Profunksticated

Just a few thoughts:

So CNN this week is airing the series Black in America. (Yawn.) Bully for them. It’s real easy to interview the historical victims. I wish for once a TV network would do a series asking the hard questions of the people still alive who contributed to making Black in America a living hell for 300-plus years. “So, Mr. Klansman, how would YOU have felt if someone routinely used violence against YOU to keep YOU from participating in mainstream society based solely on YOUR physical appearance?” That I would watch.

Is it just me or do I find at times that I’m spending the currency of low expectations? Bear with me for a second. I recall years ago, back in my newspaper days, the relief a white female editor exhibited when I told her I knew how to look for police search warrants. “Oh great, you know how to do that,” she said. I thought for a second that she didn’t expect me to know this stuff, despite the fact that I had been reporting for several years. I mean, the fact that a black man has this skill is a huge deal, whereas for a white person it may not be. There are days today I still feel that. Do you get insulted or do you simply play off that low-expectation aura to your advantage?

Other bloggers have discussed how much race, along with physical appearance, can help or hurt careers, e.g., how attractive fair skinned black females will get in the door faster than most. Now, as a middle-aged, shaven-headed, black male with a graying mustache who is a shade lighter than Wesley Snipes, what do I offer other than my experience? Why did this white female I now report to decide to hire me over someone younger and (presumably) cheaper? What do black males my age exude? Is it that I’m married and stable? Am I better interviewing with white females than any other group when it comes to getting the gig? One of my recent interviews involved me and a white woman having a conversation. I was as relaxed as could be. Then the white guy walks in and my comfort level disappeared. He then peppered me with questions. I answered them to the best of my ability, but I think any hope I had of getting an offer disappeared after he showed up. Just wondering, you guys.

Peace.

Forget about Jesse’s idiocy for a moment.

Profunksticated wants to know — just how difficult is it for these presumably six-figure male TV anchors to simply use the word “testicles” when describing the Rev. Jackson’s verbal gaffe? And where were their much lower-paid producers? Why weren’t they riding to rescue by whispering the acceptable synomym in the talking heads’ earpieces?

And I’m the one who’s no longer in journalism. Damn!! Makes you wanna cut their nuts off for being so freaking weak. Update, 7/20: On second thought, this makes one think someone already has cut these guys’ nuts off. LOL!!

Profunksticated has finished a grueling first full week at the new gig with the Maryland IT firm. I’m back in NJ now as I write this, and I’m chilling.

This week has been chock-full of after-hours meetings, ‘cause the folks who have to write one of the proposals I’m helping on are billable to a client during the day, and cannot work on the project. Evenings are the only time they can discuss it. So there’s been a status meeting (via conference call) every evening night this week.

This firm, by the way, graduated from SBA 8(a) status about a year ago.

Meanwhile, I’m thinking of a discussion about a statement Hostess made in one of her recent posts. She mentioned how one of her favorite haunts was diminished with the invasion of the “administrative assistants.”

I initially believed that AA=ghetto. But I’ve thought further about the matter and concluded that many AAs tend to be young, minority and have not-so-great attitudes toward their work. I say that because AA is a support position, much like what I do in proposals. Desktop publishers and graphic artists fall into the proposal development category as well.

I’ve dealt with DPs and GAs who would openly complain when their workloads got too heavy, or if the internal clients made repeated changes to text or graphics. Hey, I’d want to tell them, I’m not happy either, but I’m not gonna complain, at least not within earshot of colleagues. I’ve also heard such folks talk about what they would or wouldn’t do in a given situation or how they could not or would not stay late to get the job done.

I’ve worked with both black and white DPs and GAs and have seen the surly attitudes. Granted, the upper-level types who are our internal clients, usually project managers or VPs, can be overbearing. But as a general rule, they didn’t get where they are by being overly nice. And they’re under a fair amount of pressure also — to bring in the business. In one of my last gigs, my immediate supervisor criticized me for bending over too far backwards to accommodate internal clients.

If I ran a company and had to hire support staff, be they AAs or other lower-level support, I’d be sure they were ready for what they have to face. I’d question them as to their mindsets. I would tell them that to be in a corporate support position requires, I believe, an orientation toward service and maybe even a level of spirituality. I’d also try to give them the big picture of how they fit in, how their contribution helps the organization’s bottom line.

I thought about this topic also because I met a graphic artist on my new job who is always smiling and as pleasant as she can be. She’s also an Indian, like many of my new colleagues. I’m not sure if her ethnicity makes that much difference, but I can honestly say I’m looking forward to working with her. She seems to be a far cry from what I’ve encountered in the past.

This also dovetails with a statement my sister once made about blacks in business. She said black folk aren’t successful in business because they don’t have a customer service orientation. In other words, she said, we’re quick to cop an attitude when a customer complains, even when the customer is right. Yes, her statement was a gross generalization, but therein lies a grain of truth.

Any thoughts, ya’ll?

Peace.

Profunksticated has finished three days at the new gig. It’s been good thus far. On Friday, for example, I moderated two meetings - one a strategy meeting and another a kickoff meeting, both on proposals. Some participated live, others via teleconference. I’m told folks were excited that I was coming on board.

The feeling was heady, actually meeting folk who don’t know of my past blunders and who believe I know what I’m doing. Perhaps I’m finally believing that I know what I’m doing. My boss is a very nice lady who seems to live at the office. I jokingly told her that she could save a lot of money on her rent or mortgage if she just moves into the office.

She said she would, but the company would frown on having her dog live there. Touche’.

My employer is an IT consulting firm that specializes in, among other things, networks and database building. I decided this time I would not only do the administrative proposal stuff, but try to learn what these guys actually do, which I hadn’t done before in six years at the environmental firm.

But there are other things I can do to help my cause. As I opened the first teleconference Friday, a project manager who got on line told me that the earning a Project Management Professional’s certificate was the way to go for a non-techie type who wants to move up in the firm. Hmmm. I’ll need to give that some thought.

As I write this, I’m actually looking forward to going to work. Wow. Now the commute, that’s a whole ‘nuther story — approximately 30 miles one way, from NOVA to Rockville, MD. Never can have it all, can we?

There are a lot of Indian folk in positions of authority at this company, so the culture is different from other places I’ve worked in. An African American lady who runs a help desk contract for the firm met me and told me, “You’re going to love working here.” She was smiling and deadly serious. How often do you hear that? I’m encouraged.

Peace.

Profunksticated is back in the DC area, ready to start a new gig this week. I’ll post on the job once I’ve been there a couple of days.

But let’s cover another topic, shall we? Last weekend, The Spouse, my mother-in-law, a cousin and I spent some time cleaning some stuff out of the house of The Spouse’s late godfather, Uncle F. This is a row house in Philly’s Germantown section, and it hasn’t been cleaned since F’s wife passed in 1990. There are layers and layers of dust. The house is hot and stuffy. Clutter is everywhere. Walls and ceilings are peeling like potatoes in an Army mess hall. The interior of the house, in short, looks and feels disgusting.

I wasn’t wearing a mask, and I literally felt sick from breathing the dust. But we got some nice stuff out of there, like dishware, ceramic trinkets, an old globe and some old vinyl records. The furniture includes a potentially valuable carved wooden bedframe that came with the house when F and his wife bought it 50 years ago.

Oh, did I mention that F’s son, who is something like 67, still lives there? I think this guy has some sort of mental problem. Remember, F cut his son out of his will, leaving everything to my mother-in-law. He did leave the son $1.

The son, who should have taken it upon himself to maintain the home as long as he’s lived there with his dad (since his own divorce nearly 20 years ago), continues to live amidst this filth.

He stacks two-week-old pizza boxes on the kitchen floor. He lines empty juice bottles along a kitchen counter instead of throwing them away. Copies of The Philadelphia Inquirer dating back to 2003 are piled on the floor in one bedroom. And he has a thing for porn. Photos of topless black female pinups adorn the wall of the bedroom he uses. Smut-laden VHS tapes and DVDs are everywhere.

My mother-in-law, being the generous woman that she is, wants to sell the house and give the son a portion of the proceeds so he can move out to California to be near his son, F’s grandson. But she has no choice but to hire someone to clean out the place and then sell it as is, which won’t fetch as high a price as it would had the home been properly maintained. As it stands now, potential buyers are spooked when they enter the house.

And speaking of spooked, I cracked up when my cousin hummed the theme to the 60s TV show The Munsters as we entered the darkened house. (The son was at work as we did our rummaging.)

The plan is to sell some of this stuff on eBay (you guessed right) and ensure the proceeds go back to the estate. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Profunksticated hopes this July 4, which is a day off for many of you, is a relaxing day.

After driving up Interstate 95 from the DMV Wednesday night, and getting caught in construction in Delaware for an hour, Profunksticated arrived in the South of New Jersey to vacation with the Spouse at our spring/summer/autumn/winter home. The rest of the fam is in the OC of MD. It’s just the two of us. No kids. Oh yeah.

I woke up this a.m., and lo and behold, the President was at attention on the South Lawn with “Hail to the Chief” playing loudly. I fully expected The Spouse to immediately join in the fanfare. But she, being of a stiff back and numb toes due to her injury, needed to head to the facilities of our year round “resort,” then do stretching exercises. She also even got coffee.

By the time she returned to the cluttered budoir, the band had quit playing, packed up their instruments and had left the White House. The President was still there, but with arms folded and foot tapping. Finally after trying a few things (she even made use of a certain dry cell-operated device), our dissatisfied Chief Executive slunk back to the Oval Office to tackle the mundane matters of State.

We did talk about it. The Spouse promised in the future to come to the South Lawn when summoned upon awakening. And I told her I understood her issues with her back and would be more patient.

Take note, you single ladies: Long-term matrimony, like the horizontal and vertical holds on those old rabbit-ear televisions, will need adjustment from time to time. This is one of those times.

Peace.

So Profunksticated logs into the back end of his blog early Wednesday a.m. and finds eight, count ‘em, eight comments in moderation! You guys are da bomb!

The offer has come. An IT consulting firm in Rockville has extended me a proposal specialist job offer, which I accepted over the phone this afternoon while vacationing with the fam in the OC of MD. This came right after I got off the phone with another firm, with which I set up an interview on Thursday. I just sent an email to that firm suggesting we cancel since I have an offer.

I had to drive back Tuesday evening from the OC of MD back to the NOVA area to prepare for an interview later today that I set up two weeks ago with an NJ-based engineering firm with an office in downtown Alexandria, which is really close to my spot. I told the human resources rep of my Rockville offer, but she advised me to go ahead with the meeting with the hiring manager since she made travel arrangements to meet me in the DC area.

While en route from the OC of MD to NOVA, I was rudely reminded that the Delmarva Peninsula serves as one long speed trap. I was busted in the LaSabre doing 70 mph in a 55 mph zone by a Maryland trooper along westbound U.S. 50 in Worcester County, MD. The fine: $90. I’ve been flagged twice before on the Peninsula, both times on U.S. 13 in Delaware.

Profunksticated will say once again that God is good. He helped me back in May come into a bunch of perfectly good Xerox printer cartridges that the firm I just left was going to throw away. You see, the company sold the building we were in and I was helping to clean out the production supply closet. So I threw away 11 of these cartridges since the firm was gonna use a different brand of printers, e.g., not Xerox, at the new location.

It was after I went back for more for the cartridges that the production guy said, “Someone could get paid from these.” The light bulb went off over my head. I backed my minivan to the building and began gathering all the cartridges I could. I even walked into the open end of the dumpster to see if I could salvage the cartridges I just threw in there, but I saw some were broken, so I left ‘em.

But I ended up with about a total of about 25 cartridges, some of which retail for between $100 and $200, along with developer and fuser oil. Guess where they ended up? EEEE-Baaaaaay, babeeeee! Suffice it to say your man Pro made enough cash, ends, dinero, to carry him through this short period of unemployment. The printing stuff cost me nothing. Pure profit! I couldn’t believe the production guy didn’t keep ‘em. He instead salvaged one of those large plotters that make large prints, like engineering drawings.

Anyone who knows of any businesses closing and getting rid of stuff please let Pro know! This eBay bug has bitten!

Profunksticated writes this post from Ocean City, Maryland, where he is doing a short vacation with the extended family. I finally had that long talk with my brother about how he’s coping with being a widower. He’s doing as well as he can be. He says that his older son was sad since this is the first vacation they’ve been on without his mom, who passed away three months ago. Along with my brother, I’m here with my parents, my two sons, two nephews and my sister. My dad’s improved, but he’s still tired. They will be here through July 5.

Meantime, I’ll only be here until later today, when I head back to the D.C. area, Alexandria, Virginia, to be exact, for yet one more interview on Wednesday. Again, we’ll see what happens. I’m still awaiting decisions from the other three firms I’ve talked to.

I know I’ve been blessed but I don’t always act like it. Remember The Spouse’s Uncle F? Among the things he left for my mother-in-law was a car, a 2002 Buick LeSabre Custom. My mother-in-law gave it to us after having a GM dealer give it the proper repairs. It had been garaged for a year and a half and has less than 25,000 miles. I drove it down here to Maryland and it rides real nice. This car is one of the few things of value we’ve owned free and clear. I’ll be the one driving it, mostly around Washington, of course.

Thanks, Mom and rest in peace, Uncle F.