In Baltimore this weekend, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was inaugurated the 69th president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, taking the leadership helm from the mayor of Burnsville, MN, population 60,000.
What the hell am I missing here? Did the Mayor of our City just take a part-time job?
The question is more important than you might think, especially given that Villaraigosa also popped up, like another Eagle Rock mini-mall, on the Father’s Day edition of Meet the Press.
Fresh from symposiums at the 79th Annual Meeting of Mayors, where his words if not actions promised to teach the nation’s mayoral elite “how to save your city money, create jobs, and promote sustainable development and environmental policies,” Villaraigosa shared his vision for America’s cities and the nation on the idiot box.
Because I live in one of those cities, I watched.
When Villaraigosa said, “America needs to focus on home again,” I had a case of nose flatulence.
Was he really preaching about tending to the home front while sitting 3,000 miles away from his?
With the political truism “All politics are local” ringing in my ears, I watched Villaraigosa continue to audition for a Cabinet post in a presumed second Obama administration.
He made the rounds and gave his diagnosis for America’s cities by emphasizing investment in transportation and infrastructure—while here at home we remain in a budget “Emergency Room,” our vital services all but eviscerated.
Meanwhile, in Newark, NJ, Mayor Cory Booker has his nose to the grindstone as he attempts to serve the needs of his beleaguered city and tweets about them at the same time.
On the opposite end of the nation, Villaraigosa’s eye remains on his own personal horizons while we are left to wait until 2013 for a new mayor who just might want to focus on Los Angeles.
And that brings me to David Gonzalez, a resident of Highland Park and son of a dear friend, who is embarking on an adventure this summer.
David is a recent graduate of Cathedral High School, once attended by our mayor, and David’s looking for a part-time job for the summer before he starts college.
This will be David’s first paying gig, replete with those delicious tax withholdings that take some of the flavor out of savoring that first check. I’ll be spending a few hours this week helping him size up the employment landscape and brush up on job interview etiquette, not least because a good part-time job can be hard to find these days.
I will remind young Master Gonzalez that Los Angeles’ lame duck mayor was kicked out of Cathedral High School a lifetime ago. Then, I will discuss with him some job-seeking themes inspired by the mayor and his recent actions:
- Find a job—one job—for which you are qualified and have the necessary skills and knowledge.
- Focus on the tasks for which you were hired—not on the next possible rung up the ladder.
- No one shows up to work to do a bad job, but you need to be at work for your Employer to know it.
- When you’re ready to quit, give two weeks notice but also give your Employer the opportunity to send you packing immediately if they know your heart is no longer in it.
Anyone needing a resume from a potential employee armed with such information, please feel free to drop me a line.
