The Kmiec Ramblings

Always loved this quote from the movie, The Usual Suspects.

“He is supposed to be Turkish. Some say his father was German. Nobody believed he was real. Nobody ever saw him or knew anybody that ever worked directly for him, but to hear Kobayashi tell it, anybody could have worked for Soze. You never knew. That was his power. The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist. One story the guys told me — the story I believe — was from his days in Turkey. There was a petty gang of Hungarians that wanted their own mob. They realized that to be in power you didn’t need guns or money or even numbers. You just needed the will to do what the other guy wouldn’t. After a while they come to power, and then they come after Soze. He was small time then, just running dope, they say…”

The shit hit the fan, however, when people realized he did. Today, it’s easy to pull the wool over someone’s eyes for a short period of time, but you can’t do it for the long haul. If you lack skills, experience, money, etc. you can only hide it for so long.

I’ve noticed that I’ve been blogging less, but tweeting more. I’ve also been using Facebook a lot less.

What I really want to do is figure out a way to cross publish my thoughts. Twitter does a great job of syncing tweets with my Facebook status. But, what I want is the ability to write something once and publish to my blog, Twitter, Facebook, etc.

For example, I maintain a Colle+McVoy internal agency email. The email is sent out to 30+ people at the agency who’ve opted in for communication. Throughout the week I gather great content, thoughts, links, etc. and share it with this list. I would love to be able to grab that content and sync it with my blog and Twitter profile.

There has to be a way to do this, but I haven’t found one yet. If you have a recommendation, please share it.

Tom Brokaw: Senator Quayle, I don’t mean to beat this drum until it has no more sound in it. But to follow up on Brit Hume’s question, when you said that it was a hypothetical situation, it is, sir, after all, the reason that we’re here tonight, because you are running not just for Vice President — (Applause) — and if you cite the experience that you had in Congress, surely you must have some plan in mind about what you would do if it fell to you to become President of the United States, as it has to so many Vice Presidents just in the last 25 years or so.

Quayle: Let me try to answer the question one more time. I think this is the fourth time that I’ve had this question.

Brokaw: The third time.

Quayle: Three times that I’ve had this question — and I will try to answer it again for you, as clearly as I can, because the question you are asking is, “What kind of qualifications does Dan Quayle have to be president,” “What kind of qualifications do I have,” and “What would I do in this kind of a situation?” And what would I do in this situation? [...] I have far more experience than many others that sought the office of vice president of this country. I have as much experience in the Congress as Jack Kennedy did when he sought the presidency. I will be prepared to deal with the people in the Bush administration, if that unfortunate event would ever occur.

Judy Woodruff: Senator [Bentsen]?

Bentsen: Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy: I knew Jack Kennedy; Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy. (Prolonged shouts and applause.) What has to be done in a situation like that is to call in the —

Woodruff: Please, please, once again you are only taking time away from your own candidate.

Quayle: That was really uncalled for, Senator. (Shouts and applause.)

Bentsen: You are the one that was making the comparison, Senator — and I’m one who knew him well. And frankly I think you are so far apart in the objectives you choose for your country that I did not think the comparison was well-taken.

Thanks to Michael Leis for sharing this on twitter.  This is a handout his son, Max, received on his 1st day of 1st grade.  I think we can all learn something from this.

Advice For First Graders

I’ve had every type of boss and/or manager out there.  In 12 years I’ve had over 15 managers.  They range from great to absolutely awful.  Some of my managers really stand out as fantastic mentors.  Others, were as useless as a bicycle to a person in a wheelchair.  Having talked with many colleagues about their experiences with managers, I think every boss/manager can be put into 1 of 3 buckets.

1. Discipline Expert: This person knows everything about everything when it comes to the area they are managing.  If they are managing a group of developers, he/she knows all the code languages in and out, there isn’t a question they can’t answer, and they are generally viewed as the guru.  Bill Parcels and Colin Powell are great examples of this type of boss.  These guys know everything there is to know about their respective sports.  There’s a reason they’ve been around as long as they have been and continually in leadership roles.
2. People Person: This type of manager excels at managing people in general.  They may not know everything there is to know about accounting, but dammit if they aren’t able to effectively manage a department well.  Work gets done on time, on budget, and the team is generally content.  Keep in mind content doesn’t mean happy or ecstatic.  It just means content.  The People Person does a great job of managing egos and personalities very well.  They have calming influence.  When I think of this type of manager I think of Phil Jackson or Joe Torre.
3. The Fossil: I’ve always been split on the fossil.  The fossil is the person who has been around long enough to warrant the role.  They aren’t a discipline expert and they man not even be good with people.  However, they’ve “paid their dues” and as such are deserving of the role.  Often times, the fossil knows how to work the system.  After all they’ve been around long enough to have probably helped invent the system  I generally believe that fossils are the worst type of boss.  They rarely inspire their teams and aren’t considered deserving of their role/title.

I love when the community takes something that already exists and makes it their own.  When that happens, you get something great like this:

The Joker and McDonald

Yes, seriously…we are on Part X and week 4.  Isn’t this getting a little ridiculous?  Part I can be found here, part II can be found here, part III can be found here, part IV can be found here, part V can be found here, part VI can be found here, part VII can be found here, part VIII can be found here, and part IX can be found here.

After my great experience with the NEW State Farm claims rep I thought we were headed towards a good experience.  Well, 3 business days passed, and still I didn’t hear from them.  So I did what I’ve continued to do; I called the body shop.  The body shop contact and I talked.  The control arm did NOT solve the problem 100%.  So now they are replacing the strut as well.  The saga continues and there does not seem to be an end in sight.

Just completed another WordPress upgraded.  As usual I nearly screwed it up.  Thank god for backups!

I hate mistakes in general.  But, I really hate making my own mistakes.  It irritates me to no end.  I made several mistakes today and I’m just not happy about it.  Most of the mistakes were small, but that compounds the issue.

Uggh.

In today’s world where information is very accessible I continue to find it perplexing that some recuiters clearly aren’t doing their jobs better. My LinkedIn profile is up to date.  My Facebook profile is open to the public.  My bio is available on both iMedia and on this site.  With all the information you have about me you should be able to laser focus only on jobs that are clearly in line with experience.

Today I received the following email from a recruiter:

“Hi Adam,

My name is [name] and I’m a recruiter with a company called [company name]. I came across your resume on LinkedIn today and am very interested in speaking with you about a job opportunity. The position is with a great advertising client in the Minneapolis area. This is a direct hire opportunity that offers great compensation, benefits and a highly creative atmosphere. I have attached the job description for your review.

If you are interested, please give me a call at your earliest convenience so we can discuss in further detail. If not, would you know of anyone who might be interested?

Thank you for your time,

[name]

So that sounds interesting and let’s be honest even if you are happy with your current job, you’d be foolish not to look. So I look at the position description that was attached and the following jumped out at me “Mid-Level to Senior Level positions available (3+ years of required experience). Senior Level people should be capable of leading large-scale integrated and interactive projects on national accounts. All applicants should have excellent multi-tasking skills, and can expect to juggle multiple projects and clients. ”

Why on Earth would you send a position requiring 3 years of experience to someone with 12? My response to the recruiter was:

“[name]

Thanks for thinking of me. But I’m not sure this is a great fit for me. I’ve got 12 years of experience and this position seems substantially more junior.

Adam”

I thought that was a nice, simple, truthful response. It was clear that the recruiter never took the time to look at my profile, understand what I’ve done, and what I’d like to be doing. Instead they simple did a blanket search for people in the Minneapolis area who have Interactive experience.

Folks, the web gives you so much useful information. Please take advantage of it.