10-23-13 Day #23 A Little Comfort, A Little Accomplishment

Smail Nail ... Pleasant Receipt
Yesterday there was a notice of a certified mail letter awaiting my attention.  The short drive to the no-standard-service Post Office which is about a mile from the full-service Post Office resulted in a letter from the City of Shoreview.  There were six or seven eighty year old red oaks that I had marked for removal because of oak wilt.  The city came through the neighborhood and re-marked my marked trees and gave me a December 13th deadline to have them gone.  This will be somewhere between $2500 and $4000.  All the wood needs to be removed so there will not even be the satisfaction of them becoming firewood.  

The pleasant snail mail arrived today in the form of correspondence from a former, long-time board member with a long history in the commercial construction industry.  We worked well together and shared common perspectives on technology in construction and Bollinger Bands in stock market analysis.  There was a remarkably supportive letter of recommendation, unsolicited.  Doing the right thing takes effort.  I appreciate it.

The Resume
Version #1 went under the knife today.  The question was "what is the purpose of this resume?"  Ever over-analytic, I thought about the typical psychologist inquiry and started to talk in circles.  Perhaps the pursuit of a job was incorrect?  Perhaps I needed to craft a future outside of conventional jobs.  Am I unfit for employment, for leadership, management?


Well, it was a much simpler question relating to the structure and the content and the format of the resume.  Who was it intended for?  C-Level people?  Potential consultant gigs?


In my typical fashion I had attempted to explain my lot in life.  As per Mr. LHH's astute observation (he's probably been through this 10,000 times) he was attempting to stress the point that the resume is the the person you are giving it to...an attempt to capture their attention.  Let them ask the questions.  I left with a number of suggestions and my own observations.  The interesting recurring thing is that the minute you start to explain your work to someone else you see the flaws, omissions, typos, etc.  That's valuable in and of itself.  I guess I could guess walk next door and show it to one of my annoying and boring neighbors and skip the trip to Bloomington.  If this is still in process this winter (hopefully not) I'll consider that to avoid traffic.  It was a good trip.

Leaving I noticed an entire wall of success, customers that went through the process and found new gigs.  Do I want my name on that wall?  Perhaps, but only if there a licensing agreement, personal monetization if you will.

Next Steps

There are options. This process will work.  Thursday I'll share an electronic version w/ Mr. LHH after a thirty-minute re-write and review.

Other Than the Resume
This week I did reach out to a couple of former co-workers with connections to open positions and consulting opportunities.  There was also confirmation from a long-time-ago peer that "There is a lot of work out there, especially if you are willing to pursue and work in unconventional approaches.  That's pretty normal for me.  This friend recently had a heart attack.  He did not see a white light.  All is well.

Reflection
The former gig is rapidly being compressed into a few bullet points.  It's clear that big children bully little weak children.  In business little men bully strong men.  It is employment at will, and that's how it goes.