Life Meets Work Blog

It goes without saying that you should be adding value at work. Unlike Viscusi who seems to believe that facetime = merit, it is those employees who contribute meaningfully to the bottom line who’ll be asked to stay.

Whatever your role, look for ways to quantify your results. Did you add 10 new customers last month, cut supply costs by 15%, or negotiate a new supplier discount? Measure your results, not your time. Demonstrate a results-oriented work style and you’ll earn lasting favor. Plus, you’ll have quality resume fodder in case new job interests come along.

Read about results-based job descriptions at the Life Meets Work main site.

Posted by Jaime

“You must understand your job is your most valuable asset, and your primary objective is to protect it,” Viscusi writes. And in a nod to Sun Tsu…”Work is war.”

When work becomes a battlefield and the primary objective is self-preservation, everyone suffers—including your employer. As competition increases, productivity decreases. As cooperation disappears, so does creativity as well as the valuable internal vetting that comes from debating and evaluating new ideas.

Ignore Viscusi. Be generous with the knowledge and information you have. Share contacts, new ideas, and resources. You can’t build a network without cooperation and you can’t build a career without a network.

Posted by Jaime

Attend seminars, keep up with market press, read the top bloggers in your industry, and try out the latest technologies. Smart, well-informed employees are always an asset. Even if your current employer can’t keep you, you’ll be well positioned for another opportunity.

Set yourself some goals (like these, for example):

• Find four industry blogs to visit daily and try to comment on at least one every week. You develop critical thinking skills when you process a post and respond with a relevant opinion.
• Subscribe to one print publication and set aside time to read it. Keep some reading material in the car and plan to arrive at meetings 5-10 minutes early. You’ll always be on time and you’ll have industry news top-of-mind.
• If you don’t already IM and text, find someone to communicate with—for the sake of learning.
• Get a page on LinkedIn, and try out Facebook and Twitter.

Make a habit of continuing education. If you are informed and capable, you’ll not only survive—you’ll thrive.

Posted by Jaime

With collapse in our financial sector and jobs on the line, some large name media outlets felt it was appropriate to give Stephen Viscusi’s new book Bulletproof Your Job some valuable press space.

Viscusi offers four rules for weathering a touch economy at work: Be Visible, Be Easy, Be Useful, Be Ready. Admittedly, there’s merit in many of Viscusi’s suggestions, such as be a mentor, dress well, and build your network.

Those are well and good, but unfortunately Viscusi peppers his book with reckless throwback suggestions like these:

“Don’t stay late, just stay later. Leaving a mere ten minutes after your boss has gone reinforces the impression that you’re the world’s most committed employee.”

“It doesn’t matter if your company pays for your health club membership or even provides an on-site health facility—that’s to make it look good, not to help you lower your cholesterol… admire those perks, brag about them to your friends, but don’t get caught using them.”

Apparently Viscusi doesn’t believe that having a good opinion of your employer or respect for your managers will get you anywhere. And the idea that companies offer wellness programs simply for PR purposes shows a concerning lack of corporate insight.

Viscusi provides some short-sighted suggestions to save a job. We wonder, though, whether some of his recommendations could do more harm than good.

In the next few posts, we’ll respond to more of Viscusi’s advice and offer suggestions to bulletproof your career.

Posted by Jaime

Sarah Palin is facing some criticism for seeking a high-profile, high-obligation job while she has a young infant at home. Criticisms like those are unjust as they are unfairly leveled at women and not men.

The feminist movement earned women the right to choose career or family or career and family. Likewise, it earned men the same options.

When Palin was elected governor of Alaska last year, the Anchorage Daily News indicated her husband was taking a leave from his job to spend more time with the kids.

“At home, [Todd] Palin takes care of the cooking, the bills and other domestic paperwork, in addition to driving the kids to extracurricular activities like basketball and soccer, according to his wife.

“He can go on just an hour or two of sleep a night. He says, ‘I can sleep when I die,’ ” said Sarah Palin. “There is no way I could have done this job without his tremendous contributions to the home life. He’s able to keep it organized, like a well-oiled machine.”

This weekend, Andrea Kay, syndicated column for Gannett, pointed out that more men are requesting paternity leave. She cited statistics that showed 71% of fathers with a child under age five took paternity leave when it was offered.

Kay writes in defense of the Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act (H.R. 5781) currently before the Senate. It would provide federal workers entitled to FMLA leave with four weeks of paid parental leave. President Bush threatened to veto this legislation in June, just before it passed the house.

“If we are to retain the best workers whose priorities include quality of life and being a hands-on parent, a serious look at alternative working options is in order,” Kay writes. “It’s not just a woman’s issue or a man’s issue. It’s a business issue.”

That’s right. It’s not just a woman’s issue.

For information on shared parenting models visit Equally Shared Parenting and the Third Path Institute.

Posted by Jaime