Ways to Help a Friend Survive a Job Search
The New York Times, March 21, 2009
By AMY BAKER

Amy Baker, a partner marketing specialist in the technology industry in San Francisco, was pushed into an unexpected job search last year and was the recipient of many thoughtful supportive gestures, which she has itemized below.

When I hear a friend has been laid off, I do at least some of the following:

1. I invite them to lunch.

2. I present them with a "job search survival kit." This includes a notebook for writing their ideas/interview notes in and a Starbucks card for the networking they will do or simply for a treat.

3. The first piece of advice in the notebook is "Always accept a free lunch. You will do the same when you are in their shoes." Most people don't know how to be on the receiving end of generosity and forget it makes both sides feel good.

4. I tell them the first thing they should do is sign up for unemployment, and I explain how it works and what to do (many are not familiar with the system, but it was a godsend during my search) .

5. I make sure they are on LinkedIn, offer help with their résumé and offer to be a ecommendation.

6. I tell them that even if it sounds new age and hokie, they need to write out a "vision statement" about the kind of job they are looking for. Sometimes even articulating it starts the ball rolling.
"In my vision, I am working for a (fill in the blank), doing (fill in the blank), where the senior management (fill in the blank). ..."

7. And I advise them that part of every day should be spent looking for work and part of it should be spent doing something they normally would not do during a work day — say, going for a walk in the afternoon, or seeing a matinee, or taking a nap. They've got to enjoy the freedom too.

8. I brainstorm with them about options they have and directions to go in.

9. I encourage them to come up with a short paragraph about w hat they are looking for and send an e-mail out to everyone they know.

10. I tell them that on the other end of this will be another job and that they will go places they hadn't expected.

Alternatively, here are some things people did for me that I thought were amazing:

* Contract work: Not everyone is in a position to offer contract work, but if you can steer a friend to a job to apply for, or a project to bid on, it can help keep them going. * Barter: In one case, I was able to do some ghostwriting for a friend, who traded me gift cards to helpful places like Walgreens and Safeway

* Access to the arts: Most memberships allow you to bring a guest. Getting invited to see the Chihuly exhibit in San Francisco last summer was stunning and completely lifted my spirits, or sometimes friends had an extra ticket to the opera or to attend a lecture I really wanted to
hear.

* Even little things, like pi cking up the bill for hot chocolates, or offering me a ride so I didn't need my car, made a huge difference.

* A few relatives managed to offer more substantial help in the guise of birthday money.

* I did have friends offer bridge loans— if I knew, for example, that money was coming in soon but the property tax bill was due even sooner — although I never took them up on it.

* I also had friends offer not just to baby-sit but to baby-sit during an afternoon, so my husband and I could go see a matinee and not have to leave dinner money for them.

* It is a dark and scary time, when you're looking for work and don't see anything on the horizon. A little support goes a long way, even if it is just checking in.

 

The Chukchi and Beaufort seas, off the northern coast of Alaska, host an incredible range of Arctic animals including polar bears, walruses, ice seals, and bowhead and beluga whales.  These waters are also vital habitat for countless numbers of migratory birds that summer in the Arctic.  For thousands of years, communities on the Arctic coast have depended on this healthy ocean ecosystem to support their subsistence way of life.  Now, oil and gas development may jeopardize these waters and those who depend on them.  The federal Minerals Management Service (MMS) is considering whether to proceed with a Bush Administration plan to lease vast swaths of U.S. Arctic waters for oil and gas development. Please tell MMS to cancel its plans to sell oil and gas leases in America’s Arctic seas. If the agency proceeds with the leasing proposals, oil and gas activities could threaten the Chukchi and Beaufort seas with pollution, noise, and catastrophic oil spills.  Oil spills pose a particularly acute threat in the Arctic, as there is no proven technology to clean oil from ice-choked waters. The push to drill comes at a time when global climate change has already placed enormous stress on the Arctic marine environment.  The Arctic is warming roughly twice as fast as the rest of the planet, and people and animals alike are struggling to adapt to rapidly retreating sea ice cover and increasing water temperatures.  Exposing Arctic seas to risky offshore oil and gas development will only compound the threats caused by rapid climate change.  Please tell MMS to cancel its plans to sell oil and gas leases in America’s Arctic seas. Urge the agency to take a time out from offshore drilling in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, and to prepare a comprehensive, science-based conservation and energy plan that will protect Arctic ecosystems and Arctic peoples. Thank you for your support, Andrew Hartsig Staff Attorney Ocean Conservancy

The good news, according to the federal government, was a near 10 percent decline in fatal U.S. traffic accidents for the first 10 months of 2008, compared with the same time period in 2007.

But anyone driving the roads knows smash-ups and fender benders happen all too often. What should you do if you are in a car accident? Experts say the first word of advice is:

 BE PREPARED BEFOREHAND

State law requires that every driver and car owner furnish proof of insurance or proof of financial responsibility.

Obtain an emergency kit and store it in your vehicle's trunk. Include flares, cones or triangles for traffic control.

Keep the insurance policy, agent information and emergency phone numbers in the glove compartment. Include pencil and paper for information exchanges and note-taking. A disposable camera might come in handy. Create a list of known allergies for medical personnel.

Familiarize yourself with your insurance coverage before getting behind the wheel. Do you have towing or rental car service in the event of an emergency? What are the liability limits? What's covered under the comprehensive provision?

 AFTER THE ACCIDENT

You must stop. It is the law. Otherwise, you'll be charged with a hit-and-run, even if the accident wasn't your fault.

Make sure neither party is injured. Seek medical help right away if you have any doubt. Even a fender bender can cause delayed injuries.

Move your car if possible. If not, call police for help and set out flares, cones or triangles to redirect traffic around the accident.

Exchange names, phone numbers, insurance company information and policy numbers. Record the make, model, year and license plate number of the other vehicle. Include driver's license and vehicle identification numbers.

Write down the exact time and location of the accident and how it happened. Observe road conditions and inclement weather, such as fog or rain. If the accident occurred at night, note working and/or broken streetlights.

Get witnesses' names and numbers if possible.

Cooperate fully with law officers. Get the officer's badge number and request a copy of the accident report. File an accident report as soon as possible to your insurance claims department. Beware of involved parties that want to avoid the insurance claims process. It's harder for an insurance company to piece together the story much later on.

If you hit a parked car, try to find the owner. If you cannot, leave a note on the car (in an obvious place) with your name and an explanation of the accident. Notify local police as soon as possible.

You must notify the police or highway patrol if there is a severe injury or death. Do not move accident victims if they are gravely injured.

 FOLLOW UP AFTER THE ACCIDENT

Don't accept blame until you've talked to your insurance company or a lawyer.

Ask questions. If the other driver doesn't have insurance, will your policy pay for personal injuries? Do you carry uninsured-motorist coverage? Know the limits of your policy. The same applies for underinsured-motorist coverage.

The insurance agent from the “other side” may contact you. Politely decline to speak with them.

Every time you have a conversation with your claims adjustor, write a brief synopsis of what you talked about, the time and the date.

If someone sues you after an accident, contact your insurance company right away. Most likely, they will assign you a lawyer to handle your case.

When you're offered a settlement, don't respond immediately. Think about if for a few days before committing.

Contact a lawyer if you need legal advice in making a claim or dealing with your insurance company.

If you have injuries and the other driver was at fault, you might be entitled to compensation. This would include: personal injuries, damage to your car, medical bills and lost wages.

http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/feb/27/1c28questiom114318-smartliving-car-accident/?topics

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/images/090220accident.pdf

Take these steps to stop the new generation social search engines from telling the world everything about you.

As we slowly put more and more pieces of ourselves online, specialized search engines are making it easier than ever to pull them together into a highly detailed (and potentially invasive) profile of our virtual lives.

In our story "People Search Engines: They Know Your Dark Secrets...And Tell Anyone," we investigated the reality that these new social search engines--which include CVGadget, Pipl, Rapleaf, and Spokeo--can readily collect a mountain of personal details about you that you might prefer stay hidden (or at least widely dispersed) online.

Test requests that we entered at these sites uncovered random details about co-workers' and acquaintances' college roommates and boyfriends from the 1980s, political donations, shopping preferences and musical tastes. Fortunately, you can take steps to limit the information these sites may collect.

Search Yourself

One way to grab control is to turn the tables and use the new services to search for information on yourself.

For instance, Spokeo lets you see a limited amount of data without subscribing, Pipl and CVGadget are totally free, and Rapleaf offers an open tool to manage your Internet footprint.

"You can come in and sign up and see all the things that we found about you," says Rapleaf's Joel Jewitt.

Take Action

Once you know what kind of information is out there, you can decide whether to try to remove it. If you decide that you do, here are some options to consider:

1. Rapleaf offers the option to opt out of its services.

By entering your e-mail address on this Rapleaf page, you can have your data permanently deleted from Rapleaf's database. There's no charge, and once you respond to Rapleaf's confirmation message, your information won't appear in the company's reports ever again.

2. Many other services, Spokeo included, update their caches based on your external settings.

In contrast to Rapleaf's opt-out method, Spokeo and many of the other services work the way a standard search engine does: If the content disappears from the Web, it also disappears from the search results. That means you need to visit the individual sites connected to your e-mail address and adjust the privacy settings within each one. In the case of Spokeo, the info will stop showing up in searches within about a week of your making the changes.

3. Most well-known sites give you the option of making your data private. It just might not be obvious.

People search engines glean their material about you from many well-known sites,including Amazon.com, social networking sites such as Facebook, and music sites such as Pandora.

You'll usually need to go within each individual site's account configuration pages and look for the privacy options to adjust to suit your comfort level.

Here are some places to visit:

Amazon: Wish Lists are made public by default. To change that setting, go to this page and select the option to sign in. You can then view any Wish Lists associated with your account and designate them as private.

Facebook: Once signed in, look under the 'Settings' tab at the top of the page to find the privacy control panel. Click the Profile option to set parameters regarding who can view your content.

MySpace: Click the My Account button at the top of the page after logging in, then click Privacy to adjust your settings. Bear in mind that your age and location are typically displayed publicly even if your profile is set as private, as was the case in one of the examples cited in "They Know Your Dark Secrets...And Tell Anyone."

Pandora: Your playlists are public unless you specify otherwise. Once logged in, click Account at the top of the page, and then follow the option to edit your profile info. From there, you'll see a checkbox that you can select to make your profile (and thus your playlists) private. These are the steps for just a few of the most widely used sites that the people search engines scan. If you decide to rethink your level of privacy, the most important first step is to search

Spring cleanup is around the corner.  Don't forget to clean your monitor, free cleaning kit:
Free computer monitor cleaning kit

 

Through all the foreclosures, staggering stock market losses and dissolved personal fortunes, one measure of Americans' financial health has remained surprisingly steady during the recession: the consumer credit score, used by banks and lenders to determine how much credit to give borrowers, and at what rates.

But that's finally beginning to change, and the economic turmoil in households is not solely responsible.

Banks and lenders are shoring up risks — closing a record number of credit card accounts and reducing millions of dollars in credit lines. As they clamp down, even some consumers with excellent credit and spotless payment records are seeing their credit scores reduced because of the diminished credit lines. That, in turn, can hamper consumers' ability to get credit elsewhere.

Mary Lou Reid, 61, says two of her credit cards were closed recently because of inactivity, eliminating $47,000 of available credit. Her credit score dropped to 726 from 757. The most widely used credit scores run from 300 (very poor) to 850 (pristine).

"They didn't give me any warning," says Reid, of Arcadia, Calif. "One needs to feel in control of one's life, and what they've done here is cut me out of the equation."

As lenders' appetite for risk wanes, they're pulling back on an unprecedented amount of credit — up to $2 trillion on cards alone by 2010, estimates analyst Meredith Whitney.

"It becomes this self-fulfilling problem," says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com. "Lenders cut credit lines, and if consumers simply do what they had been doing, their credit score could fall. Other lenders respond by cutting their own lines or raising rates."

The cycle concerns consumer advocates and some legislators. Some wonder whether restrictions should be imposed on lenders' ability to slash credit limits and close accounts. And if scores can drop even if consumers do nothing wrong, they say, it raises the question of whether there's a flaw in the credit scoring formulas relied upon by the nation's lenders, insurers, and increasingly employers and landlords.

USA TODAY, in previous stories in its "Credit Trap" series, has reported that during the housing boom, banks sharply raised card limits in part because of a surge in home equity, then guided borrowers to use mortgages to pay off card balances.

Now, when it's already difficult to qualify for loans, lenders' actions can lead to deteriorating credit scores that can put much-needed credit out of reach for a growing number of consumers. Those who get loans may have to pay higher interest rates. Lenders also may seize upon lower credit scores to increase interest rates, pushing consumers deeper into distress.

Jobs, and even auto insurance, can be affected if consumers don't have good credit ratings. Most auto insurers now take credit scores into account in determining their rates. And 42% of U.S. employers routinely do credit checks on job applicants, according to the Society for Human Resource Management.

Bank officials say they're aware of growing concerns about the effects credit-line reductions and account closures are having on credit scores. But as the economy worsens, they say, more consumers are struggling, so it's only natural that institutions take steps to reduce risk before borrowers default.

Bank officials also say they have no control over credit score calculations — and, like consumers, they don't know exactly how such scores are determined.

"It's tough to connect any one action (by the lender) to consumers' credit score," says Scott Talbott, senior vice president of government affairs for the Financial Services Roundtable, which represents large banks.

Even so, banks are concerned enough about the issue that they've asked Fair Isaac, the creator of the widely used FICO score, to study whether — and to what extent — their tightening of credit affects scores. Fair Isaac plans to complete its preliminary study in the next few weeks.

The cycle of one bank's actions potentially affecting a consumer's credit score and leading to other banks taking similar steps is troubling, says Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn. "Banks can only stay in business if they've got creditworthy customers. If you're destroying people's credit ratings ... then you've got a customer base that can't afford your products."

The problem, he says, should provide impetus for "future examination of how credit scores are determined."

Tom Quinn, vice president of scoring at Fair Isaac, says he believes credit scores remain effective in predicting the likelihood consumers will repay their bills.

"The challenge is that we haven't had a recession like this since the Great Depression, and we didn't have credit scores back then," he says. "We haven't really had an opportunity to see" what will happen with credit scores in such an environment.

Seth J. Chandler, a law professor at the University of Houston, says although credit scores are "incredibly powerful, lenders might start to revise the importance they put on (them) if they no longer reflect reality."

A 'downward spiral'

Reid says she's always paid her credit card bills on time and worked hard to get her credit score to the mid-700s. Having two accounts closed will erase decades of good credit history on the cards, she says. And because she's near retirement, "I don't have another 37 years to repair this problem."

Talbott says that only a minority of borrowers will get their card limits reduced. For those who do, it's "unfortunate" if scores drop, he says.

"This is sort of the downward spiral of the worsening economy," he says, "that leads to increased risk, the closing of credit lines, a lower FICO score and increased cost of credit when people can't afford it."

It's understandable, says John Ulzheimer, a former executive at Fair Isaac and Equifax credit bureau, that lenders want to reduce risk in this economy. "Having said that, you can't simply ignore the reaction of your actions," says Ulzheimer, now the president of consumer education at Credit.com. "That would be irresponsible for a large lender."

Credit scores caught on in the 1960s as a uniform way to measure consumers' likelihood of repaying their bills — and thus, their potential profitability to lenders. Before then, merchants shared information about consumers to decide whether to extend credit.

Today, 90 of the largest 100 financial institutions rely on FICO scores, according to Fair Isaac. Credit bureaus also sell proprietary credit scores, and team up to put out the VantageScore, a competitor to FICO.

Scores are starting to fall in the parts of the country most affected by rising home foreclosures and credit card debt, according to analyses of credit bureau data for USA TODAY by Experian credit bureau, and separately, Moody's Economy.com and Equifax.

Nationally, median scores dropped five points between the fourth quarter of 2007 and 2008, Experian's data show.

But in the Riverside, Calif., metro area, median credit scores dropped 17 points during that time. Credit scores in and around Phoenix dropped about 14 points, and they fell 12 points in the Miami region.

Yet scores lag the economy, because it may take awhile for consumers' financial situations to decline, says Michele Raneri, senior director of analytics for Experian.

It's likely that scores have a ways to fall. "Given surging unemployment, I'd be surprised if we don't see a measurable erosion in credit scores," says Zandi. "I think it's happening right now."

Because credit cards are more common than mortgages — 51.4 million households have first mortgages, while nearly all the nation's 114 million households have at least one card — card-related actions can hurt overall scores more than mortgages.

"There are a lot more card holders than mortgage holders," Zandi says. "It's credit cards that are really going to cause people problems on their credit scores."

Fair Isaac and the credit bureaus don't disclose exactly how credit scores are calculated. But a key factor in the score is what the industry calls "open to buy," basically how much of a consumer's credit line is drawn down on plastic. Also called the credit utilization ratio, this — along with a handful of other variables — makes up a combined 30% of your FICO score, Fair Isaac says. Other important components include overall payment history, how long a consumer has had credit, and the types of credit.

When lenders close accounts or slash credit limits, it often boosts the percentage of available credit consumers are using. That's the key reason scores could fall.

Mike Century, 48, of Bloomington, Ill., says Bank of America closed one of his card accounts because of inactivity and reduced limits on three other cards, eliminating about $20,000 in available credit. That caused his scores to drop 17-44 points, he says. Even though he still has enviable scores — the lowest is now 710 — he worries he no longer qualifies for the best rates on loans.

Some lenders have tightened their underwriting criteria and now require a FICO score of 750 to qualify for the lowest rates.

Lenders' "actions make you appear riskier than you are," Century says. Bank of America declined to comment on Century's case, citing privacy concerns. However, Betty Riess, a spokeswoman, says the bank is "taking a more aggressive look at accounts to control risk, given the current environment."

As part of this review, the bank may close accounts inactive for a year and also adjust credit lines, Riess says, "based on (consumers') risk profile and their performance with us."

As more banks pull back on credit, it's straining their relationships with longtime customers.

Russ Reed, 46, says he and his wife, Darlene Guinto, 38, no longer want to use their American Express card after the bank slashed the limit more than 80% to $4,600. The bank, in a letter, cited a history of late payments. Reed says they paid late only twice over several years, and never on American Express bills.

Reed later was denied a Wells Fargo business loan. It's likely his $35,000 in low-rate credit card debt — from starting an environmental engineering firm — was a factor. But Reed says the bank cited his available credit.

American Express spokeswoman Molly Faust says that while the bank does monitor credit bureau information, it mostly looks at borrowers' debt compared with their financial resources in deciding whether to cut credit lines.

Banks warn against limits

The Federal Reserve has approved a new policy — which takes effect in 2010 — that restricts lenders' ability to raise credit card rates and impose fees. But it doesn't address lenders' ability to change credit card limits and close accounts.

Consumers Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports, is lobbying for legislation designed to ensure that lenders conduct "sound underwriting" when they extend credit, so they don't have to slash credit lines and close accounts when the economy slumps — dragging down credit scores.

Lenders also should be banned from raising interest rates or taking other adverse actions against consumers if their credit scores dropped solely because they had their credit lines reduced or accounts closed, says Lauren Zeichner Bowne, a staff attorney at Consumers Union.

This ripple effect is "absolutely happening," saddling consumers with higher fees and rates, and more closed accounts, says Ken Lin, who developed credit models for banks before becoming chief executive of CreditKarma.com, a consumer website.

Banks warn that imposing restrictions on their business practices could raise costs for everyone and reduce credit further for those who need it.

"The need to adjust for changing risk is the only way (banks) can make revolving credit available," says Ken Clayton, a senior vice president at the American Bankers Association.

Charleen Lee, 62, of Albany, Ore., says she's taken her complaints about banks' actions to state legislators.

Lee says Chase closed a card with a $15,000 limit in December, citing "inactivity" and the potential for fraud. Angered, she closed another Chase account because she no longer wanted to do business with the company.

Chase says it can't comment on individual consumers. But the bank is reviewing affected customers' situations, says spokesman Paul Hartwick, and "evaluating their validity." The bank understands consumers' concern about account closures, adds Hartwick, but is "committed to prudent risk management."

Lee's main gripe, she says, "is that good clients are being treated like people at risk. What if I want to buy a house? Should I be put in jeopardy (of higher loan rates) when I've done nothing?"http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/credit/2009-03-05-economy-credit-scores_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip

Zagat did a survey a few years ago and ask travelers for feedback on airlines, here are some of the feedback... have fun reading

"The uncomfortable served the inedible by the indifferent."

"If they could sell space in the overheads, travelers would be stacked up like cold cuts."

"Need air marshals to protect passengers from crew."

"Cabin staff treats you like a stranger crashing a dinner party – only they don't serve food."

"Only an hour behind schedule and didn't crash – lived up to my expectations."

"If you're a transplanted NYer nostalgic for abuse, this is your airline."

"'I'm sorry, sir, but we've discontinued legroom.'"

"Once stuck I was, back of the plane
No pleasure I could at all feign
The tiny cramped seat, delays, mystery meat
And no upgrade made experience a pain."

"Best of the big full-service carriers, or in other words, the cream of the cr*p."

"Now I know what the cows felt like on the Chisholm Trail."

"Like Con Air – they'd even handcuff you if they could."

"Seats like bad lawn chairs."

"'Shut up, we get you there' could be their slogan."

"Seats should recline only so much – could have performed dental work on the person in front of me."

"Fares set by someone with a dartboard."

"Economy class is like the Bataan Death March with carry-on luggage."

"Like being shipped via UPS to your destination."

"Take it out back and shoot it."

"I'll start with the good: Web site easy to navigate. That's the end of the good."

"What's next, no seats? – wait, better not give them any ideas!"

"Nothing left to vote on – no food, no snacks, no pillows, no movies, no audio, no nothing."

"Gives whole new meaning to the word 'Airbus.'"

"What next, $3 to use the air vents?"

"Don't go unless you have a chiropractor and psychotherapist traveling with you."

"Challenging log-in, difficult ticketing, rude gate agents, wretched food and contortionist seating – what's not to like?"

"Feels like an airline going under – oh wait, they are."

"Next step is passengers dressing as flight attendants and serving drinks to save yet more money."

"Ground service and ticket agents explain what happened to the KGB staff when the Soviet Union collapsed."

"They treat lab rats better than they do passengers on this airline."

"Would rather take a donkey."

"Lost my luggage so often I keep a standard complaint letter on my PC."

"This is why the pope kisses the ground every time he deplanes."

"'Brown or gray?' could be the choice for dinner."

"Customer care rivals Sweeney Todd's."

"Could use economy as torture to get prisoners to talk."

"Only things older than the planes are the flight attendants – and the meals."

"'Good service' translates to 'we won't bother you if you don't bother us.'"

"Coach class is like the 7 th circle of hell."

"If you like bad food flung by crones, fly this airline."

"Charging money for booze on international flights – give me a paper cut and rub lemon in it, whydoncha?"