Ask Uncle Bill

To Be Or Not To Be

The last in a series on why a bad first job is good for you and subsequent events.  Check out the earlier posts by going to my site.  I would offer links but I'm still working on that. 

Early Thursday morning Margot called the medical support company but missed the HR person.  Left a message.  About 11:00am the HR person called again and offered Margot the job---$35,000, three weeks vacation, 401(k) with match, full medical, three blocks away.  Perfect.  Margot said "Let me think about it."  "How long?"  "Tomorrow?"  Ok but the HR person was not happy. 

In a bit of unbelievable timing, the HR lady from the ad agency called at 11:30am and offered Margot the job there.  That was a quick turnaround.  Margot was now in a bind but a good kind of bind having two job offers.  Margot again asked for some time to think about it saying she wanted to talk to me.  I was pretty proud of that until I figured I may have been more of a convenient excuse than a wise sage that Margot had to counsel with prior to any major decision.   

I was out and didn't get Margot's message until early evening.  Called and we did the old MBA thing--get out a piece of paper, in this case, two pieces of paper.  Make two columns titled Pro and Con.  First, the medical support job.  Lots of pros--money, vacation, retirement plan, short commute, would look good on her resume.  Cons--dull.  Maybe not but Margot wasn't doing cartwheels after any of the interviews. 

Ok, let's do the ad agency.  Margot said no.  Why not?  "It only pays minumum wage." she squeaked.  I have to admit I was taken aback.  How could they get away with paying a college graduate $7 an hour?  Margot explained--the job was a six month internship at which time you were either offered a full time job or the job ended.  This thing was starting to make sense--the deal offered the agency some pretty good talent at a rock bottom price, no health plan cost, no 401(k) cost, no vacation cost and an easy out at the end of six months.  No harm, no foul.

Also, somewhat of a tradition in the ad and talent agency business.  In many agencies, especially in old Hollywood, the newbies started in the mail room no matter who they were or what the future expectations were for that agent or star.  The theory was to hit the ego with a bit of humility to see how they handled it as well as having the newbie learn the organization by delivering the mail.   

So, a good deal for the agency but not so great a deal for Margot, in the short run anyway, as she had another rent payment coming up.

"So, what are you going to do?" I asked.  "You tell me." Margot shot back.  "No, you tell me." I said.  And back and forth, back and forth.  Finally, she said "I'm going with the agency." and I replied, "Right answer."

Not the right answer for my checkbook as we were now subsidizing the agency but the right answer for Margot and her career as

1)  if Margot turned down the agency job she would question that decision the rest of her life,

2)  the medical job paid well but only in the short run.  The future earnings potential in the agency far outweigh  the potential in the medical company.  I have no empirical evidence but could probably prove it if I had to.

3)  the ad agency sounded like fun.  Young people doing fun things.  I'm sure there are all kinds of politics and petty jealousies but there are in any organization.  I had a friend recently describe a co-worker as the type of the guy that will stab you in the front.  It's everywhere and the only counter is to work hard and don't get dragged into the pettiness.

So she took the job and liked the work but didn't like the environment.  My guess about politics and slave labor was on the money.  Also they were not hiring at the end of six months so no job.  For anybody.

But it turned out to be ok because Margot landed a job with a Scottish energy company that she really loves and they love her.  The first assignment was a months training in Edinburgh.  Not too shabby. 

The moral of the story--get a job, any job when you first get out of school.  You will probably hate it but you will learn a lot and you will learn what you don't want to do.  Then you will be able to look around and figure out what you do want to do.   

The Agency

(If you want to start at the beginning of this series about getting a job straight out of school, scroll down to "Why A Lousy First Job Is Good For You."

I asked Margot about the interview schedule at the advertising agency.  Just somebody from HR.  Not good, I thought.  At best an introductory interview, at worst a blow off interview as a payoff to the headhunter that tossed the resume over the transom.  The interview was at 10:00 am. 

And, as usual, Dad was wrong.  After spending the day chewing fingernails, my phone finally rang about four thirty.  Margot had just finished at the agency, basically six hours of interviewing and she was really excited.  Tell me what happened, I said. 

Margot started.  Met with the HR lady, really nice, real young (all people at ad agencies are young except the owners), went through what the agency did, client list, size, reputation (voted one of the top ten best places to work in Houston).  And no trick questions for Margot--basically tell me about yourself, your goals, your interest in advertising, your interest in public relations, what classes you thought were most helpful in college, what job did you enjoy the most and why, why you think you will be successful here.  The seven week job that ended in disaster came up but the HR lady knew all about recruiters and they shared a few war stories.  All normal questions and answers, all designed to bring out strengths and weaknesses, no "If you were a tree, what kind of..." nonsense.

"What then?  What then?" I shouted.  Margot continued.  Margot had indicated a preference for the public relations side of the firm and the HR lady had three account executives lined up to meet with Margot.  (You have to admire this kind of planning.  The HR lady had obviously set up the interviews in advance and told the account execs that they would probably see Margot but if Margot was not 'suitable material' she would show Margot the door and not bother the account execs.  That is a pretty good HR lady.) 

Three hour long interviews and all went well according to Margot but "you never know, you know."  Pretty smart for 22 years old.  Where did you leave it?  They'll call.  The best that could be expected. 

But one fly in the ointment.  Actually, a good fly but a fly nonetheless.  There was a message on Margot's phone--please call the HR lady at the medical support company.  By now it was past five and too late to call but things were really starting to heat up.  In a good sense but heating up nonetheless. 

Passion Has No Place In the Workplace

This is the third or fourth installment of Margot's job search straight out of college.  Troll down to see the rest.

So Tuesday was the interview day with the medical support company and Wednesday was the advertising agency interview for Margot.  Not bad but not great.  Life-long job decisions often get screwed up over day-to-day timing.  If Margot got an offer from the medical company they weren't going to want and wait around for three weeks while Margot talked to the ad agency.  They would want an answer, yes or no, now.  But first the interview.

As one of the remaining five canditates, Margot was climbing the organizational ladder.  The next, and probably final, interview was with the VP of Operations.  College career centers and any book on interviewing teach us to be aware and ready for the stealth question but it usually is something along the lines of "Where do you want to be in five years?" or "What is your greatest weakness?"  (The best answer I've heard of for the "Where do you want to be in five years?" question was "General Manager of the White Sox" which was a pretty gutsy way of saying "That's about the stupidest question I've ever heard.  Can't you do better than that?"  The guy got the job but did not become GM of the White Sox.)

The VP of Operations must have read a few books on interviewing or considered himself an amateur psychologist as he started out the interview without saying anything.  A bit disconcerting for Margot but she has her mother's ability to suffer fools so she sat there basically saying, body language wise, nice try.  I've been on the other end of this technique as well and the purpose is to make the silence so overbearing that the canditate finally can't stand it any longer and blurts out something really stupid.  The interviewer then has the advantage and the interviewee is reduced to tears. 

Discarding that ploy, the VP asked a few harmless questions and then "Tell me why you are passionate about medical care?"  Passion is another, currently in vogue, Human Resource buzzword that drives me crazy.  You have to be Passionate about your job, your industry, your calling.  If you started making random calls to major companies at 8:30 in the morning, I doubt you would find many people who would characterize themselves as passionate just at that moment.  People work to put food on the table and may become "passionate" about their jobs sometime but not likely.

More importantly, passionate people make stupid mistakes.  Passion is defined as "violent, intense, overwhelming feeling."  Just what you want in an employee, a nut.  Successful careers and successful businesses are built on calm, measured, thorough analysis and decision making.  Not on zealots running down the halls.  I've seen 'passionate' people in action and they do make an impact, usually negative, in the short run but soon burn out or are tossed out.  Passion has it place, boy does it, but not in the corporation.

So this one did catch Margot a bit off guard.  She mumbled something about world peace and got through the rest of the interview relatively unscathed.  But she didn't think so. 

Margot called, we talked and she said she basically blew the interview.  Margot has a pretty good attitude about things like this and her rationale was "I don't think I really want to work there anyway but the money was pretty good so...damn it."  A little mad, a little disappointed but basically over it and wanting to get to the next day and the interview at the advertising agency.

I was glad to see that.  I tend to agonize over what I should have said or should have done rather than just letting things go.  Not Margot.  Another personality trait inherited from her mother.  Now on to the ad agency on Wednesday. 

A Cold Lead Goes Hot

Blog Note:  This topic has turned into something of a mini-series about Margot getting her first job out of college.  If you wish to start at the beginning, scroll down to "Why A Lousy First Job Is Good For You."

I thought that Phil's lead into the Senior VP at the ad agency was our golden opportunity.  And then nothing happened.  We had the guy's e-mail and his phone number.  Margot sent an e-mail with another copy of her resume and called and got, of course, the guy's assistant.  "We will be back to you."  Nothing.  A week goes by, Margot calls me and we huddle.  Consensus--call again.  Senior Vice President assistant to Margot, "Call Human Resources."  The kiss of death.  Dutifully, Margot called HR and, of course, "We will be back to you."  I was ready to pass and go on to other things but then Phil got back in the picture.

Phil is a real busy guy running his own agency but he has the ability to focus, take action and go on as he did with Margot's resume.  And then, for some reason, he did it again.  I don't know what prompted this and the details are a little fuzzy here but just as Margot was getting nowhere I got bcc'd on another e-mail from Phil to another headhunter with a great intro on Margot and resume attached.  Then Phil bcc'd me on the response.  The headhunter knew the VP of HR at the agency in Houston and sent the resume.  Great news except HR VPs get resumes every day, every minute, and Margot's resume was already in there gathering dust.   

For whatever reason, something worked and Margot got a call.  Be here next Wednesday at 10:00am, thanks very much. 

In the meantime, Margot had another interview with the medical support company and pretty much had a lock on the job, she thought.  She didn't sound very excited.  This was on a Thursday and on Friday she got a call from the medical company for another interview next Tuesday.  They also told her they had interviewed 50 people for the job and she was in the surviving 5.  Not exactly a lock.

Next week was shaping up to be pretty exciting. 

There is one takeaway that should be noted--there are a lot assumptions going on here.  I assumed the SVP at the agency was our way in.  Not really.  I also assumed that HR would be the kiss of death.  Not really.  I assumed that I had used up all my contacts.  Not really.  Margot thought she was a lock on the medical job.  Not really.  The takeaway is DON'T assume anything.  Just keep slogging away.  This simple truth of life is taught in books and movies.  For me it was "The Little Engine That Could."  For Margot it is "Brave Little Toaster."  So when things get tough, dust off the "Brave Little Toaster" CD and get inspired.

Taxes and the Three Martini Lunch

I was having a beer the other day and thought of Jimmy Carter and taxes--certainly a sign to give up beer.  Here is what Jimmy did for taxes and martinis when he made the Three Martini Lunch part of the lexicon because of this quote in a debate in 1976.  So get in the Wayback Machine and set the dial for 1976.

"Another one that is very important is the business deductions. Jet airplanes, first-class travel, the $50 martini lunch--the average working person can't take advantage of that, but the wealthier people can."

(I don't know if younger readers are familar with Professor Peabody, Sherman and the Wayback Machine but for those who are not, they are part of the 'Rocky and Bullwinkle Show.'  The original, not that lame movie a few years ago.  Every episode Sherman and the professor would travel back in time and visit some historical event like Shakepeare writing 'Romeo and Zelda' which Sherman, of course, changed to 'Romeo and Juliet.'  Don't know about anybody else but I think I became a history major primarily because of the Wayback Machine.)

Back to the debate.  First, Jimmy's grammar wasn't very good and, two, the $50 martini lunch somehow morphed itself into the "three martini lunch."  And $50 for lunch was a lot of money back then. 

But what Jimmy was really saying was 1976 speak for 'tax breaks for the wealthy' with every Democrat channelling Jimmy ever since.  Not necessarily bad because Jimmy was right, the tax system was a mess.  The highest marginal tax rate was 50% for individuals offset by tons of dubious 'loopholes for the wealthy' like land deals, cattle deals and futures, oil deals and deals in general.  Deals were being done for tax purposes only which is the stupidest reason to do a deal.

The little guy got some breaks as well but they were also misdirected.  To offset the high marginal rate just about every kind of tax and interest charge was deductible.  Deductible items included auto loan interest, credit card interest, student loan interest, and sales tax.  The obvious reaction to this was that everybody loaded up on debt because they got a deduction.  Told you it was screwed up.   

But tax talk makes you thirsty, and bored.  So let's take a break and look into the martini as a drink since I've never had one.  Let alone three at a lunch.   

The basic martini recipe is

6 oz. of gin

5 drops of dry vermouth

2 small twists of lemon rind

2 olives

Wow.  Three of those at lunch and you wake up in a month.  Assuming you wake up.  Three drinks times 6 ounces of gin.  That's over a pound of gin.  I think.  And leads to situations as put down in verse by Dorothy Parker. 

"I like to have a martini,
Two at the very most.
After three I'm under the table,
after four I'm under my host."

For those that don't know Dorothy Parker she was a 1930's writer and columnist that is famous for the saying, "Men don't make passes at girls that wear glasses."  Sexist but kind of funny.

Back to taxes.  And Jimmy won the election.  Not because of tax reform but because Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon.  And then Jimmy really screwed things up resulting in double digit inflation and double digit interest rates and a really upset population.

And along came the Three Martini Lunch.  Resurrected by none other than Ronald Reagan.  Dutch, as he was known at our house because my dad went to college with him, knew even better than Jimmy that the tax system was screwed up and he set about to fix it.  Well, first, he had to have a recession to get rid of inflation and high interest rates but after that he rolled out the Big Martini to take the hit for the tax changes. 

And here is what he did, along with some help from some powerful Democrats.  (Try that today.) 

He chopped the top tax rate from 50% to 28% and reduced tax brackets from 14 to 2.  He eliminated most deductions. 

And he whacked the Three Martin Lunch which is why when you go to Schedule C you will see Line 24B--Meals and Entertainment and the Line 24C--Enter nondeductible amount included on line 24B (see instructions).  The nondeductible part is the martinis.

What Dutch knew instinctivly was that there had to be a shared sense of sacrifice and if some people thought giving up martinis at lunch was a sacrifice, it was good enough for him. 

And he won.  And the economy went on a twenty- year tear, thanks to sacrifice of some gin and a few olives.

Aggies

While waiting on something to come out of Phil's lead, Margot contacted the A&M job center to tell them never let that Houston recruiting company back on the university site.  She also found an open position with a medical company.  Health care is a huge, lucrative field fraught with complexity and stupidity.  I worked for Quaker Oats and we made Captain Crunch, filed the necessary documents with the FDA, advertised, sold a bunch and worried, a little, about suits over too much sugar in the product.  That was basically it.  I also worked for a pharaceutical company and health care is much more complicated because the players are the government (FDA, Social Security, Medicare), old people (AARP), companies (Merck, Pfizer), and lawyers.  Tons of lawyers.  And doctors, some of the most unorganized people on the planet.  And everybody wants some of the action.

And that's where the job opening comes in.  The business model for the company: form a network of doctors in rural Texas areas and handle the backroom operations (billing, insurance, administrative, leasing) and thus, supposedly, reduce the overall costs for the doctors letting them concentrate on 'deliverying medical care.'  A form of medical outsourcing.

The job opening was 'support coordinator' for the doctors, or as I saw it, medical babysitter.  My business law professor told us if you want to defraud somebody, try a doctor first.  Doctors study hard for a long time, then they work really long hours in some kind of medical Hell Week (I really don't want somebody diagnosing me that is sleep deprived but residents do it all the time) for starvation pay and then suddenly they are out on their own with people throwing money at them.  Also, many have a Messiah complex because they save lives, supposedly.  My own doctor is an exception being fourth generation doctor so he knew the score going in and, if truthful, would be happier as a professional golfer.  Almost good enough but not quite.

The support coordinator handles doctor complaints, organizes board meetings, drafts presentations and supports the sales team.  Not real exciting stuff but stuff that, I thought anyway, could translate into a pretty good resume after a year or so that Margot could perhaps parlay into a PR job.

And it paid--$35,000 a year, three weeks vacation, 401(k) with one to one match, basically free medical care and three blocks from her apartment.  That's a lot of pluses straight out of school, or almost straight out of school.

So Margot applied, they called and set up an interview.  The lady did let one thing drop--they only hired Aggies.  I figured this was against some Federal law but ok with me.  Got the first interview out of the way and on to the second.

No action on the ad scene but things were going to start heating up.  More on Monday.

Narrowing The Search

For anyone new to blogs, blogs run in reverse chronological order.  This week has turned into kind of a mini-series about how Margot, my daughter, broke into advertising and tips on how to go about a job search.  It starts two blogs down so go there if you want to start at the beginning.  But now... 

Like I said, looking for a job is a job.  Margot and I had our work assignments and we got started.  After getting the resume fine tuned I started thinking of people to send it to for help.  Not a very long list unfortunately.  Having once been a somewhat senior executive I once had lots of contacts and it would have gone something like this.  Call Joe in Marketing. 

"Joe, how's it going?  Hey, need a favor.  My daughter just graduated from A&M, great kid, has an interest in advertising.  Know somebody over at our agency she could talk to to get a feel for the industry?"  Done deal.  Joe makes a call and Margot gets in the door and then she does or doesn't make it on her own.  (This cronyism is not just in Big Business.  Look at the film industry and the family connections--Adam Sandler, Drew Barrymore, Angelina Jolie.  All with connections.)  But Joe doesn't give a flip about me anymore because once you are out, you are really cold.  Made a few calls but my circle is non-existent.  Except for Phil.

Phil and I were classmates in college, not regular college, but our year abroad at the University of Vienna.  We have managed to run into each other or somehow stay in contact or play golf every once in awhile over the last thirty plus years. 

And Phil is in advertising.  And he is sympathetic since he was in the same boat as Margot thirty years ago.  Somehow talked himself into an agency in Pittsburg (a friend helped there I think), learned a lot, went to J. Walter Thompson in Chicago, then New Zealand for some reason, Bangkok, Ann Arbor and Kansas City where he started his own agency specializing in hospitals.  Talk about a tough sell.

And Phil owed me a favor.  Phil knows and I know that he tried to steal a girlfriend many years ago.  Not much leverage but take what you can get.  Actually, Phil would help no matter what since he truly believes the industry needs talent and wants to help young people, a disgusting habit that grows as one gets older.

Flipped Margot's resume to Phil and he flipped it to a headhunter.  Headhunters usually could care less about resumes from recent college grads with no real experience but this one, for some reason, flipped the resume to a senior VP at the largest ad agency in Houston.  Not a slam dunk but real progress. 

In the meantime, Margot was mining the A&M underworld.  More later.