Book Review: Power - Why Some People Have it and Others Don't @JeffreyPfeffer

Power: Why Some People Have it and Others Don't by Jeffrey Pfeffer

Once again, I find myself at a book that I ended up reading just at the right time in my life when I needed it. I wish I had read it a decade ago, but I might not have been as receptive. I just recently left an organization that highly prized, nay, demanded collaboration. "For the good of the organization" was drilled into you. Do good and you will be rewarded, probably now and certainly in the life to come. Yes, we were a Christian organization believing we were doing the work of God. Probably were. But certain unhealthy ways of thinking had crept in over the decades and, well, I'm still under contract not to say much about that until at least next February.

The premise of this book is that no one else is looking out for you - you need to create environment within which you can be successful in both the large and small things. This ties in nicely with The 10x Rule (My Review) - relentlessly push forward. It may, at times, feel selfish, but no one else is going to do it for you. And as much as people say they may have hierarchy and politics, they are a part of the modern office and if you want to get ahead, you must learn to play them. This is the ultimate "bring me solutions, not problems" - only in this case, you're both the sender and receiver - you make your success or you do not have success. No time for what's blocking you, all your effort needs to be going where you're unblocked, even if that's at some other job. More than ever, we are Human Resources, not people.

Harsh, but true.

I don't see a need to belabor the point. I would recommend this book to people at any point in their careers. I would especially recommend it to people who have felt left behind or people who are by nature introverts. Some people are happy to be left alone to put their heads down and work. But if you're feeling any discontent or frustration or watching anyone else get ahead because they "play the game" - guess what, you need to play it, too.

In the end, the author shows a scientific, statistically-controlled correlation because those with people and those who felt powerless and mortality rates - that without power, you will also die sooner.


Power: Why Some People Have It-and Others Don't (Amazon)

Are you KIDDING me?!??!?!

Jury duty.

Well, I guess nothing can be worse than having to drive from the valley to Beverly Hills every day for jury duty. But still...

Dark Day

Well, this is just turning out to be a banner day.

5:30 am... music. snooze. cha-chunk. whirrrrrrr..... silence. Barely a chance to wake up and BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP. Yes, that's right, Puget Sound Energy dropped us off grid again. Forced energy conservation. Great. Now my clock radio (backup battery.. brilliant and painful) and the security alarm are letting us know simultaneously that I need to get up and that the power is out. The houses behind us who we thought were on Tacoma City were dark and and in the other direction didn't see lights until SeaTac, but it was still early.

Showered in the dark, that's cool. Stumbled around in the dark knocking stuff over. Cut myself some banana bread in the kitchen. Went down and rode the exercise bike. No lights, no Squawk Box, no WiFi. So I sat in the dark riding and playing, ironically, Minesweeper. Which I suck at and could not play for days and days.

Got dressed, manually opened both garages and put the cars in the drive and then headed out. Up to the FW/Tacoma intersection and the gas station has power. The last outage told me to fill the car's gas tank immediately. No wallet. So, on to work. Remember that there's at least food in my cube so I'll have lunch. (Didn't bring lunch - last outage told me not to open the refrigerator if I didn't need to.)

Despite my efforts to be a calmer driver, I did have to honk and flash my lights at someone. Even though it did no good. It was an impromptu 4-way on a dead red and she was refusing to get up there and take her turn. She should have stayed home.

I hear on the radio that it's localized to 10,000 homes along the arterial I'll be taking. So I cut over and drive through as many parking lots as I can, skipping a lot of 4-ways. Was great, though in retrospect, should one race through empty parking lots without one's wallet? Eh.

Get to work and realize that the stupid health screening is today for the health insurance and we weren't supposed to eat for 8 hours before. Today would have been the perfect day to do that. I should have just gone up and had it done anyway, then I would have looked really good at my follow-up. But I know they'd ask and I don't want to lie. I also don't want to go 8 hours without eating which is somewhat of a sad thing to say when I work here where despite our efforts and all the resources of our wonderful donors children still die at a rate of 4 a minute in Africa due to a lack of food or clean water.

So now I need to resched.

I tried to just vent on Twitter and get it out of my system but all it did was wipe out my post from last night. It's being a jerk today.

Well, I guess at this point there's nothing to do but go grab a nice hot cup of coffee and smile at it.

Bright spot... Amazon now say "March 27-April 30" as the estimated delivery date for our new new cell phones and gave us a DHL tracking code. DHL says today.

California DMV: Red Tape from Hell

The level of uselessness astounds me.

In January of 2006, I renewed my tabs. We moved in March. It pained me to pay a full year when I knew I was moving, but I wanted to stay legal and there's no such thing as a partial payment.

In March of 2006, we moved. Lori received a notice of renewal, forwarded to our new address. We checked the box "Moved out of State" and wrote down "Washington." I'm not sure we provided them with our new address. We also noted that it applied to my car, including license plate number and VIN.

In June of 2006, Lori got the "Notice of Delinquent Renewal" with assessed penalties and the bill for Planned Nonoperation and threats of collection. She called and went around and around on the phone with them, again also mentioning my car. Ultimately she had to mail in a statement to the fact that the cars had been registered in another state and provide proof of that registration.

In August, we started receiving political advertisements at our Washington state address. By the buckets. Several a day. They went on until a week or two after the elections.

In January of 2007, I got a renewal notice for my car. I checked the box "Moved out of State" and wrote down "Washington" and returned the form.

This week, I got the "Notice of Delinquent Renewal" with assessed penalties, threats of collections, etc., etc., etc. I called the 1-800 number. It doesn't take too many keypresses to get to the operator, but if they're not on duty yet, it just asks you to call back during normal business hours without actually informing you as to what those hours are. I finally talked to someone who demanded a faxed copy of my registration without letting me finish my story in the first place.

I sat and fumed for awhile and then called back. As soon as I was connected, I asked to speak to a supervisor. He said "Supervisor... hmm... what did you need?" I sighed and began to explain it to him. After awhile he said "Hang on a second." and set the phone down on this desk noisily. It was quiet for awhile, then I heard a printer, then it was quiet again. Then he picked up and said "I found someone." After more silence, Gloria picked up. I asked her how much the operator had told her. She said that he had handed her the printout and then she asked me to again give my license plate number and details to confirm I was me.

I told my story again and she explained that there was nothing she could do because I was talking to the "Campbell office" and I had sent the form to the "Sacramento office." and that she was willing to help me clear this up. I explained (again) that I understood all that but was trying to communicate that there was a larger problem, that someone who was processing renewal forms wasn't doing their job. She again explained that she was in the "Campbell office" and not the "Sacramento office." I tried to explain that maybe she could tell someone. She offered to give me a 916-area-code phone number so I could call the "Sacramento office" with my concern.

In the end, she offered that I could mail it to her if I didn't want to fax it. I liked that idea much better because I figured she would be more likely to get it and that I trust the US Postal Service more than whoever happens to walk by the fax machine in the Campbell office. ("like the soup!" she said, as a way of avoiding spelling it. I bet she wishes the street name was spelled "Daryl" so she could have said "Like the movie!")

We're government. We don't have to be smart, efficient, or customer-centric. Thankfully, government is one arena I've never been employed by and hopefully never will.

Will we have to go through all this again in 4 years when our California drivers licenses expire?

Is This Thing On?

Ugh... 89 hours. In some ways, not a long time. But when you're up against a monolith of non-help, it can seem like an eternity. This time, the monolith was Puget Sound Energy, a true Prince of Darkness.

On Thursday night we had a wicked, wicked windstorm. I guess I knew it was coming, but I had no idea. Depending on who you talk to, it was a 10-year storm or a 100-year storm. New wind records were reached at Sea-Tac airport and at least 100 flights were canceled, delayed or diverted. Many poorly constructed (or neglected and in need of replacement) fences blown over. One well constructed fence (by my dad and I, only about five months ago) was all twisted out of shape.

Hopefully it was only a 10-year storm because there were also 10-year storms in 1993 and 1994. (Though one of those might have also been a 100-year storm. Again, depends on who you talk to.)

Anyhow, it was an amazing storm to listen to and we knew, laying there, that it was only a matter of time before we lost power. And then we laid there listening to the thunder, rain, wind, trees falling and watching the flashes of lightning. Work was optional for the next day with our corner of the second floor being one of a few spots in either building that was operational on generator power. I opted to stay home and they kicked everyone out at noon.

We thought we could just head east and find a place beyond the storm's path, a small town where we might get a meal, and as it turned out, get some gas. We instead found a small town with no power and huge lines for the town's single gas station, who had the intelligence to have a generator running and who fortunately still had working phone lines (with which to take credit cards). Unfortunately, we weren't sure we had the gas to wait in the line so we bought a gas can and I stood in line. Well, all three of us did, but the sympathy vote didn't play out and no one offered to let us sit in their car. Turns out the sympathy vote had played out, it just took a nice couple from Ellensburg awhile to move all their luggage so by the time the guy had crawled into the front seat and rolled the window down, I was there alone. But, a really nice gesture.

I got gas, went back and put in the gas and we headed back to the Super(ha)Mall which had power. We had a nice meal, walked around a lot, had Blizzards and walked around a lot more.

We then went home. My parents suggested we come to their house, but it was after dark, we were without power and didn't have enough gas in the car to go looking for a working gas station. That night we all hunkered down in the living room with lots of blankets in front of the fireplace. We burned through all the wood we had and still woke up to 45 degree temperatures. It had been a long, long, long, cold and dark night.

to be continued tomorrow... (There are still people out there without power. If you know anyone who needs a place to stay, please call us.)