I’m working on an article on effective and successful online social networking. If you use a multitude of social networking services (Blogs, Myspace, Twitter, etc), I’d love to hear your stories and opinions for making networking worthwhile. Visit the Social Networking Interview page for details.
I just posted a blog at Work-At-Home Success about a man who has freed himself from email by using the in-house networking system offered by his employer and RSS feeds. Many people are moving away from email using services such as Twitter and instant message and even phones of all things to keep in touch. If you don’t use email checking as way to waste or fill up time, its worth a look.
I’m working on the proposal for my second book and was researching statistics on working women. I came across an article at the AFL-CIO marking the one year anniversary when the Supreme Court said it was okay for Lilly Ledbetter to get paid less than her male colleagues doing the same work because she didn’t file a grievance within 180 days after the first paycheck. Huh?
As a reasonable thinking person I didn’t get this decision. Like politics and religion, salaries aren’t something people openly talk about, so its not likely any woman will know what her pay is compared to others. And now you can bet the men will be tight lipped about it …at least for 180 days. Then there is the the whole fairness issue. I think that salaries should be based on the job not gender. Crazy I know. I do agree that there should be pay increases as people stay on the job so an entry level person may make less than a colleague who has been there for years. But in Ledbetter’s case, she’d been with the Alabama Goodyear plant for years and made less than lowest paying man doing the same job. Makes you think twice about buying Goodyear. In fact, I may replace the two Goodyear tires I have on my car!
Of course, when you consider from where the decision came… it makes total sense. The Supreme Court, Bush and even McCain oppose fair pay legislation. Perhaps they aren’t familiar with the 19th Amendment that gave women the right to vote. Or that women make up more than half the US population.
As many of you know, I telecommute part-time as an adoption social worker. Over the last six years I’ve worked mostly with families providing home study services and follow up support after an adoptive placement. Recently the agency has undergone some changes and was in search of someone to help run the domestic adoption program. I applied and got the job. The great news is that I’m still working from home!
Too many people search the Internet for a sign-up job based on ease and speed. However jobs are found based on skill and experience. And you need to be proactive. I got my job in adoption not through a job ad, but by contacting the agency directly and asking if it was looking for a contract worker in my area. In fact many jobs I’ve gotten in my life were obtained by asking.
When looking for a work-at-home job, focus on your skills and talents to find employers that need them. You can search the want-ads, but don’t rule out a simple letter of inquiry, as I did, to find home-based employment.
I ran across a great post on Seth Godin’s blog that turns the tables some on employers. Check out my comments at the WAHS Blog.
