Work Responses to Photos

(In response to this post)

Ironman Coworker: "Thanks, I'm not invincible!" I need to tell her invincibility is a good thing.

President or Whatever*: "I'm going to start calling you Master Chief." I'm ok with that.

*I don't remember his actual title because the company where I work is owned by another company. It is unclear whether we are technically a division or a fully own subsidiary (separate company). Moreover, our parent company is owned by two other companies.

It's complicated.

Work Photo

Outside of everyone's cubicle at work is their name with a picture of them underneath in front of a wall with the company logo behind. I didn't have a photo, so I decided to make one.

You'd be surprised how good this looks printed out glossy at Walgreens...

Ironically, the only person to walk by and recognize the picture was the head of the company (or division, or whatever exactly the place I work at officially is.)

Another employee wanted a picture too (her real one wasn't good enough I guess), so I indulged.

LinkedIn Usefulness & Jobs

Note bene: This is somewhat of a long post, but a fast read. If you want to skip most of it just read the Bottom Line at, uhm, the bottom. But, I think and hope this post may help people -- especially younger people -- understand LinkedIn.com.

Jen asked about LinkedIn.com, a social networking site for "professionals," whatever exactly that means. More specifically, Jen asked:

What do you think of LinkedIn? I got an invite to join some time ago and ignored it, but I've heard it mentioned much more since then. Not sure whether or not I want to join.

I really have no idea how helpful it actually is, it probably depends on who you are, but here are my thoughts on it.

First, one should know that more than 80% of jobs are found through personal connections; that is, despite your personal experience, most people get jobs through a friend or a friend of a friend etc. I got one of my best jobs this way and got two very nice interviews lined up the same way (and a straight up job offer overseas similarly.)

Unlike Facebook where anybody you've ever met is a "friend" LinkedIn focuses on creating adding "connections [friends, colleagues, managers, etc.]" that you actually know. Like Facebook, you can see your connections' connections. E.g., I can see the 37 connections of W.H., who is a connection of mine. I can't see the actual connections (the real people) past that but I can see that currently I have 34 connections, which branch out to over 700, which branch out to nearly 50,000.

It's not that far away from the hypothesis that everyone in the world is six steps away from everyone else. In this case, on LinkedIn, I know 34 people, who know over 700 people, who in turn (total) know over 49,000 people.

With LinkedIn you can recommend someone to someone else or vice versa. Say I know a middle school principal who is looking for a teacher. I also happen to know a teacher that I would personally endorse. I can use LinkedIn to recommend the teacher to the prinicipal (if they both are on LinkedIn).

Of course, in reality I would probably just pass along the name. The prinicipal may have reason to doubt me, or "trust, but verify," and look up the teach on LinkedIn (maybe I have a close relationship with the teacher). But with LinkedIn the prinicpal can look up the teacher and see who has "reccomended, [commentented on]" the teacher, and a brief resume if the teacher has set it up. I'll use my own examples here, instead of the possibly hyopthethical teacher.

Endorsements are essentially postive remarks from other people, usually people you have worked with. You request them from other people or simply endorse someone on your own. Here are a couple I have on my LinkedIn profile (these are slightly abbrevieated -- full names are shown on LinkedIn -- the details are verbatim.)

From T.E., May, 2007

Details of the Recommendation:

"Jon's knowledge of web design and implementation added great value to launching the site and the product. He brought things to the table we hadn't thought of."


Service Category: Graphic/Web Designer
Year first hired: 2006


Top Qualities: Personable, Expert, Creative

Another:

By M.S., May, 2007
Details of the Recommendation:

"Jon is a creative thinker who does not fear the unknown. He is able to enter into new situations with courage and honesty and develop his skill set to the best of his ability. Students, parents and coworkers love him! Dedication and perserverance are very strong traits!"

One More:

From J.S, May, 2007

Details of the Recommendation:

"Jonathan took on his role as a worship leader even though he had limited previous experience in that area. He exhibited a commitment to excellence by quickly improving his skills and knowledge, pulling together a team which included students and succeeded in providing meaningful times of worship. He has also accompanied students to conferences, where he has engaged in meaningful intereactions with them. His intellectual and spiritual depth enables him to tackle the hard questions young people often ask."

(You do have the option of accepting or rejecting recomendations, in the event someone it out to get you, even if they played nice at work.)

You can see my public profile at http://www.linkedin.com/pub/3/ab4/32. I still have to update it, but it is an abbrievated resume. To see my full profile you have to register.

LinkedIn has other features, such as joining groups (such as your alumini group), among other things. Some may make you appear more attractive on LinkedIn, but remember, your personal connections are the most important.

The Bottom Line:
I haven't used LinkedIn that much so I don't know how useful it really is, but it never hurts to join. It is probably one of those things worth doing no matter what. It's free, and can help.

It is nice to have an abbrievated resume always ready to go, as well as a portfolio of endorsements from people you have worked with. It is also cool to browse your contacts and theirs', as well as browse jobs with a resume/contacts already in place.

Finally, probably most importantly, people further into careers than I reccomend joining it. To be sure, I'll have my LinkedIn profile updated before I start looking for my next job (which will be quite soon.) I probably won't find it via LinkedIn, but if I do I'll be awfully glad I took the whole hour or so to get things setup properly.

Schitz / I Talk Too Much Sometimes (But Not Usually)

I have way too many ideas these days. I have so many posts written in my head, but I never seem to find the time and energy together to write them. I have at least half a dozen programming projects that are half done in my head. I think two of them have something resembling actual code.

I also am trying to be clever with the new name. I'm not sure its all that clever. But what the heh, I try. (If you don't know what it means look it up.*)

I do have one nice work story that I can share. I used to work for Slumberland Furniture in their IT department. I was technically an intern, but for all practical purposes got shuffled through nearly every position there, usually for no more than a couple of months. But I did everything.

I learned a lot of things there, and I am quite thankful the experience. One thing that I didn't have to learn was how to load paper into printers. I got that part down, uhm, let me think, elementary school. (I did learn how to load paper into printers older than me, however.)

At my soon to be alma mater students are not allowed to load paper into the printers. It really is about the stupidest policy in the world. The only redeeming part about the policy is that if you call the help desk they get someone up there pretty quickly. (I know because I had to call if there wasn't paper available for me to illegally load.)

So a couple days ago (meaning sometime since I starting working at my current job) I went to print out a massive document, I needed to load paper in the printer before hand. Basic, run of the mill HP LaserJet. I asked a collegue if I could load the paper myself. I could. I was pleased.

As I was loading the paper I went on eloquently wax and wane about how stupid my soon to be former school's policy was and how I could load paper perfectly well thank-you-very-much.

Can anyone guess where this is going? Yeah.

I completely bungled it. I managed to drop the entire tray. Right in front of the person I was boasting about my oh-so-clever paper loading skills. And then I had to restack the paper, get the drawer back while this collegue was watching and I was turning red as a pepper.

I finally got it done and made it back to my cubicle as fast as possible. The only time in my life I've been thankful for a three and a half walled grey cell. (Seriously, at least real jail cells have a full wall with bars. And they are white. Oh, and often have cable. Oh, and they get fed for free.)

When I was finally done with my job (it took a long time, it wasn't one of the big do-it-all machines, just a "regular" (home office type) printer. It was a big job. So I was told I should have printed it to the big-made-for-large-documents printer.

That was -- easily -- the worst day on the job. Needless to say my level of hubris dropped a couple of levels after that (I did redeem myself to some degree later, but I can't blog about it.)

Worst part, I really, really, deserved it. Really really.

*It's Greek: +3 cool points for my blog...

"I made cupcakes..."

I made cupcakes, please help yourself, they are in the empty marketing cube

That is a nice email to be reading as soon as you get into work. Of course, I maybe be violating some confidentiality:

This email message and any attachments are for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain information that is proprietary to [The Company] and/or its subsidiaries or otherwise confidential or legally privileged. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender by reply, and delete all copies of this message and any attachments. If you are the intended recipient you may use the information contained in this message and any files attached to this message only as authorized by [The Company]. Files attached to this message may only be transmitted using secure systems and appropriate means of encryption, and must be secured using the same level of password and security protection with which the file was provided to you. Any unauthorized use, dissemination or disclosure of this message or its attachments is strictly prohibited.

Ooops...

At least it's the first time, not again. I think I just annoyed (or at least really confused) a VP. It's a long story. Still, note to self: do not approach [VP] again unless it is with good news...