Today’s New York Times “Social Q’s” column addressed this question:
For the last 7 years, Anonymous had received a “generous cash bonus” from her boss – “in addition to the regular company bonus.” She explains, “I do many personal errands for him during the year.”

This year: no bonus. She wonders why. (I’m assuming the writer is female.)

Philip Galanes, the moderator of Social Q, deals purely with the etiquette issue. He urges her to speak privately with her boss, asking if there was a performance issue.

From an etiquette perspective, Galanes may be correct. From a career planning perspective, you would need a different perspective.

First, doing personal errands for the boss is always a slippery slope. (I’m assuming you’re not a personal assistant, like the main character of Devil Wears Prada.) So are cash bonuses.

If your official job does not call for personal errands, I would suggest drawing the line early.

You can also check your company’s policies on outside work. If you find no conflict, you can start a small concierge business, where you run errands and carry out personal services for money. These services charge $35-$75 an hour. Some charge more for difficult errands.

Yes, you would need a business license and you would pay taxes on your earnings. However, a sharp accountant would help you spot some legal deductions. In fact, if your boss is “a millionaire many times over” (like the one in the column) he will probably find a way to deduct your services from his taxes, all nice and legal.

Once you have this business, you can find other executives to hire you. You might even call on your neighbors. Some concierges will walk dogs and take pets to the veterinarian. Some pick up dry cleaning. Just about all services will shop for groceries and stay home and wait for packages (if you do this, make sure you’re bonded and insured).

You can expand your service on weekends. If you get laid off, you’ll have a business all ready to go.

Your mid-life career takes a detour when you deal with a bad boss. Fast Company Expert Kevin Kruse wrote a gem of an article: When You Work For A Jerk: A 6-Point Plan For Dealing With A Bad Boss. Read it here.

Kruse presents 6 career planning steps to take, which I will summarize in my own words with my own comments.

Is the problem about you or about the boss?

In any career planning, your first step is to separate yourself from the situation. If you’ve had a series of bad experiences, consider investing in a life coach, career coach or even a psychotherapist. Sometimes people re-enact patterns dating back to childhood … even when they 52 and working as a senior manager.

But I would add: Sometimes a repeated set of problem is not about your psychological issues but about your career choices. Industries, companies and professional fields have different patterns of working. In academia, you have a much looser authority structure than in many corporations.

And if you just can’t work for anybody, you may be wise to work on starting your own business, even if it seems impossible. Not all elements of style and personality can be changed, even with the best therapy and coaching on the planet. Some people are naturally gifted at working with any boss or colleague, so it stands to reason that some people aren’t. Gifts aren’t distributed evenly or fairly.

Try to be objective about your boss and your job.

This advice also makes sense. Your boss’s unrealistic demands may be a reflection of pressures from above. At the same time, I’m not sympathetic with people who bring their problems to the workplace. If your boss is going through a divorce or facing her own career challenges, she should be working to deal with them outside the office. If management tolerates inappropriate behavior, something is wrong with your company culture.

The article suggests “coaching upward,” i.e., helping your boss do his job better.

An example from the article:
“I just wanted to follow up on that item that came up a couple months ago. As we had discussed, I’d be much more efficient with that widget for my computer. Did that request ever go in…have you heard anything about it? I don’t mind following up on it myself .…want me to call David for the request?”

That’s great advice. But if your boss responds, it’s just a matter of communication style: you don’t have a bad boss, just an overworked or inattentive one.

Look at your return on investment. Are you getting good money? Gaining marketable skills? If so, then you may be well advised to hang on if you can do so without damaging your mental or physical health. If not, get thee to a career coach and start transitioning.

Wait it out. In some companies (and in the military) this advice makes sense. One of my academic friends says, “You don’t like the college president? They come and go. So do deans.”

But in some companies, nobody moves. If that’s your situation, you have to ask yourself, “Where will I be in 5 years?” If your boss is still there, chances are you will be too. You don’t have much choice. You have to move on.

Sometimes you have to bite the bullet. This nugget of wisdom is a real gem:

“If all else fails, you have to quit. For the sake of your mental and physical health, and for the sake of your friends and family, you have to find a new job. The truth is that if you’ve been working for a bad boss for long, you probably aren’t in a position to get a better job. I hate to be so direct, but great talent always has options, and usually doesn’t work for a bad boss.

“This is the key point: You have to be the CEO of your own career–you have to be mindful of your career. Not just when you get a bad boss, but always. In good times and in bad you need to be doing the things necessary to give you career options…”

I couldn’t have said it better myself. But if you’d like to pick my brain, visit this page and learn about my services.

We tend to think of “Career Planning” as moving to a better job in the future. But sometimes instead you need a career divorce. That’s today’s topic – and a good one from author and “dreamer in residence” Valerie Young.

And, just like a relationship that’s gone bad, it can be hard to walk away from a career — or a small business — you’ve put so much time and effort, to say nothing of the financial investment.

Take my friend Donna. After earning her master’s degree in social work some fifteen years ago, she went into private practice as a family therapist. For the first five or so years, Donna got a lot of satisfaction out of helping others. For the last ten though, her work has felt more like a burden.

So what keeps her there? It’s simple. Donna doesn’t want to “waste” the degree.

I know it’s not easy to turn your back on an established career, especially if it’s one that pays well, has some prestige associated with it, or required earning some kind of advanced degree. And yet, think about the logic here.

What you’re really telling yourself is, “I’ve wasted the last 10 years of my life so I might as well throw away the next 20 as well. To hell with my true gifts, I’ve got more suffering to do.”

John Powell once said, “The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.” The fact of the matter is we all get lost from time to time. That’s life. The danger comes when we fail to heed the road signs and thus remain stuck in the breakdown lane.

I have an abiding belief that everything in life happens for a reason. The key is to find the lessons. Even my own job with the boss from hell offered invaluable lessons and experiences.

In addition to getting to travel the country, I learned in no uncertain terms to trust my instincts. That job was also just the catalyst I needed to make my final exit from the j-o-b world. And, as importantly, it introduced me people who’ve been integral to helping me succeed as a solo entrepreneur.

What should you do if you find yourself on the wrong career path? We’ll, if you’re living with the consequences of having long ignored your better instincts, get a pen and paper, find some quiet space, and put your listening ears on. Then write down everything that little voice has been trying to tell you — but this time without censor or rationalization.

If you find, for example, that you’ve been living someone else’s dream, ask yourself:

What does having other people’s approval or meeting someone else’s needs help me avoid or get?

What price am I paying for this approval?

Do the costs outweigh the benefits? If so, it’s time to start exploring your own dreams.

If you’re hanging onto a job or career solely because of all the time and money you’ve invested, then the first thing to do is to let yourself get close to your fear. I’m not talking about the fear of letting the world know you made a mistake or the financial angst.

What I’m talking about is getting in touch with the one thing that should really scare the heck out of you — namely, never getting to experience what your life would be like if you pursued your true gifts and passions.

Once you let that little reality sink in, sit down and write a “Dear John” letter to your past love. Talk to your career or business. Explain that while it has been a good and faithful partner for some time, you have simply fallen out of love. It will understand.

Then pick up a paintbrush, look into culinary school, or otherwise start courting your new love interests.

It’s easy to find yourself on the wrong career track. When that happens, the key is to stay alert for warning lights, watch for the signposts along the way, learn from those inevitable detours, ask for directions, and then start slowly inching your way onto that big expansive highway called Your Life!

As George Bernard Shaw once observed, “A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.”

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About the Author

Profiting From Your Passions? expert Valerie Young abandoned her corporate cubicle to become the Dreamer in Residence at ChangingCourse.com offering resources for people who want to work at what they love. Her career change tips have been cited in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today Weekend, More, Kiplinger’s, Woman’s Day, and elsewhere and on-line at MSN, CareerBuilder, and iVillage.com. Valerie is also the author of The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women: Why Capable People Suffer from the Impostor Syndrome and How to Thrive in Spite of It with Crown Publishing/Random House available October 11.

One of the monster.com sites came up with these tips – 5 worst career change mistakes. Read the article here.

Here’s my take on these mistakes (which are actually written up as tips and warnings, but that’s another story):

They advise, “Don’t Look for a Job in Another Field Without Some Intense Introspection.”

Well, I don’t know what “intense introspection” is, but I’ve seen more people make a mistake the other way. Most people get so hung up on navel-gazing that they never get around to searching for info, let alone taking action steps.

Often you don’t realize you need something till you see it … or till it’s gone.

Second, they advise, “Don’t Look for Hot Fields Unless They’re a Good Fit for You.”

That’s actually good advice. They refer to fitting yourself into the right job; I’d add that there’s no such thing as a “hot” field. You can’t believe everything you read in the papers.

Similarly, they advise, “Don’t Go into a Field Because Your Friend Is Doing Well in It.”

That one’s easy: you are not your friend. Even if you have similar profiles, likes, interests, etc., you enter the field at different times with different opportunities.

Fourth, they advise, “Don’t Stick to Possibilities You Already Know About.” VERY true. I get SO frustrated when I work with clients who refuse to explore an idea I suggest to them. Of course the idea may be all wrong for them, but just the act of exploration will change you and introduce you to new possibilities.

However, I don’t recommend self-assessment “exercises” and testing. Have fun with them but let experience be your guide.

Fifth, the article says, “Don’t Let Money Be the Deciding Factor.”

Generally I agree. I’ve found that people who take pay cuts often catch up to their old salaries. They also spend less on things they used to use to relieve their stress – everything from medication to therapy to eating out.

But you have to know yourself. Living on a lower income also causes stress, especially if you have a family. How do you tell your child there’s no money to pay the vet to keep the family dog alive? How do you deal with lower health care quality? Should your kids give up music lessons?

These points are the first five mentioned in the article. i’ll continue this discussion in the next post. To get more ideas on career change, download my FREE guide here.

Recently Fast Company published an article that seemed related to career planning. They asked if twenty-somethings and college students would trade off financial rewards to get more freedom to use Facebook on the job. Read the article here. The respondents insisted that Facebook access and social media were more important than money. The article said:

“More than half of the college students surveyed indicated that if an employer banned access to networks like Facebook at work, “they would either not accept a job offer from them or would join and find a way to circumvent.”

The problem is that career planning doesn’t work this way. It’s hard to know what we would say when confronted with those choices in reality, especially during tough times.

I’d like to see the question asked differently, limiting the respondents to people who actually had a job. I would ask, “Have you ever turned down a job because of limited social media access? Have you ever had to choose between two jobs: higher pay + no facebook vs. lower pay + facebook?”

The truth is, people are notoriously poor at predicting their own future behavior. That’s why criminal trials get so bizarre when jurors are asked to imagine themselves in specific situations. Unless we’re prepared (the way airline crews prepare for crashes), we usually don’t know.

On the other hand, the article goes on to note that younger people often want to meld their work and home lives, with shallower boundaries. They want to use company-issued devices for personal business. They want to work from home. In other words, they want to be freelancers with benefits.

Ultimately, we’ll probably see fewer jobs and more opportunities to earn income as freelancers. We can see that health care as a company benefit doesn’t work anymore.

Penelope Trunk’s recent post featured 5 career planning tips for being a good manager. I think they have fairly general applicability. You can read the full post here.

Some tips from the article:

– Manage conflict. Don’t run from it. Whether it’s your conflict or someone else’s, it probably won’t get resolved on its own. Learning some conflict management techniques will be a good career planning move.

– Develop genuine empathy. People can tell when you genuinely care about them or when you’re just going through the motions. When you genuinely like your job and peers, this one’s easy.

And here’s the best career planning tip: Manage your personal life.

As author Penelope Trunk says:

“You are kidding yourself if you think people don’t see what’s going on with you at home…Stress shows up in nonverbal, unexpected ways that make people uncomfortable to be with you and worried about your competence.”

If you’re drinking a lot or getting into debt, she says, your coworkers won’t necessarily realize what you are doing. But they will sense something is wrong.

You’ll use energy hiding your personal life at work. Instead, direct your energy to dealing with your personal life. In the short run, you may feel you don’t have time. However, in the long run, you’ll make more career progress (and maybe have a happier career too).

A recent New York Post article pondered 4 career risks that may (or may not) be worth taking. Read the full article here.

The author looks at 4 risks but they’re not equal.

Risk #1: Going Back to School. My question would be, “Why are you considering going back?” Even if you don’t heed a degree you may find that the experience gives you access to a new network. However, I find many professionals (especially those who have achieved success by degrees) feel lost in transition. They want the degree or piece of paper to signify, “You’re ready!”

Often you have a two-sided risk. First, you invest tuition expenses and lose salary you would have earned. Second, your educational experience may not lead to the outcome you had hoped.

When I returned for my Ph.D., academic jobs were plentiful in business schools. I earned a good living even while I was taking classes and writing my dissertation. Although I was an “older student,” I had a choice of jobs when I graduated.

Five years later, the world looked different. One of my colleagues applied to business school while jobs were plentiful; by the time he graduated, the job market had dried up. He got a job but it wasn’t one he liked.

Second Risk: Changing Careers. This option is so broad it can’t be lumped together as just one risk. Sometimes changing careers actually is less risky than staying where you are. Quitting before you have another job – well, that’s almost always risky. But embarking on a career change while you are employed may be a wise decision.

Third Risk: Saying “no” to added responsibility. Sometimes turning down a promotion just means you live with less money and prestige. But you encounter other risks. When you are overqualified, you get bored and restless. You may find it hard to follow directions that you know – from experience – are misguided. I’ve talked to many mid-life workers who accepted a lower level job to avoid stress. Inevitably, they encountered more stress as they dealt with the disparity between their skills and their recognition.

Fourth Risk: Leaving the corporate world for self-employment. Sure, this option is extremely risky – especially if you’ve never had a sales career and you lack entrepreneurial experience. But sometimes starting your business will bring you rewards faster than if you keep applying for corporate jobs.

One client was fired from a high-profile position in her city. She couldn’t land a job: she was too well known. Hiring managers were intimidated.

When she put out feelers for a new consulting business, her phone began ringing.

Bottom Line: I don’t recommend viewing choices as more or less risky. I’d recommend instead that you ask, “Does this move make sense for me at this time in my career path and in this era?” Sometimes the answer will surprise you.

To discuss your situation one on one, see http://www.MidlifeCareerStrategy.com/services.html

Just came across an excellent article on this topic:

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/BUSINESS/09/13/hume.route.to.the.top.recession.proof.career/

Some quotes:

Given the myriad reasons that companies downsize, there’s no such thing as a truly secure position, said Angela Baron, engagement adviser at the UK’s Chartered Institute of Personnel Development. “If they’re trying to cut costs, often they’ll look at the backroom first, but if it’s a downturning business then they’ll look at frontline staff.”

and

For those reasons, said Walker, even picking a career in one of the “safe” professions — those that tend to do well during lean times, and are sometimes perceived as being “less than exciting”, such as auditing — was not a good bet if that was not where your strengths lay. “Ultimately, if you’re not competent, you may find it harder to retain your position.”

The key, Baron told CNN, was “not to recession-proof your job, but to recession-proof yourself”.

She recommends thinking ahead to your next job. I recommend thinking of self-employment.

Exchanging a job for a passion: A neurosurgeon’s story
John Seelmeyer, 9/12/2011

From Northern Nevada Business Weekly

Christopher Demers sat in a hospital room in 1996, waiting while his wife, Linda, gave birth to the couple’s first son.

Waiting and thinking, actually.

Waiting and thinking and preparing to make a breath-taking decision, all the more breath-taking because of the increased responsibilities that he would face as a father.

Christopher Demers prepared to chuck a successful, good-paying career in marketing and go back to school.

And not just any school. Medical school.

Today, Max, the son who was born that day, is a freshman at Reno High School. And Demers, who decided to start over, is starting over as a neurosurgeon in practice with Sierra Neurosurgery Group in Reno. For months before he sat in that hospital waiting room some 15 years ago, Demers had known that he needed to change direction.

You can read the rest of the story here. While Demers was (and probably still is) considerably younger than many readers of this blog, his story can be inspiring.

What made it work was that he chose a field where demand is so great that age discrimination doesn’t play a role. In some fields, a thirty-something professional would be considered too old for an entry level job. If Demers had decided to get a PhD in his early thirties, he would have been considered “older” and would not be considered for many university teaching jobs when he was ready to apply in his late 30s.

Additionally the path to the new career was well-defined and straightforward – even regulated. Once you jump through the hoops you are considered qualified.

Finally, Demers chose a field where he can be entrepreneurial. I know two lawyers who finished law school when they were consierably older than most of their classmates. One tried to find a job, but eventually ended up working for a corporation in a related field. Another opened her own practice, where she enjoyed success and found fulfillment.

To review services I offer for your own career transformation, click here.

Q. “I need a career change, but I’m hesitating to sign up for more career coaching. I’ve already been to two coaches. One coach said, “Just take action and get motivated.” Another administered tests confirming what I already knew.”

Sadly, when it comes to careers, everyone’s an expert.

My good friend “Ryan” (who’s had one career since graduating from college forty-three years ago): “If you’re not happy, you should just talk to your supervisor.”

My client “Samantha’s” spouse: “Just do something – anything! You’ve been talking about this for 3 months.”

My former neighbor, wagging her finger at me: “What’s the big deal? It’s just a job. Tell your clients they’ll be fine if they just change their attitude.”

Reality #1: Career change takes time — two to four years.

What do you do in the meantime? You choose a perch job or a bridge job.

Perch job: Think of birds taking a migration break, bouncing on the high wire. You’re not committed to this job and you probably wouldn’t want to stay forever. But you can stop long enough to pay the bills while you search for your next major move.

Bridge job: Your job that gets you closer to a new goal. Maybe you can test your next life. Perch jobs can become bridge jobs and vice versa.

Reality #2: Career change is more like a game of “hot and cold” than a straight line.

Remember the children’s game: “You’re getting hot…no – you’re moving away – getting colder…”

That’s how career change really works, based on published research as well as my own experience.

Let’s get real. If your career advisor had a test that could figure out “the perfect career for me,” he wouldn’t be sitting in a stuffy little office discussing your options. He’d be sipping iced drinks on a beach in the Bahamas and taking day trips on the family yacht.

Reality #3: Career change is more about action than introspection.

You can’t play “hot and cold” unless you’re moving around. Internet searches tend to yield outdated and biased information. Make connections. Talk to people…and then more people.

But don’t confuse focused activity with mindless running in circles. When I work one-to-one with clients, we customize plans. On your own, start with professional groups (not service groups like Rotary), your alumni office, and adult ed classes.

Reality #4: Sometimes the grass really is greener. Many people get richer and happier after they change careers, businesses and/or residences.

Reality #5: Talking to your supervisor (or your colleagues, business associates and customers) is a really, really bad idea. Share your feelings and your vision only with a trusted, confidential source who is completely unconnected to your professional life.

Remember “Ryan” — one career for almost forty years? He is a really good friend but we don’t talk about careers. When someone just doesn’t get it, I recommend changing the subject to dogs, cats, basketball, and the magnificent fall weather. Your friendship and your career change will both benefit.