July 2009

Have you ever asked, or have you been asked, “What do you do?” This question comes up almost instantly when you first meet someone. It may be one of the cheapest and most overused conversation starters. Our occupation sort of defines us in others’ eyes, doesn’t it?

Most people ask this question with the intention of finding out how you make a living. Sometimes I like to have fun with my answer to this recurring question.

“I take pictures of freight trains” or “I take apart wooden furniture looking for salvage parts” or “I like to take candid photography using my zoom lens”. I really like using this last one on new neighbors, then watching to see how much time passes before they close their blinds. My wisecracking answers increase with my caffeine intake.

How would you answer this question? Do you have any other humorous ideas? Who was the last person you asked this? What did they say? Click the “Comments” link and let me know!

“…and I look forward to joining your team, where I am confident that I will make significant contributions in short order.”

I am not a professional job hopper – I have had only three employers in over 15 years.  When I got my first “real” job, social media was not even a buzzword.  Much can change in a decade and a half.  Even though I now have accounts on several social networking sites, this was the last thing I thought about when I applied for my current job.

I have no idea if anyone was looking through my LinkedIn profile or my Facebook entries, but I certainly didn’t do any optimization on any of my networking profiles.  Looking back now, maybe this would have been a good idea to consider.

Are you searching for a job?  Maybe you should take a different approach than I did, and give some attention to your social media profiles.  Are you putting your best image forward from your social media “projector”?  Have you eliminated any references to less-than-professional behavior, kept incriminating statements to a minimum, and attended to removing profanity?

Not every social network is designed for professional promotion, but all are searchable by your potential employers’ hiring managers.  Why not give them something inviting to look at, instead of something condemning?

I am attempting sleep right now – or I was – in a very unusual bit of downtime around the midnight hour. I have discovered that I have a new pet. I don’t have to feed him/her, nor do I need to walk this critter. It just stays in my house, unassuming, until nightfall, when it begins to CHIRP-CHIRP-CHIRP.

You have perhaps guessed by now that my uninvited house guest is a cricket. My mind is wandering back to “A Cricket in Times Square”, a book I read as a child about a singing cricket in New York City. Can’t quite remember the details now.

This “singing”, as it were, has inspired what I believe to be my first ever haiku:

Infernal chirping,
One with exoskeleton,
Crunchy Gooey Mess