Is Your Obsession With "Breaking Bad" Ruining Your Career?

Photo : Frank Ockenfels/AMC

Aaron Paul and Bryan Cranston as Jesse Pinkman and Walter White on 'Breaking Bad'

One of my favorite television shows of all time is "Breaking Bad". Although, I didn't become a fan until the show was already into its third season, but thanks to Netflix, I was able to catch up and watch all the previous episodes in a few nights with very little sleep.  It's funny, because normally I don't like to watch television dramas but the show hooked my right away, and judging by the millions of fans the show has attracted, I'm not the only person who finds the story of Walter White fascinating. 

Yet, with the success of any television or movie franchise also comes a legion of weird obsessive fans who can't get enough of the show, its characters, the plot lines, but who also don't know where the line between reality and fantasy delineates.  They find themselves reciting lines from the show, reading books about making crystal meth, and calling people "bitch" like Jesse Pinkman.

However, not everyone is this fanatical about the show. There are many fans who love the show just for its entertainment value, but at times they will allow little snippets of the show creep into their personal life. It's at that point they need to reign in their "inner Walter", and realize the show might be effectively clouding their judgment.  You might be one of those fans, and not even know that subconsciously you are channeling Walter White, Jesse Pinkman, or even worse Gus Fring. Here are a few signs you might be watching too much "Breaking Bad", and letting the show adversely affect your career.

• You End Every Sentence With The Word "Bitch" - One of the main characters in the show is Jesse Pinkman and he seems to punctuate every other sentence with the word "bitch".  That may work for Mr. Pinkman who deals drugs and interacts with addicts, but when someone at work offers you a drink, please don't say, "Gatorade me bitch!". 
• You Decide To Shave Your Head Like Walter White - The signature look for Walter White, who by the way is going through chemo therapy, is his bald head.  In a study conducted by the Wharton School,  men with shaved heads are perceived to be more masculine and may be better leaders. However, the reason many business leaders shave their heads is because they're going bald!  And shaving your head is an especially ineffective strategy if you're a woman. No one is promoting Sinead O'Connor to a CEO anytime soon.  My suggestion, is that unless you actually are going bald, or undergoing chemo therapy, don't shave your head. It's a good look for Dr. Evil, but not you.  
• You End Every Presentation With , "Say My Name." - One of the most memorable quotes on the show is when Walt White confronts a few hardened criminals and asks them to say his name as a sign of respect.  This line works on television, but not in an office setting.  It's just grandstanding and you're not going to win anyone's respect by ending each meeting, presentation, or company picnic by asking people to say your name. They might respond by saying, "Mr./Ms. Ass Hole".
• You Advise Your Boss To "Tread Lightly" - The career path of Walter White is that he starts out as a nerdy little chemistry teacher, and becomes a bad ass drug dealer over the course of a few years.  Secretly, we all want to be able to command that type of money and power, but if you're working in a corporate environment, the same rules do not apply as they do to drug dealing.  When your boss tells you she needs a project done by the end of the month, you can't tell her "tread lightly", or she might respond with, "you're fired."
• You Respond To Every Request With, "Better Call Saul!" -  Walter White and Jesse Pinkman are business partners who rely heavily on the help of their lawyer Saul Goodman to resolve many of their problems.  Saul shows them how to hide their money, set up businesses to launder their cash, and resolves many other issues related to their drug dealing.  I'm not sure that advising people to "call Saul" when they have problems will help you advance your career.  You may find it amusing, but your coworkers will not.    

I'm sure there are many scenarios which might play out at your job, where you might think to call on Walter or Jesse to help get you through the day, or to handle a specific problem, but it's probably better for your career if you ignore the allure of "Breaking Bad", and just be yourself.

Have a great day, and a wonderful holiday!

The One Sign You Will NOT Be Rich



Copyright: href='http://www.123rf.com/profile_miszaqq'>miszaqq / 123RF Stock Photo

This post will not be popular.  This post may not be well received. Why? Because it is not about unicorns and rainbows, and little leprechauns carrying pots of gold to your house, if you just work harder than everyone else.  This post is about reality...but if you keep on reading, this post is also about hope.

Years ago a friend of mine at UC Riverside explained to me that by looking at someone she could tell if they were going to be rich or not.  Apparently, this is a common question in the UC system because the same question was posed in Berkley as well. I thought that was probably the stupidest comment I had ever heard, but I still asked, "Pray tell me oh brilliant economist, who amongst us will be rich and who will not?"

She said, "That's such an easy question to answer.  The people whose parents are already rich. Duh!"

Well first of all,  I felt inclined to give her a friendly punch on the arm because she made fun of me, but secondly the answer did seem pretty obvious.  People with access to capital tend to pass on their wealth to their children, and regardless of whether those children work hard or not.  Wealthy children have access to more resources for earning wealth, such as education, capital, and investment advice.  Do you think the Kardashians worked harder than anyone else to become rich?  Absolutely not, but they did take advantage of opportunities available to them to create even more wealth. 

One of the most recent books which mentions the subject of wealth and inheritance is, "Capital in the Twenty First Century", by Thomas Piketty.  A link to his book online can be found here .  Piketty's book will no doubt be debated by economists, however his conclusions regarding the accumulation of capital by the wealthy and inheritance are very interesting:

"Whenever the rate of return on capital is significantly and durably higher than the growth rate of the economy, it is all but inevitable that inheritance (of fortunes accumulated in the past) predominates over saving (wealth accumulated in the present).... Wealth originating in the past automatically grows more rapidly, even without labor, than wealth stemming from work, which can be saved. Almost inevitably, this tends to give lasting, disproportionate importance to inequalities created in the past, and therefore to inheritance."

I read this and immediately thought, "I need an economic translator". Yet after dusting off my old economic thinking cap, I came to one pretty simple assumption.

One sign that you will NOT be rich, is that you were not born rich.

Yes you can work harder than everyone else, and hope that this will reverse the trend, and you can master a craft and work harder at perfecting it then all the other master craftsman in your market.  But your still fighting against a trend.  To further add insult to injury, in a study done by the Pew Charitable trust in 2013, if you are born into a lower income household, you have a 4% chance of becoming a high income earner.  Just 4 percent! WTF?

As I mentioned before, many of you will not like this post, because the American Dream is for you to be rich.  Not well off, but rich.  However many of you will never be rich...NEVER.  So in light of the increasing economic evidence working against you, should you just give up on your dream?  HECK NO!

"So you're telling me there's a chance!" - Lloyd Christmas

Despite the changing economic landscape and the trend towards the consolidation of wealth, there is a chance, albeit a small one, that you can be rich.  The evidence is somewhat overwhelming, but it doesn't mean you should just give up.  However, it does mean you're going to have to overcome a lot if you want to be rich.  But isn't that really what the American Dream is all about?

Consider all of the dirt poor people who did make it out of poverty to become rich.  People like Howard Schulz, Larry Ellison, Oprah Winfrey, and Harold Simmons.  All these billionaires started out in more humble beginnings than most of us, but they became extremely rich.  For god's sake, Larry Ellison owns an island!  And not just any island, but a tropical island.  How many people do you know who live on their own tropical island but aren't named Gilligan?  It may be improbable for many to become rich, but it's not impossible.

There is not just one sign preventing many of you from becoming rich, there are many.  And despite the best efforts of CEO's to encourage you to work harder than anyone else to become rich, which incidentally helps them become even more rich.  You should focus on working hard for yourself, not anyone else, and ignoring all those signs. 

If you run the red lights of life, you're likely to get where you're going a lot faster than anyone else.

But please be sure not to run over everyone...Have a great day!

What Are You Prepared To Do?

We all have a time in our lives when we come to a crossroads and we must choose between doing the right thing, the ethical thing, or doing something a bit less ethical which might get us in trouble, but also might boost our career.  Many of us choose the latter path, because we feel it's easier, and we believe it's the quickest way to get ahead.  I am not a saint.  Far from it, but occasionally I do surprise myself.

A long time ago, back when I was working in finance.  Well, not necessarily finance, but mainly legalized loan sharking.  I had my first experience with a boss who asked me to do something I deemed unethical, but he saw as exceptional. The company I worked for offered sub prime loans, mainly B and C paper, even to people who could qualify for better interest rates and loans.  It was my first job after college and I was having trouble selling loans with interest rates of 30%.  Yes, you are reading that correctly 30%! That seems like an easy sale right?  I mean who wouldn't want to sign 5 years of their life away for a modest interest rate of 30%?  In addition, we were offering real estate loans of 15%.  What a deal! 

Naturally, I was having difficulty not only selling the loans because of the excessive interest rates, but also I didn't feel comfortable screwing people just to earn a commission.  In my heart I knew it was wrong, once people signed those loan documents, they might find themselves in a worse financial position then before they signed them.  However, armed with a degree in economics this was what I thought was the world of finance.  WRONG!  Back then I had a conscience, so when I approached my boss about how we could feel good about selling loans with such a high Annual Percentage Rate, he cut me off straight away.

"You took this job to make money right?", he said.

"Right.  But I didn't think I'd be selling loans with such a high APR."

"We're not a bank. We're a financial institution, so we can charge whatever rate we want on a personal loan."

" I know that, but when people come in to sign the papers they always ask what the APR is, and I never feel comfortable telling them.  Especially when they see it on the loan docs.  The last loan I sold was at 30.11%.  That's a bit excessive isn't it?"

" Listen, it's not your job to judge what's excessive.  You're a kid for Christ's sake.  If they balk at the APR put your thumb over it when they go to sign.   All they care about is whether they can afford the payments."

"Do what?"

" Put your thumb over the interest rate.  I do it all the time.  People need money and we're here to give it to them.  Who are we to judge what's fair.  Put your thumb over it and they sign every time."

" Are you serious?  Isn't that a bit shady?"

" Does it matter how you hold the docs?  If your thumb happens to be over the interest rate, so be it.  That's not your fault.", he said and he smiled, like a Cheshire cat.  It was a bit creepy and somewhat evil.  I just looked at him in disbelief.  I'm sure he could see the cogs turning in my head.

" Look.  We hired you to make loans.  So that's what you need to do.  Corporate and I don't care how you make the loans, just make them, and you'll do well.  Start questioning what we do here and you'll be gone.  I know it's tough, it was tough for me in the beginning too, but you get used to it.  Plus you'll make a lot of money! Just try it next time you have someone come in for a loan.  Put your thumb over the APR and I guarantee they won't say anything about the interest rate."

"I don't feel comfortable doing that. Can I just try signing my loans without doing that?"

" Suit yourself, but you want to make money?"

" Yes."

" So you have to ask yourself.  What are you prepared to do?"

" What do you mean?"

" If you want to make money in business, in any business, you have to decide what are you prepared to do.  This isn't college anymore. Life's not black and white, we deal in a lot of gray areas.  And me, I'll do anything to get ahead.  I got 3 kids at home and a wife who doesn't work, so me...I'll do whatever it takes.  What about you?'

I was shocked, "What? Wait. What do you mean? I don't understand. "

"What are you prepared to do to get ahead in this world?  Anything?  Putting your thumb over an interest rate is not being shady, it's being smart.  I hired you because I thought you were smart. Well are you?"

" Yes. I thinks so?", I said, still in a daze and now concerned about whether I made the right career choice.

" Well then if you're smart.  You'll put your thumb over the interest rate and shut the f#$k up.  If they sign,they sign. It's on them.  Got it."
" Yes sir. ", I answered like a good soldier.

" Good.  Now go sell some loans.", he said and slapped me on the back. I shuffled back to my desk in a daze.

Right then, I knew this was not the business for me, yet on went on selling loans at 30% for another year.  I did everything I could to overcome the APR objection, focusing on other aspects of the loan which would help reduce interest payments.  I focused on no pre-payment penalties, and shorter terms.  I encouraged people to use their tax returns to pay off the loans early.

And not once did I put my thumb over the interest rate on the loan documents.  I wasn't prepared to do that. 

How about you?  What are you prepared to do?