Sep 9
2009

Being self-employed is a state of mind.  We all, whether our compensation plan says W2, contract, 1099 or whatever are in the business of, as Napoleon Hill says in “Think and Grow Rich“, “marketing personal services”.  If you think of yourself as a self-employed entrepreneur whose product is the services you provide, you are much more likely to, as Jim Rohn says “work harder on yourself than you do on your job”.

Think about a professional football player, this year he’s starting with the 49ers.  Next year, if he doesn’t do well, he may be with the Rams. But if he works on his skills, if he gets better, he may be playing with the Raiders. You can substitute team names to fit your preferences, but you get the idea.

In today’s business world, nothing is permanent. The days of getting a job and retiring 30 years later are something your grandfather told you about. If you aren’t getting better; if you aren’t engaged in personal development; if you fail to plan; if you fail to stay open to career change, you are very likely to be “looking” again.



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Sep 9
2009

America was built on the dream of a life where you get a good job, work hard, get promoted, watch your kids grow up and get a better job than you had, retire and enjoy your grand-kids. Well, the only part of that dream which applies to a contract worker is the “work hard”.

Contract workers are interchangable parts, rented at the lowest possible price. Since price is the primary competition-point between contract agencies, the only likely change in a worker’s compensation is downward. At each contract term, the worker can be assured that several agencies will be offering his replacement at a lower cost to the business.

The contract term is pushed ever shorter by the business’ desire for more flexibility – ie: the ability to respond to changing business conditions. Only the cost of negotiating new agency contracts mitigates toward longer contract terms. Even this pressure is lessening with agencies which broker agencies.

The idea of a promotion is not a part of the picture. A person who gains additional skills through, experience or training, can cash-in only at the end of a contract and only if there’s a requirement placed with their current contract agency. Failing that, workers must sell themseves to another agency with a need for the newly-acquired skills. However, since it is a new agency, the worker will probably be hired on probation, at a lower rate.



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Sep 8
2009

How is this good news?

From WSJ, Friday 4 Sep 2009:
U.S. job losses softened in August but the unemployment rate jumped to its highest level since June 1983. Employers cut 216,000 jobs last month, compared with a revised 276,000 in July. The unemployment rate, calculated using a survey of households as opposed to companies, grew to 9.7% from 9.4% in July.

I wonder how many of the 216,000 have 3 months of expenses in the bank? I wonder how many of the 216,000 jobs are gone forever?

It’s time, way past time, to make Never Look Again your mantra!



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Sep 7
2009

I spent 30 years with multinational, living several places, working all over the world. During that time I was a rep to two massive user organizations. I met, literally, thousands of people.  Some of them became close friends – even across oceans.  I’ve recently realized that I know where only a very few of them are; what they are doing; how their lives turned out.

That, is a DAMM shame.  Don’t let it happen to you.  We all move on to new places and new jobs.  Make the little extra effort required to keep track of people you meet along the way.  Friends are too few to lose.

There are good tools for keeping in touch (and meeting new friends) an example is LinkedIn



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