, I’ve tried very hard to commit to my current role, but who else is going to do it?

Add all that up and it’s one hell of a week. This week almost has to be better. If not, I’m going to need vacation time soon!

Just last week I was treated to a long lament about “the good old days” when men could be men all the time but now they have to retreat to places like Hooters in order to do the things that men like to do naturally. The office was a place where playful banter was acceptable and men knew the limits and it’s this politically correct culture that has made the workplace hostile to men. Now, I hate political correctness. I think it’s silly and I think that we have effectively made it a crime to offend someone in certain circumstances. We are definitely breeding a culture of oversensitivity and thin skin in this country. I do disagree with the notions of harmless playful banter or that women were treated respectfully by their co-workers. I also acknowledge that most men, certainly men with normal healthy sex drives, enjoy looking at women in skimpy outfits and also like having pretty women paying attention to them even if there is nothing sexual behind it. This is normal. I disagree entirely that the workplace is an appropriate location to indulge in these activities.

As much as I have railed in the past about women who dress inappropriately in the workplace and how much they should be expected to be taken seriously, the flip side is that there are some very hard working women who do present themselves in a professional manner that deserve respect as peers. Indulging in relatively harmless male behavior is not the way to show respect to a woman. While I think people should have fun at work, we are still a professional environment and I expect everyone to have a certain standard of behavior. Certainly, when I am away from the office those standards can fall away. I think I surprise people when we get off-site and I am lot more open in my thoughts and casual in manner. The difference is that the workplace is a place for work and all other distractions are a detriment to that. Professional behavior is not about political correctness but efficiency. Let’s face it, unprofessional behavior can lead to personal issues that can affect the final outcome of our work. Anytime I have to spend trying to resolve petty disputes between Employee A and Employee B just means I am not spending time working on productive tasks and the involved parties are unlikely to be fully productive either.

Women in the workplace deserve to be treated according to their merits. Men who want to indulge in their overall maleness should not do so at their co-workers expense. I’ve worked in environments where “playful banter” could be quite common and even encouraged. There was nothing quite like spending 4 hours in training about sexual harassment only to have a female deputy grab my ass on the first day of work! However, despite the rowdy behavior the culture still demanded that we treat those women as equals. These were people who had to watch our back and there was definitely a need to be more comfortable and possibly more casual than the office environment that I work in now.

Women in a professional environments have a difficult challenge because they are expected to be feminine but run the risk of not being taken seriously. Sadly, even today there are men who see women as their inferiors in the workplace. To me, a woman who is more interested in showing off her work rather than her chest deserves to be recognized. No, this is not a double standard, but professional office environments are rarely attract men who are little more than brainless beefcake. What happens all too often is that women who try to get by on their looks have a negative impact on those that are trying to honestly contribute to the bottom line. All the more reason to take people on an individual basis and not judge them based on things like gender. Being attractive is not a crime either. A woman who happens to be attractive yet is also good at her job deserves to be treated as a valued team member and not eye candy. I don’t miss “the good old days”. The good old days might have been a more comfortable time, but they were also times when a woman would have to put up with remarks and attitudes they did not deserve. Really, this isn’t a gender issue. People should be treated with respect. There was a time when it was socially acceptable to disrespect a woman and no one would raise an eyebrow. Maybe this didn’t happen all the time, but it happened often enough.