Transition, Day 2

I spent yesterday working a little on transition chores, and working a little on domestic chores. I filed for unemployment, which can now be done online and beats the dickens out of going to the office and waiting in lines for ages. The servers were painfully slow, but I was able to accomplish what I needed in the comfort of my home, with a cup of coffee, and while watching Bonanza to keep me occupied until the server advanced to the next screen.

I started getting the desk organized and set up the desktop PC to serve as my office during the day while still leaving it usable as "Sue's PC" for when she's home. I generally use my laptop from my recliner in the family room, but somehow don't find that to be conducive to a productive transition mindset. (Sue would argue that having Bonanza keeping me company in the background doesn't contribute much either. She's entitled to an opinion, I guess.)

Then I did some general cleaning, a little shopping, and I got supper ready for the girls when they got home. Today's plan is similar; I'll combine some home body stuff with some transition organization.

A little while back, I opined how Dad wouldn't understand today's job market. This morning I found a good web site which contained some wise words which I've quoted below. Specifics of the source and a link to the website are included at the end of this post.
*****

Work smart

The sole source of success in a highly competitive World is performance. It is the key to both decent compensation and genuine employment security. We have to be at the top of our game, and we have to play for winners. It’s our individual responsibility (not our employer’s) to ensure that:

• Our skills and knowledge are at the state-of-the-art in our profession, craft or trade. No less important, we must deliver those skills and that knowledge on-the-job every day. In short, we have to work as “A” level performers.

and

• Our work must be done for an employer and in an industry that have a future. We can be superior performers and still find ourselves without a job, if what we produce is no longer competitive in the world’s marketplace. In short, we have to work for “A” level employers and industries.

Be loyal to yourself If success were enough to guarantee happiness at work, then working smart would be all that’s required of us. Happiness in our workday, however, is built with both on-the-job success and from-the-heart accomplishment. It requires that we be the best we can be in a role that engages and fulfills us. In other words, we must not only do good at work, but we must do what we believe is good work. And the only way to achieve that goal is to be loyal to ourselves. Self loyalty means that:

• We are loyal to our employer by delivering the highest possible level of performance on-the-job. This loyalty to an organization, however, is also a form of loyalty to ourselves because it’s up to us to put ourselves in a position where we can do our best work. We have to stop accepting the wrong jobs and/or the wrong employers and complaining about them, and start finding the right jobs and the right employers and doing work that fulfills us.

and

• We regularly seek new opportunities to expand and express our capabilities. This unceasing quest for self-improvement is the way we compete and win in the new World of work. Sometimes it will mean a move within the same organization, and other times, it will dictate that we move on to another employer. In every case, we make the decision, and the goal is the same: to protect the American Dream for us and our families by outperforming those who want to enjoy the Indian or Chinese or Sri Lankan Dream.

Source: http://www.weddles.com

Peter Weddle is an HR consultant, recruiter and business CEO turned author and commentator