Profunksticated

Profunksticated interviewed with a couple of firms this week. The phone screen was with a water utility in southern New Jersey. The second, in-person meeting was at an environmental firm in northern NJ.

The environmental firm looks promising, thanks to an internal reference, a guy who I worked with when I was let go from the other environmental firm in 2007. The vice president I met with seemed like he was trying to sell me on the firm. Also, he mentioned that an offer could be coming this week.

The nice thing was that the VP didn’t ask my salary requirements. He said he’d come up with a number and we could go from there. There’s also the possibility I’d work in a company office much closer to my NJ home.

How refreshing that the VP is willing to provide a salary figure. I say that because every recruiter that’s called me about gigs in the DMV always ask me my current salary. They say that the first party to provide a number always at a disadvantage in negotiations. The question irritates me because I feel like my current salary isn’t relevant. I’ve made the mistake of giving my current salary, and based on that, the recruiter would say I shouldn’t get more than $10,000 more than what I’m making. I really want and need $20,000 more per year to make this now two-year-long, bi-regional commute and living arrangement worth the time and travel.

At that point, I’ve ended the discussion. I know I can provide a lot more value for a lot more. What should my current salary have to do with anything?

I’ve put the question to my HR buddy and he had this simple solution: Lie. Yup, he advised inflating my salary upward to get the bump I wanted. I’ve been a leery of that approach, wondering if a prospective employer can call my current employer for that information. He said they probably won’t. He also said, “They’re probably figuring you’re inflating your salary anyway.”

Would any of you out there lie about, er, spin, er, inflate your current salaries to get what you really want and deserve in the next gig?

Hello, you all. Sorry it’s been a few weeks. Some random thoughts from old Profunksticated, the Supergroovalistic One:

It takes suffering through a nasty upper respiratory infection to realize that a person should never, ever take for granted the ability to swallow food or liquids without intense throat pain.

The 2008 and 2009 Philadelphia Phillies are the best baseball teams this historically hapless franchise has ever fielded.

This commute between the DMV and the Philly-South Jersey may be coming to an end as I seek employment in New Jersey. It cannot come too soon. Just one recent morning, I found myself stuck in traffic along southbound Interstate 95 for an hour north of Baltimore due to a multi-vehicle accident that involved an auto transporter. And to top things off, the computer that controls the traffic signals in Montgomery County, Maryland crashed. Someone’s gonna have to re-write that code or consult a library.

I do like having these long weekends under FMLA. I don’t like not getting paid for when I’m not at work. Why does life have to have tradeoffs? I want it all.

I finished a master’s course called Software Frameworks, all about reusing code in web-based applications. It kicked my azz. A major problem was the software packages we were required to download and work with were flawed. After getting a string of “A’s,” I escaped this Dante’s Inferno of a course with a “C.”

I voted for a third-party candidate in the New Jersey election for governor. I was proud of myself for helping this guy get 5% of the vote. President Obama notwithstanding, I’m about sick and tired watching the donkeys and the elephants practice their shenanigans. The electorate needs to get bolder and support more of these folks, who aren’t backed by big money and who aren’t bought (at least not yet).

Thank God for my son’s Playstation 3. He told me it plays Blu-Ray discs. Until then, I was contemplating getting a Blu-Ray player to go along with the newly-bought 42-inch LCD high-definition television. I love watching that thing.

Just thought I’d share with you readers a well-done video on how we got into this so-called credit mess:

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

Random stuff:

The Spouse plans to petition for a recount in the recent school board election in our NJ township. Now that the absentee ballots have been counted, she is behind the third-place candidate (who is the only incumbent running this year) by only five votes of more than 3,400 cast. She plans to show election officials a pattern of impropriety, including the incumbent refusing to leave a polling place when told to leave by election officials and a poll worker at one site almost getting into my wife’s face because she was slightly within the 100-foot distance from the doors.

I’ve spoken to my landlady, who also is a teacher, about the results. She recalled that she helped a fellow teacher with a Virginia school board campaign some years back. Of course the teacher played up her educational credentials, just like my wife. But that woman lost. My landlady’s blunt assessment is that “no one gives a damn” about educational credentials when it comes to school board politics. She suggested that if my wife runs again next year, she hold her nose and try to align herself with the local political establishment.

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I saw the movie Obsessed with some friends at an early Sunday morning showing in Virginia. I sat with my arms across my chest for about the second half of the flick with a scowl. Why?

I really wasn’t feeling Idris Elba’s character Derek being put out of the house by Beyonce’s Sharon because he DID NOT MENTION that some crazy woman on the job was trying hard to come on to him. And Derek, unlike a lot of men and to his credit, didn’t bite. If I’m Idris/Derek, I’d have morphed into Stringer Bell and had the bee-yotch whacked.

Sorry, if that’s me, I’m gonna be real pissed if my wife tries to put me out behind a failure to say something. I’m not moving. She may have a right to be upset. However, not saying something, as a marital offense, doesn’t rise to the level of being asked to leave the home. And many men will tell you that the reason they won’t say anything is because they fear receiving precisely the same irrational reaction Sharon exhibited.

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I just wrapped up my first course in the IT master’s program, which was Managing the IT-Enabled Enterprise. Now it’s on to Business Architecture and Process. One thing disturbed me. We were assigned to review and comment on each others’ final group papers, describing a restaurant’s IT environment and action plan.

I found two of the papers appalling in that they were filled with misspellings, bad grammar and busted syntax. And this is supposed to be graduate-level work? I wanted badly to say something, but all the comments are open on a thread for everyone to see, and I didn’t want to embarrass anyone. I initially chalked the bad writing up to students for whom English is not their first language. I see that here at work all the time and have to clean up that writing. I checked the authors’ names on one particularly bad paper, but those names indicated to me they were born right here in the United States. I’m thinking I may speak with my academic advisor about that.

Fortunately, my group’s paper was relatively clean, thanks to yours truly.

A question: Do any of you have a cat-herding aspect to your gigs? Or one where change seems to be the only constant? Why is it I set up a meeting send out the notice on Outlook, then get annoyed when someone wants to reschedule?

Do you dislike having to do things repeatedly, even though that’s an unspoken part of the job? Do you chafe against the lack of control of your own time?

Got word Friday that the IT firm I work for had to let a few people go. Reason: The economy, stupid!

I believe this is my first time as a survivor. For those of us in my group who weren’t shown the door, we were told today we’re looking at two week furloughs without pay and salary raises capped at 3%. At least those are the cost-cutting measures affecting old Pro. Others were hit a little harder in terms of perks and expense allowances.

And oh yeah, no more free coffee or soda.

These austerity measures will continue through December, as the owners and management review the books on a month-to-month basis. The partner in charge of my department told us in a subsequent meeting that we’ll have to perservere and that we’ll get through this.

Pro feels a little differently. Having been through this before, I have to wonder. My gig is safe, but for how long? What say you all as to what Pro’s next move should be?

I sometimes on my gig spend a lot of time and reams of paper printing a proposal draft that goes thousands of pages and takes several hours with a few paper jams thrown in.

Other times I reformat a 4,000-line Excel document over two days or open hundreds of Word and Adobe files over several hours to mark whether they have comments from reviewers. And then there is the responsibility of riding herd on the muckety-mucks to ensure they either make meetings or deadlines.

Because of my background as an editor and writer, I want to hate with a passion these administrative tasks associated with my position as a proposal coordinator. But I can’t, once I consider that I have a gig. And a halfway decent paying one at that, when many don’t.

I found some stuff on line today that makes me think, “There but for the grace of God go I.” These are stories of guys about my age who were in high-flying jobs but were either downsized or have lost their homes.

Baby boomers, especially those like me who are from the boom’s tail end, are up against it. That’s why I stay in the DMV, where I can quickly make a move elsewhere in the nation’s capital region if my current firm decides to show me the door. I call it my personal form of — to use a favorite Corporate America term — Risk Management.

I should be scared in this economy, but I’m not. I was shown the door twice during the 1990s boom. And then again in 2007, two years before Great Depression II. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Hence my penchant for managing risk.

Still, I feel for these folks who never had the ax fall on them.

Here’s a guy who was in business for himself and lost his home to foreclosure.

And below is a report about folks who were in high paying jobs who now are taking are known as “survival” gigs.

Sorry it’s been so long. I really haven’t had a whole lot to say.

Today marks the first anniversary of my SIL’s passing. Meanwhile, my bro, his current squeeze and their year-old son have set up house in the home he had shared with his wife for all those years.

His two sons, it’s safe to say, aren’t thrilled.

He and the woman traveled to Vegas last month. No word as to whether they’ve tied the knot.

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I received two hard copies of the final edition of the Rocky Mountain News, where I worked as a reporter during our Denver years. They’re keepsakes, for sure, along with all the other editions of the newspaper that we kept, including the ones published the days my daughter and older son were born.

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I’m still adjusting to getting up to speed on this on-line course called Managing the IT-Enabled Enterprise. We’re divided into groups, and an assignment is due next Sunday. I’ve taken it upon myself to e-mail my teammates to get them in gear and to come up with a plan. I don’t want to fall behind, which becomes more of a risk now that I’m depending on other people to pull their weight.

Damn, that sounds like real-world work, doesn’t it?

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I’m still working out and trying to eat right. I’ve been hovering around 230 pounds for the past week or so. I’ve broken below 230 a couple times, but my body won’t stay there. My next goal is to break below 220. Then I’ll be a real happy camper.

For those of you who know my professional profile, today is something of a sad day for me. The Denver newspaper that employed me as a reporter and columnist for seven years between 1986 and 1993 is publishing its final edition today.

That newspaper, as you may have heard, is the Rocky Mountain News, a nearly 150-year-old institution whose founding predates Colorado’s 1876 admission to the Union. Hearing the news yesterday felt kind of like hearing of a loved one passing on after spending weeks on life support.

For decades, Denver was one of the few U.S. cities that had competing, independent daily newspapers. But alas, Denver and its environs didn’t have the advertiser base to support two daily publications.

In 2000, the Rocky and the rival Denver Post merged under the provisions of the Newspaper Preservation Act. This allowed the papers to combine business functions such as advertising, circulation and production, while allowing separate newsrooms.

By late last year, however, the writing was on the newsprint. Newspapers around the country are suffering due to vast declines in advertising revenue brought on in part by the Internet. The paper’s owner spent three months seeking a buyer, found no one willing to bite, and finally decided to drop the hammer.

A colleague at my current employer who works near Denver has bought two copies of the final Rocky and will ship them to me. God bless him.

Here’s something I wrote a year ago on my other blog (which I haven’t updated in a while):

“…it’s been more than 14 years since I left the Rocky and 10 since I left daily journalism. The funny thing is that some days I miss the newsroom and other days I don’t.

So for now, I’ll continue to use my writing skills to win contracts in corporate America. After all those years in newsrooms, who’da thunk I would be toiling in a marketing subspecialty for a non-media company? I certainly did not. But at least the hourly rates are better.

Denver also holds fond memories in that The Spouse and I moved there right after we were married and that our older two kids were born there. I remember how my wife would bring the kids into the newsroom and my then-five-year-old daughter would startle my colleagues when she’d shout “Hi Daddy!” I recall how a woman I worked for as city editor, who later served as the paper’s managing editor, would hold my young son in her arms as he would happily suck on his fingers.

My wife and I were discussing this week’s news that the company that owns The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News filed for bankruptcy protection. That’s when I mentioned that the Rocky and the Post were on a race to the bottom. Looks like the Rocky won. Some victory.

Hello folks, sorry to have been away. But this month has been an absolute dog in terms of work. We have three different projects all going out the door within a week of each other, all to the same client.

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Friday marked one month since Barack Obama was sworn in as President of these United States. Can you believe all the stuff he has gotten accomplished in that month? First pushing the stimulus package through Congress, and then announcing his plan to help troubled homeowners stave off foreclosure. It’s almost like this guy is too good to be real. Imagine – a President who is actually trying to help the people at home

I’m hoping the Spouse and I can take advantage of this foreclosure avoidance plan. We’ve been in talks with the lender on our NJ home for the past few months, trying to explain how tough it is to keep up when one spouse is living, working and paying rent out of state, in the DMV, and the other is relying on a disability payment that’s only 60 percent of her normal salary. My wife told me she was on the phone with our lender once more, and became so frustrated with the harsh attitude of the guy on the other end that she broke down in tears.

Hearing her talk about this gave me one of those “F— it, let me pack it in and move back home” moments. But then I remembered we need the health insurance that my current gig provides. The person on the other end finally softened and said he would see what he could do to work with us.

We weren’t among those folks with meager incomes buying a $400,000 McMansion. Our house is a modest, early 1950s-era, brick exterior split level with three bedrooms, a decent-sized finished basement and 1.5 baths. We’d really like to keep it.

In a related note, I’ve decided to add Google Adsense to this blog. “Monetizing” the blog, I think they call it. Anyway, if you folks would do old Pro a favor and click on the ads to help a brother out given our situation, he would be eternally grateful. (I hope it’s not bad form to explicitly ask for this, but a brother needs some help.) Thanks much.

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Today, as I write this, marks a year since my now 21-year-old daughter was hit by a car near her school. That case hasn’t yet been resolved. I still praise the Lord she wasn’t seriously injured or killed.

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Here is a really sad story I found in today’s Washington Post. If you’re a Christian, you have to believe the one saving grace is that the young woman who moved to Sierra Leone converted to Christianity shortly before she was killed.

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Pro starts his master’s program in Information Systems next week. I’ve gotten the first textbook and have so far read the first two chapters and an accompanying online “tech guide” that explained the software development life cycle process, which involves a lot of what my employer does. I’m feeling pretty good about this program. The textbook is extremely well-written.

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I was out at a Chinese food joint in Maryland Saturday night. Yes, I broke down and bought fried chicken wings and barbeque spear rib tips. Hey, I’m working out, remember? By the way, I’m close to breaking 230 pounds! Yee-freaking-ha!!!

Anyway, I met a man there wearing a leather jacket and baseball cap with patches commemorating the Buffalo Soldiers. I asked if he had any ancestors who were Buffalo Soldiers and he said none that he knew of, but it was likely there were some in his family. He said he only wanted to pay homage to such African American pioneers, along with the Tuskegee Airmen.

Nothing wrong with seeing so many folks wearing Obama gear, but it was refreshing to see someone wearing gear for the brothers who way back when helped us along our journey to equality in this land called America.