Fire Your Boss (3 page)
Authors: Stephen M. Pollan,Mark Levine
Tags: #Psychology, #Self Help, #Business
In today’s job market being terminated isn’t the exception, it’s the rule. Employees now are like baseball managers: they’re hired to be fired. We’ve all become contingency workers. The constant turmoil in the job market, along with a down economy, has meant job searches are taking longer than ever. The old rule of thumb was a job search would last one month for every $10,000 you earned. Now job searches are taking two months for every $10,000. Today most people lower their expectations in order to get reemployed quicker. Since we’re all now destined to be fired, and job searches take so long, it makes sense to turn job hunting into a proactive, ongoing part of your work life.
And rather than looking for the one perfect new job, you should be broadening your efforts to cultivate as many “offers” of employment as you can, which you can then either accept or reject. Instead of acting like a big-game hunter setting out on special occasions to bag a specific target, you need to act like a commercial fisherman who goes out every day and casts lots of lines in the water, checking his hooks whenever there are bites, and then deciding whether each catch is a keeper.
Jared Edwards has never had a problem making sales. Whether it was peddling photocopiers when he first graduated college, hawking woodworking equipment at state fairs, or selling music-room fixtures to schools, he was successful. But after a board shake-up led to the termination of the entire sales force at the music-fixture company, Jared had a hard time finding another sales position. His wife’s salary kept the family afloat while Jared pounded the pavement, worked his network, and trolled the Internet. After six months he began taking part-time weekend and evening work as a cabinetmaker to help make ends meet. Finally, after eighteen months he landed a job selling a computerized reading-education system to school districts. When Jared and his wife came to see me it was for help cleaning up their credit, which had taken a battering during the time he was out of work. When we got around to discussing employment, Jared told me of his recent odyssey and explained how happy he was finally having a steady job. I told him not to put his job-search tools away, because he needed to start fishing for his next job right now.
In the 1980s it became conventional wisdom that “networking” was the way to get on the “inside track” to the better jobs. Networking involved making indirect approaches to individuals and asking for “advice” and “guidance.” The idea was to use business contacts to get to know people who might have job openings, or who might know of job openings, which hadn’t yet been advertised, and do so while avoiding the human resources department. Rather than scanning the want ads, you perused your Rolodex and schmoozed at industry gatherings to make appointments for “informational interviews.” These were thinly veiled job interviews in which you did your best to impress and solicit a job offer. If none was forthcoming, you asked the person you were meeting for the name of someone else to talk to about “opportunities.” Your grew your network and, inevitably, landed a new job.
This backdoor approach became institutionalized and has now become outdated and ineffective. No one falls for the “informational interview” anymore — that’s why they’re now so hard to come by.
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Executives know they’re simply job hunts in disguise. Human resources departments, tired of being bypassed and seeing upper-level jobs filled through networking, turned to headhunters to fill those spots. Employed executives now scrupulously avoid professional association meetings and industry gatherings because they know they’ll be accosted by job hunters and overwhelmed with résumés and business cards. Of course, when these recalcitrant executives are terminated, they suddenly become regular attendees.
Instead of networking, people today need to perpetually follow a long-term track to which they add a second, short-term track if unemployed. The best long-term track today is to turn to your personal life to develop business opportunities. That’s because, in my experience, no one hires a stranger anymore. With so few openings and so many candidates, people look within their own circles for candidates. It really is who you know, not what you know, that counts today. Become active in your church. Pursue your hobbies. Join the choir. Chat with neighbors. Attend lectures, reading groups, and city council meetings. Have as much social interaction as you can. While the odds of directly connecting with someone who has an immediate job opening isn’t high in the short term, the chances of social contacts yielding job opportunities are high over the long term.
If you’re unemployed you can’t rely solely on long-term social activism. You also need to go back to those old-fashioned job-search options once deemed too downscale: help wanted ads and employment agencies. While these avenues may not yield the richest offerings, they do have one great advantage: they provide ready access to a stream of income. For many people who are unemployed, that’s what is most needed: money coming in. Get a job…any job…and then keep looking for another job. Someone employed is always a more attractive candidate than someone unemployed.
Fred Peters is one of the most affable people you’ll ever meet. A tall, distinguished-looking man, he has a wonderful sense of humor and the ability to charm most everyone he meets. An avid golfer, he’s always being asked to play with new acquaintances. His wife jokes that he needs a social secretary just for his golf game. Fred’s joviality has stood him in good stead in his job as director of publications for a major Ivy League university. Having to deal simultaneously with prima donna professors; penny-pinching administrators; and temperamental writers, photographers, and designers requires a great deal of patience and good humor. A recently launched round of university-wide staff cuts and consolidations has taken some of the spring out of Fred’s step. He has been trying to navigate a transition of his department to a different division while keeping as much staff as possible. The unsettled nature of his situation led him to start updating his network, just in case. But he found it a daunting task. The only people who seemed to show up at the regular meetings of his professional association were out - of - work managers. His calls to business contacts and associates have rarely been returned. To top it off, the university has brought in a new president who seems intent on making another round of cuts and reorganizations. With his good humor rapidly melting, Fred called me for some advice. I told him to stop going to his professional association meetings and to play more golf instead.
For the past couple of decades corporations have been greatly concerned with the “quality” of their employees’ work lives. In an effort to cushion the demand for more and more time spent on the job, psychic and lifestyle rewards have become a common form of “compensation.” Employers have realized that if they provide a pleasant workplace, and do things to make it easy for workers to spend more time there, they’ll get less resistance to expecting fifty - hour work-weeks. Provide a health club and people will show up early to work out, and will end up at their desks earlier than they otherwise would. Have a company cafeteria and people will eat in the building and either discuss work over lunch or be back at their desks sooner. Provide concierge services, like picking up prescriptions or dry cleaning, and people will work later.
All these efforts have reinforced a mistaken attitude about why we work. People have been brainwashed into thinking it’s sensible to value “corporate culture” and a “supportive environment” as much as, or even more than, financial compensation. Clients often say to me: “If I have to be at work for such a large portion of my week, it really should be a place I find appealing.” Nonsense. Your focus on the job should be to increase and solidify your stream of income. Ego boosts, like a corner office, and nonfinancial rewards, like a supportive environment, are meaningless. The job of your dreams is the one that pays the most money. Today you need to accept that when it comes to a job, it’s the money that counts.
Debbie O’Leary has spent more than thirty years in radio. Beginning as a deejay while in college in upstate New York, she worked her way up from doing overnights at a station in a small New England city to eventually becoming program director at the number one station in a midsized midwestern city. Through it all she worked only at rock stations, since it was her love of rock music that got her into radio in the first place. It was love that brought her to New York as well. She met her husband, Bruce Warshaw, at a radio convention. Unlike Debbie, Bruce had spent his entire radio career in the New York market, working his way up to an afternoon drive-time shift at one of the city’s premier rock stations. Debbie, who was born in the New York suburbs and still had family there, moved back to New York and married Bruce. Getting a job in the crowded, competitive New York radio market was tough for Debbie. After looking for work for more than eighteen months she received two offers: a low - paying part - time replacement deejay position at one of the city’s rock stations, and a higher-paying job as jazz programmer at a satellite radio network. Debbie jokingly said she’d have to be deaf in order to deal with the jazz job. I suggested she buy some earplugs because it’s the money that counts.
The first day on a new job is both frightening and exciting. Part of you is worried, unsure how you’ll be received or what the company is really like. Another part of you is eager, hoping the job will live up to all your hopes and dreams. The last thing you’re apt to consider on your first day is how you’ll be leaving. Yet that’s exactly what you should be thinking.
In an environment in which there’s no job security at all, and job tenure is shrinking yearly, it’s essential to go into every new job with your eyes wide open. You
will
be leaving this job. No one works for the same company for his or her entire work life anymore. In fact, almost no one works for the same company for even a decade anymore. Either you’ll find a better-paying job and leave of your own accord, or you will be terminated. There is no third result.
Because your departure is certain, it’s vital that you plan for it from day one, or even earlier. What would make you leave this job? What negative developments would force you to jump ship? What positive attributes of another job would lead you to grab it? If possible, you can even try to negotiate the terms of your departure by getting a full-blown employment contract or a simple termination agreement.
Bill Kaplan was ecstatic to be finally graduating college. A very bright, creative young man, he had a checkered and peripatetic college career. He began as a fine-arts major at a small private college, but transferred to a state university after a year and changed his major to theater arts. After a year he dropped out, moved to New York City, took waiter jobs, and tried to line up acting work. After two unsuccessful years he went back to school at a city university as an English major and finally graduated. Fascinated by the bookstore business, Bill was thrilled to line up a job as a management trainee at a large chain bookstore not far from where he went to college. He came to see me for a life-planning session, which was a graduation gift from his sister. After hearing him wax enthusiastic about his new job I said I hated to rain on his opening day but it was time to figure out why and when he’d be leaving.
There’s no denying following these seven steps will require you to make an investment of time and energy. And I also realize that asking you to buy into some of my unconventional ideas will require you to make a leap of faith. Believe me, you won’t regret it. The returns on your investments of time, energy, and faith will be incredible. Throughout this book I’ll be describing how this approach to work has turned the lives of my clients around. But for now let me quickly run down the potential benefits.
Fire your boss and you’ll be in control of your work life. You’ll never end up like Wendy Rosenfeld, leading a reactive work life, blown here and there by fate and happenstance. She followed my program, drafted a career plan, and took back control of her life.
Fire your boss and you’ll find the emotional and psychological satisfaction you’ve always sought but never found. You’ll stop being like Sean Shanahan, working longer and longer hours and getting less and less satisfaction. Sean listened to me, killed his career, and ended up happier than he imagined possible.
Fire your boss and you’ll have job security. Rather than being at the mercy of your boss, like Janet Crosetti, you’ll find your position safer than ever. Janet started focusing on her boss’s needs, rather than her own, and cemented her position.
Fire your boss and you’ll never find yourself desperately looking for work. You won’t end up like Jared Edwards, constantly having to scrounge for a job to keep food on the table. Jared followed my advice and began job fishing, and as a result, has always had a new job on the line.
Fire your boss and you won’t need to go through an extended job search. Fred Peters found his network had dried up and the classified ads were barren, until he accepted that no one hires a stranger today. By tapping into his personal life he finally found job opportunities.
Fire your boss and you’ll be able to maintain and grow your income. Rather than accepting pay cuts and lower salaries, as did Debbie O’Leary, you’ll be able to maximize your earnings. She took my advice and decided it’s the money that counts. Since then her income has grown at a steady rate.
Fire your boss and you’ll never be fired. Instead of waiting for the inevitable ax to fall, you’ll always be able to leave on your own terms, at the most advantageous time. Bill Kaplan eventually followed my advice and was able to “quit” his way into one better job after another.