[CLUE-Talk] interesting home business article - from slashdot

[Matt Gushee]

On Sat, Jul 26, 2003 at 01:32:28AM +0000, psychoi3oy at linkline.com wrote:
> 
> i'll skip the slashdot summary but this -> 
> http://homepage.mac.com/monickels/techjob.html  is an interesting article 
> for small business/home user tech support.

Hmm, yes, I like that.

> being currently out of a job 
> and not the guru most companys want (how in the world can i have 4 years 
> windows XP experience? or 5 years experience and a bachelor's,

You're supposed to lie.

I'm actually only half joking. I think when you see job announcements
like that, there are at least a couple of things going on.  One is that
the vast majority of recruiters are clueless. It's really rather hard to
define the level of expertise required for any given job, and anybody
who understands technical people and their skills knows that there's no
simple and reliable correlation between years of experience and ability.
But the big advantage of saying "4 years of X" is that it's easily
measurable. See, the system really isn't designed to find the best
possible candidates. It's designed to find acceptable candidates, while
costing as little as possible and covering the recruiters' asses (i.e.,
if everyone agrees on certain objective measures for screening
candidates, then they are freed of the risky task of making subjective
judgments about people's qualifications).

(On a practical note, bear in mind that HR doesn't hire people, they
just screen them. It's quite possible that the manager making the actual
hiring decision doesn't give a damn how long you've been doing X, if you
can demonstrate your ability in some other way. So if you run into
requirements that are clearly bullshit, you shouldn't feel bad on
ethical grounds about telling the screeners what they want to
hear (whether it's safe to do that is another question))

Another thing is that modern corporate culture doesn't favor scrupulous
honesty. Although blatant dishonesty is usually not tolerated (unless
you're a top exec), spin and hype are more often than not considered to
be marks of professionalism (BTW, I nominate "professional" for the
most-abused word in the English language). I'm not suggesting that silly
job requirements like the one you mentioned are *deliberately* designed
to elicit less-than-truthful responses. It's more of an
emperor's-new-clothes kind of thing. Groupthink. So in effect, those
announcements are a kind of test of your willingness to be a team
player. People who prefer to see and speak truth (and I'm one too) can
have trouble with this kind of thing.

> software perhaps) and the fact that i have next to no business sense. i 
> cave in too easily when it comes to people whining about something costing 
> too much,

Well, I don't claim to be any kind of an expert, but I'm a few years
older and have paid a lot of attention over the years to how businesses
interact with their customers. I think the best approach is to be
flexible, but also be very aware of your needs and limitations--e.g. how
much can you *afford* to drop prices? Are you willing to take a loss, in
a specific case, for the sake of building business? If you do one
customer a favor, how might it affect your relationship with others? And
so on ... but I guess that's "business sense." Wish I had a bit more of
it myself.

> i'm perhaps a little too customer satisfaction oriented (a habit 
> i picked up working at an oldschool service station, doing full serve gas, 
> etc) and fear that i'd be too nice for my own pocketbook's good.

Maybe, maybe not. Certainly you have to watch out for people taking
advantage of you. On the other hand, there is a crying need for good
customer service. People don't just want problems solved, they
want--they need--to be listened to, and to be treated with respect.  I
think one reason, maybe the main reason, that corporate customer service
is so bad is that they *assume* people are going to take advantage of
them, and have strict procedures to prevent that from happening (e.g.
most tech support operations have limits on the amount of time a rep can
spend with any one customer). Your big advantage is that, as an
individual dealing with individuals, you don't have to have those
procedures. You can approach people on a basis of mutual respect and
trust, and deal with the occasional jerks as needed.

> could do this kind of work, even part time, i'm sure i could make money at 
> it and i'd just cringe when it came time for taxes

If my experience is any guide, taxes just get worse, no matter what you
do for a living (unless, maybe, you (a) become a Zen monk and give up
all your worldly possessions, or (b) become filthy rich and hire an
accountant to do it all for you). So don't let that stop you.

> drivel). based on the article and what you all know about the climate in 
> denver (something i'm sorely unaware of having only been here 3 weeks) 
> would this be a good thing to look into?

The climate in Denver sucks. But probably not much more so than the rest
of the country. And it seems like, though a lot of people are
unemployed, many of them have managed to hang onto a little bit of cash.
Seems to me I've also read statistics to the effect that Metro Denver is
well above the national average in computer ownership or internet usage,
or something like that, which is probably good.

-- 
Matt Gushee                 When a nation follows the Way,
Englewood, Colorado, USA    Horses bear manure through
mgushee at havenrock.com           its fields;
http://www.havenrock.com/   When a nation ignores the Way,
                            Horses bear soldiers through
                                its streets.
                                
                            --Lao Tzu (Peter Merel, trans.)