Scott Fillmer » work

Cultural Priorities and the Breakneck Speed of the West

Scott Fillmer — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 01:32:15 +0000

I love this shot of Jason, Eddie (our driver in Uganda), and myself. If you are holding a machete in the middle of the woods-jungle I think it’s a rule, you have to stop to have a photo taken. Jason and I were attempting to clear a few branches away for a lady who lived on the property and to say thanks she gave Eddie these awesome avocados (you can just see her in the photo in the upper right background). Actually, we both thought it would be really cool to get to use a machete to do some actual real work, and I ended up with the machete and Jason the axe pipe thing (sorry Jason).

I know I have said it before but it still amazes me. The speed and priorities of life in Bulboa where this lady lives is so extremely different from the west, even different from just up the road in Kampala. Life down in Buloba isn’t really run by a clock on a wall like we know it, and no one seems to be in a hurry to do anything, it’s just TIA (this is Africa). I didn’t really hear that said too much while I was over there, but I did hear it a few times, which generally refers to “whenever”. I personally loved that and enjoyed the down time, especially since that pretty much doesn’t exist at all on this side of the world. I fight for it every week but it’s certainly not the norm no matter how hard you try to slow things down. The little wood we chopped up was supposed to last her about a month, although I’m not sure how, the same bit of wood wouldn’t have been enough to start a fire to me. We did spend about an hour or two walking around this neighborhood while others in our group worked on some painting. It was very low key, very laid back, very TIA.

Over here this week life moved along at our normal breakneck speed. Nothing inherently wrong with that but every minute of every day is packed full and it didn’t take me any time at all to fall back into life at hyper-speed where you have to fight for margin. Margin is where life happens, where we meet with God and remember why we do what we do.

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Cornerstone Staff Take it To the Bowling Alley :: Photos

Scott Fillmer — Wed, 25 May 2011 11:58:13 +0000

Every month we have a meeting where the entire staff gets together for lunch, but this Tuesday, everyone headed over to the Auburn Bowling Alley for a game instead of our normal “meeting”. It was loads of fun and a great break from the normal routine of things. That first shot is the whole motley crew, including my bald head (thanks Ashley Coxwell for taking the shot), seems everyone on staff is a professional bowler, we just happened to have missed a few pins for some reason. This particular all-staff meeting was said to be a “surprise” so none of us knew what was going on until we were told where to drive to for lunch. I love a staff that cherishes some down time, even if it’s just 90 minutes at the bowling alley. I hadn’t been bowling in probably 10 years but it was a blast. The are tons more photos but I’m saving those for ransom later in the summer.

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I AM Lenten Reader, Spoils :: Lent Day 6

Scott Fillmer — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 01:58:38 +0000

Day 6 :: Friday, March 15, 2011, Working for Spoils

Read John 6.25-29. What are you working for that spoils? Practice confession by writing those pursuits here.

Contemplation Over Day 6

This is such a hard question to answer, it’s like trying to come up with a list of daily sins that you committed. I think everything I work on that doesn’t glorify God or doesn’t prove to have productive roots based in scripture is a pursuit that spoils. All or many are not things that are necessarily bad, they just don’t add to furthering my understanding of scripture or bearing fruit for the kingdom of God.

I think the key word here is spoils. I can’t look at the above without saying that the pursuit of doing the laundry spoils because it doesn’t further the kingdom. Doing our normal routine of chores and duties we have to do because we are alive may seem like they spoil, but they are more like the “toil” not the spoil.

Things that i would pick that are the biggest time suckers, which keep me from further developing a relationship with God are probably TV, Internet (mindless pursuits on the Internet, there are many good pursuits to be had), and perhaps things like football season and everything that seems to be necessary with that venue, and a host of other little things that rob time from my day one little minute at a time.

In this passage today, John 6:26, Jesus used those famous words “I tell you the truth”, 4 times in the discourse just within this particular discourse (John 6:26, 32, 47, and 53) to point out the importance of what he was about to say. in 6:26, as i wrote about yesterday (see I AM Lenten Reader Review, Bread of Life :: Lent Day 5) Jesus is rebuking the disciples for their intentions for materialistic gain, and their total lack of spiritual perception. (BKC p.235)

In v.27 Jesus tells us specifically not to work for those things that spoil, but to expand our work into working for things that don’t spoil, working for the eternal, for things that won’t spoil. This is not totally new but one thing I find significant is that Jesus specifically tells us in verse 27 to work for those things that last into eternity, “[work for] the food that endures to eternal life which the Son of Man will give to you”. (v.27 ESV)

What i find significant about this verse is that is says things we work for in this life will pass to our eternal life? Most commentaries say “spiritual food leads to eternal life” (BKC p.295), which is correct, but it doesn’t examine that the spiritual food (reading, studying, praying, bearing good fruit) will pass on to the eternal life. My knowledge of movies or who won last year’s NCAA tournament is probably not the most important spiritual food that endures to eternity, but what about knowledge learned through studying of the bible?

As I read on in v.28-29 it shows that the people were thinking that their salvation came from doing good works or being a good person (cf. Romans 10:2-4), but Jesus says no, there is only one way, to believe in the One whom God has sent.

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5 Reasons Why I Love My Job at Cornerstone Church

Scott Fillmer — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 23:18:04 +0000

I haven’t posted consistently here since November because every time I went to write something, words didn’t suffice. This week, and the past several weeks, have been so unbelievable that I really can’t describe my feelings into coherent words yet (see Deb’s blog post in brief). The ups and downs of life that have occurred is something I have never faced before, and I don’t really know where to start, other than to say we have a great God, worthy of every ounce of praise we can muster.

As a way to just get myself started unpacking the events of the last few months I thought I would start with my job at Cornerstone and go from there. I’m well into my third year (see I Have Now Joined the Ranks of Church IT), and starting in 2011 I moved into a slightly different role, one that I am really looking forward to in the year ahead. It has been quite an adventure, something I would never trade if I had to do it all over again, and this past week was a big exclamation point on that statement.

Thinking over the reasons why I love my job I started realizing there were 100′s, so in a nut shell, here are five off the top.

1. It Combines My Life Passion and My Career A “life passion” is probably inadequate to describe my faith. Being a Christian isn’t about being passionate about something, like I love Auburn football, or love to eat, it is who I am. Being able to go to work every day and play a small part in something big is huge to me, but it’s more than that, it’s the combination of the 100′s of reasons I love working for the Church.

This is a catch all reason. Everything about my faith is played out each day, for better or worse, and I have the honor of being supported by the members of Cornerstone. The support that I receive in my life, especially over the last few months, transcends a “job” and has become a way of life.

2. The People I Work With are Unbelievable I can’t say enough about the staff at Cornerstone. In the almost 25 years I have spent in the work force so far, I have never worked with a greater collective group of people than those staff and those who lead the church than at Cornerstone. I could write a post about each of them and how much they mean to me individually, and as a group.

3. Cornerstone’s Vision and Direction This is something the staff and leaders talk about all the time. Where is God leading this church, and how can we best follow His direction. Much of what goes on at Cornerstone Church comes from the statement Leading People To Know and Serve Jesus, and our jobs, whatever that job is, should ultimately work towards that goal, and I love that.

4. Margin, Prayer, and Study, are Expected Finding time to live the life we are called to live out as Christians can be hard. We get so busy with work and everything else that is life, but as a Christian we are called to live out our faith Monday through Saturday too. At Cornerstone, the leaders expect us to live out a life of faith that is taught in scripture, and I love that about my job.

5. The Willingness to Learn and Adjust An amazing quality of Cornerstone Church is the willingness of the leaders to listen, learn, try something new, fail if needed, then adjust and try again. This is no small thing at all, and few businesses, let alone churches, can stop that train once it gets rolling, or try something new to try to make a difference in someone’s life.

That’s my top 5. If you’re in the Auburn area please come by on Sunday morning (or during the week), we would love to meet you.

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Labor Day for Those Still Looking for Full Time Work

Scott Fillmer — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 15:54:15 +0000

I love Labor Day, mainly because it marks the end of the summer with cooler weather on the way, all the kids are back in school, and football season is about to go into full swing. What I don’t like, and I am sure all those who continue to look for full-time work day after day don’t like either, is the reminder that Labor Day is technically for those who labor (that is labor in that stereotypical means created years ago by that industrial revelation we had), not those who labor looking for labor.

A Labor of Love

For all practical purposes, I have been looking for a full-time labor of love match since we sold our book business about three years ago (see How I Can Save Your Business Money from back in April, or the other articles at the bottom of this post). Although I have a great part time job, work more than full time at graduate school, and my days are busier now than they ever have been, looking for and finding a full-time position that matches both person and company has been one of the most difficult endeavors of my now 20+ year working life.

I have found more jobs and “careers” than I knew existed and made more connections with my resume than I can count. [On a side note, if you are a single college student in or around the Auburn area, there is a company looking for OSHA "inspectors" to work on barges in the Gulf of Mexico, no experience needed, pay is great, 21 days on 21 days off, and you get to fly to work.]

It is the Economy Stupid

After a while you just scratch your head in amazement at this current marketplace. Resumes and 3-piece suits are not what they use to be 20 years ago (thank goodness), but the lack of practical sense in some HR departments is almost comical, and expectations some business owners have is borderline ridiculous. Just for means of example, I give you one from this past week:

I had a company contact me from my blog asking if I would be interesting in writing articles for their website? Why sure, sounds great. I only have about 10-15 years experience writing well researched, SEO packed, properly formatted content, including about 1,000 articles on this blog alone, sounds great. His email to me then gave me a list of things he wanted me to do, including writing two articles for him so he could get an idea of my writing style, then after that, if they were interested, they would be happy to pay me $.007/word for 200-400 word articles? Yeah, that was a whopping $1.40-$2.80 per article. Probably cost me more to power my computer for that length of time than they would pay me. I get those all the time, and never reply to them, but someone out there does I’m sure.

Labor Day for All Labor

So today, at least in my mind, we can take some rest from those things which we do to sustain life. Enjoy what is probably a beautiful day outside since the calendar reads September, and be thankful for the work we are given to do.

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A Market with False Expectations for Higher Education

Scott Fillmer — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 20:57:25 +0000

This is something that could be written about at such length that no one person or media company could cover it properly. The real employment story for the millions of college students just moving into the work force and those millions in the country looking for work is the lure that higher education will promise a better job and better pay.

The government has now made it so easy for just about anyone (unless you have been convicted of a felony, and they are trying to change that too) to receive financial aid that the short term prospects of not getting or finding a full time job are overridden by higher education. A great but brief look at this topic was published this morning by Michael Barone of The National Review called The Higher Education Bubble . It’s simple short-term math. When the government gives you more to go to school than a potential employer will, and the golden carrot of an investment into your higher education is weighed, often school wins out. In the end, sometimes, it is nothing more than another way for the government to enslave its citizens in debt that a non-existent job will never be able to pay back.

When higher education institutions exist (i.e. they couldn’t or wouldn’t exist otherwise) only because the government pays for 95% of tuition through loans or grants (many schools actually have a 99% financial aid rate), the institutions win, but the students often end up worse off when they finish than if they never went in the first place. The concept is similar to the housing market years ago when the government told everyone it was their right as citizens to own a house, it was an essential part of the “American dream” per-say. It turns out that some actually would have been far better off in the long run renting, imagine that.

Much more could be said about this topic but I will leave that for another day.

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The Work at Home Job Scam, the Freelance Job

Scott Fillmer — Fri, 21 May 2010 16:21:48 +0000

This is a followup, and part 2 of a 4 part series, on the work at home factory job of today (read part 1, The Work at Home Job Scam, the New Factory. This post deals with the freelance job market, the upcoming posts will deal with the call center jobs and Internet evaluator or website annotator jobs. Keep in mind the term “freelance” encompasses a huge genre of work from photography to writing to virtual assistant to anything you can find on Craigslist in the job area. The scope of this post is really just dealing with Elance and the Elance alternatives.

Elance is the biggest player in the Internet freelance job area. After paying for their premium service for 2-3 years, and trying over and over for years to find a good flow of freelance jobs, I found exactly one decent hard working person who hired me to do some ‘Internet research” for $10/hr, which over a period of 6 months has earned me $85. I still do work for him, he is trying to build his business, and he pays higher than most at $10/hr, but after almost three years, I have found nothing legitimate and it cost me $14.99/month ($450) for revenues totalling $80.

I am not here to say Elance or the others are scams (although there are posting scams all over the place), I am just trying to point out the value of your time and what it is worth.

There are plenty of alternatives to Elance like oDesk, Guru, Rentacoder, Scriptlance, Mturk, Freelancer, Getacoder, and some of my observations from sites like these are:

there are always tons of jobs available
Elance at least has it down to a science as far as pay and project organization
you are competing with an endless supply of workers from India who charge $1/hr (yes, on average your competition will charge $1-2 PER HOUR)
you have to work literally for nothing to get started by taking projects that will pay $50 for 30 hours of work
you are competing with noobs and people who have no idea how to run a legitamate business who will do anything for nothing, though their work is often very low quality, something you can easily overcome
quality is not valued as a whole… I have found the large majority of listings on these sites are looking for the cheapest possible outcome, with no regards for quality work
and of course, there are tons of scams everywhere you look, offers for work that will have your ISP ban your service, have eBay shut down your account, or worse… some offers might reward you with a federal search warrant and your computer equipment confiscated

Of course not all freelance work is like this, but I know of many people, who live and work within the U.S. and have to pay expenses associated with living in this country, not India. You can only work for nothing for so long, eventually you have to either cut all expenses (not realistic) or have some revenue.

I have basically worked freelance as a photographer for more than 15 years and the key is to slowly build a client base that will recommend your work to others. It is slow, tedious, and doesn’t pay well, but it’s far better in the long run than the results from these sites listed above.

Do yourself a favor in the long run. If you are interested in doing freelance work, treat your business like you would any other entrepreneurial endeavor by looking at some of the basics. For what it’s worth, my list also includes ::

Don’t quit your revenue stream (job) until you are established
Determine what unique skill or art you are going to freelance (what’s your market)
Be prepared not to make any money early on, but even so, stay away from the sites above
Pursue your passion, not a position
Know that trying to monetizing your passion may destroy it or at least significantly change it
Seeking alternative “positions” in that industry may also destroy your passion
Seek out others who are doing the same thing and try to learn as much as you can from them
Working more hours will not always equal better results
Trying to integrate your passion into #1 above (results may vary)
If you can mentally live without a steady paycheck, a 401(k), a retirement package, and stability, forget about #1 and pursue your passion instead of the culturally accepted “American Dream” but when you struggle to find your way, re-read #3, then, as Buffett would say, breathe in, breathe out, and move on. My wife and I went over 15 years without a single paycheck (the W-2 type) and I still managed to eat.

Have you had any experience with Elance or any of the other sites listed above? In my experience most, if not all, of these sites way over promise and way under-deliver for those with quality, experience, and education in their field. I would love to hear if you have had any success with any of them in your freelance pursuits.

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The Work at Home Job Scam, the New Factory

Scott Fillmer — Sat, 15 May 2010 14:14:55 +0000

It costs me $20-$30 per hour worked to have a work at home job. Working from home is totally different, I am talking about a specific classification of job, the work at home job. The job that targets those who want to spend more time with their family, not waste half their life in traffic, the homeschool mom, the out of work in between work individual.

Notice I didn’t say it made me x-amount of money, but it has cost me x-amount of money. That is the difference between today’s standard work at home job and one you have to actually drive to get to, between $20-$30 per hour less even though today, most jobs can be done from anywhere.

If you are looking for the newest in sweat shop factory work (and there are tons of people who are), you won’t find it at the local tire or car plant. No way, their union wages are far too high ($50-$75/hr) to compare with these jobs. The new factory work in our culture today is the work at home job. After owning my own business for 15-20 years (and running it from my own home no less) I never understood the extent of the work at home scam until I started looking for one of these great jobs. I figured that there was some company that could see the value in hiring me, a Linchpin, to work from my home office, but after 2-3 years of searching, and working, now I’m not so sure.

I will review a few companies and positions in a series of upcoming posts for those who are still looking since every time I came across one of these positions, I had to find a decent review about the company (look at forums and sites like WAHM, JobVent or GlassDoor.com) to find out if it was an actual scam or not. Most were not scams in the technical sense of the word, but I am amazed at what conditions we are now willing to accept just so we can have a work at home job (there is a huge difference in working from home and work at home).

Most of these jobs pay under $10 per hour (many well under, like $5-7/hr) and in the U.S. you will be lucky to cover your home office expenses for that. Generally you are required to put in a specific volume of tasks per hour, calls per hour or however they rate you, and always follow the manual, map, guide, instructions with no deviation. Most hire you as contract labor so they don’t have to pay taxes, worry about law suits, pay for training, or pay for any benefits whatsoever.

The difference that makes one job an actual scam, or at least a big clue, and the other job not a scam is if they require you to pay them for the job. Most of these work at home jobs don’t go that far into the true scam world, they are factories of course, not scams. They do go as far as paying you by the minute, requiring you to incorporate, and require you to take “tests” to become qualified, and they don’t pay for your training. These “tests” are in essence the very work of the job, work you do for free because it is part of the “interview” (I took a 10-15 hour “test” to “qualify” and later realized that I was doing their actual work, unpaid of course).

In each site or company I list in my upcoming posts I am only showing the most obvious match, and those I have direct experience with in the past. Under the surface there are tons of companies all doing the same thing, looking for the cheapest most expendable warm body, but I know for some, any job is better than no job, and I totally understand that.

The list could be endless. You have freelance work, call center (centre) jobs, tech support, customer service, programming, search engine evaluators, data entry and so on. In these three upcoming posts I will highlight the three areas I have looked at the most, freelance, call center, and search engine evaluator (or annotator, search engine technician, ads quality rater, etc). For those of you who are looking for a meaningful job where you can add value to the company, I have an exahustive list of who to avoid, but I would love to hear from you too. Good luck in your search.

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Are You a Linchpin, Assignment

Scott Fillmer — Fri, 14 May 2010 18:38:22 +0000

This week I was given a seemingly easy assignment. To answer the question; are you a Linchpin, and if yes, why? If you are familiar with the phrase that Seth Godin has made into a coined term at this point, the immediate answer to that question is easy, yes, of course. But the longer I thought about the second part of the question the more I got knotted up into a self debate of what exactly is a Linchpin before I could determine the why of the yes or no.

In short, a Linchpin is the irreplaceable person. You might say that in today’s culture and business market, there is no such thing as a person who can’t be easily replaced. For a large percentage of the workforce, this is probably the case, but the key to that statement is “easily” replaced. Many jobs today are just mental factory workers, plug and play, just take out person A and replace them with person B and in a short period of time, no one will notice the difference, certainly not the balance sheet. It’s all about the value that each warm body adds to the factory by following the manual or map for each task.

The factory workers today are programmers, accountants, customer service reps, students (all positions I have done in the past), any position that can be given a set of procedures, required to then follow them without any thinking or creativity required, expected, or desired, to complete their task.

A Linchpin on the other hand is someone who creates spurts of enormous value to the company or organization by doing those tasks that can’t be written down in a manual because they require art, the art of thinking, the art of challenging the status-quo, the art of being a problem solver or troubleshooter, a person who is hard to replace in a replaceable world.

How about it, are you a Linchpin, and if so, why? I’m still thinking about it myself but I’ll let you know next week.

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How I Can Save Your Business Money

Scott Fillmer — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 17:44:08 +0000

Some of you may or may not know that I have been looking for a good job match in a full time IT related field for about 3-4 years now (yes I said years). So far, it has been one of the most frustrating ongoing experiences I have had in business. I have been denied a lowly $7-9/hour job to work out of my home office because I had too much experience, and have turned down a $60,000 job because it wasn’t a good match between my personality and their culture. There is nothing easy about finding a good career match any more, and I have a lot to offer a company. Almost 20 years of business experience, education, flexibility, a low required salary, and a willingness to travel. See also my post Top 5 Tips to Help Your Job Search.

How I Can Save Your Business Money

What is astonishing to me, is how many potential employers will not look at the possibility of having a professional (and I mean that in every sense of the word) work out of their home office when the typical IT job really doesn’t require a physical presence in an office, or anywhere for that matter. I understand some do, and that’s fine, but not all by any stretch.

It’s simple math. If I can be hired to do a job in a middle-income American city for $50,000, which requires me to move, I can do the exact same job from my home office for $40,000. That’s $10,000 a year in payroll expenses your company doesn’t have to pay. Computer equipment they don’t have to buy, phones, office space, parking, gas, and food that doesn’t have to be purchased. If your company has a tight budget and really needs to control expenses, why ignore this potential savings?

My Office is Better Equipped Than Most Office Buildings

How old is your office equipment? What tools are you missing to get your job done in an effective and efficient manner?

I have 4 different phone lines/numbers I can use including a landline, cellular, and VoIP. A network of 5-6 computers (PC and MAC), laptops, desktops, mobiles devices, a reliable 6M high speed DSL line, 10 TB of data storage (yes Tera), data backups, and my office is even wired for a 20KW backup generator in case of power failure with 250 gallons of propane on site. I am probably better equipped and better prepared than the standard office building in middle America.

With that said, I have no problem going out of city or state for the right position, it will just cost everyone more money.

What Comes Around (To Get Down, Timo Maas)

This week I had a few different conversations with potential employers, some very promising. One of these companies was so unique in the way they required applicants to submit information I decided to go the extra mile and respond to their creativeness with creativity by making a portfolio video. Videos like this are nothing new but I made it specifically for them for an added personal touch.

Below is the video, (with the names removed to protect the innocent of course), but if you are one of those out there looking for a job, don’t just do the exact same thing that all the other applicants do, that accomplishes nothing but allowing yourself to blend in. Be creative, stand out, showcase your skills. Not all employers will appreciate this approach for sure, but a company looking for a Linchpin instead of a door knob will.

See the full size version of The Portfolio Project here.