Let me guess: you’re really an entrepreneur at heart; you’re just temporarily stuck in this corporate job, right? One of these days you’re going to bust out of cubicle hell and make a break for the Gen Y holy of holies, owning your own business. And it’s going to be awesome. You’ll be your own boss and you’ll run your company so much cooler than the corporation you’re just biding your time at now. I know. Trust me, I know.

In the meantime, you’re cranking away in front of your PC from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., fearing layoffs and keeping an impatient eye on the recession economy.

Here’s the thing though: you shouldn’t just be biding your time in your stuffy corporate job. I found in high school and college that the level of my education was entirely up to how much I wanted to learn. I’ve always been one for making the most out of a less-than-ideal situation, and my corporate job is no exception.

I do my job like it’s my own business. I run it like a business, like a separate entity that provides a service to the corporation I work for. I’ve heard it called “innerpreneur” or “interpreneur.” When people ask who I answer to, my boss tells them that I’m like my own little company. Of course, I still answer to him, have to keep regular business hours, only get my allotted 10 vacation days, etc. But he considers me to fairly independent.

Just like in school, I have two options: I can do what’s needed to get by, or I can make the best of it and really learn something useful. Even if you have a lot of built-in structure in your role, you can still take your position and see how to run it like your own company. It’s great practice for when you finally do have your own company, and your superiors will start to be a lot like my parents were when I was in school – they’ll give you more and more freedom as they see you handling it on your own.

What services do you provide?
The most important question you will ask yourself as an entrepreneur is, what am I providing? As an innerpreneur, you need to ask the same question. As a marketing research analyst, I provide accurate, timely research to my clients that is easy-to-understand and useful in their roles.

Who are your “clients”?
As an entrepreneur you will need to determine who your target consumer or client is. In your corporate job, you also have “clients” – those people who consume your services. It might be a certain department or set of departments; it might be your boss. In my corporate role, my “clients” are the advertising departments of four regional branches of our company, as well as smaller clients in other departments.

Have a marketing plan.
By now you’ve certainly been given the advice to “sell yourself” or “toot your own horn.” I never really understood what people meant by that. Was I supposed to run around telling people how wonderful I was at my job? Not quite. I figured this out during the recession when I saw my industry making sweeping layoffs. I knew I needed to sell my position. I set to work selling my services to my clients. I made a list of the services I provided and the benefits to my clients. In other words, I started emailing the managers of the advertising departments and talking directly with the account executives about what I could do to help them do their jobs better.

I do seasonal marketing. I send emails during the holidays (a busy selling period) letting the advertising departments know how I can save them time, and I use the slower periods to extol the virtues of our planning software and my training opportunities. It works. That’s how you sell yourself, and avoid layoffs.

What are your profits and losses?
As the owner of a company, you’re going to get pretty familiar with P&Ls (profits and losses). This is basically a ledger of what’s coming in and what’s going out. I like to think of this process as doing a return on investment (ROI) on my position. Your salary is your “losses” – that’s how much your “business” is spending every year. It’s probably hard to quantify your “profits” – that’s how much you bring in for the company. You probably don’t have a revenue-producing role; it’s most likely more indirect. As a research analyst, I can tie my role to revenue through the research I provide to our advertising department to facilitate sales. Try to think of your position in terms of this. The closer you can tie yourself to revenue, the more secure your job will be.

Are your “clients” satisfied?
Just like I would in my own café (that’s the business I hope to one day own), I check up with my clients to see if they’re satisfied with the services I’m providing. I check in with managers, account executives, my boss, and our corporate offices regularly to see if they’re getting everything they need from me when they need it. I ride out on sales calls periodically to see my product used in the field, and I survey my clients to see what’s missing. I go back to my boss or corporate offices when necessary and/or make adjustments accordingly.

Is there a more efficient way to do this?
One thing we all say we’ll do when we own our companies is cut out all the red tape. If you’re in a publicly traded corporation, there’s only so much you can do (thank you, Sarbane-Oxley) to cut out certain kinds of bureaucracy. But you can eliminate inefficiencies in your role. The four branches I provide services for were running the same report four different ways. I found a way to streamline, and our corporate offices are considering adopting the changes across all 14 branches we own now.

Have a processes manual.
Good god, I do a lot of stuff. I run various weekly, quarterly, twice-yearly and yearly reports. Some need feedback from my “clients” and the rest are run from five different databases. There are processes for running those reports, training new executives, organizing research studies, cleaning up databases, updating research slides, ad nauseum. There’s no way I can keep all that straight in my head. And what happens if I get promoted, laid off, hit by a bus, or move to another company? I’ll have to spend my last two weeks trying to do a brain dump the size of a small country. So, I keep a processes manual. I record how I run this or that report, what it’s used for, who needs it, how often, etc. I also keep track of the flow of these processes. How do the requests for services come in, to whom do they travel when they are completed?

Have job descriptions.
If you’re thinking of running your own show one day, you’ll need to read “E-Myth Revisited.” In it Michael Gerber talks about how even if you’re a one-man show for a while, one day you don’t want to be. You will play a nominal role in your company (if you so choose), watching it run like a well-oiled machine from a distance. It will be a thing of beauty. He recommends that you create roles for your company – a VP of marketing, production, and sales; managers; produc
ers; etc. where applicable. The idea is that even though your name is penciled into all those roles now, later it won’t be. So, I did that with my job. I came up with job descriptions for the different hats I wear, the various services I provide. Sure, they won’t grow like a business would; one person will probably do all those jobs in this position, but I know how to describe every job I do. And my bosses and predecessors will know as well.

What are your hours of operation?
Yeah, I know. You probably don’t have a lot of control over this. However, you might have more than you think if you start thinking about it. It makes sense for my “business” to be open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. or 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. because that is when my “clients” need my services. That’s when they expect me to be open for business, so those are my hours. If I could legitimately tell my boss that different hours of operation would be better, say because I’m now dealing with outsourcing to India, he would probably give me a fair hearing because everything I’ve done until now has shown that I have buy-in with my “business.”

Photo by ballgame68 via Flickr.

There is a particular department in my company that seems to be in perpetual celebration. There are banners, work tables draped in flimsy paper tablecloths, and an endless parade of cookies, cakes, and potluck lunches. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that department undecorated.

I try to figure out each time the decorations change what the new celebration is. Is it someone’s birthday? A new season? Canadian national holiday? The vernal equinox? Daylight savings? Sally’s cousin’s granddaughter turned 2? Perhaps it’s jealousy that I don’t seem to be in the crowd that gets invited despite not being part of that department. More than anything, I find it humorous that it’s the department that is always trying the latest diet fad, which is a whole new level of irony given the confections that department rolls through there.

Don’t get me wrong – I love a raucous company holiday party as much as the next 20-something, and I enjoy the free food that comes along with early morning meetings, lunch meetings and the occasional birthday. When I worked at a start-up that had about 7 employees, we had a grand time one-upping each other when it came time to throw the birthday celebrations. But that was a small office, and at a start-up, you practically have to celebrate your birthday with your coworkers because you’re with them so much.

I understand that office celebrations can provide a sense of unity and community among employees. Some people work 40, 50, sometimes 60 hours a week at their jobs; it can inspire a little goodwill among workers and serve the utilitarian purpose of not losing productivity by keeping employees well fed and happy.

On the flip side, it seems unprofessional to me. There are the decorations, which recently went well beyond streamers and balloons, which stay up for at least a week following the celebration. Then there are the cooking smells from baking in the company kitchen that linger in the hallways for hours. (Side note: When I managed a basement radio station, I banned popcorn. No joke. Those odors lingered for days without ventilation.) Aside from the things that just plain annoy me, I wonder where they get the money for that stuff. Does it come out of their pockets? Is it part of their budget? Why don’t I get paid to cook on the clock? What if a customer comes in – does that undermine the professionalism of the entire company?

Companies spend a lot of time and money on providing the right environment for their employees and customers, taking into account colors, furnishings, and in some cases even smell (the cafe I part-time at doesn’t allow outside food or drink because the space should be committed to the aroma of coffee). When you do work in such close proximity with others for that long, you ought to take into account what might be offensive to others. I’m not saying you can’t pop popcorn, but enough with the 9 a.m. lasagna baking.

Am I being the office curmudgeon? Is there a point at which office celebrations are taken too far?

Photo: Flickr Creative Commons.

I’m not happy with my personal style lately. It’s sort of been ongoing since I got sober and lost some weight… and you know, stopped spending all my money on booze. I’ve told myself that part of the problem is that I don’t have a lot of money to spend on new clothes, but I think there’s a little more to it than that. I would say the real problem is that I don’t give it much thought until I’m actually in a store, ready to buy some item that I need. Seeing as I give almost everything in my life too much thought, I thought that was a little ironic.

Whether we like it or not, we’re judged at a moment’s glance by our outward image. And as much as the BF hems and haws about appearances not mattering, he plays by the rules and wears a suit to the office every day, even Fridays. In our careers, in dating, we’re judged first by our appearance and our clothing does a lot of the talking. (I wasn’t sure if I was attracted to Date #4 when we met – he was wearing a suit and I always say that it blocked any read I was trying to get from him.)

I’ve been watching the preliminary back-to-school ads roll in, and it amazes me how much time and thought middle and high school kids put into their clothing choices. Their clothes (in their minds) say so much about them – what group they belong to, what kind of music they listen to, what their socioeconomic status is, how in tune they are with trends, which causes they support (if any). Why this is, is an entirely different subject that I don’t wish to touch on here. What it did, though, was prompt me to look at my style choices and think about what they said about me.

That’s when I realized that my style choices weren’t really so much choices as they were lazy acquiesces. I live in a town with few clothing options, but I’m not sure I would be much better off anywhere else.

I love:
Blazers
3/4-sleeve jackets
Cardigans
Dark jeans
Vintage-y blouses
‘40s inspired dresses, shoes, hair… well, anything really
Splashes of bright color
Scarves
Preppy-style flats
Colorful, vintage heels
Long dresses

How much of this do I own? Er… none. I do have a few cardigans, but they’re pretty much a necessity in my 60-degree office. Oh, and I own about 7 pairs of dark jeans, but all in the same style and cut from the same store. Even I know that’s wrong.

Looking at this list, I can see that this is actually how I used to dress in high school. My mom hated taking me shopping – I never saw anything I liked unless we were at a Goodwill. Luckily, times have changed and Anthropologie picked up what I was throwing down. Anyhow, I did think that it said something about me. Like today’s teenagers, I was keenly aware of the message I was trying to send. I was eclectic, creative, a little hip, a little bohemian, a non-conformist, an intellectual.

How many of us can say we put that much thought into our wardrobe post-high school or college? I grab whatever Express is offering that month in the way of office-appropriate attire within my budget and that’s about it. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a personal style again?

It’s not just about sending an arbitrary message about who I think I am. After all, if you’re worthwhile and think I’m worthwhile, we’ll get to know each other and you’ll figure out who I am. When my outer self matches my inner self, who it is that I am, I’m a lot happier. Plain and simple, if I actually enjoy the clothes I’m wearing, then I’m a lot happier overall. I also feel a lot more at home in social situations. I feel more comfortable projecting who I am when I’m not tugging on uncomfortable clothes that don’t fit right. And, of course, I wouldn’t mind standing out from the crowd a little.

In an age when personal branding seems to be all the rage, why are we sticking ourselves in the same suits and brands as everyone else? Why aren’t we spending more time thinking about how our “look” corresponds to our personal brand, our goals, and where we want to go?

Some questions to ask yourself about your personal style:
• How would I like people to see me? Use descriptive adjectives: polished, bohemian, put-together, artsy, sleek, glamorous, etc.
• How would I describe myself in a few words? Are you a corporate go-getter, an intellectual, a tech geek, a trendsetter, outdoorsy, creative?
• What styles do I identify with? What words describe them? Do those words describe me?
• What are some items I really like? Do I currently have them in my collection?
• How do my clothing choices affect me on a daily basis? Am I happier when I wear certain colors? Certain styles?

Me, personally, I’m going to start holding out for items that fit with my now clearly defined personal style. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to rethink those 7 pairs of jeans…

All images from Anthropologie.com.

Earlier this week I ran across an amazing presentation on knowledge workers and office 2.0 on SlideShare (which is an awesome site – it’s like YouTube for presentations). Check it out:

View Upload your own

“Finally,” I thought. “Someone has defined me!” I’ve been trying to figure out a subtle way to e-mail it to my boss ever since.

Here’s the thing: Stephen Collins (the presenter) talks about “bursty” versus “busy” workers. Bursty workers are what we often define ourselves as in the Gen Y set. We may not look like we’re doing work, but we are. We might be at a café, chatting with coworkers in other departments, on Twitter… all the while, we are collecting information in our minds. We’re generating ideas; we’re rolling them around in our heads, working out the kinks.

Take myself, for example: I prefer to design web pages and logos while I’m on the treadmill. I have no idea why; it’s just what works for me. What are the odds my boss is going to let me leave the office at 4 so I can go for a run, though? I can tell you that answer: slim to none.

Bursty workers are called such because they tend to have highly productive bursts in which the majority of their work gets accomplished. They don’t want to be at a desk very often. They can often do in 30 hours what a busy worker will accomplish in 40. They surf the Web, they don’t keep normal office hours, they place importance on connecting with other departments and companies outside of their own, and they don’t mind failure. As a matter of fact, they fail a lot.

Anne Zelenka wrote the quintessential busy vs. bursty worker article more than a year ago. She says it best: “The lack of understanding between busy and burst goes beyond just the inability of the busy to see the value in using Web 2.0 tools. In almost every aspect of work, bursters look entirely unproductive and irresponsible when judged by busyness economy rules.”

You see, my boss is a busy worker. I am a bursty worker. Busy workers very rarely understand the bursty workers. Or, they try to figure out how to fit them into their paradigm: “If they produce more in less time, shouldn’t they just be producing more?” Wrong question. Collins states on his site that you simply can’t discount the time spent in thought, working out the structures.

I started e-mailing with Stephen Collins after watching that presentation, and he pointed out to me that bursty workers are not just Gen-Yers. He’s a Gen-Xer himself, and (of course) a bursty worker. Anyone can be a bursty worker, whether they are Gen Y or Boomer. Knowledge workers (anyone who works for a living at the tasks of developing or using knowledge), however, are especially apt to be bursters.

If you look at the traits of a burster, you’ll probably see the standard frustrations over Gen Y “work ethic” that our busy counterparts are always hemming and hawing over. I posit that these are not Gen Y traits, but that they are simply bursty worker traits. Due to the way that Gen Y has been brought up, we skew toward the bursty side, while our parents, and certainly our parents’ parents, skewed busy because of their environment.

I’d also like to point out that it seems now more than ever, there are more knowledge worker careers available also. My dad was a carpenter, and my mom was a dental assistant. They had to be present at their jobs during specific hours in order to produce. I am a research analyst. I sit in front of a computer most of the day. It doesn’t really matter where my computer is and when I sit at it. As I said above, I actually “produce” on the treadmill.

A problem with Gen Y’s work ethic? It’s not Gen Y. And it’s not a problem.

Note: This article was written in my head while walking around talking to coworkers, surfing the Web, reading Twitter updates, and browsing my Google Reader.

My first job was at a start-up of just three people (it grew to a whopping 12 at its largest). At first we didn’t even have separate offices, and as we grew, we upgraded to larger digs with more people crammed two to an office. At a start-up, everyone pretty much knows everything about each other’s lives. It’s not just the office sharing; it’s the long hours, the pent-up stress blowouts, and the commiseration over peeved significant others and your lack of life/sleep.

Things were a little different when I started at my present company, which has approximately 300 employees. My department is made up of only three people (sound familiar?), and we have one large open office. So, like before, we’re pretty much in tune with what’s going on in each other’s lives, without the crazy 60-to-80-hour week crap. (I love trying to figure out how to talk to gyno on the phone with my male boss within earshot. Fun.)

That said, there are nine other departments in my company, with varying numbers in each department (IT has three like us, while advertising has more than 50). I usually only have contact with these people when I need something from them. They don’t really know me from Adam, so I have to wait in line usually like everyone else. But I see the long-timers and the super-friendlies skipping their way to the figurative front of the line all the time. I figured this was just how it went and so be it.

There is a part of corporate life that I don’t always understand. It’s the water cooler conversations. To be honest, I don’t give a crap about American Idol, Let’s Make a Deal or what your kids are doing. The asinine things I would hear people talk about totally escaped me – there are times where what they are saying doesn’t even make sense, jokes with mismatched punch lines, etc.

But I learned how to speak it eventually. The first couple of times I didn’t even understand what I was saying but the coworker chuckled and left. As I caught on, I realized that while I may not care what’s going on in my coworkers’ lives, that connection can be leveraged.

If you aren’t a natural connector or social butterfly, try making a “goodwill tour” of your company. Take an hour or so in the morning, when folks are getting their coffee, checking their e-mail and reading the headlines to ask them how their weekend was, how their kids are, how their week is going so far.

I stopped by one department on Monday to ask a manager if he was feeling any better after being out the prior week. He seemed surprised and was genuine in his thanks for the inquiry. As I left I asked another coworker in that department how his weekend was and how his kids were, knowing how much he values his family. I asked another how her daughter’s graduation went, and made a joke about a woman having more work done than the coworker’s house, which I overhear her complaining about the renovation on.

I used to think these things were enormous productivity blockades and time-wasters. Sometimes they are; but other times it has helped me jump to the head of that proverbial line. How’s that cold, Roy? Oh, good to hear. Listen, I’m having tough time getting these lists…

While it sounds self-serving in some aspects, it’s helped me to get involved in my colleagues’ lives to a healthy extent. I have even built outside relationships with a small handful of them. Sometimes I have to be forced into social situations and increasing productivity and decreasing work downtime is a great motivator for me.

It’s not really news to anybody that I’m not exactly passionate about my 8-5 job. The work I do is highly analytical, data-oriented and involves me starting at a computer screen for 8 hours a day. When people ask me what I do at my job, their eyes generally glaze over when I get about 15 seconds into it. That’s about how long it takes before my eyes glaze over when I open up a new set of data I’m about to work with. I am not, however, excused from excelling at my job.

I believe that if you ask my coworkers, my boss, and the associates who rely on my work on a daily basis how I am doing, they will probably tell you that I’m a data whiz kid, an Excel genius, a PowerPoint guru. OK, maybe that’s taking it too far, but for the most part, they’ll tell you I rock my job. Because I do.

Let me repeat – I don’t love my job. As a matter of fact, about twice a week I skulk off to the online department and chat with the guys over there about what’s new in the online world. I wonder, sometimes out loud, when another position will be budgeted especially for me. Then I go back to my desk and finish my work.

Sound boring? It is.

Maybe this sounds really bleak to you, really dismal and boring and you say to yourself, “I could never do that.” Well, remember that I do have a passion – my own business that I am growing after hours.

It’s also really exciting to hear the president of your company decide that you are the only person necessary at a conference call who is not a manager or vice-president. It’s nice to hear you described to a new manager as an integral part of such-and-such process. It’s gratifying to hear that you were impressive in that strategic planning meeting.

It could be tempting given the recent success my own business is having, to not give a crap about my current job. Here’s the thing: I don’t want to be known as a crappy worker. I don’t want to put mediocre work out into the world. I also respect that the people I work with are counting on me to support them the best that I can. They are passionate about their jobs and they are counting on it to provide for them.

In a word, what I am talking about it responsibility. I may not be passionate about my 8-5 job, but I am passionate about being a quality employee and coworker. To buck Gen Y stereotypes, I guess you might say I am passionate about responsibility.

If that’s not good enough for you, then remember that everyone you come in contact with at your current job is a contact. Your reputation as a solid worker is at stake.

I made a big move this weekend, in the physical sense, as well as less literally. I moved to a new apartment in a new part of town, and it’s as if I’ve officially started a new phase in my life.

I don’t know if it’s my age, or the situation I found myself in, but I never really could find an apartment that I liked and that I could also afford. Plus, I was living with someone, so compromises had to be made (this place was closer to his work, that place was cheap enough for our budget, etc.). When we split, I had to find a place quick. The place I took was too expensive for my budget, so I downgraded severely as I tried to reign in my spending and get back on my feet financially after losing my job, my car, my dual income living situation and getting sober.

It took me a year. Soon after I celebrated my one-year anniversary last month, I signed a one-year lease on a condo on North Padre Island (the beach!). The past two weeks have been downright unbearable as I waited and waited for moving day to come. And tonight, going back to the old apartment I had come to disdain so much to do the final cleaning, time crept so slowly I thought it would stand still. Finally, I drove off, and immediately called a friend to announce I was leaving the old apartment for the last time. Hallelujah!

I guess the point I’m trying to make in a roundabout way is how our surroundings affect us. I took my previous apartment because it was cheap. That was the only reason. I figured for the price I could stand just about anything. Not so. I grew to dislike it so much that I never wanted to be there. Even when I needed to do work or read, I would go somewhere else to do it. I’m not sure exactly what it was – it could’ve been the grey carpet, or the circa-1978 fixtures, or the unrespectable neighbors. It could’ve been merely what it represented to me – a time in my life where frugality was the biggest necessity, an era of character-building hardship.

Even only half-way unpacked, I love spending time in my new home so much, I look forward to returning to it all day, unlike my previous apartment, which I dreaded going home to. For the first time in my life, everything seems like it belongs. The furniture belongs, the paintings belong, and the towels match. I belong. I guess it feels like my space, my own home. It’s a wonderful feeling.

As I move my company into a new area – office optimization – how your space affects you is something that I will be focusing on. Certain colors soothe (blue), while others energize (orange). There is an optimal set-up to achieve maximum productivity in every space. As I move into my new apartment, I’m trying to achieve this with my own space.

It’s about more than just achieving maximum productivity though. It’s about being able to enjoy the space that you’re working in. One of the coolest office set-ups I’ve ever seen is at Pixar, and Microsoft Research has some pretty cool ones too. My offices at work are painted in two shades of green – bright grass green and cool pastel green. It’s energizing and somehow always makes it feel fresh in there.

The best offices, in my opinion, are wireless and paperless. Why not set up Wi-Fi and give everybody laptops? Make spaces that go beyond traditional cubicles and desks. I had the opportunity to redesign a previous company’s space, and that was exactly what I lobbied for. Instead of desks, there were tables and comfortable sofa chairs. Instead of a separate office for every employee, the rooms were separated by function. There was a meeting room, a brainstorming room, a library/”quiet” room, a multimedia room, and a break room. Each one had a different tone to match its function. The brainstorming room was looser, had brighter colors and rearrangable furniture. The library had bean bags and sofas and dimmer lights to suggest quiet; the multimedia room had large glass tables for projects and plenty of direct light.

When your environment is inviting, it will be hard to get people to leave it, kind of like my new apartment and me. When the environment is functional, things will get done. When the environment is optimized, things will get done faster. Faster, productive employees who want to be at the office? Sounds good to me.

Check out real people’s cool home offices [hat tip: Lifehacker.com].