Given the law of averages, you would think that the incidence of jerks who become bosses is roughly the same as jerks in the general population. But that doesn’t seem to be the case. Jerks seem to be well over-represented in the ranks of bosses, as if some karmic force is at work to punish people for the laundry list of bad things they have done in their lives. You bullied that freckled-faced kid in third grade and your comeuppance is to be tortured by your megalomaniac boss. Wow. Don’t you wish you could just do detention after school instead? (more…)

For most of us, the concept of job security can join Santa Claus, the tooth fairy and global peace on the short list of warm and fuzzy things that exist in language only. With the rare exception of tenured positions in education, the words “job” and “security” don’t come together too often, unless you switch the order and aspire to a career in a security job (think Paul Blart, Mall Cop). (more…)

You recently lost your job. Pretty predictable these days. Equally predictable is that one of the first things that pops into your head upon getting the news sounds something like “I better get my resume together.” If it is not one of your initial thoughts, one of your well-intended friends will make it so. They will ask you for a copy of your resume so that they can sprinkle it around to their network. Conventional wisdom says that thing one after job loss is resume preparation. I call this the “rush to the resume.” Conventional wisdom is none too wise in this case. (more…)