Work Daze

If there’s one thing we don’t need right about now, it’s job advice from a fabulously rich, incredibly lucky celebrity doofus. I mean, I’m perfectly willing to take relationship advice from Jennifer Anniston and I owe my executive good looks to hair care tips from The Donald, but when it comes to guiding my career, I’d rather be guided by Barney than listen to the jibber-jabber of the endlessly perky and profoundly annoying Suze Orman.

I don’t know why it is that author Orman so annoys me, except for the fact that she seems to be shaking her finger at me from every television channel every hour of every day. Fortunately, I have no money, so the quality of her financial advice is not an issue. But when Suze starts putting her pinky in my racket by dispensing career tips, I object big time, especially when the advice is not only off base, but actually off-the-wall.

The career guidance to which I object can be found in a recent issue of “Money Matters,” a column Suze writes for Yahoo Finance. The title of her sermon is “Five Signs It’s Time to Find a New Job.” Right from the title, you know the advice is going to be bogus. Because there’s only one sign that you need a new job, and that’s a pink slip. Unless, like Suze-Q, you’re one of those foolish people who believe that just because your job is dull, meaningless and stupid, with no opportunity to show off your natural abilities and zero possibility for advancement, you should find something new to do.

Nonsense! A do-nothing, go-nowhere job is the dream of every sentient being. If someone is going to pay you money for doing nothing, and let you sit indoors under cozy fluorescents to do it, who in their right mind is going to argue?

Suze Orman for one. Let’s examine each of the Suzemeister’s five “signs” and determine if it’s time for her…or thee…to sign off.

1. Friday is your favorite day

According to Suze, you are supposed to love Mondays since it is the gateway day to a week of satisfying employment. Of course, there are excellent reasons to anticipate Mondays, like the opportunity to discuss Sunday’s episode of “Desperate Housewives,” but if you expect to arrive at the office on Monday looking forward to work, then you’re as whack as Bree Van De Camp. Personally, I look forward to Thursday, a little appreciated weekday and the best day to steal leftover food from the office fridge before the Friday clean out.

2. You’re bored

Of course you’re bored. You’re an intelligent, sensitive human person trapped in a soulless, unrewarding job. But it is a well-known scientific fact that being bored makes your life longer, or, at least, it sure seems longer.

3. Stress is your middle name

Suze says, “If you feel incredible pressure throughout your time at the office, take your work home with you, and then can’t sleep because you’re wound up so tightly, you need to rethink what you’re doing to yourself.” Or do what I do: sleep in the office in the afternoons and spend your nights doing something productive, like playing video games.

4. You’re underappreciated (and overworked)

Doesn’t Suze get it? As skilled denizens of the corporate world, we pride ourselves on being underappreciated. It’s a side effect of our greatest accomplishment—being unnoticed. To be an Invisible Man or Woman in the workplace is a great gift. The superpower of invisibility lets you move through your day, enjoying the frequent risible opportunities, while escaping any serious work assignments that might otherwise spoil your entertainment. (Sure, you feel overworked. Being invisible isn’t easy.)

5. You keep saying, “If I could do it all over, I would be a…”

I would be an overcompensated columnist with a fetching smile and a weird haircut. Ooops! I already am. But really, imagine how horrible it would be to start a new job. You’d have to find the bathrooms and learn the names of a bunch of new people who don’t like you. Not to mention all the time and trouble it would take to discover new escape routes from work so that you can sneak out to the Kit Kat Klub in time for the mid-afternoon, 6-for-1 cosmopolitan special.

Take it from me. If you see signs that it’s time for a new job, forget Suze. Take two aspirins, crawl under your desk, and take a nap. It’s easier.