Okay, I have a confession to make. I’m still a big Soprano’s fan. So this week’s blog is going to combine the number one question that everyone in business needs to ask themselves with a short homage to my favorite Jersey family. Capiche?

“Whaddya Gonna Do?”

This question is the closest thing to a mantra on the Sopranos. Business turns south, someone goes after an important customer or suddenly the feds are wreaking havoc. Inevitably one of the characters shrugs, grabs a drink and blurts out, whaddya gonna do?

Unlike a certain organized crime family on TV, most of us do have plenty that we can do. But we are so mired in the fog of our jobs that we fail to see it.

Take a lousy boss. Whaddya gonna do? Well you can go boss shopping. Start looking inside and outside your company for a boss that you can trust. Yep, trust. Get creative with using conference rooms for taking calls to potential employers, using fake doctor’s visits to go for interviews and using letters from clients for references. Serve on committees that will increase your visibility, find excuses to meet with potential new bosses (example, by serving on a United Way committee) or just hang out in the executive bathroom until your top executive prospect hears nature’s call.

Take a crummy paycheck. Whaddya gonna do? Ask to meet with your boss to discuss a raise. After they give you a ton of reasons why it won’t happen, smile and ask for specific performance targets you’d need to hit to get a raise. Specific is the key. Find out what it will take, document the conversation then put all of your creativity to work to hit the target. But don’t just play inside your company. Start shopping your resume outside of it. That is the quickest way to getting a bump in pay, because your company will never pay you what you’re worth until you have a firm outside offer from another company. Never.

Take not having enough hours in a day. Whaddya gonna do? For most of us, the key to getting more done isn’t about squeezing more stuff into your already full eight or nine hour day. The key is to ensure that you’re focusing your best efforts into the areas of greatest opportunity for both you and your company. I’m a big believe in the 80-20 rule. I try to always put 80% of my best effort into my most important projects. It’s tough to do because the urgent always has a way of trumping the important, but you’ve got to resist that temptation and keep your eyes on the prize.

Take being scared of being laid off. Whaddya gonna do? People write to me all the time describing a lay off that came out of nowhere. And yes, that can happen. But more often than not there were subtle clues about what was going to happen. The company suddenly started cutting the budget, sending important projects to other departments and transferring the starts to other departments at your company. We all have to be careful about getting too comfortable and keep our eyes on what is next for our industry, our company but most of all ourselves.

Whaddya gonna do? Plenty. Because you don’t have to be stuck with the mob, you can chart your own course of action.

About the Author: Bob Rosner is a best-selling author, award-winning journalist and popular speaker. For free job and work advice, check out the award-winning workplace911.com. If you have a question for Bob, contact him via bob@workplace911.com .

Having written a column entitled Workplace911 and Working Wounded for fourteen years, as you can imagine, I hear from a lot of people with terrible jobs. Last time I addressed a few of my favorites, this week the worsts continue:

• Worst Interview (some worst jobs start even before you get the job)
• Worst Coworkers
• Worst Boss
• Worst of the Worst

WORST INTERVIEW
 
“I applied for a job as a researcher. I was informed before the interview that the director was chemically sensitive. She said I shouldn’t wear any scented products or even wash my hair before the interview. I complied, but when I arrived at the office, the director pointed at me from across the room and said, ‘She’s here, Bill. Could you sniff her?’ At which point, this big, hairy guy proceeded to do so—very up close and personal. Having passed the sniff test, I was allowed to approach the director and begin the interview. I later got a call saying I got the job, which, of course, I didn’t take.”
 
I’ve heard references to the “sniff test” at work, who knew that some people took it so literally?
 
WORST COWORKER
 
“The last straw for me was the guy in the next cube who would have long, loud conversations with his wife, totally in baby talk.”
 
Okay, admit it. The dumpster cleaning gig isn’t sounding so bad right now, is it?
 
WORST BOSS
 
For many years I included a worst boss contest in my speeches. I asked over ten thousand audience members for their stories. I heard some whoppers. But by far the worst all time boss story was told to me by a guy in Los Angeles.
 
“The worst boss I ever worked for? He asked his assistant to type her own termination letter.”
 
Ouch, you’ve got to be really tough to survive today’s workplace.
 
WORST OF THE WORST
 
“I had an office mate who muttered to himself and constantly interrupted me. I complained to our boss, but he wasn’t moved. His desk was directly under an old ceiling fan. One morning I left an oily machine nut on his desk. During the day I caught him glancing up at the fan. The next day I put a rusty bolt on his desk. The next, another nut and a screw. That afternoon, HE went to our boss and asked to be moved.”
 
This email gives an entirely new meaning to the phrase just dropping a hint at work.
 
Wait a minute, you’re probably saying to yourself. This guy used creativity and guile to get what he needed. How does this qualify as a worst job story?
 
Should someone really have to work that hard just to put themselves in a position to do their job? And that sums up the insanity of today’s workplace. And this guy’s not alone. Watson Wyatt, a management consulting firm, did a study that found that 62% of us report that we don’t have the information that we need to do our jobs. And another 57% report that we’re not given the skills to do our jobs. 
 
The most important lesson we can take away from Worst Jobs is not from the few really awful jobs out there, but that so many of us aren’t given the simple things we need to make ours a great job.

About the Author: Bob Rosner is a best-selling author and award-winning journalist. For free job and work advice, check out the award-winning workplace911.com. If you have a question for Bob, contact him via bob@workplace911.com.

Let’s start with my qualifications to discuss “Worst Jobs.” For the last decade I’ve written an internationally syndicated work advice column called Workplace911 (formerly Working Wounded). With a name like that, you can imagine the emails I receive on a daily basis. One example, “I decided to put a photo of my family on the wall of my cube. I got out a pin to attach it and suddenly I heard screams from the other side of the wall. Turns out my neighbor was bleeding and quite displeased.”
 
Let’s face it. We all get “stuck” once and a while at work. It’s inevitable. But this blog is about the very worst jobs out there, at least according to my email. I broke them down into the following categories and include an example for each:

• Worst Working Conditions
• Worst Assignment
• Worst Employee (yes, bad employees can create a nightmarish job, too)

DISCLAIMER: A construction worker once emailed, “I’m just happy to come home each night with all my body parts intact.” The truly worst jobs are those that present a clear and present danger to your health and safety. Each year, according to the government, fishing and mining are usually at the top of the list of most dangerous jobs. We chose to not include dangerous jobs in this article because they’re just not that funny.
 
Worst WORKING CONDITIONS
 
“I once had a job steam cleaning dumpsters.  It was even worse than you imagine. I had to climb inside of these dirty dumpsters with nothing but me and my steam gun. This was before the days of protective clothing. As an aside, many of your readers have no doubt seen corner reflectors hung on sailboats, designed to reflect radar energy back to the source so that the boat will be easily seen. It turns out that directing steam into the interior corners of a dumpster works pretty much the same way. Everything that was once stuck in the corner of the dumpster gets blasted out and comes directly back to you—covering you from head to toe in an instant. A sort of putrid tsunami.”
 
This email sums up the real value of reading about someone else’s truly terrible job. It makes each of us feel so much better about our 9-5.
 
WORST ASSIGNMENT
 
“My job was to sort through used men’s and women’s undergarments after lingerie shows across Europe (instead of discarding the unmentionables once the shows were over, the undergarments were shipped back to Winston-Salem, presumably for tax purposes). The problem was that each was different, so they needed someone to type up a description for each pair of panties, briefs, and thongs, which numbered in the hundreds. I was put into a cubicle with a computer and Hefty sacks full of the ‘inventory.’ I was assured that the garments had been washed. Scraps of paper were pinned onto each piece written with names like ‘Jean-Pierre’ and ‘Bridgette.’ I soon found out both by sight and smell that the laundry had NOT been done. I became intimately familiar with both Bridgette and Jean-Pierre and gained much unnecessary insight into French toileting habits. Because no one in the office could find me a pair of rubber gloves, I continued my task by pinching each undergarment by the least offensive part I could find and learned how to inhale through the mouth.”
 
Finally, an explanation for the question we’ve all pondered—what was Victoria’s Secret?

WORST EMPLOYEE
 
“I once asked one of my people to stop reading a People Magazine at her desk and to get back to work. She began to cry and went on disability for two days.”
 
That’s what I’d call people who really need people!
 
Next time I’ll return with more worsts:

• Worst Interview (some worst jobs start even before you get the job)
• Worst Coworkers
• Worst Boss
• Worst of the Worst

About the Author: Bob Rosner is a best-selling author and award-winning journalist. For free job and work advice, check out the award-winning workplace911.com. If you have a question for Bob, contact him via bob@workplace911.com.