“I like working with customers who are making the new rules’of work. So most of my clients are in high tech or new media sectors. I am not good at working with people in institutions who [merely?] want to improve the efficiency of existing systems.” – anonymous freelancer quoted at the Strengths Foundation
Three Rules
October 31, 2010 By Leave a Comment
“Three rules of work: Out of clutter find simplicity; From discord find harmony; In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” – Einstein These are good rules. If I had to limit myself to three, they’d be: If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing as work. Whenever you discover you’re wrong or going the wrong way, [...]
I inc, therefore I am
October 31, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Juxtapositions – Learning Perception on its Head
October 6, 2010 By Leave a Comment
I recently made a little chart distinguishing a few common perceptions from contrasting facts on the ground. It occurred to me that these are related somehow, that something lies in them to be learned: Portland, Oregon is widely considered to be one of the hardest cities in the US on small businesses, due to taxes, [...]
Three Eras of Work
July 19, 2010 By Leave a Comment
I’ve been through three generations of work, so far, in my lifetime. The bootstrap era, the authoritarian era, and the era of free agents. The Bootstrap Era: When I was young and jobless, seemingly talentless, and officially skill-less, my grandparents would describe the world of work: You go where they’re hiring, you do what they’re [...]
Employment, Robbery, and Sacrificial Koolaid
June 3, 2010 By Leave a Comment
The assumption of employment is all around us. I’m not knocking employment. Quite the contrary: Image via Wikipedia Rule of Work: Your work is not the venue. Whether your work is best conducted as an employee, contractor, entrepreneur, or volunteer, pursue the venue where you can derive from your work all the meaning you are [...]
Supreme Court Rapes the Free World. Again.
January 22, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Usually, I won’t make political comments, but in this case, they’ve walked into territory we’ve claimed as our own, so here goes: Image via Wikipedia The latest move by the Supreme Court to lift all corporate limits on campaign contributions is clearly aimed at preventing a repeat of the Obama election, who didn’t put them [...]
No Mortgage for Freelancers?
December 15, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Your local NPR or public radio station “The Take Away” is running talk about how freelancers are treated unreasonably (I’d say prejudicially) for mortgage loan applications vs. job holders. Got an offer letter or a couple of pay stubs from a job? You’re on the fast track for refinance or a new mortgage. Freelancer? They [...]
Action Items: The Joys of Slicing Cheese
December 12, 2009 By Leave a Comment
A colleague and I are constructing a new type of organization, and at times at the outset I felt overwhelmed and a bit paralyzed. It comes with having an enormous vault of ideas, and a need for speed, while needing also to quickly put up an infrastructure (in this case a marketing infrastructure) that is [...]
The 2-minute Resignation Letter
December 9, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Here it is, time to write another resignation letter for a family member. This is sort of my role in our family. The reasons for leaving are employer incompetence, but naturally I reach for the most tiny, most dull, most trivial format there is. Yes, I’d like to say, “you people are tards who are [...]
Blog vs. Debt
December 2, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Designated Theme Video
November 8, 2009 By Leave a Comment
[This video] has been chosen as the official theme video of the Rules of Work blog. Steve Pruneau added the following: It taps into everything you ever thought, felt and said about not “fitting in” when employed by a company. This video makes me think about… People who are smart but don’t do well in a [...]
Shopping for Employees
October 11, 2009 By Leave a Comment
I’ve noticed a lot of people describing getting several interviews, even multiple interviews in person, only to get a form letter rejection. Sure, sometimes it’s a fake listing. Employers do it all the time – a listing to invite external candidates when really an internal one is what they want. Often, it’s that they have [...]
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