Group items tagged

"Taking time off work when your kid gets the flu or chicken pox is usually a routine matter. But how do you explain your time-off needs if your teen - or spouse or partner -becomes too depressed to get out of bed, or your child becomes too anxious to go to school? Helping out a troubled loved one in such cases poses a dilemma, because the stigma placed on mental illness forces most people to keep it a secret. Yet a new survey shows people are taking off a surprisingly large amount of work time for this purpose. Some 41% of working adults took from four to nine days off work in the past year to deal with a mental-health issue of their own, or of a friend, family member or co-worker, says a recent survey of 669 working adults by Workplace Options."

Michael Van Gorkom was laid off by Yahoo in late April. He didn't panic. He didn't rush off to a therapist. Instead, the 33-year-old Santa Monica resident discovered that being jobless "kind of settled nicely."

I am looking for a full-time job that uses my writing, people and information-gathering talents from 25 years as a Los Angeles Times staff writer. My concern, validated by the coach at the retraining corporation, is that I am over 40. That coach actually told me to leave the dates of college attendance, etc., off my resume. My brother, president of a publicly-traded company, said this advice was nonsense, although he did say age is an issue (and he's older than I am).Can you address this issue of inferiority complex for those of us competing with candidates 20 years our junior? How do we address it? How can we compensate for the potential perception that we are burn-outs or tired when we might -- in my case -- just be bored because we know the job so well?

I do. I worked in my family business-a funeral home. From the time I was five, my parents found ways for me to "help out." My first responsibility was to collect broken flowers from funeral sprays so my mother could easily vacuum. It might sound morbid-but it was a way for my parents to spend time with me, instead of dropping me off with a baby sitter. And I learned some invaluable lessons about work ethic along the way.

Last month, Brandi Greygor did the unthinkable for an entrepreneur just starting out: She took a weeklong vacation. "I needed one because I ran myself into the ground," says Ms. Greygor, a 35-year-old mother of two who also works part-time for a consulting firm from her home in Union, Ky.

"College-admission letters are starting to roll in, but a growing number of students will decide instead to take a year off to try out potential careers or broaden their horizons. Gap-year activities range from doing volunteer work or taking classes, to working for pay, traveling or tackling outdoor adventures."

"Interruptions at work, from email and phone calls to co-workers dropping by your office to talk, can complicate the juggle, extending your workday and draining personal time. But how far would you go to eliminate them? Would you book a conference room? Turn off your e-mail? Put up police tape outside your cubicle, to keep your co-workers away?"

ON a recent Monday evening in the basement of the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Brooklyn Heights, a group of seven local residents gathered to discuss their faith - in the job market. One woman, who had been laid off from a high-powered job at a local hedge fund, sought advice about the benefits of accepting part-time work. Another participant, a man who had worked more than a decade in the technology industry, wondered aloud whether switching fields would be wise.

We all know people who were not laid off. These people can be described in any number of ways: as the "nervously employed" (Feller & Wichard, 2005), or as those suffering from "recession rumination" (USA Today, 2008), or, as they are referred to here, as the working worried. Whatever we call them, the number of people going to work each day hoping it won't be their last appears to be at an all time high. While news reports indicate signs of economic recovery, for most, this doesn't change their personal reality.

The joy of a private office-it's something 89% of senior managers in the U.S. have celebrated. Soon after, though, there's the realization that the space feels cut off from the action. At times, the four walls can feel like barriers to keeping in touch with colleagues.

I'm thinking about a career change and would love to go on a few informational interviews to learn more about the fields I am considering. But I rarely hear anyone talk about informational interviews anymore. Are people still giving them or are they too worried about their own jobs to take the time? How would I go about setting one up? Who should I target? Are certain questions off limits?

Vedic astrology readings for the year 2019 are calculated based on your moon sign and not just sun sign as of western astrology. For those people, who are planning to make major career and business decisions and moves in this year, let's look at what is predicted in each sign's horoscopes in relation to career. Saturn is transiting Sagittarius in the Venus Nakshatra in 2019. Those looking for a government job astrology also meet with success in this year. Lot of travel is also indicated and this may upset the work-life balance and increase stress on the job front. Taking some time off is advisable, and overall it is a great year for those in sales and marketing also.

Mid-career derailment can happen any time, but in today's economy there is no room for complacency. With job opportunities harder than ever to find, it's a particularly rough time to be fired or demoted or to hit a career plateau. You can reduce your risk for derailment by paying attention to your value and effectiveness and by focusing on interpersonal skills, adaptability, team leadership and bottom-line results.

On the worst days, Chris Keehn used to go 24 hours without seeing his daughter with her eyes open. A soft-spoken tax accountant in Deloitte's downtown Chicago office, he hated saying no when she asked for a ride to preschool. By November, he'd had enough. "I realized that I can have control of this," he says with a small shrug. Keehn, 33, met with two of the firm's partners and his senior manager, telling them he needed a change. They went for it. In January, Keehn started telecommuting four days a week, and when Kathryn, 4, starts T-ball this summer, he will be sitting along the baseline.