Bulletproof Your Job
On September 15th, Lehman Brothers announced that it had filed for bankruptcy, and within hours, Lehman employees around the globe were seen leaving their workplaces with their personal belongings in boxes, having been told game over, company gone, jobs lost. A week later, thanks to Lehman's shotgun wedding to Barclays, a lucky ten thousand of those employees will have a chance to hang on to their jobs after all.
Those Lehman employees are on orange alert, totally under the gun to show their worth and prove they're keepers. I've got news for you: We're all on orange alert. In today's economic climate, no one's job is secure. So how to make sure you're one of the lucky ones who dodges the layoff bullet?
First, bulletproofing your job is almost entirely about the relationship you have with your boss. If your boss knows you, likes you, has a good impression of you, you're much less likely to be fired than someone who doesn't enjoy that relationship with the boss. There are four strategies I advise for elevating and improving your standing with your boss....Be Visible, Be Easy, Be Useful, and Be Ready
Being visible means making sure your boss knows who you are. If he or she doesn't know you, you're really easy to fire. Being easy means making your boss's job easier, not harder. Being useful means going above and beyond the call of duty...which is even more important during challenging economic times. And being ready means being ready for whatever might happen.
So for example, one way to be visible is to:
Arrive early and stay late. This sounds a little like a trick, but it's not. You only have to arrive five minutes earlier and stay five minutes later than your boss to give him the impression that you're always there. Also, not taking long lunches or personal days or other dumb ways you send the message that you're not at work, working hard. If you're not there, you're easy to fire. Out of sight, out of mind.
Another way to be visible is to:
Introduce yourself. People tend to shy away from interacting with managers outside of their immediate team. But if you look for opportunities to introduce yourself to the big bosses....at conferences or company meetings or whatever....you widen your exposure. The more higher ups who know you and have a favorable impression of you, the more bulletproof you are.
Being easy means avoiding being a High Maintenance Employee...someone always complaining or having dust-ups with coworkers or otherwise making it harder on everyone around him. Layoff time is the perfect time for the gripers or the misbehavers to be let go. Same goes for the office gossip or the office Machiavelli....I always say know the office gossip, just don't be the office gossip. Understand the politics in your office, but don't be known as someone who plays politics. Just stay off your boss's "troublemaker" radar.
You can also be pro-actively easy. Being dependable, for example, is an old-school way to bulletproof yourself. Do what you say you're going to do every single time. No excuses, no buck passing, no dog ate your homework, no computer crashes. If your boss knows without a doubt that he can depend on you, day-to-day as well as in an emergency, you will get a pass on the pink slip.
Sharing credit is another way to improve your standing. Being generous with credit is a twofer! You look good for whatever you've done AND you look even better for being confident enough to praise others for it. The bonus is that it gives you an implied ownership over the whole accomplishment.
Being useful seems so obvious. Just do your job, right? Wrong. There are all kinds of ways to be a hero in any office. The more of a role you play in the important work that gets done, the more indispensable you are to your boss. Show initiative...don't be afraid to raise your hand and say, "I'll do it." Volunteer to train or mentor colleagues....your boss will thank you because you're doing a job he usually hates to do. And try to find ways to add dollar value. Especially in rough times, I would NEVER fire someone who's putting money in my pocket.
Being ready is the biggest favor you can do for yourself during good times or bad. For example, having money in the bank and a sharp, up-to-the minute resume gives you confidence that you're prepared for any eventuality. And that confidence is very attractive....it makes you seem more capable, more valuable, more of a keeper when layoffs are in the air. I also advise people to go out of their way to help the people in their network. When you're known as someone who's always eager to help, when the time comes, others will be just eager to help you.
There are many, many things you should be doing to bulletproof your job. These are a few to get you in the bulletproof frame of mind.
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I am pretty insulated as far as the job market goes. My employer is a state run university. I have my skills in the power industry. In other words I work at a powerplant at a state run university. I have found that if you have certain skills ie maintenance it is far easier to obtain work. The welding industry is seeing alot people retiring and it seems not as many people to take their place. I would suggest taking a few classes at a community college in welding, electrical or the healthcare industry would be good. These are shortages that have been apparent the last couple of years. Also food processing plants have a big turn around for some reason but no matter what there will always be a need for food and healthcare as well as people to fix the mechanical problems that come up all the time.
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You couldn't be more right. Are you related to Homer Simpson? LOL. The practical advice that you are giving is exactly what I talk about in Bulletproof Your Job and I couldn't agree with you more.
--Stephen Viscusi, author of Bulletproof Your Job (HarperCollins). Visit my website at www.bullet
Does panhandleing count?
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Panhandling is way more creative, way safer, and takes all the intuition of advertising, even if you weren’t really a Vietnam vet. My point is, I only support jobs that pay taxes to the government and are legitimately reported.
--Stephen Viscusi, author of Bulletproof Your Job (HarperCollins). Visit my website at www.bullet
Good advice! I would add however that despite your best efforts you will probably be laid off anyways because your boss may not be able to control who gets laid off. Your boss will probably get axed right after you do. My suggestion for people is to start a business on the side and make it grow while kissing up to your boss as you suggested. If you are successful you can tell your boss to kiss your butt rather than to continue to kiss hers or his. Do everything you can to become independent of as many people as possible and you will succeed. Never give all of your energy to the company you work for, as you will need energy to also promote your dreams which are definitely not their dreams. Remember companies are there to benefit you. You are not there to benefit them unless they benefit you. If you have to work harder and longer to make less and less than you are justified in giving less and less while appearing to give more and more.
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You’re half right and half wrong. I used to be just as cynical as you. I do believe that you should keep all options open. However, in today’s economy—which is disguised as a recession but is in fact a “depression,” far worse than our great-grandparents told us about–I do think that it’s better to hold on to the jobs that we have, even for less money, in order to maintain our medical benefits and the minimum income that we can sustain. It is totally irrational to think that it’s the right time in today’s economy to even consider opening your own business or doing something “outside the box” of what you already know. So there we disagree. Stick to your “knitting,” and don’t go opening your own business in what I describe as Depression II.
--Stephen Viscusi, author of Bulletproof Your Job (HarperCollins). Visit my website at www.bullet
I have the mixed blessing of being in a unionized job with a seniority system. It's very difficult for me to be fired unless I screw up in a big way. I can, however, be furloughed and the furloughs start at the bottom of the seniority list and work their way up.
Too bad you couldnt be a c.e.o.then even if you fired you got a golden parachut!And wouldnt it be nice if your company could fire all the old timers and keep the young bucks who dont have the pensions waiting for them?
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Thanks for your comment. Ironically, I am a CEO of one of the largest search practices in New York City (according to Crains NY Business) and I can be fired at the whim of my board if I can’t perform. However, my board set up performance reviews based on my making the company profitable, and ironically, I make more money being a best-selling author and TV personality. This means, just by being creative, I bulletproofed my own job through being an entrepreneur and I suggest you do the same.
--Stephen Viscusi, author of Bulletproof Your Job (HarperCollins). Visit my website at www.bullet
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Thanks for your comment. Ironically, I am a CEO of one of the largest search practices in New York City (according to Crains NY Business) and I can be fired at the whim of my board if I can’t perform. However, my board set up performance reviews based on my making the company profitable, and ironically, I make more money being a best-selling author and TV personality. This means, just by being creative, I bulletproofed my own job through being an entrepreneur and I suggest you do the same.
--Stephen Viscusi, author of Bulletproof Your Job (HarperCollins). Visit my website at www.bullet
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I get your point and I empathize. Still, I think you need to bulletproof your job even in unions. If anything, unions are the ones that are being the most screwed in this economy, with trick words like “buyouts” and “packages.
--Stephen Viscusi, author of Bulletproof Your Job (HarperCollins). Visit my website at www.bullet
The first time I heard the word, "RIF," I had no idea what it meant. Being barely a kid out of school, I was still smoking the "be good to them and they'll be good to you" hookah. (How was I supposed to know?)
I didn't get RIFfed out of that job, but during the 1990's it was a regular occurrence. And so, during that time, I did what many people did and struck out on my own. Which I have done ever since. It has been a very interesting experience to look upon the workplace from the outside. And, to look upon the workplace as a businessman.
That's what it really comes down to: business. Face it, you're a cost. If you can't link yourself directly to production (thereby becoming in effect a "direct cost"), you're Overhead. You're sitting in the spreadsheet column where the cuts come from. But what you may not realize is, "it's nothing personal. Really."
You might well be shining the boss's shoes one day and be helping them carry THEIR box to the car the next day.
Wanna survive? Learn to bounce. And, take-to-heart the fact that "what you do" is not "your job." Learn to SELL. Yourself. Your professional services.
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Wow! You could have been my ghostwriter. I agree with everything you said. Not sure I understand – are you sure you’re not still smoking the hookah? Either way, I respect what you said, hookah or not. You get it, dude.
--Stephen Viscusi, author of Bulletproof Your Job (HarperCollins). Visit my website at www.bullet
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Wow! You could have been my ghostwriter. I agree with everything you said. Not sure I understand – are you sure you’re not still smoking the hookah? Either way, I respect what you said, hookah or not. You get it, dude.
--Stephen Viscusi, author of Bulletproof Your Job (HarperCollins). Visit my website at www.bullet
Americans would be much better served to eliminate, collapse most corporations any way they can think of. Corporate empires and banks are the mortal enemy of a free people.
In America, we had once real, honest Capitalism. Small businesses fueled by hard-working entrepreneurs as dedicated to their employees as their customers and the loyalty was usually reciprocated.
Now what we have is corporate greed, slavery, market manipulation and banker communism.
Americans should be working hard to break these empires down by any means necessary in order to restore the American dream. The freedom of the worker and re-birth of small business is what America needs most, not more corporate suck-ups.
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You have no idea how much I agree with you. If you read my book as “corporate suck-up,” then you’re at 6th grade reading level. I couldn’t agree more that banks and overall American greed has destroyed the basic foundation of America. However, 6th grade reading skills or not, soon you will realize that we are in an economic depression worse than 1929, where Machiavellian skills are required to save one’s life and one’s family. I cannot help but think that the many Americans who cannot feed themselves or their families would be doing better to live in Beijing, China, which mainstream media was just mocking over their socialist values, than living here. So you’re part right, part wrong, and part idiotic, and yet I love you. Tell your friends to buy another copy of my book to criticize, and let me know how you’re doing.
--Stephen Viscusi, author of Bulletproof Your Job (HarperCollins). Visit my website at www.bullet
You can do all of the above and still end up unemployed if the company goes under. Keep your skills sharp and be flexible and you'll land on your feet. Be willing to do whatever needs to get done and forget about what is or is not in your "job descriptio
That is seriously poor advice. I work in a field where workers are exploited more and more daily and middle-aged men getting strokes or heart-attacks is a normal occurance.
We have guys in their early 20s that suck-up and prove how "productive" they can be and they screw the older workers because management scum use the younger, more energetic, healthier kid for a watermark and the rest get screwed.
Organize, strike, make the operation counter-productive as a response to their whip-cracking and abuse. Don't be back-stabbers, suckups, punks or slaves, be Americans and stand up for yourself, your family, your dignity and your fellow workers.
Anarchy is much better than slavery, don't find out the hard way.
Wow.
Good to hear the fiery rhetoric of worker's rights again.
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Dear Old Bag, Wow, do you feel sorry for yourself or what? However, I couldn’t agree with you more. I’m not suggesting that ass-kissing suck-ups should replace older workers through manipulative Eddie Haskell tactics. You’ve got me all wrong. My dad was a blue collar worker (a pressman – they poured the lead for newsprint that doesn’t exist anymore – remember that?), and my mom worked for Macy’s for 25 years selling children’s shoes and was a member of a union. I’m a blue-collar kid from the white-collar town of Armonk, NY. Buy the book, you idiot. Don’t assume you know me from the blog. I’m a defender of workers’ rights of all ages and I despise self-righteous old geezers who feel that they have earned respect because of their age rather than performance. Instead of complaining about the young upstarts who are outsmarting you, buy the book and learn these tricks yourself. Actually, let me do you a personal favor in the name of my late mother: I’ll send you a free copy. E-mail me and I’ll send you a copy so you can learn some tricks that the youngsters know. It’s not brain surgery – it’s common sense. I learned it from your generation, so I’m making a dime off of you – practically a penny today.
--Stephen Viscusi, author of Bulletproof Your Job (HarperCollins). Visit my website at www.bullet
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Thank you for repeating the essence of my book. I agree with you 100%. However, 98% of businesses do survive. For those 2% that do go out of business, it's still valuable to know what’s in the book – no one hires inane people with e-mail addresses like aol.com@aol.com or yahoo.comyahoo.com. I even explain to my readers how to de-ethnicize your resume to trick a prospective employer. Yes, Huffington readers, discrimination does exist. When I tell Shakilas to become Sheilas, they laugh, but then report back to me with a smile that they got twice as many interviews as before. Yeah, discrimination sucks. But it does exist – it’s a reality of the workplace, just like describing your sexual orientation on an interview. Is it legal? No. But I’m told that 80% of HR executives look on people’s Facebook accounts when they read candidates’ resumes. I strongly suggest that you pick up a copy of my book to find out other secrets. (If anyone out there has read the book How to Date Like a Man, my book is the equivalent for African Americans and gay people on how to interview like a white person or like a straight man or woman.) Let’s face it. We hate discrimination, but it exists.
--Stephen Viscusi, author of Bulletproof Your Job (HarperCollins). Visit my website at www.bullet
Thank you for this article...
Exellent question!
Unfortunately, Huffpo bloggers are either on the management end or they have jobs that are more secure and don't have to deal with fascism practiced by companies now that they know the market is theirs to exploit.
The best thing for American workers is realistic tarriffs and "bulletproof" UNIONS.
That is the fix for this mess. Sucking up and making yourself "visible" only gets you further exploited (take my word on that) Until then, I suggest anyone at career dead-ends just quit and go into the black-market or join a lucrative, solid life of crime (since our leaders both practice and encourage it...)
Bottom line: Drop out of the system and work against it
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10. First and foremost, you have my private email now – viscusi.co
--Stephen Viscusi, author of Bulletproof Your Job (HarperCollins). Visit my website at www.bullet
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