Employaid Blog » job survival http://employaidblog.com Uncut Observations on the Working Life Wed, 16 Mar 2011 00:13:31 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=abc en hourly 1 Survive at Work http://employaidblog.com/2009/01/26/survive-at-work/ http://employaidblog.com/2009/01/26/survive-at-work/#comments Tue, 27 Jan 2009 03:11:13 +0000 Barbara Poole http://employaidblog.com/?p=38 A few months ago, career columns were all about how to leave your job, or escape from your job, or develop a social media job search strategy, or write a resume, or present yourself to a prospective employer in ways that would dazzle, and so forth.  In the wake of 500,000 layoffs and far more on the horizon, job search has been eclipsed in the media by advice on job preservation.  This slideshow on how to save your job, presented by CNN/Money Magazine, would make a great screen saver.   As the economy worsens, the added stress of saving your job while looking for a job makes for a rocky path on the road to the New Economy.

]]> http://employaidblog.com/2009/01/26/survive-at-work/feed/ 1 Don’t Pick up the Bait http://employaidblog.com/2008/08/05/dont-pick-up-the-bait/ http://employaidblog.com/2008/08/05/dont-pick-up-the-bait/#comments Tue, 05 Aug 2008 20:30:29 +0000 Barbara Poole http://employaidblog.com/?p=18 I am writing this tonight on the way to St. Petersburg, Russia.  It is a place I never thought I would visit.  A world of mystery, harshness, and over-reaching government.  Of all the places to find an analogy to life in corporate America, this was the last place I thought I would find it.  But there is one.  I learned that Russian police have such meager salaries that they seek to fatten their wallets by harassing tourists for money.  It goes like this: at any moment, a tourist can expect to be approached by a policeman, who demands passport and documents for inspection.  The cop finds “an irregularity” and immediately demands payment of a fine.  If you push back, he will eventually go away without the fine.  However, if you’re not a Russian native, you will not be as lucky.  Another situation involves petty thieves who will throw a wallet on the street, and wait until an unsuspecting tourist picks it up.  At that moment, he leaps out and demands that the tourist pay back the money he “stole” from the wallet.  While wallet scams can happen in Russia, we’re also talking about petty crimincals in other metro areas where people are desparate for survival.

Times are tough in today’s job economy.  And in corporate America, the landscape is just as rough.  How often does it happen that employees in companies that are experiencing layoffs and restructurings are called out for faulty reports, hours irregularitiess, or any infractions too many to list here?  The fact is that as jobs become more precious, people become more intense in their desire for self preservation.  Whether it is a “document irregularity”, or a symbolic wallet on the street, savvy employees learn the art of being participant observers in the movie called work.  They are as much in the movie as they are observing it, giving themselves strategic advantage over those who will intentionally trip them up for their own gain.  The moral of the story:  Push back if the message you receive is a faulty one, and whatever you do, run from a wallet on the sidewalk like it has the plague.

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