jessica lee writes.

Following Up on Henry Gates and Why It Matters To You.

the other day, i threw a post onto Fistful of Talent on the arrest of Henry Gates Jr. it was a simple post merely bringing that situation to the attention of my fellow HR and recruiting pros who didn't have it on their radar, and reminding them of the little related lesson of why we don't consider arrest records when looking at one's criminal history for employment reasons. and the issue seemed like a no brainer to me... a relevant topic... but not everyone agreed. which i have to say, i'm just a little disappointed about. the comments that came through, and the emails i received, made me sigh. over, and over again.

i know that when talking about race, you always run the risk of offending. and i know that it's never an easy topic to tackle, which is why we don't talk about it enough... so let me tackle some of the issues that came up as a result of this post.

• how is this a relevant topic for Fistful of Talent? for those who don't see the obvious tie in... let me spell it out for you. clearly. if you do criminal history checks as a condition of employment, then you should know the distinction between evaluating arrest records versus convictions and the gates story illustrates nicely how arrests can happen - easily, mistakenly or for dumb reasons. the EEOC advises against considering arrest records as certain minority groups in the U.S. are disproportionately arrested - mainly blacks and hispanics. this is a fact. this is not anecdotal. this isn't pulling the race card. and why this is troubling? because even though certain minority groups are arrested more, the arrests don't always result in the same amount of convictions. so to make it very easy for you to understand, these minority groups aren't necessarily committing crimes more and therefore being arrested more. something else is going on and this is where racial profiling comes into play.
• why is this an incident of racial profiling? with the Gates situation specifically, the caller didn't say there was a "black man" specifically breaking in.  this is true. but did the caller have to bring up race for it to be profiling? or for this to be a racial issue? not really. she made the call and then the dispatcher asked questions about the suspects' race. the fact of the matter is that so much of our bias is hidden. it's subconscious. we don't always have to blatantly say or point to color. we make snap judgments and then i think, things like this incident happen. and then they escalate, and then they become ugly.
  
• as a white woman, if the same thing happened to me (said my commenter...)  i'd gladly take it in stride. people were just doing their jobs and trying to protect the community. i think that while we don't know for sure how much race was a factor in this incident, we can all pretty much agree that if it were a white man or white woman facing a white cop, the outcome would not be the same. this wouldn't be an issue. we know through history that black men and police have a different dynamic. period. it's a fact of life. and i think if you can't admit to that fact, then you are in denial about race in the US. we're too quick to jump to conclusions about other people's situations and not look at them from the lense of the person it's happened to... and if we were to do that, admit that we don't walk in the shoes of a black man, and admit that we don't walk around carrying all of the historical context of what it's like as a black man in america - which is a lot to carry around, then i think we'd all make fewer absolutes about this being blown out of proportion, or that this isn't a race issue and that it's just coincidence that gates is black and the police officer is white. when you step back, when you look at the bigger picture, when you add in the complexity of institutional racism and years and years of tense relations between black men and the police... then this isn't so clear cut.
  
• obama is president. isn't it time to stop pulling the race card? for this statement, i almost want to scream... but it's exactly what i feared when obama was elected. a black president doesn't equate to the race problem being sovled in the US. the best analogy i can make is... if a female president were elected, would that automatically signal gender equality in the US too? would the wage gap disappear? would women then be paid the same as men for comparable jobs? there's too much history, the issue is too complex. a black president, just like a female president, doesn't solve hundreds of years of issues that are now embedded and rooted deeply, and that are sometimes institutional.
  

you may not agree with me on any of this. that's fine. i just ask for you to partake in a dialog on it though and not be scared of that. before you engage though, just do some homework. inform yourself, then come back and have a chat. as a starting point for you... a good cross section of diverse thoughts on the gates matter here on the daily beast, stanley fish on this being deja vu for gates, some good commentary on racial progress in the US, and an interesting discussion on racial profiling and how there's more being done about it than we realize publicly...

we don't talk about race enough. sometimes we talk about diversity, but we don't always talk about race. and i think in our little blogosphere made up of HR and recruiting pros, we're too nervous. we aren't ballsy enough. we don't confront these issues head on. which has left me thinking... what's stopping us? and why aren't i doing a better job of addressing the lack of dialog?

Just Another Korean Man.

i'm not really old enough to know what a big deal it was when the Berlin Wall came down. sure, intellectually i get it... but the significance and the impact of the wall tumbling down to Germans on an emotional level, i'm not sure i get. the thought dawned on me last night though - what if North Korea and South Korea were to be reunited in my lifetime? news of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il having pancreatic cancer surfacing this week brought on this thought... and should this happen in my lifetime, the only analogy i could quickly pull was that maybe it might be like my own version of the Berlin Wall coming down. can you imagine? (pictured at right, pieces of the Wall at DC's Newseum, taken by moi.)

and yet i'm a little saddened by this whole ordeal  because in all honesty, imagining this man with cancer is kind of a heart breaking thought for me. call me crazy. call me unpatriotic. go for it. i mean, i get there's some crazy shit going on over there led by him. the missile testing. the website hackings. the detention of U.S. journalists. i don't like any of it. but i hear about reports of Kim Jong Il's failing health and i see pictures, and the truth is, i can't help but to think of my dad. Kim has lost crazy weight. he's looking gaunt. he appears frail. and that's what happens with pancreatic cancer. it's what also happens with stomach cancer, which my father had.

my father's stomach cancer was caught at a reasonable point in time, kind of. he thought it was his ulcers flaring up which he dealt with a majority of his adult life, but it turned out he had stomach cancer. the first round of fighting the cancer was surgery to remove about half of his stomach. and then there was chemotherapy. after both were said and done... he weighed about 115 pounds. and he was 5 feet 9 inches. 115 pounds - that's it. it's less than what i weigh today at 5 feet 2 inches. he had lost crazy weight. he was looking gaunt. and he appeared frail - to say the least. so it was surgery followed by chemo followed by remission for a year and a half and then it came back. the cancer. and then he was gone. it happened too quickly, and unexpectedly.

so the latest news and pictures of Kim Jong Il? all i can think about is how he really looks no different from my how my father did... crazy weight loss. gaunt. frail. take away the hair, the glasses, the outfit... he's just another Korean man going through cancer because really, North Koreans don't look any different from South Koreans. they don't look any different Korean Americans, like me. and rewind 65 years ago or so... we were a single country. a Korean was a Korean was a Korean. but today, on one side of the DMZ, at the 38th parallel, you have North Koreans. on the other side, you have South Koreans. not quite separated by a wall like in Germany... but close. a single country of people, separated because of war. and how strange is that? to look across some artificial separation of states and know that there are people who look exactly like you - some likely related to you - but living starkly different lives because of circumstance.

i have no idea what will happen in North Korea once Kim Jong Il passes away. i suspect we'll see the images of the people of the North in deep mourning which everyone worldwide will mock and look at with amazement... oh, those crazy North Koreans! look at them mourning a shitty leader who starved his own nation and was eccentric. the hair! his obsession with American cinema! he was batty as hell! go for it. i can't wait to hear the mockery. and everyone will speculate what the new leader of the throne will be like - a sense of hope, maybe, for a new leader and reunification. maybe i'll get to see that in my lifetime - that would be nice. i just hope though that folks look at Kim Jong Il with some sense of empathy though. because for me? he's just another Korean man with cancer, born into unusual circumstances and made a leader in strange situations. he could have led differently, i know. but my empathy lies where it does. i've somehow separated the man from his circumstances.

Rules + Regs Won't Control Behavior. It's Inspiration + Influence.

i still can't get Thomas Friedman's last piece in the New York Times out of my head. here's where i'm stuck - Friedman quoting Dov Seidman:

“There is nothing more powerful than inspirational leadership that unleashes principled behavior for a great cause,” said Dov Seidman, the C.E.O. of LRN, which helps companies build ethical cultures, and the author of the book “How.” What makes a company or a government “sustainable,” he added, is not when it adds more coercive rules and regulations to control behaviors. “It is when its employees or citizens are propelled by values and principles to do the right things, no matter how difficult the situation,” said Seidman. “Laws tell you what you can do. Values inspire in you what you should do. It’s a leader’s job to inspire in us those values.” Right now we have an absence of inspirational leadership. From business we hear about institutions too big to fail — no matter how reckless. From bankers we hear about contracts too sacred to break — no matter how inappropriate. And from our immature elected officials we hear about how it was all “the other guy’s fault.”

doesn't that make you pause? laws tell you want you can do - but values inspire in you what you should do. now that's quite a statement - and it fits so very nicely into my attitude towards government and law... and really, it's why i have issue with proposed legislation like the Employee Free Choice Act, or the Paycheck Fairness Act, which will probably be reintroduced this year, or on a more micro and local level, certain company policies. laws and policies don't control behavior - we can only influence behavior. and when you have leaders who can positively influence and manage their influence, then you'll get the behavior you hoped for. and yes, inspiration does equate to influence in my book.

friends and some family still ask me today if i actually voted for Obama. i laugh... but i get where they are coming from. i am after all, the girl who was asked on election night if i was getting misty eyed out of sadness or joy. no one could figure out what was going on in this head of mine (me included - what conflict that night!). but to be clear, there were two reasons i voted for our President, the biggest reason being that i was inspired. i saw how he so clearly moved people to act. and during the campaign i was touched by how his ability to stir people and get them interested in politics and civil service. it was so amazing to me how he mobilized so many people who despised or were disinterested in our political landscape. even if i didn't agree with him completely from a values standpoint, his inspiration, and ability to influence, seemed more important. people began caring about and taking action within our communities and our country like nothing else. so that's how much inspiration matters, and that's how powerful influence is to me. what does it mean to you though?

Token Black Guy.

not to be a total cynic... but i have been wondering if Michael Steele would have been appointed as chairman of the RNC pre-Obaman? i have to go back and do some homework about candidates for that gig in the past... but in electing a new G.O.P. chairman, this time around, there were two black candidates for the seat, Steele and Kenneth Blackwell. and i just wonder if it's coincidence or not. i'm all about more color, and the G.O.P. could definitely use some more color... but i want people to be selected/elected based on their merits. 

it's cool to see that Obama could be, may be opening the door for other people of color - but i just hope it won't become trendy or be seen as a necessity to have your token person of color at the helm. yep, i said it. 

The Inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama.

totally unreal. i don't know what else to really say about the inauguration - i'm still digesting and taking it all in. getting down to the mall for the inauguration was madness. there were people everywhere.

and it was a slightly strange experience because you knew everyone had the same purpose - to get down to the inauguration. i'm not sure i've ever been in the middle of anything like that, where while in movement, we all had a completely common purpose. nice, yeah? and everyone was definitely in great spirits. it was celebratory.

the walk down to the mall was long; roads were closed. everyone had to funnel onto the National Mall through a single entry point on 18th and Constitution - but once you made it - the sheer mass of people was amazing. people carried forward past the Monument to get closer to the Capitol.



and once things filled up a bit more... the site was even more amazing. it was completely jam packed.

i had a hard time taking photographs at the event - i struggled because i'm short, for one (and wasn't wearing heels!). but that aside, the inauguration was a deeply personal and moving experience for so many who made the trek down to the National Mall. i heard and saw the crying - and for some reason, it just felt wrong capturing their moment with my lens. i know that this means so much more to many others than it does for me. i share in the joy. i'm happy and i'm hopeful for what the Obama administration will bring. and still, completely surreal but amazing to me is that we have our first Black President of the United States of America! but this means more to others, so i've gotta respect that, and them.

the images from geoeye-1/google earth show just how many people packed down onto the Mall - and somewhere in the middle of all of this, we were there. and i wouldn't have traded it for anything else. i hope you enjoyed it as well.

Obama's Cabinet: Team of Rivals, All-Star Team?

i was watching charlie rose earlier with rahm emanuel as his guest. sounds like a snore, i know... but i don't know much substantive about rahm. sure, he's missing half of one of his middle fingers. they call him "rahmbo" because of his aggressive nature. and he's a yeller. he used to be a ballet dancer. his brother is the inspiration for ari gold of entourage. but there's gotta be more to the guy if he's been appointed to Obama's chief of staff, right? 

the role of chief of staff is a big deal. wikipedia describes the job duties as being part advisory, part managerial including responsibilities such as selecting key White House staff and supervising them, structuring the White House staff system and controlling the flow of people into the Oval Office. isn't that a helluva job description? and those are just a partial list of duties. he's got some big people management responsibilities on his hands but making the job even bigger, i think, are the specific people he's going to be having to manage, even if indirectly. 


i've heard people talk about the cat fights that will ensue given Obama's cabinet is an impressive cast of characters... you've got Hillary, and Daschle, Axelrod and Gates for starters... and Charlie Rose asked about how he plans to manage that crew, inferring the large egos and whatnot... and his answer stuck with me. he said whether you considered it to be a team of rivals or all-star team, either way, it's a team and the team is what is most important. good stuff, don't you think? learn more about your new chief of staff and what makes him an effective leader here.

It's Not About Race, It's About Skills + Qualifications.

there has been so much talk about race lately. and it's heating up even more. i'm part of the chatter too. i know. scroll down and listen to me blab for six minutes on Obama and race relations. i can't stop talking about race though because people keep saying and doing nutty things. another case in point? Congressman Bobby Rush. and he's got it so wrong. 

last week, he made the case for Roland Burris being appointed as Obama's successor to the open Senate seat calling it an issue of "tremendous national importance." kind of a dramatic statement. but he went on further saying, "There are no African-Americans in the Senate and I don't think anyone - any U. S. Senator that's sitting in the Senate right now wants to go on record to deny one African-American from being seated in the U.S. Senate." really? seriously? you're going to make this about race?

make the appointment of Burris an issue of race and you cheapen any argument that race is still an issue in the US. but maybe even worse, you diminish Burris' value and worth. if the seat should be his, make the argument that he's the most qualified. tell us that he's the best man for the job. don't give it to him because he's black though. no one wants a handout. and afterall, that's what pisses people off about affirmative action, right? race doesn't belong in the argument. there's no question that there's a need for more black senators. i want an asian senator, damnit! but you can't guilt people into accepting candidates for a seat in the Senate, or candidates for a job, just because they are black, or asian, or a woman. we've all got to earn our roles. 

PS, there's a great op-ed in the Chicago Sun Times today on this whole debaucle. find it here.

Tiger Woods is to Golf Like Obama is to...

tiger woods is to golf like obama is to politics. make sense? go get your coffee. make sure you're alert for this one. i'm talking about race. 

Are the Best Always the Brightest? Do Degrees Matter That Much?

there's been plenty of talk about the diversity of President-Elect Obama's picks for cabinet posts and key policy positions. we have a lot to be proud of when you look at the optics of his team. but in looking at his all-star cast, there has also been a bit of chatter about a different kind of diversity, or rather, a lack thereof... said the Washington Post:

All told, of Obama's top 35 appointments so far, 22 have degrees from an Ivy League school, MIT, Stanford, the University of Chicago or one of the top British universities. For the other slots, the president-elect made do with graduates of Georgetown and the Universities of Michigan, Virginia and North Carolina.

it's an impressive group of folks he's assembling, no doubt. but the talk of him pulling together so many who have come from such elite backgrounds - big thinkers with "dazzling resumes" as the Post quipped - makes me wonder... how accessible is it going to be in the future to "serve"? and do degrees matter that much?

last week, i wrote on Fistful of Talent about how college educations are becoming near impossible to afford with the NY Times recently reporting that there's been an increase in college tuition of 439 percent from 1982 to 2007. and in the meantime, the median family income has only risen 147 percent - and that's not going to get better in this economy. add in the fact that higher ed institutions' endowments are suffering (you saw Harvard losing $8 billion right?)... and inevitably, tuition will rise even higher.  it's scary thinking about how on earth i'm going to send my (possible) future kids to school... and beyond that, i just wonder what kind of message it sends to average me who went to a state school... can i be part of the "best and brightest" if i didn't go to an ivy league? and what kind of message does it send to future generations for whom college may become impossible to afford?

i don't want to minimize the intellect and validity of Obama's choices - i'm sure all of them are highly qualified and i look forward to seeing what they do on the job... but i can't help but to go on a bit of a rant this morning... it's particularly trouble-some too when you have kids and parents in thousands and tens of thousands of dollars in debt because of the cost of education. sure, we can bail out Detroit and Wall Street... but i think the ultimate bailout would be to forgive college loans. let me stop my monthly payments to the Department of Education... and i'll take that money and in turn, stimulate the economy. bah humbug!

to get practical though - here is some good advice for looking beyond degrees from Michael McKinney at the Leadership Now Blog. he suggests that "name-brand" degrees may mean that these students are better at taking tests and figuring out what the professor wants - skills that won't get them very far in the workplace today. of course, we can't make generalizations across the board about anyone coming out of any specific school or kind of school - but i'm all for us all taking a step back, and thinking critically about it the issue.

McKinney also talks about the seven survival skills that schools aren't teaching and beyond that, he also suggests from a recruiting perspective, to do the following to evaluate candidates - and this of course extends to those with or without name brand degrees:

• First, listen carefully for the kinds of questions the applicant asks. Are they probing? Insightful? Do they suggest that the applicant has really prepared for the interview by trying to understand your business? Do you feel as though you or your company are being interviewed? If so, that's a very good sign.

• How a perspective employee asks these questions matters, as well. Does he or she listen carefully and engage you in discussions? Is the potential new hire both interested and interesting? In addition to the ability to ask good questions, senior execs told me that the ability to "look someone in the eye and engage in a thoughtful discussion" is an essential competency for working with colleagues and understanding customers' needs.

• Finally, perhaps the most important question you might ask is, "what do you want to learn or how do you want to grow in this job?" This question is essential for two reasons: First, the quality of the answer will tell you how reflective this individual is -- and how intentional he or she may about his or her own development. More than any specific skill, individuals must want to learn, grow.

good stuff. i'm done complaining for now... funny how education has been on my mind of late quite a bit... hmmm.

Lobbying Is Not a Dirty Word.

really - lobbying isn't a dirty word. congress gets lobbied about education, workers rights, healthcare reform, the environment, you name it! yet lobbying gets such a bad, bad rap. by definition, lobbying is simply the practice of influencing decisions made by government. 

i read a great article in the Washington Post a while back, Mickey Goes to Washington, that shed some little known light into what the world of lobbying in DC is really like. i think it's a good read. and while we're on the topic of lobbying, i guess the little grassroots effort i'm undertaking to get the word out about why the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) is bad news is essentially lobbying. the end goal of this project is not to educate HR pros, folks in the business community, your neighbor and your mom about the EFCA but rather to prompt people to take action after they've been educated by reaching out to their elected official(s) on how they sould vote on the EFCA. 

i had a great brainstorm this morning with some communications folks for the Chamber of Commerce's Workforce Freedom Initiatve. check out the interesting stuff they are doing here. they gave me some new direction and ideas for where to take this little effort of mine. we also brainstormed slogans and logos and messages... and i came up with this mock/draft logo or badge that i might incorporate into the campaign:

whaddya think? i'm going to play with slogans, messages and themes a bit more... but i like this because really, there is no choice involved in the organizing process if the EFCA were to pass and become law. it strips 49% of your workforce of the right the vote about whether to organize, and it also eliminates secret voting. make sense? it becomes easier for your workplace to become unionized - but it strips your employees of the choice! 

while i'm on this topic... i'm trying to figure out where SHRM is in all of this. their labor relations section has some decent stuff on there. their advocacy/government affairs pages have minimal info... but this blog cites that SHRM is against the EFCA. if that's the case though, why aren't they mobilizing their members and lobbying? it's been nothing but crickets, crickets, crickets from them... totally baffling. more on this all later...

Your Workplace Under the Obama Administration.

do you know how your workplace might change under the Obama administration? one of the big pieces of legislation that has the potential to pass into law that would have the greatest impact on the workplace is the Employee Free Choice Act. sounds like a nice piece of law, but watch below for some scoop.

some of my blogging colleagues have also written some good bitty's about the EFCA, so check out some of those pieces here, here, here, and really great stuff here. also, peep this presentation that was given in a webinar i dialed in to today given by some of the attorneys at Davis Wright Tremaine.

there's more to come on this topic so stay tuned - i'm not done talking about it!

Wanna Work for Obama? Part II.

going back to wanting to work for obama... hitting the stands is The Plum Book. for folks outside of DC, this is the politico's every-four-years-job-seeker's bible. it is a 200+ page bitty that lists all the jobs that will become available with each new administration. as i mentioned previously, there are thousands of roles that will be filled by political appointment... and then there are others. all told, the book has some 8000 opportunities listed. nuts? yeah, but there's a market for this book. the cool thing is that the book also lists the levels/paygrades of the folks holding the listed roles... so it's like a DC-ist's version of vault or glassdoor. you can take a gander o the book online here.

for recruiters in the DC area who hire politicos... it's a cold-calling dream. all these folks are likely on the market now, or are going to be soon once the transition wraps up. if you're networked in DC, you likely already know many of these playres. it's still a good resource though. does that mean it's easy to navigate through the book? not so much... it is afterall, a government publication... so if you can understand what the heck to do with it, see the snapshot below, more power to you. but maybe with obama as president, he'll help automate some of this and use web 2.0 in this venture four years from now... i'd love to see that happen!

Wanna Work for Obama? Apply Online!

so obama has won the presidential election and already, the lines are forming to work for him. as soon as change.gov hit, in DC, we heard the most clamored after webpart was the jobs/career section and that the overwhelming traffic had actually broken the site a few times. good stuff. i love the idea that obama as president is (possibly) inspiring a new generation into civil service. folks want to work for the federal government because they want to be closer to obama and help in create change? awesome. the federal government could use some new blood.

for those who are under consideration for cabinet and other high-ranking posts... it won't be as simple as applying online though. you are about to go through a pretty deep vetting process... according to the New York TImes,

"The questionnaire includes 63 requests for personal and professional records... [Candidates] must include any e-mail that might embarrass the president-elect, along with any blog posts and links to their Facebook pages. The application also asks applicants to 'please list all aliases or ‘handles’ you have used to communicate on the Internet.' "

wow! now that's something new. obama wants to know what you've been saying online and where you've been saying it. now that's impressive and progressive, wouldn't ya say? would be candidates also are being asked to disclose:

• affiliations to freddie and fannie, AIG, wamu and any other institution receiving a gov bailout

• the immigration status of any domestic help they may have

• copies of EVERY resume or bio issued in the past ten years

and just to cover all their bases, candidates also have to provide "any other information, including information about other members of your family, that could suggest a conflict of interest or be a possible source of embarrassment to you, your family, or the president-elect." oh yeah, and they also have to disclose "the most controversial matters you have been involved with during the course of your career." talk about a vetting process! 63 questions/requests! you can bet they aren't using an ATS to gather all that data (or are they?).

i'd never make it through that process but cheers to those who are good enough to pass all those hurdles. i think a new sherriff is in DC, y'all. impressive stuff...

I <3 David Choe.

i like david choe's stuff. he's wild and crazy. and here's a piece he did of obama a while back:

*image stolen from david choe's website. read about it by clicking on that link... back there.

Recruiting in DC Post-Election. It's All Politics.

back in june, the justice department had come under fire for "illegal hiring." recaps of the issue can be found here or here. essentially, the gist was that folks at the JOD had illegally used “political or ideological” factors to hire new staff using methods including tapping law schools with conservative leanings, or weeding out individuals whose resumes demonstrated a liberal bent.

maybe being in DC has jaded me a bit when it comes to politics... but i was surprised that this was such big news to anyone. and maybe i thought this was just always an unspoken thing we all knew, but DC is a political machine and whoever occupies the oval office, i figure there's a natural trickle down to all agencies. not to say that it's right that agencies and departments would overtly weed out people of the opposite political party or with conflicting values and beliefs... but people gravitate towards like-minded or similar people. if you have two individuals who are equally qualified to do a job, chances are you'll hire the one who is more like you because you like them better and it's a better fit. then there's the issue of referrals... let's say someone is a political appointee... you have 1600+ individuals in the federal government appointed into roles who forgo senate confirmation or a traditional federal hiring process - and these are all high-level folks who will inevitably have staff of their own they want to bring in or will need to hire with deep networks and plenty of candidate referrals to make... the trickle down effect is large. i think people in DC know the drill and it's also why there are suddenly a lot of republicans on the job market.

my firm happens to do a fair amount of political work so we get a decent amount of traffic from politicos who are looking for new gigs. we also had plenty of folks sent our way when primary campaigns were winding down. the NY Times shifting careers blog did a good job a week ago of outlining how a politico transitions out... and i thought i'd add a bit on why hiring politicos who are coming off a campaign or coming out of the government is a great idea:

• campaign life is fast paced and frenzied. it takes a lot of blood, sweat, tears and flexibility to work a campaign. you also have to be committed and dedicated. the media machine is 24/7, and you are essentially a slave to that. the travel schedule is frenetic and demanding. you are constantly on the go, you sleep little... but you learn a whole helluva lot about yourself and your (never ending) limits.
• campaigns pay dirt, or nothing, and candidates generally expect less coming in the door. of course, pay them what they deserve and should earn, but expectations are generally easier to deal with.
• politicos are well connected. they come with amazing networks of smart, politically savvy contacts.

it's an interesting time to be in DC right now as a recruiter. you've got a relatively massive, shifting workforce of talented individuals... which has got me thinking that someone should start a makeshift recruiting agency to farm out some of this awesome talent that is hitting the market right now. it would be an once-every-four-years shop that set up and shut down depending on what happens during presidential elections... but it would seem like there's a market for that business model, no? not that i have any plans to enter the 3rd party recruiting world of course...

ONTJ Training, POTUS Style & Hello Big Apple.

something is wrong with the whole gig of president of the united states of america. bush and obama are spending some time together today but it's mostly formalities. the new first family gets a tour of the digs by the current first family. the outgoing potus and the incoming potus will spend some time talking it up... but i don't think there will be any substantive on-the-job-training happening between the two today. isn't that kinda the ideal situation in real life? outgoing person trains the incoming person on the ropes? having some kind of overlap is always nice. sure, the newbie is going to do things differently - obama will repeal some of bush's more controversial executive orders, stem cell research being one big thing on that list -  but there's always the matter of teaching the new person all those things that weren't spelled out nicely for them when he or she started, or all those things that aren't really written down anywhere per se, but things that you've gotta know to be successful on the job... i honestly think the two men are grown enough to be able to put aside their differences and spend some more time together than just this friendly exchange today. perhaps someone can come up with a better on-the-job-training/transition program?

anyhoo, enough of that. i've been in new york for the past few days having a glorious time. i'm working in my new york office today - and here's the lovely view from my guest office:

i have another 30 hours or so in town before i'm back to the D.C. time has flown by while here, and i think i might have a little trouble pulling myself away this apple.

Obama, and Morocco.

i was in morocco about a year ago and while in Fez, i had a tour guide who was very interested in U.S. politics. that's him pictured above, taking a break in front of the royal palace in Fez.

much to my surprise, he asked me about Obama at one point during the day. he knew i lived in DC an wanted to talk a bit about American politics. in particular, he wanted to know if i thought Obama had a chance. think about that. over 3900 miles from my home, in Fez, Morocco, i was being asked about Obama - before he had defeated Hillary, and certainly way before he defeated McCain. Obama was on the radar of this young man a year ago, as he commented how exciting it would be for him to see America with a black president. i was in awe of how far Obama's reach was then - and i can only imagine how far his reach will be going forward.

i thought about our tour guide last night... and i wondered what he'd wake up thinking this morning after he learned that Obama had won the election. i know he'd be excited, and hopeful, as am i... but i also have many mixed emotions about this all. i'm disappointed with the disrespect towards McCain i saw last night. and i'm worried that people will be disallusioned and think that Obama being elected means that race relations are "cured." sadly, i believe that Obama doesn't mean that the race problem in the U.S. has been fixed. and it doesn't mean that we've "arrived" as a nation. there's still a lot of work that needs to be done and this is a starting point. more on this topic later.

i do want to say thanks to all who worked so hard on both campaigns. the get out the vote efforts, the tireless campaigning... regardless of who you worked for, i appreciate your diligence, and zeal.