jobs : The Art of Non-Conformity

Work

The Great Resignation: If Your Job Sucks, Now Is the Time to Stop Doing It

If you don't like your job, what would happen if you walked away?

I've been asking this question off and on for over a decade. Unless you plan on living forever, why in the world should you devote the majority of your productive hours each week to something you don't enjoy?

All that time, I haven't exactly been speaking into a void. I hear from people almost every day who have followed through on some sort of exit plan.

It's clear, however, that something is different now. Very different. What's different is that millions of people are actually quitting their jobs! Four million Americans just in April 2021, according to government statistics, and many millions since.

Life

The Resumé of Failures

For every success, there are countless failures. Yet when we look at someone from the outside, especially someone who’s been particularly successful, we may not see the failures.

Scientist Melanie Stefan issued a challenge for academics to share their “CV of failures,” a formal listing of all the programs from which they were rejected, the funding they didn’t get, and the journal articles that weren’t published.

Here’s how she explains the idea:

"My CV does not reflect the bulk of my academic efforts — it does not mention the exams I failed, my unsuccessful PhD or fellowship applications, or the papers never accepted for publication. At conferences, I talk about the one project that worked, not about the many that failed."

Life

The Historian Who Couldn’t Escape from Alcatraz

In the introduction to one of the chapters of my new book, I wrote about escaping from Alcatraz. If you’re trying to get out of an unfulfilling job, it can sometimes feel just as difficult as getting out of prison. I used the Alcatraz story as a metaphor, but a reader who wants to remain anonymous passed on a story that I really liked. Here’s the story.

My uncle was a historian at the Maritime Museum in San Francisco. He gave me a tour of their private collection once, items that were too delicate for public display.
In a large metal drawer, he showed me the fake human heads made of soap that the escaped inmates had used to fool the nighttime guards. Can you imagine? Collecting the tiny end slivers of soap after a shower. Getting them back to your cell. Finally saving enough to create a head. They also made a makeshift drill out of hair clippers and a screw. You get really creative when you need to escape!
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Work

The One-Page Career Cheat Sheet

Are you happy in your job? This fun resource—a one-page, "career cheat sheet"—from Sarah K. Peck can help you think through the question in a structured way. Sarah published this chart last month and has received a strong reaction. Here's what she had to say about it ...

Work

First Steps to Working for Yourself (Follow-Up)

Last week I presented a scenario from one of our readers. Anna was recently laid off from a middle management job, and rather than look for work, she was hoping to become self-employed for the first time. What are the first steps? she wanted to know. I said that I would share my answer, but first I wanted to hear from the rest of our community. If you're in a similar situation or are just curious, you can read some of the answers and see if any advice serves your needs. I've copied a few of my favorite responses ...

128 Comments

Work

Everyday Decisions: Getting Started with Working for Yourself

Anna wrote in with a common question: how to get started working on your own?

I hear these questions a lot, and they come in all shapes and sizes. Despite the variations, most of them have a common theme. Here's how Anna put it in her message, which I'm sharing with her permission:

I was recently laid off after working in a middle management position for the past four years. The layoff was sad, but not completely unexpected. The company has been losing money, and while I'd like to think I was irreplaceable, I know the truth is that they simply had to eliminate some positions ...

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Work

Qualifications

Sometimes people ask about my qualifications.

It's a fair question with a simple answer: I have none.

There's absolutely no reason I should be doing pretty much anything I'm doing these days.

Work

Paying the Bills: Your Responses

As expected, I received a flood of responses to Monday's question on paying the bills. In addition to hundreds of site comments (I posted at least half that came through, but it's tough to keep up from the road), we also had hundreds of additional suggestions come in through Facebook and Google+.

405 Comments

Work

How to Quickly Pay the Bills

I recently posed an open question to a few social networks and received hundreds of interesting responses. I'll republish the best of them for everyone to see at some point, but first I thought I'd ask YOU.

136 Comments

Work

The Good Job

I visited a large company to give a talk about non-conformity and adventure. From all appearances, it was a well-run company doing good things. Many of the employees came up to me afterwards to chat, and I asked each of them, “How are things at _____?” Most of them said that things were good, and I had no reason to doubt them.

30 Comments

Work

How to Stand Out in Any Job

Regardless of what kind of work you do, it’s usually not difficult to set yourself apart by going beyond the status quo of being average. All too many working environments are filled with all kinds of people who are just ambling through their jobs. Many don’t want to be there at all, and never miss…