I read David St. Lawrence’s blog, Ripples, regularly. Usually he blogs about corporate work or entreprenuership, especially for people over the age of 50. He has an amazing insight into working in the 21st century. He’s also an author.
I had been meaning to order his book, Danger Quicksand: Have a Nice Day! for some time, and I finally thought to myself that I knew I was going to buy it eventually so I might as well stop thinking about it and do so.
The book talks about what corporate work is like and how a worker should deal with it. Long gone are the days where you could expect to work at the same company for 50 years and retire with a nice pension. People are expecting to work through their retirement years. On top of this instability, people who have a job one day might find that they are not needed the next. Some people sign up for jobs that allow the employer to drop them with or without cause. And it happens. And it leaves employees with a bad taste in their mouths.
David St. Lawrence talks about the importance of setting the right expectations, for yourself and for your employers. He helps you identify exactly what might be bothering you about your current situation. He provides guidance to help you figure out your next step, such as how to avoid acidic coworkers and when you should start looking for a new job.
Read my book and you will get a good start on planning for your future. Don’t expect it to be like anything you have ever read. It is the absolute truth, delivered as compassionately as possible. One of my readers said, “Holy Crap! This is one scary book…I wish I had read it several years ago.”
This is the first career book written to level the playing field for employees who are trying to deal with the current realities of 21st century employment. You will laugh and curse as you see your current employment situation explained in all of its painful detail. Once you read this book, you will never drink the corporate Kool-Aid again.
He also talks about how important it is to make sure your employment readies you for self-employment. While I think he was mostly addressing the 50 and 60 year olds who find they can’t get hired and so need to have the skills to run their own business to survive, this part of the book was the most interesting to me. It was a nice reminder that I should never think that being bored or at ease at my job is a good thing. I should always be looking for a challenge. And in the end, the only safe employment is self-employment. Working for someone else means you can be fired by someone else. Since companies now operate on Internet time, the high turnover rates will be the norm. He urges the reader to be prepared for it.
I know he sometimes blogs about making your business stand out by focusing on the customer, but seeing it in action was delightful. It was really cool to see he signed the book (and spelled my name correctly to boot!) before shipping it out. The invoice had a handwritten “Thank you!”
If you are afraid of getting fired, have been fired, find yourself working for a company or employer you can’t stand, feel lost, or otherwise have issues in the workplace, this book should be a big help. It doesn’t provide the answers for everything, though. After all, you should know best how to proceed. It just provides guidance by shedding light on exactly what you are experience. Clarity and focus are great motivaters, whereas confusion and ignorance make it difficult to win. Danger Quicksand is one of those eye-opening books that lets you know how it is possible for you to work and have a sane, healthy life.