The Stand-up Philosopher

Interesting Social Media Statistics

I’m curious to know what this means. I pick up followers on Twitter and Facebook that I don’t know. That’s not unusual; I routinely find people through social media that I don’t know. I’m interested in what they have to say and in what they’re doing. I follow them.

The types of people most likely to follow me on Twitter that I don’t know are pastors and Internet marketers.

The types of people most likely to follow me on Facebook that I don’t already know are Real Estate investors.

What about you? What kinds of people, besides friends and family, follow you on the social media sites?

Remembering the $1000 iPhone App “I Am Rich”

This is a classic. One of the first apps released for the iPhone’s OS 2, and one of the most expensive I’m aware of. I Am Rich originally sold for $999. It was bought by 8 people, two of which appealed. 6 people apparently were happy with their purchase. I Am Rich did little. It showed a picture of a red gem, and had a mantra which read:

I am rich
I deserv [sic] it
I am good,
healthy &
successful

Deserve was misspelled. But I guess if you’re rich, you don’t have to spell “deserve” right.

I had a freeware version of the app for Windows Mobile.

Would Liking This Be Morbid?

I noticed this on the right side of my Facebook page, where advertisements and friend suggestions are:

Just because I have a tendency to be a jerk, I was tempted to click “Like”.

How To Use A Daily Capture Mind Map

Way back in September, I wrote a post about using a concept called a Daily Capture Mind Map. It was to address a serious vulnerability in my own productivity system.

For the most part, it worked really well. I began using Mind Manger for iPhone. I kept this map on it. I treated this as a dashboard and used it to park information that I needed access to quickly. Prior to buying Mind Manager for iPhone, I was using Mind Meister, an online mind mapping service with a free plan. At the time I had two computers for work on two different networks, so I could access my dashboard at either, plus at home.

With Mind Manager for iPhone, if I was out and about, and came up with a new idea, or an action item, I would park it on this mind map until I could get to it later. If somebody committed to get something to me, it went on here. And, if I committed something to somebody else, it went on here. I referred to it several times a day.

It worked really well for a while. At least, it worked until I didn’t have a job anymore. For some reason, I’m a lot better at tracking lots of information than I am very little information. Once I was removed from my position in November, I didn’t have anything else to track. I haven’t really used this map much since then.

I’m going to dust this map back off as I go about my job search.

Juggling A Lot of (Figurative) Balls? Read This

John Maxwell had a timely post about the balls we keep in the air. It was actually a quote from a commencement address by Bryon Dyson, CEO of Coca-Cola Enterprises.

Bryon Dyson compares the roles we fill to glass and rubber balls. Guess what happens to each if it gets dropped? Obviously, rubber bounces. Glass breaks.

He then goes on to say that these 4 balls are glass: family, health, friends, and spirit. Drop these balls and they shatter. They’ll be irreparably damaged.

Work is a rubber ball. Drop it and it will bounce back up. That’s very timely for me right now. My work ball is somewhere between my hand and the ground in this metaphor. But this is right; my work ball isn’t irreparably damaged. It’ll bounce. It will be back in the air again before too long.

What Do You Consider A Good Workplace Perk?

I have a title for a blog post that I’ve been wanting to write for a while. I don’t quite have the content to go with it yet. I’ve been wanting to write a post about “When Companies Believe Their Own BS.”

Have you ever worked for a company that went on and on about how great it was? It told you how kind it was to the employees, how great it was to the community, and how everybody working there loved it. Yet you thought you were the odd person out. You didn’t get it.

I wondered about this with my last company. The one that let me go last Thursday. I’m not bitter; seriously, I’m not. I’m glad they kept me around as long as they did.

I’m curious about why the company built itself up over certain perks. I did like and benefit from the free coffee. It was the first place I’ve worked where I didn’t have to pay dues to a coffee mess or bring my own coffee. They also paid entirely for a picnic every summer and for a “holiday party” in December. But, the company only gave employees 7 paid holidays a year. That’s right; we had a great Christmas party, but we had to work on Black Friday.

Employees started with 10 vacation days a year. After 5 years of service, you get 12. Wow, 12 days a year off! What am I going to do with all that spare time? You can almost make up for the 10 paid holidays other companies in this industry offer after 5 years of service and those 2 extra days!

On top of that, any readers I have know how much I hated my cubicle. Seriously, I would rather have a quiet and secluded place to work than an open bar at the Christmas party. I can’t work effectively when I’m surrounded by noise and distraction and I feel like I’m in a fishbowl. I don’t like being snuck up on. Micro-MAN-ager had a habit of coming up behind me and grabbing my shoulders. When I was concentrating on something, it took a lot of willpower not to come up swinging. I’d rather had a desk facing the door than a free picnic in the summer.

What do you consider a good workplace perk? What kind of silly ways does your company claim to be the greatest that you don’t get the point of?

How Wrong Is This?

I used to have a Google AdSense account. It got suspended for “click fraud”. Basically, one day while I was looking at my own blog, I noticed some Google ads that interested me, so I clicked on them. Google then suspended my account for click fraud. I appealed, Google denied my appeal.

So, imagine my surprise when I uploaded a new blog post and saw the following:

Figure 1. Ads By Google

So, let me get this straight. Google suspended my AdSense account because I clicked on two or three ads on my page. But Google is still running ads on my blog through a 3rd party (Addify).

I’m not entirely opposed to it. One thing I like about Google ads is that they are targeted. That’s why I clicked on the two or three ads that got me banned for “click fraud”. They were targeted to the posts I was writing, therefore obviously I was interested in them.

Why Do Companies Make It Harder Than It Has to be to Apply for a Job?

Before I go any farther in this post, I’ll state that I will do what needs to be done to pay the bills. If that requires getting back into another soul-sucking 8 hour a day cubicle job, then I will. But not if it can be avoided.

Except for one year (1998-1999), I’ve spent my entire adult career either in or around the U.S. Navy. It’s been a good run. But there are a lot of needless inefficiencies built into the Navy, and into many of the contracting companies that support the Navy.

I’ve been looking for a job since November. I’ve avoided mentioning it just in case anybody from my previous job might stumble across my blog. But I’ve been looking ever since just before I got fired from my original position. I continued looking while I was stuck in a stuffy cubicle working from Micro-MAN-ager.

I’ve come to realize that, unless you absolutely HAVE to put food on the table right now, the degree of difficulty in applying for a job just MIGHT be a sign of the difficulty DOING the job.

Some jobs have been easy to apply for. I come across the job on Monster or Dice, or even Careerbuilder. I click “Apply Now”. I’m taken to a page asking which resume I want to use, and if I want to include a cover letter. I make those decisions, and click another button. Then I’m done. I get an email confirmation.

But some companies make it really hard. First, you have to register at yet another job site. God help you if you’ve already registered and can’t remember your password, because you can’t use your email account again (Comcast is the worst offender I’ve come across in this regard). Then you have to upload your resume. THEN, after your resume is uploaded, you have to copy and paste your work history and education into text blocks. Even though this information is already on your resume, you have to type it in again.

The government is horrible. Trying to apply for a job through USA Jobs is a nightmare. OK, not all. Some are relatively easy, but I have yet to find an agency that is tied into USA Jobs and can take your resume from the main site. Normally, you find a job on USA Jobs and are taken to another site to apply for the job. This requires creating an account and inputting your information. Some aren’t bad. Applying for a civilian IT job for the Army was actually easy. The Navy makes it almost impossible to apply for a job. I couldn’t get past the first step in the process to apply for a civilian job for the Navy. I put in a trouble ticket. I found out (which shouldn’t surprise me) that I can’t apply because I’m not using Internet Explorer 6, which is the official web browser of the United States Navy.

So, let me ask you: if it’s a pain in the neck just to APPLY for a job, once you get in, do you think you’ll find a massive bureaucracy that makes it nearly impossible to actually do the job?

Job Update

This post probably won't be my masterpiece. I was dismissed from my job on Thursday. It wasn't a surprise. I knew it was coming, and I was under incredible anxiety about it. Once I found out, most of the anxiety went away. I'm still wondering how I'll pay the bills, but I know I'm smart and I adapt. I was just stuck in a bad spot. It was bad for me and for the company, and I am grateful to them for keeping me around as long as they did. Sometimes I wonder if that just prolonged the inevitable. Nothing I can do to change that.

On the bright side, I can chart a new course. If there was ever a time to make some hard decisions about my career and future, this is it. Here are some of the positives I've come up with. Some are silly, some are really profound:

• I can openly complain about how bad most job descriptions and sites are. Seriously, some of them are really bad. Take Clearance Jobs. It's one of those needy sites. Every 30 days I get an email from them "You haven't been on Clearance Jobs in 30 days. You need to refresh your resume." Sometimes I wonder what the point is. To this point in my job search. Clearance Jobs has been one of the more useless. I got an email from one person early in my search. When I did some research, it turns out he's a one man shop. I sent him my resume and all the information he requested. Then I heard nothing. I called him twice and left a message. He didn't have the decency to call me back.
• I can chart a new course. Do I want to stay in engineering? Do I want to get more into pure IT? Do I even want to stay in this field, or stay in the defense industry? One of the prayers most in my mouth right now is "Please, God, don't let me end up in another cubicle." I need to keep that in mind as I decide which path to choose. I've been miserable to some extent in my last 3 jobs. I should probably try to figure out why, because I don't want to end up miserable again. I'm sure the cubicle isn't the only reason, but I don't like them. I can't concentrate and I feel like I'm being watched all the time. I hate that. I don't do very good work under those conditions, and that's not fair to me or my customer/employer. I don't care if I'm the only person on Earth who doesn't like working in cubicles. I don't.
• I can set out on my own. I can start my own business. I've been trying to find some freelance writing assignments. I can also set up as an IT consultant or follow my Computer Coach idea.  I've also considered looking into Real Estate, and a few other ideas. 

I have many possibilities. 

How Do You Handle Link Exchange Requests?

I have a question for other bloggers. What is the best way to handle link exchange requests? I've gotten two of these so far. I checked out the most recent one. It appears to be legit, but the benefit to me is minimal, since the link page I would appear on has so many links on it, I'd be better off appearing in the top 1000 of a Google search.

Dice TV: 3 Questions To Ask In A Job Interview

Without a job, I finally have a chance to catch up on a few things. Going through some email I'd filed to get to "later", I found the following video from Dice.com:

I wish I'd come across this before. I've always done my best to be interactive during a job interview, but my questions usually revolved around benefits and career path. (NOTE: every company I've ever interviewed for lied to me about the career path.) Out of my last 3 jobs, I left 2 of them because there was no possible way to advance from the position I was in. Well, there was that once every 20 years when the moon aligns with a supervisor's retirement, but that was more than 15 years off.

Dice advises you to ask 3 questions:

1. Why is this position vacant? (Or, why did the last person leave?)
2. Can you describe what my first day, week, and month will be like?
3. Can you describe the ideal candidate?

When I was hired for the job I lost yesterday, I made a big hit by asking my program manager and the regional Vice President the question: "What do you like about this company? What makes you get up every morning to come to work here?" 

It Finally Happened

Earlier today I wrote a post about anxiety. I was really feeling it. I didn't want to give too many details at the time. But now, it's all moot. 

I was let go from work today. They'll pay me through Monday, but I'm out of there. It's not a bad deal. It saves me about 60 miles of driving and $8 in bridge tolls over the next two workdays.

Amazingly enough, when I got called into my manager's office, most of the anxiety went away. I guess a lot of it had to do with knowing that I would be let go soon, but not when. Once I knew when, it cleared things up. I think my job search was being hampered by the possibility that I might be kept on. Knowing that I'm out the door somehow eased it.

I have no idea how I'm going to keep food on the table, or keep the bills paid.

On the bright side, I can blog as much as I want now.

I guess I can look at it two ways. I'm either

• unemployed

or

• self-employed

I have a couple of ideas. Maybe I should go for them and see what happens.

Would You Pay for This?

I came up with a business idea. I posted the following ad on Craig's List. I was hoping to be able to provide what I considered a valuable service and to make some extra money without having to deliver pizzas or up sell french fries:

Computer Coaching Service

Do you want to do more with your computer but don't know how? Do you think that you can't figure your computer out?

Do you wish that somebody would show you how to use your computer, but don't want to pay for a long and expensive class?

I'm launching a new business service called The Computer Coach. I will sit down with you at your home or at a location such as a coffee shop or even office and patiently answer your questions about your computer and it's uses. I'll show you how to get more out of your computer. That way you can focus on doing things with it and enjoying it.

Prior to each session, you'll tell me what the focus should be on. Is it about surfing the Internet? Is it about sharing photos or social networks such as FaceBook or LinkedIn? Would you like to know how to get the most out of your email program? Do you need to know how to get more out of Microsoft Excel for work? Are you worried about viruses and need somebody to help you choose the best security for your computer?

I will then prepare for the session to focus on what you need from it. Then you can walk away more knowledgeable and confidence. You'll be able to enjoy your computer and be more productive with it.

Rates are $30 for 1/2 hour and $50 for 1 hour.

I have been working with computers since the early 90's. I have a Bachelor of Science degree in Information Technology, and have been providing this service to family and friends for more than 10 years.

I am also available for tutoring in computer related classes.

If interested, contact me by email.

I've had 0 responses.

I've been told by several people that this is a great idea. But there is a huge difference between "Oh, yeah, that's awesome. People would totally pay for that" and "I'd like to schedule my first session. Do you take PayPal?"

Is this something that you, or somebody you know would pay for, or be interested in learning more about?

Seth Godin on Anxiety

Seth Godin had an interesting post on anxiety this morning. I'll just quote the whole thing here, because it's really short:

Anxiety is nothing...

but repeatedly re-experiencing failure in advance. What a waste.

Seth is right.

I'm living under a crushing anxiety right now. It's making my insides hurt. It's pretty bad. I'll be honest and say that I'm not far from calling the doctor. I don't know what he could actually do about it.

But Seth's blog post added some perspective. That's what I was going to write about today. I might post on that later. I haven't failed yet. Failure is coming, but it's not here yet. I'm experiencing it in advance over and over ever minute of the day.

I guess I should stop though. It's definitely not getting me anywhere. But how do you stop being anxious?

Congrats to Brad Isaac! 80% of Success is Just Showing Up

Congratulations to Brad Isaac, who had an essay make it into a Tom Peters book!

Brad wrote an essay a while back (I remember reading it) about how 80% of success is just showing up. You can download a .pdf of the relevant pages from Brad's post.

This came at a great time, as I'm about to face an enormous personal challenge. Showing up is going to be the hardest part.

Finally, The Differences Between Web Browsers Explained

If you ever wondered what the differences were between the major web browsers, this should help.

Lately, I've been using Firefox portable on a hard drive that I carry with me. At home, I use Google's Chrome on my computers. I started having problems with Firefox on my desktop, and it's memory leaks are just too much for my netbook to handle.

I never got the point to Opera. I like Safari on Mac, but until the Windows version gets a session manager, I'm not using it.

I use Internet Explorer only in extreme emergencies. I hate Internet Exploder. It's slow and clunky.

What Exacly Is A Clear Vision?

UPDATE 15 MAR 19: I originally wrote this post on my iPhone. I'm sorry that it quadruple posted, and that it took me several days to discover and fix it. I had trouble with TypePad's iPhone client. I thought it was timing out. I tried to post, and the client crashed. Then I brought it back up, tried to post again, and the client crashed again. Then I tried to post with the mobile client in Safari. The same post went up 3 times, and was poorly formatted.

I got the idea for this post from a tweet by Dan Miller:

If you don't have a clear vision - strategy, tactics and hard work will just leave you exhausted and depleted. http://bit.ly/dkXXmG

If you haven't noticed, I'm currently in a position where comments like that create a different reaction in me. "That's nice, Dan. You got your success." Having come off the greatest failure of my career and being reduced to working for a micromanager, it discourages me.

It makes me wonder, just what the heck is a clear vision? I have visions. I have goals. I was writing my goals down every day. I have tons of MindManager and Freemind mindmaps about my visions, goals, roles, and horizons of focus. I read all the popular success literature. I listen to Dave Ramsey and David Allen and Stephen Covey and Tim Ferriss and Ramit Sethi and Michael Hyatt and many others. Where the heck is my success?

I hope someday I can write a book or host a TV show about how great it is to have a vision. Then mid career failures can tell me how easy it is to say it. But really, is my vision just unclear? Have I not defined my goals clearly enough? What's the problem? Why am I stuck in a cubicle next to the coffee pot working for a micromanager and wondering if I wasted my time and money getting a degree?

Reasons Why Micromanagement is Destructive

Last month, I wrote about "The Return of Micro-MAN-ager". It was about a comic type character that I created in the Navy and thought of again recently at work. I'm in a situation of being micromanaged. I've been wanting to write a post about why micromanagement is destructive. Apparently, it's been suffering the same fate as a post I started on why I don't worry about procrastinating anymore.

I came across a blog post by Ron Edmonson today about why people micromanage. It's pretty much what I would say: fear, insecurity, wrong team, bad vision, and control freak. I think all apply in my situation.

There are situations where micromanagement can be appropriate. I imagine those situations are related to managing teenagers and prisoners. It's not appropriate outside of some limited situations. I don't believe it's appropriate with professionals.

Why Do My Weather Preferences Get People Upset?

This is curious. We recently got a ton of snow in the Delaware Valley region. I’m sure they’ve seen more in the past, but in the 11 years I’ve lived in New Jersey, it’s a record breaker.

And it didn’t bother me.

Sure, the shoveling was tough, but I got through it. I enjoyed having the snow around. It was a nice change of scenery.

What’s weird is talking to people about it. At work, when people are bitching complaining about all the snow, I mention that I’d rather have the snow than the heat in the middle of summer.

The reactions that I get are along the lines of “How could you, you, you… MONSTER!”

Maybe I’m exaggerating a tiny bit, but most people react very badly. Even at dinner tonight, Christina was talking about a weather forecast that includes about 5 days of solid rain. Ugh. Hate it. I said I’d rather have snow. Christina’s reaction was to ask me if I knew what that meant…

As if God is going to schedule the weather around my preferences.

Seriously, why do people get worked up when I mention that I wouldn’t mind it if the weather stayed cold longer? I like the cold. I don’t like to sweat. And I’d MUCH rather shovel snow than pay another $450 electric bill in the summer. Snow doesn’t cost me anything extra. Snow is cool to watch. Rain is just miserable. In any case, the weather doesn’t bend to my will. It would be about as effective as getting mad at me if I said I wouldn’t care if LOST got cancelled. They don’t make programming decisions based on my apathy.

Fun With Ghosts

In my last post, I wrote about a new iPhone app that allows you to superimpose ghosts onto pictures. Here are the first two I came up with. One is a "ghost" standing next to Caleb on the bed while he plays Lego Star Wars on the Wii. The other is a picture of the front of my house during a recent snowstorm.

I could have a lot of fun with this app. Yes, I promise not to test how gullible the Philadelphia Inquirer might be.

Free Tony Robbins "Awaken the Giant Within" eBook and Audiobook Download

I came across this recently. A former Tony Robbins trainer is offering both the eBook and Audiobook versions of "Awaken the Giant Within" for free.

I don't know much about Tony Robbins. I know people who are thrilled with him. If you're into Tony and don't have this book, here's your chance.

Take Pictures of Ghosts With an iPhone

I like the show Ghost Hunters, so I won't pick on them here. I assume it's safe to take the show at face value until I find a reason not to.

One of the things I like about TAPS is that they place the highest value on evidence. Personal experiences are interesting, but count for little to nothing. They only go by what they can demonstrate.

That's good, because I just found out a way to have fun with those who aren't as careful to only deal in verifiable evidence. Turns out, a UK tabloid published a photo with an apparent ghost in it. It looks real enough, right?

Not really. Turns out, the picture was a hoax. And as the cliche goes, there's an app for that. Introducing Ghost Capture, now live in the App Store (iPhone). Ghost capture is available in both free and $.99 versions. I'm downloading the free version.

Now if I can only hoax Christina before she reads this blog post...

National Procrastination Week?

According to Lifehacker, it's National Procrastination Week.Cool. I'll observe it next week.

In other news, I have been working on a post about why Procrastination is less of a problem for me than it used to be. I'm destroying any credibility I'd hoped to gain by that post by not getting around to publishing it.

Cracked: Lotteries

Looks like somebody wrote a topic page for Cracked about lotteries. I figure I'm better off linking to it. This is almost exactly what I would write about the lottery if I were capable of the kind of biting satire Cracked is known for.

From the page:

Even the Wikipedia article says that "buying a lottery ticket reduces the buyer's expected net worth," and when someone writing Wikipedia articles on lottery systems starts to call you worthless, you should probably be returned as defective by organ farmers.

I've made it sort of a hobby to study the lottery. Or, more specifically, lottery winners. I've written many times that I don't "play" the lottery. I've found more constructive ways to waste my money.

I once found a very insightful quote in 1984 about the lottery. I should rewrite that post. Even I can't stand my writing in it. 

The last bit of text on that topic page contains a very saddening development:

Make Me A Millionaire

In final proof that He Who Is Satan has not only come to Earth but set up a business, California is combining reality TV and scratch cards in "Make Me A Millionaire" - a game* where contestants pay for scratch cards for the chance of winning an appearance on TV. The moment people stopped dreaming of being millionaires, and instead dreamed of maybe having the chance to be on reality TV, is recorded as the exact date hope died.

*God awful moron experience

Statistically, I'd say you stand a better chance of winning a spot on a reality TV show than you do of winning the lottery. Maybe it's not that sad.

An iPhone App That Prevents You From Getting Caught Having An Affair?

Are you screwing around on your wife but don't want to get caught? Well, there's an app for that now. It's called "Tiger Text". Pete Wilson does a good job of explaining the app and the moral implications, so no need for me to repeat that.

From Pete's writeup, the app allows you to send text messages to the object of your affair. The texts don't reside on your iPhone, but on their servers. Cool, that just means they can be subpoenaed by a savvy attorney. Oh, also, you can only have affairs with people who also have iPhones.

The app also isn't likely to prevent a spouse from discovering an affair. It'll just prevent text messages being sent back and forth from being on the iPhone. You are subject to the consequences of your poor judgment, planning, and overconfidence involving all aspects of an affair outside of your text messages. No matter how well you think you're hiding it, it WILL catch up to you.

I discovered an ancient secret that prevents your spouse from finding out that you had an affair. It's the kind of secret that everybody should know, but for whatever reason doesn't. I should patent this advice and sell it on late night TV for $29.95 with a boiler room telemarketing upsell. I won't. I'll offer it here on my blog for free because that's the kind of man I am.

The easiest way to prevent a spouse from finding out about an affair is:

DON'T HAVE A FREAKING AFFAIR! See how easy this is? You can apply this to every other area of life. Don't want to get caught cheating on taxes? DON'T CHEAT ON YOUR TAXES. There'll be nothing to get caught for. Don't want to get pulled over for speeding? DON'T SPEED! (OK, I'm the last one who should be giving that advice, but it still works even if I don't follow it).

For some reason, I always use the word "freaking" more when I've been listening to Dave Ramsey. I have no idea why...

I doubt this post will go down in history as one of my best, but if I can save one marriage by it, it's worth it.

Though I am far from an expert on the subject, I have done plenty of reading about marriage. Just as I am not aware of a single lottery winner who didn't end up blowing the whole wad and destroying his or her family, I'm also not aware of a single case where an affair ended well. I do know plenty of people who kept it together through rough spots in marriage and came out better.

I've known people who cheated. Even if their spouse didn't directly find out about it, their marriages disintegrated anyway. I've seen cheating destroy public images and end or damage careers (Clinton, Sanford, etc...) Seriously, these things NEVER end well. I don't care if 30+ years of soap operas are based on little more of a plot device than who is having an affair with whom. In real life, they never end well.

iPad: 9 Ways It'll Change Time Management

I came across an interesting post today: 9 Ways the iPad Will Change Time Management. I think it makes some good points. The iPad's larger screen and better calender application will make a huge difference over the iPhone in personal productivity. Also, the ability to carry documents will help quite a bit. Adding an external keyboard will probably make the iPad a serious productivity machine.

If my income were more disposable at the moment, I might consider getting an iPad. But, we're running in "fiscal discipline mode" right now. That means the only way an iPad is in my future is if somebody buys it for me. I'm content with my iPhone 3G though.

Are you getting an iPad?

Hard To Find Seminars: A Site Rich In Free Content

I can’t remember when it was. I think it was within the last year. I was looking for something, and I stumbled across a site called “Hard To Find Seminars.” I got on the email list (which is hard to avoid doing) and then largely ignored it. I would glance over the emails, but didn’t really have the time to do much with them. I recently came back to it.

Hard To Find Seminars is run by Michael Senoff. Michael is a salesman, but this site is rich in free content. Michael interviews people, and places the interviews online WITH transcripts. They’re freely available.

Check the site out if you’re looking for this kind of information. As I write this, I’m listening to an interview about the inside of the motivational tape industry.