If you use the water cooler, please drop off your summer dues...

This spring I adjunct taught an undergraduate finance class at a local university. I thought the email request, "If you use the water cooler, please drop off your summer dues..." really captured the essence of the economics of being an adjunct instructor.

Every time I agree to adjunct teach (this is my 3rd time), I marvel at how little the university pays its adjunct faculty. If you consider how much time curriculum development takes, on an hourly basis, it approaches minimum wage. After each teaching stint, I conveniently forget the poor pay...only to be reminded the next time. But, if you want to teach and are not a tenure track professor, I guess it is the price of admission. Right?

It is the university's nickel and dime behavior that gets me. As an instructor, the first thing you have to do is get a faculty ID. When you do so, the clerk immediately asks, "how do you want to pay for your parking?" Really? We have to pay for parking? On our adjunct wages? OK...FINE, deduct it from my paycheck. The administrator responds, "Here is your parking pass. Go to the student store to buy that little plastic thing that hangs from your rear-view mirror that holds your parking pass." REALLY? We have to pay for the plastic parking pass holder???

It is a good thing I don't even know where the water cooler is...

Why Wouldn't I?

Right now I am flying home from my Harvard Business School 25^th reunion. It was incredible.
 

I admit…I didn’t go to the 15^th and 20^th reunion. Why? It doesn’t take a Baker Scholar to crack that case. Frankly, I don’t remember the details…but either I was between jobs, or I hated my job or something was going wrong in my personal life or something like that. Most likely my career was going sideways at that time. As a Harvard Business School Graduate, when your career is not going up and to the right, your self-esteem falls into the toilet.

When we graduate from Harvard Business School, we don’t believe, we KNOW we can conquer the universe. And, you know what? Many alumni do. So, we set lofty goals for our careers, which is probably good. After all, if you don’t know where you are going, how are you going to get there? Right? But…we don’t just set goals…we turn those goals into expectations.

As a former engineer, I love equations. My favorite equation has no numbers:

SATISFACTION = PERCEPTION – EXPECTATIONS

This equation applies to almost anything in life. It quickly clarifies my decisions to not attend previous reunions. If my PERCEPTION of how my career is down in the dumps and my EXPECTATIONS for my career are in the clouds…well…anyone can do the math…my SATISFACTION must be negative. But…my SATISFACTION must not only be negative, it must be REALLY, REALLY negative!

As a Harvard Business School graduate, with my career SATISFACTION down in the depths of despair, there was NO WAY I could have gone to those reunions. Right? After all, if I went, I would have to face all my classmates. And…of course…they were all masters of the universe; because, I hadn’t just set expectations high for myself, I had set expectations high for everyone in my class. And without information to the contrary, I assumed they had achieved or exceed their goals. They must have…they all graduated from Harvard Business School. Of course, they achieved or exceeded those goals. They were all CEO’s. Captains of industry. I was alone. I was the only FAILURE. I didn’t want to go to those reunions; I wanted to crawl into a hole.

The most interesting thing about my favorite equation is that REALITY is nowhere in the equation. PERCEPTIONS are subjective. EXPECTATIONS are often unrealistic. REALITY is nowhere in the equation. In reality, was I a FAILURE? Of course not. But it is easy to FEEL like a failure. And were my expectations unfair? Probably. Reasonable as goals, but unreasonable as expectations.

But, I need to circle back to this reunion. My section party was amazing. For a few hours I was surrounded by 40-50 people who I knew intimately from first year. I knew them. And they knew me. And they care about me.

Anyway…after having a GREAT time at the section party I shared a cab ride back to our hotels with a couple of sections mates. One of those section mates is a brilliant, McKinsey type. He used to come into section hungover and disheveled. Then he would proceed to crack pretty much any case for which he was asked to open. Anyway…the three of us needed to tell the cabbie which hotel to go to first. This section mate was staying at the Marriot Copley. Reunion headquarters. So…I looked over at him and said, “You must have RSVP’d early to be staying at the Marriot Copley.” He responded, “of course I RSVP’d right away.” I looked at him blankly. And then, as always, he cracked the case. He quietly said, “Why wouldn’t I? I go to all of these things.”

And the light turned on in my head. Why wouldn’t I go to ANY and ALL Harvard Business School reunions? Life takes a village, right? For the previous few hours, at the section party, I had returned to the nurturing village of my section. Everybody knew me. They care about me. And you know what…they didn’t judge me. Everyone just enjoyed each other and caught up. If I had gone to my 15^th and 20^th reunions, my guess is that the same would have happened. I would have been welcomed right back into that fold; I would not have been judged. I would have been welcomed and nurtured.

So…will I go to my Harvard Business School 30^th reunion? Why wouldn’t I?

Napa vs. Sonoma

I just received an email from an old friend. He admitted that while he goes to Napa several time a year, he never goes to Sonoma County. Here was my response:

I will never understand why people are so enamored by Napa vs Sonoma.

Here is the comparison:

1)      Brand

·         Napa’s brand is auto parts.

·         Sonoma County’s brand is good food, beer, wine and lifestyle.

2)      Borders

·         Sonoma County has a beautiful coastline.

·         Napa County abuts Solano County.

3)      History

·         Fort Ross, Sonoma Mission, Bear Flag Revolt, General Vallejo’s adobe

·         History??

Sonoma County rocks!

Back to Blogging

Has it really been almost a year and a half since I posted to my blog? Wow!

Time to get back into it. I enjoy writing; I am not sure many read my posts, but I think they are search-able and they remain out in the blog-o-sphere.


Possible topics:

* YES! There are sufficient North Bay professionals to have a vibrant start-up community.
* The North Bay Escape Valve
* The Gambler's Dilemma and North Bay Professionals
* Come together -->Interact -->Collaborate-->Start Businesses-->Create Jobs

Congratulations K-Diagnostics - Winner of the North Bay iHub Business Plan Contest.

The inaugural North Bay iHub Seed Round Business Plan Competition just drew to a close. The winner, San Rafael based K-Diagnostics has a sleep apnea diagnostic and monitoring medical device. How exciting! K-Diagnostics plans to move to the SMBC (Sonoma Mountain Business Cluster) and hopes to have as many as 30 employees within a few years.

The other finalists:

• GOasis - Santa Rosa - mobile, self-contained, energy-efficient emergency shelters
• E3 - Sebastopol - bio-methane from municipal waste
• Barrier Free Adventures - Petaluma - mobile & internet travel information for disabled travelers

Clearly there are lots of entrepreneurs in the North Bay with compelling ideas.

There were lots of winners in this contest:

• Sonoma, Marin, and Napa Counties -- we need entrepreneurship to spur our economy
• The SMBC that sponsored the contest and gained a new incubator tenant
• Sonoma State and Dominican University that inspired many of the entries
• the Event Sponsors including the North Bay Angels (K-Diagnostics gets to pitch at the NBA's regular July meeting if it wants)

But the biggest winners are all of the 36 companies that participated in the contest. Each was assigned a mentor by the SMBC/iHub. The business plan competition gave the companies a compelling reason to take their business planing to a new level. I mentored a very early stage company/idea. My company did not make the finals...but the team said the process was worthwhile. That is what is important. I only hope that my contribution was helpful.

But, right now we give K-Diagnostics a moment in the spotlight. Great job!

Full Disclosure: I am on the SMBC board of mentors and recently became an Entrepreneur in Residence at the SMBC.

Twitter: @jroym

Rain, Rain, Go Away!

It rained this week. In June. It never rains in Northern California in June. Rain only falls from October to April...maybe May. Never in June through September. What is going on?

A picnic I was planning to go to this weekend was cancelled because of a high chance of rain. I cannot remember that ever happening before. I am pretty sure that the rest of the country deals with it differently. In much of the country, it rains in any month. So...people put on events rain or shine. Ideally with alternate arrangements for rain.

I remember crouching under a table with dozens of others during a downpour at the South Carolina Oyster festival in Columbia, SC. The storm came and went. We came out from under the tables, laughing, having gotten to know a few strangers. Ironically, it was fun - and since I am telling this story, clearly memorable.

So...the rain is frustrating. We yearn for our warm summer weather. But, frankly, we in Northern California need to get over ourselves.

Snowcamping! Woo hoo!

I know my blog is mostly about work...but even professionals need to take a long holiday weekend!

I am off to Crocker Point in Yosemite (this guy is not me-the hair gives it away) for 3 days, 2 nights of snowcamping. My pack is packed. My snowshoes are ready. Time for an adventure! And when I return I will be all the more energized for having taken a break.

If you think I am crazy...checkout www.snowcamping.org. I have taken training. I have helped train people to do this. I used to be an assistant leader on these trips. I know what I am doing...because, folks, don't snowcamp if you don't have the right gear and don't know what your are doing. People die. But not me...I will just have 3 glorious days in Yosemite.

Woo hoo!

Twitter: @jroym
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jroymartinez