No one likes to use the “F-word.” Maybe if you’re a teenager announcing your independence from “the Man,” you’ll proudly admit to it, but more than likely, if you’ve been fired, you will claim to have quit, or been laid off, or (in that wonderful English phrase) been “made redundant.”

Surprisingly, employers are often just as reluctant to confront the situation. They’ll hem and haw and hide behind a bouquet of euphemisms that are a lot like breakup speeches that boil down to “It’s not you, it’s me.”

And because employers are often so unwilling say “You’re fired,” they can send mixed signals to the employee. Sometimes it’s like they want their employees to just quit before anyone has to have that awkward conversation. (more…)

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When you’re in a job interview, you always have a mental checklist you’re ticking off. Salary? Benefits? Vacation time? Sick time? The one thing that often gets overlooked is the company’s overtime policy. Which means some new hires are in for a nasty surprise the first time they work through the weekend without so much as a “thank you.”

Sixty has become the new forty, and not in a good way. “Forty hour weeks? You must be joking,” says Sela Murphy, an advertising assistant at a news magazine in New York. “Did you see The Devil Wears Prada? Take out the fashion and that’s my life.” Not only is Sela expected to use her lunch hour (that’s only a half-hour long) to run errands for her boss, but her “off hours” are also up for grabs. “He once called me from a Denver hotel to ask me to book a massage for him. Like he’d never heard of a concierge. Thank God for the Internet.” (more…)

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You should always have an up-to-date resume. I’ll repeat that. Even if you love your job. Even if you work for a rock-solid company. Even if you OWN the company and love your job. You should always have an up-to-date resume.

If you are looking for a job, of course, having a current resume is your first step. Because fortune favors the fast. It wasn’t so long ago that employers asked you to mail your resume and a cover letter. Then you were asked to fax. Now the keyword is e-mail, and the preferred time frame is … immediately.

Having a resume on hand means you can jump on an ad posted on JobsCareersEtc.com, or another job board, as soon as you see it. There’s no time lag and sometimes–especially with freelance gigs and part-time work–employers are looking to fill their positions RIGHT NOW. (more…)

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When Susan’s colleague Ruth’s mother died, Susan sent sympathy flowers to Ruth’s home, not realizing that the gesture was inappropriate because Ruth and her family are Orthodox Jews.

Similarly, when a group of men working in an advertising agency kept urging a new hire to join them for happy hour, they had no idea he was a devout Muslim who not only didn’t drink, but who found the idea of baby-back ribs, bacon-wrapped steaks and tiny cocktail wieners, abhorrent. (Mindful of cultural stereotypes, the man didn’t want to call attention to either his ethnicity or his faith, especially since he has what he calls “an All-American name” to go with his all-American citizenship.) (more…)

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My friend Jennifer is “in love” with her boss. For now, the attraction is simmering in the background of their work days, which are long and intense. She often spends 10 to 12 hours in his exclusive company and the situations are often intimate. (There’s a lot of business travel and shared room service while going over daily schedules and planning strategy.)

Jennifer is the first to admit the attraction is partly fueled by boredom and inspired by hormones, but the attraction is real and growing and is, apparently mutual. The flirtation is ferocious. Her boss is charming, charismatic and single. So Jennifer doesn’t understand why her friends are not delighted for her. (more…)

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