Written by Pamela Skillings

The Labor Day episode of America’s Toughest Jobs put our fearless contestants behind the wheels of loaded 18-wheelers. Their task was to guide their 80,000-pound vehicles up 500 miles of the most rugged terrain on earth above the Arctic Circle.

I have to admit that the second episode didn’t quite match the first in terms of drama and entertainment. That’s probably because most of the contestants were surprisingly capable big rig drivers — including Michaela and Eric, two of my favorites from last week.  Luckily for us viewers, there were a few exceptions:

1. Chris, the investment broker from Queens — Poor Chris had a lot of trouble with downshifting his truck.  I think the most terrifying part of this episode for me was learning that the brakes in big rigs are practically useless and proper downshifting technique is key to keeping the trucks under control. But Chris’ real problem wasn’t his driving.  It was his attitude.  How dumb do you have to be to mouth off to one of the judges on the task and call him an ass? Chris was not only asked to give up the driver’s seat twice, he was eventually kicked out of the truck and forced to ride the rest of the way with the producers. Nobody was surprised when Chris was voted one of the four worst performers. Despite a poor performance in the final elimination task, Chris got lucky and will go on to compete another day.

2. Bryce the personal trainer from WI and Rommel the karate teacher from NJ — These two both had some trouble behind the wheel, but managed to perform respectably on the elimination task.  I’m glad they’re staying for now — they’re both nice eye candy and seem likable enough, if not particularly entertaining so far.

3. Amy the Wall Street executive from Boston — Amy helped to bring a little drama to the show with a scary moment in the driver’s seat when her truck went out of gear and appeared to be hurtling out of control. But the real drama came when Amy’s driving partner Rie (the model from Portland) voted her buddy Amy as one of the worst drivers. Amy didn’t take that very well. Then, despite a promising start, she botched the final elimination task and was sent packing. We learned in the show post-script that Amy later quit her job on Wall Street and is contemplating her next career move (Amy — If you’re reading this, email me if you’d like to share your story of escaping from Corporate America).

So what do you think? Does America’s Toughest Jobs make you grateful for your warm and dry cubicle? Or does it make you long for more adventure?

Next week: gold digging.

Written by Pamela Skillings

Why do we call it Labor Day when the whole point is to take an extra day off of work?  Because Labor Day was originally established in 1882 by the American labor movement as a yearly tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.

Most of us are probably going to spend Labor Day enjoying the last days of summer weather on the beach, in the park, or in the backyard.

But Labor Day is also a time to reflect on work and your career path in general (preferably while reclining in the sun somewhere with a cold drink in your hand — it’s less painful that way). Are you happy about how and where you’re putting in all those work hours? Does your current job allow you to use your talents and contribute the way you’d like to? Does the idea of spending another year laboring in your job inspire feelings of excitement or dread?

There’s something about returning to work after Labor Day weekend that has come to symbolize a fresh start for many of us. Maybe we’re conditioned to think that way from our back-to-school days. I almost feel like going shopping for new Jordache jeans and a shiny new Trapper Keeper (oops, showing my age and my 80s roots).

With the vacation days of the summer behind us, we dive into new projects with a new enthusiasm. That is, if we’re lucky.  For those of us who are unhappy in our current careers, there can be a major letdown after the distractions of summer have passed and it’s back to business-as usual.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Channel that fresh-start enthusiasm into plotting your escape to a more fulfilling career. After all, hiring managers are also coming back from summer vacation and getting serious about filling vacant positions. Consultants’ phones are starting to ring off the hook as clients figure out how they’re going to spend that third-quarter budget.

Why not pick up a shiny new notebook at a Back to School sale near you and spend some of your Labor Day downtime jotting down ideas and plans for the next phase of your brilliant career?

I guarantee that it will be a lot less painful to go back to work on Tuesday morning if you’ve got a plan in place to find labor that you love.

Have a happy Labor Day weekend!

Written by Pamela Skillings

I have a new favorite show. America’s Toughest Jobs is the kind of reality TV that I love. The only drawback is that it’s hard to make fun of the losers on this show — even those who get eliminated are tougher than I am (and more interesting than 99% of the rest of the reality TV contestants on the air).

Here’s the premise of the show: Thirteen men and women from “safe and comfortable careers” are sent to compete in the most dangerous and demanding jobs on earth. Each week, the weakest link is sent home.  The last contestant standing at the end wins $250,000, the  value of the combined annual salaries for all of the dangerous jobs featured on the show.

In the first episode, the contestants go crab fishing on the Bering Sea.  Crab fishing is considered the deadliest job on the planet — the injury rate is almost 100%. Crab fishermen and fisherwomen endure subzero temperatures, 30-foot swells, 40-knot winds, and the back-breaking work of chopping bait and heaving 800-pound pods off of and back onto the fishing boat. This episode will definitely give you a new appreciation for your next order of crab legs.

So how did the contestants do?  read more…

Written by Pamela Skillings

If you read Escape from Corporate America, you know that it’s full of the personal stories of corporate escape artists and their advice for others who feel stuck in their careers. I spent months tracking down and interviewing amazing people who had busted out of their cubicles to pursue their dreams.

When I was feeling trapped in Corporate America, I had no idea that there were so many of them out there. Way too many to fit in the book, in fact. And since I finished the manuscript, it seems like I meet a new escapee every day.

So I decided to create a regular blog feature to highlight more daring tales of corporate escape. First up is Shannon McCaffery, a woman who bounced back from three layoffs and endured enough corporate stress to land her in the hospital before she decided to start her own business. Read on for her brilliant advice for getting unstuck.
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Shannon McCaffery’s Daring Tale of Corporate Escape

Name: Shannon M. McCaffery

Previous (corporate) occupation: Director of Corporate Communications

Current occupation: Marketing coach, consultant and implementer. Founder and CEO of McCaffery Communications.

1. Tell us a little bit about your corporate career path.

I started right out of college in publishing. I was a sales representative for Random House’s College Division. They sold their college division 4 years later to McGraw-Hill and hence my journey from company to company began. I loved books and just wanted to write, edit, market and be around books. My trajectory went from working in sales and sales management to working in marketing and loving it. My favorite job was as Director of International Marketing because I literally got to see and change part of the world. I traveled from Bali to Australia to Amsterdam. Then everything started to crumble.
read more…

Written by Pamela Skillings

“Where do you see yourself in five years?”

It’s a stupid interview question. There is no remotely honest way to answer this question in an interview that will please a hiring manager. I always went with something like: “Working in a challenging role in a fantastic company like yours!” Which is a total BS response, but always seemed to satisfy interviewers (Do you have a better answer or a really unwise answer that you regret? Please share.)

But have you ever REALLY thought about where you see yourself in five years? Most of us haven’t — especially in the corporate world. We move from opportunity to opportunity without much thought about the future beyond wanting to keep advancing and making more money (and avoiding the layoff fairy). That’s probably because it’s almost impossible to predict what’s going to happen during five years of reorganizations, mergers, and other fun corporate games.
read more…

Written by Pamela Skillings

Tough day at the office? Look on the bright side: at least you haven’t been trampled by a bull today.

In the new NBC show America’s Toughest Jobs, misguided reality show contestants (including a receptionist and a sculptor) will compete to prove themselves in difficult jobs including logging, extreme fishing, gold mining, and oil drilling. The winner will take home $250,000, the combined annual salary of all of the tough jobs featured on the show.

And yes, somebody gets trampled by a bull at some point during the competition. She actually seemed to be in remarkably good spirits about it in the preview clip.

Why would somebody volunteer for this show?  According to the official website, “America’s Toughest Jobs is for everyone who’s ever wished for a chance to leave behind the safe, comfortable monotony of their job for something more.”

I am looking forward to the premiere on August 25th (at 9/8 Central on NBC) to see how many corporate escapees are in the mix and how they fare in the competition. America’s Toughest Jobs is produced by Thom Beers, the guy who brought us Deadliest Catch and Ice Road Truckers.

This show takes the concepts behind those shows and the Discovery Channel’s Dirty Jobs to the next level. Instead of just watching other people work in terrifying or horrifying jobs, viewers now get to try them out for themselves.

I honestly think people are fascinated by these shows because they make them feel better about their own work problems. What do you think? Wouldn’t you rather be in a painful, endless corporate meeting than freezing your face off on a fishing boat on the Bering Sea?

P.S. If your answer to the above question is no, you REALLY need to find a new career path.

Written by Pamela Skillings

Is the lame economy driving your boss over the edge? Or maybe it’s just the heat that’s making your manager even more cranky and power-mad than usual.

MSNBC.com contributor Eva Tahmincioglu sees a trend. She writes, “I’ve been hearing lots of hair-raising stories lately about bosses who may have had a tendency to be mean but are now acting like full-blown Darth Vaders. Many workplace experts believe tough economic times and the constant drumbeat to do more with fewer people may be driving managers over to the dark side.” Read Eva’s article about increasingly bad boss behavior in today’s job market.

Another reason for the surge in manager misanthropy: Bad bosses think they can get away with treating employees unfairly because many workers are afraid to leave due to the shaky job market. I’ve seen lots of bad bosses, inappropriate behavior, and abysmal employee satisfaction survey results ignored by the corporate powers-that-be. The attitude seems to be, “What are they going to do, quit?”

Of course, this is a stupid and shortsighted point of view. Mistreated workers grow more bitter and unproductive every day and are likely to bolt at the first opportunity.

Tahmincioglu offers some tips for dealing with mean bosses. She suggests confronting your manager diplomatically or going over a bad boss’ head if the situation gets severe.

In many cases, however, there is little that you can do to reform a toxic boss. Your best bet may be to leave. Remember: There are other jobs out there even if the economic picture isn’t quite as rosy as we’d like it to be.

Written by Pamela Skillings

Some say that a true entrepreneur could never work in Corporate America. Many claim that you have to be born with that entrepreneurial DNA and will know from an early age if you’ve got what it takes to run your own business. I strongly disagree. I believe that entrepreneurial skills and attitude can be acquired.

In fact, doing some time in Corporate America can be a great way to pick up very valuable business expertise that will come in handy when running your business. As Aliza Freud, founder and CEO of SheSpeaks, puts it, “I think that the skills that I gained when I was working at a big company really helped to make me a better entrepreneur.”

The trick is to get out before the bureaucracy crushes your entrepreneurial spirit.

Sure, the stories about entrepreneurs who started their first profitable businesses during junior high are inspiring. But it’s also true that many of the most legendary entrepreneurs of all time started out as corporate employees.

 

• Henry Ford was the son of farmers and toiled in an engineering job before striking out on his own to form Ford Motor Company.
•  Walt Disney was an illustrator for an advertising agency before he and his brother Roy started a business in their uncle’s garage that eventually became the Walt Disney Company.
• Ray Kroc was a salesman for the Multi-Mixer Corporation when he bought a California hamburger restaurant from the MacDonald Brothers and turned it into a multibillion-dollar international chain.
• Mary Kay Ash was a sales director for Stanley Home Products for twenty years before she retired and used her life savings of $5,000 to get Mary Kay Cosmetics going in 1963.
• Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak spent time as engineers at Atari before they created Apple Computer.
• Jeff Bezos quit his job as a senior vice president on Wall Street when he came up with the revolutionary idea for Amazon.com.
• Michael Bloomberg was a senior manager at Salomon Brothers until he was squeezed out after the company was acquired in 1981. The unemployed Bloomberg went on to make his fortune by starting Bloomberg LP, the financial information company, and later used
  his billions to finance a successful run for mayor of New York City.
• Martha Stewart had a successful career as a stockbroker before she turned a catering business into a media empire.

Do you have other nominations for the Corporate-to-Entrepreneur Hall of Fame? Don’t be shy. Show your entrepreneur-sized ego and nominate yourself if you like!

Written by Pamela Skillings

Based in New York City? Join a group of fabulous women for a night of cocktails and networking sponsored by Womensphere and fashion designer Kathlin Argiro. The event will be held at Kathlin’s studio and I will be reading from Escape from Corporate America at some point in between the drinks, the shopping, and the mingling.

Womensphere is the fabulous organization that sponsored the women’s entrepreneurial summit that I blogged about last week. And Kathlin’s lovely designs have been featured on The Today Show and in InStyle magazine.

This event is free, but limited to just 40 people. So RSVP to INFO@KATHLINARGIRO.COM if you’d like to join us.

What: Midsummer Soiree
When: Tuesday, August 5th, 6-8 pm
Where: Kathlin Argiro Studios, 265 W. 37th Street, 7th Fl. (at 8th Ave.)

Written by Pamela Skillings

Who says losing your job has to be a bad experience? I don’t mean to be glib about it because I know personally that getting laid off or let go can be a very unpleasant surprise. However, I also know many people who have turned job losses into positive career changes and/or  profitable new business ventures.

I recently shared my views on this subject with a CNN.com reporter for the article Make Getting Fired Work for You. My bit is near the end (under the subhead ‘It’s OK to be happy about it").

The article also provide some other interesting insights. One tip is to thoroughly analyze why the job loss happened. While I agree that it’s generally useful to reflect on what you can learn from an experience,  I also think it’s important to make a distinction between getting fired and getting laid off. If you’ve been let go for performance issues, then it certainly makes sense to think about how you can avoid making the same mistakes in the future. However, when it comes to trying to understand the reasons for getting downsized, you can drive yourself crazy trying to figure out what you did to "deserve" it. In most cases, it absolutely was not you, it was them. You’d be better off using your analytical skills and your valuable time to figure out your next career move.