Looking for Work in the Land of Milk and Honey

The wannabe-workers came in droves.
While a debate rages over the true meaning of the US Government's reporting of  current unemployment figures in the mid 5-percent range--a number that does not include the unemployed who have given up looking for work--the nattily-attired men and women in the lobby of the Omni Houston Hotel Westside seemed unfazed.
 

They lined up to check in.
They lined up to meet representatives from eleven companies operating in the Oil & Gas realm of possibilities for work. I was among them.

I've been "under-employed" since December, when I secured two part-time jobs in the media field. I was full-bore unemployed from October until that point. Today's  Oil & Gas Job Fair was an exercise in expanding beyond my safety zone, and pitching energy companies with my skill set as a communicator.
They were intrigued, at least.
 
Some were dismissive to the point of near-rudeness, but most of the near-dozen companies I spoke with were more than a little impressed by my pitch. One thing is certain--I was unique. I can safely say there were no other out-of-work Radio people there.

The Rigzone Oil & Gas Job Fair was produced by Targeted Job Fairs, a part of Dice Holdings, LLP, which promises to "organize the world’s talent by compiling the most current data in the most searchable fashion." Dice also has some pretty interesting metrics to track various parameters, like how long it takes to fill a job opening (25.6 working days in November--up from 24.3 working days in October), and a Recruiting Intensity Index that reflects how hard businesses are working to fill those empty slots (a metric that tapered slightly in November). 

The women working the registration desk wouldn't comment on the record for this blog, but said the first Job Fair of the year is always well-attended. They didn't have an estimate of how many persons showed up. My guestimate would be somewhere north of 600.

Inside the Texas Ballroom, there were lines upon lines of job hopefuls. Lines snaking along the walls. Lines converging, diverging, and undulating around the room. We stood in line for 90-minutes to have 90-seconds with one company representative.
One applicant wise-cracked it was like "speed-dating" for the unemployed.

I stood behind a University of Houston Law Center candidate, specializing in Energy, Environment and Natural Resources Law; she's graduating in May, and starting her job search ahead of the pack.  Behind me was a logistics specialist from Baylor who boasted proficiency in Spanish and Portuguese. Oh, and she had a Masters' in Economics.
Yeah, I blended.

I don't know what kinds of connections these two women made today. We all agreed the real value may have been the informal networking in which we engaged while standing in line together--with a few hundred of our close, professional friends. A referral to a law firm; a query for a factory foreman; and shared information for other job-networking events in coming weeks were among the nuggets of information gleaned from our communion.
There was a lot of that going on in the room.

Towards the end of the day I observed one team from a consulting company that was not waiting behind their table, but proactively working the line of prospects looking for an introduction. A light bulb went on over my head...

I quickly went to the hotel lobby and ordered a half-dozen chocolate chip cookies from the kitchen. Then I stood at the end of that line and waited to make eye contact with one of the company reps. It didn't take long. As I introduced myself, I presented the boxed cookies, with my business card strategically placed front and center, and acknowledged their team had been there all day without a break, and that they were like due for a treat. The woman said, "why don't you come with me?" and escorted me to the head of the line at their table.
 
We're supposed to follow-up next week.
They've got needs--I've got skilz.

The Automotive Reporter/Biz News for the Week of 2-2-15

...this just in:

The Super Bowl is past, and with it the apex of television ad campaigns descends to a denouement of disappointment for those who were expecting more than Clydesdales and puppies, and missed the obligatory cheesecake from Danica and friends at her favorite domain name registry czar. 

Finally, the car companies are getting with the program the beer companies have been effectively exploiting for seasons on end--tugging at heartstrings, Family, and Country. Both Nissan and Toyota produced some slick pieces that tied coming-of-age themes with the supreme wisdom of purchasing one of their featured vehicles.

2015 Jeep Renegade

Jeep used its commercial time to introduce the new Renegade, against a backdrop of sweeping vistas in the US and beyond, with IRS/Capitol recording artist, Mark Scibilia, warbling, "This Land is Your Land." 

Not sure where the Great Wall of China fits into that particular context, but the commercial was pretty to watch. 

In addition to Fiat-Chrysler's running its mildly amusing "Blue Pill" offering (wherein a Fiat 500 ingests a viagra-like pill, and metamorphoses into a beefier Fiat 500X), Dodge ran a 60-second version of its wildly popular "Wisdom" homage to centenarians in honor of the 100th anniversary of the Dodge brand in 2014.

I like this spot. I have tremendous respect for anyone with the grit to hang around for 100-years, and hang on to their senses. Paired with quick edits of the Dodge Challenger passing across the screen, the comments of the young at heart are priceless.  Bravo, Dodge (and The Richards Group in Dallas). 

With cyber crime on the rise, it might be a good time to beef up your password security. Ford Mustang, one of the most popular cars ever built, now it has the distinction of being one of the most common passwords on the Internet.

SplashData, a company specializing in password management, notes the word “mustang” was the 16th most common password found on the Internet in 2014, and the only nameplate that found its way into the top 25. 

Mustang is also apparently a slayer of superheroes--the proper noun more popular than “Batman” and “Superman” as people’s secret code for accessing their personal networks and accounts.

If you must follow the crowd, SplashData recommends strengthening your “mustang” password by adding numbers--perhaps the year you bought your 'Stang, or incorporate Mustang option codes, paint codes, engine codes or digits from your VIN.

Mazda is using public input for the final touches on its much-anticipated 2016 MX-5. The company enlisted X-box users to help design the livery appointments for the fifth generation Miata, running a contest last month among Forza Horizon-2 players. You can vote for the finalists by going to the X-box website. The results are to be revealed at the SXSW event in Austin next month.

2016 Mazda MX-5 cockpit

The newest MX-5 is reported to be lighter, faster, and a bit smaller than the current iteration of the car, taking design themes from Alfa Romeo. The new skin also retains the ability to make Miata owners weak in the knees all over again.

Listen to the Automotive Reporter Radio Show this weekend on Stitcher.com or from our website. 

Challenges and Challenger

The bank where I worked in downtown Tulsa was like a giant, ornate bunker.
Vertical spines of glass were framed by massive stacks of pink granite stone, providing lofty but narrow views of the rest of the central business district, and a bend in the Arkansas River, just west of town. my office was an interior room, with a wall of glass from floor to ceiling, opening into an atrium. The other three walls of the office were adorned with white marker boards, plaided with grids filled with numbers and symbols--each line representing a secured interest for the institution.

I had been hired to locate and inventory secured property for an S&L--property, it turned out, that had been sold twice to lenders by an unscrupulous loan originator. One of the challenges was determining who had first-rights to the cache of serial numbers. The other chore was locating the goods. They were mobile homes, emphasis on mobile--perched on bluffs and hidden in wooded groves all over northeastern Oklahoma and western Arkansas.

Each line on each gridded wall told a story. A manufactured home, with all of the trappings--purchased for an average of less than $60,000 when the oil boom of the early '80's was in full blossom in Oklahoma. With the turning of fortunes in the oil patch, owners were ditching their trailer houses in droves. Keys were mailed back to us daily--some with directions on where to find the houses, some without. By the end of 1985, there were literally hundreds of properties we were either in possession of, in search of, or in despair of. Hundreds of mobile homes. Hundreds of lives. Hundreds of stories.

Those were the properties that made it onto the white boards.
Below each board, lining the walls from the floor to the bottoms of the charts, hundreds more legal-sized manila folders were stacked, awaiting processing. I had a full time assistant to help stay ahead of the legal filings, invoices for vendors, and other paper minutiae that went into each folder. Each day, it seemed, she added to the piles files on the floors.

By January 1986, we thought we were turning a corner on the flow of incoming repossessed mobile homes. They were scattered in holding lots across the state, and I had been inside each and everyone. I had pictures to prove it. It was a mountain of work.

The last week of January, we were preparing to repossess another batch of mobile homes gone bad. My assistant and I were writing up the latest grid-ful of properties and locations that I would be visiting in February. Even though the flow had slowed, it was heartbreaking to know I'd be knocking on families' doors in the next week, asking to inventory their home in preparation for pulling it in from the field to a storage lot somewhere in East Egypt.
It was a pretty quiet morning.

My boss called me on the phone from his office, across the glass-walled atrium, and said, "The Shuttle just exploded."
He wasn't excited or animated, just very matter-of-fact. 
I looked across at him through two panes of glass.
He wasn't smiling.

We turned on a TV and stared in disbelief as the horrible footage was replayed over and over and over. My assistant began to cry and shake.
The files piled on my desk were forgotten.
Lives about to be displaced enmass were put on hold, as seven lives were snuffed out in an instant in that horrible explosion of orange and white.

The Crew of Challenger: (top) Onizuka, McAuliffe, Jarvis, Resnick;
(bottom) Smith, Scobee, McNair