Getting your player ready...
Dear J.T. & DALE: While I have made more mistakes in career choices than I care to count, I’m now, at age 50, trying to focus on improving myself in my chosen career and on moving it forward again. Sadly, my career has been stagnant for way too long. – Jerry
DALE: First, we should point out that stagnation can happen at any age – some people arrive in a state of career lethargy by their late 20s, many more by their 30s or 40s. Still, as you reignite your career, expect to encounter some issues with age. Tough. Ignore it. Even if half of the country’s hiring managers think you’re too old to reinvent yourself, that just means you have to work harder on the other half, all those who will welcome your maturity andlife experience. J.T.: Instead, focus on dealing with both the perception and the reality of your being stagnant. Currently, no one is looking to you for fresh ideas and energy; it’s up to you to put yourself in a position to jump-start your work. You can go for a new job, one with greater responsibilities, or you can work on improving yourself, perhaps getting new training. DALE: What might work best is to retrain and reposition yourself as an innovator in your current job. Here’s how you start: Go to the people who use your work (internal or external) and chat about the work and its flow. For example, if part of your job is doing sales reports, you might learn that the marketing people feel they are slow in arriving. Then you say to your boss: “I was talking with the marketing people, and I was wondering if it would help if I investigated ways to speed up the reports. What do you think?” J.T.: I like the psychology of approaching management with a suggestion or question. That way you involve them, and that way they start to see you in a new light. Thus you begin to change the perception and the reality of your role and your potential. Dear J.T. & Dale: I work for a company that is bringing me down. I am frequently put in situations where I have to stay late to “clean up” the work of others. I also keep getting problems I cannot solve by myself, but the people I must rely on for help don’t respond to my requests. My immediate boss says he is unable to rectify the situation. I took this job after being out of work for many months, and now I am overwhelmed and afraid of being fired. – Lydia J.T.: Let me back up and remind you of this: If you are an hourly employee, the company doesn’t have the right to ask you to work overtime without paying you for those hours. That’s illegal. If you’re salaried, then they can expect you to work until the work is done. DALE: Two things: In the New Economy, it’s better to have too much work than not enough; and second, we live in a time where work is overwork. Everyone feels pressed and barely able to keep up.
