Working for a Bully Boss

In the company from which I retired, managers go through significant training on being a manager.   While I didn't agree with all my managers, all of them were good managers.   I never worked for someone that I considered a bully boss.  Since retiring, I've worked a several managers that I consider a bully boss.

Here are some of the characteristics of these bullies:

Poor listening skills.  While the bully boss may ask for input, he hardly listens. He isn't really interested in the other person's points.   He is always thinking of what he has to say next.

Always right.  The bully boss believes he is always right, even when he is wrong. He will often cause additional unnecessary work to prove he is right. As we say in for engineering problems, "You can violate the the laws of thermodynamics." The bully boss will definitely claim it's possible to do so :-)

One way to do things. To the bully boss, there is only one way to do work: his way. That's because it simplifies his work process even though it complicates everyone else's work processes

Management yes person.The bully boss tends to curry favor from his superiors through excessive compliments and praise. In addition, he will implement management's plans without any constructive consideration.

In two of the jobs, I simply quit or did not reapply the following year. In the third job, I haven't decided whether to quit or wait for the inevitable replacement of the boss.

For more on New Beginnings, check back every Sunday for a new segment.

This is not financial or career advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2012 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Mandatory Health Insurance Should Be Insurance

According to Wikipedia, insurance is "a form of risk management primary used to hedge against the risk of a contingent uncertain loss. Insurance is defined as the equitable transfer of the risk of a loss, from one entity to another, in exchange for payment."    As defined, insurance shouldn't pay for expected expenses.

For example, car insurance covers unexpected damages and losses (storms, theft, and accident).  Automobile insurance doesn't cover routine maintenance like oil changes, tuneups, brakes and tire replacement.  In addition, home owner's insurance doesn't cover repairs that are due to neglect or after market upgrades.

So if health insurance was modeled after automobile insurance, it would cover unexpected health issues, e.g. accidental injury, or sudden health decline.   It wouldn't cover expected, discretionary health costs such as annual checkups or birth control.   It definitely wouldn't cover lifestyle health costs like erectile dysfunction prescriptions.

While our family has chosen to pay for the maximum health care insurance coverage, I don't believe the same level of coverage should be mandatory for everyone.  When I was younger, my employee insurance premiums were zero.  I was glad to have low premiums for insurance mainly against unforseen health issues.  I had 100% accidental injury coverage after a deductible and payed the full cost of doctor visits up to a deductible.  As a result, I saw my doctor about every three years and only went to the hospital for severe health issues or injuries.

For more on Reflections and Musings, check back every Saturday  for a new segment.

This is not financial or insurance advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2012 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Not Getting My Perfect Job

After Trying to Create my Perfect Retirement Job, I am disappointed that my boss does not feel the work is high enough priority for the company.  As a counter offer, my boss asked me to do some work for the company that is important, but in which I have little knowledge or interest.  So I declined.

As a result, I plan to let my employment contract expire and will not accept an extension.  I will provide a resignation letter effective the last day of my contract so the company is aware of my intentions.  Then, I will complete my outstanding projects.  With any remaining time, I will put against the project which I declined   For reference, I can work on anything if the time is limited and short :-)

I'm already down to less than 10 hours a week this month as I do the final steps in transitioning to my successor.  So going to zero when my contract ends will be a smooth change back to retirement.

For more on Reaping the Rewards, check back every Friday for a new segment.



This is not financial or retirement advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2012 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

The Journey to Become an Adult

In Life Principles from Kindergarten, I shared three principles of behavior my daughter was taught in kindergarten.

Take care of yourself.

Take care of others.

Take care of your environment.

I thought these were great princples for kindergartern and life. 

To me, these principles are a great way to check whether our daughter has making progress adulthood.

Take care of yourself.  Can she support herself without assistance from family, friends or government?  While this status is at least 10 years away, we can start by teaching her good financial principles as a foundation.

Take care of others.  Is she able to provide help when needed to family and friends?  Doing increase levels of household chores is one way to demonstrate progress.

Take care of your environment.  Does she take care of the family space and her room?  Picking up after herself and keeping her room clean is a start.

The best part about these princples is that our daughter has them memorized and can understand what she needs to do.  Hopefully, this will help us better guide her towards adulthood.


For more on  Crossing Generations, check back every Thursday  for a new segment.

This is not financial or parenting advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2012 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

The Wealth Builder Carnival #70

Welcome to the seventieth edition of The Wealth Builder Carnival. The purpose of this carnival is to collect articles from the blogosphere on building, preserving and keeping enough wealth for a comfortable retirement. For reference, I have tried to keep the carnival content tightly focused on wealth building and did not include submissions that were off topic. For reading convenience, the posts are listed with a brief summary or comment by the submitter and organized into seven categories: Earning, Insuring and Protecting, Investing, Living Frugally, Retiring, Saving and Taxes. Unfortunately, Blog Carnival is having some technical difficulties this week, which has limited the number of submissions.

Investing

D4L presents 11 Dividend Aristocrats Giving Stability And Higher-Yields posted at Dividend Growth Stocks saying, "How long have you gone without cheating on your diet? How long have you stuck to your budget? How long have you driven without speeding? How long have you gone since missing a day of work/school due to illness? Imagine stringing together a 25 year series of the above items, or anything else for that matter. That would be something very special.

Dividend Growth Investor presents Accumulating Dividend Stocks is a Long Term Process posted at Dividend Growth Investorsaying, "It is important to have some valuation guidelines, before purchasing a dividend stock. This is to protect the investor in the very likely event that they “fall in love” with a stock and purchase it regardless of price. After all, purchasing a stock at inflated price levels might lead to sub-par returns for several years."

Retiring

Super Saver presents Roth IRA Contributions for Higher Income Individuals posted at My Wealth Builder saying, "In 2010, Congress removed the income limitation to do a conversion to a Roth IRA. This created a loophole for high income people unable to make Roth IRA contributions due to income limitations."

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of The Wealth Builder Carnival using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Technorati tags: the wealth builder carnival, blog carnival.  

For more on Ideas You Can Use, check back every Tuesday for a new segment.

This is not financial, earning, insuring, investing, living, retiring, saving, tax, or wealth building advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2012 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Letting our Stocks Ride

I'm still very skeptical about the current market rally.  It seems to be defying gravity.  Eventually, there will an event that causes the market to decline significantly.  Then, I will get back into the market.

In the meantime, I'm going to hold onto my few long stocks.  Apparently, according to this Barron's article, the market can hold up for weeks or several months before finally succumbing to negative news.   So the stocks may have a nice run for quite a while.  Hopefully, I can get out near the peak when it comes :-)

For more on Strategies and Plans, check back every Monday for a new segment.

This is not financial or investing advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2012 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

On Dying

"The act of dying is one of the acts of life." ~ Marcus Aurelius

How Doctor's Die was an interesting story about how many doctors choose less versus more medical treatment for their own end of life situtions.

I used to think that I would do what ever was needed to extend my life, even taking extradordinary measures.  After the death of my mom and dad, I've changed my mind.  My dad died after a three month coma, extaended hospital stay, and a short nursing home stay.  My mom died after five years in a nursing home. 

I'm sure now that I no longer want heroic measures taken to prolong my life.  To me quality is much more important than quantity.  A few high quality months would be of greater value than several low quality years. All the more reason to live life by  making every moment count.

For more on New Beginnings, check back every Sunday for a new segment.

This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2012 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Limit the Job of the Federal Government

"I'm a Democrat. But I believe what Republican Abraham Lincoln believed: That government should do for people only what they cannot do better by themselves, and no more." ~ President Barack Obama 2012 State of the Union Address

The Federal government should focus on three core areas which government is uniquely qualified to do well. Here are the (only) three things that the Federal government should do:

Foreign Policy -  The Federal government is the appropriate organization to represent the U.S. with foreign governments since each state can't develop a separate policy.  Also, the Federal government should define treaties and policies that benefit the country and its citizens.

Defense.The Federal government is the right organization to maintain armed forces, declare war and defend the country against foreign intrusions. 

Interstate Commerce.  The Federal government should regulate commerce between the states.  This includes construction of highways and other interstate  infrastructure.

The Federal government needs to focus on these core priorities and deliver them with excellence.  Based on recent results, I would give the Federal government a B- for foreign policy, a C+ for defense, and a C- for interstate commerce.  Based on the results in the Federal government's core priorities, I don't want the Federal Government working on other elements (e.g. education, health care, etc.) that should be left to the states or the people.

For more on Reflections and Musings, check back every Saturday for a new segment.
This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2012 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

No Longer My Job Responsibility

In my retirement jobs, I've decided that I will do a great job for my clients, but I will no longer commit to any extraordinary effort for the company.   I have no desire to develop a career, get promoted or help the company improve.  Here are some of my recent experiences:

Above my pay grade.  Our new office manager has been a "company man."  In my first discussion with her, she explained that it was my job to help the company get better by providing constructive feedback for her to pass along.  I told her that it wasn't going to happen since feedback in the past did not get results.  After a lengthy talk, where she didn't listen to my point of view, I told her simply that it was above my pay grade.  The company didn't pay me enough to do more than what I hired to do.

Beyond commitment level.  One company wanted me to take on an important and challenging assignment. My assessment was the role would be another full time 40+ hour a week assignment.  While I agreed to work a temporary full time position in 2011, I wasn't interested in making the same level of commitment in 2012.   I definitely wanted to work less than 10 hours a week and have the entire summer off.   So I turned down the new role. 

Not what I signed up for.  In 2010, I worked for the government in roles which confirmed my beliefs about government waste.  Although I am biased, I thought the organization for which I worked did a poor job of managing the work and me.  Rather than cut back on hours and let fewer people do productive work, the organizations would keep normal hours and have employees to nonessential "busy work."   The organization clearly had the right to do this according to my offer letter.  However, it was not what I signed up for and I didn't reapply in 2011.

What's the worse an employer can do to me:  not hire me again.  In all three cases, I am able to take a harder line position with my employers since I don't need the job.  If I were worried about keeping a job, I might have been convince to be more in line with the company.

For more on Reaping the Rewards, check back every Friday for a new segment.

This is not financial, career or retirement advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2012 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Lessons from Selling Girl Cookies

As a second year Daisy, our daughter participated in selling girl scout cookies.  Our daughter could have made sale by just being cute. She's a good natured seven year old and all the neighbors think she is adorable, which she is.  However, we used the opportunity for teaching her some life skills.  Although there was signficant resistance at first, our daughter did take our guidance and probably ended selling more cookies.  Here is what she learned:

Prepare a good sales pitch.   Our daughter's sales pitch was, "Do you want to buy some Girl Scout cookies?"   We coached her to introduce herself, explain why here troop was selling cookies and the ask about buying cookies.  Her final sales pitch was, " Hi, I'm (Name).  We are trying to raise money for a camping trip.  Would you like to buy some Girl Scout cookies?"  We practiced the line a few times with her and then visited 3-4 houses an evening.

Thank the customers.  Since the customers were supporting the Girl Scouts, our daughter thanked them twice:  once after the order and once after the delivery.

Make timely deliveries.  Our daughter started delivering cookies soon after receiving them.  She called each customer to schedule a delivery, leaving messages  for those that weren't home.  Some customers called back and for the others, our daughter made a followup calls as needed.

Overall our daughter sold a little over 50 boxes of cookies.  A good showing for her first time.  In addition, she started learning some communication and selling skills.

For more on Crossing Generations, check back every Thursday for a new segment.

This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2012 Achievement Catalyst, LLC