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March 20, 2014March 20, 2014

Hate Your Job? Or Are You Just Too Lazy To Love It?

We moved across town recently (into a fantastic little rental house), and had to go through all of the fun of switching over utilities and services from one residence to the other.

Being self-employed, I swim around in a sea of hustlers and go-getters on a regular basis. I didn’t realize how energizing that was until this week, dealing with the polar opposite: Cable Company employees.

What follows is an open letter to those folks in call centers, corporate jobs they hate, and otherwise disgruntled little fish.

You can love going to work. I promise. I do. Creative Commons Image Attribution.

I used to work in retail telecom, so I get it. You are a small cog in a really big wheel, in an environment that breeds negativity and lack of care. You deal with angry, entitled people all day—customers and bosses who don’t seem to understand that you are a human with emotions.

But you don’t have to give in.

Sure, it’s going to take some serious want-to. You’ll have to possibly even avoid the break room and the water cooler all together. But with the right amount of effort, you can care.

I have a magic formula that works a surprising amount of times: if you care, you get promoted to a point where you are working over a group of people you can influence to care, and/or you can build the skill set and experience you need to get a better job at a company where you are encouraged to care and rewarded when you do.

Because the alternative is toxic. Eventually, enough negativity in your life breeds lack of care, which multiplies into anger and depression. It did for me.

I was miserable and 35 pounds overweight, working long hours and though the pay was adequate, I never got to see my family. Weekends were brutal. Nights were brutal.

You know how I got out? I chose to. I jumped with a half-packed parachute because I knew I could hustle my way out of financial trouble faster than I could hustle out of a mental breakdown.

But it all started with caring enough. Choosing each day that my attitude could not be influenced by a customer, or a boss, or a circumstance. I had practice from my previous job as a barista where I creatively washed dishes.

There was also a spiritual component to it, to be sure. (I honestly don’t know how non-Christians get through the day at a job they hate. That’s not a heavy-handed evangelistic push, just an honest observation. I’m way too weak to muscle through this stuff without Jesus.)

But you can start caring today. The next customer you deal with, treat them like your little sister calling in for help with her service. The coworker who is having a rough day, give them an honest compliment. Hold the door for somebody. Make it your life goal for everyone who deals with you today to smile. Start being a part of the solution.

And start hustling on your dream job on the side. Read 5 business books this month. Make the jump. Start to care. Nobody in the corporate office is going to care for you. You’ve got to do it yourself.

Take it from a guy who deals every day with people who love their jobs: it is SO worth it.

Also, in related news, can you please send a technician who cares to get my Internet service to work at my new house? All I’m getting is a blinking DS light on the modem.

March 17, 2014March 18, 2014

Are you a Writer? Don’t Miss This.

I’ve gushed before about the team I work with over at Socialexis.

Today has been circled in our Socialexis calendar for months with the code “TWL Bndl” in digital red marker. But we’ll get back to that.

A few months ago Alexis and the team launched a site designed to help writers called The Write Life. I was minimally involved in the first-time set up, as I was still coming on board with the team at the time. Right out of the gate, the site got more traffic than anything I’ve ever been a part of, quickly reaching 30,000 unique visitors in a month by October (its 4th month). That number has only trended upward, closing out nearly 90,000 unique visitors in February (a short month).

The secret sauce is that the content is really helpful and targeted toward an engaged niche on the web: people who want to make a living by writing.

A few months ago Lexi announced to a few team members her goal of launching a product bundle. It’s a bundle of digital products worth nearly $800 bundled together and sold for $79 for a few days only.

She tasked me with the “tech side” of delivering the digital product and shoring up the site to be able to handle a flood of traffic without crumpling under the server load. I was also on hand for minor website tweaks and extensive testing of sales flow.

I am proud to say that with the help of a few really smart people, we feel ready for a flood of traffic this morning.

So, tell all of your friends who are writers or want to be: this product bundle is a STEAL. Go pick up your bundle today. After 11:59 PM on Wednesday March 19th, 2014 you’ll have to go back to paying $800 for all these goodies.

But as the server-side tech guy, can I ask you all to form a single file line to visit the website, just in case?

Get the Bundle TODAY

Update 10:45 AM:The site is doing fantastically. Credit it to the Media Temple hosting and some sweet server-side tweaks we’ve put in place. I went ahead and upgraded the server to the level 4 tier just to be safe. It was literally less than 5 seconds before I saw this happen to the memory usage (the brown line)

Woohoo!

March 13, 2014March 12, 2014

How to Apply a Screen Protector On Your Moto X with No Bubbles

I prefer phones with no case, and only a screen protector.

My wife is far more prone to hand her high-end communications device to a three-year-old with peanut butter on his fingers than I am. Thus, we knew that getting her both a case and a screen protector was an inevitable part of the process of switching to Republic Wireless.

We got both case and a three-pack of screen protectors on Amazon (and thanks to our prime membership got the shipping for free). Disclosure: none of the links below are affiliate links thanks to North Carolina lawmakers and Amazon not playing nicely, though I do get a free screen protector from the manufacturer by leaving a review (not necessarily a positive one) on a public website.

Here’s a link to the case we got.
The short version of my review of the case: It’s very protective, but makes the buttons on the side extremely hard to push and sometimes the flash on the camera washes out photos by reflecting off of the case. That said, it’s well worth 7 bucks.

Here’s a link to the screen protector.

The screen protector is very good, and very easy to apply (given that I have a history as a professional applier, your individual results may vary. I’ll give you some insider tips in just a sec.) As long as you center up the protector, it does not interfere with this particular case.

Quick tutorial on applying the Halo screen protector

The key to applying the protector is two finger-length pieces of clear Scotch Magic Tape. Also extremely helpful is a can of compressed air. But the clear tape is mandatory.

In a well-lit area, clean off the surface of the phone as thoroughly as possible. Pay close attention to dust, as it is the primary bubble-culprit.

Peel off the first (phone facing) side of the protector’s packaging, and blow on the screen one last time to remove any dust. Center up the screen protector by gently folding it in half vertically to form a semi-circle (don’t crease it) and lining up the microphone cutout and the speaker cutouts. Allow the protector to come to rest on the screen by letting go of the two sides.

If you are some sort of magician, you’ll have gotten this right the first time. If you are like the rest of us, it’ll be slightly off center and have at least three bubbles on the screen despite your best efforts of getting the dust away. No matter if it’s centered up perfectly or bubble free, at this point I peel off the second piece of packaging.

If your screen protector looks good, congrats. You can stop reading and go work on your other magic tricks.

If there are bubbles, you’ll need your pieces of tape.

Use one piece of tape to pull the protector partly off the screen (if you are centered up correctly) or fully off the screen (if you need a total redo). Then, using the other piece of tape, isolate the dust particles causing bubbles, and use the tape to pick them up. Some will be on the screen and others will be on the protector.

Once you’ve gotten all the bits of dust, your protector will be virtually invisible. The Halo protector seems thus far to be quite durable, as we’ve wiped peanut butter off of ours several times.

Enjoy!

March 4, 2014

Making Memories, Not Payments: 7 Months As A Bike Commuter.

The brochure for “being your own boss” has pictures of laptops overlooking beach-side cabana decking and a lot of creative latté foam art.

Here in the real world, being my own boss has meant pinching pennies and saying “no” or “not now” to a ton of opportunity. More accurately, it has meant putting my priorities front and center and evaluating every decision in light of how much money it will take to make it work.

As I sat in my apartment parking lot watching my boys ride their bikes down the pine straw-covered hill recently, I couldn’t help but take a deep breath and appreciate where we are right now.

For us, the keys have been a relatively crappy old minivan and prayer (not necessarily in that order).

We don’t have any car payments, we’ve never paid for cable TV, and the only debt we still have hanging around is the battered remnants of a student loan. That meant that when I was shown the door at my not-even-that-lucrative sales position, we had a little bit of wiggle room and that nobody was going to come haul the minivan off on a flatbed truck.

It’s amazing how freeing it is to not have a payment. I purchased a relatively high-end commuting bicycle a few months later for the cost of two oil changes and a set of tires on the minivan, and now not only do I get great exercise daily on my way to and from work, I am saving the $50 to $100 per month in gas. Related: my two boys will grow up with memories of riding bikes with their dad. Often.

Furthermore, being forced to look within a bike-commute’s radius for a new rental house means that even after our move we are still a stone’s throw from our church and the community there.

Saying “no” to a nice car or even a $150/month car payment has made room in my world for deeper connection with my wife, my kids, and my church. The only downside is the commute on mornings like today.

That's after it warmed up about 10 degrees. I'll not pretend I didn't consider taking the minivan. — That’s after it warmed up about 10 degrees. I’ll not pretend I didn’t consider taking the minivan.

What payment can you eliminate in your life in order to make a family memory?

February 18, 2014February 18, 2014

The one book you should purchase TODAY.

I shared recently about my work for Socialexis and the great enjoyment I’ve had working for and alongside Alexis Grant.

Today you have the great opportunity to hear straight from her some fantastic ways to move toward doing work you love.

She launched her first Amazon e-book! Today only, the thing is just 99 cents.

Click here to go on over to Amazon and buy it before you read my review.

Here's a snippet of the cover. Very well done stuff! — Here’s a snippet of the cover. Very well done stuff!

I have access to a free copy, but I believe in what she is doing so I went and forked over the extra dollar to read it myself. I just spent the last hour or so breezing through it.

Spoiler alert: this book is refreshing.

The only critique I’ve got is that if you don’t know Lexi, you might come away from this thing thinking how impractical and pie-in-the-sky some of the ideas she shares are. Surely nobody could practically put into action the things she talks about, in the real world!

But if you do know Lexi, say for example you work alongside her every day, you’d know that she’s simply saying out loud what we see every day. This is her play book for actually enjoying her job.

The way Amazon works, they reward (and showcase) books that are popular, which makes them more popular. Launch day is crucial. The more people who buy it today, the better. Also, leaving a review helps tremendously.

I am not an Amazon affiliate (I live in North Carolina where that is impossible because our lawmakers live in 1998), so you can know that I am legitimately trying to help Alexis with her first e-book.

So go ahead and buy it for a measly 99 cents. Tell her I sent you!