Tag: point of order

Marketing

BobbieLeave a comment

My forte is the fundamentals or “taxes” of doing business: does it work, is it secure, is it documented, can we measure it; that kind of thing. While I *can* be the product manager (the button is red, it says “Happy Birthday” when you press it, 95% of our competitors have similar buttons) it’s not my jam. On the flip side, I am (almost unnervingly) incentivized by theoretical “points” – closing my health rings on Apple Fitness, collecting “bonus stars” at Starbucks, attributing “levels” in various apps. None of these things actually translate to substantive value (you have to accrue a huge amount of Starbucks stars to actually get value from them), but nonetheless I am driven to complete them.

When a marketing endeavor ends up in my email that I think is completely ridiculous, I have to share.

For background: I have, as one is bound to, a collection of low-grade but annoying health issues. Because I have these, LabCorp knows who I am, and I have an “account” with them. The account was created to simplify data consolidation and billing. The account was not created to get marketing emails.

In my inbox today is a cheery email from LabCorp letting me know that we get an extra 24 hours in 2024 (leap year), and then asks me if I’m going to make the most of it. It then proceeds to give me the following “ideas”:

  • try a new fitness class or workout
  • meal prep
  • book an overdue doctor’s apointment
  • order a labcorp on demand health test
  • go for a walk, bike ride, or hike
  • download a meditation or sleep app
  • write out my latest health goals
  • look up a good stretching routine

It then invites me to “shop tests”.

My brain hurts.

Let’s start with the premise that, having an “extra” 24 hours this month, I should use it in wise and healthful ways. I could point out that I can do these any day of the month of any year, and the “extra” ness of this 24 hours is subjective (e.g., Feb 29 lands on a working day). But okay, insofar as we look at suggestions on what to do with “extra” time, and the source of the suggestions being somewhat health related, that’s fine.

Nestled among the “meal prep” and “meditation” it invites me to order an on-demand health test. It does not invite me to check in with my doctor(s) as to what test would be appropriate for me, which ones I may already have covered through them, etc.; no, it wants me to do it. No more “ask your doctor if XYZ is right for you”, I guess.

Curiosity got the better of me and I clicked “Shop Tests”. Would you like to know what is accessible here? I can order a Men’s Health Test for $199, or a Women’s Health Test for $199. I can get a quantitative pregnancy test for $49, or a “Comprehensive Health Test” for $169 (how this differs from the Men’s or Women’s health test is not immediately visible), a testosterone test for $69, a thyroid test for $89, and on and on. Wanna check your magnesium? Your micronutrients? Your colon (why yes there is a “colon cancer home collection test”)? What about if you think you may have menopause, or tuberculosis? Vitamin D, B12, a urine test, it goes on quite a bit. The only information about these tests is the title, the price, and “add to cart”. You can, however, click on the test without adding it to cart, to read up (for that test alone) what it contains. (If you want to compare the Women’s Health Test to the Comprehensive Health Test then be prepared to copy/paste).

This strikes me as an invitation to one of two things: hypochondria or specious complacency. I have a degree in Zoology, not medicine or pharmacology, and I have no business ordering tests and “identifying the results”. I have no context in which to interpret them (short of spelunking WebMD or the Mayo Clinic) and at its extreme I can use a home-based home-interpreted test to either make myself feel better (devoid of actual medical review) or worse. I wonder how much GP’s love this.

And yet, it’s a shiny email, all done up in comforting, reliable blue, with stock photos of people doing healthy things and being healthy people, and don’t I want to do that? It begs me to use my Leap Day wisely. It reassures me it will provide peace of mind. Some bright product manager looked at the range of tests LabCorp supplies, and figures that with its reassuring and proactive “to do” list, its call to action, and a collection of price points ending in 9, that more money was to be had in a healthcare system that already specializes in separating people from their cash. This, at a cost larger than those in socialized medicine countries engender, none the least of which is because they don’t do a bunch of extra tests simply because they can.

I have hit “unsubscribe”, a small victory, for me.

Engineering

BobbieLeave a comment

It’s not often that I’m struck by something on LinkedIn that makes me think. That sounds bad; let me rephrase: it’s not often that I’m struck by something on LinkedIn that leaves an impression that lingers in the back of my brain after I leave the page. Usually, it’s a celebration of folks getting new jobs, folks leaving old jobs, folks looking for jobs, and a smattering of posts recapping job-like events. Sometimes there are adages and platitudes and we can all resonate with that image of the bent tree that ultimately succeeded or whatever.

It’s Boxing Day, or the Day After Christmas, and I’m poking around corners of the internet while waiting for the Nth load of laundry and figuring out how I’ll keep myself occupied for the next few days (yes, privilege). And so I found myself scrolling on LinkedIn, for this post by Nick Costentino. I don’t know Nick, we are “once removed” via a connection I have (or perhaps more than one, that’s the nature of LinkedIn), but this title, and this post, stick in my brain: “As a Software Engineer, you don’t need to know everything.”

Nick goes on to illustrate that good software engineering is not about having all the answers and/or “just knowing”, it’s about problem solving and being resourceful. It’s about having the *framework* (not in the software sense but in the “I can wire my approach to this” sense) to identify and solve problems. And my off the cuff reaction (which I commented) was: this isn’t just for software engineering; this is for life.

Depending on your geography, family affluence, and other circumstances, you got an education in your formative years. That education may have had you learning cursive and doing geometric proofs and diagramming sentences and such, but for anywhere from 10 to 15 years you were formally trained in Things Society Felt You Should Know. A *good* education didn’t just leave it at that, a good education taught you how to work with circumstances that were not solvable by rote memory: what is the scientific method, after all, if not “f*ck around and find out”? The idea being that instead of churning you out at the end of high school or college/uni with everything in your brain and it being 100% “full”, you were instead armed with concepts, ideas, and a method of approach to solve problems and self-manage.

I am not saying that that is the way it is for everyone — “No child left behind” left a *lot* of kids behind, and the current systems in place are highly differential depending on socioeconomic factors. Broadly speaking, however, people come out of high school and/or further education with the impression that they should *already* know everything and it’s just a matter of grinding your way to the “top” (whatever top that may be). And that the path is set for one’s career, and intransigent.

Careers are fungible things, and so are brains.

You will not, ever, ever, ever know all the things. There will be edge cases, there will be corner cases, there will be So Many Times you are working with Not All the Information and frequently it will be because either someone you were relying on for it didn’t know or because some process or person thinks you didn’t need it. Or the systems in place were developed by someone who left five years ago, and no one can read their notes/handwriting (if indeed any were left). This isn’t just in the software engineering world: I have had the luxury of having a few different “careers” in the last 30 years, and in every one of them I can point to a circumstance in which the person who should have known everything (the Vet, the Pharmacist, the Travel Agent, the Manager, etc.) did not know everything and what we all had to work with were some clues and guidelines and our very best efforts. Anyone who has been handed the curveball of an unexpected medical expense, your car breaking down, mystery crumbs on your kitchen floor, or any myriad of things in Being an Adult in the World has experience with the “I don’t have all the information, but I have to deal with this” scenario.

Education is *a* foundation, from which your brain gets wired (with experience) on how to approach the crazy that life throws at you. May your frameworks be resilient and resourceful.

Hard Boot

BobbieLeave a comment

I am about four hours from a flight to 115-degree temperatures and this is me saying goodbye to my laptop. For now.

  • If I take my laptop, I will be tempted to “just check on a few things”.
  • If I take my laptop, I will get sucked into work stuff, when I am patently out of office.
  • If I take my laptop, I will sabotage this effort to unplug.

I know what happens when I take my laptop. I also know what happens when I do not: I come back more present, refreshed, etc. The lie I tell myself every time I take my laptop is that it’s just so I can be occupied on the plane. Or clear out my email the night before I return. Or “just in case”.

  • I do not work in any field that has 24/7 responsibility that ultimately rests on me alone: there are others who rotate through that responsibility and in this particular case it’s not my turn.
  • I do not work in any field where lives are at stake.
  • I do not work in any field where there is the expectation of total availability even when out of office (with plenty of notice, brandished in automated replies, and signified by a little purple-grey mark in Teams).

Yet every time I try to take time off, I delude myself or sabotage it and have to do things like get on a plane and fly a thousand miles away from my laptop, having disconnected apps from my phone, and, in other words, set some very hard boundaries. I do not have the discipline in this area (I promise I have it in others).

“It’s just going to be a little crazy for the next 6 months, but then it should ease up”, I have said, pretty much every month, for the last 3 years. The crazy will not stop – there will always be surprise meetings, and curveballs, and organizational “pivots”, and People Very Worried About Things, and as long as I am employed in the arena I am employed in, that will not change.

Before I leave for most vacations, I scurry around the house and clean All the Things. All the laundry, all the bathrooms, all the vacuuming, all the dusting, etc. — because I guess Architectural Digest will be dropping by in my absence and it’s Important That Things Are Ready. I do this with work too: I go update my documentation, I leave notes on who to talk to for what, I remind folks, I have recordings, etc.

Not once has my ability to (or failure to) make my bed before a trip helped (or hindered) anything. While I’m certain that folks do read the out of office reply (at least the first line that contains the most critical information: you will not be hearing from me for a bit) are “helped” by it, I’m equally certain that they’d still get unblocked sooner or later because nothing I write in terms of who to go to in my absence is a surprise. All of this frenetic effort before I can unplug is NOT for them, it’s for me. It’s a reassurance that I did everything I could to leave it easier for others because somehow that is how I should think about my time off. Which is weird, if you think about it: the whole point to time off, is to do something for yourself.

So, this is me doing it: farewell, laptop. See you in a few days.

Ephemeral

BobbieLeave a comment

Every morning I open up a book of 3000 Sudoku puzzles and task away at one or more with my morning coffee. Unlike online sudoku, because it’s in a book, there is no feedback system for if I write a wrong number in a wrong slot. This means I can merrily make the wrong decision and go trotting down the 9×9 squares getting *everything wrong*, sometimes for a good chunk of the puzzle (more than 50%), before realizing I made a wrong choice *somewhere* previously and have to erase and start over.

Of course, I don’t have to actually erase and start over. I could strategically walk through every number choice, working painfully through the puzzle and pseudo-marking the *right* choices in an attempt to disambiguate them from an *unproven/wrong* choice, effectively re-working the puzzle but with a lot more noise. OR I can pull out my trusty Pentel Eraser and just axe the whole thing, with the faintest traces left on the page, and start (mostly) fresh.

There are pros and cons to each approach: the painstaking way forces me to find very, very specifically where I chose wrong, but it takes longer and is prone to confusion from previous choices. The quicker way gets me to the overall solution faster but means re-applying numbers that were good in the first place. Either way I’m giving something up: time, or effort.

One way is not “better than” the other, in the sense that sometimes wholesale erasure and restarting is important (in the case of Sudoku, this can be when you are on a fixed timeline and you have to Go Do A Thing shortly and you want the puzzle Done before you Go Do The Thing and you’ll take your lesson later) and sometimes strategic walk through is important (in the case of Sudoku, this can be when you are making the same mistake over and over and need to figure out *why*). (The very worst approach is to start off the painstaking way, decide it’s too hard, and then erase — you’ve wasted time and aren’t getting the benefit of the investment).

What is true in both cases is the problem is ephemeral and can be solved: I just have to choose my method and then stick with it. I’ve already sunk the cost of my initial investment in the puzzle, and if I choose to parse through the individual choices to find *why*, or if I choose to erase and start over, nothing is bringing back that initial time investment.

With Sudoku, I almost always choose the “erase and start fresh” method, for two reasons: I typically don’t have enough time in the morning to re-parse through my choices, and, it’s of dubious benefit if I do: the fact that there are 3,000 *different* Sudoku puzzles in this book alone tells me that parsing through my wrong choice in *this one* will probably not tell me anything useful for the next one, on a per-puzzle basis. Per this article I get about 5.5 billion combinations and that is more than I will ever do in my lifetime (I have roughly 40-45 years left and if I did 5 a day every day for that period I have maybe 82 thousand puzzles left to do). (Hyperbole: I’d have to do about 335k puzzles/day to get them all done before I die. #goals).

But if it’s a *trend* — If I consistently find myself getting it wrong, over and over, it’s less about the puzzle and it’s more about me: am I constantly making assumptions about something? Am I not really paying attention? If it’s important enough to understand why, there are times when picking through the choices are valid: oh, I made an assumption about X number being in N place when I had no data for that. Or, oh, I conflated that number with this number (e.g., looking at the trend of 3’s in the blocks and then misapplying it to a different number/relationship). That won’t help me get through the block sooner but it will help me understand why I’m messing up and that maybe it’s time for coffee or a break.

I work (perhaps unsurprisingly) in engineering, and almost always the faster way of dealing with a problem is to start over. Sometimes you get to carve in some things that you *know* are good — in Sudoku this would be the numbers that are prepopulated for you and maybe your first four moves — and then you go from there. Generally speaking, as long as everyone’s ok with that approach (in any industry you can have things cheaply, quickly, and of good quality: pick two), that is the way to go. “Starting over” is expensive but may be cheaper than “refactoring extant” (the assumption here is that quality is not up for grabs). What you sacrifice is the inability to really hyper specifically target how you got into a specific pickle, which, sometimes you need. Sometimes, though, it’s enough to know you got there… and to work more diligently and specifically to ensure you don’t go back.

Numbers Game

BobbieLeave a comment

(Something a little more lighthearted. Maybe.)

Every morning I “play” at least one Sudoku puzzle. I have a book of 3000 puzzles and they’re listed as “medium” to “hard” and I’ve graduated to “hard”. I can usually get one done in about 5-10 minutes and it kind of helps me wake up with my coffee and frame the day.

Yesterday I had to redo one twice, eventually erase it, give up, and move on to the next one in the book, promising myself to return today. This had not yet happened in my Sudoku history, and I wasted (?) probably 45 minutes yesterday trying to prove to myself I could do this puzzle. I had to complete the next one to “validate” that I still have “got it”, but it didn’t quite sit right.

This morning I finished the puzzle, but I had to do something I really hate doing: I had to guess. In most Sudoku, there comes a time where you are looking at 2 of the 9 slots in a line or a cube and you *know* that it there’s two numbers that fit into those two slots, and you know which numbers they could be (e.g., Slot A is a 5 or a 9, slot B is a 5 or a 9). This allows you to know that all of the other slots in the line are not those two numbers, but it’s not like they’re interchangeable: those two slots also impact their cubes and impact their perpendicular lines. Guessing, even educated guessing, is a gamble.

The gamble increases in scope when you make that guess early on: say, when your puzzle is only 20% complete instead of when it’s 80% complete, because the downstream impacts of your guess permeate through almost every other number choice. So, in a puzzle of 81 numbers if you’re 30 numbers in and you guess, then 50ish more number choices are impacted. Granted, the stakes are low: if you’re wrong, which you will discover with about 10 numbers to go, (or hopefully earlier), you grab your trusty eraser (may I recommend a Pentel Hi Polymer, I prefer mine to a Pink Pearl, my earlier go-to) and erase the crap out of the sudoku and start over. The only thing you’ve lost is time (and maybe a little pride).

We are, in my organization, coming out of RIFs, entering a planning season, and doing the logical thing: we’re looking around at what has to be done and with what resources (human and otherwise) we can do it. We’re also trying to predict the future: what will we need 3, 6, 12 months from now; where will we need to be in 2 years, etc. In some cases, we know pieces of the puzzle, and in some cases, we have to guess. We have pretty PowerPoint slides and impressive Excel pivot tables and neatly combed backlogs when we are done, but ultimately, there will be a time in this process where we have to say we think Slot A is a 5 and Slot B is a 9. Even in my relatively steady area of Fundamentals and Operations, there’s an aspect of predictability that is missing; while not nearly as bad as my Product Manager friends have it (their customer base is legit millions of people; my customer base is some <1000 engineers), the human component represents a blank slot on the Sudoku board and we have to put in a (hopefully very educated) guess as to what goes there. The price of erasure and starting over is and can be disruptive and is not brushed aside by a “never mind, we’ll get to it tomorrow”. It happens, and we absorb it, but it’s not terribly fun, either to explain or execute. In our case, this un-fun piece is mollified by an evolving process and an attentive release team that keeps us on track and has a system in place for when we identify that we indeed guessed wrong, and that Slot A was supposed to be a 9. It doesn’t take the sting completely out, but it does help.

And then we go on to the next puzzle.

Closure

Bobbie1 Comment

We’ve all had that friend with that messy relationship that doesn’t end well, and someone ends up seeking “closure”. And the closure-seeker is usually denied that: the other party has ghosted or cannot or will not give the answers the closure-seeker needs.

Closure is not for the person who left, closure is for the person who is left behind.

With the volume of layoffs out there, there are those who are leaving (and that sucks), and then there are those who are left behind. We need to acknowledge that also sucks. There are (broadly) two sets of folks left behind in the workplace after layoffs: managers, and individual contributors. Much as with Now What, this is the best I can do (for now) with some things to think about:

Individual Contributors

If you’re an “IC” it means you aren’t managing anyone but yourself, and your workload. In a post-layoff world, that’s a lot to manage, because you are also having to manage your response. You probably have survivor’s guilt: a combination of wanting to know why specific people/groups/etc. were picked, replaying in your head what decisions you would have made had you been in charge, worrying about if another shoe is going to drop, and trying to figure out what it all means. Things feel a little unstable, and that seems to seep into your everyday work, even after the team meetings and frank conversations have subsided.

  1. Understand that you will not get answers. It’s rare that the full weight of the decision-making or rationale will ever be exposed and you’re likely being protected from some uncomfortable choices that someone else had to make.
  2. Understand that it is not your fault. I grew up with the adage that “you cannot say it is not your fault if you cannot also say it is not your responsibility” and frankly, if you’re not a manager, you were not part of any decision-making process, and therefore it wasn’t your responsibility, and therefore it wasn’t your fault.
  3. Seek to control what you can control. You can control your response. You can set boundaries in your work and personal life. You can (hopefully) provide input *to* your management about what the next steps can/should be as you see them.
  4. Take a breath: this is unpleasant, yes, but it also affords you a swift spiritual kick to the gut: why are you here? I mean, yes, why are you here in the cosmic universe, etc., but also: why are you in this role, doing this thing? Do you still like it, even with its ugly bits? Is it time to *plan for* (not execute) a change in the coming months/years? What would you need for that, or if it isn’t time for a change, what do you need to double down in your current space?
  5. Give yourself time to grieve. Grief processing looks different for each person; in my case I carefully box it up and put it ‘way down while I focus on tasky and strategic things and then it blows up in my face some months later. I do not recommend this approach, but I identify with it.
  6. List what you learned. Especially if this is your first experience with layoffs, pay attention to what you learned – how did you respond, what do you wish you had prepared at home or in life for this, what conversations did you have to have at home or at work and what did you need or want for those?

Managers

Congratulations! You get to own the message. You may or may not have had a direct input into the decision-making process, but you’re in it and must execute on it, and now you are down one-to-N team members, and you have folks on your team who are scared, disoriented, or frankly freaking out. Typically, layoffs come with a “redirection” or “new focus” so you get to manage your team not only through this massive change in their/your dynamic but *also* potentially with new or altered charter.

  1. Acknowledge the elephant(s) in the room. Yes, there are/were layoffs. Yes, people are impacted. No, you don’t have answers and/or you can’t give answers. Yes, it sucks. Give yourself, and your team, a space to vent, ask questions, and work through their stages of grief. If you are only going to open that space for one meeting and move on, that’s your call, but be transparent about it.
  2. Support your team. This means providing that vent space, but also reminding them of any work benefits that provide therapy/counseling, reminding them of the need to take time, acknowledging the new work dynamic and doing your best to answer their questions about how things will work in the future.
  3. Clear, consistent, and candid convos: You do not have all the answers but that doesn’t mean clamming up is a good idea. There are going to be tough discussions ahead: who works on what, what work drops, or if somehow the expectation is that you do more with less, be candid about it. Euphemistic handwaving about a “brave new future” isn’t helpful when it comes with the same ginormous backlog.
  4. Recognize growth. As the team progresses through this event you will see signs of improvement and/or growth; recognize it and publicly appreciate it. This isn’t to say there won’t be folks who take longer to get through it, but when you see signs of progress do acknowledge it: grit deserves recognition.
  5. Everything that applies to an Individual Contributor also applies to you. Meaning, you need to give yourself time to grieve, you need to evaluate how you will approach this or what you learned, you need to take a breath. You did not stop being a human being when you became a manager and you may need to remind yourself of that.

Kickoff

BobbieLeave a comment

Here we are, on the edge of the annual change over, this time from 2022-2023.

If you are susceptible to these sorts of things — and I am — you’re probably identifying a list of productive, “new me” things to do. With the caveat that 1. everyone considering “new me” should perhaps consider “adjusted me” instead, as it’s far more realistic and 2. these things are better done in small stages rather than the whole shebang, I present the following list of things that are approachable, productive, and can be timeboxed:

  1. Charity Review: This time of year, you get entreaties from ALL of the nonprofits you’ve ever given to. Use it to weed and be thoughtful of your beneficiaries, and also remind yourself for upcoming tax season.
  2. Paperwork Cleanup: Speaking of which, unless you have some peculiar tax scenarios and/or routinely get audited, you can probably axe your 2013 and older returns.
  3. Paperwork Cleanup, Part II: And while you’re at it, consider going through your filing cabinets and recycling (or shredding) any documents no longer useful. For example, we had an Owner’s Manual to a Sears Leaf Blower no one has seen for ten years.
  4. Clothing Cleanup (Extended): Weeding isn’t just for papers – flip the hangers on all your clothes so the bulb of the hook is facing *away* from you in the closet. As you wear something, you can set it with the bulb *towards* you. At the end of the year, anything facing away still, was not worn, and can get weeded.
    • Also, no you aren’t going to wear that sweater that you bought on impulse but was too short/too boxy/too long/too deep/etc. Let someone else wear it, or (if you’re feeling adventurous) refashion it into something you would wear.
    • Sunk Cost Fallacy is a thing.
  5. Email Armament: You also probably have an inbox full of emails from everyone you’ve ever transacted with, telling you about their sales.
    • You can unsubscribe (every one of those mails *should* have a link at bottom to do so) – opting out of “marketing emails” is separate from “not getting receipt emails”.
    • Then (if you’ve got the inclination) set up inbox rules to handle inbound email receipts, newsletters, etc.
  6. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle:
    • Your holiday lights can be recycled at select locations (for example where I live, McClendon’s Hardware lets us do that) – because you and I both know that you of Next Holiday Season is going to be upset with you of This Holiday Season for not getting rid of the lights that have the inexplicable dead zone halfway through the strand.
    • Your unopened toiletries of the scents and types you don’t like anymore but still insist on keeping under the sink can be donated to your local shelters.
    • Your old prescription glasses can be donated at your local Costco Optical.
    • Your local waste service company likely has a listing of where/how to recycle things in your area.
  7. Prepare: Do you plan to have new spending habits in the new year? Or a new approach to food or exercise? If you’re like me and working your way through that box of Lucky Charms just in time to do a sugar detox Jan 1, that’s all good, but:
    • Make sure you’ve downloaded your apps, subscriptions, dusted off the treadmill, etc. *before* Jan 1 — the fewer hitches you have getting started, the more likely you are to get started – and stay started.
    • If you’re fighting habits (Starbucks, McDonalds, Fridge, etc.) you can do things like put strategic sticky notes in places, detach your credit cards from apps, etc. in order to provide a “hitch” to the habits you’re trying to break.
  8. Secure Your Shit. I’m serious.
    • If you have a password manager (NOT Last Pass — BitWarden is good, and there are other good ones) update your passwords. There’ve been a ton of breaches and stuff stays on the dark web for ages. Don’t reuse passwords.
    • If you don’t have a password manager, get one, and then update all your passwords.
    • Get a copy of your credit report while you’re at it:

Obviously, this is not an exhaustive list, I didn’t for example suggest doing an audit of your flatware to determine if you’re off one or more pieces for your full 12-piece place setting (but if you are, you can get individual pieces here). You don’t have to alphabetically organize your spice drawer/cabinet (I recommend instead filing them according to frequency of use). It isn’t actually required to review and reorganize the contents of your sock drawer, or yarn stash, etc. But sometimes little things can help when getting ready to tackle the big things.

The next big thing: 2023.

To Link or Not to Link, That…

BobbieLeave a comment

… is really a decision that gets made on an individual basis, if I’m being honest.

Having ranted about What LinkedIn Is Not For, let’s talk about what LinkedIn *is* for, at least as I understand it:

  • To create connections between yourself and people you have worked with,
  • To create (potentially) connections between yourself and people you have worked withs’ connections, to expand your network (e.g., in order to reconnoiter on employment prospects, places of work, specific candidates, etc.),
  • To identify potential candidates for your open role (if you’re a recruiter or hiring manager),
  • To share your work/discipline achievements with your peers and potential recruiters/hiring managers,
  • To share news/media/thought leadership/anecdotes around your area of occupation or expertise,
  • To find candidates or indicate interest in candidacy for nonprofit or volunteer positions (board or otherwise),
  • To vet skills and/or educational achievements

It also gets used by consultants and service providers to find potential provide-ees, which I find questionable, but I’d totally roll with (if there were an option to opt out, see previous). With that, here’s my criteria for linkage.

  • We worked together, either in the same group or in the same company on a given project or product
  • We served board or volunteer time together (yes even PTSA)
  • You have provided goods/services in a professional capacity (the very best traffic lawyer in Washington is one of my links, you’re welcome)
  • You reach out and identify how we are linked (“I see you worked with Princess Buttercup, I did too back before she started working at Dread Pirate, Inc.”) AND you identify how a link would help either or both of us (“I’m looking to transition into program management from engineering; do you have time to talk about your experience?”/”I see there’s an open role in your organization that I think would be a perfect fit for me…”)
  • You reach out and do not identify how we are linked and/or aren’t really specific about why we should be linked (e.g., I can see from the tooling that you’re linked to Inigo Montoya, and I remember working with Inigo Montoya on that project for Vizzini, so I can infer that that’s how you found me; but I’m not really sure if you’re just clicking “link” to have a bigger network count or because you want something from me or what.)
  • You are “cold mailing” me out of nowhere (as part of your mail you don’t share how you found me/why you think the linkage is worthwhile),
  • You are using InMail to sell me stuff, and want to link me so you can sell my links stuff,
  • You are one of those aforementioned service providers with whom I haven’t actually transacted any business,
  • You are just trying to expand your network via searching for keywords/key organizations and clicking “link all”
  • You do things that make me question your judgement, either on LinkedIn or at work. This includes conspiracy theories, derogatory comments about others, grind shaming, self-care shaming, or just generally being a d*ck.

Linked Out

Bobbie1 Comment

I have, as of right this moment, reached my tipping point with some Bad Behavior on LinkedIn — from “professionals”. I’m not talking about your coworker who posts political stuff or that link from 3 jobs ago who posts pictures of their kids’ graduation — spare me the “LinkedIn is not Facebook” drama; I understand that but can scroll by those posts just fine on the “let people live” principle.

I’m talking about proactive outreach that is ostensibly about opportunities, that is not in fact about opportunities. These actually really waste time, and not just the recipients’ time. They waste your time, recruiters and business opportunists. They make me think less of your organization. They make me less likely to consider your company and/or “opportunity”, ever.

I’ve grouped these broadly into four categories. If you’re thinking about doing any of these, please count me out.

The “Come Apply for This Completely Irrelevant Role” In Mail

In this one, you get the semi-form letter that says “Dear [your name here], I was looking across your resume/LinkedIn profile and think you’d be perfect for [their job title here]…” and then goes on to list the benefits of their organization and how to get in touch with them. So far, so good. Here’s where the red flags come in:

  1. You are pitching me for a level that I have exceeded by at least 3 stages and/or haven’t been at in 7 years.
  2. You are focusing on a skill set or keyword that is not in the last 10 years of my job history.
  3. You sent me this same mail 30 days ago, 60 days ago, 90 days ago, etc. and at that time I sent you a polite, “thank you, love where I’m at right now, might consider new options *next year*”.
  4. You are identifying a role or a skill set that appears nowhere, not anywhere, and in no way in my history. Like ever.

Looking at you, Major Seattle Tech Company, Major California Banking Company, Major Seattle Tech Company, Major Seattle Tech Company, and Major Silicon Valley Tech Company.

When I get these, they tell me either your algorithm is borked and coming from a tech company that’s probably not a good sign, or that you aren’t using an algo and your recruiters are so desperate they’re legit just looking for any name whatsoever to send a mail and make some sort of number/incentive, which is also not a good sign.

The “Come Join Our Advisory Board as a Way to Give Us Cash” Opportunity

Admittedly I fell for that this morning, and it wasted 30 precious minutes of my life and also probably someone else’s. Here’s how this one happened: I have, on my LinkedIn, that I’m looking for opportunities in the nonprofit sector specifically in board support – either as member of a board or of committees (as I already am and have). Life is precious, time is precious and so I’d like to spend my ephemeral existence trying to help improve things. In this case, I got a mail for an advisory board role opportunity linked to a local educational endeavor, one I’m actually close to. I accepted the 7:30am call (because sure!) and the day before the call I got a link to “more information”.

Cue the red flags.

The first three pages of “more information” is/was the usual stuff around board support — this is what we do, this is what we need, these are the kinds of support. Then it got into phrasing like, “Work with the design team to select the format best suited for your organization and budget. Each activity and discussion will focus on your industry and company needs. Start your corporate program with as few as 30 employees…” which… somehow read as a sales pitch? For a board role? I responded to the invitation asking for clarity and, got none.

Here’s where I made my mistake: I attended the call. I should have taken the non-response as “we don’t want to answer that right now”, either because it would mess up people’s target call numbers or perhaps the plan is to get people emotionally invested in the first five minutes. Regardless, I attended the call. The inviter was five minutes late (fine) and after some initial small talk when I brought up my question about the “hey what kind of board role is this”, after some very scripted speech the ask was to start talking more about me and what I’m interested in. I was frank, “That’s another red flag for me; you shouldn’t need to know more about me or what I do in order to let me know how the board advisory opportunity squares with the language around organization and budget.” After some initial clarification, what came out is that prospective board members are expected to actually participate in the program the board advises on, to the tune of $5k (oh! but for special people it’s only $2.5k).

I have no problem donating money to nonprofit organizations and do so, on the regular, for ones that I do and do not participate in directly as a board member or advisor or committee member. This bait and switch, however, means that I would re-think any fiscal donation to the educational institution whose name shares this “opportunity” because this “invitation” feels like a scam, and frankly if anyone comes asking me about it, I will share with them my concerns and experience. I mean, if you’re looking to drum up cash just say so, don’t obfuscate it with a theoretical opportunity to actually advise or help.

The Come Use Our Irrelevant or Superfluous “This As A Service” Service

I work for a Very Large Company. There are a few Very Large Companies on my resume and that’s normal as I like the stability of Very Large Companies – you can move around within them without having to renegotiate health insurance sign ups, for example. When I get a LinkedIn email asking me if I want to consider using your HR services to administrate my HR needs, though, it sounds really tone deaf. Like somehow, I’d have the power or the inclination to bypass my existing company Human Resources organization (which is pretty darned great) and just– somehow use your company for my team? I understand when people offer contracting services — that makes sense, I’ve hired contract services before so that is normal — but when I get solicited for things like payroll services it is just a time waster — the precious minutes of life gone, reading that email.

The “Here Let Me Help You Even Though You Didn’t Ask for it and I Don’t Know You or Anyone You’re Linked To” Service

Executive Coaching. Financial Management and Estate Planning. I do not know or understand what the algo is here but I get one about once a month of someone offering to be my coach or manage my money. On one hand, good for you! Go get ’em. On the other hand, I wish LinkedIn offered us the ability to flag that we are not open to business opportunities. We have for example the ability to say we are “Open To Work” (for recruiters — which is not the case for me and I still get the pings), it would be great to opt out of “business opportunities” or better yet opt in to the ones we are looking for.

Hire Learning

BobbieLeave a comment

I have at various times in my career been a manager, and more specifically a “hiring” manager. Management is a constant improvement cycle — I look back at some of my managerial experiences and cringe heartily, but I saw a good quote I try to employ whilst cringing: the ability to look back on a behavior and cringe means you’ve learned from it and won’t do it again. Or not as much.

The process of sifting through resumes, having “screening” calls, technical interviews, panel or individual interviews, as-appropriate interviews, offers and accepts, is a daunting, involved endeavor and I really, really wish it could be made easier for all – the candidates, the partners in HR, the interviewers, and the hiring manager.

I’ve just finished a round of hiring in my own team (two roles! different disciplines!) and a round of interviews for some other teams (as an interviewer but not hiring manager) and the most consistent thing I’ve observed is the sheer volume of nerves and anxiety involved. This stems from a positive place: as the candidate we’re nervous because we really, really want this role. It may be because it’s got the technology we want to play with or the skill set we want to enhance or the team we want to be in or the organization we want to be a part of or it may just be because it pays well, and money makes things work. (These are all acceptable reasons to go for a job, by the way. There is no shame in declaring you want to get paid and paid well.) We’re used to understanding this anxiety from the perspective of the person applying for the role; I’ll let you in on a secret: it’s a bit nerve-wracking for the hiring manager as well.

Inasmuch as it is tempting to believe a hiring manager sits atop their chair (or stands at their standing desk) and flicks dismissively through resume after resume, that isn’t it. For the hiring manager, this is an exercise in making the best possible choice: the role is open because someone has vacated it or because you have identified the need for it based on a backlog of work. In either case, every day that role remains open is a day that the needs are not met and the volume of stuff to be done grows (along with the pain of the absence). The absence of a human to fill the role is not the only problem, though: the human that you hire is now your responsibility — to foster their learning, their career, and their growth. This is a person you are going to advise and help — and probably help grow beyond what you can give them in this role. *Your* role in their career is transitory, and so the onus on you is to not only find someone who can do the work that needs to be done but find someone that you can help grow beyond that work.

In a perfect world, that is the sole consideration set for either side. The reality is that then another layer of stress is laid upon the effort: speed. How *quickly* can you land that job/ land that candidate/ schedule that interview/ get that feedback/ get the offer out/ get the accept/ get to that first day? Because every day that passes is a day you can lose them to another role, a better offer, a different company.

It is important to lay over this massively privileged stance a healthy heap of perspective: I am fortunate in that I am employed (and hiring within) the tech world, one in which the December unemployment rate was less than 3%. The movement we see is person moving from Job A to Job B, almost always to a better situation (money, location, tech, company size, whatever). If you’re in hospitality that unemployment rate is double. Same if you’re a woman in administrative services, or household support; if you’re a man in coal/petroleum or textile products it’s triple. The people I am interviewing and who come through our portals are folks for whom these roles are a good step up; there are literally millions of people for whom the job search is not anxiety-ridden because they may not get to work with a cool piece of tech but because they may not get to eat. Or they may get evicted. Or (from the hiring perspective) their business will go under (and then they will find themselves on the other side of that coin). The “problems” I face, and to some extent those that apply for roles like mine face, are objectively less problematic than others are facing right now.

My inclination (as an engineer of sorts) is to look at the system within which I work and try to figure out how to make it better — I am that person that sends unsolicited feedback to the teams I work with — like how can we be nimbler about counter-offers, how can we better screen candidates *in*, how can we make scheduling more efficient, and so forth. But as we look at the overall employment health here in the US, we have more work to do.