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The no-pants guide to spending, saving, and thriving in the real world.

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-07-17

Misc

  • RT @mymoneyshrugged: The government breaks your leg, and hands you a crutch saying "see without me, you couldn't walk." #
  • @bargainr What weeks do you need a FoF host for? in reply to bargainr #
  • Awesome tagline: The coolest you'll look pooping your pants. Yay, @Huggies! #
  • A textbook is not the real world. Not all business management professors understand marketing. #
  • RT @thegoodhuman: Walden on work "spending best part of one's life earning money in order to enjoy (cont) http://tl.gd/2gugo6 #

Regret

Life

There comes a time when it’s too late to tell people how you feel.

There will come a day when the person you mean to talk to won’t be there.  Don’t wait for that day.

“There’s always tomorrow” isn’t always true.

Overworked and Underappreciated

Business

I once worked for a company that was so confused that, not only did I not meet my last immediate supervisor for 6 months, but he didn’t know what I did or who I supported.  He was my supervisor on paper for payroll and organizational purposes only.

Angry Birds
Angry Birds (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Does your boss know what you do?

More recently, I was called into my current boss’s office to get scolded for low productivity since  I don’t produce as much as the other programmers.

That’s not my favorite thing to do in the afternoon.  I’d rather spend the afternoon playing Angry Birds improving our software.

In response, I spent the week logging my time.  Before I left on Friday, I sent my boss an email that started out with:

When we spoke on Monday, you compared my productivity unfavorably to the other developers.   I don’t think that’s a fair comparison as I do more categories of tasks than the others.   I don’t think you realize how many additional responsibilities I’ve taken on over the years.

I continued from there with a summary of each day’s work last week.   The short version is that, while being productive, I spend less than half of my time on my primary job function because I’ve slowly taken on a managerial role.

I’m on vacation this week, so it will be a few days before I find out if my email will make a difference.

Now, this scolding was my fault.   I know I spend my day doing much more than just writing code.   I’ve told my boss that before, but I’ve never made sure he understands the scale of the extra work, and I’ve never proven it with a detailed log.

This was poor personal marketing.

In the future, I have to make sure that I keep him in the loop with a summary of the extra work I do, like the training, product demos, sales calls, and estimates I’m involved in.

We’ll see how well that works.

How would you handle a situation like this?  Daily emails?  Whining?  Kicking a garbage can across the room?

 

 

 

 

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-05-29

Misc

Iggy Azalea – Ghost Writer or Artist? Will it affect her bottom line?

Celebrities

There has been a lot of controversy surrounding Iggy Azalea. Some of it has to do with her appearance and some of it has to do with her lyrics. There have been rumors in the rap industry that Iggy uses a ghost writer.

Iggy Azalea 15/15
Iggy Azalea 15/15 (Photo credit: Pompey_1Love)

Specifically, the accusation that her mentor T.I. has ghost wrote many of her songs. But does it matter?

Many people in the rap industry have ghostwriters. Kanye West started out as a ghostwriter. He wrote lyrics and music for many big stars. Neo is another artist that started out as a ghostwriter. This shows that there it’s not unusual. Dr.Dre has spoken about hiring people to write his songs. Ghostwriting is very popular in the Hip Hop community. Many of the most popular artists got their start writing lyrics or music for other singers. The only time it enters into the conversation is when artists get into feuds.

The newest accusation against Iggy comes from fellow female rapper Nicki Minaj. Nicki won an award at the BET awards and when she was accepting the award she insinuated that Iggy does not write her own material. This is publicity and will only help both rappers. Nicki is the top female rapper and she is taking notice of Iggy. It’s common in the Hip Hop world for competitors to get into public arguments. This dates back to the old East Coat v.s. West Coast rap feud. The good thing about this controversy is that neither Nicki or Iggy are gangster rappers so there won’t be any violence. Some rappers like The Game and 50 Cent and Nas and Jay Z used these feuds to become superstars.

This sort of controversy won’t hurt Iggy Azelea. Take Beyonce as an example of a successful artist who uses ghostwriters. No one cares that Beyonce doesn’t write her own songs. All people care about is if the song is good. As long as Iggy and her producers keep choosing good songs and making good music, then she is going to sell records. Her feud with Nicki is only going to add to her popularity. This type of feud helped other rappers such as Nas, JayZ, Eminem, and 50 Cent.

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