Dear J.T. & DALE: I am terrified of becoming the target of my manager. She yelled at one colleague so bad that I had to take prescribed anxiety medicine. I was able to fly under my manager’s radar until our director (my manager’s boss) gave me more responsibilities, and, thanks to my ambition and determination, I have excelled at those assignments. Instead of being congratulated or positively reinforced by my boss, she has called me in and interrogated me. I feel very discouraged and bullied. I’ve been reduced to tears almost every day for a month. – Monica
J.T.: I can tell you with 100 percent certainty that you have only two options: Either go straight to HR or your director and file a complaint, or start looking for a new job. Honestly, I hope you do both.
DALE: I have two suggestions before you do: “Dial before you file” and “ask before you tell.” Before filing a complaint, get on the phone and get yourself networked into new job prospects. Not only is it easier to find a job while you have one, but getting the process going should help reduce the anxiety you’re feeling; it helps to know that you have other options. Next, resolve the current tension. There is a terrific little book on the subject by the minister T.D. Jakes called “The 10 Commandments of Working In a Hostile Environment.” Not surprisingly, Jakes takes a Christian approach. If you prefer a Zen approach, there’s my old favorite saying, “Your enemy is your Buddha.” Learning to deal with difficult people is an important corporate skill, and this is a chance to practice. And that brings us to “ask before you tell.” Try going to your boss and telling her that you’re feeling intimidated, and ask for her help in learning to deal with conflict and in rising up to her expectations. This often can turn an enemy into an ally.
J.T.: It’s worth a try, but don’t waste too much time. As upset as you are, you must do something immediately, before it gets worse and affects your health, possibly even your ability to work. I would urge you to go and talk honestly with the director and make him or her clear about the situation and about how much you want to continue to grow with the organization. Worst case, you may have to move on and find a new job where the environment isn’t so hostile. Someone as conscientious and hardworking as you are won’t have trouble.
Dear J.T. & Dale: In my final semester of school, I completed an internship that led to a full-time job. The position was not exactly in my career field, and I found myself pretty miserable. Six months into the full-time job, I accepted a position with a great company. That was three months ago. I took a major pay cut and moved two hours away from my fiancee, but I love the job. However, I recently found out that my old company may have a few people retiring in the area where I want to work. I’d like to go back but don’t want to look like a job hopper. What do I do?
– Caroline
DALE: “Job-hopper” has always been a vague concept.
J.T.: To me, it’s someone who leaves many jobs in a row, year after year. That certainly isn’t the case here.
DALE: No. In fact, the whole idea of job tenure has become problematic. I recently met a man who’d worked in the same office, at the same desk, for 10 years but, thanks to mergers and acquisitions has had four different employers during his time there.
J.T.: And I’ve seen recent studies saying that new grads can expect to have as many as 10 jobs in the first decade of their career. Crazy, right? So, Caroline, don’t worry. What you’re contemplating is not job hopping, just a career “course correction.”
Dear J.T. & Dale: I applied for a job at a company via its website. I met all the requirements. After three weeks I got an email saying that I had all the skills, qualifications and experience, but I was not a “good fit for the company.” I was livid. They never interviewed me, so how can I know if I am a good fit? – Harper
DALE: Don’t get livid. Instead, give a little shrug of mild disappointment and think, kindly, “Well, at least they sent a reply – that’s more than most companies are doing these days.” Pay no attention to the “good fit” comment – this is just corpo-babble, a non-thought that translates to, “I felt I had to give some reason, so I stuck in a vague cliche.”
J.T.: You received a standard rejection letter. What usually happens is that a company gets so many responses that they couldn’t possibly look them all over, so they take the first few that are a match and send the standard rejection to the rest.
DALE: And there’s a lesson there: Assume that your rèsumè is going to be buried alive in the pile. Give it some help.
J.T.: Try to identify people you know who know people at the company, and get yourself an introduction. If you want a job, you’ve got to go the extra mile and find a way to get your rèsumè hand-delivered to the people doing the hiring.
DALE: And when you’ve found companies who are hiring people like you, continue to work at getting introductions. It sounds backward and unfair, but you have to work at getting work. Just think of the years of effort athletes put in just to get a chance to try out for a team, or how hard entertainers practice in the hopes of getting an audition. That’s how it is in this new economy – it’s a free market, where nothing’s free.
Dear J.T. & DALE: My company was acquired last July, and duplicated departments were cut in favor of the acquiring company. I have been actively looking for work since last summer, doing all the things you suggest. How do I overcome this setback of age?
– Julie
J.T.: We can tell you’ve been reading our columns because you avoided the loaded term “age discrimination.” As you know, we urge people not to think in those terms – what employers discriminate against is not age, but excess experience. They fear that you will want too much money or be set in your ways.
DALE: Or that you’re worn out or burned out or technologically inept. So let’s back up a minute and think about the ideal level of experience. Most managers don’t hire rookies because they not only need training in the job, but training in having a job, meaning that the failure rate is high. The result is that the perfect job candidate usually is someone with a reasonable amount of experience, typically something like two to 10 years. Work experience beyond those years may or may not make a person more valuable. In other words, the “setback of age” is that there are a number of possible negatives to extensive experience, and you have to sell yours as a positive.
J.T.: You have to come across as ready to hit the ground running, but also as affordable and flexible. Most of all, you must demonstrate a young mind, one that is open and inquisitive. One example: I worked with a man in his 50s who’d been searching for a job for more than a year. As I analyzed his job search, I realized that he was selling his value so hard that he was scaring everyone away. All he did was talk about how much he had accomplished. He thought this was showing them what an asset he’d be, when in reality, they saw his aggressiveness as a potential liability. When we got him to tone down his approach, he stopped “selling” and started listening. Within eight weeks he had a new job.
-Workplace consultant and career coach J.T. O’Donnell has coached, trained and mentored employees and managers on a wide variety of career-related subjects since 1994. Her book, “CAREEREALISM: The Smart Approach to A Satisfying Career” is available at JTODonnell.com.
Management guru Dale Dauten has written six books and is an authority on innovation in the workplace. His latest book, “Great Employees Only: How Gifted Bossess Hire & Dehire Their Way to Success” is available at Dauten.com. ©2012 King Features Syndicate.
