From the category archives:

Career

Should You Get Your Bonus When Quitting Your Job?

Here’s an interesting one.  One of my friends turned in his two weeks notice early in the year right around bonus time figuring he had put in his time last year, earned a particular level of bonus, and had timed the departure and announcement right.  Boy, was he in for a surprise.  When the topic [...]

Share
Read the full article →

Fantasy FootBall Can Get You Fired – Score!

As you fire up your fantasy football leagues for this year, have you considered that you could actually lose your job for participating in this seemingly innocuous bonding exercise with your co-workers?  I was shocked to read an article in this week’s BusinessWeek outlining various stories where employees were brought in, interrogated over their involvement [...]

Share
Read the full article →

Fired Over 2 Cents. Where’s the Limit of Reason?

I read a seemingly ridiculous news item today (Reuters) that a company in Germany fired a 19 year employee because he recharged his Segway scooter at work with the company’s electrical outlet and in doing so, consumed the equivalent of 2 cents worth of electricity.  Fortunately for him, a German court reinstated him.  There were [...]

Share
Read the full article →

401K Match: Is This Employee Perk Going Away or Coming Back?

The 401(k) match has been something employees like myself just took for granted for decades now.  While the benefit varies company to company, the conventional wisdom had always been to make sure you contribute at least enough to max out the company match since it’s free money.  In essence, if your company provides a 50% [...]

Share
Read the full article →

With Bleak Job Market, Should College Students Go Right to Grad School?

Frustratingly, the job market environment is so bleak that many graduating college students are starting to question what to do with their degrees.  The offers are few and far between, the jobs they were targeting have no openings, and the starting salaries aren’t what they anticipated in an environment where even tenured employees are seeing [...]

Share
Read the full article →

Are You Pro-Business or Pro-Worker? Why is That?

I often think back to my teenage jobs and wonder how those experiences translated into my current outlook on work, business, capitalism and life in general.  One theme I used to encounter frequently as a low-wage unskilled worker was the plight of the business owner vs. the plight of the worker.  I recall being surrounded [...]

Share
Read the full article →

The SEC Likes Porn in the Office – Share Your Ridiculous Work Stories

Why doesn’t it surprise me that the SEC ignored Bernie Madoff?  They were too busy looking at PORN!?! According to this outrageous report, the practice is pretty pervasive at the Securities and Exchange Commission – and the consequences aren’t always very stern. This reminds me of some stories I’d heard about employees engaged in rather [...]

Share
Read the full article →

Is it Wrong to Hedge Your Own Company’s Shares?

Last year I wrote a somewhat controversial article on how to sell call options against your underlying company stock option grants or restricted stock grants in order to hedge against a potential decline while forfeiting massive upside should the shares take off (see How Options Work if this is Greek to you).  The comments ranged [...]

Share
Read the full article →

How Did Childhood Jobs Influence Your Current Financial Situation?

My wife and I were talking about teaching our kids about money the other day and she mentioned how entrepreneurial our 5 year old seems.  I haven’t really started to talk to the kids about money too much other than the piggybank 50/50 save/spend thing which will eventually become a bit more structured.  However, this [...]

Share
Read the full article →
Page 2 of 41234