You cannot be organized if your email is not organized. If you cannot keep up with your email then you scream to people that you’re overwhelmed with your job, and maybe your life (depending on how many personal emails you get and do not answer). Don’t tell me you get too much email. Everyone gets too much email. You still need to be able to be effective with it.
Here are three things people do that they shouldn’t. If you do any of these, you need to get a better grip on your email. Read more
I went on a business trip and I took my mom. When I got there it was apparent that I was underdressed, so we went shopping. I planned on getting rid of my ratty sneakers, but my mom said I needed a suit. Somehow a civilized disagreement turned into an all-out fight with me and my mom using clothing as a metaphor for everything we hate about each other. At some point, I said under my breath, “I’m going to write about this is my column.” Read more
Liz Phair has just released a new CD, titled Somebody’s Miracle. I’m not saying you should go out and buy it, but you have to respect Liz Phair’s ability to manage her career.
For those of you who did not spend 1991 listening to her widely touted CD “Exile in Guyville,” go buy that CD now. It is about mainstream, upper-middle class women who wish they were beautiful and fun and loved by people much cooler than they are. For men who worry that the album is like a chick-flick, no worries: You can skip to track 14 where she sings about being a sex goddess. Read more
I interviewed for a job. I haven't interviewed for the last three years. Since my first son was born. I felt that awkward feeling that people describe when they break up with their long-term significant other and have to date again. Read more
Entrepreneurship used to be an inclination that festered until a midlife crisis. But the entrepreneurship bug isn’t something that hits in middle age, so why wait that long? Today, the people who start most new businesses are under 34 — and if they’re doing it, so can you. Don't be stifled by your age or lack of experience. And don’t be put off by the bad advice people spew when you mention entrepreneurship. Read more
Forget the glass ceiling because it’s about to become irrelevant. Not because women are finally going to get to the top of Fortune 500 companies in forces of more than two companies at a time. That may happen, but no one’s holding their breath. The glass ceiling is going to become irrelevant because the women who are coming into the workforce now see what’s above that glass and they are uninterested. Read more
Cold calling is for champions. It used to be that cold calling was for the losers so low on the corporate ladder they were falling off the last rung. But today it's clear that cold calling is an art form, and people who are good at it can do a lot for themselves — most notably get a job. Read more
Unemployment is traumatic, and people who have been there never shake the fear of going back. If you've spent five months job-hunting (an average amount of time) you have probably faced worry, uncertainty and financial desperation. Read more
Anyone who owns a small business knows that if you don't reinvest in the business, the business dies. So why do so many people fail to reinvest in themselves? Even if you work for someone else, you are running a small business: The business of you. You provide a product and you have to market it and make it better and better so you earn more and more money. Read more
Hey all you women! Looking for a way to look good at a party? Forget bragging rights to house with a picket fence. Forget a plastic-surgeried body that defies gravity. Here are the status symbols for a new generation: Read more
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