After hearing about blogs as being one of the newest buzzwords, I decide to check it out further. I began to see how people were using blogging to express information, opinions, ideas, and views on all kind of subjects. Always wanting to write a book, I came to the conclusion that I would start with a blog and see how things go from there.
Like most people, life has always been a struggle. I will admit I have been luckier than some, not as lucky as others. Like Chris Rock said about those who are in the middle, I have been right there. What inspired me to write this was my latest event of being release from my last contract job without any reason being told to me of why. Being an Information Technology (IT) professional contactor, this is nothing new to me. I am sure there are others who are in my field who can understand this.
I guess what bothers me about my industry is how much of a slave I feel at times. I am not talking about color or race cause that is a whole different issue. For those of color that is another element to deal with in addition to the other challenges. I believe there will never be equals amongst people of the world don’t care if we are all the same color or not. What bothers me is that with all my experience, skills, and education, the system is designed to fail with me right along with it.
Being in the military, one tool that created many successful missions and campaigns was regular communications. Notice I did not say communications, but regular communications. The difference is you communicate as much as possible no matter if it is every minute, hour, daily, etc. Many fail in this area and when the communication is finally made, the damage has been done. Why does this happen? In my opinion the key is fear. Fearful of what one may hear or say that may not be pleasing, easy to understand, or just plain destructive.
Lawyers on the other hand recommend to organizations just the opposite. It is understandable since regular communications can quell many conflicts. Many cases that may go to court would not even make the thought with the practice of regular communications. Notice again I did not say good communications. I use to work for a manager who had a hard but fair management style. We use to have some very ruff conversation, but we worked well together. I believe we learned a lot from each other. Even with our difference of opinions and styles, we appreciated the truthfulness that was communicated and I hold him as one of my best managers ever.
Since there is no evaluation system for contractors, many in my field are faced with last minute releases from clients with little or no truthful (with the default being performance or budget) reason. This can lead to what I call the black book syndrome, which can destroy a person’s career without them even knowing it. With the rumors of companies scanning the Internet looking for employees and potential employees thoughts and ideas, we are faced with keeping our thoughts and ideas to ourselves to avoid the possibility of reprisals, or expressing our constitutional rights and run the risk of being blacklisted from any type of employment no matter what the separation of ones opinion and work performance may be.
With the control of corporate over the government, like what many say that the current military situation to keep soldiers from leaving during the war is nothing but a back door draft. The tactics and methods used by many companies to check for personnel’s credit rating and now your thoughts and ideas seems to be a back door attack on The Constitution itself. Yet from the corporate world they would probably say The Constitution states you have the right to free speech, but nothing was said that you could not receive any type of reprisals from that speech. I guess that is why many authors of books do not work for any one particular organization, not unless there is an agreement between them.
Even though this situation goes beyond the race situation within this country, it has the same lack of proving elements. Until the media performed extensive coverage and experiments across the country, such understanding of the prejudice and negative race relations were only understood by those who project such hatred and those whom received these types of actions in what many may have seen as an infinite number of tactics. This situation is worst because it can go beyond race to individual no matter what the color. In both cases, proving it is prejudice and not a work related or budgetary situation (which again is the default) is like putting smoke in a coke bottle with your hands.
The media may infiltrate this subject like they did with the race situation, but even when acknowledge, will things change? Not if the lawyers have they say. The right thing to do would be to establish an evaluation system and have the managers of companies step up to the plate and finally do what they get paid. This can produce not only a more aware employee, but an improved one as well, which you would thing any organization would desire.
Since the rule in this country with corporate America is to protect itself at all cost (right or wrong), there is very little chance that companies will ever establish such a policy even though contactors work right along side company employees. That is why it is up to individuals, managers and supervisors to enact such a change. In the IT world, since no two companies have the same operating procedures, it takes a well experience contractor approximately 90 to 180 days to fully be integrated into the procedures of the organization. Much depends on the current situation of the team or department the contractor may be assigned. Are other personnel available for training? Is the proper procedures documented and updated on a regular bases? Many fail to realize that sometimes this is half is not the whole situation altogether.
How can a person get up to speed when there is little or no documentation of the procedures? How many contractors can relate with dealing with team members who had no choice but to show you the procedure, application, or method because it was all in there heads and no place else? One size fits all is better said than realized in a realistic manner. Those in management who expect a person to be up to speed in 30 days or less is wasting everyone’s time and money with large turnover ratios, which speaks hug volumes of their management abilities.
I challenge any supervisor or manager reading this to at least perform a verbal counseling with their contract subordinates. Many times a contractor thought he or she was doing a good job only to find out just before they were booted out the door that the supervisor thought otherwise, which in truth reflexes a failure of management. The only difference is they did not lose their job. In addition, I ask that judgment for perfection be tossed out the window. This again is another element that sets a person to fail. Since no one is perfect, to make a decision based upon one or two mistakes, especially during a learning process is harsh indeed. Try and base it upon consistency, knowing like with all human beings, a person will have their strong and weak areas.
In conclusion, I wish to express that the statements that you have read are met to establish a since of knowledge improvement in an individual, management, companies, communities and the country as a whole. Like most people of the world, I am a patriot for the country I live in and only wish the best for my family, my community, the city that has been good to me, the great state that even through the most difficult times still shines, and this great country. With all its challenges, America is still the number one country most people in the whole wish to live.
