Professional

I am unemployed. There, I said it (or wrote it.) Monday I went to work like any other day. I took out my laptop, opened it up, started to prepare the weekly service desk reports and my boss ducked his head in my office and said “Can you join me in conference room A for a minute?” Conference room A is adjacent to my office so it wasn’t hard for anyone to hear when I got in.

“Sure. What’s up?”. I followed and when I saw it was just him and the HR girl, I knew immediately what was up. My 22+ years at the company were done. It was a great experience. Right out of college as a software developer for a year and a half, then a Unix Sys Admin for several years, then broadening my technical skills with more advanced projects, and finally management for the last several years. I was given some great opportunities and made some great friends.

Was I surprised? Sure. Was I unprepared? No. I’ve had the good fortune of reaching out to some excellent resources (most notably Mark Horstman at Manager Tools) who prepared me for this eventuality. Five years ago he told me to build and maintain a network in the community, in the industry, and online. Keep the contacts alive, backup your contact database, and keep the resume up to date. Relationships are the key to success or as he puts it “It’s all about the people.”

I should mention that my wife and brother also work in IT at the same company and were not affected (save emotionally.) There was one other project manager that was let go the same day. Our departure sent shock waves through the IT. Everyone was very nervous and some were angry. Me? I was ready to move on.

There’s no value in trying to figure out “who said what”, or “how could this have happened”. I may never know and I’m not sure I want to. I was actually smiling while the HR rep and my boss were giving me the final meeting. I was excited at what awaits. It’s not that I wanted to leave. Like I said, it was a fun ride while it lasted. I was ready to try out some of those skills I’ve been working on (and in some cases preaching about) for the past few years. I collected my things and headed out. Donna was given the day off to assist with family matters. We took the folder full of papers and went to get some coffee to look things over and make a task list.

Once we had a plan, we headed home to start taking care of some easy wins (online accounts and things.) One thing I remembered were a few business appointments I had made with recent acquaintances at a conference a couple weeks ago. I called the first to cancel and apologize and within minutes it had turned in to a potential lead. I called the second that afternoon and the same thing happened.

Was this a miracle? Not really. It was hard work and knowing what to do at conferences. I won’t go over all the details. You can find that at Manager Tools or Career Tools (same site). I talked to people. I exchanged business cards. I kept in touch with them after I got home. I even offered one of them a friendly travel tip because we had the same kind of bag and she appreciated it. While at the conference, I won an award for Innovation of the Year which didn’t hurt the reputation either. That was the “hard work” part. You see, the week before the conference I was sick for two days and still managed to finish work to get all the materials needed submitted for the award.

As week #1 of my new life winds down, I find myself with several leads, a severance package, and time to get a few ignored home tasks done (like giving the kids a little more attention.) I’m optimistic, enthusiastic, and still enjoying the ride. I look forward to getting back to work (after the basement and the studio are cleaned.)

More to come.

This past week I was reminded that you don’t always get what you want and in doing so you have a choice of your reaction.

My daughters and I were going through a website with funny pictures of people and animals with funny captions. One was a scanned image of a letter from a boy to Santa. In the letter, the boy was explaining how good he had been this past year, citing several examples, and reminded Santa what was on his list. It turns out the boy did not get what he wanted, but some other gifts that he thought were very inferior. His letter closed with an explanation to Santa of how bad the little boy would be this next year because his good deeds did not pay off last year.

I was reminded that just because “the right thing” doesn’t work once, doesn’t mean you should give up on it. Doing the right thing is an investment and sooner or later it will pay off. If you give your time to Church, professional organizations, spend time with the local food pantry, or whatever, people will notice. Will it be enough to have the proper contacts when suddenly find yourself out of a job or foreclose on your mortgage? Perhaps not, but don’t give up on volunteering your time and making those contacts. It is then when you need them the most.

Making relationships is an investment. It takes time to grow. Don’t be that little boy and be bad the second year because his good deeds from the first did not pay off the way he expected. You have a choice to continue to do the right thing even after it doesn’t bear fruit immediately.

This past week I went to Oakland California to help teach about 20 National Park Service Rangers how to podcast. I did not expect to learn as much, if not more, than I had to teach.

This was a wonderful group of people and I will never forget their passion for their jobs, our natural resources, cultures, and so much of what makes America beautiful. They really made me feel like part of the family. I am proud to say I am now an official National Park Service Volunteer.

I eagerly await the fruits of their labors. This was a very ingenious, resourceful, talented, and friendly group and they have a lot to offer. I highly recommend going to iTunes and looking up the National Park Service channel and keep an eye on some new offerings in the next few months.

I stated earlier that my mission for 2009 is to stay in touch (or in most cases – get BACK in touch) with people. One thing I learned from Tom Hausmann at this past Tuesday’s Manager Meet Up was to set aside time in my schedule to make that happen. Like most things (exercise, the GTD weekly review, annual objectives) it is more likely to happen if you schedule time for it.

To that end I created a block of time each week to sit down and keep in touch with people. Setting up the appointment was the easy part. Putting together the took a bit longer. I started by going through my Outlook contacts. Let me warn you that I’ve got about 15 years of contacts and I rarely clean it out. There are high school friends, tech support numbers, family, my wife’s friends, and some that I have no recollection of in that list. With the objective to strengthen my network, I picked about 75. Now I need to go through my LinkedIn list and my Facebook list and see if there are any other potential list members there.

When the block of time rolls around, I’ll take 10 or so people, send them an email and just see how they are doing, wish them well, and cycle around. Some may no longer be “out there” and I expect some will start longer conversations. The point is, it wouldn’t have happened if Tom hadn’t suggested it and I blocked off time.

I highly recommend you try it too. How many times have you said to yourself “I should really call so-and-so.” or “I wonder what my old college buddy is up to?” Make the investment (and it is an investment that pays off big time) and leverage the technology. You’ll be glad you did.