What Would Dad Say
Frequently wrong, never in doubt
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These Truths are Self Evident
(I stole most of these.) From the College of Obvious Things 1. I think part of a best friend’s job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die 2. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you’re wrong. 3. I totally take back all those times I didn’t want to nap when I was younger. 4. There is great need for a sarcasm font. 5. How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet? 6. Was learning cursive really necessary? 7. Map Quest really... |
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Was This a Problem?
I see today that Nike has filed a patent for self-lacing shoes. I just keep missing these revolutionary breakthrough ideas. But to keep it in perspective, I also said no one would ever buy high priced coffee. And I thought the Mall of America was a gigantic waste of space and money. (My grandfather famously said that sliced bread wouldn’t make it either, it would dry out too fast, he said.) But self-lacing shoes? I guess anything that saves time could be a winner these days. Still,... |
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There’s a Solution in Here Somewhere
Some random thoughts… School is starting. For most kids, big whoop. But for some, a real and true Big Whoop. I don’t know what to make about education nowadays. We are spending more money on it, so I know we all care. I know venture guys who are big backers of online universities, like DeVry, Capella, and Phoenix. And I know people in HR who are dismissive of each when they try to fill all those open jobs. I think these schools must still be finding their way. In a decade... |
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Learn Project Management, onetwothree On the Skills You Need
Most jobs are projects, or a series of projects. How you manage them is crucial to your future success or hireability. There are places where you can learn this skill, like here or here. Even blogs that are only about project management. Even some how-to white papers. And talk about a skill that everyone wants—in Linkup.com there are almost 110,000 open jobs from real companies who want that from you. Linkup, is the job search engine that showcases only open jobs from real companies,... |
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Evidently, America Needs Paralegals. Who Knew?
Just last night I was reading about how recent law school graduates could not find work. Some were even doing menial work, like working at Starbucks, heaven forbid. But then, I discovered that on LinkUp, as of three minutes ago, there were 649 open jobs RIGHT now for paralegals. No legal website I can find has anywhere close to this number of jobs. Some website should get our widget (here is how). Oh, if you are not sure what a paralegal actually does, here is what one paralegal says about... |
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Unbashing Target
I saw an ad from moveon.org bashing Target for some reason. Move on, moveon. Personally, I like Target and not just because it is headquartered here in Minneapolis. Have you ever gone into a Target store and not felt personally uplifted a bit? Think about that the next time you visit your favorite one. From a purely consumer standpoint, everything about Target says “quality,” even if corn on the cob is only 15 cents. I bet their employees feel the same way…and we all... |
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A Quick Prediction for the Fall TV Shows: We Have a Winner
Language Alert. I have liked William Shatner since he was Captain Kirk beaming that doofus Spock around the Galaxy, and I am so looking forward to him being Justin’s dad in the new comedy S*#$ My Dad Says. I am not sure how they are going to clean it up for the TV, but I hear Justin HIMSELF was hired for the main writing gig. If you think Archie Bunker was funny, read some of these lines. http://twitter.com/shitmydadsays |
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How LinkUp Works, ReDux
Today, I posted over at Laurie Ruettimann’s PunkRockHr with a semi-serious post on jobs. Some questions have come up from her readers, mostly HR folks. 1. You can get your company’s jobs into our sponsored listings by contacting us. We are basically like Google and are leading the transformation from the pay to post model of the job boards to a job search engine where you only pay when someone clicks on your job. 2. We do not accept jobs on a per job or per opening basis. We... |
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Joe Mauer vs Lebron James
Up here in Minnesota, we have arguably the best baseball player in America in Joe Mauer. He’s a good kid, too. True story. Some group had a special luncheon where the guest of honor was Joe Himself. All ten guests were excited to meet him. If Lindsay Lohan were in the hotel, they wouldn’t have noticed. But JOE MAUER. Grown men get wistful for days past by…baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet. Someone said, “He’s here!” So, they all grabbed... |
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Late Summer Blues for the New College Grad Job Seeker
At first, you wanted to be a vet. But that one class turned you off, actually, that one teacher. So, you switched to “communications.” The classes were easier it seemed and everything made sense. It was all pretty much common sense and you did well. You studied Facebook (“New Technology and Communications 101″) and you were already an expert in Facebook. Whoohooo. You would have aced “Texting” but that is not a class, yet. You graduated in late May and just had to... |
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Is Monster the 8 Track Tape of 2010?
When I was about 22 or so, I had a car with an 8-track tape player. I had a mini-suitcase full of 8 track tapes that held about 20 tapes. It rested on the console, all that music, pre-cassettes and certainly pre-CD’s. Steve Jobs was in high school and ITunes was decades away. Still, in the early 1970’s, my 8 track tapes were pretty cool. Monster is selling 8 track tapes and hoping people don’t find about iTunes. In this case, LinkUp is iTunes. Let me explain. Monster came on the... |
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Rock Stars at 65, 70 and 73
Keith Richards at 65, Do you really think he gets up in the morning, looks in the mirror, and says “Keith, you marvelous looking rock star, don’t you ever die?” He might have already died, don’t you think? Ringo Starr turns 70 today. Tell me he doesn’t look better now than he did in 1964. It might help that he reads my friend Dak’s hip MagnificentBastard website for looking and staying young. In three years, there’s no chance that Ringo will... |
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Scott Adams and Me: Brothers-in-CFS
You may have read Scott Adams’ post the other day “In Search of Coconut Milk,” where he admits to suffering from CFS (Can’t Find Shit). His story is about his wife sending him to the store for coconut milk. There is not a man in America who can tell you where THAT might be located on the grocery shelves. Oops, take that back, there are men who watch that stoopid TV hit show now, “I Killed the Chef with a Piece of Iron,”…those “men” must... |
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Open Jobs, State by State, as of 10 am, CST, 7-1-2010
Thousands of companies have job openings that are never advertised on Monster, Yahoo et al. Estimates are that as many as 70% of the available jobs are NEVER advertised BUT on the company’s own website. State by state, I have created a special list of the open jobs that are right now available. Click on your state to find the most relevant, the most timely, the most available jobs anywhere. Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New... |
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Four Good Questions for Your Interviewer.
How long have you been in charge of your present group? How many of the original people remain? How many people have left and what were the reasons for their departure? What sort of provisions do you make for this kind of turnover? Describe the sequence of work planned for your current project. Is the actual work proceeding according to the original plan? Do you expect it to continue in this manner? How close is your progress reporting scheme to the reality of the work that goes on? What checks... |
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Cutting Down Trees, Some Chainsawing Tips I Heard About
I heard about this so I thought I would interrupt the normal subject matter and pass these two tips along. If you have a dead tree in your yard, and you decide to crank up your old chain saw…this is what I heard, mind you…be sure you check for a couple of things. First, check to make completely sure you know which way the tree will fall once you cut it down. I heard that a fail-safe method to make sure that it does not hit anything of importance is to estimate how high the tree... |