Only the Best

Friends and relatives (especially my wife) often forward job leads to me via e-mail.
These are well-meaning attempts to aid in my pursuit of the Ideal Work Experience (IWE). As you all know, the IWE has eluded me throughout my career. In fact, you could say that the search for the IWE has actually been my real life's work.
Yes, you could say that, but you would be wrong. Most of my "career" has been spent trading labor hours for a paycheck. I think I was a good employee. I worked hard most of the time; I showed-up; I solved problems. In short, I earned my pay. I have disdained the idea that I had anything that could be termed a Career. The word Career implies planning. I just took the best offers I could get with no real thought about where it would lead. The idea of searching for the IWE has only occured to me since I was laid off, nearly 2 years ago. Shows you what happens when you have time to think about things.


I know I may have given some of you the impression that my work goals were basically maximizing my time spent at the water cooler and minimizing the time spent in meetings. It is true that I have been fairly cynical about work in my writings, but this has really been a commentary on dysfunctional organizations, where Management egos wreck previously effective enterprises. Most of the successful organizations I worked in were effective despite management, not because of their genius.


I never felt defined by my title, since the real me was the person who came home from work in the evening and who left for work in the morning. In the beginning, I had buoyant hopes that the cliches were true and somehow I would rise to the top - whatever talent I had would be recognized and rewarded. Ah naive youth.

These early hopes were pretty much dashed on the rocks of despair by managers who were looking for leaner and meaner disciples. The real world was colder and crueler than I had imagined. They wanted people who were disciplined, who would follow orders, praise the Emperor's new clothes...

Anyhow, the other day, a friend forwarded a job lead for a Data Warehouse Project Manager. I checked it out, but the company is a high powered consulting outfit, looking for bright, young, lean and hungry "Playas" who devote their waking hours to activities that bring-in billable hours from the clueless client. This is not now nor ever was Me.

Henceforth, I wish to inform folks who might be tempted to send me job leads that I am only considering work at one of Fortune's "100 Best Places to work in America."