Article in NY Times about how job search firms can rip you off.
![Employees at Mid-Continent Refinery [ca. 1943 Tulsa, OK (LOC). By John Vachon]](https://i0.wp.com/www.manasclerk.com/wpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/2179123915_75b400bf47_o-men-group-Employees-at-Mid-Continent-Refinery-c-1943-Tulsa-OK-LOC-Vachon-John-e1377964113665.jpeg?fit=862%2C519&ssl=1)
Top 5 Job Assignments to Produce Learning (revisited)
Here are the Top 5 job assignments to produce learning with commentary: [full post]
Updating Old Posts
I’ve been writing about work levels and stratified systems theory since 2003, just after I started writing this blog. Some of these older posts are great, full of wonderful information that you’ll no doubt find useful. Other posts are clearly wrongheaded: I had much to learn. My clean up is just to get rid of some of the problems in …
Asking for a Raise? Bring Coffee. Or Fire.
“He’s such a cold bastard! Even the room gets a chill when he walks in!”
We’re weren’t even out of the room and my consulting pal was already berating our client. He had point: it had been chilly in there, and the client — never someone who filled your heart with bonhomie — was in particularly icy form that day.
[Click through to read how Temperature affects our emotions and even intellectual performance]
When Your Boss Is Undermining You
Tom Foster has a post recently about what to do when your manager starts to give your management tasks to a coworker, all the time saying that you are still the boss. I’ve had this happen and I wish that I had known this bit of advice back then. It wouldn’t have helped any — but I would have perhaps …
Bing! New search comes to Requisite Writing
I’ve finally figured out that Google Custom Search hates my weblog templates: it’s been broken, apparently for months. I’ve now replaced it with Bing! from Microsoft. Give it a try and see if you don’t get much better search results than you had been getting. There is still some integration work to be done. It would be nice to be …
Using Timespans to Solve Communication Problems
Ever wonder if timespans has any practical usefulness? Here is how I used timespans to clear up a communication problem in a global IT architecture group for an international bank. Awhile back I worked with a group of enterprise architects (EA) at an international bank with major operations in all the inhabited continents. The group, although “headquartered” in the US, …
US Jobless Rates Still Increasing
For my American readers, you may be interested in a recent post on CalculatedRisk where CR graphs the recent BLS data on unemployment. The interesting things for you are the positive states: North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska and Virginia. And possibly Vermont. Oklahoma looks pretty good to me too, having just talked to my old friends in Michigan. Another interesting …
Depressed About Work? Positivity May Not Work
Job hunters often get depressed from their hunt, and it’s probably even worse in a stagnant, depressed economy like we’re in today. One of the coping techniques that misguided but well-meaning people teach them is to use Positive Thinking. People regularly use these techniques and believe strongly that they are effective.
Nice, except that it will often backfire. [more]
Happy Thanksgiving!
Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends north of the border. If your holiday is as great as ours, here’s SCTV’s “20 Depressing Hits by Connie Franklin” to help you celebrate.