July 1st, 2008
Shift Happens
From Slideshare:
Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing.
Thomas Alva Edison
Image by Dan Shirley from sxc.hu
One of my high school friends, let’s call her Jane, wanted to meet up with another friend named Eric. Here’s a little backgrounder on their careers:
Jane’s Career:
Eric’s Career:
Eric, after hearing that Jane left the marketing world, scolded her along the lines of “What do you want to do with your life? You don’t know what you want!”
I felt that in this case, Eric was judging Jane too harshly. Especially since Eric’s job had such poor work-life balance, he didn’t know Jane as well as he used to.
But who’s on the right track, Jane and her diverse career choices or Eric’s calculated steps?
A Straight Career Path
A straight career path usually means that straight from graduation, you work for a company in a job that is relevant to the degree you recently acquired. From there, you go higher up the corporate ladder, and even if you leave one company for another, you are still somehow going up the ladder based on your job description and salary. Almost everything in your CV ties in neatly.
Advantages:
Disadvantages:
A Varied Career Path
This career path tends to be more instinctive (or even impulsive in some cases) and leads you in unexpected turns. You may have gotten an MBA, but now you’re working on your second novel! If asked what you will be doing 10 years from now, your plans are dynamic - you have some ideas, but you’re not entirely sure. When reading your CV, a stranger will see that you’ve been working at a variety of positions among several industries and businesses.
Advantages:
Disadvantages:
Now what?
We’re living in exciting times where the word “work” and “workplace” are being so drastically redefined. Work doesn’t have to stem from what you studied in college and it doesn’t have to be done in weekdays during 9am-5pm. The workplace doesn’t have to be a cubicle in a tall metropolitan building.
At the same time, if you’re comfortable with the 9-to-5 setup and a pre-designed career path, there’s a place for you in the business world as well. In fact, you’re still part of the majority.
In other words…
A straight and narrow career path is not necessarily better than a varied path, and vice-versa. There’s only what’s better for you.
What’s your career path like? Is it straight or varied? Or do you strike a balance between both?
Image credit: Photo by Reynaldo Ismael Morel from stock.xchng
If you often find yourself with ruffled feathers when dealing with collaborative works, then you might want to check out SpiceBird.
SpiceBird is an application that combines Instant Messaging, Email, Calendar and Task Management – applications essential for collaborating – under one application. Setting up is a quick, smooth and simple process. Once you have it up and running, you will be prompted to setup your mail and instant messaging accounts.
The interface is clean and quite easy to grasp. The instant messaging function is quite limiting, allowing only Gmail and Jabber accounts to be used.
The mail function features instant setup for Gmail accounts and, though it doesn’t offer automatic settings for other email services such as Yahoo Mail, you can manually add other email accounts.
The calendar tab offers multiple views: daily, weekly, and monthly and adding tasks and events on it is a simple point-and-click chore. SpiceBird also offers a built-in RSS reader that can manage feeds from your favorite sites.
While the current setup of SpiceBird may seem quite paltry, given its beta stage nature, the software shows a lot of potential to be a great tool for better collaboration.
SpiceBird is compatible with Windows 2000/XP/Vista (32-bit) and Intel-based Linux.
Screencapture by Celine Roque from Blue Rabbit Media
This is a trailer for a new book called “The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You’ll Ever Need”. I know that it’s just a trailer, but already I’m curious about it. First of all it’s a comic book, and being the comic geek that I am I could go on and on about the versatility of the medium (but I won’t). I’m gonna see if I can pick this up. Has anyone read it? Care to share your thoughts on the book?
Happy Friday, readers! Here’s our discussion for the week:
Would you do your job even if you weren’t paid to do it? If not, are there any aspects of your job that you would do without pay?
So, readers: share your feelings about whether you’d do your work even without compensation. Leave a note at the comments section.
Image by Celine Roque from Blue Rabbit Media
“There are two essential rules to management. One, the customer is always right; and two, they must be punished for their arrogance” - Dogbert, from Scott Adams’ “Dilbert” comics
You’ve probably heard the phrase “The customer is always right”, as in the retail world it is second only in popularity to “If you break it, it’s considered sold.” But is this statement repeated because it’s always true?
Your ‘customer’ doesn’t necessarily have to be a client of your company or business. He or she could even be a supervisor or a colleague. In a broader sense, a ‘customer’ is someone that has to check the quality of your work or performance, and their impression of these things directly affects your standing.
(Of course, anyone who checks your work when they really have no purpose to do so is just being an intrusive jerk.)
Anyway, the truth is, customer can be wrong. Or worse, they can be really, really wrong.
Sometimes a customer can do any of these ‘wrong’ things:
So if they’re wrong, what’s all this business about ‘the customer is always right’?
It’s not about them being right per se. It’s about you treating them right.
How do you treat them right?
The customer may not always be right, but they wouldn’t want to hear that they’re wrong. They’d like to hear will do to make things right.
Ever had a difficult client or supervisor? How did you deal? Did you just let them have their way or did you help them trust your knowledge and expertise?
Image credit: Photo by Billy Alexander from stock.xchng
For those who love having checklists for almost anything, Second Gear brings you Check Off.
Check Off is a Mac OS X To-Do checklist that is both easy and intuitive to use. To get it up and running, you just need to download the installer and run the setup file. After that, Check Off is easily accessible through the Mac OS X tool bar.
If you are the type who wants everything to be organized, you can group the items with ease or use the Finder-like labels for easy task visualization. Also, you are not limited to a few lines of text as a reminder. Each item has its own note where you can put more specific instructions.
Bring your reminders everywhere using your own iPod through the notes feature. While it could have been great if this program was made available to Windows users, Mac users will find Check Off a great help with their checklist needs.
Requires Mac OS X Leopard. Success with Tiger and Panther is not guaranteed.
I don’t wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work.
- Pearl S. Buck
Image credit: Photo by Dora Pete from stock.xchng
Putting some shizzle into your work ... and making your work day better
Written by Celine Roque [email] for b5media.
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