Chris Berry On The Net

In virtually every profession, charlatans and frauds occasionally attempt to pass themselves off as legitimate practitioners. Strict licensing requirements make it more difficult in some fields than others, but that doesn’t prevent the truly dedicated scam artist from attempting to cash in on a potentially lucrative business. It doesn’t happen very often, but the sheer [...]

Since getting out of the food business in January of 2008, I spent a great deal of time trying to figure out what I wanted to do for the next phase of my career. I applied half-heartedly for a few positions, but I never really embarked on a focused job search since I didn’t have [...]

You may recall from this post that my brief career with the Census Bureau didn’t work out exactly as planned. I thought I had witnessed the pinnacle of institutional incompetence during my one day tenure, but I was wrong. It gets worse.
I received a phone call yesterday from the same local Census office where I [...]

The ads that the Census Bureau ran in the local papers a couple of months ago promised hourly wages of $12.00 to $20.00 and the ability to set your own schedule. Even though the starting wage was less than I earned in my first job over 20 years ago, I decided to apply and see [...]

I’ve spent the last few days trying to get ready for a major lifestyle adjustment. After a very long period of unemployment, I’m getting ready to start the worst job of my life on Monday working for the Census Bureau. I never thought I would stoop so low as to become a government employee. Someone [...]

It’s hard to believe, but in a few short weeks I will mark the one year anniversary of my last day as a small business owner. I did hang around for a few months to help the new owners through the transition period, but I’ve basically been unemployed for all of 2008. Luckily my wife [...]

Yesterday I wrote about the son of Senator Ted Stevens making a lucrative career out of trading on his father’s name. The case of Ben Stevens is remarkable since he truly had nothing to offer his clients other than access to his dad. In return for this access, he was paid millions of dollars in [...]

I didn’t develop a full understanding of my unique personality type (INTP) until I was nearly 40 years old. At that point I came to realize that I had been blindly pursuing a career path for which I was very poorly suited. The further I advanced, the more unhappy I became. I had been quite [...]

One of the challenging aspects of my personality type is the fact that my mind bombards me with a constant stream of new ideas. Some are big, some are small, and they are rarely related to one another. I might have an idea for an entirely new product or service one day, and a unique [...]

There is a general consensus among job search experts that roughly 80% of job openings are never advertised, and the most effective way to learn about these opportunities is through personal networking. This typically puts introverts at a significant disadvantage, since we are generally not inclined to engage in the kind of business and social [...]