Proposal

Sadly, I think we all have, by now, figured out that the worst of this disastrous economy is unfortunately still ahead of us.Thus far, we have all been successful in our chosen careers. Some of us may have pursued more lucrative paths than others, but we all have this in common: Each of us has maintained high standards of personal conduct and been successful because of (and not despite) our ethical behavior and our Moral Character.I propose that we all stay in close communication during this rough time. My hope would be that we keep each other appraised of our own personal situation and also share whatever we feel might benefit the rest of us.To that end, I submit the following: (1) I have found LinkedIn.com to be a good site to post your accomplishments and also as a relatively easy, and well known, networking site.(2) I have found the Ladders.com to be useless and I feel it is just an advertisement for their resume service. You pay ~$300 and all you get is advertisements for a resume service that requires you to pay an additional $695.00 for a rewritten Resume.(3) I swallowed my pride and asked my Manager to be my official "Mentor". He has actually taken a genuine / personal interest in getting me promoted. (Promotion may not be an option in this market but knowing he is "going to bat for me" makes me a little more confident I am not on the first list for layoffs). By the way, at least at my company, being a Mentor is viewed well. So it is not a totally selfish request and an adept potential mentor will see the request as an opportunity for them to distinguish themselves. (Obviously, to that end, if you can mentor others, it is mutually beneficial). I have sent you each this note as a "sort of" invite to join / rejoin that fraternity we once did (and still do) belong to. I want the few of us, to be the founding members of a new, more inclusive group that will help ourselves and our other friends to survive the coming trial. We need to help each other through this and the sooner we start the better.