Some of us know from a young age what we want to become when we grow up. Some of us haven’t a clue.

I’m reading Julia Child’s “My Life In France” right now and I was surprised to read how she sort of stumbled into the food thing.

A graduate of Smith College from a well-off family, she had no interest in France or cooking until her 30s. After college, she found herself working for the government during WW II for a unit that was the precursor to the CIA and then moved to Paris with her husband Paul who got a job there with the U.S. state department.

In the book, she writes about her dad’s expectations for her life: “He assumed I would marry a Republican banker and settle in Pasadena to live a conventional life. But if I’d done that I’d probably have turned into an alcoholic, as a number of my friends had. Instead, I married Paul Child, a painter, photographer, poet, and mid-level diplomat who had taken me to live in dirty, dreaded France. I couldn’t have been happier.”

She found her bliss in Paris, and a vocation that would make her happy for the rest of her life — cooking.

I share this story because lately I’ve been feeling a lot of angst from many of you, both young and old. The summer is drawing near an end so college graduates now have to really get serious about what they’re going to be doing in the fall; and more mature workers who have been laid off or are just unhappy with their careers, are wondering what they should do next.

Unfortunately your career answers are not going to drop from the sky and fall in your lap. They will come from exploration, from travel, reading, meeting new people, joining networks — both cyber and human, and from being open to new experiences.

Julia Child tried new foods, embraced a new culture, and came out with gifts beyond her wildest dreams.

Open your taste buds. Open your mind.

A tall, dorky, girl from Pasadena did it.

Why not try something new, maybe Julia’s Coq au Vin recipe, and see what happens.

Who decided workers should get a week or two off a year? That just doesn’t do it. You need a week or two just to unwind, no?

I got back this past weekend from a six-day trip to one of the Finger Lakes called Skaneateles Lake and do you know when I started to really relax? The day before our drive home.

At least I did have a day. I was so relaxed that even the spiders that swarmed around the lake house we stayed in didn’t bother me. My husband and I were sitting at the side of the lake, fishing polls in hand, and a big spider was dancing on the top of my head. My husband said, “there’s a spider on your head.” I calmly replied, “can you take it off?”

Trust me, if I weren’t relaxed I would have jumped out of my skin and into the lake without even thinking.

Anyway, besides not letting creepy-crawlies bug me, I needed more time to enjoy the relaxation. It was nice. I was fishing damn it.

OK, I didn’t catch anything but lake grass, but I was unwinding. I’d get up early every morning before anyone was up and head down to the lake with my coffee in hand. I never really got the secure-the-worm-on-hook thing and kept flinging the little Canadian slimy guys into the water when I’d cast, but it was serene…no email, no phones, no nothing.

When I got back to the office on Monday my desk looked like a little prison. And it took me a few days to get back into the swing of things. I even put out calls on LinkedIn and Twitter for advice on how to get back into the daily grind.

On Twitter I asked: any tips for getting back into the grind/after a week away to unwind?

This reply from @kellydavis226 I hear you - it’s my first day back from a week off too

Nice to see others were suffering too, but I got more concrete advice on LinkedIn.

From Alan Brymer: Start planning your next vacation. Then going back to work won’t seem like such a downer, and you’ll have something to work for again.

And from Tracey Segarra: Start working on a new project that truly interests and excites you. Starting something fresh and new always helps revive me after a break.

I actually have plans to start a new project, and that has really been motivating me.

After reading some of the advice I remembered I wrote a column a while back about the post-vacation blues and went back to read it. It had some good insights on the phenomenon if I do say so myself.

The affliction of post-vacation blues may not have made it into psychology books, but it is something many workers say they’re struggling with lately.

“There’s a lot of negativity out there right now,” says Dr. Robert Puff, a clinical psychologist and the author of “Anger Work: How To Express Your Anger and Still Be Kind.”

“You have people already grumbling at work when they keep reading and hearing about people losing their jobs, unemployment being up,” he says. “So when people go on vacation, they say, ‘This is great.’”

You’re not kidding!

“A day off from work no longer means a vacation,” says Marjorie Savage, absence management director with financial services company The Hartford. “Many workers are spending their days off doing stressful things, such as chores or caring for family. Trouble is, we all need downtime to recharge our bodies and our minds.”

A study by The Hartford found that even when workers do get days off, only 42 percent use those days to go on a vacation, and only 9 percent said they did something enjoyable during their days away from work.

For workers who do take a real vacation, it may be hard to leave it behind.

“I went on a three-day trip with four of my close friends. I was so sad when I got back to work that I considered moving to the location we were just visiting and trying to start a life there,” said Joie Tamkin, a manager for a baby products retailer. “I even enlisted one of my friends from the trip in the idea, and she was all for it.”

After a few days back in the reality of the daily grind, they thought better of their impetuous plans.

“I then decided to plan another vacation so I had something to look forward to,” she explains.

Exactly what Alan said.

So let’s all start planning the next vacation when we return from vacation.

We could go back to Spider-eateles Lake, as we came to call it. It was so quiet and the view from the deck was unreal.

Here’s a pastel my 9-year-old daughter did of the scene:

Now you all know why I have the vacation blues.

People like to tweet just about everything on social networking site Twitter.

This morning’s sampling:

@Lisa_Wade Ya know I have always thought Glenn Beck to be an ass. At least now he’s confirmed it.

@MarketingProfs In Woodstock, VT, which is lovely. But can someone please send me some bandwidth c/o the Woodstock Inn? thx.

@Ohiomale Understanding The Islamic Republic of Iran http://bit.ly/5c7vv #iran #iranelection #gr88 #neda

The comments go from the serious to the mundane from people around the globe. That’s what makes Twitter so great and so annoying.

But how do you use such a service to maximize your career, especially if you’re one of the poor souls that works at home or in a far-flung division office?

Since it’s a public forum and people are constantly telling us all about themselves, it doesn’t seem odd if you get on their and start tooting your own horn. If you did this on internal IM or email it might sound weird. But since everyone is touting their latest accomplishments, such as book deals, or landing new clients, you can just jump on the bandwagon.

If you’re boss and other managers are following you on Twitter, or checking you out on Facebook, suddenly they can see all that you’ve done.

“Social media gives you a chance to brag positively,” says Zack Grossbart, who has written a yet-to-be published book called “The One Minute Commute.”

Typical office politics, he adds, “are fueled by a lack of information. Someone else portrays him/herself as more knowledgeable, hardworking, and in the loop
than you are. Many times these claims are difficult to prove and rumors keep flying. It is difficult for your boss and your team to know what you are doing every day, in the office or out of it.”

But now you have cyber social networking you lucky telecommuting stiffs.

“Brag about your wins or just what you’re excited about,” he explains. “Show people that you are engaged in your work and doing important things.”

Before you run out and start bragging about every little thing you do, however, take a deep breath and be smart about it. And beware of revealing too much personal info. I’d suggest staying away from Twitter after dinner, especially if you had a nice Chianti with your fava beans. You don’t want to be telling the world, and your managers, about the great bowel movement you had that morning. (Seriously folks, people have actually tweeting stuff like this.)

Here are answers to some key questions I asked Grossbart:

A: Is there a time/circumstance when a telecommuter should never use
social media?
Q: You should never send privileged information over social media. If you
wouldn’t put it on a billboard then don’t put it on Twitter and Facebook.

I’ve also spoken with companies concerned by social media. They just don’t
want to worry that an employee will spill corporate secrets in a tweet. In
those cases you can find yourself in trouble without doing anything wrong.
Always check with your company policies before using social media to discuss
your work. Personally I’ve had to secure permission before disclosing
technical details which my company may consider a trade secret.

A: Do you have any social media-telecommuter horror stories?

Q: The social media horror story that I hear over and over again is recruiters
working for large companies dismissing potential candidates for what is on
their blogs, Twitter feeds, and Facebook pages. Everyone knows you can get
in trouble for lascivious pictures, but I’ve talked to recruiters who’ve
passed over candidates because of such minor offenses as bad grammar and
discussions of family pets.

When faced with two potential employees of relatively equal merit, many
hiring managers will dismiss the one who presents themselves poorly or mixes
their personal and professional lives online. This is especially true for
bad writing. You don’t need to write like Hemingway, but good grammar, spell
checking, and complete sentences are a must.

When it comes to personal details it is best to keep your private life
separate from your working one. Companies don’t look down on candidates that
have hobbies or families, but they do look down on too many of those details
in forums meant for business.

So go ahead, use Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or any social networking site to Tweet your work feats.

But maybe keep these things to yourself:

* On my way to the office, gonna settle everything with my stupid jkt boss today

* I love my cat but she’s such an asshole sometimes.

The U.S. workforce is getting older. We all knew it was going to happen. We’ve all been writing and reading about it for years.

So why the hell is no one ready for it?

This week, the business team at MSNBC.com unveils a series of stories about how the workforce is graying, and more Americans are going to work past age 65 because most aren’t able to afford retirement.

From MSNBC.com’s John Schoen:

With their nest eggs in tatters, the stock market in the doldrums and time running out, many older Americans are resigning themselves to Plan C: simply working much later in life.

I wrote a piece due out later this week uncovering what Corporate America has done to prepare for the onslaught of mature employees. The answer: not much.

During my research I got the feeling that most employers, employees and even senior citizen advocates think an increase in older workers at the office, factory, or warehouse, is going to have little impact on the workplace. “65 is the new 55,” was pretty much the mentality.

But unfortunately folks, it’s going to take more than a couple of butt and face lifts to help aging workers punch the clock the way they did in their 30s and 40s. From office jobs to jobs in hospital wards, changes are going to have to be made to accommodate the growing number of employees who are also in their golden years. (I don’t know about you guys, but my back is already going and I haven’t even hit 50.)

On the flip side, is thinking a 50-plus worker can’t pull their weight. Lots of job seekers write me about how they think they were bypassed for gigs just because of their age even though they could handle the workload just fine. If they can handle the work, they should get the job.

We’re just going to have to get used to old people, whether they make use uncomfortable or not.

One of the first emails I got after I put out word that I was working on the mature worker story was from Dr. Payman Simoni, a Beverly Hills cosmetic surgeon:

THE SIMONI “WIDE AWAKE” FACE LIFT: Can be done in 1 hour.

This is how our society views our elders. With little respect.

Instead of holding up individuals as they age, we have and will continue to tear them down. Instead of seeing the wrinkles and gray hair as a sign they’ve lived a rich life and can teach us something, we view aging with contempt. Instead of using their knowledge and experience for the betterment of society, we have already begun to cast them aside to a virtual workplace wasteland, if we hire or keep them on at all.

The discrimination charges filed by workers 55 and older is skyrocketing, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and there is little sign that things will get better for mature employees, especially in this economic environment.

It’s time for employers and employees to realize what a valuable resource they have in older workers; and it’s also time for workers as they age to respect themselves and stop making excuses for growing old.

It’s a bad economy so don’t expect too much from your paycheck.

That seems to be the refrain from many workers out there. Many of you never really liked asking for more money anyway and are now relieved you don’t have to make a case for a raise.

Well, that’s a cowardly career move.

Believe it or not, there are some employees out there who are asking for the big money even in the face of a recession. And they don’t even care if they work for a company that’s receiving bailout money from taxpayers.

They have balls, and they have fat wallets as a result.

There’s even a government official, aka pay czar, whose job it is to keep companies from paying these ballsy employees obscene wages.

This from today’s Wall Street Journal:

Treasury Department official Kenneth Feinberg, who has authority to oversee pay for the 100 highest-paid employees at those companies, has been meeting regularly with the seven firms to help them fix a level and structure of compensation that the government deems proper, say industry and U.S. officials.

I’m not going to get into the debate over whether they should be paid a lot of money or not. If you’ve read my blog, you probably know where I stand on the issue. The growing disparity in pay among the head honchos and rank and file employees is indeed sickening.

What I’m focusing on now is the sheer audacity of certain workers when it comes to negotiating for money and benefits, especially during tough times when employers use the economy as an excuse to squeeze their employees.

Talk about the audacity of hope. Or is it just common sense?

If you’re working for a company, or in a division, that’s clearly hurting financially, loosing tons of money and laying off a chunk of workers, you probably should not expect a fat raise this year. But what if you know your firm or unit is doing just fine, and that you were a pivotal part of its success? You deserve a piece of the action, no?

And maybe even that company that saw financial losses and cut employees is now making a turn around.

There is nothing wrong with you going into negotiations with your boss and asking for what you’re worth, even in this economy people.

When I took some time off last week and unplugged from the work Matrix, I thought a lot about whether I am in control of my job, or my job was was controlling me. Unfortunately, we all become victims of our work at times and let employers gain control over us. Often we hand over that control without a fight.

When you don’t stand up and ask for what you’re worth, that’s handing over control. When you convince yourself that there are no other options for you out in the work world then you hand over control.

Most employers don’t want to part with money in any economy. You may not get what you ask for but you need to make your case.

Coincidentally, when I was out last week, I got a great email on this very topic from Bahaudin Majtaba, associate professor of management at the Huizenga School of Business at Nova Southeastern University. He just wrote a story for HR Review titled “Getting a Raise By Asking For It.”

“Instead of seeing a recession as an impediment, you can see this as an opportunity to do more work in a creative or cost-saving manner which can enhance your opportunities for getting a raise,” he says.

Here are some of his tips for getting more money:

*Assess your value. “You get paid based on what your expertise and time are worth to others in the market,” he says. “Assess your situation to make sure you have earned a raise or promotion. The manager might ask, ‘What have you done for me lately?’ Be ready to answer this question immediately and provide the ‘value-added’ aspect of your work.” Use salary data in the city, state or industry to compare your work with others who have similar qualifications and jobs. Have data and facts to provide your manager during your salary discussion.

*Build your case. “Track your success and document it,” he says. “It will make it easier for your boss to see your contributions and consider giving you the raise.” Remember that you’re asking for a raise because you deserve it, not because you need it. “A desperate need for money does not equate to being worthy of a raise. Do not confuse what you need with what you are worth in the marketplace. Keep the discussion with your manager about your work performance, your qualifications for more income, and your overall value to the organization. “

*Choose the right time for a meeting with the manager. “A best time to ask for a raise might be when you have just received good news or if the company received good news and you had a part in it,” he says. “Perhaps Thursdays or paydays might be a good time to schedule a meeting for discussing the raise. The end of the fiscal year is probably not the right time for a raise since this might be the time when most managers are preparing their budgets for the next year or are answering for their spending of the past year. Therefore managers might be a bit too stressed in such days and weeks when they are dealing with annual budgets.”

*Ask for what you deserve. Be realistic and sincere, says Mujtaba. “Tell your boss that ‘I would like to explain some of my major accomplishments and why I believe I deserve a raise.’ Explain the facts about why you deserve a raise and then ask for a specific increase. If you do not ask for it, then the chances of getting a raise is very small. “

Hope for the best, but be prepared to hear ‘no’ and negotiate alternatives to a raise when extra income is not an option due to budget limitations.

“Keep in mind that in many cases a ‘no’ response is getting you one step closer to the affirmative answer,” he says. “The “no” answer should lead to the question of ‘Why and/or what can I do to earn a raise in the next opportunity?’”

*Set goals. “Volunteer to help when new and upcoming challenging or time-consuming projects,” he says. “Agree to work on projects and times that nobody likes to work on. “ When possible, befriend the manager as your mentor or coach and jointly set goals for the upcoming quarter and year.

Have you asked for more money recently, or were you a cowardly lion?

There’s a scene from The Matrix when Neo, aka Keanu Reeves, unplugs himself from the matrix.

That will be me this week. I’m conducting an experiment. Can I survive unplugged from The Matrix — the Internet, my blog, Twitter, email?

Can I? I hope I can.

Burnt out and ready to open a cafe in some small town, I need to try to unplug from the cyber world.

I hope I will survive this experiment. I will share my experience when the week is done.

I do hope all of you will include your comments here about wanting to leave technology behind. Did it work for you?

Also, I hope my regular readers will update CareerDiva readers on the news from the career front. Come on HikingStick, Robert Graham, Scot Henrrick, Debra, Tracy, Suzanne, and all the rest of you incredible people. I need your comments often this week to update the world on workplace issues that few, if any, blogs will cover. My intern Katrina will be moderating comments.

I expect you all to run this blog when I’m unplugged. The big question: do you need to be connected to the matrix to survive?

I’m not big on list of best employers. Lots of magazines and a host of HR organizations try to compile such lists, and while they’re well intentioned I have trouble putting too much credence in their findings.

That said, I think they’re worth including in your overall assessment of an employer when you’re considering applying for a job or accepting a job offer.

One particular site, GreatPlaceJobs.com offered up some interesting research recently comparing what they deemed to be great employers with not so great ones and found that the great companies had a lighter touch when it came to layoffs.

The study shows that the nation’s largest companies conducted layoffs at a rate of almost twice that of a group of companies recognized as great workplaces. Only 44% of excellent employers laid off workers from the beginning of 2008, while a shocking 86% of the Fortune 100 companies have laid off employees in the past year and a half.

The revenue growth rate at great workplace companies in Q1 2009 was 2.3% better than the rest of the Fortune 100, and the average stock price of the excellent employers was 1.1% higher as of June 30, 2009 (compared to January 1, 2009) than typical Fortune 100 companies.

“Despite the fact that the award-winning employers have also been hurt by the current recession, most remain committed and loyal to their employees and have not included layoffs in their cost-cutting actions,” said Miriam Salpeter, co-founder of GreatPlaceJobs. “I always advise my job-seeking clients to focus on identifying an organization to target, and this new information further confirms the fact that great workplaces, such as those who post opportunities on GreatPlaceJobs, are a terrific choice.”

There is definitely something to this reasoning. Based on the thousands of interviews I’ve done over the years with workers and managers, those who worked for companies where they felt valued, were given opportunities to grow, and were compensated fairly tended to also be successful firms.

So read all the lists you want to out there, but also make sure to do your own research. Email your LinkedIn contacts, or the contacts of your contacts and find out from them first hand what is was like working for company X or company Y. Dig up the latest news stories on the firm and see how the executives handled layoffs, or furloughs, or benefit cuts, etc.

And really listen to what you hear.

A few years ago I did my due diligence and checked out an employer I wanted to work for. And I asked tough questions of the workers I met while interviewing there. Many of the employees warned me about the two main bosses I would be working for, telling me they lacked integrity and weren’t really good either at what they did.

Alas, I didn’t listen. While I don’t totally regret taking the job now and moving my husband and me to a new town, I was in living hell for the year or so I stayed in that job. I was so desperate to leave my previous employer I didn’t really take to heart what my future coworkers were telling me.

I know many of you are desperate to find work right now as well, but it’s a good idea to take a deep breath and find out if you’re heading into yet another bad job for a bad employer, or you’ve really found a nice place to work.

The minimum wage is set to climb to a whopping $7.25 an hour from $6.55 next week and some folks are calling for a do over.

When the minimum wage hike was being debated several years ago, conservative and pro-business politicians and pundits were saying the time wasn’t right. This despite an economic boom that saw little of the riches shared with middle and lower income wage earners.

Now during an economic downturn, the time isn’t right again.

This from a Wall Street Journal opinion piece that ran Monday titled “Mandating Unemployment”:

The national wage floor will have increased 41% since the three-step hike was approved by the Democratic Congress in May 2007. Then the economy was humming, with an overall jobless rate of 4.5% and many entry-level jobs paying more than the minimum. That’s a hard case to make now, with a 9.5% national jobless rate and thousands of employers facing razor-thin profit margins.

I decided to look back at the opinion pieces the newspaper ran in 2007 to see what pundits were saying back then. This from a piece that ran in January of 2007 that pretty much summed up the thoughts of many articles of the day:

Although some workers benefit — those who were paid the old minimum wage but are worth the new, higher one to the employers — others are pushed into unemployment, the underground economy or crime.

So, no matter what the jobless rate, no matter what the economic conditions, giving poorly paid workers more money will lead to the destruction of our society?

In fact, a recession might actually be the best time to boost minimum wage, says Bob Bruno, associate professor at the School of Labor & Employment Relations and co-director, Labor Education Program at the University of Illinois.

“Household incomes and wealth have been significantly squeezed,” he explains. Home values are dropping, retirement savings are declining and credit is not as readily available, so where does financial strength come from, he asks. “It’s going to come from income, from wages.”

More money in people’s pockets is going to stimulate the economy by potentially boosting consumer spending, he adds.

He has no illusions the modest hike in the minimum wage will be a boon for the economy. In fact, he thinks the rate should rise even further and tied to inflation.

“Let’s be clear, we’re not talking about a livable wage. It’s well below what it would have been if it kept up with income growth at the upper end of the income scale,” he stresses. “If we look at hedge fund managers, bankers and all the other bad boys out there and what they were making, we’re talking a $35 an hour minimum wage.”

Bruno says there will always be a segment of the business community that cries about how terrible wage increases and workplace protections for the average working stiff will be for business, capitalism.

The question is, are the arguments based on economic conditions or not?

The Wall Street Journal editorial board is now asking Congress to hold off increasing the wage — set to happen on July 24 — because, they say, it makes “economic logic” to do so right now:

If Congress were wise and compassionate, it would at least suspend the wage hike for one or two years until the job market recovers.

Congress just needs to figure out if they really mean suspending the hike forever, since it seems the time will never be “right.”

It’s such a surreal scene to watch a bunch of privileged white senators hammer a Latina Supreme Court nominee over and over again on one statement she made.

You have all probably heard it a million times in the news and from the mouths of senators grilling Sonia Sotomayor this week: “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. seemed the oddest of the bunch when he talked about her “Latina” comment with disgust.

His main point, “If I ever said something remotely like that, my career would have been over.”

Why did she say it? This question came up over and over again.

I kept wanting Sotomayor to yell out, “if you were a wise Latina woman you’d understand what I meant.”

Why do I say this? Because people who have not had to deal with prejudice in their lives have a hard time understanding the pain it can inflict on men and women. It can make you feel bad about yourself, destroy your confidence, and derail your aspirations.

What Sotomayor said is what every mother says to their daughters in a male dominated society. It’s what every mother says to a black or Hispanic child who is told they aren’t as good as white people, or are denied access to a pool because of the color of their skin.

My mother has said it to me: “You’re better than them all.”

It’s a function of frustration brought on by a lifetime of being slighted, oppressed.

Graham tried to put the shoe on the other foot during the confirmation hearings.

Alas, he’s missing the key point. White men don’t have to say this, typically, because they rarely feel like they are second-class citizens.

When the playing field is level. When women make as much as men. When minorities are finally in the corner offices of our nation’s corporations. And when the sea of white males in the Senate is replaced by a more diverse picture.

That is when it will be shocking for Sotomayor, or anyone else, to make such a statement.

Trust me, many human resource managers realize that their attempts to add more diversity to their managerial jobs are often derailed because women and minorities often don’t believe they deserve it, or are good enough.

“You can be better than them all,” is a great corporate locker room chant to get the non believers believing.

That’s all it is folks. Nothing sinister. Nothing underhanded.

It’s the whole “shoot for the stars to get the moon” mentality and it does work.

We’re all smile obsessed and it’s making me want to frown.

Even I’ve been smile brainwashed. This morning I was being a great mommy, or so I thought, by drawing a smiley face on my kids camp lunch bags. When I finished the work of art I heard a story on the radio about how a company in Japan was scanning their workers’ smiles to make sure they were smiley enough for customers.

Things like this make me very uncomfortable and very mad. Talk about happy-crazed Big Brother watching.

This from The Mainichi Daily News:

Keihin Electric Express Railway Co. has introduced a “Smile Scan” system to evaluate the grins of its station staff.

The smile-measuring software has been developed by Kyoto-based precision equipment maker Omron Corp. The device analyzes the facial characteristics of a person, including eye movements, lip curves and wrinkles, and rates a smile on a scale between 0 and 100 percent using a camera and computer.

For those with low scores, advice like “You still look too serious,” or “Lift up your mouth corners,” will be displayed on the screen.

If you think this is just a wacky thing the Japanese are doing, that’s probably what people thought before employers started monitoring employee phone calls, emails and even key strokes. Employers are even docking you lately because you’re a smoker or overweight. Tracking smiles couldn’t be far behind.

And what’s so great about smiling anyway? I don’t know about you guys, but is there anything worse than a forced smile?

Some people think you need one to make it in the world.

I just got an email this morning, coincidentally, from a cosmetic dentist’s PR person stressing how important it is to have great teeth so you can have a great smile:

I would like to offer you leading cosmetic dentist, Dr. Thomas Connelly to offer tips for achieving a winning smile that will help those over the age of 40 land a new job.

Job interviews are quick and first impressions matter – shake hands, make eye contact and reveal pearly whites – not dingy yellows! On an interview, a genuine smile and a great overall appearance represent professionalism and confidence.

Jeez. Come on with the smile lunacy already!

Smiles aren’t all that, according to Jonathan Littman and Marc Hershon, the co-authors of “I Hate People!: Kick Loose form the Overvearing and Underhanded Jerks at Work and Get What You Want Out of Your Job.”

I recently got a list from them titled: “Ten Ways to Be Liked In Your Job Interview” and at the top of their list was–

1. Don’t be a Smiley Face

Excessive smiling in a job interview is seen for what it is – nervousness and a lack of confidence. A Smiley Face exudes phoniness, which will quickly be picked up by the interviewer. Instead be thoughtful and pleasant. Smile when there’s something to smile about.

Yes! Smile when there’s something to smile about.

Look, I’m not saying people should walk around scowling but let’s give hard-working folks a break already.

I love technological advances as much as the next guy. But even though so many people seem strapped to their laptops and iPhones 24/7 these days, humans are not machines. Don’t treat them that way.