Archive for November, 2007
Number of members of the Facebook group Hillary Clinton: Stop Running for President and Make Me a Sandwich: 23,000
Percent of Americans who think electing a women president would be a bad thing: 9
Percent of Americans who think electing a woman president would be a good thing: 33
Percent of Americans who think the gender of the president does not matter: 55
Amount of male corporate directors there are in the United States for every female corporate director: 8
Percent greater salary that U.S. female corporate directors (surprisingly) make over their male counterparts: 15
Percent of women who asked for higher compensation in a recent gender and salary negotiation study: 50
Percent of men who asked for higher compensation in that same study: 83
Average salary that participants of another study said they would award a female applicant who, in a videotaped job interview, expressed anger over losing a past account: $23,000
Average salary that participants of that same study said they would award a male applicant who, in a videotaped job interview, expressed anger over losing a past account: $38,000
November 30th, 2007
Last week I talked about swallowing my own medicine by creating a detailed spreadsheet to help me wrap my brain around a big fat deadline. Somewhere between the holiday turkey and stuffing this past weekend I realized that when it came to getting reacquainted with working toward a beefy, long-range project deadline while sitting home in my union suit, I still had miles to go before I could consider myself a lean, mean well-oiled machine.
Suddenly the expanse of time I now enjoyed each workday seemed more like a curse than a blessing. The ABC daytime lineup beckoned, as did the half-dozen half-read memoirs on my nightstand. The dirty dishes in the sink taunted me, and the disorganized bedroom closet became an irresistable siren song. I realized I needed to add some structure to my writing day — and quick — or come deadline day, all I’d have would be (1) a Jeopardy-like command of General Hospital trivia, (2) a scarily impressive Goodreads page, and (3) an uncharacteristically immaculate house.
So I once again sought the counsel of The Anti 9-to-5 Guide and quickly honed in on page 104, where I found this tidbit:
“If you’re self-employed, setting ‘office hours’ will help you stay on top of your workload and better compartmentalize when you’re off duty — something that’s infinitely harder to do when your office is ten feet down the hall. Without set hours, it’s far too easy to fall prey to the ‘I’ll just take the afternoon off and then work late into the evening or get up before dawn to finish’ line of thinking. Half the time you’re too tired to do the work justice after dinner, let alone drag your sorry, procrastinating ass to your desk. And setting your clock for 4 AM to finish the work you blew off yesterday is a surefire recipe for oversleeping.”
Ahem, and amen.
Since I’m a fan of lists, I created this one, which I promptly hung on my fridge:
Structure, dammit!
8 AM wake
8:15 journal and morning dance*
9 eat
9:15 walk Buddy
10ish to 4ish write at least 1,000 words for bigass project**
4ish to 5ish catch up on email and errands
5ish walk Buddy
6ish make/eat dinner
8 to 10ish evening activity: playing, slacking, reading, blogging, marketing***, editing day’s work, and/or writing something else****
*Journaling about my project’s progress helps me clear my creative throat each morning. And rocking out to some 70s jam band or other helps get my blood pumping and gives me a morning ritual to signal that the workday’s about to begin.
**Obviously I break for lunch in here. Works best if there are leftovers from the night before that I can heat up in a flash. Also, I discovered in 2006 that (a) everyone strives for 1,000 words/day when working on a bigass writing project, and I can crank out this amount in 3 to 6 hours (or so), polished, depending on how much reporting is involved.
***The other day someone asked for my bio and clips for a potential ongoing career advice gig. Sending them the requested material and following up on other similar opportunities is what I mean by marketing.
*****The something elses I am writing are a couple of non-fiction essayish stories on topics I’ve been wanting to tackle for quite some time. In all likelihood, I will have to put myself on a writing schedule for these too. But first I need to get my hands around the beefier project’s schedule.
Because it’s officially permanently gray in Seattle, with a whopping six hours of daylight available, I discovered I have to set my alarm — yes, even to rise at 8 AM. Otherwise, I’ll sleep clear till lunchtime. So far I have yet to ace this schedule, but I think I’ll have it somewhat close to licked this week. If not, I’ve resigned myself to showering and working in a cafe next week. For some reason, I am resistant to doing that. I like to choose my own background noise/music and visual distractions, I suppose.
How about you? What scheduling tips have worked for you when you’ve seemingly got all week long to chip away at a far off deadline?
November 27th, 2007
My life has changed a lot since the month began. From July to November, I was burning the candle at both ends, jugging a contract gig with freelance writing deadlines, which I realize is ironic for someone who wrote a book with a hefty work/life balance theme. But sometimes you need to bring home a little extra bacon, so I bit the bullet and toiled a little more than I should. And now I am free. FREE.
First thing I did to decompress was go here, then here. Then I read this, and this, and even took in a bit of this. Along the way, I taught a class, applied for a grant, and turned in a couple short articles. But it still felt like a vacation.
After two weeks of this luxuriating, I realized it was time to face the music. What I haven’t told you is that I have a Very Large Writing Project due in a few months, and while that’s quite exciting, the time management aspect of it is a little scary to me, especially since I’m essentially home in my jammies with zero structure whatsoever for the first time in many months. So I decided to crack open The Anti 9-to-5 Guide and take some of my own medicine. In particular, this tidbit from page 59:
“Use a wall calendar, notebook, or spreadsheet to measure your progress: how much time you spent on your project each session and what you accomplished. This will help you see the bigger picture come into focus.”
I suspected that making a list of all the components of this Very Large Writing Project and their deadlines, target word count, state of done-ness, and final word count would be freeing. So I cribbed a spreadsheet template that my friend Ariel, who completed this Very Large Writing Project a while back, used to help her feel calm about the whole thing. (Thanks, lady!)
I’m excited to move the project management aspect of this beast from my head to my laptop. Not only do I feel more organized, I already feel less stressed about the whole thing. Rather than having to wonder where I am in the project, if I am on schedule, if I’m over or under the desired word count, and how much writing/editing I have left to go, I can just crack open my spreadsheet and feast my eyes upon the data. Of course, I have yet to add in the deadlines as that would move me from a state of denial to one of reality, but I plan to force myself to go there today. Good luck to me.
November 20th, 2007
One of the students in a class I recently taught asked: I have a question about a particular subscription-based website that lists editorial freelance projects. I have not joined (it costs $29.99 a month to do so), but they regularly send me emails about jobs about which I’d receive detailed information and would be able to pursue if I joined. Some sound legitimate (proofreading, editing), some not so legit (work-from-home typing jobs). Should I turn and run in the opposite direction and never look back? Or is this a service that would be worth shelling out $29.99 monthly — especially at a time when I’m trying to make money, not spend it?
I answered: That’s a pretty steep fee. I would want to get a sample or just commit to one month at a time if I was going to sign up for that website. But I’m not a fan of such sites and services, unless you’ve already exhausted all your own personal and professional networks, can’t get a freelance gig through one of the many creative agencies around the world, and scoured all the free freelance job listings you can find on the web (PublishersLunch, Mediabistro, and the like). But I would think any of those methods would pay off, possibly much better than a job site you have to pay for.
Such subscription services are likely culling their listings from free sites anyway, and even if they are all legit listings, you’ll have to compete with freelancers worldwide for gigs you have no personal “in” with. You also may have to bid on projects you know little to nada about, which is a bit like herding cats, shooting fish in a barrel, or any other elusive-animal cliche. In other words, I think there are better ways to spend $360/year. I also think you have to be very wary of any service that finds its way into your inbox unsolicited but promises you fame and fortune in exchange for your hard-earned cash.
That said, FreelanceSuccess is a similar service for non-fiction writers that has been around for years and used to be very reputable; it’s $89/year and has been since its inception. You can get a sample issue from the site to see what sort of listings they provide. I have no affiliation with the site but was impressed with the service when it first began a few years back, initially as an email newsletter. I haven’t checked out their offerings in a few years, just so you know.
Note: Anyone else with suggestions/warnings about such sites and services is welcome to post them in the comments below, none of which should be taken as an endorsement or critique by yours truly.
November 16th, 2007
Since many of you work or aspire to work in creative fields, I thought you’d get a kick out of my latest “How’d you land that great job?” Seattle Times story, which profiles Roberta Browne, lead animator at Bungie Studios, maker of Halo. I think Roberta’s career path is particularly interesting because (a) she initially struggled with how to turn her talent/love of illustration into a viable career, (b) she tried her hand at freelancing and realized it wasn’t for her, and (c) she has an enviable position in what’s traditionally been an ultra-male field. So, without further adieu, some excerpts from my interview with Roberta…
The job: Roberta Browne grew up on what she refers to as “a steady diet of Looney Tunes cartoons and ‘The Wonderful World of Disney.’” All her spare time in high school was spent drawing cartoon characters, all her notebooks were covered with doodles. After getting a commercial illustration degree at Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto, she tried her hand at freelance illustration for two years — and wound up earning the bulk of her income by waitressing and bartending. Feeling off her game, she returned to school for animation and, upon graduating, landed her first job as an animator. A decade later, in May of 2007, Browne joined Bungie Studios in Kirkland, Wash., where she works as a lead animator, a job that involves everything from 3-D software to brainstorming sessions to pratfalls.
Q. How did you land your first game animation gig?
A. I studied animation at Sheridan College, located in Oakville, Ontario. Every year the school would hold an open house to showcase the work of the graduating students. There was usually a big industry presence, with representatives ranging from small post-production shops to big movie houses to game companies from both Canada and the United States. After graduation I was offered a job at a small post-production house in Toronto, creating animations and effects for various TV shows.
I was contacted a few months later by Broderbund, a game company located in the San Francisco area. One of their lead animators had attended the open house and seen my reel. I was offered a job. I have to admit, the initial draw of living in California overshadowed the opportunity to work in games. I wasn’t really sure what was involved in being a game animator, but I thought I could figure it out. What I discovered is that animating for games is an exciting, challenging and extremely rewarding job.
I worked at a couple of game companies in California before moving up to Seattle in 2003. Over the years I worked my way through the ranks, starting as an animator, working up to senior animator and then finally to lead animator. I have worked on seven released games in my career, as well as a few prototypes that did not make it to market. Some of the more notable titles are “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (Xbox), “Shadowrun” (Xbox 360/Vista) and, of course, “Halo 3.”
Q. What does a lead animator do?
A. My role has changed from creating animation content to managing. I oversee a team of five animators. Most of my time is spent planning, problem solving, coordinating with other functional groups and working with the animation team to ensure they have everything they need to create animation content. I sit with the animation team and participate in [their] reviews of content so far, brainstorming, and acting sessions. Acting sessions involve falling onto mats, jumping, punching and so on. We hand-animate, so there’s no motion-capture technology involved. We’re old school in that regard.
I try to get in a little bit of animation here and there, but it is very limited. It was an interesting transition going from creating animation to helping others to create animation. But I have found it extremely satisfying.
Q: How does game animation differ from film animation?
A. Games are different than films in the sense that the animators create a bunch of smaller pieces of content that are then combined in the game engine. In film, animators work on shots or scenes and animate all the motion from start to finish. So a game animator needs to collaborate with other disciplines. That’s what I love about working in games — it takes art, design and engineering working together to fully realize and bring a game character to life.
Q. Are you a gamer yourself?
A. I do play games outside of work, about three to five hours a week. But I do not consider myself an avid gamer. My passion lies with animation and bringing characters to life. A lot of my free time is spent taking figure drawing and figure sculpting classes at a local art school. This keeps my observational eye sharp, which is a skill I use on a daily basis as an animator.
Q. What advice can you offer hopeful animators?
A. There are so many schools offering animation courses. My advice to those looking to pursue a career in animation is put your focus on learning how to animate. Many schools focus more on teaching different software, and it is fairly easy to get a character to move around. But to have that character act and emote is the real trick. Look for the schools that offer training in animation principles and acting. Having a solid understanding of the basic principles of animation and acting is the key to being a successful animator. Once you accomplish that, you can work in any area of animation production.
You can read the rest of my Q&A with Roberta — complete with recommended resources for aspiring game animators — on NWjobs.com.
November 13th, 2007
Here’s the latest PayScale piece. Thanks again to everyone who sent in their best hell-meeting tales.
When Marie, a sales assistant, showed up for a routine meeting with a big-time retail client, she didn’t expect to find the guy drunk. With a bird cage containing a latex chicken hanging on the wall behind him. Nor did she expect him to spend the entire meeting on the phone, haggling over money with a bunch of car dealerships.
“I thought about Kafka,” Marie says. “This was so weird.”
While most meetings from hell aren’t quite so surreal, they’re every bit as maddening. Take Judy, who worked as managing editor at a magazine and had the classic sitcom experience of suggesting a story idea in a meeting only to have her boss ignore her and then present the idea as his own ten minutes later.
“Everyone’s jaw dropped as they turned to look at me,” she says.
Or Lawrence, who worked for a travel company where the president’s wife (who doubled as the business manager) would monopolize the first ten minutes of every meeting by lecturing the staff on the finer points of carpet stain removal, sometimes even demonstrating how the team should go about cleaning spilled coffee from her prized new office carpeting.
Then there’s Ruth, who worked at a non-profit arts organization where many a meeting devolved into a group therapy session:
“At my very first staff meeting, one woman announced that she had to leave early because she was going to see her therapist, another woman started crying over something and then apologized because she was hormonal, and more time was spent talking about hair than anything else.”
With such a sense of uselessness and futility at meetings — and such a dizzying percentage of the workday sucked up by them — is it any wonder that so many attendees have taken to working on their laptops, texting friends, even snoozing through them, often in plain sight of the boss? Should it come as any surprise that workers overwhelmed by the onslaught of irrelevant meetings block out several days a month on their calendars so they can get some actual work done?
Managers, the next time you feel compelled to schedule a team meeting, think long and hard before you hit Send. The way to earn your employees’ respect is not by scheduling a pre-launch meeting to discuss what next week’s launch meeting will discuss. It’s not by holding a meeting at 7:00 a.m. on a Monday or 6:30 p.m. on a Friday. It’s not by showing up five minutes before the hour-long meeting you called is scheduled to end (and no, you don’t get points for actually showing up). And it’s certainly not by hijacking a meeting so you and the one other manager in attendance can beat to death a topic that has nothing to do with the cube monkeys helplessly held captive in the conference room.
Managers, don’t say it with a meeting when you can say it with an email. Don’t say it with a meeting before you know what the heck it is you want to say. Don’t be the crazy drunk guy with the rubber chicken in a bird cage who haggles with car salesmen during meetings with business colleagues. And if you have to be that guy, make sure you bring enough booze for the rest of the class.
For some ideas on putting meetings out of their misery, see this PayScale page.
November 11th, 2007
If you’ve spent any amount of time on this blog, you know that I’m a champion of unmarried singles and couples being treated the same as their married counterparts. Sometimes I even publish some writing on the topic. That’s why I was thrilled when Bella DePaulo wrote an entire book on the subject: Singled Out: How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After, which is essentially a myth-busting, consciousness-raising, totally unapologetic take on singlehood. In honor of the book’s recent paperback release, I asked Bella a few questions about the unbalanced treatment of single people in the workforce. Here’s what she had to say.
Q. Can you give us some stats on how single workers are treated differently by their employers and colleagues?
A. The most important differences are in salary and benefits. Single men are paid less than married men — probably about 26 percent less — even when the single and married men have done the same job at the same level of competence for the same number of years. Now consider health care plans. In many workplaces, a married worker can put a spouse on a health care plan at a discounted rate. That can amount to a very substantial financial benefit. But the single worker cannot add someone important in their life, such as a parent, sibling, or friend, and no other worker can add the single person to their plan.
Readers of Singled Out e-mail me all the time with their workplace woes. What singles complain about most often are the expectations that they should be able to cover the holidays and the travel that no one else wants and to stay late when others go home — the assumption is that since they are single, they don’t have a life, so why shouldn’t they cover for everyone else? The other part of that issue is that when single people explain why they need to take time off, their reasons are dismissed as not good enough. So, for example, a single person can get “the look” for wanting to take some time to help an ailing friend, but their married colleague gets a pass to leave early to meet their spouse for dinner.
Q. What do you think are the biggest myths about single women in the workplace, both childfree and moms?
A. I think that childfree single women are seen as having nothing important in their lives — no important people and no important pursuits. Single mothers are seen as “at risk” for leaving the workplace on short notice to tend to their child, or not showing up on days when their child is sick. In some workplaces, colleagues and bosses look askance at single mothers, and maybe even their children. Fortunately, though, not all workplaces are like that.
Q. Do you see a difference in how single men vs. single women are treated at work by management and their co-workers?
A. In terms of salary, the data show that single men have it worse — most studies show they are paid less than comparable married male colleagues. For women, there is not much consistency from study to study.
In the culture at large, single women seem to be targets of what I call “matrimania” more than men are. Matrimania is the over-the-top hype about marriage and weddings and brides that saturates our culture. You can see it coming down especially forcefully on women by the number of bridal magazines on the shelves, unmatched by an equal number of guides for grooms. You can see it on the “reality” TV shows, in which dozens of bachelorettes vie for the attention of just one bachelor far more often that a truckload of bachelors all compete for the one bachelorette.
I think some of that special pressure on single women seeps into the workplace. I have been taken, though, by the number of single men who have told me their stories of being belittled and dismissed by colleagues. Some of the teasing they describe sounds especially nasty. One man told me about his colleagues who would bring in stories about social science findings showing that married people live longer or are happier (all grossly exaggerated or just plain wrong, as I show in Singled Out), and taunt him with them.
Q. What can singles do about those “lost” workplace rights or benefits?
A. I do think that singles should do what they can to get their issues on the table. Laws and policies can be changed, and awareness can be raised about insensitive and inappropriate workplace behaviors. I have to add a warning about this, though: Colleagues and bosses often react very badly to these topics and the people who raise them. That’s true even (or maybe especially) when the single person is clearly on the side of the angels. Lots of people in today’s society like to think of themselves as open-minded, fair, and non-prejudicial. When a single colleague points out a way in which the workplace has been unfair to singles, the people perpetrating that unfairness can suddenly feel very defensive. Their first reaction can be to lash out at the single person, rather than standing back and saying, “Wow, I never thought of that. I’m sorry. I won’t do that again.”
So another way singles can get these issues addressed is by supporting relevant advocacy groups. For example, the Alternatives to Marriage Project is very good at taking on issues involving all unmarried people (coupled and single).
When singles contact me with their workplace stories of cloddish colleagues or bosses, I often offer to send those clods a copy of Singled Out from Amazon, with no note attached. I think the insensitive ones would reconsider their behavior if they would read it. But I also warn the single worker that this is risky, because if the recipient of the book suspects that the single worker was involved, it will only make the colleagues or bosses even harder to deal with.
There are some small things that should be a bit easier to do. I actually have no problem covering for a colleague, whether married or single, as long as it is reciprocal. So when someone asks you, say something like: “Sure, I’d be happy to. I know there are times when I’ll need to leave early, and I’m sure you will do the same for me.” Then ask, when that time comes.
I also think that workplace policies should be fair for all workers. So, for example, all workers should have to cover holidays an equal number of times. And when workers have a certain number of days off, they should not have to account for what they are doing with their days off, or justify the days they want to take. That doesn’t mean that company needs are unimportant — of course they’re important — but the personal lives of single workers are also just as important as the personal lives of married workers and should be subject to no greater scrutiny.
Q. Do you see the rift of understanding about lifestyle choices and workplace inequities between singles and marrieds becoming greater or closing up the more these issues get discussed in the media and public eye?
A. I think that at first, the issue will be very hot. People on both sides will feel offended and misunderstood. It is funny that you raise this question, because just recently, I got a fascinating e-mail from a reader of Singled Out. He told me that he put together a carefully prepared audiovisual presentation on the ways in which family-friendly workplaces can be unfair to single people. One of the people in the audience stormed up to the podium, unplugged the equipment, grabbed his papers and threw them up in the air, then marched out of the room! So I think there is going to be some of that sort of thing happening, though perhaps not always so dramatically. Eventually, though, as the topic gets discussed more often online and in the mainstream media, we’ll probably be able to have more thoughtful and calmer discussions. The thing is, I’ve never heard single people say that they want more than what married colleagues get; they just want to be treated fairly. If other people can stop and hear that message, it should be hard to object to. In theory.
Q. In addition to your book, are there are organizations working for policy/workplace change and other resources you recommend singles check out?
A. My current favorite is the Alternatives to Marriage Project. There’s another group that works under the title, Beyond Same-Sex Marriage: A New Strategic Vision For All Our Families and Relationships. Their point is that even if same-sex marriage were made legal everywhere, there would still be many uncoupled people shut out of the 1,138 federal benefits and protections given to people who are legally married. As the subtitle indicates, this is a group that believes in the significance of all of our close relationships, not just our conjugal ones.
November 4th, 2007
