Crazy Career Advice

I've noticed that younger people entering adulthood and jobs are getting advice often crossing the border of Baffling and moving straight into Inane. The other week I heard an interview with a young woman, maybe 24 or so, who wrote a book about how people should approach getting into the workforce. But from what she said in the interview, it was largely about "What do I get," and not what could I, the new potential employee, offer that might have value for someone else. Even when advice was sound it tended to be about reining in self-absorption, like not having loud phone conversations in the office because there are people on the other side of cube walls who can hear what you say. Has this really become the sine qua non of solid business advice? Noting about learning other parts of the business, developing a strong foundation of how things work, remembering the importance of what everyone does, and so on?

And then someone pointed this out: a Yahoo article by Penelope Trunk, author of The Brazen Careerist. Some of the points are sensible, but others? They seem a attempt to create "new rules" for the sake of being different and selling books and personal brand, not to really consider what the results might do to someone's fledgling career. Here are some examples of the worst:

• Invite your CEO to be a friend on Facebook.


• Keep your headphones on at work.


• Don't ask for time off, just take it.


• Call people on the weekend for work.

Do I hear the words inappropriate, narcissistic, and anti-social? There does seem to be some common sense out in the world, though: at the time I write this, the article had 6821 reader ratings giving it an average of about 1.5 stars out of five. Maybe there's hope for the coming generations, yet.