I answered career questions during a live chat on TheTodayShow.com last week and I was struck by a few questions submitted by people who called themselves old and were fearful of age bias. What struck me were the readers who considered themselves old at age 40.

That’s why I wanted to share this guy’s story, David Seidler. He won an Oscar last night for best original screenplay, “The King’s Speech,” at the ripe young age of 73, and this after a life of struggles as a stutterer and many years trying to make it in the movie biz.

His reaction:

“My father always said to me I would be a late bloomer.”

Seidler first got to Hollywood at age 40. 40! Read his story here.

I know it’s a cliche that you’re as old as you feel, but in this case it’s a valid saying. And we all have to stop buying the bull that we can never make it in this world if we don’t go under the knife or dress like Lady Gaga. Yes, be hip. But first and foremost, be yourself.

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The economy is adding jobs now, but you may want to pack a bagged lunch for your new gig.

Low-paying jobs have become the centerpiece of this economic recovery and it’s bad news for middle-class and above workers who were hoping to find another good-paying job with benefits to replace the one they lost during the recession.

You’re not going to like these numbers, provided by the National Employment Law Project in a report released this week. During the past 12 months, the job growth has skewed toward jobs that pay less than $13 an hour:

· Lower-wage industries constituted 23 percent of job loss, but 49 percent of recent growth;
· Mid-wage industries constituted 36 percent of job loss, and 37 percent of recent growth; and
· Higher-wage industries constituted 40 percent of job loss, but only 14 percent of recent growth.

“This snapshot suggests that the job opportunities currently available to workers have deteriorated compared to what was available before the recession,” said Annette Bernhardt, policy co-director at the Law Project. “If these trends continue, (more…)

Recently there have been a few reports that productivity growth in the United States is going to fall off a cliff as the Baby Boomers get older and slower. But for now, you guys seem to be working like dogs.

It’s an interesting dynamic in this economy. While so many economic indicators have been heading south, productivity has been on the rise.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, productivity climbed at the highest percentage rate in nearly 40 years from 2007 through 2010, the worst of the Great Recession. Basically, you guys are working harder with fewer people, and it turns out, your employer thinks you’re OK with it.

A survey by CareerBuilder released last month found that:

35 percent of employers reported that their current staffs are smaller than pre-recession levels. Of those employers, most anticipate no adjustments to staff levels in 2011, with 57 percent reporting that they have become accustomed to handling the workload with less headcount.

The survey didn’t ask if employees were handling the workload well, but it did ask if they were thinking about a new job.

* 15 percent of full-time, employed workers are actively seeking a new job.

* 75 percent reported that, although they are not actively looking, they would change jobs in 2011 for the right opportunity.

Maybe you’re not that accustomed to it after all.

Here’s a podcast of an interview I did with NPR’s Talk of the Nation a while back that looks at the phenomenon of rising worker productivity:

While recent reports make dire predictions for productivity gains, for right now you all seem to be kicking it at work.

Is it time to tell your boss you’re tired of workhorsing? That may make management at least start thinking about hiring.

The nation has been given a crash course in collective bargaining thanks to the battle going on in Wisconsin between union workers and the governor, who says he wants to kill employee collective bargaining rights.

But it turns out Wisconsin’s Governor Scott Walker may not really know what it is. While he wants to take away state workers’ collective bargaining rights, he’s actually posting things on Twitter that say otherwise.

Yesterday he tweeted this:

With all the people for & against the budget repair bill at the Capitol today, I pray that everyone is respectful 2 those w/different views.

OK, Gov. Walker, that’s at the heart of what collective bargaining is all about. Two sides sit down and listen to each other, and should be respectful of each other.

And it’s also about negotiating, which is sort of what Walker is doing indirectly on Twitter. Ten hours ago he tweeted:

Union leaders SAY they r open 2 pension & health care payments but they can’t guarantee budget savings 4 schools & local gov’ts.

And then, he tweeted…

These r same union leaders who tried to ram through employee contracts in Dec (after election, but before I took office).

He’s engaged in a back and fourth that is just what you might hear during, dare I say, collective bargaining sessions. And tons of Wisconsin state workers have been tweeting responses to Walker’s words and tweets, so essentially, the parties are engaged in collective bargaining, no?

I know it’s not face-to-face at a bargaining table, but this cyber bargaining table shows that even if the state legislature is successful in stripping state workers’ rights away Walker may end up missing negotiating just as much as employees. In fact, thanks to social-media collective, the negotiations may never end.

It’s time for a walk down economic-implosion memory lane.

Remember Sherron Watkins, a former vice president at Enron? She went down in history as a famous whistleblower who told her bosses, including the then CEO Kenneth Lay, that the company was basically a Ponzi scheme.

“I am incredibly nervous that we will implode in a wave of accounting scandals,” she wrote in a letter to Lay. “My 8 years of Enron work history will be worth nothing on my resume, the business world will consider the past successes as nothing but an elaborate accounting hoax.”

She ended up testifying to Congress about the scandal, which was just one of many scandals to come and ultimately take down our nation’s economy. But it wasn’t Watkins who really blew the whistle on dirty dealings at Enron. You see, her attempts to stop the company from doing bad went nowhere because she was basically trying to reason with the criminals themselves. That’s why it’s so important for employees to have other means — beyond company channels — and incentives, if they are ever going to expose unlawful corporate behavior.

That’s where the Dodd-Frank financial reform law comes in. It created more incentives, including a whistleblower bounty, for employees to step forward, something that’s very difficult for them to do because they can lose their jobs as a result, and many have. The legislation actually calls for financial incentives of up to 30 percent of funds recovered for information employees give regulators that leads to prosecution.

But Corporate America isn’t happy. (more…)

Of all the things I’ve written about during this turbulent economic time, the one thing that bothered me the most was the revelation that some employers were refusing to even consider job seekers who were unemployed.

Companies are actually pretty open about this, and even say so in ads. One job posted on a job board by a Florida company a while back stated: “No unemployed candidates will be considered at all.”

I know, this is a huge blow for many of you who have been out of work and struggling to find a job. But the bottom line is, the jobless are not protected from such discrimination. Recruiters and hiring managers typically want people who are employed. No matter how you slice it, the natural tendency by some is to think something’s wrong with you if you’re unemployed, even if it’s not your fault, and the economy is bad, and your company laid off everyone.

This is a sad commentary on how some businesses operate, and such attitudes will do little to help bring down the nation’s unemployment rate, still hovering above 9 percent.

Help, however, may be on the way. (more…)

I sent out a cover letter and resume for a job I was interested in, but I did something in the cover letter that I typically don’t do. I was critical of the company. I pretty much said they should hire me because their website sucked.

OK, I didn’t say sucked, but I did include some choice words about how boring the content and design were, and I also wrote that their social media initiatives were lacking.

Hey, I’m all about honesty, so I figured they needed to hear these things. And speaking about hearing things, I haven’t heard back from that employer. Did I offend? We talk so much about not trashing your former employer in a cover letter or an interview, but what about trashing the people you want to work with?

I emailed one of my favorite career coaches to ask her about my in-your-face tactic. (more…)

Tonight, about 70 million Americans are expected to celebrate Valentine’s at a restaurant. And that’s why one group supporting restaurant workers chose today to release a disturbing study that may make you feel uneasy about the filet mignon and crème brûlée you order.

Romance among the under-paid dishwashers, cooks, and bus boys and girls isn’t so sweet; and it’s even worse when you think about how many of these workers have no paid sick days and will end up clocking in today when they’re sick. Yes, they may be sneezing on your romance-laden entrees.

You may get sick as a result, but the sickness that’s endemic in the restaurant industry has a much more serious impact, socially and economically, than an amorous couple getting the flu. (more…)

Wael Ghonim is a nerdy computer engineer who is a manager at Google, and has a side gig overthrowing the Egyptian government.

It’s a perfect example of not just a battle for freedom in Egypt but a battle for freedom of speech for employees everywhere, especially those in the United States. Yes, the good old, supposedly-free United States.

When it comes to a worker’s free speech rights outside of offices and factories, employers can stomp on them if they choose. Basically, if you don’t work for the government, or have a union contract that stipulates otherwise, an employer can fire you for what you say, or tweet outside of the workplace.

Ghonim has already faced a harrowing experience after being detained by security forces in Egypt and spending a week blindfolded. But another big battle may still lie ahead for him, a battle for his career.

He told CNN: “I have a lot to lose in this life. I, you know, I work, or, you know, now as I’m on a leave of absence, I work for the best company to work for in the world.”

Will Google fire Ghonim? (more…)

I’m of the opinion that many working stiffs day dream of someday working for themselves, but just don’t know how to fund even the smallest new venture. It’s a real concern, especially in this economy when banks are being tightfisted when it comes to lending.

Yesterday a reader named JT asked if I could offer some ideas about funding a small business. He wrote:

I’d start my own company, but with the recession and economic meltdown, I lost everything and my credit took a tremendous hit (face it, it just plain sucks). I cannot qualify for any loans to help get started and my family is in no position to help in that respect. Eve, maybe you could write about alternative sources of funding for someone who wants to start their own small company.

There are indeed sources that aren’t the regular lending cast of characters, and I’ve written about one good alternative, micro-lending, in the past. It may be a good option to check out for people like JT. (more…)