I took the kids and went to a hotel so I could have time to think. I think I need to move into a hotel for a month.

The Farmer told me that he will not beat me up any more if I do not make him stay up late talking to me.

If you asked him why he is still being violent  to me, he would tell you that I’m impossible to live with. That I never stop talking. That I never leave him alone. How he can’t get any peace and quiet in his own house. That’s what he’d tell you.

And he’d tell you that I should be medicated.

I’m trying to make sure this is a career blog, because, if nothing else, if I don’t have a career then it’s pretty hard to have the discussion of why I am not leaving.

I am having trouble writing, in case you haven’t noticed. I’m not great at faking things. I am trying to do business as usual because we all know that I should have left the last time there was violence.

Look. I can’t even write “the last time he beat me up.” I tried to, but then I thought: "No. It’s my fault. I deserve it. He’s right. I’m impossible to live with.”

Our couples therapist told us we will never make any progress. The reason that we will never make any progress is because neither of us can be vulnerable in a relationship.

This might be true.

The Farmer responded by saying he thinks we are making good progress. That was when he had made it to two months without hurting me. He said that was progress.

I feel like I am never going to get past this if I don’t write about it.

Some days I wish I had a real job at Brazen Careerist where I had to go into an office every day. I think it might be good for me. Structure is good for me.

I thought it would be such a big deal when I stopped working there. But it’s not. No one really cares. The company moves on. I show up to board meetings and there are people working there who I’ve never even met.

When I was growing up I always heard women say that you should have a career so you can take care of yourself without a husband. What if there’s a divorce? You need to be able to support yourself! Don’t let yourself get stuck.

But now we know more about work. It’s fun to have a career. It’s fun to get the accolades that work provides.

And we know more about domestic violence. You don’t need a career to leave. You need something else.

I am not sure what. I think I might need a hotel. But really I need to know what is keeping me there. I’m pretty sure that blaming myself is keeping me there. I think, “Why would I leave him when it’s all my fault?”

This is what I felt like when I was a kid. I was taken out of my parents house when I was fourteen. But I kept wanting to go back. I kept thinking that I’d be better and they’d like me better.

My parents were banned from family therapy because of poor behavior. The final blow to their time in family therapy was when they said the family is much better with me in the mental ward.

So I did therapy alone, and after a while I got that feeling again: That maybe now I would be the type of person my parents liked and we could all get along.

I lasted one day at my parents house before there was violence.

I tell you this to tell you where my comfort zone is. Right there.

And I tell you this to tell you that I blame myself for getting myself into this. I think I have poor relationship skills. I think I am probably only interested in sharing my feelings if I’m writing them.

I think my closest relationships in my life are with my kids and with you, the person reading my blog.

The hardest thing about leaving is that no one cares. My parents were so relieved when the police finally took me out of the house. The police said, “We’re going to have to take her now,” and my mom said, “Thank you so much! Please do that.” She wasn’t mean when she said it. She was genuinely relieved.

That’s how the Farmer will be, too. He broke up with me 50 times while we were dating. He loves the feeling of getting rid of me.

That’s why I can’t leave. I want someone to miss me.

If it weren't that I've already blogged about sex abuse, my miscarriage and my divorce, I'd worry that my blog will never get past the topic of domestic violence, and I'll face blogger doom. But I know from past experience that being genuine with other people helps one's career get stronger.

Someone wrote in the comments section that there is no domestic violence, there is only violence. But that's not true. Because domestic violence is the violence that's hard to walk away from.

I'm not walking away from the Farmer right now. I want to say that I'll leave if he does it again. I want to say that if he pushes me or shoves me or hits me, that all that stuff counts as abuse. It's hard for me to believe that it counts; I didn't believe my dad was abusing me even when the police were taking me away.

But I have hundreds of you telling me in the comments section and in your emails that this is not right.

And I know that even if I'm messed up, I don't want my sons messed up. If it happens again I think I could hide it from everyone, you, my sons, my brothers–they called me to tell me to leave. I could refuse to tell anyone, and do this whole messed up relationship in private. I know people do that. But I know it would show, on me.

When I was practicing cello with my son a few nights ago, I said, "Don't look at me. Look at your bow."

And he said, "I'm looking to see if you're smiling. You never smile."

I know I am not hiding anything.

So maybe what is left for me is that I can be the expert on not hiding.

I got offers from all over the world for places to stay. Finland, Pakistan, Brazil. It's unbelievable, really, how many people offered up their homes and their guest houses to me and my sons. And about fifty people who I have never met in person told me I can call them if I need someone to talk to.  I have very few close friends, so the offers meant a lot to me.

I called one person: Amanda Hite. I have met her a couple of times. She is a straight shooter and a little callous, so I knew that if I started being a crazy, crying nutcase on the phone, she'd handle it. Also, she works for herself, so I thought it might be fine to call her with no notice in the middle of the day.

I told Amanda I can't leave because I don't want to raise the boys alone, and I know I'll never put them through another marriage again if this one doesn't work, and they love the Farmer. They call him dad.

Amanda was adamant that if the Farmer touches me again–in anger–I should leave, with the boys. "Just for 30 days," is what she finally said.

I can do that. I have a friend in New York City. Lisa. She has an extra bedroom in her apartment. She'll let us stay. She doesn't know she's part of the plan. Until now. Amanda says that during those 30 days, enough people will call me and convince me to leave for good. I think that's probably true.

Amanda is a recruiter, but she is a consulting recruiter. She spends her time trying to get people to be honest about why their recruiting sucks so that she can help them fix it. Most people who say they need help with recruiting blame the candidate pool, or the jobs they have, or other, external factors. Amanda helps them to take responsibility and be honest about their problem.

I'm drawn to her because that's my message here on this blog: face your problems with honesty. So I want to tell you that I am terrible at intimacy. I don't think I've ever done it, ever. I'm not even sure what it is. And I don't think I need to tell you that the Farmer has no idea what it is, either.

So we are in twice-a-week therapy. And maybe we will learn something. Maybe we will save ourselves, and the boys and our family. Or maybe we are just in the middle of a cycle of abuse.

It is my  hope that this blog will keep me honest, and that the next time, I will leave.

This photo is from when Cullen was excited to be in lots of photos on my blog.

It was the day that a TV writer emailed me about adapting my blog for the big screen. Or semi-big screen. Or whatever we are calling TV now, but I have to say, as an aside, that TV is the new hipster medium because episodes allow for more character development than a single movie. I heard this from the Farmer, and he’s not a guy who could make this stuff up. And we are watching Breaking Bad and I want to be absurd and funny like those writers.

This is what happened with Cullen. He agreed to redesign my blog in exchange for free room and board. And then he realized he didn’t have time to do that, because he has a full time job.

Meanwhile, we were having big Facebook drama on the farm because Melissa does not feel like she has a boyfriend unless the guy puts in on his Facebook status. So Cullen did that.

And then, the day after the status changed I told them that I think they need to live together as boyfriend and girlfriend somewhere else because it’s not working for us here on the farm.

So Cullen went back to Austin. He told Melissa that she can come back with him, but he doesn’t want to live with her.

Melissa said, “How come you want to live with me on the farm but you don’t want to live with me in Austin?”

Cullen said, “I don’t know. That’s a good question.”

Melissa decided to stay on the farm. Cullen decided to go. But they decided that neither of them will change their Facebook status. Cullen said, “I’ll be back.” And maybe to show that, or maybe because they were so cheap, he left his green rubber boots behind.

We said goodbye to Cullen at 6am when he left to catch an 8:30 am plane. Melissa drove him to the airport.

But not really. Because five minutes after Cullen says to me, “Okay. See you soon. I’ll be back,” he said to Melissa in the car, “I actually don’t have a plane ticket. I have a train ticket. I just didn’t want to tell Penelope.”

I’m not sure why. I do not have anything against trains.

Three days pass. Cullen writes an email to Melissa explaining why he had to leave. We read it at lunch even though I told Melissa she is not allowed to bring her iPhone to lunch.

The Farmer reads the email and says, “Guys should never send stuff to girls in writing. They just show it to all their friends.”

Melissa tells me she is going to die if I don’t write on my blog that Cullen and Melissa are not together. “I need closure,” she says.

I tell her I have to write about careers.

Melissa says, “Why? You never write about careers. Anyway, look at James Altucher.  He's a finance blogger who doesn't force himself to focus on finance. And we love reading his blog."

“When I am independently wealthy like James Altucher then I’ll write about your love life.”

The Farmer says, “Penelope’s career advice chapters are like the whaling chapters in Moby Dick. You like the storyline about psychotic behavior, but you need the whaling chapters to keep things based in reality.”

I wish there were something on Facebook for me to quantify how much I am in love with the Farmer. I give him a ten for his combination of intellect and strength to hold my goat down so I can milk her. I think maybe I can make a plan for my blog that is a little scary because I feel secure with the Farmer. You need to feel secure in one place to create instability in another.

Melissa gives me more blogging instructions: “I want to make sure you write that I’m sad.”

The Farmer shakes his head. “No. You can’t do that.”

“Why?” I ask.

“Do you two know anything about playing hard to get?”

I laugh. The Farmer broke up with me about 50 times. Twenty-five of those times were because he thought he should be the one doing the chasing.  “Guys do the chasing,” he would tell me. And then I’d kiss him.

"No," I say. "Melissa and I have no idea how to play hard to get."

The Farmer says, “You cannot email Cullen to tell him you miss him. That gives him an opening. He left, and he has to make his own opening to come back. People care more about their plans if they make the plan themselves.”

This seems true. It seems true for all plans. For all departures. For all entrances. And you can tell if it’s your own plan by how lost you feel. People who do their own plans feel lost most of the time. People who do other peoples’ plans feel on track most of the time.

Melissa says, “Fine. Is that going to be your post? Fine. But I want to take a picture for the blog post about being sad."

I tell her I think the topic is stupid. I tell her everyone knows that advice already.

She says, “What about the blog post you wrote 9 Tips for Quitting a Job Gracefully?” Do you think that information is no longer right?”

“Oh. I forgot about that," I say. "But it’s old. It’s a boring topic now.”

“What about  your number-seven tip: about how you shouldn't do an exit interview?”

“Yeah. People shouldn’t do that. I’m sorry to be difficult. Why don’t you just copy and paste what I wrote about exit interviews into your story? I used to do that when I was a columnist at the Boston Globe –just lift stuff and quote people. It’s so much faster than real interviews.”

“I don’t do that.”

“Oh. Okay. Sorry. Sorry. Okay. I’m going to try to be more helpful. Here’s a quote for you: Quitting a job is a networking event. It’s about making sure you bring your old co-workers into the fold of your network before you leave.”

“What are tips for doing that?”

“How did you come up with this story anyway? Is it your boss’s idea? Tell him it’s an outdated idea. You should just write an article about how to network. It’s a more interesting topic. Everyone knows not to burn bridges but they don’t know what else to do. Tell your boss that the story should have a more positive bent anyway. “

Silence.

“You’re not going to tell your boss that, are you?”

“No.”

“Okay. I’m sorry to be so difficult.”

[Note: It’s true, that I am sorry. But also, did you see this post from Fred Wilson at Union Square Ventures about how being difficult is good? He says venture capitalist love investing in brilliant entrepreneurs who are difficult to get along with.  No fewer than ten people forwarded that blog post to me, probably because I’m difficult to get along with, but hopefully also because I’m brilliant. While I was feeling unable to be accommodating during this interview I kept telling myself it’s okay because people fund my companies.]

Rachel says, “One thing I was thinking about is if the same rules apply to people who have been laid off.”

“Oh. That’s a great topic! I should write about that topic.”

“So what do you think about it?”

“People who are laid off and people who get fired should follow the same rules as people who quit. You should just act like you quit. The world does not need to hear what the terms of departure are. People just want to know what you are doing with your life and how you fit in with them.”

I can hear, over the phone, that Rachel starts taking notes. I can’t remember what I said after that. After the call, I kept thinking that she thought of a great topic.  So I’m writing it myself. How to quit a job you've already been fired  or laid off from. (And, by the way, there is not a difference between getting fired or laid off because in both cases you are not going to talk about how you got dumped. You will reframe the story.)

1. Make a quick and essential mental shift. Tell yourself that you  weren’t forced out, you left. You must believe this in order to create a cogent, believable story about your life. And, it’s true. Because it doesn’t matter who decided first that you’re a bad fit. Just because you decide second that it’s time to move on doesn’t mean you didn’t decide it. So, you have control of your life. You have vision for your life. And you decided that it’s time to move on. The stories you tell yourself about your life are essential to your self-image.

2. Frame the departure as you taking a risk. People respect risk-taking in the name of figuring out how to create a stable life. (Which, actually, is why most people take risks  – it has to do with their perception of what their own stability will eventually look like. People don’t generally take risks in order to mess up their lives.) So figure out what you want to do next, and then explain to people that your departure is a risk you took to help you get what you want.

3. Leave it off your resume if you can. Any job that sucks, whether you were fired or you quit, is not going to help you on your resume.  So if it was for a short amount of time, that won’t create a gap that raises eyebrows, just leave it off your resume. When people ask what you were doing during that time period, talk about something you do in life that is rewarding and engaging that you do outside of work. It’s perfectly fine to talk about that instead of a job you got fired from. After all, your resume is not your life story. Your resume is a list of your achievements. Keep it that way.

4. Decide to choose gratitude over bitterness. One of the greatest things I ever did was write a thank-you note to a boss who fired me. I managed a quality assurance department comprised of 17 guys and one woman. So I really looked out for the woman. I got fired for favoring her. I probably got fired for other stuff, but the documentation was about favoritism. At first, I was incredulous that this could really happen. But my boss had given me opportunities to learn and grow, so I wrote him a thank you note upon my departure. Being kind to people makes us be kinder to ourselves. So be kind to people  when you get fired. It will shock them, in a good way. (Not that I do this every time. When I got fired from Yahoo, instead of a thank-you note, I wrote a blog post.)

5. Ask yourself: What would Oprah do? If you are not sure about how to handle yourself when you get fired or laid off, look at how someone like Oprah who famously quit her job. Make a mental shift to thinking that you quit, and focus on tips for quitting, and then everything starts to become clear – yes, you send an email giving people your new contact info, you talk about how you’re really excited to about doing something new. Everyone gets laid off or fired at some point. It’s how well you bounce back that defines who you are.

There are a lot of problems with my hallway now — most notably, I used Elmer's glue instead of wallpaper paste and I'm going to have to pull down the wallpaper and start over. But every time I walk through my hall, I think about how important it is to take risks with my house – because that’s what makes it mine. Which, of course, is very similar to a life. You can live someone eles’s tried-and-true template for a life, or you can make your life your own.

So many of the questions we grapple with in our life are about this very type of risk taking. We know what we want to try, and we’re not sure if we should try it. Moving across country. Writing a novel.  Starting a business. Painting a room.

I’m starting to think, though, that we should evaluate risk in terms of process. Do we like what we are doing during the time we’re taking the risk? Because if you enjoy the process, the weight of the outcome is not so heavy.

I liked the solitary process of wallpapering. I liked making copies of family photos and gluing them to the wall. I like seeing how it all turns out — what works in my house and what doesn’t.

So I ask myself, what is the cost if the risk does not work out? But when I consider process as well as outcome, then the scales often seem to tip in favor of the risk. Here's are five things I keep in mind when assessing risk:

1. Long-term regrets are usually about not taking more risks.
If you ask people at the end of their lives what their biggest regret is, it’s common for the regret to center around not taking more risks. The same is true of younger people. Ran Kivets is a psychologist at Columbia University who studies winter break. He says that in the short-term college kids regret not having studied enough, but in the long-term, college kids regret not having had more fun. So it’s no surprise that of the most popular posts on my blog is about regrets over getting straight A’s. (Hat tip: Joshua Althouse Cohen)

2. Being wrong costs very little.
In general, people don’t care if you’re wrong; it’s your life and you get to make mistakes. Also, in general, people don’t care if you’re right because they are too interested in themselves. And okay, it’s true that if you invest a lot of money being wrong costs a lot, butut there are very few risks we consider that require a huge outlay of money and a 100% risk on that money. Instead, risk-taking generally requires a relatively small percentage of the money you can earn.  Fortunately, the way we get the most happiness from spending money is by spending on experiences. And what better experience than taking a risk and finding out what it will be like.

3. People bounce back faster than they expect.
Most of us are much more resilient than we realize. Daniel Gilbert, professor of psychology at Harvard, explains that we each have a set-point for how happy we are going to be, and we mostly just stick there. Winning a lot of money doesn’t make us much happier, and losing the ability to walk doesn’t make us much sadder. So it’s fair to conclude that most of us overestimate the impact risk-taking will have on our lives.

4. Don’t make the risk bigger than it needs to be.
For example a lot of people think they need to quit their job to try starting a new company (you don’t) or someone who thinks they need to completely dump one career to try a new career (you don’t.) The best risk takers are in fields like entrepreneurship, hedge fund management, and excavation. The thing these people all have in common – those who are successful in their field – is that they are constantly working to mitigate risk before they take the risk. Sometimes just looking at how someone else has approached your challenge can show you a less risky approach to taking the risk.

5. Most risks turn out fine.
In our minds, that is. Gilbert shows that we are able to reframe a poor decision in order to think it was a good decision. Having kids is his favorite example to use. Having kids makes us less happy, but we invest so much time and money into raising kids, that we’re able to convince ourselves it made us happy, and we don’t have regrets.  And successful people who make big career mistakes are able to reframe the mistakes so they don’t matter. Also, inherently positive thinkers don’t usually have regrets over the long-term. (Wondering if you are one of these people? Take the test (middle of the page)

You might have noticed in the wall paper picture that there are a lot of lumps. That’s because I was so excited to get started the day the wallpaper arrived but it was 9pm and I didn’t have any wallpaper paste. So I googled and it looked like I could use Elmer’s glue. So I did. Five bottles. And it would have worked, but I didn’t know you put the glue on the paper and not the wall. So I have to tear down the paper and start over. But I don’t care. I like the paper and I had fun learning how to do it.

James is extremely talented and has been called the next Michael Jordan. He is a free agent this year which is the genesis of the hoop-la surrounding his decision, and he has been madly courted by multiple teams.

Many sportswriters have said that the widespread obsession with James' decision is totally over the top. The New York Times called the ESPN segment an ego-a-thon, which it may well be. But there's more to our fascination with the decision than just our natural tendency to be drawn to celebrities. James encapsulates the issues each of us faces when we decide if we should relocate.

It's friends and family vs. opportunity. James grew up in Akron, OH without a father. His basketball coaches played father figure roles to him. The Cavaliers picked him up when he was only 18, and he's been there for the last seven years. This is his home, his support system, and his roots.

The problem with Cleveland is that the team is not strong enough to win a championship. James has won every individual award but no NBA championships. And he could go to the Knicks, the Nets or the Miami Heat and just adding him would make that team the odds-on favorite for the next championship.

So James is choosing between safety and loyalty vs. ambition and accolades. For most of us, this is what relocation entails.

We know, in our hearts, that happiness does not come from fame, (and this hunch is confirmed in a study from the Univerrsity of Rochester). Happiness comes from close relationships with family and friends. But it's a hard pill to swallow. USA Today reports that most of Gen Y says they'd like to be famous. That explains a lot of the relocating away from families in small towns.

Also, most of us are not as rich as James, and we relocate with money in mind. Research from Nattavudh Powdthavee of the University of London shows that to make up for the decrease in happiness that you experience when you leave family and friends, you would need to make $133,000 more than you were earning before the relocation. (So, in fact, money can buy some degree of happiness.)

For James, though, it's not the money. Certainly he has enough. Which means he is looking for a life that is more interesting. The game is more interesting with top-tier players to pass to. James is a great passer. He’s a great team player, and he doesn't have anyone on his team that plays as well as he does. The thrill of playing is bigger with better teammates. So James is doing something many of us do—he is choosing a more interesting life instead of a happier life. (Note to non-NBA employers who bitch about loyalty: James is also is making a choice to go somewhere where he can grow his skills. Something that employers need to address if they want to keep any top-tier talent.)

I have written a lot about this dichotomy between happiness and ambition. I think our toughest decisions are actually between contentment and interestingness. James is not content. It is not his nature. He wants the game to be as interesting as possible, and he's hit a wall in Cleveland. I think for many of us, the relocation bug hits not because it's going to make us happier, but precisely because we are not searching for happiness. We are searching for something else. It's scary. It's scary to chase the interesting life because it means you are not likely to be content—maybe not ever.

And take a lesson from LeBron James: You can't make everyone happy, and it's risky to try. So when it comes to tough decisions, make sure you're doing what's right for you.

Not too long ago, I started a new job, in which I moved my self from point A (college town) to point B (Bay Area). This was supposed to be my career launch. It took me about two weeks to admit to myself that I was unhappy. So I quit.

I had the security of knowing I could go back to my parents’ house to live. (Which, by the way, is such a good idea that 65% of new grads do it.) Here are five reasons why I am sure it was a smart decision to quit my job after just two weeks:

1. Your job performance will be terrible if you hate your job.

If you hate your job from the beginning, then you will never fully dedicate yourself. In fact, you'll resent both the company and yourself for staying at a job that you knew you didn't like early on.

I get it: You have this desire to prove to yourself that you are capable of sticking it out. Or you're worried that this makes you a complete failure and you have given up. So what? You learn from your failure. You learn from that mistake. You’ll end up quitting at some point soon, so why draw it out?

2. You'll have more respect for yourself if you respond to your needs.

Once I admitted to myself that I hated my job, I worried that if I didn't quit this job immediately, even if I had no backup plan, that I would be setting myself up to allow negative situations into my life. If you know that going to your job will make you stressed, unhappy, and angry, every single day, then continuing to go is being disrespectful to your well-being. The more you continue to disregard your own feelings, the further away you get from happiness.

When we're in our twenties we need to learn about who we are and what we like, so that we can find a work life we are passionate about. Staying in a job you hate doesn’t help.

3. You'll prove your commitment to passion and engagement at work.

Quitting that job after two weeks is actually one of my proudest moments. I think it shows that I have integrity and passion. I understand the fact that productivity comes more easily in the face of happiness. Quitting quickly is showing impatience for a meaningful work life. Everyone should be impatient for that.

Also, people who switching jobs regularly makes people more engaged in their work. This makes sense. If you stay in a job for a long stretch of time, your learning curve goes down and things do not feel as new and stimulating.

4. You'll do the company a favor.

If you stay unhappy at a job and then quit after, say, six months, the company will probably never know that you had hated your stint there. When you quit a job after two weeks, the company will notice and question what they had done to push you away so quickly. (A smart company, at least.)

Employees at, Apple, for example, produce the best products in the world because they are passionate about the company's mission. You are not helping the company by staying at a position you hate when someone else may be better suited for it who will, no doubt, excel, while you are just getting by. Do the company a favor and quit so they can reevaluate their training, that position, and their hiring strategy, so the next person doesn't want to jump ship after a week.

5. You'll set yourself up for success.

High performing employees in companies like GE, Proctor & Gamble and UBS all get to rotate through a wide range of jobs at the beginning of their career. This is because job-hopping is a great way to build skills early in one’s career. We should all have that chance. There are no rules that say you need to stay at a job that is not teaching you enough.

And there are no rules that say how long it takes a person to know a job is not right. But there is a rule for who succeeds and who doesn’t: People who have self-confidence, respect, good teamwork instincts, and a sense of when it’s time to cut their losses; these are the people who succeed. That’s why high-performers leave bad jobs after just two weeks at work.

This is a guest post from Jamie Varon. She's 23 years old. Her blog is called intersected.

]]> http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2009/03/11/twentysomething-why-its-smart-to-quit-a-job-after-just-two-weeks-of-work/feed/ 338 http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2008/01/28/quit-work-for-a-while-to-have-kids-your-career-will-be-just-fine/ http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2008/01/28/quit-work-for-a-while-to-have-kids-your-career-will-be-just-fine/#comments Mon, 28 Jan 2008 17:34:06 +0000 Penelope Trunk http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2008/01/28/quit-work-for-a-while-to-have-kids-your-career-will-be-just-fine/ It's a myth that time away from the workforce will undermine your career. This myth is based on outdated ideas of the workplace. And it's an important myth to bust, because in today's post-feminist workplace, the majority of women say that given a choice, they would not choose full-time work when their kids are young.

Here are some reasons why it's safe to interrupt your career to have children. And, in fact, most of this data is relevant to interrupting a career for any reason — not just kids.

1. Demographic trends make women ages 30-50 valuable at work.
We all know that as baby-boomers retire, Generation X is not big enough to replace them, and Generation Y does not have the experience to replace them. But demographic trends have created a much bigger labor shortage than anyone anticipated.

There is a labor shortage in Generation X that no one predicted, and it's because of increased fertility, according to James Vere, author of the paper, "Having It All No Longer: Fertility, Female Labor Supply, and the New Life Choices of Generation X." He says, "The women of Generation X are not only having more children than the baby boom generation, but also supply fewer hours to the labor market," and this makes women who do go back to work more valuable than people could have anticipated.

The other contributing factor to the Gen X labor shortage is that Gen X men do not work the long hours that baby-boomer men worked. Instead, those aged 18 to 37 are more likely to view family as an equal or higher priority than work, according to the Families and Work Institute. And the majority of those men are willing to sacrifice pay to spend more time with their kids, according to the Radcliffe Public Policy Center.

So it is no surprise that McKinsey Consulting reports that, "Finding talented people is likely to be the single most important managerial preoccupation for the rest of this decade." (via 2020resumes)

2. Women adapt to job changes better than men do.
Companies might be better off hiring a woman who has taken time off from the workplace than a man who is switching companies.

Why? Because high-performing women do better at leaving a company and finding a new one than high-performing men do–in general, women keep up their high performance and men don't. This study is based on the finance industry but the findings (published in this month's Harvard Business Review) apply to most knowledge workers.

And even though women typically have a more difficult time than men navigating in-house politics and finding mentors, these women respond by being better at cultivating relationships outside of the company. Which means that they are in a better position than men to make a switch to another company.

According to the study, women start a new job stronger because they are more strategic when planning their careers (due to lacking the boys-club connection). "Women took greater care and analyzed a wider range of factors than men before deciding to uproot themselves."

So ironically, all the worrying that women do about how to reenter the workforce after having kids probably pays off.

3. Social networking makes on-ramping much easier.
Ten years ago, the work it took to maintain a network during extended maternity leave was prohibitive. Dealing with a three-month-old during the day, and showing up to conferences and events at night, for instance, is a route for only the most intrepid of new moms. But social networking tools have brought the moms out of hiding.

Generally, the people using social networking tools are outgoing, value-oriented, high performers who were well connected to begin with. The tools are easy to use from home and the strengths of the mommy-blogging network are testament to the popularity of social networking tools among women taking time off from the workforce.

In case you're wondering about the power of blogging in one's career, take a look at Carol Wapshere. She took time off to care for family members and then relocated to Switzerland for her husband's career. She started a blog in order to raise her profile in her industry before going back, and it worked and landed her a consulting job , and then a speaking gig at Microsoft's TechDays conference.

This is not an isolated case. I get emails from women like Carol all the time.

4. The new idea of career means retrieving yours is not all that hard.
Most of the literature written about the duress of the on-ramp is by baby boomers who can't stop obsessing about the glass ceiling. Most of the women taking time off to have kids today have no ambitions of breaking that glass ceiling because what's above it is so absurd. That makes taking time off to have kids not as big a risk to them.

Look, if you want to shoot straight up the corporate ladder to the CEO position, don't have kids. Corporate life is not changing as fast as corporate press releases would like you to believe. CEOs do not take care of their kids. Someone else does. And the difference between a father's ability to get to the top versus a mother's is night and day. Men are more likely than women to cope with extreme delegating of parenting. This is not a judgment; it's a fact that is sitting right in front of us.

But most potential parents today are much less consumed with money and prestige, and more concerned with personal growth and flexibility. So taking a position below the last one is not as upsetting as it used to be. People do not think of a career as a straight shoot up the corporate ladder. It's a winding path, and there's lots of room for children.

The best way to figure out what to do next is to envision what you're trying to accomplish. Then you can see what the process of separation might look like and what you might end up with when you move to another job.

Here some tips on how to do just that:

1. Don't quit to make yourself happy.
A job can't make you happy. Happiness doesn't come from making more money or creating the perfect design or being right about the marketplace. Happiness comes from the relationships you make with other people. So work doesn't make you happy, but it can make you unhappy.

If your boss is setting goals you could never meet, or not setting goals at all, it could be so frustrating that you'll be unhappy. Or if your commute is more than 45 minutes, you probably have so little control over it that the uncertainty is adding enough stress to your life to make you unhappy. These are reasons to change jobs.

But if you have a job where you have challenging goals that you're able to meet, ask yourself if you should be changing your personal life and not your job. Because the connection between work and happiness is overstated.

2. Quit as a personal growth opportunity.
The days of stable jobs and corporate loyalty are over. Today, people change jobs constantly. So the best way to create stability in your career is to depend on your ability to get a new job when you need to. The people with the best skill sets have the most flexibility when it comes to changing jobs.

Which means that you need to be building your skill set constantly. If you're in a job that has a flat learning curve, try to get a project that will challenge you. Or try to get your boss to pay for training. But if you can't do that, it's time to quit.

Personal growth isn't just the key to getting a six-figure career. It's also the key to keeping yourself engaged in your work and employable in the marketplace.

Read the rest at Yahoo Finance.

I have no memory of any of my Gen-X peers having this problem. Maybe because when we were in our twenties there were not jobs to consider quitting. But I think the real issue is that Gen Y is one of the most loyal generations to come along in a while.

Just because young people job hop constantly doesn't mean they are not loyal. In fact, the reason they job hop is undying loyalty to the values their parents raised them with: Value your time (remember those overscheduled after-school superstars?) and always learn new things (Gen Y is the most educated generation, ever).

So Generation Y leaves a job when there is not great personal growth. But in each job they have, they are great at asking people to help them, so they generally feel guilt when they leave one of those people for a new job offer — because Gen Y feels loyal to people who help them.

And, one more guilt factor: Gen Y are great team players. Team players in a way that Gen X and the Baby Boomers can't touch. So quitting a job to Gen Y is jilting the team, and they feel bad.

Mangers need to understand these issues when a young person is quitting. That young person probably has a lot of guilt, and you could make their life better by congratulating them on their new move and thanking them for their work and assuring them things will be fine when they leave.

If you are a young person worrying about quitting, though, here's a reality check. The company is going to be fine when you leave. There's no need for guilt. And here's why:

1. Money talks.
And at the entry level it says: "Easily replaced." If you are paid a low salary then the office is not going to be disabled if you leave. If you are so important and so difficult to replace then they can pay more and hire someone quickly. That's why essential people are highly paid.

2. If you have a good boss, your boss knew you were looking.
Most people under 30 are job hunting – at least passively – all the time. It should not be news to your boss that you are in an entry level job and would quit if someone offered you a better job. And if you are entry level then most jobs are better than what you have, so the odds of you leaving at any moment are huge, no matter how nice your boss is to you.

3. Your company has little loyalty to you.
If your company laid you off, they'd give you two weeks' notice. That's how the work world works. Play by the rules. Give two weeks notice. If your boss is so desperate without you she can double your salary to keep you there, right? And she probably won't do that. The two weeks' rule is there because once people know about an upcoming separation, the workplace dynamic changes, and the less time you have to deal with this dynamic the more productive everyone will be.

4. Good mentors care about you and want to see you grow.
If someone has been a good mentor to you then you owe it to them not to screw them. This means, don't let them go to bat for you to — like, get you a raise — if you're quitting the next day. But if someone has been a good mentor and you have been a good mentee, then you don't owe the person more than telling him or her when you have a new job. Two weeks is fine.

5. A don't-ask-don't-tell approach works.
Do not tell your boss you are looking for a new job when you do not have a new job. There is nothing she can do in response to that. She can't hire someone new yet, because you're not gone and you have no idea when you'll actually get another job. So telling her doesn't help anyone, it just adds tension at work.