GREAT NEWS!

Remember my car dealer?

PROMOTED last weekend.

We took our car in for service and met him for breakfast and as we were leaving a guy in a dress shirt pulled him aside and when he came back he was PROMOTED.

He’s now the Sales Manager for the  dealership, leading the entire sales force. He has been working hard to get this position for a while now, driving mad results selling financial instruments, focusing on developmental opportunities / priorities, and enlisting his boss and leadership as allies towards his goal.  Worked really hard.

And BAM, PROMOTION.

In the AUTO INDUSTRY.  In this CRAPPY ECONOMY.

It is possible, folks.

What are you working on???

Work Life Balance

I’ll be honest with you, I prefer more Life in the balance.  I just won’t work an 80 hour week.  Or a 70 hour week.  Or a 60 hour week.  A 50 hour week is a bad week for me.

I’d prefer the French 35 hour week.  Some people say things like the French 35 hour week is why European economies suck and a symptom of the continent being overrun with socialist eurotrash.  I say, look it was the US myth of the perfection of unfettered capitalist markets that caused this whole world economic crisis. I’ll take “unproductive” economies and a 35 hour workweek and delicious French coffee any day.

So anyhow, I just won’t work more than a 50 hour week, and that’s at peak.  Maybe that is why I am not an entrepreneur.  Or why you’re not getting more posts out of me.

A Little Paranoia

WSJ.com has one of those boilerplate doom-and-gloom economy stories in their career strategies section: Five Signs You May Be on the Layoff List.

In a nutshell,

1. Others are losing their jobs
2. Hiring freeze
3. Training budgets cut, projects slow down
4. Office gossip
5. Company is missing targets

At the F50C, 3 of 5 of these situations are already occurring, and a fourth, #4, is starting in some sectors.

I will be frank here: I stripped back my 401k withholding to just meet the company match, not because I’m concerned about how much I’ve lost in the last two quarters (a lot – but I have a long term view), or about buying equities (in fact now’s a great time to snap up tons of shares on the cheap), but because I want to maximize my cash flow and move those savings rapidly into cash. This is temporary, but:

In case.

In case something goes very wrong.

Because while senior management is not at this time sending any signals into the employee community about layoffs, my industry is extremely sensitive to macroeconomic forces, consumer confidence, and most importantly credit-fueled consumerism. And the latter is not just in practicality impossible for most people at this time, it’s also waaaaay out of vogue.

Also my company, within that industry, is not the low-cost leader nor do we have the low-cost perception among our customers.  We differentiate on style, quality and brand experience.

So I’m moving into cash.

Careful, MFK, that you don’t attract a layoff by dwelling on layoffs. Law of Attraction and all that.

If you were unexpectedly laid off, would you feel a tremendous sense of loss or a tremendous sense of relief? I’m not sure I know my answer to that question!

PS to E: good luck on your interview today!

Economy Hits Home

The economic downturn meltdown recession is starting to heat up around here.

• One of my friends just got laid off — he has the dubious distinction of being the first official person I know to be laid off.
• Another friend, out of work for some time, has finally applied for unemployment assistance.
• A third friend is receiving mixed messages from his boss. She wants him to work on three specific developmental goals, implying one minute, do this or we’ll lay you off and the next minute, do this so we can promote you.
• One pyramid in my company has an official hiring freeze. My pyramid doesn’t have a freeze but unofficially we are not posting or back-filling.  Accross the board, officers are reviewing open positions in their organizations and will propose to the executive committee which to post and which to ditch.
• One of my employees is freaking out a little because she is project-funded — capital is contracting (fewer projects) and she has seen bad results at former companies for project funded people during economic downturns.
• My nonprofit (I’m an emeritus board member –  treasurer & exec committee) is highly likely to be facing state funding cuts in the upcoming legislative round.
• I know several people stuck in homes they cannot sell.
• One friend recently received terrible personal financial news.

I should clarify that I live in Minnesota and while we are not dependent on traditional manufacturing here in the metro, we have a ton of Fortune 500 companies, all of whom are tightening the bootstraps.  We are also home to Northwest Airlines (recently merged with Delta), and we all know how healthy that industry is: they are hinting at layoffs.  Outstate, half of the state’s six mining companies expect layoffs. MN, like 41 other states, is facing a severe budget deficit.

All I can say is, I’m going to be focusing on what I can control. I will be making very measurable goals & objectives and then outperforming on them; sharpening my skill set through education; increasing my marketable experience via stretch assignments; laying groundwork with this blog to eventually diversify my income base; seeking freelance assignments now; helping my friends; praying; counting my blessings; and drinking wine.

Best of luck to you and yours, as well.