Average Joe

After over 7 months of job searching, I am back in the workforce. I have obtained gainful employment, in the loss prevention field. I am very excited about the new opportunity, and have already jumped in with both feet. My new position provides me with a lot of opportunity for growth, I think, and will hopefully be a good place to continue to grow my skills and gain some great experience.

My co-workers seem to be a great team, and I’m grateful for this opportunity. In the next few days, I’d like to write about my job search experience in the hope that it will help others who are out there looking. You’ll be surprised, I think, at just exactly how I came to be back in the loss prevention field, working at a rewarding job again.

Stay tuned for more on this topic. I hope it will be interesting and helpful to you.

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It all started with a quick errand to the auto dealership to pick up a part for my car. I needed a gear shift knob because mine, for some unknown reason, decided to break off in my wife’s hand while she was driving.

I arrive at the dealership and go to see the guy at the parts counter. He asks me for my name, and then goes to the back to retrieve my gear shift. When he returns, I ask him to open the box so I can make sure the screws are in there. I explain that the originals went missing when the knob broke. We both searched the box, twice. No screws. He checks his computer, then explains to me that the screws have to be ordered separately.

“Are you serious?” I ask, disappointed, to say the least. He apologized, and says to me that he’ll take $5.00 off the part, and then tells me about a place in town where I can probably get the screws without having to order them. Score one for the good guys. Customer service is alive and well at Kia, although it’s a bonehead move not to include the screws with something like a gear shift knob.

Next stop, the fastener place where I go to see if I can find the screws I need. I’m in and out in less than 5 minutes, with the screws I need, plus two extras, and all at no charge. Yes!! The guy behind the counter hands me the little plastic bag containing my much needed screws, smiles, and says, “No charge.”

So, $5 bucks off my part, plus free screws; I’m thinking it’s about time for a catastrophe. And then it happens, my “Check Engine” light comes on. So, I whip into my local auto parts place and ask them to hook up their little gadget and tell me why my light is on. In just a couple of minutes, the nice young lady tells me that my IAT (Intake Air Temp) sensor is “coding”. But, she explains, it could just be a loose connection. She further explains that she can’t get the part, so if I do need it, I’ll have to go to the dealer for it.

About this time, my daughter, who is tagging along on this adventure, asks me if she can have a drink. I tell her to get something from the cooler and I’ll buy it for her. The nice young lady then tells me that she can get something “No charge”.

“What?” I ask, “Are you sure?” She assures me that it’s fine, and that she wanted to treat my little girl. We thank her and leave to drive home.

At home, I quickly get the gear shift knob replaced with my new, discounted knob and free screws; while my daughter sips her free drink and chats with me while she watches. Once that’s done, I pop the hood and start making sure all the electrical connections around my engine are tight, starting where the parts lady tells me the sensor should be.

Guess what. The engine light turned off. Life is good today.

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Last week, I wrote about planning for success, and in that article, we talked about using SMART goals to help keep your goal setting and planning on track. This week, I wanted to write about how I write. What I have found is that how I write and how I try to plan and goal set are very similar. Here’s why:

I maintain two main blogs. Here at Average Joe, I talk about my personal hobbies, things that make me tick, etc. It’s a catch all journal that is really all about me. The Bunker Blog is my retail loss prevention blog, and there the conversations are more about my career and profession in the field of retail loss prevention.

Whenever I write at either blog, I try to follow a few simple rules to make sure that I keep my material interesting (hopefully it is). These same rules apply to our goal setting and planning, though, and I’d like to share that with you here. I call it Keeping It REAL:

Relevant: I want to speak to my audience, not in LP or professional terminology, but in real dollars and sense. I want my content to be relevant to their situation. That’s tough when you are just learning who your audience is, but by producing what I hope is quality content that is easily understood and applied in practice, I want to keep the blogs relevant to all who read them.

I apply the same rule to my goal setting and planning. If what I’m doing is not relevant to what my goals are, then it’s probably wasted time. I’ve had to put away some “childish things” because they weren’t relevant to who I want to be.

Educational: One of my main goals is that my readers learn something new every time they visit. My goal is to help retailers save money and add to their profit line by reducing losses through shrink. Or, at Average Joe, hopefully readers get to know me a little more each time they read a new article, and I am a little more credible to them.

In daily life, I have a very important rule: Learn something new about something new EVERY DAY. I make it a point to ask myself, “What did I learn today?” everyday. I need to be able to have a clear, relevant answer to that.

Attitude: I like to add a little of my own attitude to my posts. That is why I post commentaries on current news articles that are related to shoplifting, employee theft, and shrink reduction principles in general. I always like to make sure a little bit of me comes out in every post. I also believe it is important to have the attitude of a winner if you expect to win.

The same applies, again, in daily life when it comes to goals and planning. Be yourself, and let your winning attitude come through (if you don’t have a winning attitude, that’s a different story). It is very important that we are sincere and “ourselves” with others. I hope I never come off as fake or insincere. When it comes to my goals, I want to make sure they fit my personality, so if they don’t fit with “ME”, then they need to be adjusted or dumped.

Long Lasting: Although some of the articles posted here are very temporary in that they deal with current events and news related to theft, I do make every attempt to make each and every article memorable. I try to add my own experiences, successes and failures, to the mix so that the point made is memorable to the reader. I have posts from very early on that are still regularly visited, read, and commented on. That, I believe, counts as long-lasting content. As technology, trends, and programs change, so will this blog, but the core principles will remain.

I think the most obvious life application here is that our choices have long lasting consequences, good and bad alike. I know that what I do will follow me, so my goals, my plans, should reflect the knowledge that there are far reaching reactions to what we do in life.

So, my goal for my little piece of blogosphere real estate is to just always keep it REAL. If I can accomplish that, I think I can build on it to make the site a success.

So, what do you think? Is this blog REAL to you?

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I’m not real big on New Year’s Resolutions, but since it is a new year, and I find myself in a state of, well, transition, I have begun to make some changes in my life that I hope will make me a better person in the long run. Beside my bed, on my reminder board, is a list of things I want to be reminded of every day when I first get up to start my day. I did a lot of thinking and writing notes to myself to come up with this list. These are the things I consider my core values. So, here we go. Here, in random order,  is my Dailly Dozen:

1. Check My Attitude – How can I be sure to have a good attitude today, regardless of the obstacles or circumstances I’ll face?

2. What Is Important? – What are my priorities today? What HAS to get done? What’s important, and what would I like to do if I still have time after that? Make a list.

3. How Healthy Am I? – What will I do for my own health and wellbeing today? How much exercise will I get done? What will I eat today? Have a plan.

4. How Is My Family? – How will I support my family today? How much time can I put aside for them? What do I need from my family today?

5. Is My Mind Straight? – Is my thinking today mature and productive? Am I focusing on the the right things? If not, I need to set my mind straight.

6. Keep My Commitments. – What commitments do I need to follow through with today?

7. Make Good Financial Decisions – Can I justify every spend? Am I saving? Am I providing stability for my family?

8. Examine My Faith – Have I been faithful to my faith today? Take time to pray.

9. How Generous Am I? – How can I enrich someone else’s life today? What can I give so that I can contribute to society in a meaningful way?

10. How Are My Relationships? – How can I be a good friend, spouse, parent, and child today? What am I putting into the relationships that really matter most? What do I expect from them?

11. What are my values? – Am I letting my values guide me in my decisions? Am I standing on what stand for?

12. Am I Growing? – What can I do or learn today that will create growth in me? How can I grow both professionally and personally?

So, there you have it; my wake up list. Do you have one? If so, how is it different? What is the same? If not, you should try it. It really helps to keep focus on your core values.

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It is very likely that anyone who is asked this question would say that they plan to be successful. But I wonder how many really do plan for success. Real success in business, or in life, takes planning. Spontaneity has its place in life, and even in business, but only proper planning will guarantee success.

Below are some tips that will help you plan for success:

Set Goals In Varying Terms

Start with longer term goals, then work your way to the short term goals. Write them down. Long term goals are those that, obviously, will take more time to reach. These could be educational goals, career goals, etc. Write these goals as headers, then identify the steps that will be necessary for accomplishing them. These steps become shorter term “benchmark” goals, and should be listed, chronologically, below your larger, long-term goal.

Identify Your Needed Resources Early

You will need resources to accomplish your goals. As you think of your goals, identify those resources so you can begin to gather and collect them. You may need a network of people. Start networking. You may need books or educational materials on the subject of your goal. Check the library, or check for the availability of continuing education classes at your local college. Whatever your goals are, you will need resources. You need to identify those resources early on so you can begin to collect them. The last thing you want is to get close to your goal, only to find that you are missing resources that you didn’t plan for.

Use Smart Goals

Last week I discussed SMART goals to some degree. It is very important that your goals be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely. Think of it like this: If you don’t write down your goal as specifically as possible, have a way to measure success or failure, make sure your goal is achievable and realistic, and if you don’t have a time frame in which to reach your goal, then do you really have a goal? Or, do you just have an idea? There is a difference. I can say to myself that I’d like to make more money. But, until I put that desire, or idea to paper and give it substance, it is just an idea, and nothing more.

You MUST Want To

I used smokeless tobacco for about 30 years before quitting last year. In fact, the 23rd of this month makes one year that I’ve been 100% tobacco free. I tried many, many times to quit, but always ended up going right back to the habit. I made plenty of excuses. It was too hard, or it helped me handle stressful days. Sound familiar? What I found out when I really did quit was that I had the ability to quit all along. What I didn’t have was the desire to quit. You can write goals and plan for a wonderful future, but if you don’t have the “Want To”, you won’t follow through. Having the “Want To” will make you do what it takes to reach the goal. It will give you the drive and ability to get over, through, or around any obstacle because you WANT TO  achieve the goal. Your plan is important because you want the goal. You follow the plan and make adjustments as necessary because you WANT the prize.

I honestly believe that the #1 cause of failure when it comes to our success and goals is the lack of “Want To”. I had to want to quit tobacco more than I wanted to use tobacco before I could accomplish the goal. No matter how specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely your goal is, if you don’t WANT TO, you won’t reach it. If you DO want to, then you will, and it’s as simple as that.

We’ve discussed how to prioritize our goals, identify our needed resources, setting SMART goals, and Wanting To. Next time we’ll discuss the possible obstacles that we may have to face, how to either avoid or solve those problems, and some examples of SMART Goals, how to measure, and waypoints. Be sure to stay tuned.

In the mean time, please leave a comment below and let me know what you think of this series.

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Every year, we make new years resolutions. We intend to keep them, but somehow, they tend to get pushed aside or re-prioritized into obscurity by sometime around say, mid-February. I don’t know about you, by my 2009 pretty much sucked wind. It was a very rough year for me career wise. In fact, I ended up joining the ranks of the unemployed in late October, and as of today I have submitted resumes or bid on over 200 “open positions” or contract jobs. I’ve had 6 interviews.

In this article, I’d like to share with you how I plan to create and keep my resolutions for 2010. It will involve setting clear goals, identifying waypoints along the way to those goals, and re-directing efforts whenever things get a little off course. It’s really pretty simple.

1. First, prioritize what’s really important. I know that things change over the course of time, but when setting your goals, one has to try to look ahead and determine what is absolutely most important, what is very important, and what would be nice, but not absolutely necessary. Setting goals without prioritizing them is a recipe for the February Failure.

2. Set SMART Goals.  Don’t just say you’re going to lose weight, or that you will be a better person in 2010. If you need to lose weight, how much weight do you need to lose? Is it 10 lbs? 20 lbs? More? Less? Make your goal/resolution as specific as possible so you have measurable results when you reach your goal. I have always subscribed to the SMART Goals template. It makes real sense to me. Goals should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely. Know what you want to accomplish specifically. If you can measure it, you can manage it, so make sure your goals are measurable. Achievable simply means don’t bite off too much at one time. It is extremely unlikely that you will lose 25 lbs in one week, but it is achievable to lose 2 lbs in one week, and 25 lbs in 13 weeks. it is better to have 20 achievable goals than one unachievable one.  Being realistic in your goal setting simply means to keep the goal do-able. For example, if you do not have access to the resources you will need to meet your goal, it is not a realistic goal. Finally, set a time table for the goal. Hold yourself accountable to that schedule. Work toward beating the deadline, or at the very least, meeting it. 

3. Set waypoints along the way to your goal. I’ll use weight again because it simplifies the point. If your goal is to lose 20 lbs and exercise at least 3 times a week. Then you need to set yourself a realistic deadline, as stated above. Now, let’s say your goal is to lose 20 lbs in 20 weeks, and exercise 3 times a week for at least 45 minutes each time. Your waypoints should be scheduled far enough apart to show you real impact and allow you to measure successes and opportunities, and to give you the time to re-direct if necessary to get back on track. They should also be scheduled regularly, say weekly, so that your reviewing your successes and/or opportunities in “equal installments”. Having a weekly touch base with yourself is absolutely a great way to keep on track.

4. Have a plan. Having priorities and goals is great, setting a schedule to review your progress is necessary. But without a solid plan as to how you’ll achieve your goal, it’s just ink on paper, so to speak. Write it down (Or type it out). Make sure you try to think about the possible obstacles and how you will need to deal with them. What resources do you need? Where will you get them? A good plan will help you stay on course, and will help you adjust your pace, etc. as required.

Think about your Goal Planning for 2010 like this: “My goal for 2010 is to (insert smart goal here) by (insert deadline here). To do this, I will need (needed resources), and these are the steps I will need to take to reach my goal (begin listing steps to be taken). I will review my progress each week on (day of week), and re-direct as necessary so that I achieve my goal by (date) or before.

Of course you don’t have to write it out like that, but if it helps to keep you on track, why not?

[Image: stock.xchng]

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My daughter and I went out to hide a new geocache today in one of our favorite parks. We talked and enjoyed each other’s company while we looked for the perfect spot. We walked along the trails in the park, looking for that one spot where we could hide our cache without being noticed.

When we found the perfect spot, we hid the cache, marked the coordinates on our GPS, and wrote them down in my log book, just to be safe. Another successful hide.

On the way out of the park, we met a new little friend. My daughter wanted to take him home, but I convinced her to leave him in the park.

We had a lot of fun hiding our geocache, and taking some pictures of our little friend here. Then, when we got home this evening, just before cutting the lawn, we noticed a catbird going crazy in the grass. My kids said that the bird was dancing to momma’s music, but as soon as I saw it, I knew that was no dance. That bird was clearly upset, and clearly attacking something. I grabbed my camera and my wife’s, and we went out to investigate. Unfortunately, I got no good pictures of our visitor; but Pam did get some great ones while I encouraged him to pose for us. He measured about 4 feet long or so, and was not the least bit afraid of us. I ended up catching him and letting him go into a nearby storm drain.

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Inventories are over, at least until July. I am now 50% complete for the year, and I have posted some darn good numbers so far this year. No issues in my area, thank goodness. Now I have a whole bunch of projects, both at work and at home, that I must attend to.

I’m pretty excited about at least two of my work-related projects, and I can’t wait to see how they turn out. They should be fun and productive.

Here at home, I’m working on learning more with both the camera and the processing of the pictures. Both are very time consuming and very interesting. I’m also seriously considering taking on a new business project that I think could be fun and profitable if I can do it right. More details about that later, but I think my wife and I could do this together, and make use of both our talents to actually produce something worth while… I hope.

The rest of my week is dedicated to projects, audits, investigations, and then the weekend to kick off Summer! Vacation in just over 3 weeks!! Woo Hoo!!

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I set up my photo page on Shutterfly. You can visit me over there at http://joesbunker.shutterfly.com/ . Stop by and let me know what you think. I use both shutterfly and flickr, and I’m always looking to read what people think of my photos. Good, bad, or indifferent, I’d love to hear some feedback. As more or less a beginner, I’m doing a lot of research, and I’m learning more each day. So, any advice is always appreciated.

Take a look and let me know you stopped by. Comments are always welcome.

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Last night, I got lucky and was able to attempt to take some lightning photos for the first time. They turned out okay, even though I was working on settings, etc. while trying to catch the lightning.

They are not as clear as I would have liked,  but they are okay for a first attempt, I think.

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