When I was pregnant with my daughter many years ago, I was working for the worse boss I had ever had. He was vindictive, passive aggressive, and afraid of his own shadow — all the key characteristics you don’t want in a boss.

I loved what I was doing, but this guy made my life hell. Many nights were lost to bitching about this manager and at some point my husband and I decided I needed to make a change.

My ultimate goal had always been to write a book or two, and try my hand at freelancing and becoming my own boss, but it was always not the right time to take the plunge. Well, we decided to save my whole paycheck for the nine months I was pregnant and then consider whether I could actually start life as a freelancer once my daughter was born. The jerky boss was a great motivator for finally pushing my fears aside.

We ended up saving enough money that after my six-week maternity leave I made the happy walk into my boss’ office.

I told him I was not coming back to my job because I wanted to become a freelancer and take time to write my first book.

His response: “oh, I know, once women become moms the pull of the child is just too strong.”

I tried to reiterate that I was quitting to embark on a new career path for myself, but he kept doing the wink and nod, as if I was just kidding about my new direction.

I sat there thinking, should I tell this guy — “you’re a prick. That’s why I’m out of here bozo”?

But I restrained myself, opting to do the right thing for the sake of my future in journalism and for the sake of our civil society.

Women do not leave a job they love, that pays them a good wage and fulfills them just because the call of motherhood is tugging at them. I don’t care what Dr. Laura says.

They leave because they don’t like their job, or because their bosses suck, or because the opportunities suck, or because the pay sucks.

The latter, it turns out, is one of the biggest reasons, according to a new study to be released today.

The New York Times broke the story this morning about a Congressional study and research by economists that shows women are leaving the workplace in higher numbers because of the tough economy and it’s not for the reasons everyone has assumed.

Indeed, for the first time since the women’s movement came to life, an economic recovery has come and gone, and the percentage of women at work has fallen, not risen, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports. Each of the seven previous recoveries since 1960 ended with a greater percentage of women at work than when it began.

When economists first started noticing this trend two or three years ago, many suggested that the pullback from paid employment was a matter of the women themselves deciding to stay home — to raise children or because their husbands were doing well or because, more than men, they felt committed to running their households.

It’s the money stupid.

After moving into virtually every occupation, women are being afflicted on a large scale by the same troubles as men: downturns, layoffs, outsourcing, stagnant wages or the discouraging prospect of an outright pay cut. And they are responding as men have, by dropping out or disappearing for a while.

“When we saw women starting to drop out in the early part of this decade, we thought it was the motherhood movement, women staying home to raise their kids,” Heather Boushey, a senior economist at the Joint Economic Committee of Congress, which did the Congressional study, said in an interview. “We did not think it was the economy, but when we looked into it, we realized that it was.”

I have long talked about how a good job, with bosses who are understanding of family issues, with opportunities for advancement, and that pays a fair wage, are the kinds of jobs most people don’t just check out of. You don’t need an HR experts to explain why there is low turnover in gigs like this.

Women are done a disservice if we all just assume they are leaving the workplace because they have a child. It’s clearly not the case for most women. Saying it diminishes the importance of changing the major negatives in today’s workplace — a growing disparity in pay among the rank and file and top executives, and the inflexibility when it comes to work-life balance.

And the occasional pricky boss of course.

There I was taking a hot yoga class when our instructor starts talking about the benefits of yoga. It was 6 a.m., and the instructor probably wasn’t totally awake. He said, “the practice of yoga helps your e-ternal organs.” He quickly corrected himself, saying he meant, “internal organs,” but I found myself laughing out loud at his faux pas.

You see, I’ve been working on a story for Business Week’s SmallBiz magazine about virtual worlds, and one of the key parts to the story are avatars, those cartoon depictions people create of themselves when they want to go into one of these virtual worlds.

When the instructor said “e-ternal” I pictured myself as my own avatar doing yoga with my e-ternal organs glowing or something. I laughed so much the other students were looking at me funny, so I felt compelled to tell the instructor after the class what got me going.

When I mentioned an avatar he looked at me like I had six heads. “What’s that?” he asked.

I went on to explain, a bit shocked that this sort-of-hip yoga guru had no idea what an avatar was.

I realized right then that we’re at a technological cross roads, a big one. Things are happening so fast, no one can really keep up with it all.

Avatars, LinkedIn, YouTube. If you’re not up on all this stuff you really need to start educating yourself.

I’m telling you folks, the work world is being transformed over and over again by technology day in and day out.

Even my own world of journalism has been altered beyond recognition in just a decade. Almost all the newspapers in the United States are firing workers as ad revenues for paper newspapers plummet; and almost every publication has a web presence. I surely could never have predicted this when I was working for a newspaper in Tampa, Florida, less than ten years ago when a weird, young editorial assistant sitting next to me was spending all his time writing about his love life on this new thing called a blog. And, I can’t believe I had no iPhone, no laptop. I was a tech dope.

Recently, my intern Katherine became a tech tutor to her mother, who is reentering the Corporate workforce after years of staying home with her kids.

It’s an odd situation to have your child teach you something, so I’m proud of Katherine’s mom for putting aside her ego and taping into her kid’s brain to help her own career.

Here’s Katherine’s take on how it went:

It’s 2pm on a Wednesday, the day before my mother starts her new job, and I, the child, am trying to teach her, the parent, about computers.

It’s been at least eight years since she has stepped foot into the corporate world, so we just want to make sure she is familiar with a few basics before she goes to work.

It’s not that she has never used a computer before (quite the opposite actually, she uses one every day). However, she only uses the computer for two things: to access the internet and to write.

In fact, to her, the computer is “a fancy typewriter.” It’s just “one that doesn’t need whiteout,” she says.

Since she doesn’t really use programs other than Microsoft Word, we’re going over things like Excel and PowerPoint. I guess you could say that I’m broadening her horizons.

Instead of jumping into the programs first, we end up browsing the web and land on social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn. I’m fairly certain she knew about these already, but now she has a more intimate knowledge of them.

After the social networking sites, we somehow end up on YouTube.com looking at a Gatorade ad. We also talk about hyperlinks and embedding things.

I feel that this is at least semi-relevant seeing as she is in the marketing and communications arena. Admittedly, the search for my brother on YouTube.com was not so relevant.

We finally get to Excel and PowerPoint, but have to get through them quickly.

First we go into Excel, where we make a table with bogus data and I demonstrate how to put formulas in place.

Surprisingly, we finish the tables, the formulas and the charts without a problem. We even put the charts on different sheets and give each a special name.

Just when I think it’s going well, she says “what about making the cells wider or narrower?” The word “seriously” may have escaped my lips.

I keep forgetting that she did not grow up with computers like I did.

After we go over the basic things I skipped, she seems less intimidated by Excel. I wouldn’t go as far as to say she is comfortable with it yet, but she’s getting there.

PowerPoint goes much quicker and simpler. We basically just discuss how to insert a new slide and format each one differently.

I know we are done when she says that she’ll figure out the rest if necessary.

Even though we didn’t get to touch on Publisher or other things, I think, or at least I hope, the poorly-taught tutoring session helped.

Now, if I can get her to stop calling a laptop a portable, then we’ll really be on the right track.

A portable. Remember calling it that? You know, I have no problem with her mom calling it a portable or an electronic box for that matter. At least she’s trying to learn what she can to keep up with it all.

Everyday we’ll learn new things. My column this week on MSNBC.com is about all these social networking sites and how the heck to figure out which one you need to be part of to further your career. I even learned a lot doing the piece. I learned a lot of this stuff is crap, but a lot of it isn’t.

That’s a scary proposition. What if you miss out on the important stuff and get mired in the crap?

But that’s sort of how life works. Every day we have to reassess what’s working for us and what’s not. That’s not a bad thing, right? Let’s look at it as an adventure, and also reach out for help to anyone we think can help — our daughters, our friends, our spouses, and me. Send me email anytime at telleve@gmail.com, and if I can’t answer your question I’ll find someone who can. You may even teach me something.

I’m sure, even in cyberspace, a digital Lewis and Clark expedition would still need a Sacagawea avatar.

There is a comfort that comes from a two-income household. While it isn’t easy when one spouse gets canned, at least the other is still bringing in a paycheck.

But what happens when both wife and husband hit career hell? And there are young children in the mix?

You have to rethink your job strategy pronto.

I got an email last week from a former newspaper colleague of mine from Tampa, Florida. It was a short note about how he was applying for a job as an emergency dispatcher with the Sheriff’s Office in town and wanted to know if he could add me to his list of personal references.

This was a bit surprising because this guy has been a journalist for years and was pretty set on this career.

He figured I would be perplexed so he added this line:

“Sounds strange, I know. I’ll fill you in on all the details soon. Right now I gotta rush this thing through.”

This morning I got the follow-up email explaining what was going on.

The newspaper he was freelancing for slashed its budget to the core and had little money for contractors like him; and his wife, a long-time employee in the mortgage sector, had been recently laid off after months of speculation that the pink slip was coming.

“So we’ve both been on the job hunt for quite some time,” he wrote. “After much drudgery and soul searching, not to mention financial hardship, here’s where we’re at now:”

His wife had just passed “her final state exam to become a certified nursing assistant, the first important (and employable) step to her eventually making RN or LPN. She’s sent out a barrage of resumes to local facilities. Fingers crossed.”

And he was pursuing the Sheriff’s dispatcher job.

Here’s some of the thought process that went into his decision to change careers:

Why do I want this kind of job? At first I was just as bemused. But I’m a good communicator if you boil me down, whether writing is involved or not. This job is mostly about talking to a wide range of people over the phone, getting the information I need out of them quickly, and recording it accurately. I’ve been doing that for the paper for over 15 years. That’s how I’ve been selling myself to the Sheriff so far, and it’s working (even though I had calm their early fears about my background in the news media. No, I’m not some deep cover reporter on special assignment, I told them.).
Besides, like most government jobs, this one has above average benefits and job security. Those are huge factors for young parents in a shaky economy.

This all makes sense. And it takes a lot of balls to totally embark on a new career path.

His choice and the choice of his wife may not be choices you would make. But I share this story because it’s a great example of how we have to all be ready to make changes and pursue new avenues in this economy. This couple was probably driven into action, in part, by the need to provide for their two young kid, both under 6.

But the bottom line is they looked at the world around them and figured out two gigs that would probably offer some job security.

Where they will end up is unclear, but they are both hard working individuals who won’t let economic hardships derail them.

It’s not easy folk, there is no way around it.

Here are some of my friends final thoughts:

“These past couple of years have been very trying to for us. We see some real light at the end of the tunnel, but we’re not quite there yet.”

If you’re looking for a town where there’s major job opportunities you should check out Fishers, Indiana, or Round Rock, Texas.

Money Magazine just released its list of top small cities to live in and these two have the highest job-growth rates among the top ten.

Fishers and Round Rock are indeed small towns, with populations of 61,800 and 92,300 respectively, but if you don’t mind that it’s an option.

I’m pointing out some U.S. cities to consider right now because my column this week on MSNBC.com is about how many readers have been asking me about job opportunities abroad. Making a move overseas is a difficult proposition so maybe many of you may want to consider something in the good old USA before you start taking French lessons.

Whether you make the move abroad, or stay closer to home, here’s a great resource list from Quint Careers if you’re even considering relocating.

Someone asked me this weekend if I had a wanderlust problem because I’ve moved a lot and had many, many jobs. New York, Delaware, Florida. UPI, Women’s Wear Daily, St. Petersburg Times, etc. It never really seemed like a lot to me, but this guy seemed to think I had trouble staying in one place.

I guess I’m not tied to one place, never have been. I could pack up and move my family overseas tomorrow and be happy as a clam. That’s just how I’ve always been.

You have to make the best of your life where ever you are. That’s how I was brought up. Maybe it’s because my parents felt forced to leave their homeland, Istanbul, Turkey. Maybe they just drummed into my head how no matter where you’re forced to go you make the best of it. They did.

I know, right now, a lot of people may be making moves across country, or to other lands, because they feel compelled to do so in this economy. You have to do what’s right for your economic health and your family. I’m here to tell you it can be great experience if you make the most of it. Go out and make friends, get to know the area, participate in community events. You make it great. Great doesn’t just happen.

I interviewed Bernd Beetz, the chief executive officer of Coty Inc., a fragrance and cosmetics producer, a while back for the New York Times, and he was one of those constant travelers, changing careers and countries often in his career.

He shared a great story with me about moving around from country to country when he was with Proctor & Gamble starting out on the management track and how he learned to adapt.

Here’s an excerpt from the story I wrote:

My career has been very international, and in some ways my father influenced that as well. I started in Germany with Proctor & Gamble, then moved to Paris, then Geneva, then Rome, then Milan, then Istanbul, then briefly in Cincinnati, then to Frankfort. I stayed in most places about two and a half years and was mainly the general manager.

At the end of the 1980s, I was brought in to help our Turkish operations. Procter & Gamble had bought one of the biggest local companies making detergent, toothpaste, shampoos. It was called Mintax. At the time, Turkey was called the Vietnam of Procter & Gamble because the operations were in a downspin. I was in my early 40s and Turkey was a totally different experience. The workforce, suppliers, unions. It was a country where the government changed the rules every other week. The initial team couldn’t control the situation, inflation was 80, 90 percent, and turnover was high. The plant looked not anything close to standard, which we had in the U.S. or Western Europe. It was obvious a lot of things needed to be done.

I immediately realized it was the way they produced, it was the way of thinking. There was a huge workforce, about 3,000 from Mintax, and the work was very manual, not very structured. They were basically living day by day.

The workers and management received me with open arms. First of all, I became part of them. Soccer is big in Turkey so I played soccer on what was the Mintax soccer team. I got close to their habits and got close to them outside, the managers, workers on the floor. I went to their homes for dinner. You go to their homes, take your shoes off, have tea. Most of the time they cooked in front of me and I saw how the meals were prepared. You got to know the whole family; the whole clan comes around. I became very visible.

Is it as easy as joining a soccer team? Maybe not. But we can all adapt if we put our hearts into it.

Bon Voyage.

Three-year-old sunflower seeds. Sweetarts. An overflowing, yet useless bulletin board. Piles of papers and folders from past projects.

If you guys missed it, here’s a link to my column on MSNBC.com this week where I share my own story of disorganization and how an expert saved me from drowning in the white hole that was my desk.

I actually had a professional organizer come in and help me organize the piles of stuff, just days after an avalanche of my stuff spilled over onto my husband Andy’s desk. (One reader calls this a “crapalanche.”)

I was writing a column on clutter and talking to all these experts, so I figured, hey, “why not have one of them help me.”

I got lots of mail after this story about my desk appeared on MSNBC.com and most of it was about how no one believed I’d be able to keep the organization going.

Shelley wrote:

I hope you will do a follow-up at some point, to let your reader’s know how it ‘took’ longer-term, and maybe ask your organizer how to cope with or conquer those types of emotions.

And on Newsvine some meanie wrote:

What is truly pathetic is that a ‘professional organizer’ had to be enlisted to clean up what looks like about three square feet of desk space. I mean that’s lazy! I am the farthest thing from a neat freak but 3-year-old food where I am working? How could this person be giving career advice? My advice? Get a bigger desk. But I bet it’s gonna look like the ‘before’ picture again within days.

That’s hitting below the sloppy belt. Anyway, it inspired me to show everyone, including myself, I can stay neat.

To prove it I will be taking a photo of my desk periodically and sharing it with you guys. Maybe we can rate my desk’s mess ratio, from one to five.

Sometimes I’m amazed and full of pride at how far this country has come when it comes to equality among workers. But sometimes I’m anything but proud.

There was a lot of hoopla over Michelle Obama’s comments recently about American pride.

“People in this country are ready for change and hungry for a different kind of politics and … for the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback.”

Many people were outraged that she would say such a thing, that she hasn’t been proud all along. But those people apparently have no clue about the prejudice that still permeates throughout our society.

Today, The American Medical Association, the largest and most respected physicians’ group in the nation, is issuing an apology to African American doctors throughout the country because of decades of discrimination against them.

Today they are doing that. This is 2008 folks, not 1958.

The Washington Post writes that the AMA is “expressing regret for a litany of transgressions, including barring black physicians from its ranks for decades and remaining silent during battles on landmark legislation to end racial discrimination.”

It’s a great thing that such an organization is expressing remorse, but it should also be a wake up call to all of us that we still have a long way to go when it comes to equality in this country.

Discrimination against African Americans in the workplace is actually on the rise. If well-educated, well-off black doctors can’t get a level playing field, what hope do rank and file minority workers have?

I wrote about a rise in workplace racism for MSNBC.com a few months back:

Many of us are marveling at how seemingly far our society has come given a man with an African American heritage is being considered a serious candidate for president. But in the workplace, attitudes toward many black workers are anything but inspiring.

Racial harassment is up to record levels in offices and factories across the country, and we’re not talking just the use of the “N” word. Racist graffiti, Klu Klux Klan propaganda and even physical threats including the display of hangman’s nooses are included among the intimidation tools.

“It is shocking that such egregious and unlawful conduct toward African American employees is still occurring, even increasing, in the 21st century workplace, more than 40 years after enactment of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964,” says David Grinberg, spokesman for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, also known as the EEOC.

It’s hard to stand up and claim to be prideful when you hear this. It’s a disgrace that in this day and age we’re still dealing with such ignorance.

We should always question injustices, just as the AMA’s past president did in a publication for the group. Ronald Davis wrote that many of the organization’s questionable actions reflected the “social mores and racial discrimination” that existed for much of U.S. history. But, he added, that should not excuse them.

“The medical profession, which is based on a boundless respect for human life, had an obligation to lead society away from disrespect of so many lives,” Davis wrote. “The AMA failed to do so and has apologized for that failure.”

Failure is a fact of human life. But we shouldn’t allow failure to go unchecked and pretend everything is great when it’s not.

So don’t be surprised if someone says they are finally proud of America when it seems, as a nation, we’re trying to right the wrongs of the past.

It seems almost everyone has a “sky-is-falling” attitude toward the economy these days.

You know we’re in trouble when long-time NPR commentator Daniel Schorr starts singing depression era songs.

“I have found myself reflecting on the recession, no depression, that I experienced in my youth,” said 92-year-old Schorr in his analysis yesterday of our present economy. After describing the horrific economic tragedy of the Depression, he then was asked by Liane Hansen, the host of NPR’s Weekend Edition, about the music of the era. He said there was one song he remembered, “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime.”

It’s a haunting song about the Great Depression written by Yip Harburg.

They used to tell me I was building a dream, and so I followed the mob,
When there was earth to plow, or guns to bear, I was always there right on the job.
They used to tell me I was building a dream, with peace and glory ahead,
Why should I be standing in line, just waiting for bread?

Once I built a railroad, I made it run, made it race against time.
Once I built a railroad; now it’s done. Brother, can you spare a dime?
Once I built a tower, up to the sun, brick, and rivet, and lime;
Once I built a tower, now it’s done. Brother, can you spare a dime?

Here’s a more updated version by George Michael I love:

While it was a great radio moment, hearing Schorr sing the old tune a cappella, I couldn’t help but think these type of comparisons are hurting all of us.

I know, Starbucks is closing 600 stores and with that 12,000 jobs will be lost. And the U.S. auto industry is in a tail spin. Not to mention banking and the brokerage industry. Thousands of jobs among hourly workers, and even among the mansion set have been hacked and slashed.

But are we really talking economic collapse? There’s been so much shrill in the media lately and among politicians that it got me wondering if we really should be making any analogies to the Depression.

Since I didn’t live through that time I figured I had to ask a historian if our present economic state mirrors the Depression, or have we all lost our minds?

“I’d be happy to offer my two cents though you ask quite the large question,” says Peter Cole, an associate professor and labor historian from Western Illinois University.

“My short answer is no, we are nowhere near the economic conditions of the Great Depression, fortunately,” he maintains.

Phew!

“While foreclosures are at the level that they were then, seeing that unemployment is SO much lower that there’s really no comparison,” he adds.

You all might be wondering why I’m making such a big deal out of this. Why I care that some people equate our present situation to something much more dire.

The reason is simple, if we think the sky is falling we may be apt to make rash career decisions right now. We may be convinced to accept less pay or benefits because everything is falling apart, and oh, aren’t we lucky that an employer has offered us a job at all.

This is never a good way to navigate through your work life, with a sense of panic.

Look, it is bad out there right now. We’re all struggling with higher prices and many of our jobs could be up on the chopping block, but we have to resist this crowd mentality of fear. There are still jobs to be had and many companies are stilling turning in profits.

So, take a deep breath and concentrate, with a level head, on your own situation and your own job opportunities.

Clearly, there are economic problems, but our worries may be feeding the flames.

Here are some more of Cole’s insights:

The tremendous anxiousness of most US workers and the powerlessness most feel, the ever-dwindling number of folks with employer-based health and retirement benefits, the very real fear that globalization will result in more jobs lost (not just in manufacturing), the seemingly-endless decline of US organized labor (essential, I believe, for a healthy society and economy with a large middle class) all suggest real issues that dramatically affect the lives of us workers as well as the entire economy. Just look at the stats on number of strikes today compared to previous decades; SO much lower. That, too, is a result of not just Bush’s anti-worker National Labor Relations Board and the Department of Labor but longer trends of corporations cavalierly ignoring US labor law because they know no enforcement is happening.

I wouldn’t say that the problems we are facing our trivial, not by a long shot, but I wouldn’t say that they have risen (or, perhaps, I should say fallen) to the level of the 1930s. Of course, it was the economic crisis of the 30s that produced many of the programs that ALL Americans have benefited from for almost a century as well as a revitalized labor movement that greatly democratized workplaces and our nation. Americans are more individualistic today but I believe that a dose of collective action would be quite beneficial. But Americans and US workers are scared and individualistic and unions are weak, if attempting to rectify that.

Now I understand being spurred to take “collective action”. But that can only be spurred by anger and disgust on the part of workers who believe they’re getting the shaft, and not because pundits, journalists and politicians pull a Chicken Little on us and have everyone running scared.

Readers often ask me to help them figure out what type of job or profession they should pursue. Lately, this question has come up even more frequently as people lose their jobs, or feel the ax is near, and figure this is a good time to go into a career they can really love.

I wish I had a career crystal ball so I could tell all of you what path you should follow when you’re ready to change careers, or just out of school wondering what to do with the rest of your life.

I don’t.

While individuals have to do this career homework themselves, there are tools out there to help you narrow your search.

I’m not adverse to personality and career tests. There are pitfalls, and I’ve written about those in the past. But overall, they can give you a good starting off point.

Today, I decided to take a couple of tests myself to see what type of job may suit my personality. Don’t worry, I’m not giving up my day job. I was just curious and figured it might help all of you to see if my results are on target or not. I’ve also asked my intern, Katherine, to take both tests. This will give us a good gauge of what these tests come up with for two people at very different points in their careers, one established, the other trying to figure out what the heck she should do.

I decided to Google “career test”.

The first site I came up with was something called SimilarMinds.

The test was short and sweet and here’s what it came up with for me:

You are an Inspirer, possible professions include - conference planner, speech pathologist, HR development trainer, ombudsman, clergy, journalist, newscaster, career counselor, housing director, character actor, marketing consultant, musician/composer, artist, information-graphics designer, human resource manager, merchandise planner, advertising account manager, dietitian/nutritionist, speech pathologist, massage therapist, editor/art director.

You all probably noticed that “journalist” is included it the types of jobs that would work for my personality. But so are “speech pathologist” and “clergy.”

Here’s Katherine’s results:

Guardian, possible professions include - counseling, ministry, library work, nursing , secretarial, curators, bookkeepers, dental hygienists, computer operator, personnel administrator, paralegal, real estate agent, artist, interior decorator, retail owner, musician, elementary school teacher, physical therapist, nurse, social worker, personnel counselor, alcohol/drug counselor.

This tests seems to me to be a bit like what you’d get from a fortune teller at a carnival. They usually tell you things that a broad and far reaching, and hope you jump on one something they say that applies to your life.

I’m not sure what you really get out of something like this.

I decided to do another test that had a bit more meat behind it, so I asked Juliet Wehr Jones of career counseling website CareerKey what she suggested, and she sent me The Career Key test.

This test costs about $10 to take and it’s much more elaborate and includes many more questions.

I scored highest on in the “Artistic” category with “Social” right behind. And I was able to be a bit more proactive with this test picking the types of jobs I would like so “poet,” “editorial writer,” and “bartender” were all on my list. That works for me.

Katherine scored highest in the “Social” category and these are the jobs that were most suited for her, according to the test:

Clinical or Counseling Psychologist
Counselor
Social Worker
Licensed Practical Nurse
College Teacher
Fitness Worker

So, what did we get out of these tests. I pretty much figured out I’m doing what I should be doing. But if I ever decide to make a change, I may open up a bar.

Katherine says she got more out of the Career Key test. “That technically I should be some kind of counselor. I think there’s a little bit to it.”

But, she adds, “real estate agent. Never. Just no.”

And, “if I was a nurse I’d probably kill somebody or something. Like ‘oops, wrong medicine. Sorry.’”

The one thing I would caution is that a bad test could actually do more harm than good at a time when you might be vulnerable and trying to figure out what your next step should be.

Lawrence K. Jones and Juliet Wehr Jones, both of Career Key, offered these tips for people wondering how to choose the right test:

* Consider taking a high quality career interest inventory. The best valid interest inventory will do four things: help you understand yourself better, match you with careers that are likely to lead to satisfaction and success, suggest careers you had not thought of, and give you comprehensive information about each one. Through this process, you learn about yourself, the pros and cons of each job option, which helps you make a successful career decision.

* For a serious career decision, choose a serious, valid test. Quizzes, games, sorters, profilers, and finders that assess and match you with jobs are all career tests. To be helpful, they must be valid measures. But few of them are. For a test to be “valid,” there must be published, scientific evidence that it measures, in fact, what the author claims it measures. If you want accurate information about yourself and job options that fit you, take a valid test.

* Make sure the test website contains information about the test’s validity. It should mention specific studies or offer a professional manual you can see. A manual will describe validity studies. If no such information is available, avoid using it.

* Look beyond credentials, links, and endorsements. A Ph.D.’s endorsement or authorship does not make a test valid; anyone, with or without a Ph.D. can create an invalid career test. Links from schools, government and professional organizations are well-intentioned, but often unreliable.

* Seek the help of a professionally trained career counselor who recognizes the importance of test validity. They can help you choose the right test and help you interpret your results. The National Career Development Association, www.ncda.org, provides helpful consumer guidelines on selecting a counselor and CounselorFind of the National Board of Certified Counselors, www.nbcc.org, can help you find a certified counselor near you.

But the bottom line is, no test will ever tell you what you should be doing with your life.

If you rely on any one test, or any one person to make such decisions you might as well just invest in a crystal ball.

It seems like a job blood bath out there. A broad range of companies, everything from car makers to latte makers, are slashing their workforces.

It’s time to start thinking about what your options are, updating that resume, and maybe even calling that recruiter who left you a couple of messages months ago.

I know, many of you think recruiters are useless. My husband compares many of them to car salesmen.

One anonymous writer on a message board where the topic was “recruiters are useless” summed it up best:

The good recruiters call you back and follow up. The idiots are three inches up your ass when they see your resume and then you never hear back if you aren’t ideal for the company that minute.

And that’s the reality of life, some good, some bad.

That said, how do you get the most out of the good ones?

*First off, you have to figure out if they’re good at what they do. There is nothing wrong with asking these recruiters about their credentials. Ask them, “tell me about the last person you placed. What kind of job did he or she get? Did they get the salary they wanted?” If a recruiter refuses to answer these questions DO NOT WORK WITH THEM.

*Look for expertise, especially if you are looking for a job in a technical field. If a recruiter has no idea what Java or PHP is, then you probably don’t want them trying to place you in a web applications gig. The big problem with working with a non expert is they won’t be able to do a great job singing your praises because they don’t understand what your praises really are.

*Beware the email written in broken English. Look, both my parents came to this country from Istanbul and struggled with learning English, so I’m not anti foreigner. But a lot of recruiting work is being outsourced to places like India, especially contract jobs, and that means you’ll get spotty results, if any results at all. One job seeker told me he got a call from someone calling himself “Bob” who had a think Indian accent, and the job lead went no where.

*You also have to do your part when connecting with a recruiter. “Recruiters can end up seeing hundreds of resumes a day,” says executive search experts Ron Bates in an article about recruitnig. “Did I mention your resume should be ‘pin sharp’? Did I mention you should always attach a resume even in a follow up email to an unresponsive recruiter? Even if a recruiter took the time to respond to your email or voicemail there is still a very good chance they have not actually seen/read let alone - saved - your resume.”

*And think about packaging yourself well. “Give them your 30-Second Elevator Pitch. Don’t tell them your life story,” Bates writes. “Ask them what if anything they’d like to know more. Ask them the best way and when to follow-up, or if they’d like to schedule some time.”

*Stick to your guns when it comes to money and benefits. These recruiters want to get you on the cheap so they have little incentive making sure you get the salary you need. If you’ve done your research and figured out what a fair salary for the job you’re looking for is, don’t let a recruiter low ball you. Make it clear that you’re not willing to compromise.

Here’s a great resource from career website Quintessential Careers for finding a recruiter in your field.

If your not going to ask these men and women the tough questions and do you homework when it comes to figuring out what you want out of a job, then forget about using a recruiter. These people will do more harm than good to your ego at a time when you might be fragile. You don’t need anyone telling you your not worth the money, or your skills are lacking if they really aren’t. And that’s just what could happen if you end up with a recruiting bozo that’s just trying to fill a quota and doesn’t no anything about your industry.

And who needs yet another person not calling you back or answering your emails.

“Frankly Eve, I’m worried about your bandwidth.”

This statement came from my editor at MSNBC.com recently. He told me this after I asked him to give me two or three additional assignments each month. With gas and prices for just about everything else so high, I’ve been feeling pressure to make some extra money lately.

When he made his “bandwidth” statement I didn’t know what the heck he was talking about. I said, “What do you mean?”

He went on to tell me he was worried that maybe I was taking on too much work and didn’t know if I could handle more. With a weekly column and small business blog at MSNBC.com, and all the other freelance work he knows that I do for BusinessWeek’s SmallBiz magazine and New York Times, plus working on a proposal for my next book, he was reluctant to give me more.

I insisted and he eventually relented.

When I got off the phone I thought: “Great. More work.”

But a day or two later I was working on a freelance assignment, and I couldn’t remember where I put a critical report I had printed out just hours earlier. My desk has become a sea of clutter lately and I was pulling my hair out trying to find it. Then I realized I had forgotten to RSVP for a six-year-old pool birthday party that my son Cheiron was invited to. And, even though it was midday, I was yawning so much I had to have a second cup of coffee. (My limit is usually one.)

Just as I was making another cup of Joe I heard the words of my editor: “I’m worried about your bandwidth.” And suddenly that statement became crystal clear in my head.

I was indeed using up my bandwidth, a bandwidth I always thought was limitless.

There are some issues here. I decided to take on more work at a time when I’ve become rather unorganized. I have no real system for tracking my work and my desk looks like a bomb went off. There’s a bag of nuts on my desk from 2004.

Any way, I ‘m getting some help with my desk. I will be writing about this for a MSNBC.com column in two weeks.

As for surpassing my bandwidth reserve, I’m still not sure that’s really happened.

I decided to ask Cali Williams Yost, fellow blogger and founder of Work+Life Fit, and author of “Work+Life: Finding the Fit That’s Right for You” what the working-to-much warning signs are. Here’s her list:

1. Consistently missing deadlines for priority work.
2. Noticing that you are making more mistakes than usual (we all make mistakes but the rate is higher).
3. You find you don’t have enough time to concentrate, and focus in order to do your job well.
4. You are feeling more tired at the end of the day.
5. This doesn’t seem to be a discrete period of extra work, it seems to have no end.

She also had some interesting insights on what exactly is too much work.

“I find many people still define it as whether or not they are able to get everything done on their ‘to do’ list,” she explains. “I’m not sure how realistic that definition is in a 24/7, high-tech, global work reality where emails keep coming in day and night and business is conducted across the global.”

A more “realistic gauge,” she adds, “is whether or not you are able to get the priority tasks and responsibilities done in a quality, non-frantic way. How you know you are taking on too much work is when too many things become a priority and the pace at which you need to work to complete those tasks is unmanageable, exhausting and jeopardizing the quality of the work.”

And I didn’t ask her for tips but thank goodness she offered them anyway:

* Sit down with you manager and team (or with yourself if you are an entrepreneur) and ask for help reprioritizing. I’ve found oftentimes managers and team members are unaware when a colleague’s plate becomes too full. Putting your head-down and just toughing it out no longer works today’s world. You need to say something.
* Rethink your planning and technology management system. Are you letting email and voicemail control you, or are you controlling it so you aren’t distracted and can focus? Are you taking the time either daily or weekly to think about what you need to a want to accomplish at work and in your personal life? Gone are the days when we can just let the day “happen.”

Boy, she’s not kidding.

Are you guys doing too much? Have you checked your bandwidth lately?