Vivids of My Life

Terror: A short-short story about an anxiety-prone person living in Israel

Unhinged: A short-short story about being compulsive

The "Psychic:" A short-short story about being vulnerable

Conversion: A short-short story about fundamentalism, homosexuality, and euthanasia

Norma: A short-short story about college

The Seeker: A short-short story

One-Hit Wonder: a short-short story

The Rapist: A short-short story

Average Jane: A short-short story

The Nice Guy: A short-short story without a Hollywood ending

The Wallet: A short-short story about a dilemma

A Wallet: A short-short story about a dilemma

I don’t mind my job. Actually, I kind of like it. After all, the airport is virtually empty late at night and my job is easy: clean the restaurants' kitchens and bathrooms. Sure, when I started, I almost puked when I had to clean up after men with bad aim, not to mention when removing rat carcasses—Those $2 traps do work. If only those rich passengers knew that behind those frou-frou restaurants, rodents eat for free.

And you get to see all sorts of stuff that rushing passengers leave behind in the bathroom. An airport’s johns get thousands of people sitting on the pot and when they’re done, racing to get out of there, they slam on their pants and sometimes stuff falls out of their pocket. Usually it’s just change but tonight there was a wallet, and it had $900 in it. 

First, I wondered if was a TV show with a hidden camera trying to see how honest people are. Then I thought, nah, they wouldn’t have a TV host hanging out at an airport at 1 AM. My next thought was, “Great! No one could prove it was their money. I could use 900 extra bucks. But then I realized that the owner could call the airport, hoping an honest person would turn it in and then, sleazo-me would disappoint them? Let me look inside the wallet. Maybe it’s a tycoon’s. Hmm, “Tom Michaels, consultant in employee productivity tracking.” Is he one of those guys who has people like me wear FitBits connected to the corporate computer to be sure I’m not goofing off?

I thought about it as I was pushing my cart to my next stop, Bistro Allegria. (I had to pull two rats out of there.) When I was almost there, I saw a fellow cleaner and, on impulse, decided to offer her the cash and then bring the wallet with the credit cards to the lost-and-found. That way, I’d feel less guilty.

I told her where I got the money and she turned it down. “It’s not your money to give.”

I said, "Yeah but we’re cleaning toilets for 17 bucks an hour and I’ll bet he makes 10 times that selling an electronic leash to make sure we’re earning our 17 an hour. Screw him. Keeping the money is just playing a little Robin Hood."

She softened a little: "Well maybe if we used it for a good cause, like donating it to an urban school for after-school tutoring?"

I reminded her that our tax dollars and rich people's donations to charity pay for all that.
She tried, "How about dividing it among all the bathroom cleaners?"

I said, "They’d want to know where the money came from. So we’d have to lie or we'd get in trouble."

She said, "Give it back."

My final shot was, "How about we keep $30 of it as a "finder’s fee" and I use it to take you out for breakfast after our shift?"
She hesitated and then said, "Okay."

The takeaway
If you found the $900, what would you do with it? Would it matter whether it came from a company, a rich individual, a middle-class person, or a low-income one?

I perform this on YouTube.

When There Isn't A Clear Answer: Thoughts on Seven Common Career Dilemmas

When There Isn't A Clear Answer

We've all faced a dilemma, two choices that appear equally good...or equally bad.
We may try to think or research our way into clarity, yet the right choice remains unclear.

As a career coach, I’ve certainly seen that regarding career decisions. Alas, often the best that can be done is to lay out the pros and cons and then, as the old saying goes, ya pays yer money; ya takes ya chances.

My PsychologyToday.com article today lays out pros and cons of some common career dilemmas.

When There Aren't Enough Good Jobs to Go Around

Most routine and moderate-judgment jobs will be automated. Many high-judgment jobs will require exceptional reasoning ability and technical skills. That means that hundreds of millions of Americans, not mention the billions worldwide, won't sustainably earn enough income.

Most of them will live very modestly, perhaps relying on a Guaranteed Basic Income. But even if they are thus financially supported, they will lack the satisfaction of a job: being productive, needed, appreciated. The obvious sequelae are depression, anger,  crime, and drug abuse. Is there a way to avoid all that?

My PsychologyToday.com article today offers a proposal. Your agreement, amplification, disagreement, and alternate proposals are welcome.

When There's Not Enough Good Work to Go Around

"How Did You Build Such a Successful Practice?"

Today, a fellow counselor phoned and asked me, "How did you build such a successful practice?" After I answered, he encouraged me to put it in writing, so I did so as my PsychologyToday.com article today.

The Case For and Against Striving

The Case For and Against Striving

From childhood, we’ve been urged to strive, to live up to our potential.
Too, a counterargument is often made—for work-life balance. The claim is that it’s healthier and certainly it's more family-friendly.

But rarely is an argument made for doing the minimum, the least you can get away with. Yet a perhaps not-foolish argument can be made for that.

So in my PsychologyToday.com article today, I make the argument for maximum striving and then for minimum. Sure, it’s possible that you’ll come away opting for the golden mean but perhaps not.

The Case for Audacity

More people should try occasionally being more audacious than most people would dare be.

My PsychologyToday.com article today offers examples from my life. As I’ll describe, some have worked well while others have been a disaster. But looking back on my life, my audacity has yielded more benefit than liability. I write this article to encourage you to replace some undue caution with some calculated risk-taking.

The Lazy, Yes Lazy, Job Seeker

It's unacceptable today to call someone "lazy," but rather than the usual psychologist-ginned-up "explanations" such as fear of failure, fear of rejection, etc., after 5,300 clients, I have come to believe that some people are, indeed, lazy. How to move forward from there? That's my PsychologyToday.com article today.

The Case for Audacity

The Lazy, Yes Lazy, Job Seeker

Low-Risk, High-Payoff Self-Employment

 Drawn from my new book, Careers for Dummies, my PsychologyToday.com article today is an Un-MBA for would-be self-employed people. So much of what's taught in MBA programs about entrepreneurship is aimed at the corporate employee who wants to be intrapreneurial. But most people who want to be self-employed don't have deep pockets and so the best advice is pretty much the opposite of what they'd teach in an MBA program. 

My PsychologyToday.com articles have now had 5 million page views. Thank you for reading my work. That adds much meaning to my life.

14 Careers for Consider and 5 That Are Overrated

It is standard and probably correct that there are no best careers, only careers that are well-suited to a particular person.

But sometimes the perfect is the enemy of the good and it helps for a job-seeker to see a curated list.
My PsychologyToday.com article today describes 14 careers, selected from the 340 I profile in my new book, Careers for Dummies, score high on characteristics sought by an educated readership. After describing the 14, I describe five careers I believe are overrated.

5 Preachy Pleas

Nobody likes to get preached to but sometimes, in retrospect, we're glad we got the lecture. In my PsychologyToday.com article today, I offer five preachy pleas that I hope are worth your enduring.

The Best of Marty Nemko, 3rd edition (2018) is now available

The just published 3rd edition of The Best of Marty Nemko consists of the best 86 of my 3,000 nationally published articles, including in TIME, The Atlantic, Washington Post, Psychology Today, etc.  They're on improving your career, personal life, and society.

Stress Management for the Stress-Prone

Stress rolls off my wife's back. Not mine. The tips I offer in my PsychologyToday.com article today, which are derived in part from my new book, Careers for Dummies, have helped me and some of my stress-prone clients. Perhaps one or more will help you.

Managing Your Time and Your Procrastination

Articles on time management and procrastination too quickly move to tactics. Often, foundational issues must be addressed. 

My PsychologyToday.com article today offers following prerequisites and tactics for managing your time and procrastination. They derive from my new book, Careers for Dummies.

Four Preachy Pleas

Stress Management for Stress-Prone People

Managing Your Time and Your Procrastination

Low-Risk, High-Payoff Self-Employment

Tips on Management And Leadership

As my PsychologyToday.com article today, I offer  are what I hope are some valuable yet not-obvious tips from my new book Careers for Dummies on how to be an effective, even beloved manager or leader.

Tips on Management and Leadership

Ten Tips for Parents of a Smart Child

Succeeding on the Job: Tips from Careers for Dummies

I offer tips for succeeding on the job in my PsychologyToday.com article today.

Tips for Succeeding in Your Job from Careers for Dummies

Tips for Landing a Good Job from My Book Careers for Dummies

As my PsychologyToday.com article today, I offer tips on landing a good job for people who aren't thrilled about networking. These ideas derive from my new book, Careers for Dummies.

Tips for Landing a Good Job from my new book, Careers for Dummies

Tips for Choosing a Career: Text version

Career counselors make the process of choosing a career too complicated. In my PsychologyToday.com article today, I try to remedy that by offering this precis of the advice I offer in my new book, Careers for Dummies.

Tips for Choosing a Career

Inflated Job Titles

As kids, we joked that a garbage collector might call himself a sanitary engineer. But we’re no longer joking. My PsychologyToday.com article today, explores the new generation of hype- and obfuscation-filled job titles.

How the Earth Got Conquered in 2078: A look at genetic enhancement

Genetic enhancement is seen by some as a savior, by others as a horror. I offer an  optimistic vision in my PsychologyToday.com article today. 

How the Earth Got Conquered in 2078

In Pursuit FROM Excellence

The Pursuit FROM Excellence:

There could be no more apple-pie value than “excellence.”

Yet, quietly, excellence is being attacked by social’s core mind-molders: the media and the colleges.

I explain how in my PsychologyToday.com article today. 

Why You Should Be a Liberal and Why You Should be a Conservative