UPDATE!!

I hate to admit it but I just finished my first Power Point presentation. Yes, I never, ever put together a Power Point. I did piggy back on other people’s presentations during meetings where I spoke, but I never did my own.

What inspired me to do this? I’m conducting a Webinar for Business & Professional Women/USA on how women can stay off the Mommy Track and they asked if I could have a Power Point presentation ready. My first reaction is always to say “yes” when someone asks me to do something, even if I’ve never done it before. Seriously, I’ve taken quite a few jobs saying, “oh yeah, I can do that”, even though I had never done “that” before.

The whole Mommy Track issue is one that I’ve written a lot about and am definitely interested in. That was also a big motivator for me to get my tech hat on and figure the thing out. I was up late, I must admit. My eyes and head were hurting by the time it was finished. But I did it, damn it. Yeah. I can feel a bit proud right?

I’ll share the presentation with you all after I give the Webinar tomorrow night. Basically, I’m offering women advice on how to make sure you stay relevant in your career, even if you become a mom, or find yourself needing time off to take care of a parent.

Women, unfortunately, are still the ones who carry the heaviest load at home. We all know this.

A woman just commented on my MSNBC small business blog “YourBiz” who makes this point. My entry for today is on “Girl Power” - Why some women loose their ambition mojo when they become adults?

Here’s her comment:

Lose ambition? I managed to work hard through high school– get a full scholarship and get an awesome job right out of college– and now with opportunities being thrown everywhere I struggle with the decision when to start a family–
Because for someone reason my male co-workers can begin families whenever– and still have the same value on their work.
I can’t. And yet I remember hearing somewhere that they are not going to put “ambitious”– or great employee on my tombstone, rather “good friend”… “good mother”…

Some men do have the luxury to begin families whenever they want and still be valued at work. But I argue that we need to expect more from our men. We need men to be Snack Dads!!

That’s my new phrase — Snack Dad — and I’m going to be writing about it a lot. Women need to expect a lot from the men we marry. They need to step up to the plate when it comes to child rearing. It’s not just about the moms people. Don’t procreate with a man you feel won’t be an equal force in the home. If you do, you get what you deserve.

I was on a panel a few weeks ago on Sirius satellite radio’s “Be Happy Damn It” show on Lime Radio, hosted by Karen Salmansohn.

Click here to listen to the show.

One of the panelists, Leslie Bennetts, the author of the “Feminine Mistake”, told a great story about a successful lawyer she knew who quit her job in a fit of anxiety because her son didn’t tell her she was snack mom until late one night.

We need more snack daddys!!

UPDATE:

Here’s my Power Point presentation on staying off the Mommy Track:

bpwusa-mommytrack-webinar.ppt

These two men are not shaking hands right now.

The president of the United Auto Workers and the CEO of GM Rick Wagoner are probably more ready to punch each other in the mouth.

People, get to a TV or radio right now. The United Auto Workers have gone out on strike. Yes, I’m not kidding. It’s the first nationwide strike during contract negotiations in 30 years.

30 years! That’s a long time. For the most part, labor in the United States has taken the dove approach to contract negotiations, hoping to minimize the pain for workers. No one wants to strike. It costs workers dearly. I’ve seen many a family ravaged by economic heartache because strikes left them with little money to pay the bills.

So just imagine how much General Motors must be asking of the UAW workers and retirees. It must be a lot to them, if the leadership at the union believes workers could handle, or at least support a strike.

Working Mother magazines comes out with their Top 100 best companies for working moms every year, and the newest list is just hot off the presses. (Here’s last year’s list. I will provide the newest one when it hits the web.)
But every year I wonder if the companies on the list are really as family friendly as they are touted as being.

This list includes the who’s who of Corporate America, and it may include companies that aren’t always stellar when it comes to being in working moms’ courts. At least that’s based on some of the emails I get from readers who ask me how they can deal with a boss who’s not giving them the flexibility they need at one of these firms.

While many of the companies on the list have great benefits when you look at their employee handbooks, those benefits don’t always work out in the real world.

Last year the Institute for Women’s Policy Research reported that nearly half of the so-called “best” companies did not provide any paid leave for paternity or adoption.
But I don’t want to just be negative here. At least we’re having this discussion, and these firms do realize they need to do something to help moms.

Are corporations doing enough? Does your company do enough? Share your own experience.

I covered the auto industry for many years, and one thing that always stuck with me was that no matter how difficult a job auto assembly work was, no matter how grueling and monotonous, workers always found comfort in knowing they’d be okay in the future. When I say “okay” I mean as far as health care coverage and a pension when they were too broken down to work anymore.

Well, all things must come to an end I suppose. The United Auto Workers and General Motors are nearing what could be an unprecedented deal to hand over control of retirees health benefits to the union, so GM could get the liability off its balance sheet. It’s just gotten too expensive for the nation’s largest automaker and they don’t want to carry the $60 billion albatross anymore.

If the UAW and GM agree, it could alter the playing field for unionized auto workers across the country. Right now, under the union contract, GM has to pay for its retiree benefits no questions asked. The money to foot the bill comes out of the auto giant’s botton line.

Creating a trust to fund such benefits is risky. We’ve seen similar trusts at other manufacturers lose tons of money, leaving retirees and workers left holding the bag in the shape of paying more for benefits, benefits they thought would always be there for them. And could the UAW handle such a herculean task? Experts say the union will probably want to play it safe when investing the money in a trust, but will safe investment provide enough of a return to cover the escalating health care bill?
This is just yet another sign that the health care system in this country is out of control as far as costs. It looks like we indeed need a wholesale change. But should that change come to union contracts? Or to the health care system as a whole?

You all have to listen to the radio show I was a guest on last week.

I was part of a panel with three incredible women and the host of a Sirius satellite radio show, “Be Happy Damn It” on Lime Radio, Karen Salmansohn, and the topic of the conversation — why women are still screwed in the workplace.

Click here to listen to the show.

The show included, Marci Alboher, career columnist for the New York Times and author of “One Person/Multiple Careers;” Leslie Bennetts, author of “The Feminine Mistake,” and Cali Yost, author of “Work+Life: Finding the Fit That’s Right for You.”

We talked about everything from how opting out of the workforce can screw women to how women have to get some balls if they’re going to compete with men. One of the key thoughts of the show came from Leslie Bennetts when she said women today have professionalized motherhood to such a point even 50s moms would be aghast.

Come on women, fight for your own independence and your stature/pay in the workplace. You can be mom’s first but still have a rich, full life outside of the little buggers.

Okay, I admit it. I didn’t know what a phlebotomist was when I met one a few years back.

Well, I do now. It’s someone who is trained in the art of drawing blood. And when I say art, I mean art. It’s a difficult task to get blood from an individual, especially a child.

Check out my story this week in the New York Times on what the heck a phlebotomist does. It’s part of a section in the paper called “Preoccupations” that looks at a certain profession, ones we may not know a lot about, and explains the ins and outs of the job.

Are there jobs out there I should know about, write about? Do you do something that gets people asking, “what the heck do you do?”

I remember a couple of years back I wrote a story for the New York Times about how jobs in the mortgage sector were booming and companies were scrambling to find enough workers. In that same story I addressed the negative side of jobs that are created because of some bigger economic reason..they don’t always last.

Sure enough, mortgage lender Countrywide announced late last week it was cutting as many as 12,000 jobs. Yikes.

It’s one of the major downfalls when you ride the job wave in a particular industry. People ask me how they can avoid this, but unfortunately, that’s a tough one.

If positions are created because of a major outside factor then you take your chances joining a firm that’s just trying to stay ahead of the trend. Think about the company and the industry you’re going into. Go back and read about what happened in the sector before when such an explosion of jobs occurred. Even though this housing boom in many ways was unprecedented, it is part of a pattern that has happened over and over again in this industry.
You can just decide that you don’t mind making some bucks while the going is good. Or you might want to bypass that company for something that can give you some more stability. Nothing is forever, but you’re definitely taking your chances with the firm just wanting bodies to keep up with demand.

One factor that’s typically a positive and can lead to a longer term gig, is if the company is growing by leaps and bounds, because it’s found a niche that’s exploding. That’s a good sign, and probably not a temporary job wave.

For those poor people at Countrywide, I wanted to send along some positive Karma. You’ll find work soon. I promise. Be positive and play up all you learned in the rough and tumble mortgage world.

I get so many emails from readers of my Your Career column on MSNBC.com asking me why the heck they never hear back from employers after they send their resumes.

Well, it turns out, many companies aren’t hiring.

Employers in the private sector sent out the fewest job offer letters last month than they have in the last four years, according to the Automatic Data Processing, Inc. (ADP)’s national employment report.

“Nonfarm private employment grew 38,000 from July to August of 2007 on a seasonally adjusted basis,” said Joel Prakken, Chairman of Macroeconomic Advisers, LLC. “This month’s ADP National Employment Report suggests that a deceleration of employment may be underway. The August increase of 38,000 was the smallest since June of 2003 and the second consecutive weak monthly reading.”

So, I guess job seekers can take heart and say, “it’s not me, it’s them.”