WageSlave: Editor's Blog for AOL Find a Job

Top Toyota engineer died of overwork at 45, Japan rules

TOKYO — A Japanese labor bureau has ruled that one of Toyota Motor's top car engineers died from working too many hours, the latest decision against overwork in Japan, where stoic acceptance of extended overtime has long been the norm.

The man who died was 45 and had been under severe pressure as the lead engineer in developing a hybrid version of Toyota's blockbuster Camry line, said Mikio Mizuno, the lawyer representing his wife. His identity is being withheld at the request of his family, who continue to live in Toyota City where the company is based.

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Finally, some "better" news regarding the economy and job market.

Gas prices and gloomy financial forecasts are on the rise, but the tech industry is nowhere near a downturn as severe as the dot-com bust of 2001.
Tech sales to corporations are up about 3% this year compared with 2007, says Forrester Research. Consumer sales are about flat, says researcher NPD.

Read More

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An interesting piece on cab drivers. When your living is directly affected by gas prices, what do you do? Many of us could, theoretically, carpool or take public transportation to work, but cab drivers don't have the option. Read More Below.

Gas Hits Cabbies More Hours Less Pay

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On The Job: Soft economy can strengthen workplace biases

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True to the information age, jobs morph quickly these days. Making a career change requires flexibility and a willingness to learn the new lingo. This is also advice that can help give your current career longevity.  Get the full story below.

Reinventing Careers

"The ability to recombine your skills, talents, and experience to move between job functions, departments, or industries is a new form of job security." 

"To be successful in your new land you'd have to learn the local language and familiarize yourself with its customs and cultural expectations. The same is true when you want to move to new career territory. To bridge the divide between your old and new careers, you need to learn the language and customs of your new field…and decide what to bring along from your former job."

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Lessons Learned From Being Broke

- Know your priorities.

- Set goals and tune out peer pressure.

- Small sacrifices add up to big rewards. More

I came across this article on Kiplinger.com, and I thought it offered some great advice. It's also a little comforting in these trying economic times. A good reminder that it's not about the money, but what you do with it. Hope this is helpful.

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Fortune's latest piece, Confessions of a Layoff Coach, offers some advice for professionals who are faced with starting a new, unexpected job search. The piece also offers some inside info about the job of layoff coach... what do they do? How hard it must be to constantly be the bearer of bad news.

Here's some advice:

Q. Do you have any advice for someone who may be facing a layoff, on how to make the most of outplacement?

A. I would say two things. First, to get the most out of it, you have to be committed to the process. It's like buying a powerful computer with a lot of capabilities: You can just use it to send e-mail and type Word documents, or you can really make use of everything it can do. Outplacement is like that. Take advantage of all the different features and services that are offered.

And a related point would be, outplacement is more than just a resume-updating service. It's a chance to step back, take a deep breath, and take a careful look at your career -- to re-evaluate your goals in life. What do you really want to do next? Maybe it's time to move on to something completely different. This is your chance to find out.

There's also a quiz that helps you determine if you are at risk of being laid off.

These pieces look at jobs that may be in jeopardy and fields that are in need of workers.

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The Washington Post's latest jobs update says:

U.S. employers have now eliminated more than 232,000 jobs in the last three months. The United Stateshas not lost jobs for three months in a row since mid-2003, as the effects of the tech bubble's collapse and the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon were beginning to dissipate. Until January of this year, employers had added jobs for 52 consecutive months.

The bulk of the March job losses came, as they did in January and February, in the manufacturing and hard-hit construction sectors.

The bright spots seem to be education, health care and government-related jobs. A total of 60,000 jobs were added in these fields.

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What's the most boring job you've ever had?

Sometimes the lines can blur... and the worst may very well have been the most boring. Nanny Confessions gives us a peek at an "uncomfortable" job experience, but this Top 10 list from the Washington Post got me thinking... A boring job can definitely be a doozy... or do zer however you look at it.

Here are a few from that list.

The most boring job I ever had involved filing...lots and lots of filing (not to mention transcribing countless hours of video). I convinced myself that it was the worst job EVER, but after reading all the accounts of mind-numbing jobs in a discussion on "The Gene Pool", I have to say that perhaps I was being a tad dramatic.

Sure, filing was a bore, but it's nothing compared to some of the jobs members of "The Gene Pool" have to had to deal with. I went through the group and picked out 10 jobs, as described by readers, that I think qualify as the "most boring." Here they are...


10. Moderator Gene Weingarten: "This was my job:  I had to translate the display ads in the Mexican Yellow Pages from Spanish into English, to be republished in the American Yellow Pages.   Sometimes I got to translate them back from English into Spanish. I did this for eight hours a day."  

9. db_va: "I worked summers in college doing traffic surveys. The more accurate description would be "counting cars." We'd survey AM/PM rush and lunchtime at fast food restaurants mostly. Counting through traffic and turns on the major road, as well as entrances and exits from all the driveways of the restaurant. If it was on a really busy road, it did get a little frantic at times. But since no one REALLY knew how accurate I was, that took the pressure off a bit.."

8. Splangy: "Then there was the art studio security guard, had to watch the paint dry."

7. sarafiend: "Spent a summer as an undergrad removing staples from old newspapers and then photocopying them for archives."

What's your 'Most Boring Job'?

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