But not everyone is as lucky as I am......

The economy is so bad that I got a pre-declined credit card in the mail.

I ordered a burger at McDonald's, and the kid behind the counter asked, "Can you afford fries with that?"

CEO's are now playing miniature golf.

If the bank returns your check marked "Insufficient Funds," you have to call them and ask if they mean you or them

Hot Wheels and Matchbox stocks are trading higher than GM.

McDonald's is selling the 1/4 'ouncer'.

Parents in Beverly Hills and Malibu are firing their nannies and learning their children's names.

A truckload of Americans was caught sneaking into Mexico .

Dick Cheney took his stockbroker hunting.

Motel Six won't leave the light on anymore.

The Mafia is laying off judges.

BP Oil laid off 25 Congressmen.

Congress says they are looking into the Bernard Madoff scandal. Oh Great!! The guy who made $50 Billion disappear is being investigated by the people who made $1.5 Trillion disappear!

And, finally...

I was so depressed last night thinking about the economy, wars, jobs, my savings, Social Security, retirement funds, and our bleak future, that I called the Suicide Lifeline and was connected to a call center in Pakistan . When I told them I was suicidal, they got all excited, and asked if I could drive a truck...

As the people who see a red-under-every-bed will tell you, this is a commie scheme to destroy America as we know it.

What they forget is that America as we know it is built on the backs of solid, working Americans, who are now hurting without jobs. Who now have to make decisions about food or medicine, because while spouting "who will pay for it" GOP is gladly paying for the tax-cut for the richest Americans while denying unemployment benefits.

They forget that 100% of the unemployment benefit will be spent right here in America, acting as a stimulus and pumping the money back into the economy.

Extending this benefit is a patriotic duty of Congress. Good thing they finally came to their senses, and shame on the 40 senators who voted against it.

Harvey Mackay's latest book, "User your head to get your foot in the door" begins with a dedication to the "dedicated" that encapsulates the message: "Dedicated to exhaustive preparation in advance of any job search step-be it polishing a resume, approaching a recruiter, or appearing for an interview."

Coming from the man who suggested, long before the days of LinkedIn, that you should "dig your well before you're thirsty," you should take that as your marching orders: you have to be dedicated to your job-search process, especially in these dark days.

One word to potential buyers: this book, like most other books of this type, is not for everyone. While the author does not come out and say it, this book is aimed solidly at middle-managers and above at white-collar jobs. If you are a construction supervisor or a machine operator, this book may help you a bit with personal growth, but probably will not help you keep or get a job.

One thing struck me about chapter 5: "12 Herculean labors to keep you on the payroll"-as a manager, these are traits I'd like to see in my employees. I try to follow these every day. It truly is a shame that Mr. Mackay has to remind people that these are things one should do to keep one's job.

Chapter 7, "Yours to Lose" gives an example of highly qualified internal candidate who loses out on a promotion because he did not prepare adequately (the Hare and Tortoise story, illustrated with Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign).

The book has 9 sections:

• Dark Days
• Reconstruct Your Attitude
• Re-employment: Your Extreme Preparation Guide
• Mobilize Your Network
• Fill In the Blanks
• D-Day: Plan the Attack
• Get Hired
• Stay Afloat
• Afterthoughts

Each section consists of bite-size chapters, often 2 pages or less. Mr. Mackay, with his years of experience and lucid writing style, has conveyed the necessary information in those short chapters. But I cannot help but feel conflicted about this. For a busy exec with a demanding schedule, this might be right, but I also feel that this leaves out an important part: the "How." In the aforementioned Chapter 7 and elsewhere, examples are given about the "what", and I am assuming it is left to the reader to convert those to action items. So these left me wanting a bit more. A "Do this:" section at the end of each chapter would have filled that craving nicely.

For someone without a job, "Reconstruct Your Attitude" would be valuable because nothing kills a job-search like being depressed.

Chapter 22, "Getting a job is a job" is the crux of this book, and amplifies the dedication we talked about before. This chapter also delves into specifics a candidate needs to do to succeed at this "job." If you remember one thing from this book, this is it.

Chapter 27, "Expose yourself" contains valuable advice about videotaping a mock interview so you can review them later. This is absolutely critical because I have seen perfectly smart candidates hew and hmm during interviews. A videotaped interview would help one overcome those, and this chapter

The next section, "Mobilize your network" is Mr. Mackay's old stomping ground, and it is no surprise that the advices are to-the-point, and useful.

Chapter 39 is an "Interview Prep Checklist" and all 44 items are worth following.

Rest of the chapters, while not specifically cited in this review, are also extremely useful depending on your situation.

This book, like all of Mr. Mackay's books, was excellent and useful. I would definitely recommend it.

You can buy it on Amazon:

Use Your Head to Get Your Foot in the Door: Job Search Secrets No One Else Will Tell You

Paul Kurgman writes in the New York Times.

Today, American workers face the worst job market since the Great Depression, with five job seekers for every job opening, with the average spell of unemployment now at 35 weeks. Yet the Senate went home for the holiday weekend without extending benefits. How was that possible?

The answer is that we're facing a coalition of the heartless, the clueless and the confused. Nothing can be done about the first group, and probably not much about the second. But maybe it's possible to clear up some of the confusion.

By the heartless, I mean Republicans who have made the cynical calculation that blocking anything President Obama tries to do - including, or perhaps especially, anything that might alleviate the nation's economic pain - improves their chances in the midterm elections. Don't pretend to be shocked: you know they're out there, and make up a large share of the G.O.P. caucus.

By the clueless I mean people like Sharron Angle, the Republican candidate for senator from Nevada, who has repeatedly insisted that the unemployed are deliberately choosing to stay jobless, so that they can keep collecting benefits. A sample remark: "You can make more money on unemployment than you can going down and getting one of those jobs that is an honest job but it doesn't pay as much. We've put in so much entitlement into our government that we really have spoiled our citizenry."

Now, I don't have the impression that unemployed Americans are spoiled; desperate seems more like it. One doubts, however, that any amount of evidence could change Ms. Angle's view of the world - and there are, unfortunately, a lot of people in our political class just like her.

What is scary is, people like Sharron Angle somehow manage to convince the jobless that she has their best interest in mind.

(From Cracked.com)

"It is painful to see old age working itself to death, in what are called civilised countries, for daily bread... pay to every such person of the age of fifty years ... the sum of six pounds per annum out of the surplus taxes, and ten pounds per annum during life after the age of sixty... This support, as already remarked, is not of the nature of a charity but of a right." Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man.

"Pay as a remission of taxes to every poor family, out of the surplus taxes, and in room of poor-rates, four pounds a year for every child under fourteen years of age." Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man.

"There could be no such thing as landed property originally. Man did not make the earth, and, though he had a natural right to occupy it, he had no right to locate as his property in perpetuity any part of it." Thomas Paine, Agrarian Justice.

It almost sounds like he's about to say we should all share in the wealth or somethi-

"Create a national fund, out of which there shall be paid to every person, when arrived at the age of twenty-one years, the sum of fifteen pounds sterling, as a compensation in part, for the loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property." Thomas Paine, Agrarian Justice.

Boston Globe has an article about people dumbing down their resume to avoid the dreaded "overqualified" response.

Hmm.. I am not sure rebranding a "Marketing Director" position into a "Marketing Manager" is ethical, despite what the article says.

Kevin Lewis writes about a study in a Boston Globe article:

Watching the news some days, you'd think a lot of companies were run by psychopaths. And, according to a recent study, some might well be. One of the authors of the study was hired by companies to evaluate managers - mostly middle-aged, college-educated, white males - for a management development program. It turns out that these managers scored higher on measures of psychopathy than the overall population, and some who had very high scores were candidates for, or held, senior positions. In general, managers with higher scores were seen as better communicators, better strategic thinkers, and more creative. However, they were also seen as having poor management style, not being team players, and delivering poor performance. But, apparently, this didn't prevent some of them from being seen as having leadership potential. The authors conclude that "the very skills that make the psychopath so unpleasant (and sometimes abusive) in society can facilitate a career in business even in the face of negative performance ratings."

Babiak, P. et al., "Corporate Psychopathy: Talking the Walk," Behavioral Sciences & the Law (March/April 2010).

If you lose your job these days, it's worth scrambling to find a new one fast. After six months of unemployment, your chances of landing work dwindle.

The proportion of people jobless for six months or more has accelerated in the past year and now makes up 46 percent of the unemployed. That's the highest percentage on records dating to 1948. By late summer or early fall, they are expected to make up half of all jobless Americans.

Read the whole article on Huffington Post

Laura Bassett @ The Huffington Post writes:

Still waiting for a response to the 300 resumés you sent out last month? Bad news: Some companies are ignoring all unemployed applicants.

In a current job posting on The People Place, a job recruiting website for the telecommunications, aerospace/defense and engineering industries, an anonymous electronics company in Angleton, Texas, advertises for a "Quality Engineer." Qualifications for the job are the usual: computer skills, oral and written communication skills, light to moderate lifting. But red print at the bottom of the ad says, "Client will not consider/review anyone NOT currently employed regardless of the reason."

WTF? How do you break this Catch-22?

Read the article. It made my blood boil.