Making Connection

Since the beginning of the year, I've had the privilege of coaching groups of workers in transition. Most are journalists, many have been laid off, all wonder about their employment future in these turbulent economic times.

These days, everyone has heard the post-layoff cardinal rule of job hunting: network, network, network. Tell everyone you know that you're looking. Reach out to people you know well, and those you barely know at all. Email your entire address book.

Online social networks now are playing a more visible role in the job search process. Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter all have applications and subgroups that target people looking find employment or new opportunities.

At the same time, online job listings rule the lives of many job seekers. They plan their days around perusing mega sites like monster.com or careerbuilder.com, the huge database of federal openings on usajobs.gov. They may move on to the opportunities posted by Internet sites like Yahoo and AOL, and then devote time to Craigslist and more traditional newspaper online classifieds. Hours each day in front of a computer screen, reading ads and mentally trying on each position for a possible fit.

With all these new electronic options, you'd think the job of finding a job would be easier. That's not what I'm hearing. People are weary, isolated and dispirited.

Be honest: how healthy can it be -- physically or mentally -- to spend hours in front of a computer screen scrolling through endless descriptions of the perfect employee? Measuring yourself against hundreds of Human Resources fantasies?

And here's a little secret: there can be a certain kind of seductiveness to the antiseptic nature of the electronic job search. You can avoid retelling the story of your joblessness, and whatever feelings of hurt, anger, rejection and shame that you may have attached to it.

There's a sense of safety alone on your side of the computer screen.

Here's what I know: the most powerful job contacts are based on relationships. And relationships require care and maintenance, where over coffee, over the phone or over the Internet.

That means doing more than sending a mass email blast to let people know you're looking for work. It may mean reaching out to people with whom you share some real connection or interest. The guy you used to talk to in the break room at your old job. The soprano who stands behind you in the church choir. The sympathetic soccer dad who encourages your kid despite his dribbling challenges. The former classmate who you helped get through Econ 101. The customer you helped with a new product. The community leader who got a fair break from you during a time of controversy.

These are the people who know you and can vouch for you. They can be more powerful than any anonymous online job posting.

Online, connections can be enhanced posting a comment about a link posted on someone's Facebook page. Or joining the discussion with members of a shared interest group on Linkedin. Or responding to an intriguing tweet.

The main thing to remember is that connection is a two-way street. Reaching out also means asking about the other person -- their lives, their hopes, their challenges.

Sometimes, it's not all about you.

Connection has benefits beyond the job search. It reminds us of that we're all in this together, that everyone has challenges, that a getting a job is a means to achieve certain goals -- not the goal itself.

Connection provides perspective. And in these chaotic times, perspective is invaluable.

It's Alright to Fight

This must be my week for gifts of inspiration. This gem comes from another Washington area coach: Bruce Ervin Wood. Brings to mind the Abraham Lincoln example of "A Team of Rivals:"

Adapted from Blues Ain’t Nothing But a Good Soul Feeling Bad

By Sheldon Kopp

March 14

Some people assume that when a co-workers argue, their ability to get their job done is impaired. Paradoxically, it is often when teams don’t argue that people are startled to learn that a key player decides to resign. “How could that be?” those who remain wonder. “We never said a cross word to each other.”

It’s hard enough to live with conflict within ourselves. How much more difficult is it to work with someone without expressing the dissatisfaction with our differences, arguing them out whenever possible, and negotiating when we cannot convince the other that our way is best?

A working relationship untested by open conflict cannot be trusted. Beneath the surface of calm of seeming accord is the simmering turbulence of uncertainty about whether or about whether the team would smoothly function if we were open about unstated conflicts.

Anyone worth working with is worth fighting with.

Bruce Ervin Wood, SPHR, PCC

Hire A Journalist!

Once again, Jill Geisler from the Poynter Institute for Media Studies hits it out of the park. More evidence of why I keep a link to her column on the left rail of this blog.

Jill lovingly breaks down some of the best qualities of good journalists and why employers should want them. This is an exercise that anyone can do, no matter what their profession or job function. Breaking your work down to its basic components reveals the what you like, what you don't like, what you're good at, what you want to do more. From there you can identify more options, more possibilities.

I know not to mess with perfection. Read Jill's column!

http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=34&aid=160112

Let It Go

Professionally and personally, it's been a busy week for me, with more time spent away from my computer and my desk than normal.

At week's end, a dreary day turned into a rainy, chilly day, with little extraneous distraction. I could stay at my desk, catching up on the correspondence, the websites and the blogs that make up my usual reading.

It has been a busy week in the worlds of business, politics and pop culture, so there were a number of articles which caught my interest. Additionally, the friends and acquaintances which populate the social networking sites I frequent had been very busy this week, posting pictures and links and videos at a sprightly pace.

So I had an array of material to peruse and digest. And as is the case with web surfing, each article provided additional links that beckoned and demanded further examination.

As morning turned to afternoon and evening, I stayed focused on the computer screen, with only a few brief breaks. Each time I refreshed the home page of each site, I revealed more material. Phone calls and other interruptions brought a sense of irritation, even anxiety, as I began to worry how I ever would get through all the material I wanted to, needed to absorb.

Finally I realized: This Is Nutz.

One of the defining characteristics of the new millennium is information overload. Each day, we all must decide whether we will let our information choices work for us, or bury us. It is a very personal task of setting appropriate boundaries for ourselves, so that we can prioritize and make time for those things we need to do and want to do, with the people we want to be with.

I had let the fast current of information sweep me up like a storm surge, leaving me gasping for breath. It was a situation of my own creation. I had chosen it.

And I could chose to let it go.

I'll be shutting down the computer. For now. Taking a deep breath, connecting with the larger world. Getting some some badly-needed perspective.

Which should help when I resume my electronic connections tomorrow.

Ascent Up From Hell

I have spent the past week climbing out of computer hell. Holla if you feel me.

The week started with a resolution to fix, once and for all, a long-standing wireless connectivity issue. I had made so many attempts to get identify and correct the problem that I must have made my way through the entire warehouse of Dell tech support technicians. Each time, it would seem we had achieved success -- until the too familiar error message would come back again.

More than one technician warned that I might have to reinstall my computer's operating system, just in case there was a corrupt file gumming up the works. You don't have to know much about computers to fear this remedy. Reinstalling the OPS system means wiping out all your data. And as a small business owner, that meant wiping out the life and memory of my business.

No big deal, right? All I needed to do was back up my data to some external storage device. The storage unit I had stopped working, so I went to replace it. The sale guy at the Geek Shop (my term for the computer mega store I visited) convinced me to purchase another brand of external storage which offered a Terabyte of storage at a cheaper price. And he assured me that it was easy to use.

Thus fortified, I took home the sleek new mega storage unit. It took me a couple of days to get the backup working properly ("easy to use" -- yeah, right). With the set up complete, the unit actually showed me the names of each file as it transferred data to the external drive. I was ready for the worst.

After one last back up last Saturday morning, I contacted tech support for my computer's manufacturer. I did have to reinstall my operating system. And when I say it took ALL DAY to fix my wireless problem, I mean it took ALL FREAKIN' DAY. I said my last goodbye to the tech at 4:55pm.

All I had to do now was restore my data, right? Right. Except I couldn't. I could see the registry of files listed on the external unit, but I could not transfer them to my computer. Nor could I access them from the external drive.

Giving up was not an option. Thus began the Ascent Up From Hell:

Sunday: I discover there's no weekend telephone tech support for the external drive's manufacturer. An old PC and my smartphone link me to the electronic world.

Monday: Snowstorm. Shoveling distractions.Tech-savvy friend talks me through potential fixes. None work. Friend warns "your data may be gone." Hysteria. Condensed cycle through five phases of grief.

Tuesday: Take computer to neighborhood computer shop. Good news: Tech locates and opens files on the external drive. Bad news: Tech is unsure how to restore files to my computer.

Wednesday: Good news: pick up computer with most files restored. Bad news: Microsoft Outlook and all its data can't be found.

Thursday: Frantic house search for Original Outlook software that came with computer, instead of upgraded software installed later. Good news: found the CD's!
Bad News: Can't do email from Outlook.

Friday: Good News: Outlook is operating! Bad news: All data from month of February is gone.

To summarize: I started the week with an unstable computer. I end the week with a stable computer and some missing data.

This summary completely glosses over the emotional journey of the week; the lost productivity; the money I had to pay for repairs. Still, compare where I was Monday, when I thought all my data was gone, to where I am today. I've got a different perspective on the loss of February's data than I would have one week before.

So all in all, I'd say it was a good week.

Now you'll have to excuse me. I'm off to buy some new UBS flash drives.

Thanks for the Memory. Now Take It Back

Would you be willing to erase bad memories? Just wipe them off your hard drive?

What memories would you choose? The pain of injury? The pain of loss? Embarrassment? Failure?

Recently, there have been news reports about a pill that allegedly could erase or at least minimize painful memories. Amsterdam psychologist Merel Kindt presented research on the concept to the science journal Nature Neuroscience. Kindt and colleagues devised a test to see if they could interrupt the brain's ability to recreate a memory of a traumatic event.

As reported on MSNBC.com (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29284885/), sixty volunteers were shown pictures of spiders and given a mild electrical shock to create bad memories. The next day, they saw the pictures again but half were given the drug propranolol, a beta-blocker commonly used to treat heart disease. The other half took a placebo pill.

The participants returned a third day and were shown the pictures again. The researchers found that people given propranolol had a much lower emotional response — measured by a startle reflex — to the images.

An "eraser pill" seems like a much more pleasant experience than the one detailed in the 2004 movie "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." In that film, Kate Winslet's character undergoes an experimental electrical treatment to wipe out all memory of her turbulent relationship with Jim Carrey's Joel Barish. When he discovers this, Joel too demands to have the procedure so that he can forget the pain of love lost.

But a funny thing happens. The further Joel goes back in his memory, the more rediscovers the reasons and the feelings that made him fall in love in the first. place. And even without any guarantee that things could ever be made right for him and his ex-girlfriend, Joel begins to fight for his memories, good and bad.

To be clear: the Swedish researchers were not looking a magic pill to erase all bad memories. Their idea was to make them more manageable for people who suffer from paralyzing phobias or anxieties brought about by traumatic experience. They reasoned if the response to such memories were made more tolerable, the painful memory AND THE FEAR OF THAT pain would have less control over people's lives.

However, the headlines of most news stories touted "Memory Eraser Pill." The editors and producers knew their audiences would be captured by the idea of making bad memories -- and the bad feelings that accompany them -- disappear.

But what would life be like it we had the ability to erase painful memories? Would we ever learn from our mistakes? Would we ever truly appreciate the value of loyalty without knowing the pain of betrayal? The satisfaction of success without the sting of defeat? Could we learn empathy for the suffering of others without the knowledge that comes from our own suffering?

As a follow up to the "Eraser Pill" stories, the British newspaper The Daily Mail published a survey of five people and asked if they would take such a pill if it became available (http://tinyurl.com/c7bpml) I was stuck by the answers of two woman, both the survivors of horrific acts of cruelty.

The first had been brutally gang raped when she was in her 20's. "...[I]f I was offered the chance, would I erase that memory? Never." she said. "Truly awful as that experience was, it has made me who I am today — and while I don’t want to live with that memory, I don’t want to forget it either.

"Experiences shape who we are and who we become; even awful memories teach you things — to appreciate life and see different perspectives."

The second woman survived the 2002 night club bombings in Bali, which killed 202 people. Her take: "Part of someone’s personality is built on the strength of knowing that however bad something is, you can survive and that life goes on. Taking a pill would mean you never deal properly with something that has happened."

As much as we would like to be able to make bad memories disappear -- whether through electric therapy or pills or even a simple wish -- they are given to us for a reason. Even with their pain, they are perfect, for us to use as we see fit.