Nick Update
May 26, 2006
As many of you know, Nick had a rough start.
First it was the lungs. We had to have those blown open with forced air in the ICU just minutes after he was born. That was fixed in the first 20 minutes or so of life, when they realized that his kidneys weren’t working quite right.
They jacked him into the machines and had him on IV feeding for a few days, and by three or four days into life, the old kidneys turned right on.
Then, it was the weight. When these kids are born, the first thing they do is lose weight. They lose a few ounces here and there and the generally accepted rule is to make sure that they’re back up to birth weight in two weeks.
We didn’t hit that. We were outside the normal range but a pretty sizable margin. Of course, that keeps the medical folks in a tizzy thinking that things still aren’t working, sending us to doc after doc, specialist after specialist, hypothesizing and theorizing…
That’s the space we’ve been in over the last five weeks.
Last Friday, Nick weighed in at 6 lbs 2 oz. That was up 6 oz from his weight of two weeks prior. There has been much stress around the old homestead because of that slow gain — we should be seeing about an oz of gain per day to make for solid normal growth.
Well, today, at our weekly weigh-in, Nick hit 6 lbs 8 oz. That’s six ounces up in just seven days. So, he’s cruising on the normal path, according to the pediatrician, and while they want us in again in a week, they’re finally confident that things are on the up and up.
Re-Org’d
May 25, 2006
So, to recap: Nick was born on 4/20. I took the following week off, secure in my recent promotion to Marketing Director nary three months before for the Northwest Region of University of Phoenix. By Friday of that week, I was about ready to get back to work. That afternoon, I got the call.
“Pete?”
“Yeah.”
My boss.
“Pete, I wanted you to get the news from me before you heard the rumor next week.”
“What is it?” Nervous now.
“The Northwest region has been reorganized. It’s been split. I’m now over the Mountain region, and Oregon is in the Western region. I’m not sure I know what to do with this, but we have until June 1 to figure it out.”
“So, if I’m hearing you, at this point, on June 1, my position for your region is no longer a foregone conclusion.”
“At this point, as of June 1, none of our jobs are foregone conclusions.”
May 23, 2006
LinkedIn has been a sleeper tool in my bag of tricks. When I say sleeper, that’s to be read as “ignored”.
The premise is so simple: Join. Invite your peers. Meet their peers. That’s it — so simple. It’s something that the business breakfasts have been working on for years and years, networking clubs that strive to foster the face to face network to expand professional relationships. But what LinkedIn drives by leveraging some radically simple technology is volume.
I made a point to invite 15 people. Ten of them signed up quickly. Of those folks, four of them had existing networks. Of those four, two of them had been very active users, with 300+ networks each by themselves. The system did the math and determined that with my users my total network went from 1 (me) to over 20,000 in just a short week.
Technorati Tags: Education, Leadership, LinkedIn, Network, University of Phoenix
May 23, 2006
LinkedIn has been a sleeper tool in my bag of tricks. When I say sleeper, that’s to be read as “ignored”.
The premise is so simple: Join. Invite your peers. Meet their peers. That’s it — so simple. It’s something that the business breakfasts have been working on for years and years, networking clubs that strive to foster the face to face network to expand professional relationships. But what LinkedIn drives by leveraging some radically simple technology is volume.
Congratulations to Five Years. Don’t Call.
May 21, 2006
There is much afoot for me at University of Phoenix now. I find the timing funny. As it happens, I started five years ago, June 4. To celebrate, I received the following email from University administration:
Congratulations
Dear Peter Wright,
Congratulations on your 5 Year achievement with University of Phoenix! Thank you for your dedication and contributions to our company. We are pleased to honor you with an award in recognition of this accomplishment.
You can order from available award selections online using your personal access number XXXX XXXXX XXXXX.
This email was computer generated; please do not reply. If you have questions regarding this notification please contact the award administration team.
US and Canada
orders@XXXXX.com
Now, let me tell you: nothing says “We appreciate you” better than “do not reply to this email.”
Congratulations to Five Years
May 21, 2006
There is much afoot for me at University of Phoenix now. I find the timing funny. As it happens, I started five years ago, June 4. To celebrate, I received the following email from University administration:
Congratulations
Dear Peter Wright,
Congratulations on your 5 Year achievement with University of Phoenix! Thank you for your dedication and contributions to our company. We are pleased to honor you with an award in recognition of this accomplishment.
You can order from available award selections online using your personal access number XXXX XXXXX XXXXX.
This email was computer generated; please do not reply. If you have questions regarding this notification please contact the award administration team.
US and Canada
orders@XXXXX.com
Now, let me tell you: nothing says “We appreciate you” better than “do not reply to this email.”
Technorati Tags: Education, University of Phoenix
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