I have been too harsh

I have been too harsh in a few recent posts. Specifically:

- "How to Promote an Online Business": I was a little too sharp with this PR man. He did raise some good questions in our phone conversation last week, and although the services he subsequently offered me weren't what I was looking for, our conversation did spur me to do some more research on topics he brought up. Also, I should remember that most business services vendors are geared toward big corporate clients instead of entrepreneurs, and for good reason. Entrepreneurs tend to be more results-oriented and tight-fisted, and less likely to be in business a few months from now. All good reasons to focus on selling to big corporate clients instead. Sorry, M.

- "Get Mad You Sons of Bitches" and "A Critique of Pointless Blogging". In both cases, I could have shared my criticisms and suggestions via e-mail first, or, just kept them to myself, I guess. There's an old saying about the folly of offering advice: wise men don't need it and fools won't head it. That saying is probably right about the folly of giving advice, but perhaps not precise enough in the reasons why offering advice is often folly. Neither of the subjects of those two posts were fools: Stearns has an MBA from a top-20 school (Georgetown) and Persky has a degree from MIT. Being intelligent, though, doesn't necessarily make you receptive to advice or criticism. You have to be ready to hear it. This I know from experience. I've had friends who meant well give me good advice in the past, and watch me ignore it because I simply wasn't ready to hear it. So it shouldn't be a surprise to me that Persky deleted my comments on his blog, and continues to paste in filler text without offering any of his own insight or other commentary, or links to the original sources.

Being unemployed and looking for work, as Persky and Stearns are, is, in a sense, a form of purgatory. A quote from a film comes to mind here [consider this a half-assed spoiler alert: the film, Jacob's Ladder, is nearly 20 years old, but if you haven't seen it by now stop reading here]. Before I get to that quote, take a minute and three quarters to watch the original trailer for the movie, to set the table for it:



OK, now here's the quote, from a character named Louis (played by Danny Aiello) who is the protagonist's (played by Tim Robbins) chiropractor/friend/guardian angel:

Louis: Eckhart saw Hell too. He said: The only thing that burns in Hell is the part of you that won't let go of life, your memories, your attachments. They burn them all away. But they're not punishing you, he said. They're freeing your soul. So, if you're frightened of dying and... and you're holding on, you'll see devils tearing your life away. But if you've made your peace, then the devils are really angels, freeing you from the earth.

Similarly, in a non-eschatological sense, sometimes the trappings and pretensions of your old life need to burn away before you can move on.

"Get mad, you sons of bitches!"

The last post (on Joshua Persky) reminded me of another unusual job searching tack that generated national publicity, Robin Stearns's website Hire My Husband. That's Robin, pictured above in front of the Golden Gate bridge. From her site:

This site was born out of frustration with the job market. My husband graduated in 2008 with an MBA from Georgetown. After Mike finished his MBA, we moved back to California to be closer to family. We both had high expectations for his career and our life after business school.

That was their first mistake, unfortunately. Georgetown apparently has a good business school -- a cursory glance at U.S. News & World Report's list of top programs has it ranked #20 (the FT ranks it 40^th globally) -- but MBA degrees from all but the most prestigious schools have never been a guarantee of financial success, even in better times than these, and Georgetown's business school isn't one of the most prestigious schools. Back to Robin, from her site:

However, those expectations quickly changed as we were faced with this horrible economy. After almost ten months of watching my wonderful husband work tirelessly to find a job, I decided to take matters into my own hands and help him stand out in a sea of unemployed.

Take a look around my site and get to know Mike. Learn more about him on the About Mike and Meet Mike pages. If you have any questions or would like the opportunity to meet my husband, you can email me on the Contact Mike page. Please pass this website along to friends, family, colleagues, and those who are hiring. I know each visitor to this site will think my husband is as great as I do.

That's sweet, Robin, but not realistic. You love your husband. The men you hope will hire him don't. Our opinions about those we love are rarely objective. That's completely natural, but it's naive to expect others to share our opinions about our loved ones. Here's a short video clip of Robin's husband Mike, from Robin's website:



I wish Robin and Mike the best of luck, but here are a few observations:

- What was the point of Mike's video, exactly? Put yourself in the shoes of a business owner. What about that nine second video clip would make you want to hire Mike Stearns? Nothing I can think of. Here's your shot Mike: a business owner clicks on that video. Does he see a confident elevator speech from an aggressive job seeker? Not at all. There's something missing here, Mike. On his blog The Nearby Pen, former commenter Daniel Wahl offers "art antidotes" -- an Edward Guest poem, or a short clip from the film "Amelie" to stir readers to action. Here's my "art antidote" for you, Mike Stearns -- Alec Baldwin's showstopper in "Glengary Glenn Ross":



If you watched the clip, now you know from whence the title of this post came. More observations:

- Is the novelty and publicity factor of your wife creating this sort of site for you outweighed by the negative implications of your wife's advocacy? Again, put yourself in the shoes of a business owner -- what would you think? You might not have heard about Mike Stearns otherwise, but now that you've heard of him, thanks to his wife's unorthodox efforts, you might wonder whether his wife isn't the one with more creativity and initiative.

- National publicity seems to be of limited utility in getting an unemployed person hired. Persky may have gotten a job through his efforts, but it was short-lived.

- National publicity might be of more use in other ways. Persky seems to have made more of an effort to explore this, having written a couple of quickie e-books which he sells on his site, and using his site to generate leads for speaking and other engagements. The Stearnses haven't done this; they have nothing to sell on their site. They should remedy that. Even if they don't have a product or service of their own to offer, the web is full of people who do, many of whom, I'm sure, would be willing to partner with the Stearnses in exchange for the added traffic.