When Good Deeds Get Punished

I know everyone has heard the old saw about how "No good deed goes unpunished" many times before. I'm sure most of us have even said it to ourselves after trying to do the right thing and then taking abuse for it.

I sort of caught myself going down that road today but had to nip that pity-party stuff in the bud. Here's the backdrop:

For New Year's Eve, I decided to spring for a suite at a hotel in CT near the casinos and just throw an open invite out in the direction of some extended family who like to go down there from time to time and gamble. Personally, I couldn't gamble to save my life, but unlike people with gambling problems, I don't pretend to be able to (remember, nothing is funnier to me than the way every person ever dealt a hand of blackjack at Foxwoods is 'up' over the course of their careers). But anyway, I'm down for the spectacle, or the restaurants, or shows, or whatever other draws there might be.

A few took the offer up, and a few others didn't. No big surprise there, that's sort of how open invites tend to go. I figured it was time for a 'last big hurrah' before some Army commitments take me out of the picture for a bit, so I didn't mind the cost, and wasn't looking for a flowery 'thank you' from any corner.

What I wasn't really ready for, though, was a lot of extensive questioning and second-guessing from an extended relative who has been repeatedly demanding to know 'The Plan' since the idea was conceived. It's like, no matter how many times I've tried to convey that there was no plan (and that's the whole point!), it didn't seem to register. I just sort of meant to reach out, open some doors (literally), and let whoever it might be sort of do whatever they might do. Anyway, after SEVERAL new rounds of scrutiny regarding "The Plan" (hey, who appointed me for that anyway?) I'll admit my frustration started to show a bit.

And then I realized something -- this is ignorable. I don't have to pout and shout about how "a simple 'thank you' would have sufficed," or get upset about it, or any of the above. To the degree that I can, I'm going to stay away from the refrain listed as the title of this entry, too, because I think it's often used obnoxiously. No one likes ingratitude, BUT:

(1) Before people complain about ingratitude, or about blowback from their 'good deed,' they need to ask about 'demand signal.' Way too many times, I've seen friends and colleagues complain about others' ingratitude in the face of their own generosity, but way too rarely does the complainer stop to try to frame it through the eyes of the other. It's like, let's say you're REALLY into a sport or a band. If you've got a spare ticket, the person you're offering it to probably doesn't care as much as you do, so if all you get is a muffled, "Thanks, man" then that might actually be a proportional response. Back when I was single, I had someone get upset at me because he'd given me the name and number of a female friend of his who lived down in Malden, and had told her to expect to hear from me. I never called or otherwise pursued, and he got really torqued about it...but I had never asked him to do it. There was an assumption built into the initial effort (which admittedly came from a good place), and that same assumption drove him to get upset later on. Ditto for any of the gazillion-million ways people think they're doing others a 'favor' that just might not be all that favorable!

(2) No one should do ANYTHING for which they automatically expect gratitude. Hosting might be a good example of this. It's like, yes, you've probably spent a good chunk of your own money on food and drinks, and you've opened up your home to people, but the key there is that it was all voluntary. Unless someone made you do it, you can't complain about who did or didn't bring or appreciate what. Going around expecting gratitude from people all the time is just a 'sub-optimal' way to go through life, IMHO. Stop trying to keep score, and start enjoying.

And last, the one that I'll have to adhere to now:

(3) If you think you're trying to do something nice, and someone is giving you grief for it, don't fan the flames. It's like, okay, I get it...somewhere, some wire got crossed, something was misinterpreted, and one person who thought he was doing something really nice confused another person who perhaps expected something more, or just different. Raising the ante, or even voicing my own frustration to the third-party who has been relaying all of this 'Planning' confusion, just makes it worse. All I can do is store it in the back of my brain somewhere, because if I do it again, then it really is my fault.

And on that note, time to stop blogging and start having fun -- it's America's greatest secular holiday!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR and best wishes for 2011! (And, as always, thanks for reading)

The Best Political Book...Ever

I know I've written a time or two here about "What it Takes," by Richard Ben Cramer. It's an exhaustive account of the 1988 Presidential election campaign, with a page count that gets into four-digit land.

But the amazing thing is that it's all awesome. It's not one of those massive books that makes you wish it had been edited better, and that you just keep reading out of a sense of commitment. Instead, it's a magnum opus that addresses a myriad of contemporary American issues of all sorts, and gives revealing and meaningful biographical information about a lot of people who still loom large on the contemporary political landscape (like our current Vice President).

A buddy of mine sent me this link, which talks about how the book was not initially well-received, but has sort of flavored with age and developed a following among people who've discovered it at used bookstores (like I did) and fallen in love with it.

If you have the time and the dedication, check out "What it Takes."

Gooooood Morning, Wakefield!

My command had a bit of a 'regime change' a couple months ago.

One of the things I love about it is that we ALL (that is, all ages, all ranks, and all MOS) go out on Friday mornings, throw heavy packs on our backs, and traipse around Lake Quannapowitt.

For the record, I really believe what they say about team-building through shared suffering...but this definitely isn't suffering. It is, however, a shared and collective experience -- undoubtedly, as we remember doing it years from now, the air will have gotten colder, the snowdrifts higher, and the wind nastier every time the stories are told.

With this Friday being a holiday, that makes tomorrow the 'ruck' day, which means I won't even have to think about the snooze button.

I don't know the office-place equivalent, but whatever your 'group' (say, your company, your family, your block association, etc.) a regular -- even if infrequent -- activity can be a great way to build some tradition and shared memory.

And if even people grumble about it, they might not 'really' mean it..

What WILL They Think of Next?

Remember when you were a kid trying to use a vending machine, and you had to find just the right dollar bill, that never had a single crease or crinkle anywhere on it...and that split second pause just as you put it in, hoping the machine wouldn't spit it back at you?

A couple years ago, I was talking to a friend and we both remarked how much the dollar-bill technology with vending machines had improved. Now, you can jam just about any dollar bill in there, and assuming it's not ripped or torn, it'll *take.* Makes perfect sense, right? Customers have money, vendors have wares, and both parties' interests are served when it gets even easier for the customers to part with said money to get said wares.

Maybe this has been around for a while now, but I just noticed the first time I'd seen a vending machine that can take twenties. It spits fives out for change...and what a great convenience for people who have yuppie food stamps from an ATM but no singles to spare.

Just when I got done taking stock of that, I saw dual drive-through lanes. Go capitalism!

Panic! At the Market

I might think this would be showing my hand as the new guy in Massachusetts, but I want at least partial credit for the fact that this isn't my first, second, or even third rodeo. I think I did an entry like this last year and I'll probably do the same next year, too.

Here's what is about to happen:

1. We are going to get walloped with some heavy-duty snow Sunday afternoon, night, and Monday morning.

2. It will be really hard or damn near impossible to get around on Monday.

3. By Tuesday, it won't be so bad any more. The roads will be passable, the supply chains will flow (remember, the profit motive isn't all bad), and somewhere, birds will chirp.

Does that make me an Apocalypse Denier? Am I just being skeptically contrarian by refusing to participate in Anthropogenic Idiocy in Supermaket Parking Lots and Aisles (AISPLA)?

I just feel that I'd be placing my safety and that of my family in far greater danger by trying to fight off crowds of frantic AA battery hoarders and maniacal milk stocker-uppers at Hannaford's or Market Basket than I would by taking the dire risk that we might go without resupply of those items for a roughly 24-hour period starting Sunday night.

I have a feeling that with some pluck and some know-how, we'll make it!

Why Interview Prep Matters...A Lot

A slightly belated Merry Christmas. My blogging "optempo" has fallen off quite a bit lately, given work requirements, so thanks for keeping faith and tuning back in.

Last week I had an interview up in New Hampshire. I would say it went really well (but then again, studies show most interviewees overstate their performance), but could have been a Hindenburg-style disaster.

The week before the scheduled interview, a buddy of mine who is a) slightly older; and b) much wiser about such matters, called me. He insisted I come down to Boston to do a mock interview.

"You may think you can just wing it by being friendly and generally well-spoken, but trust me, you can't," he insisted. He couldn't have been more correct in that statement.

By no means was he out to sucker-punch me in that practice session, but he still had me squirming and stammering a bit on even some of the most standard interview questions (i.e. Tell me about yourself, walk me through your resume, and describe a professional failure of yours).

After we wrapped up, he started off, "Well, there's a small percentage of interviewees who absolutely blow it, either by being obnoxious, or standoffish, or timid, or whatever else could tank a person in 30 minutes' time. You're not in that category, but..."

He was being nice about it, but the fact was that I had put forth a "C+/B-" effort, and had come off as rather amateurish. A good interviewee has already thought about how he or she might answer such questions and also has several "hip-pocket" anecdotes ready to go for the inevitable follow-up questions like, "Oh, really...tell me about a time you acted that way," or "How have you implemented that concept in a real-world setting?" etc. A varsity-level interviewee has an idea of how he might crisply and confidently answer a wildly open-ended question like "Tell me about yourself" in under 30 seconds. If the interviewer wants to probe further, she has the freedom to do it, but under no circumstances would the interviewee be stammering and "uhh-ing" wondering whether to wrap-up or keep rambling.

I took his advice and spent the next couple of nights Googling likely questions and then thinking about how I might answer them. I came up with 8 or so "hip-pocket" examples of ready-made stories I could tell if asked about a success, a failure, or a difficult boss or subordinate, etc. The idea, of course, is not to sound rehearsed or too polished, but to not have to mentally *fish* for the answer you'd give to a 101-level question.

This preparation was worth its weight in gold.

After a little distraction about the snow falling outside (which may have been a test to see whether I'd sit down first...I didn't), my interviewer started off with, "So...walk me through your resume," and then a dozen or so boilerplate-type questions. I didn't answer them robotically or recall them from memory, but the fact was I never had that "uhh....uhh...." sort of moment that would've sent things downhill in a hurry. As a result, I stayed confident and relaxed, which fed itself into a neat little positive feedback loop throughout the interview. Concise, crisp answers, 30-45 seconds apiece, with follow-up only as requested.

That may all sound really obvious to you, but unless you're a frequent participant in job interviews (from either side of the table), it might not be. The trap that I think many people could fall into is this: "I'm friendly, I make good eye contact, I'm articulate....I can wing this -- what could go wrong?" The answer to that is that plenty could go wrong. If you haven't taken the time to at least ask yourself -- and then answer out loud -- some questions about your personal work history that require some introspection and follow-on analysis, you definitely don't want to be doing it for the first time in the booth. You might think you sound great, but much like the amateur stand-up guys who suffer from what Jay Leno calls "Laugh Ears" in the book Leading With My Chin, you might not sound so hot from the other side of the room.

As the buddy in Boston was telling me today in an e-mail, all people who are great at anything prepare. Michael Jordan shoots lay-ups and free throws during the shootaround. Punters stay limber with practice kicks along the sideline. Opera singers go through the scales in their dressing rooms. And so on and so on.

People who study performance psychology -- whether in academic, athletic, artistic realms, or wherever else -- consistently report that it's the people who are *slightly nervous* who perform the best. Not the Nervous Nellies, but also not the people who think they can just coast through without a care.

If you're getting ready for an interview, whether for a graduate school, a professional board, a new job, or whatever else, you should get a few butterflies. Then, you should try to anticipate the dozen or so most likely questions you'll be asked, and then make damn sure you're not a deer in the headlights on Gameday.

With a nod to John Wooden, the Wizard of Westwood, anything else is preparation for failure.

Christmas in Kabul for the Mass. Guard

This Boston Globe photoessay centers around the 1-181 Infantry, a battalion of the Massachusetts Army National Guard headquartered out of Worcester. Only the last five pictures are actually of Guardsmen in Kabul...the rest are centered around family members in Western Mass.

There was also a good article about this unit in today's Globe.