The majority of people who fail at their job will fail in the first 90 days. So take special care to make a good start. Here are areas you need to manage carefully.
1. Assume everything in the interview was wrong.
Don't come to work with a preconception of your job description. You'll be disappointed at best …

Most of us never had dreams of being a mathematician or economist; we suffered through algebra as a means to get to senior prom. But if you think you're going to march up the ranks of management with no math, forget it.
The bad news is you absolutely have to manage the math side of business …

Get more control of your time. It's hard to leave the office at a reasonable time of day when your workplace culture centers on long hours. But the cost of not leaving work is high: A half-built life and career burnout.
Of course, if you never work long hours, you will never appear committed enough to …

All managers have one, shared goal: Get a promotion. But many times, the job of a manger is so multifaceted and detail-laden that the manager loses site of that big picture. Here are five jobs of a manager that are often lost in the muddle of managing smaller, day-to-day issues.
1. Manage conflict
Avoiding conflict is for …

It is possible to work fewer hours without hurting your career, but you need to get serious about systematically changing how you approach your work. First, don't blame your long hours on your boss, your CEO, or your underlings. Someone who does not make a conscious, organized effort to take responsibility for the number of …

Want to deal with a bad boss? First, stop complaining. Unless your boss breaks the law, you don't have a bad boss, you have a boss you are managing poorly. Pick on your boss all you want, but if you were a top employee you wouldn't let your boss's problems bring you down.
Everyone has something …

One of the most difficult parts of making the transition from college to work is waking up every morning and getting to the office on time. After you have mastered that, the next most difficult thing is the “what am I doing here?” problem. This problem has two scenarios. The first is you have the …

My cousin had a karaoke party. I had to go because he’s my cousin, but I refused to sing because this would have pained the audience even more than it would have pained me. A woman at the party, however, impressed me by engaging the crowd even though she had no apparent singing talent. It …

The problem with being nice is that it is not very interesting. It's the people with dirt to dish who are magnets at the water cooler.
But if you want your boss to like you, give him compliments. I know, that sounds like I'm telling you to brownnose. Instead, I'm telling you to find genuine ways …

Here are some areas of your work that you should think about when deciding if it’s time to find another job. (Give yourself three points for an a, two points for a b, one point for a c.)
1. Your boss:
How often do you have lunch alone with your boss?
a. Every week at your favorite restaurant.
b. …

Your success at work is dependent on your accomplishments, not your ideas. So can everyone please stop being so petty about whose ideas are whose?
A very small number of you are strategists and inventors. For you, your ideas make or break your career. So don't bother reading the rest of this column. For the rest …

It's the Penelope Trunk Q&A column. I like to think my columns answer the questions that people don't ask but should. But today I'll answer the questions that people really ask.
Most popular question: How can I switch jobs and not take a cut in pay? Of course, the answer is that you can't. But people …

Here's a way to kill your career: Have a messy office.
Here are things that people with messy offices say: My work gets done; I know where everything is; People are too concerned about appearances.
All these things could be true. But here is what is also true: If your desk is a mess you look like …

It's salary review season. Most managers conduct performance reviews at the beginning of the year, and most performance reviews entail some sort of salary review. Don't get your hopes up for a raise though. In this economy, many companies have a salary freeze, and no one's coming out of the cold any time soon.
By all …

I am sitting outside Starbucks waiting until 10 a.m., when I am to meet the CEO, who is waiting for me inside to talk about who-knows-what before we visit a client. I do not want to be one minute early in case I run out of stuff to talk about. He greets me with a …