The Timpanogos Times came out again this week. Here is my latest column wherein I explain the challenges of being out of work for over a year.
Just a foreshadowing for tomorrow, this was actually my second proposed article. The first was deemed “out of place” for my quiet little town’s paper. I’m actually pleased. It means that I have found the editorial borderline. It means I’m not boring.
Anyway, this is a reprint of an article that originally appeared in the November 20, 2014 edition of the Timpanogos Times.
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Hello, Rodney?
Yes.
We’d like to offer you a position with our company.
The relief was palatable. Like I’d been holding my breath for 13 months and finally could breath again. I never thought it would take this long. What I discovered about myself during the year long search for a new job was both enlightening and more than a little scary.
First a bit of background. The above conversation happened back in March of this year. But, that wasn’t the first time I was out of work for an extended amount of time. In 2007 I went into partnership with a guy in Wisconsin. It was a rafting company and literally out of my league. After 23 days on the job I figured out my “partner” was a liar and a crook and when I found out, he fired me, the final indication that we weren’t really partners.
It was rough. I had 12 kids at home. I was heavily in debt and I was living in a part of the country (Northern Wisconsin) where I knew no one needed my computer skills. I spent many sleepless nights worrying about the wolf at the door. Finally, I ended up in Utah working for a large non profit organization. That was about six years ago.
I realized that being out of work wasn’t the worst thing. The worst thing was being out of work and owing a lot of money. My lovely wife and I spent 5 years paying off our cars, our credit cards and every bill except our house. We were just about to start on paying down the house when I got the news.
Rodney, I’m really sorry, but we have to cut 8% of the IT department and your position has been eliminated.
I was disappointed, but not terrified. In fact, I wasn’t even particularly worried. I loved my job and was sorry to leave, but the severance package was very generous. They offered 7 months salary and offered to pay our COBRA, or continuing insurance for a year. With eight kids still at home, that was a huge benefit. And besides I was confident that I would find something soon.
My friends at church were naturally concerned. We had moved into our neighborhood in east Pleasant Grove, UT a little more than a year earlier.
Will you guys need to move, do you think?”
“Move? Why would I move? My house has 9 bedrooms. No one is ever going to want to buy a house with 9 bedrooms. I’m never going to find another house with 9 bedrooms. No, I’ll find something locally. Either that or I’ll commute.
That was one unshakable requirement. We were not going to move.
Utah is a great place for IT, or computer jobs. Adobe recently moved here and opened a big office in Lehi. Novell is still around. There are literally hundreds of small to medium sized computer companies along the Wasatch front. And I can read an unemployment report. Utah’s unemployment rate was well below the national average. I couldn’t have picked a better spot to get laid off. My real challenge would be in deciding which company to go to work for; which offer to take.
Except the offers didn’t come pouring in. They didn’t even come trickling in. I tried all the strategies. I created a custom resume for each job. I researched companies. I went to networking events and job fairs. And the money in my bank account got smaller every week.
I even cast far afield. I used to work for Microsoft in the Seattle area. Working as a consultant the money was fantastic, anywhere from $60-$100 / hour. I figured if I could stay with family in the area, I could afford to commute back and forth to Utah. Except no one at Microsoft wanted to hire me either.
Desperation started to set in. And the doubts started. At first, when I didn’t get an interview it was easy to move on. There were lots of fish in the sea. It was their loss if they didn’t want to hire me. But then, I didn’t get interviews for jobs I really knew I could do. . .or did I only think I could do them? Maybe I really wasn’t qualified to work in IT. Maybe I’d gotten too old (late 40’s) and I’d let me technical skills slip enough that I just couldn’t compete.
In the mean time, I took whatever jobs I could to bring in some money. I mowed lawns. I worked on houses. I got a great temp gig doing a research project for $5000. I got a book contract.
A couple of things that finally turned it around for me were something I did and a piece of job training. The thing I did was start to write. I was offered a chance to write for Timpanogos Times. I also started writing a blog everyday at www.staging.rodneymbliss.com. The blog focused on business lessons I’ve learned over the years. If a prospective employer did a Google search on my name I wanted them to find examples of my job successes.
The second thing I did was accept job training through LDS Employment Services. I’m a project manager but I never got the certification for it. I never really felt the need to take a test to prove I was good at what I did. A year of futile job searching cured me of that. I took a Project Manager Professional (PMP) course and passed the 4 hour certification exam. I then went back to some of the jobs that I hadn’t been qualified for, at least on paper and started my job search anew.
Last March, after three rounds of interviews I got the phone call. Health benefits from my new job kicked in just as the COBRA was ending. Through the grace of God we had avoided an gap in insurance coverage.
As I looked back on the year I spent looking for work, I thought about how it compared with my terrifying experience 6 years earlier. The recent job search was humbling. But, because we had decided to stay out of debt, the wolves mostly passed us by. While I was frustrated at not getting interviews, I didn’t dread the mail arriving with a stack of bills everyday. I realized I’d learned from my earlier mistakes. I wasn’t thrilled to get a chance to put those lessons in practice so soon, but I was glad I had them.
Most importantly, I didn’t have to take a job that required me to commute out of state, and I got to stay in my every-kid-has-their-own-room house surrounded by my wonderful neighbors in Pleasant Grove.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday at 7:00 AM Mountain Time. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and one grandchild.
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Rodney, we aren’t going to make it.
Make what?
The launch tomorrow, the turnstiles aren’t going to be ready.
I don’t swear. I don’t swear at work or when I’m not around other people. It’s not a judgmental thing. I’m not horribly offended by those who do, it’s just that it’s not something I grew up with, and I find it easier to not pick up the habit as an adult.
About a hundred swear words and phrases flashed through my mind right then.
We had been planning this launch for 3 months. For three months I held status meetings every Monday at 2:00 PM Mountain Time. For three months my security analyst had assured me and everyone on the conference call that the turnstiles would be working properly when we launched.
This wasn’t our first rodeo. This was actually the 5th project we had run that required turnstiles. To hold back the information that the turnstiles were a risk and then only share it the day before the launch looked like a form of sabotage.
My job as project manager is to plan and drive our project, but I’m also a troubleshooter. If someone’s portion of the project is behind schedule, I have resources that I can throw at the problem. When needed, I have the email addresses of everyone up the management chain to our most senior company leadership.
Sure, everyone has those email addresses. They are in the company Global Address Book. But, in my case, I’ve had those executives personally tell me, “Let me know if you run into any roadblocks and I’ll be happy to help remove them.”
So, given a problem with part of my project, I can find additional ways to resolve an issue. But, when I’m given one day. . .not even a whole day, Marcus told me Tuesday afternoon that the Wednesday morning, 8:00AM launch wasn’t going to happen, I’m pretty limited in what I can do about it.
But, like I said, I’m a problem solver. I got with our account manager and we immediately started working on alternatives.
Maybe we could fix it with security guards?
You mean have extra security located at the turnstiles?
Yeah, they manually check the badges.
That might work.
I also started pressing Marcus for specifics about what wouldn’t work and why.
Just three days earlier we had had our final project planning conference call. We had a list of items that the client hadn’t liked during their security audit and they wanted them fixed before we went into live production.
Thanks for joining our project call. Let’s start with security. Any thing we should know about?
Nope. We’re good.
Ah. . .you mean the turnstiles are working?
Well, not yet.
Do you mean the security guards have been replaced like the client requested?
Not really.
Have we figured out the issue with the door alarms going off?
Not quite.
What exactly is your definition of “Good”?
I didn’t actually say that last line, but I was thinking it. That conversation should have been a red flag for me. But, I figured on two things. First, the turnstiles always came right down to the wire and they always got them working. Have a little faith.
And second, I really needed to believe that security was not a problem. I had a bunch of other pieces that also had to be done before launch. It was tempting to take the “Oki-doke, we are A-OK” response. So tempting that I took it
So, the day before the launch we do not have the security processes worked out. In these situations, the worst thing you can do is hide. They will find you.
I started sending emails. Lots and lots of emails. I shined a spotlight on the issue. We had our contingency plans with the extra guards, but if the client decided that we couldn’t launch on time, it was a $300,000 penalty. If we were in danger of paying that penalty, I wanted to make sure that EVERYBODY knew about it in advance. Eighteen hours wasn’t much of an advance, but it was all I had.
In the meantime, security redoubled their efforts. It wasn’t the analyst’s fault . We were working with a local installer who was new to our system. They just hadn’t figured it out yet. And they hadn’t figured it out for the past 3 months.
As often happens, after I pulled the fire alarm by sending all my emails, 5 hours later the problem finally got resolved. It wasn’t perfect, but it met the client requirements.
Crisis averted. But also, crisis postponed. Our security team had nearly knocked the entire project off the tracks just as we were about to cross the finish line. What should I do? What would you do?
I considered emailing his boss, and our VP of Project Management and Security. But to what end? Punishment? Retaliation? Frustration?
Was I thinking about throwing this person under the bus because I was angry or because it was for the good of the project?
Finally the account manager suggested we wait. That we wait until the next project and then give security less flexibility; make the security audit be two weeks before production instead of 4 days.
Don’t go looking for trouble. Deal with trust issues when you need to, but not necessarily before you need to.
And try to remember not to swear.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday at 7:00 AM Mountain Time. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and one grandchild.
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or email him at rbliss at msn dot com
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Rodney, we have decided to postpone the ribbon cutting for Louisville.
Till when?
January 14th.
I got about 45 minutes. That’s how long my travel calendar was free. This job was already turning into one of the most traveled in my career. (Five Percent Travel)
Louisville was our final call center opening for the year. We had squeezed the project schedule down to just over 2 months. And the team, my phenomenal team, pulled it off. We were all fairly burned out. My desktop engineer had literally passed out multiple times by pushing himself so hard.
The Fall is birthday season at my house. We had to carefully schedule birthday celebrations for the few days per month I would be home.
And it all wrapped up November 12 when our agents took their first call. Originally the schedule called for starting on Tuesday November 11th. But, that’s Veterans Day and we chose to honor the day by waiting. (And it didn’t hurt that it added an extra day to my schedule.)
But, the rest of the year was completely clear. I have a personal trip scheduled in December to fly “home” to Olympia, WA and be the best man as two old high school friends get married. . .to each other.
I wasn’t even done with my last trip when the Account Manager told me that we were coming back in January for the formal opening. Okay, but that’s just one trip. I’m sure that now that the site is up and running my schedule will settle down.
I got this letter in the mail.
You might be able to see the signature, but it’s signed by Matthew B. Durrant, Chief Justice, Utah Supreme Court.
Jury Duty.
Don’t get me wrong. I think jury duty is not just a duty but a privilege. My employer, like many employers gives me the time off. But, I had a problem. The summons was for next year. They said I might get called any time from Jan 2nd to March 31, and did I have any potential conflicts during that time?
Well, I knew I had one, but I was pretty sure there were going to be more. I went back to Scott, the Account Manager.
Do you know when we are planning to release the new lines of business next year?
I should.
What does that mean?
It means, I know we have 4 new product lines being released between January 20th and the end of February. I’m still a little fuzzy on the exact dates.
I’ll just say last two weeks of January and the first three weeks of February. . .
Don’t forget we have a trip to Texas for the Quarterly Business Review with the client in February.
. . .all of February.
I never imagined that 3 months out was not enough time to get something on my calendar. We are also opening another call center next year. That will be another month of travel.
Maybe I’ll get picked for a jury trial? Hopefully a really LONG jury trial. . .with a sequestered jury.
(Actually, I’m just thrilled to be working at a job where I get to solve interesting problems every day.Having a job is much better than no having a job.)
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday at 7:00 AM Mountain Time. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and one grandchild.
Follow him on
Twitter (@rodneymbliss)
Facebook (www.facebook.com/rbliss)
LinkedIn (www.LinkedIn.com/in/rbliss)
or email him at rbliss at msn dot com
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I’m sorry. It’s our policy to not grant refunds.
I understand that, and I know you didn’t make the rules. So, let’s talk about some ways that we can resolve this.
Sometimes there is no way out except through. For example, if you signed a cell phone contract and two months later you want out, you are going to pay. If you want to break your lease and you don’t have a tenant to take it over for you, you’re going to pay.
But, there are occasionally times where you can work a deal. I don’t consider myself an expert negotiator by any means. But, sometimes I’ve gotten lucky.
Satellite TV
When I was leaving Wisconsin (The Worst It Can Get?) I left a satellite receiver on the roof of the house. We had installed it for TV, but also for internet. It was one of the many things we could no longer afford, but that didn’t stop the company from continuing to bill us. I didn’t want them to know that we’d abandoned it. But, I also didn’t want to keep paying money I didn’t have for a service I could no longer use.
Mr. Bliss, I’m really sorry, but our policy is if you cancel the contract you are responsible for the remainder of the contract.
Then it’s not really canceling it, is it? It’s just paying the entire thing in advance.
Yeah, but it’s all spelled out in the contract you signed. Can you tell me what features you no longer find valuable?
Look, I just realized that I don’t need satellite TV, and I don’t want to pay for something I don’t need and won’t use.
What if we upgraded you to the premium channels for a year? Would that make a difference?
Not really. I don’t want the channels I have. More channels won’t make any difference.
Well, I don’t know what to tell you.
Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m not going to use your service anymore. I’m also certainly not going to pay for something I don’t want. So, you can continue to bill me but I will ignore them. You can send it to collections, but we both know that it will cost you more money than my contract is worth. And unless you sue me, you’re not going to get any more money. Now, that seems like a lot of trouble. We could save both of us a lot of aggravation if we just agree to cancel the contract right now.
Well, I can see your point. I suppose it does make more sense to simply cancel your contract.
Thank you.
If you’ll just box up and send us the control module from the dish, we can call it even.
Yeah, that was going to be a problem. I was in Washington, the dish and it’s control box were sitting on a house in Wisconsin.
Look you guys sent out an installer and he did everything. I’m not even sure where it would be on my roof.
Well, it’s really easy to find. I can walk you through it.
I’m not comfortable getting up on my roof. If your installer can come retrieve that will work best. Tell him to not bother ringing the doorbell. Just go ahead and get the box.
Yeah, come anytime, we’re gone.
Part of what made this negotiation work was that I was willing to take the consequences. I figured I was headed toward bankruptcy or close to it. I had very little to lose. However, I didn’t want additional debts. If I could get this one shut down, that was one less company that I would have to deal with later.
I’ve talked about my negotiating strategy before (Decide What You Will Accept and What You Will Give Up. When You Get One Or The Other, STOP.)
I also figured that the company had a point in the discussion beyond which they agreed you were a lost customer.
The second example was not as easy. I didn’t have nearly as much leverage. Sometimes you have to lay your cards on the table.
WebEx
Let me say that I love the WebEx product. It’s an intuitive, full featured conferencing system. In fact, I loved it so much that while president of RESMARK, I signed us up for a year of web conferencing services.
They are good, but they are also expensive. When RESMARK started to wind down, the WebEx contract was one of the things my investors wanted me to cancel. Like most companies, WebEx had a policy that if you signed on for a year, you had to pay for the year even if you wanted to cancel.
We don’t really have a cancellation policy. You can choose to not renew when your contract is up, but until then the contract is binding.
What if the company is going out of business?
We weren’t, but it was worth a shot.
Then, we would look to the owners to honor contracts. Are you going out of business?
Well, not exactly. We are combining with our parent company and they already have a corporate web conferencing system. We don’t need two.
We’ve found that we typically compare very favorably with other conferencing software. The parent company may want to switch.
No sadly. They are going to stick with their own.
Then, I’m not sure I can help you.
Look, we are not going to use your software. We also are not going to keep paying for a service that we don’t use. So, what’s it going to take to get out of this contract?
Ultimately I think we paid a one month penalty. Again, I tried to show the agent that it would be easier for them if they let me go than tried to keep me. I didn’t really have leverage on them. The company was a going concern, and wouldn’t have ignored monthly invoices if WebEx kept sending them. But, given a choice most people will be reasonable.
My final example is a product that we never used even though we were paying for it. Blame confusing cell phone bills.
Text
I was late to the texting world. Maybe it’s because I’m old and don’t like new things. Maybe it’s just that I never used it therefore I never needed to use it. Whatever the reason, my wife and I didn’t have texting on our phones. This was back in the flip-phone days. Six months into our contract, I happened to scrutinizing the cell phone bill. I was trying to make sense out of the hundreds of line item add-ons when I saw a strange line,
Text Messaging. . . . . .$5
That was weird because my phone didn’t have texting ability. So, I looked at the previous month. Sure enough, another $5 charge.
My wife keeps very careful track of bills. We had phone bills back to the beginning of the contract. They all had a $5 text charge. So I called support.
Thanks for calling in today. How can I help you?
I had a question about the $5 charge for texting on my phone bill.
What’s your question?
Why is it there?
That’s your charge for text messaging.
Yeah, but I don’t have text messaging.
Sure you do.
Huh?
Not my most brilliant response.
Yes, your account is set up to send and receive unlimited texts.
Can I get that money refunded?
Why would we do that?
Because, if you’ll check your records you will notice that I have not sent or received a single text in the six months I’ve been your customer. I’m pretty sure the salesman said we weren’t getting it.
I’ll have to check with my supervisor.
Yeah, go ahead. I’ll wait.
Let’s be clear, they did not have to give me anything back. But, remember that customer service reps are people too. Appeal to their better nature and sometimes you’ll be surprised.
Mr. Bliss, we’re going to go ahead and credit your account for $30. Did you want to cancel the text messaging feature?
No, I think I might actually start using it.
One thing I’d didn’t do in any of these scenarios was to get mad. I didn’t lose my temper for three important reasons. First, I chose not to since I didn’t think it would help. If I thought it would help i’d have done it.
Second, the person I was talking to didn’t make the rule. I wanted them to want to help me. Yelling at a customer service agent is generally counter productive.
Third, the agents were used to dealing with angry people. (I’ve been a phone rep.) I wanted to try to exceed the expectations of the agent. If I could exceed their expectations high enough, they would want to reciprocate. (Exceeding the Speed Limit And Expectations.)
I don’t get a refund, or avoid a speeding ticket every time. But, it happens often enough that I’ve found the reasonable approach is the best first strategy.
And sometimes it’s just nice to be nice.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday at 7:00 AM Mountain Time. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and one grandchild.
Follow him on
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Facebook (www.facebook.com/rbliss)
LinkedIn (www.LinkedIn.com/in/rbliss)
or email him at rbliss at msn dot com
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I don’t do it very often. And if I were a better man, I wouldn’t have gotten so much pleasure from it.
I needed something from one of the engineering teams at headquarters. I knew it was going to be difficult. I tend to refer to the engineering teams in our company as “my engineers.” Not because I’m trying to build a fifedom, and they certainly don’t answer to me, but because I spend so much of my time interacting with our client, who has it’s own engineering teams, it’s just easier to talk about “my engineers.” But, HQ had their own separate team of engineers. Our two divisions shared a name, but little else. But, still I needed something. It came up while I was trying to solve a customer issue with a member of my network team.
I’ve done all I can Rodney. We need the DDNT engineers from corporate to tell us the IP address range they are using.
Who do I need to engage?
Ha. No way are you going to get one of their engineers to touch this problem.
The ironic thing was that my network engineer was extremely difficult to get hold of. The network team tended to hide their online status in our instant message product. Their status was always set to AWAY. However, most times you could simply start typing and they’d answer. . maybe. Their phone numbers were unpublished.
I would schedule meetings with him. Then, the day before the meeting, I would remind him and inform his manager about the meeting. Then an hour before the meeting, I would call and leave voice mail for him and then 5 minutes before the meeting I would call his manager to get him on the phone.
No, it’s not a good system. It’s a broken system, but it worked after a fashion. Getting an engineer from HQ was going to be part detective, part bulldog and part just bull. . .
First stop was our official liaison with the DDNT team. He worked in our division and he was the guy who was supposed to coordinate between the two teams.
Lars, I need to talk to a DDNT engineer.
Did you have a trouble ticket?
Yes, but I just need a couple questions for this custom DDNT route we set up for our client.
Has it ever worked?
No. We are building it from scratch.
Put it in a ticket and then if they don’t get back to you let me know.
I DID put it in a ticket. They said since it’s a custom setup they don’t support it.
If you already had your answer, why are you bugging me?
Yeah, Lars wasn’t going to be my way in.
Next stop was our incident management team. These guys are the ones who get tasked with coordinating outages. They have to be able to contact anyone in the entire enterprise. If anyone could tell me the right place to start it was them.
Paul, I need to know who to engage with if I have a DDMT issue?
Well, Walter Smothers is the VP. Chris Jones is one of the engineers. But, be aware that Walter is very protective of his teams.
Noted.
I didn’t have phone numbers, of course. Paul liked me, but not that much. I used our Instant Message program and talked to Chris. It was a near repeat of my conversation with Lars. No way was he getting on a phone call with either the customer or my engineer. Put it in a ticket and we’ll get to it when we feel like it.
Okay, I guess I’ll try the front door. I created a ticket.
Please ask the client for their source IP, destination IP, URL and any error they are receiving.
The problem was that I’d already asked the client all that information and included it in the ticket. But Chris wanted it sent again.
I should point out that I had worked this issue with our client for 7 months. That’s an eternity in the IT world. The client was getting pretty upset with me and my company. No way did I want to go back and ask them the exact same questions I’d asked 3 weeks earlier. The answer wasn’t going to be any different. I tried to explain this to Chris. Finally, his patience wore out. He reminded me that I wasn’t to talk to him unless I’d escalated through Lars first.
It was time to call for close air support. If you are going to square off with another department, always ALWAYS have air cover lined up. In my case I had a VP and a couple senior directors.
Kurt, Allen and Renée, I need your help. . .
And of course, I cc:’d Chris Jones, and his VP Walter Smothers. I let my executive team know what was coming.
The emails started flying fast and furious. It’s one thing to tell me, a “lowly” PM to go away. It’s harder to tell a VP to take a flying leap. When the dust settled, the DDNT team committed to work my issue and talk to my engineer if we would open a ticket and put our questions.
I’d spent a fair share of political capital, but I’d gotten what I needed, a commitment to let my engineers talk to their engineers.
Remember how my network engineer was hard to get hold of? Yeah, he just dropped off the net. I finally had the communication channels open and he quit talking. Three days went by with me begging my engineer to put some questions into a ticket and let me send it over.
Now I needed a second airstrike, this one closer to home.
Allen, could you escalate to our Network managers?
Two hours later I got a call from another network engineer.
Rodney, what help do you need?
Here we go again. Fortunately, our second engineer figured out how we could solve the entire problem just with information that we and the client had. No need to go back to the DDNT team.
Finally, after 7 months, the client could access DDNT from their location. I was thrilled. I bought the engineering team a dozen doughnuts. I let our executive team know, I informed the client. . .and then, I got to take my revenge.
Dear Walter and Chris, we got DDNT setup and working for the client. Thank you so much for your help in getting our client access to the tools they needed.
Was it childish? Maybe a little. Was it true? Not a bit. They hadn’t done anything to help and they knew it. They also knew that I knew it. But, by offering them a sincere thank you for work that they didn’t do but should have, I got to get a little of my own back.
I wouldn’t recommend alienating your engineering teams. You absolutely need them. You need to take every opportunity to validate them and their work. But, occasionally, when they’ve forced you to beg and scrape it’s satisfying to remind them, in the nicest possible way, that we should all be focused on helping customers and clients.
If that reminder comes across a little cold, well some dishes are best served that way.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday at 7:00 AM Mountain Time. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and one grandchild.
Follow him on
Twitter (@rodneymbliss)
Facebook (www.facebook.com/rbliss)
LinkedIn (www.LinkedIn.com/in/rbliss)
or email him at rbliss at msn dot com
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You have 65 plans from which to choose.
Based on the information you provided your options are:
– Buy healthcare for yourself, your spouse and your children from your work
– Buy healthcare for yourself and your spouse from work and your children from the Exchange marketplace
– Buy healthcare for yourself from work, for your spouse from the marketplace, and for your children from the Exchange marketplace
– Buy healthcare for yourself from work, for your spouse from either work or the marketplace and have your children covered by CHIP
– Don’t buy insurance and pay a penalty. . .and a lot of $$ in doctor bills
You may qualify for a subsidy.
Your spouse may qualify for a subsidy.
Your children may qualify for a subsidy.
You may not qualify for a subsidy.
You have until November 21 to make a choice.
If you choose wrong, you are stuck with your choice until December 2015.
Argggggggg!!!
It’s open enrollment time at work. I’m a project manager. I’m used to making tradeoffs, at looking at a series of options and choosing one for my project and my team.
I have no clue how to buy healthcare. My work has three options. Only one of them meets the ACA guidelines.
So, if I select one of the other plans I have to pay a penalty?
Yup
It shouldn’t be this hard. . .It shouldn’t be this expensive.
While working for a startup called Agile Studios in Orem, UT, we decided to offer our employees healthcare. Marcus was the VP of HR. I’m not sure why we had a VP of HR when we only had a dozen employees, but I didn’t hand out the titles.
Marcus wasn’t particularly good at his job. But, he was tasked with finding us a healthcare option that our meager budget could afford. In the meantime our crew of programmers went about their day writing and testing code. I went about my day working with clients. We all were engaged and busy. Finally, Marcus announces that we have selected a health insurance company.
The coverage isn’t great, but it’s better than nothing. And the best part, we could afford to pay for the entire premium without asking employees to give up part of their check.
Everyone was happy to sign up. Everyone that is except Dave (heartmindcode.com).
I’ll pass. My wife has good insurance and I really don’t want the hassle of two insurance plans.
You can’t pass.
Why not?
Everyone has to sign up. It’s a requirement that all employees sign up for the health insurance plan.
Oh. I didn’t realize that. In that case, I quit.
And he did. He didn’t actually leave, but he switched from a W2, or a fulltime employee to a 1099 or contractor.
But, it made me think. The one job the VP of HR has is finding and hiring good employees. He was incompetent at that. But there’s a difference between incompetent and grossly incompetent.
If you are bad at your job, you are incompetent. If you are so bad at your job that you accomplish the opposite of your goals, then you are grossly incompetent. His benefit package made people quit rather than accept it. That’s gross incompetence.
Now I have to get back to studying to become an expert on the Affordable Care Act and health insurance.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday at 7:00 AM Mountain Time. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and one grandchild.
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It came out of the blue. I watched it unfold like some live action 3D movie. One minute I’m rushing through Chicago’s O’Hare airport trying desperately to catch a plane, the next a fight breaks out right in front of me.
First, a little context. Once again, I was traveling last week and once again my flight was delayed. This time it was delayed coming out of Louisville. My corporate scheduler always, always, always books me on a flight with a layover. It’s not just me. Other people at my company said the same thing. Apparently, it’s cheaper to have a layover every week. And like clockwork, every week my first flight is delayed and it causes problems with my second flight. (Cloud Computing. . .Sort Of.)
This time, both my outbound trip (I Don’t Really Know Edward H. McNamera. . .But I Hate Him Anyway) and my return flight last Friday were delayed. For the return, I wasn’t too worried. It wouldn’t have helped anyway. My flight was supposed to leave at around 6:30pm from Kentucky. I schedule them like that on purpose. It lets me work nearly an entire day. Sure, it screws with some of my weekend, but it’s a price I’ll pay.
Or so I thought. Sitting in the terminal in Louisville, they announced our flight was delayed by 30 minutes. Apparently the inbound flight crew wasn’t going to arrive in time. My layover in Chicago was only supposed to be 40 minutes. I checked with a very pleasant gate agent named Rick.
Well, Mr. Bliss. You will probably land before the flight to Salt Lake is scheduled to leave. If you run like hell, you might make it.
Okay.
But, I tell you what I’m going to do, just in case. I’ve reserved a seat for you on the next flight out but it’s not until Saturday morning at 11:00am. If you miss the flight tonight, you go find a ticket agent and tell them the crazy guy in Louisville put you on another flight.
I’ve never found that getting mad at a gate agent helps anything. Rick did the best that could be done.
Behind me in line waiting to talk to Rick was a guy named Eric. Eric looked to be about 50 years old and he was trying to get home to Little Rock. His flight to Louisville was so screwed up that he ended up renting a truck and driving. Now he was trying to get home. His flight out of Chicago left 10 minutes before mine did.
The flight finally arrived in Louisville, we got on and headed for Chicago. Before they closed the cabin door, I texted a friend.
Might end up staying overnight in Chicago. Free for dinner?
Maybe. Text me when you arrive.
I lived in Chicago for a couple of years a long time ago. The thought of an extra night and a chance to eat deep dish stuffed spinach pizza at Giordanno’s was not at all unpleasant.
I checked with the flight attendant to find out which gate we would be landing at. I knew my Salt Lake flight was leaving from F4.
We will be arriving at gate C2.
Not looking good. Here’s a map of the Chicago terminal.
See that green line that goes from gate C9 to E3? Yeah, that’s a bus. And those shuttle busses run on a 15 minute schedule. I figure I had about 12 minutes to get to my gate. If I got the bus just right I might make it. In a way, it would have been easier if the flight from Kentucky were another 15 minutes later. In that case, I wouldn’t have even tried.
But, like many people on my plane, I really wanted to make it home Friday night.
As we landed, the captain asked those people who were not making connections to let us runners go first. I grabbed my bag and sprinted up the jetway and into the terminal along with everyone else, including Eric.
At this point it got weird. Eric started yelling.
Hey, outta the way. Coming through. We got places to go and people to see.
Not surprisingly, this annoyed some of his fellow travelers. Not me, because I let him go in front of me. But, there were a couple of guys in the 20’s who took exception to this old guy pushing passed them. I’m not even sure what they said, since at this point I was trying to make my own way through the crowd, albeit somewhat quieter than Eric.
I guess their comments got on Eric’s last nerve because I saw him turn around and rush them. Eric had a rollerboard style suitcase in each hand. That was good because I think otherwise he would have taken a swing at one of these guys. Instead he rushed back and chest bumped one of the young guys.
I say it got weird, because I knew Eric’s circumstance. He was in a hurry. A really big, every second counts, hurry. His attack required him to abandon, at least temporarily, his goal of making his flight and instead start an altercation that potentially would delay him, or even land him in jail or a hospital.
The two guys were just as surprised as I was.
Wha? . . . I just got assaulted.
At this point their language became more colorful and they decided since they were moving in the same direction as Eric, they weren’t interested in letting his challenge go unanswered.
It might have ended there, in a swarm of humanity as we each rushed our separate ways, except that we arrived at gate C9, the shuttle stop. Eric needed to get to terminal F also.
He stopped. They stopped. And the war of words continued to escalate.
What would you do? I’d met the guy a couple hours earlier, I was hurrying for my own plane. Look the other way? Call a cop? Pull out my camera phone?
Eric ended up in the wrong line. He misunderstood an instruction from the shuttle guide and ended up on the other side of the aisleway from the actual line and he was nose to nose with his two new friends. As I walked toward them I heard one of the young guys say,
Go ahead and take a swing at me. I’ll have a couple hundred witnesses.
The tension was reaching a breaking point. I walked over and reached between Eric and the closest guy. Putting my hand on his shoulder I said,
The line we need to be in is over here.
I don’t consider myself a brave person. I’m not a coward either, but I don’t look for confrontations. I freely admit this one could have turned out badly for me at this point. If they were determined to fight, I’d just literally stuck my nose in the middle of it.
Fortunately, it broke the tension. It gave Eric an out and it gave the two guys a chance to save face. They yelled at him as we walked to the other side of the aisle-way and lined up for what we hoped was not a 15 minute wait.
I don’t know if Eric made his plane. Last I saw him he was rushing down terminal F headed for his gate. I made my plane with about 8 minutes to spare. It was enough time to text my friend,
Caught my flight. Maybe dinner next time.
As I settled into my seat I thought about Eric and his actions. How odd that he was doing things that were directly counter to his stated goal. His goal was to get to his plane on time. Arguing and fighting with total strangers might have prevented that. Even his yelling at people to get out of his way was counter productive. He would have gotten to the shuttle stop just as fast or faster without being rude. It reminded me of one of my favorite sayings about your temper,
The man who can control his temper in an argument has a distinct advantage over the man who can’t.
I hope you got home safe Eric. I’m glad I could help.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday at 7:00 AM Mountain Time. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and one grandchild.
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Hey Sandra, I think I’ll take up doodling.
– Howard Tayler circa 2000
Howard is a brilliant success by any measure. He’s a world famous cartoonist. Creator of the award winning web comic Schlock Mercenary. He and his friends won a Hugo for the Writing Excuses podcast. Since June of 2000 (Can You Be Funny Everyday…For Thirteen Years?) he’s drawn his comic and given it away for free on the Internet every day. For the past 10 years he’s done it full time.
But, ten years ago, Howard had a problem. He had launched his cartooning career after walking away from a very successful position in corporate IT. Prior to the big leap Howard was spending 40 hours per week, writing, drawing, inking, coloring and uploading his comic every day. That was in addition to 40-60 hours per week at a regular job.
By quitting the corporate gig and cartooning full time he had the ultimate job right?
If you make your advocation your vocation you never have to work another day in your life.
But, Howard soon discovered a problem. If you make your hobby your job, rather than always indulging in your hobby, you actually find that you are now always working.
It’s called the Overjustification Hypothesis.
It’s the idea that when you get paid to do something that you used to do for free, it changes your attitude about the activity. The authors of the book Influencer discuss the concept in light of trying to get people to do things. If you want your child to enjoy reading so you start paying her for each book she reads, the motivation changes from intrinsic to mercenary. Soon she will only read if she knows she is getting paid.
Adults are the same way. Even when we are motivating ourselves, when a financial incentive enters the picture, we think about the task differently. Howard found that while he still enjoyed his work, it was no longer a diversion. He needed something where he could go play.
Miniatures
Howard decided to start painting miniatures. With his eye for color and costumes, he’s very good at it. I follow his comic, but I haven’t been into miniatures since I was a kid. I have no appreciate for the art.
(Photo Credit: Howard Tayler used with permission)
Here’s the second problem that my friend Howard ran into. Should he sell his miniatures?
There are tens of thousands of people who read Schlock Mercenary, listen to Writing Excuses and pretty much scoop up everything that Howard produces around either one. You can buy books, calendars, t-shirts, hats, challenge coins, and any number of assorted Schlock items. You can buy Writing excuses CD’s that are broken up into brief 15 minute podcasts. In the words of the podcasters, “. . . because you’re in a hurry, and we aren’t that smart.”
So, there is a ready market for Howard Tayler painted miniatures. Why not sell them? I mean, he’s going to paint them anyway, why not get a few bucks for the effort?
Because then he’d have to go get another hobby. If miniatures become part of his inventory, then he’s right back where he was when he started doing Schlock full-time.
I don’t know a lot of artists. I know a bunch of writers and maybe a painter or two, but it’s not a universe I circulate in very much. So, I don’t know if all artists need a hobby separate from their profession. As a writer, I find I do. Mine is music. I’m not particularly good at song writing, but when I have a lot of writing to do, a musical break helps me refocus. I’m not a famous enough writer to do it full time, so in a sense writing is the hobby I go to when the IT job calls for a break.
I do know that Howard doesn’t sell his painted miniatures. I don’t think he can afford to.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday at 7:00 AM Mountain Time. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and one grandchild.
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210 lbs
The scale was wrong. It had to be. I’d never been over 200 lbs. But still, my clothes were starting to be a little tight. And my belts were shrinking.
Yeah, I used all the excuses and justifications. Because I have a high metabolism. I always had. Sure, I wasn’t playing pickup basketball anymore, but I wasn’t getting fat. That didn’t happen to me.
I went through denial for about a week. I’m not sure what stage of grief feeling guilty is, but that’s what came next. I know that people struggle with their weight. And I know that it’s not a matter of will power. But, frankly, I hadn’t been particularly sympathetic. It’s not like I felt the need to tell anyone what I was thinking. And I really did know that people were trying. But, I lacked empathy.
I got it really quick.
But, now the hard work starts, right? I decided I wanted to lose 30 lbs. One hundred eighty pounds sounded like a reasonable goal. How? I’d never been on a diet.
I realized I had one important advantage. I didn’t really care about food. (You Don’t Get To Pick Anymore) I wasn’t sure that would be enough.
First I cut out all soda. I didn’t really like it. . .much. But, I drank a lot of it. Mostly I drank it for the caffiene. It was what I used to treat adult ADD (I Worked From Home Because The Light Turned Red) Instead, I switched to a single daily dose of one of those energy powders you pour into a bottle of water.
ADD addressed.
I drank lots of water. And I read where a survey found that people who lost weight consistently ate breakfast. So, I bought some Grape Nuts (otherwise known as twigs and gravel.) And I cut out most of the rest of my sugar.
And finally, I started weighing myself everyday.
And I waited.
Why will it work for me and not for you? Because your demons are not my demons. What motivates you might not motivate me. and what scares me doesn’t scare you.
I’m a member of Toastmasters. (Psst. . .Can You Give A Speech Right Now?) More people list public speaking as their biggest fear than list death. They would rather die than give a speech.
When people find out I’m in toastmasters they often tell me how brave I am.
I’m not brave.
I’ve always been comfortable in front of people. It doesn’t scare me. It doesn’t take bravery to do something that you enjoy, that doesn’t scare you. I’ve seen true bravery on stage.
I’ve seen a 14 year old girl stand at a podium so scared she couldn’t speak, she couldn’t move. I’m not sure she could breath. And she got through it. She literally read one word at a time. That was brave.
I’ve seen a man so scared of going on stage at a comedy open mic that he could barely speak. He couldn’t remember his jokes and when he pulled his jokes out of his pocket he was shaking so badly he couldn’t read his writing. But, he got up anyway. That was brave.
We each face different challenges. We each have to slay our own dragons.
What scares me might not scare you. What scares you might not bother me.
It started to work.
The pounds started to come off. A few pounds per week. One day I walked through our office and a coworker said,
Rodney, did you lose weight?
It was weird. I was down about 20 lbs. I didn’t think anyone had noticed. But, the weirdest thing that was that realized I really don’t care about food. I’m back in Louisville. On Monday I was here by myself. I went to Walgreens and bought some microwaveable bowls of soup for $5. On Tuesday all the executive same into town. We had a company dinner at a restaurant that charged $14 for an appetizer. I had a $30 steak and potatoes dinner. Wednesday? Back to Walgreens.
Halloween? I decided a wanted a single snack sized Butterfinger. It was great, and that’s all I ate.
I’m down 27 lbs. And I kind of feel guilty that I haven’t struggled at it as much as others. I feel bad, and I don’t feel superior. There are lots of things I can’t do. There are things that I’m terrified of doing. I really wish I could tell others how to lose 27 lbs. I can’t. Not unless you become me.
So, yeah I lost 27 (it’s almost 30) and you can’t. At least not the way I did.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday at 7:00 AM Mountain Time. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and one grandchild.
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Rodney, could you be the second leader for a campout this weekend?
Sure. My boys are looking forward to it.
There’s just one problem.
Oh?
They’re forecasting rain.
Trust me that’s not a problem.
It rained. . .hard.
At the time I drove a Chevy Suburban. We drove up into the foothills above Pleasant Grove. We were camping for a single night. The format is simple; drive in, build a fire in the middle of the dirt road, pitch tents and pack it up in the morning.
The boys were 10 years old. Adam needed a campout before his birthday which was coming up in a few days to complete the requirements for his Arrow of Light award. Tony, the Webelos leader was worried the rain would ruin the campout.
The rain let up for dinner. But, started up just as we were headed to bed. And it rained. . .a lot. I grew up in Seattle where we were used to camping in the rain. You learn a few things. One of them is not to put your tent in a depression.
They boys hadn’t learned that. They woke up in the morning to three inches of water in their tent. Their sleeping bags were soaked.. They were soaked. The towel that Adam’s mother had insisted he bring was soaked. Fortunately it was a mild summer rain. They were wet, but not otherwise hurt at all.
Tony felt terrible. He was sure the camping trip was ruined.
Tony had not been camping with boys as much as I had.
The trip wasn’t ruined. It was great.
Today is the launch of one of the most important projects I’ve worked on at my new company. We are launching our newest call center. We launched another call center two months ago in Virginia. Months of planning go into a launch like this. There are dozens of stakeholders, hundreds of tasks to track and thousands of hours. If you do it right. . .if you prepare perfectly, there are still any number of things that can go wrong.
At our Virginia launch we were about two hours past our first call. I was talking to Jake, the desktop engineer when the lights blinked. Jake stopped mid sentence.
Is that the generators I hear kicking on?
Yeah, I’m going to go check the data center.
I’ll go check the call floor.
A lightening strike had knocked our power offline. The generators had kicked on and it appeared we didn’t miss a beat. As I walked onto the call floor the overhead lights were dark. They weren’t on backup power. Our agents, who were already nervous because it was their first day taking calls after a month of training, were all on calls. The phones and computers hadn’t been affected at all.
Fast forward to yesterday. The same group of people are gathered here in Kentucky for our latest launch. We had dinner last night. We told stories of previous launches. We talked about possible things that could happen today.
Well, let’s hope we don’t get hit by lightening.
And we all laughed. Of the thousands of things that went into the Virginia launch it was the things that went wrong that we remembered. And it united us. Just like it did my boys.
After the flooded tent campout, we moved across town and my boys joined a different scout troop. However, a couple years later we ended up all headed to the same scout camp. This time instead of 10 year old Webelos they were mature 13 year old Tenderfoot scouts.
Remember that campout up by the G?
Yeah, the one were it rained?
And Adam’s mom made him bring a towel?
Yeah, I think it might have helped.
Ha, ha.
And that’s the point. Just like my call center launch, what the boys remembered were not the things that went right, but the things that went wrong that were the lasting memories. Those boys are now even bigger 15 year old Star and Life scouts working toward their Eagle Scout awards. They still talk about that campout.
I’m not suggesting that you attempt to sabotage your projects so that you can build memories. But when you have done all your planning and preparation, don’t sweat it when it rains or lighting strikes. It might just be the most memorable part of the entire event.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday at 7:00 AM Mountain Time. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and one grandchild.
Follow him on
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Facebook (www.facebook.com/rbliss)
LinkedIn (www.LinkedIn.com/in/rbliss)
or email him at rbliss at msn dot com