Some Fast Career Advice and Museums
Level 2 - Value Investor
Welcome Avatar! For some reason our Twitter audience was quite interested in the Museum stuff we’re doing on IG. So. We’ve put a quick step by step at the end. For those focused on trying to make it out of this clear and obvious downturn we’ve put together some quick ways to save your job/career if you’re “on the line” for layoffs. On the line means that you have a 50/50 shot of being cut
Part 1 - Quick Career Advice
If you didn’t listen to our advice of ramping up your performance starting in August (when budgets are set) that is not great. However. The past is the past. Don’t dwell on it. After the first round of cuts go through remember that there is *likely* a second round of cuts.
Two Cuts
Why? In a bigger downturn there are usually two cuts. The reason is simple. In “normal times” every single firm has natural attrition: 1) an employee gets a new offer, 2) an employee leaves to start his own company and 3) some people simply quit to do something else - get an MBA for example.
In a bigger downturn *practically* everyone stops hiring at minimum. They may not cut but even places like Apple/Alphabet are battening down the hatches. This means management will “assume” a normal level of attrition and be completely wrong.
Is This Incompetence? Not quite. The reality is that firing people is expensive since hiring people is also expensive. If you cut too many people, you may lose customers which is the absolute last thing any major company wants to do.
The real big players *typically* hire during a downturn. The problem? We already know that the big players are hurting to the point that they are freezing hiring.
Also. If you run a large organization you typically veer on the side of optimism. This isn’t a bad thing honestly. Who wants to have a pessimistic CEO or pessimistic sales person. Those guys never do well. So. They hang onto hopes of improvement a bit longer than they should.
How to Decrease the Chance of Cuts
As a reminder, we focus on one big theme. If you want to be really well off you need to 1) get a career and 2) set up a business eventually. While you can live a good life with a high paying career... Most aggressive and intelligent people realize that building a business is the only way to generate true wealth.
With that out of the way (No, there is no change in strategy), there are *times* when you should focus on your career. This is one of them.
If you need your income to pay your bills (Job/Career). This is not the time to “cruise”. It is the time to show up, do the best you can and make sure you’re not on the chopping block.
As layoffs ramp up, we can see that they are starting to accumulate to levels similar to the pandemic.
Some Quick Guidelines:
1) If you’re sure that you are underperforming, you should start looking for a new job/career *now*
2) If you’re in the middle please read this post carefully
3) If you’re sure that you’re outperforming, see if you can nab a promotion (as people above you are laid off, those responsibilities have to go to someone). Hint: if you’re on all the “secret emails” copying all the important people at the firm, you’re one of the top performers
Before moving on, some don’t understand the last part. You always say yes to more responsibility and a promotion. The reasoning is quite simple. If you get promoted your manager and his manager have to “admit” it was a mistake.
This is unlikely. If you get promoted you usually have about a year or so to show results. The only way you get promoted then fired in a month is if there are major management changes in the org chart. Per usual, there are always “exceptions”. Example: never take a promotion to a non-revenue generating role. Stay in the profit centers.
90% of the time? There is no way your boss or the boss of your boss is going to walk up to Senior Management and say “Hey i made a huge mistake already! It has been 3 weeks!”.
Pressing the Gas Pedal: Here are some tips to appear more “engaged” and active in the work place. If you’re disgruntled everyone already knows so you better change this perception ASAP unless you already have a secondary income that will support you indefinitely.
The most obvious move is to stay logged in longer. Log in on weekends. Log more calls in the CRM. Watch those employee training videos in the background to make it seem like you are at least doing something. Increase hours “engaged” by at least 25%.
Research your industry. Try to find important data points, news articles and anything that will help the company make more money. If you know that Competitor A just lost the head of sales in Florida. This is good information to tell your firm since they may want to try and take market share while he’s in transition
Find relevant data points. This means negative news on your competitors and areas where your firm could potentially grow. For example, if you work in real estate construction and know there is a new government contract in city XYZ coming up... Send that info out
Speaking of government contracts, go for stable and low hanging fruit. If you are allowed to offer discounts and promotional offers up to a certain amount, heavily favor the long-term contracts for this. While most people optimize for their yearly or quarterly bonus, you want to optimize for stable revenue attached to your name. No firm wants to ruffle the feathers of their long-term customers
Do some annoying team building stuff. If there are group calls or drink events, show up and be *positive* about the future of the firm. Even ask questions during the update calls that highlight *positive* progress points. This will make it seem like *you* believe in the future of the Company. What you actually believe is not relevant. Perception is reality in the corporate world
The fourth point is actually important. If people believe that *you* want to be part of the company long-term, this is an asset to the firm. The firm does not want high-turnover and the more that employees believe that it’s the best firm in the world… the better. Branding matters
If you are considering a move to a new firm here is the step by step: 1) are you well liked? 2) are you well liked? 3) are you well liked? If you answered yes three times there are practically no reasons to move. Only exceptions would be *extreme* personal circumstances or a guaranteed income - such as a contract which is common on Wall Street. You do not leave for a “10% pay raise” since a job switch is an incredibly dangerous move. You never know if the next firm will like you or not
If you are higher up on the chain, having a larger “expense line” going into cuts is actually better. This is counter intuitive but true. If you are in charge of say 4 people instead of 2, they have to solve 5 headaches instead of three. Much easier to ask you to make the tough decision and fire one or two people versus cutting the whole team. BowTiedWookie has some basics on this (although he works in tech). This works a lot better for revenue generation positions since cutting “support roles” just means higher margins without sacrificing revenue.
Extreme Job Security Move
If you are even higher up the ladder here is another extreme tactic. Never ever ever suggest that some one *lateral* to you gets fired. This makes little sense to the average guy. He thinks “if there are 20 vice presidents and we go down to 15 vice presidents I am set!” - completely false!
Assume you are #10 out of 20. Well if you agree on firing the *bottom* six within your rank… you are now #10 out of 14. You played yourself. You are now a “bottom tier” performer. You were a middle tier performer before.
Never, ever, ever ask for reductions in your pay group. You are just dropping your own ranking within the herd.
When being Chased by a Lion. You don’t need to Outrun the Lion. You need to outrun the slowest person in the pack. If the pack goes from 50 to 10, your chances of being the worst went from 2% to 10%.
Part 2 - Museum Madness
Over on Instagram (Link) we’re kickstarting the lifestyle section to diversify away from Twitter. One of the popular sections was on museums and we got flooded with requests to look at paintings/photos etc. (predict what someone was thinking/going through).
No one bats 100% but for those that messaged us you know that there was about a 80-90% hit rate. It isn’t a joke as museums can be used as a way to peer into your subconscious.
We’ll outline it here and once again, go to Instagram for lifestyle stuff and we will separate out PDF type documents in the future since we want to focus on making you rich long-term.
Only try this strategy 2-3 times a year (max). Only *if* you have a burning question.
If you go on IG and spam us with random photos with no question and no info on the context (captions), it’s just a waste of time
You have to enter a *large* museum and simply turn off your brain. After you pay (or go to a free museum) ask your question once out loud. Just once. After that you turn off your brain and just walk around
After walking around aimlessly you will find that you’re attracted to certain images/themes/styles. Take a photo of the art and the caption.
This will *usually* be an extremely good predictor of what is to come (6 months from now). Your subconscious already knows the answer
Autist Note: you can go to a museum a million times if you like. We’re referring to the strategy above. There is no chance you have a new burning question every week of the year.
That’s really it, as promised we’ll keep lifestyle stuff to a bare minimum on here and after IG hits 20K+ we’ll separate it out. That said, we got too many messages on Twitter and on IG to explain this clearly.
We’ll randomly post various art on IG as well.
If you have a burning question, a major museum likely has the answer for you!
Disclaimer: None of this is to be deemed legal or financial advice of any kind. These are *opinions* written by an anonymous group of Ex-Wall Street Tech Bankers and software engineers who moved into affiliate marketing and e-commerce. We’re an advisor for Synapse Protocol and on the JPEG team. Currently homeless.
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I love how BTB's autism just turned him into a Jungian psychology practitioner
One "layoffs are coming, protect yourself" strategy I used in the past is identify you the executive is on your team that would have the final say of who gets cut, figure out a pain point they have with the team at large, and take steps to fix it outside your normal duties.
Be on their radar in a positive way additive to what they already are paid to do. I when the pandemic first hit, and it directly led to me getting promoted twice in the bull run when it came.