Entries from January 2007 ↓

According to this, I am:

Interesting, eh? Who will take this test and post their results?

I was reading a blog called NYCO’s Blog, which usually talks about things and thoughts about central New York. In this particular post, the writer was referencing another blog, this time a newspaper blog called The Raleigh News and Observer, on a story that compares the city of Syracuse with the city of Raleigh. Raleigh ranks higher than Syracuse in many areas as far as cities go (well, at least we’re number one in the northeast in real estate), yet the writer of the article found that Syracuse had something it lacks, that being an area of downtown that has a vibrancy, a mix of restaurants and nightclubs and luxury apartments, and wishes it had the same.

I found it intriguing because it reminds me of how some employees at times look at what someone else has and perceives it as lacking something, when, if compared to someone else in all areas, they are probably close to the same thing, if not better.

I’ll use my wife as a quick example here; she’ll love this. She worked at one hospital that paid her fairly nicely, and left that hospital for one that would actually train her in a field she wanted to work in. She took what some might consider a substantial decrease in pay for the opportunity, and she wasn’t happy about it at all. She started thinking about going back to the other place because, even though she enjoyed the new place, she wondered whether she had given away too much to come to the new place; cash speaks volumes sometimes.

However, I told her that, contrary to popular belief, she was actually bringing home more money than she was at the other place, the insurance benefits were much better, and our overall access to health care was immensely better, including the cost of pharmaceuticals. That, plus the reality that if she went back to the other place she would never have a chance at the certification she wants because they weren’t going to help her get it, since they don’t serve a specific population she needed to work with, helped her see that her decision to be where she is now was, and long term will be, the best decision she ever made.

Many times, employees think that the grass is greener on the other side; sometimes it is, sometimes it’s not. If your working conditions weren’t all that bad, and the only reason you leave is for the money, you might find that you’ve just made a deal with the devil for the dollar; was it worth it? I’ve “fired” clients who gave me internal grief because they were difficult to work with; the dollar certainly became less important at that moment when my stomach was bunched in knots.

It reminds me of a cartoon by one of my favorite political and social cartoonists of all time, Jules Feiffer, which, since I can’t find it online, I’m going to print out the words:

“Ever since I was a little kid I didn’t want to be me. I wanted to be Billie Widdledon. And,… Billie Widdledon didn’t even like me.

Of all people — dopey Kenny Wellington — that little pest who walks and talks like me.”

It’s funny how others who seemingly have it so good already will find something in someone else or that person’s circumstance that they want. As it’s shown, sometimes they already have it. And sometimes, a good manager has to make sure their employees know that.

One of the blogs I read, SEObook.com, had a recent article based on a story by the Wall Street Journal that has a negative slant on bloggers in general. The writer, Joseph Rago, an assistant editorial features editor, states “bloggers, for their part, produce minimal reportage. Instead, they ride along with the MSM like remora fish on the bellies of sharks, picking at the scraps.”

Now, I’m going to be fair, because one can take a quotation like that out of context, as this one was, because the writer of this story was talking only about political blogs. He goes on later to say “blogs must be timely if they are to influence politics,” and then “political blogs are predictable, they are excruciatingly boring.”

There are two things illustrated here.

One, if we don’t get all the facts, and take everything into consideration, we might be misrepresenting what someone else has actually said. Hearsay is always tough to reconcile because you’re getting it second hand, and unless you know both the person who’s being talked about and the person doing the talking well, you might not get the real truth. And if we go on reporting it as fact, when we haven’t verified it ourselves, we do a disservice to everyone.

Two, it’s easy to make someone else look bad by taking a portion out of everything they’ve said and using it for whatever your purposes might be. I’ve been misquoted often, and I’ve also had people try to interpret a meaning out of something I’ve said when I’ve said exactly what I mean. The writer may have a beef with political blogs, and there might be a slight elitist touch, because newspapers have to go that one step further in corroborating their proof before printing it, but it certainly wasn’t an indictment against bloggers in general.

It’s the same thing when, as a manager, you hear something bad about an employee that someone else heard about, rather than witnessed. When I was in management, I never listened to anything that couldn’t be traced back by looking at the spreadsheets or reports. I discounted much gossip because I had heard gossip about myself often enough. One I had aids; another had me dating 3 women when I was dating any; at least the gossipers picked nice looking women.

As for Mr. Rago’s personal attack against political bloggers,… well, I’ll let someone else debate the merits of whether what he’s saying is legitimate or not.

This morning Eliot Spitzer, our most recent attorney general, was sworn in as New York state’s 54th governor. He immediately signed five executive orders into law, basically establishing ethical guidelines for state workers and making the government more open to the public.

That the new governor signed into law what was effectively one of the platforms he campaigned on was amazing in and of itself, but to do it on the first day was somewhat amazing. His predecessor didn’t really do anything until he’d been in office almost two weeks, and his first act was signing extradition papers to send a convicted murderer to another state to face the death penalty there, which New York didn’t have at the time (and pretty much don’t have now).

Many of us have become jaded as we see politicians campaign on platforms that never seem to get fulfilled, but I tend to believe that’s not really as important as the act of showing that you’re at least trying to do something positive for the people who elected you. In a way, it’s how most people look at those who are in leadership positions. For the most part, unless the leader is a total idiot, people want to see someone who’s confident, visible, and appears to be trying to do something positive for those they represent. That’s why people smile when leaders pick up babies, or are shown shaking hands in crowds; it makes them human, and makes them seem as though they really care about something.

This move is particularly illuminating for New York, as we had our most recently elected controller resign before taking his oath for reelection because of his misuse of governmental employees (after earlier in the year saying President Bush should be shot between the eyes), and the president and majority leader or the state senate is under investigation for possible improper business dealings with a consulting company.

When people can’t trust the leaders they’ve chosen, things can’t get done. In business, if one doesn’t trust the leader of the company, nothing good comes of it. In sports, if the team captain isn’t giving a full effort, neither will anyone else. Leaders are accountable, whether they want to be or not. They have the choice to either step up their game and make everyone better, or not even try and bring everyone down with them.

This was a nice first step from Governor Spitzer; I hope to see more action related steps from him as time goes on, whether I totally agree with everything or not.