Work has been quite a bit of keep doing the same thing, without a ton of new projects. So this quarter’s update was fairly simple to make. It was nice to be able to add a project to my job with the new company. I enjoy making the quarterly updates to my resume. It makes the whole process a bit simpler. I just know it’s done and no need to worry about my resume falling out of date.
Goal 2
More Awesome: Goal 1.04 Complete
For April’s book I read Hershey by Michael D’Antonio. My husband purchased the book last year and I stumbled across it when I was selecting my book to read for April.
I grew up near Hershey PA and I moved back to Central PA a few years ago. I’ve been to Hershey more times than I can count. So I’m relatively familiar with some of the history of the town and Milton Snavely Hershey himself.
I found this book very interesting. It confirmed many things I believed to be true, some of which weren’t overly positive. An example is M.S. Hershey’s temper. It’s not something that’s commonly known, but I always rather suspected he had a temper and the book confirmed that. I could have lived without the rumours about Kitty Hershey and her life before marrying Mr Hershey, but that’s my personal preference. Since I’m a bit of a history buff, I was a bit annoyed by the attempts to place the story in a historical concept. If it wasn’t connected to M.S. Hershey or the history of the company, I didn’t really need it. An example would be mentioning Lincoln speaking in Lancaster. I’m not sure what that really had to do with the story, but again that’s personal preference. I’m sure those pieces of information were useful to someone not as well versed in history.
The majority of the book is devoted to MS Hershey’s life. I found the portions on Milton’s early life extremely interesting. These are some of the very important events that helped shape the man. I’ve always found these portions of his life to be breezed over in most of the other Milton Hershey information I’ve read.
The information about his early businesses and failures he faced were eye opening. I’d known he’d tried and failed before finally succeeding with the Lancaster Caramel Company, but never heard the actual extent of those previous businesses. I really enjoyed reading about the Lancaster Caramel Company’s creation and later sale. That sale allowed Milton Hershey to have to time and money to create the town of Hershey, the milk chocolate recipe, and the Hershey company. There was a lot of history to the company of Hershey I had a only slightly familiar with, like the Cuban sugar plantation & refinery, and they were covered in the book.
The last 2 chapters about his legacy and lasting impact on the people and town of Hershey. They even cover some of the recent history of the legal battles of the Milton Hershey School Trust.
If you want to learn more, the good and the bad, about Milton Hershey, the Hershey Company, the town of Hershey or the Milton Hershey School, this is a good book to pick up. I’m happy I read it even with the negatives I mentioned earlier.
More Awesome: Goal 1.03 Complete
I recently participated in a Random Act of Kindness (ROAK) for the Belen Echandia Sub Forum in the Purse Forum. My wonderful buddy sent me Drive by Daniel H Pink, a book I’ve been looking forward to since I saw Kathy Sierra mention it on Twitter. Once I received Drive, I knew it had to be the book I read for March!
Drive’s subtitle is The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. The book explores a type of motivation beyond the normal reward/punishment system (Motivation 2.0), a Motivation 3.0. Pink points out that if basic needs are met, Motivation 2.0 can actually harm instead of help the very things it’s trying to accomplish.
Motivation 2.0 worked when it was created because of the type of work being done. People needed to comply and Motivation 2.0 excels in that situation. Now, a lot of work requires problem solving, creativity and willingness to experiment. Motivation 3.0 seeks and allows for engagement, which fits the current environment.
Pink provides examples from some companies that are embracing Motivation 3.0. Three of the big names are Zappos, Best Buy, and 3M. Zappos empowers their employees to provide make the customer happy. Best Buy operates a Results Oriented Work Environment (ROWE) in some areas that allows their employees to determine where and when they work best. 3M provides their technical staff with time to work on a project of their choosing. One of these projects resulted in Post-In Notes, one of my favorite products!
Motivation 3.0 is 3 basic elements: autonomy, mastery and purpose. Pink dedicates a chapter to each and discusses them at length. The end of the book a toolkit for Type I (his type of Motivation 3.0 person). The toolkit provides 9 strategies for finding your motivation.
I really loved the book. It’s one of those books you don’t want to put down, but you know you have to let it sit so you can absorb the information. I took me almost 3 weeks to read the content of the book, and I’m still reading through the toolkit and thinking about it. A lot of the Motivation 2.0 not working and Motivation 3.0 recommendations made sense to me. I don’t work at a company that embraces Motivation 3.0, but I can see some ways my management has implemented portions of it (and I’m sure without having read this book). If you want to learn more about motivation, I suggest getting Drive!
More Awesome: Goal 2 Update
This month I decided to perform a complete overhaul of my resume. I’m in the rather unique situation of having almost all of my professional career with a single company. To properly showcase my growth here, I decided to break each of my positions in this company out. Each of my titles is now listed as a separate job. I really feel this lets me show how I’ve grown and my responsibilities have changed in my career. Of course this was not a simple change to make. It’s taken a few days of work. I still need to ask some of my contacts in HR to review the resume and get their feedback. I’m really happier with the flow of the resume and feel it showcases my skills in a brighter light.
More Awesome: Goal 2.01 Complete
Today I took advantage of the massive amount of snow we received in the Mid Atlantic States, and updated my resume. It was an enjoyable experience, yet also slightly depressing. I’ve spent most of the past 2 years working on 2 projects. While they were large, business critical projects, it’s a little sad to have so few updates to make when I haven’t updated my resume in almost a year. I’m hoping that my update during the second quarter will involve a lot more data.
Overall, I feel very accomplished today and slightly more awesome.
More Awesome: Goal 2 — Resume
This goal was triggered by a recent change in my work life (I still have a job). I’ve been known to slack on updating my resume. I think I once went almost 2 years without updating it!
Goal #2 – Update my resume at least once a quarter (4 times a year)
It’s a great idea to keep your resume up to date. My resume hasn’t been updated in almost a year. That is very not awesome of me! It’s not the most exciting goal ever, but I feel it’s a really important one.