A Businessman's View

Here I am, a day late with my blog, and I haven't a clue what topic I will write about. (Or at least that's what I want you to think.) Yet here I am. British Petroleum has found out the hard way what the consequences are of not having all of your contingencies accounted for prior to finding out that Murphy is going to hit you where you are weakest. (There's no need to add a link there, since you can throw a stone and hit 20 news websites with articles on the Gulf disaster.) I have also discovered this on a few occasions - most notably this week with my blog (see? I wasn't necessarily fibbing after all) - and I can assure you that losing control of the situation is never fun, especially when the situation wasn't fun to begin with. My wife says I have "control issues." I counter with the statement that I simply don't like not knowing what to expect. In ITIL (which is, for those of you who aren't familiar with it, a collection of business proc...

Here's an update on my job situation as a follow-up to my blog entry last week. I found another position within the same company in a role that fits me better by an order or magnitude. To make it better, I received a payraise too. Being proactive gets you noticed. In fact, it was remarked that my attitude demonstrated that I already had the qualities that my new boss was seeking in the successful candidate. Privacy has a price. Don't believe me? Ask Facebook. Before I explain that, though, let's have a history lesson. Facebook started as a joke of sorts. According to Wikipedia (which, in turn, got this information from a 2008 Rolling Stone article), Mark Zucker wrote its predecessor as a Harvard version of HotOrNot to take his mind off of a girl that had dumped him. This evolved into a means for college students to link up in order to stay in touch. Finally, it became the behemoth that we know (and love?) today. The problem started when Facebook realized that it h...

I found out recently that I am the victim of the recently announced layoffs at my current (as of the time of this writing) employer. More specifically, management was shuffled around and I went from being the protege of the person that hired me to last week's news since my new manager set goals for the group that do not match my background and experience. Last week I mentioned this with the promise of discussing how I am approaching my job search this time differently than last year, so here I am talking about this topic again. Last year, the employment market was in much worse shape. In spite of this, I'm not allowing the relatively positive outlook to cause me to be lazy. Specifically, I am taking the following approach to my job search. Do not wait. My wife calls me the King of Layoffs since I was also a victim of a massive reduction in force in 2008. (Yes, that's three layoffs in three years.) Fortunately, I found a new position rather quickly within BMC and ave...

Author's note: last week was the first time I've not had a blog entry since I started this almost a year ago. I found out a few days prior that I am a victim of the recently announced layoffs at CA (with the accompanying re-org). Obviously, I was distracted with trying to get as many "irons in the fire" as possible, which is my explanation for the absence of an entry. What am I doing differently this time than I did last time? I'll write about that in a future blog entry, but in the meantime if you are interested in discussing possible employment do be sure to drop by my LinkedIn profile first to get an idea of what value I bring to any organization. That infamous quote from The Pirates of Silicon Alley is one that has stuck with me for all time. To provide context, Steve Jobs is whining to Bill Gates that Apple's products are better than Microsoft's. Bill Gates gives him the shaft with the quote above, then runs off to marry one of his lower leve...