As stressful as the last few weeks have been to anyone with a pulse and a 401(k), nothing’s been quite so disturbing to me as the inordinate number of times I’ve been asked, “With the economy the way it is now, will Gen Y stop being so demanding?” It may sound innocuous at first, but once you’ve heard the line a few times, it quickly becomes clear that what it really means is, “Now that you don’t have any choice, will you finally stop forcing us to do right by you and just settle like everyone else, for crying out loud?”

Well, thanks, folks. Good to know that, in all this turmoil, the silver lining for some people is the potentially broken Gen Y spirit.

But don’t start celebrating just yet. As a high-profile Los Angeles businesswoman told me last week, what said schadenfreuders don’t realize is that the outcome of the financial crisis may not be a defeated Gen Y, but a more determined one — determined, that is, to follow fulfilling work. “There won’t be any trust in companies,” she said. And the fact of the matter is, without that trust, corporate America becomes even less attractive to standout young employees than it was before the recession hit. The security that a Lehman Brothers or Merrill Lynch business card used to mean — never mind the cachet that they carried — began to evaporate as even those peers who chose the “stable” path of, say, financial services found themselves jobless. And as the list of the white-collar unemployed grows longer every day, it’s beginning to look like they’re gone for good.

Believe it or not, a paycheck doesn’t necessarily make up for all that. True, it may get a few young candidates in the door. It may even get them to stay a little while. But as today’s far more footloose Yers wait longer for spouses, kids, and mortgages — the trifecta of entrapment for the company men of generations past — they’ll be harder to corner. Every time they get a paycheck, they’ll be wondering if it’s their last. And they will always resent a company that uses that paycheck as a shackle — not to mention as an excuse not to improve the myriad other aspects of worklife — rather than as a reward for a job well done. So much so that the moment something better appears– whether it’s an NGO in Bangladesh, their own small business, or a plain old better job as the economy stabilizes — they will be out like The Flash.

So what’s a company do? (Besides advise managers not to hope for a generation of employees cowed by financial instability, of course.) It’s simple: See this time as an opportunity, not to snare young candidates while they’re down, but to distinguish your organization as one that can shine in difficult times and, as a result, attract and retain the very best employees. Yers are all about partnership, so talk to them about the challenges your company’s facing, and use those challenges to build that stirring startup energy that gets young hearts beating. And even when layoffs are a must, do them humanely, so all your employees can stay and go with dignity (and without saying mean but true things about you on every blog this side of Gawker).

As a Washington utility executive reminded me recently, Shakespeare wrote, “Sweet are the uses of adversity.” We Gen Yers are learning that, I think. Let’s see if the people in charge can, too.

Just a quick update from one of our Gig authors: It’s a new online comic strip, corporatetoolz, from Jake Greene, the author of Whoa, My Boss is Naked: A Career Book for People Who Would Never Be Caught Dead Reading a Career Book. (You may remember him from our “Could ‘Rock of Love’ boost your career?” post.)

My personal fave?

Of course, as soon as I saw this, I thought of about 15 more I’d do (if only I had a shred of artistic talent!), but I bet you guys have even better ones than I do. Care to share?

You’re wondering why, if you understand this headline correctly, this post didn’t run last week, on everyone’s favorite love-to-hate holiday, the feast of St. Valentine. Well, not to worry; it’s not you, it’s me.

So in advance of, and by way of explanation for, the office romance tips that are coming your way in a day or so, a true story:

It’s Valentine’s Day. I’ve decided, in my infinite and oversensitive wisdom, not to acknowledge the event with the office romance post I’ve been planning for weeks. Better to wait for spring, or some other equally innocuous time, than add to the Valentine’s noise that, at least anecdotally, seems to make so many people — from the kindergartner who gets the fewest cartoon Valentines in her cubby to the single, successful twentysomething with no Valentine’s date — feel so incredibly bad.

I’m on the subway, on my way home. Sheryl Crow’s “My Favorite Mistake” comes on my iPod, and as I watch the teenaged couple snuggling against the doors — she’s cradling her flowers and he’s got a big red Mylar heart balloon tied to his backpack — another young duo catches my eye. They’re chatting like they know each other, but what seemed at first glance to be a V-Day date quickly takes on another quality. She’s prattling on, laughing and gesticulating, clearly telling some serious story, and though the furrow in his brow says he’s listening, the look in his eyes is something else altogether. The smile is just spilling out of them, and he’s so nervous, he can’t keep still, scuffing his loafers every few seconds and compulsively trying to stuff his heavily gloved hands into the slim pockets of his overcoat.

He’s smitten.

Not wanting to jinx him with my cynical music (and yes, wanting to eavesdrop a bit), I pause Sheryl. “I couldn’t believe he said that,” she’s saying, “but I guess it went all right, for my first presentation.” He mumbles something only vaguely coherent about his first day and their less than likable boss, and she giggles. “Well, I’m glad it’s not just me,” she says, but they don’t touch.

And everything, from her sensible little red leather ballet flats to her pretty daytime pea coat, says long day at the office, not hot night on the town. These are, as they say, work friends. But he so wishes they were more.

And as I watch them leave the train together, I realize, I hope they are, too. Because it isn’t every day a guy looks at a girl that way. And it isn’t every girl that feels free to just be who she is around any member of the opposite sex, let alone one who might be interested. That really could be love.

So when the doorman at the hotel on our corner steps chivalrously out of the way for me, and calls “Happy Valentine’s Day!” as I walk by, I smile. Maybe there’s something about this holiday that — especially in a city like New York, where we so often ignore if not antagonize each other — brings out the very sweetest side of people. It isn’t religious, it isn’t about family, and sure, it’s commercial, but hey, this is America. What isn’t?

And maybe someday, when those two are telling their grandchildren how they fell in love, she’ll say it was Valentine’s Day, and there was something heady in the air. But he’ll know it started well before that, in the office where he first noticed her endearing insecurity and became her friend. A tad optimistic? Of course. But impossible? Far from it.

So obviously, I revised my V-Day position, and for all the people who’ve been too busy being down on love to see it blossoming in their very own offices, on Valentine’s Day and every day, we’ve brought in the experts — Stephanie Losee and Helaine Olen, authors of Office Mate: The Employee Handbook for Finding — and Managing — Romance on the Job. Next post, we’ll get their advice on starting your own office romance (and more importantly, steering clear of any drama). And in the meantime, ponder these “Famous ‘Dates’ in Office Mate History,” courtesy of our authors, and find out just what you might be missing.

• 1669 The eventual Marquise de Maintenon, then called Mme. Scarron, was appointed governess to French King Louis XIV’s illegitimate children. The secrecy shrouding their eventual affair and marriage was so successful that historians not only still debate if the couple’s liaison began in 1673, 1678, or 1680, but also what year they finally married and what, if any, influence the Marquise had in French political life. This amount of secrecy is remarkable given the way they lived: French royalty was considered so exalted, the King could not even go to the bathroom with complete privacy.

• 1762-1796 Reign of Russia’s Catherine the Great. The empress appoints many of her lovers to official government positions, including longtime partner Grigory Potemkin. His attempts to impress her by supposedly erecting hollow facades of villages on the lands that his military campaign had won give the world the term “Potemkin Village.”

• 1990 Husband and wife New York Times reporters Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn share a Pulitzer Prize for their joint coverage of China’s Tiananmen Square democracy movement. They are the first married couple to win a Pulitzer for journalism.

Have your own favorite date or Valentine’s story? As always, we’d love to hear them…

You’re wondering why, if you understand this headline correctly, this post didn’t run last week, on everyone’s favorite love-to-hate holiday, the feast of St. Valentine. Well, not to worry; it’s not you, it’s me.

So in advance of, and by way of explanation for, the office romance tips that are coming your way in a day or so, a true story:

It’s Valentine’s Day. I’ve decided, in my infinite and oversensitive wisdom, not to acknowledge the event with the office romance post I’ve been planning for weeks. Better to wait for spring, or some other equally innocuous time, than add to the Valentine’s noise that, at least anecdotally, seems to make so many people — from the kindergartner who gets the fewest cartoon Valentines in her cubby to the single, successful twentysomething with no Valentine’s date — feel so incredibly bad.

I’m on the subway, on my way home. Sheryl Crow’s “My Favorite Mistake” comes on my iPod, and as I watch the teenaged couple snuggling against the doors — she’s cradling her flowers and he’s got a big red Mylar heart balloon tied to his backpack — another young duo catches my eye. They’re chatting like they know each other, but what seemed at first glance to be a V-Day date quickly takes on another quality. She’s prattling on, laughing and gesticulating, clearly telling some serious story, and though the furrow in his brow says he’s listening, the look in his eyes is something else altogether. The smile is just spilling out of them, and he’s so nervous, he can’t keep still, scuffing his loafers every few seconds and compulsively trying to stuff his heavily gloved hands into the slim pockets of his overcoat.

He’s smitten.

Not wanting to jinx him with my cynical music (and yes, wanting to eavesdrop a bit), I pause Sheryl. “I couldn’t believe he said that,” she’s saying, “but I guess it went all right, for my first presentation.” He mumbles something only vaguely coherent about his first day and their less than likable boss, and she giggles. “Well, I’m glad it’s not just me,” she says, but they don’t touch.

And everything, from her sensible little red leather ballet flats to her pretty daytime pea coat, says long day at the office, not hot night on the town. These are, as they say, work friends. But he so wishes they were more.

And as I watch them leave the train together, I realize, I hope they are, too. Because it isn’t every day a guy looks at a girl that way. And it isn’t every girl that feels free to just be who she is around any member of the opposite sex, let alone one who might be interested. That really could be love.

So when the doorman at the hotel on our corner steps chivalrously out of the way for me, and calls “Happy Valentine’s Day!” as I walk by, I smile. Maybe there’s something about this holiday that — especially in a city like New York, where we so often ignore if not antagonize each other — brings out the very sweetest side of people. It isn’t religious, it isn’t about family, and sure, it’s commercial, but hey, this is America. What isn’t?

And maybe someday, when those two are telling their grandchildren how they fell in love, she’ll say it was Valentine’s Day, and there was something heady in the air. But he’ll know it started well before that, in the office where he first noticed her endearing insecurity and became her friend. A tad optimistic? Of course. But impossible? Far from it.

So obviously, I revised my V-Day position, and for all the people who’ve been too busy being down on love to see it blossoming in their very own offices, on Valentine’s Day and every day, we’ve brought in the experts — Stephanie Losee and Helaine Olen, authors of Office Mate: The Employee Handbook for Finding — and Managing — Romance on the Job. Next post, we’ll get their advice on starting your own office romance (and more importantly, steering clear of any drama). And in the meantime, ponder these “Famous ‘Dates’ in Office Mate History,” courtesy of our authors, and find out just what you might be missing.

• 1669 The eventual Marquise de Maintenon, then called Mme. Scarron, was appointed governess to French King Louis XIV’s illegitimate children. The secrecy shrouding their eventual affair and marriage was so successful that historians not only still debate if the couple’s liaison began in 1673, 1678, or 1680, but also what year they finally married and what, if any, influence the Marquise had in French political life. This amount of secrecy is remarkable given the way they lived: French royalty was considered so exalted, the King could not even go to the bathroom with complete privacy.

• 1762-1796 Reign of Russia’s Catherine the Great. The empress appoints many of her lovers to official government positions, including longtime partner Grigory Potemkin. His attempts to impress her by supposedly erecting hollow facades of villages on the lands that his military campaign had won give the world the term “Potemkin Village.”

• 1990 Husband and wife New York Times reporters Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn share a Pulitzer Prize for their joint coverage of China’s Tiananmen Square democracy movement. They are the first married couple to win a Pulitzer for journalism.

Have your own favorite date or Valentine’s story? As always, we’d love to hear them…

Hello, everybody! Hope your 2008 is off to an amazing start, and despite all appearances to the contrary, I have not in fact fled to a foreign country in an effort to shirk my Gig duties. Actually, I got a nasty flu and decided to spare you guys the NyQuil-induced ramblings. (And hey, I did say I’d be back in January, and technically, it is still January, right? )

But it was lovely to come back to your sweet letters, and Gig reader Juan gets a special shout-out for threatening to seek therapy if I didn’t get back to work. So in the interest of Juan’s mental health — and let’s be honest, my own; I missed you guys! — let’s get to it. We’ve got some new stuff in store that I’ll be excited to get your thoughts on, but in the New Year’s tradition, I thought we’d start with a bit of reflection. By that I mean, it’s been a few weeks since last we spoke, and in my acetaminophen haze, I had a lot of time to think. So today, friends, I’m going to torture you with…

WHAT I LEARNED OVER THE BREAK

(or “5 maudlin semi-epiphanies that are sure to infuriate Yadgyu, which only further motivates me to share them”)

Be forewarned, I really have missed you guys, and it shows in the treatise that follows. So apologies in advance. And in case you don’t make it to the end, we’d love to hear about your recent semi-epiphanies, so comment away.

1. We’re too old to spend two straight weeks at Mom’s.

Remember when you used to come home on a break and, as annoyed as you might’ve been at your parents, you kind of loved vegging at home? Well, I think those days might need to be over, at least for me and all of the other should-be independent twentysomething people we know and love.

Regular readers have probably by now ascertained that my family’s pretty tight (i.e. if we were any closer, we’d be sardines). And yet, when the kids decided that this holiday, we’d kick it old school and spend all our time off at Mom’s, we didn’t really know what we were in for.

Our hearts were in the right place; this was her first Christmas in a new house and we wanted to give her as many opportunities to cook ginormous meals as possible. But seriously, by about Dec. 28, we’d each gained 10 pounds and reverted to our worst, whiniest, most awfully teenage incarnation.

So while it’s true what we’ve often said here — that while for many Yers, there’s often nothing our moms would like better than to have us home — it’s time to have our own homes! And maybe even host our own holiday parties! The kind our parents can come to, with, like, real wine and no passing out. Sheesh.

2. We’re not too old to play Wii till 4 a.m.

The preceding tirade notwithstanding, it turns out that one good thing about regressing to childhood at home is remembering that there are some seemingly childish things that are pretty darn awesome — including, but not limited to, the Wii, hot chocolate, Legos and Animal Planet.

And incredibly, when you indulge (a bit) in these extravagances, you often come to the realization that this stuff is at least as cool as standing around at a cocktail party trying to sound smart and wishing you were home watching Adult Swim. Which is what I for one often found myself doing when I got my first real gig and suddenly started worrying about being taken seriously by my legitimately grown-up colleagues.

But as I get legitimately older myself (officially identified a wrinkle, FYI) and vaguely more secure, I’m finding that my favorite Gen Y “characteristics,” to the extent that those exist, are all our little paradoxes. Love the environment/drive an SUV. Most educated people ever/obsessed with MTV. Grew up too fast/can’t get out of our parents’ houses to save our lives. (And before you letter-writers get going, I am speaking very generally here, folks.)

So yes, sure we want to be — and should want to be — adults, but a little Wii never hurt anyone. At least not if you keep your Wii jacket on, take breaks, and clear all the furniture out of your living room. And more importantly, it does keep you from turning into into Holden Caulfield’s long-lost angstier twin, even if you do spend an eternity at your Mom’s.

3. We’re finally just old enough to learn the good stuff.

There was an upside to the aforementioned eternity, though. When we were small, our mom worked a full day; cooked dinner every evening; sewed, papier-mâché’d, and otherwise “project”ed with us every night; and still found time to be best friends with our teachers and know all our business.

As a kid, you take that good stuff for granted and ask yourself why, oh, why, you’ve been cursed with a mom who won’t just take you to McDonald’s. By the time you go away to school, you appreciate it enough to miss the nourishment, but not quite enough to understand the labor. But once you’re out in the world with a real job and bills to pay, well, then you start to get it. (Forget kids; my fish would file a petition of neglect if they could.)

Talk about your self-esteem killers. My poor sister and I will so never be as anything as our mom. Which is why this break, what with the eternity we spent at home, we actually got the chance to ask some questions and learn some things. And not the encyclopedia factoids and oft-repeated lectures we groaned at in our argumentative youth, either. But some things that are actually worth knowing, like recipes for the West Indian dishes we grew up eating, the patterns for our favorite sundresses, and the full-length versions of family ghost stories we’ve been hearing in snippets for years.

It shouldn’t be all that long before we (gasp) have our own children, and if we want to be even decent approximations of the good older people in our lives, we’d better start asking the right questions now. There isn’t much of a precedent for that in our country, and goodness knows we Yers are sometimes considered the worst offenders when it comes to valuing our elders, but I do know that we value expertise, and more often than not, the people who raised us have some that’s worth sharing.

4. Sometimes, you just have to say, “Look how amazing I am.”

As little as we know, there is something to be said for a little self-affirmation in spite of it all. Consider my brother Kamran, the RIT freshman. We’re all sitting at the dinner table over the holiday, chatting away, and our mom gets a call from one of the engineers at her office, who was dealing with a problem. She hangs up, shares some (general and totally over my head) details with us, and Kam says, “Oh, so he has to replace the filament.” Mom says something along the lines of, “Yes, precisely, exactly, quite right,” our collective eyes glaze over, and somewhere in the ensuing self-absorbed silence, Kam says to himself, and I kid you not: “Look at how amazing I am.”

Laughter, of course, erupts. But he’s so far off in his own world that he seems a tad confused about the reaction, still smiling to himself over his little triumph. Obviously, he suffered merciless derision the rest of the holiday (for this and his sheepish admission that, until this Christmas, he thought Elvis Presley’s “Blue Christmas” was in fact called “Hullabaloo Christmas” — classic).

But my mom rightly pointed out that for a kid who, after getting his first 80-something on an elementary school spelling test, spent the entire afternoon with a sheet over his face, emerging only to cry, “I’m the only one who gets B’s in the family,” some quiet self-regard was a big deal, as it should be. So regard yourself quietly, and remember how amazing you are. Just don’t tell your siblings, if they’re the sort that, you know, live to mock you.

5. A good job is like a good boyfriend.

And that, dear readers, is why I’ve been gone so long. Because, if I’m being honest, I’d tried to open my apartment door with my office key just one too many times. And had even answered my cell phone, “Fortune,” on more than one occasion. Never mind the sad realization that, as far as my brain was concerned, I’d used and abused every word I had to give, and might in fact have had nothing left to say. My work boundaries were so fluid that I was drowning on and off the job, and that does not a good life — or good Gig writing — make.

But as the proverbial “they” say, absence makes the heart grow fonder. And with a few weeks away from you and the real-life boyfriend, I’ve returned excited to see you both, with new and (I hope) interesting things to talk about, and a fair amount of starry-eyed optimism about what this year might hold. If you’ve read this far, you’re feeling pretty optimistic, too (certainly about the outside possibility that this’ll end up being worthwhile reading ). And you can probably also tell that, whatever I might say, as monstrously long as this post has been, I obviously missed writing to and for you. And that’s just the kind of re-discovery I’m hoping is in store for all of us. So here’s to making our work work for us in 2008. It’s going to be fun.

Allrighty then. Guess I did miss pontificating with you guys. But now that we’re done with that, on to the 56 million new posts I’ve been planning. And in the meantime, if my musings got you to thinking, let us know what you learned — or un-learned — since last we blogged…

Hello, everybody! Hope your 2008 is off to an amazing start, and despite all appearances to the contrary, I have not in fact fled to a foreign country in an effort to shirk my Gig duties. Actually, I got a nasty flu and decided to spare you guys the NyQuil-induced ramblings. (And hey, I did say I’d be back in January, and technically, it is still January, right? )

But it was lovely to come back to your sweet letters, and Gig reader Juan gets a special shout-out for threatening to seek therapy if I didn’t get back to work. So in the interest of Juan’s mental health — and let’s be honest, my own; I missed you guys! — let’s get to it. We’ve got some new stuff in store that I’ll be excited to get your thoughts on, but in the New Year’s tradition, I thought we’d start with a bit of reflection. By that I mean, it’s been a few weeks since last we spoke, and in my acetaminophen haze, I had a lot of time to think. So today, friends, I’m going to torture you with…

WHAT I LEARNED OVER THE BREAK

(or “5 maudlin semi-epiphanies that are sure to infuriate Yadgyu, which only further motivates me to share them”)

Be forewarned, I really have missed you guys, and it shows in the treatise that follows. So apologies in advance. And in case you don’t make it to the end, we’d love to hear about your recent semi-epiphanies, so comment away.

1. We’re too old to spend two straight weeks at Mom’s.

Remember when you used to come home on a break and, as annoyed as you might’ve been at your parents, you kind of loved vegging at home? Well, I think those days might need to be over, at least for me and all of the other should-be independent twentysomething people we know and love.

Regular readers have probably by now ascertained that my family’s pretty tight (i.e. if we were any closer, we’d be sardines). And yet, when the kids decided that this holiday, we’d kick it old school and spend all our time off at Mom’s, we didn’t really know what we were in for.

Our hearts were in the right place; this was her first Christmas in a new house and we wanted to give her as many opportunities to cook ginormous meals as possible. But seriously, by about Dec. 28, we’d each gained 10 pounds and reverted to our worst, whiniest, most awfully teenage incarnation.

So while it’s true what we’ve often said here — that while for many Yers, there’s often nothing our moms would like better than to have us home — it’s time to have our own homes! And maybe even host our own holiday parties! The kind our parents can come to, with, like, real wine and no passing out. Sheesh.

2. We’re not too old to play Wii till 4 a.m.

The preceding tirade notwithstanding, it turns out that one good thing about regressing to childhood at home is remembering that there are some seemingly childish things that are pretty darn awesome — including, but not limited to, the Wii, hot chocolate, Legos and Animal Planet.

And incredibly, when you indulge (a bit) in these extravagances, you often come to the realization that this stuff is at least as cool as standing around at a cocktail party trying to sound smart and wishing you were home watching Adult Swim. Which is what I for one often found myself doing when I got my first real gig and suddenly started worrying about being taken seriously by my legitimately grown-up colleagues.

But as I get legitimately older myself (officially identified a wrinkle, FYI) and vaguely more secure, I’m finding that my favorite Gen Y “characteristics,” to the extent that those exist, are all our little paradoxes. Love the environment/drive an SUV. Most educated people ever/obsessed with MTV. Grew up too fast/can’t get out of our parents’ houses to save our lives. (And before you letter-writers get going, I am speaking very generally here, folks.)

So yes, sure we want to be — and should want to be — adults, but a little Wii never hurt anyone. At least not if you keep your Wii jacket on, take breaks, and clear all the furniture out of your living room. And more importantly, it does keep you from turning into into Holden Caulfield’s long-lost angstier twin, even if you do spend an eternity at your Mom’s.

3. We’re finally just old enough to learn the good stuff.

There was an upside to the aforementioned eternity, though. When we were small, our mom worked a full day; cooked dinner every evening; sewed, papier-mâché’d, and otherwise “project”ed with us every night; and still found time to be best friends with our teachers and know all our business.

As a kid, you take that good stuff for granted and ask yourself why, oh, why, you’ve been cursed with a mom who won’t just take you to McDonald’s. By the time you go away to school, you appreciate it enough to miss the nourishment, but not quite enough to understand the labor. But once you’re out in the world with a real job and bills to pay, well, then you start to get it. (Forget kids; my fish would file a petition of neglect if they could.)

Talk about your self-esteem killers. My poor sister and I will so never be as anything as our mom. Which is why this break, what with the eternity we spent at home, we actually got the chance to ask some questions and learn some things. And not the encyclopedia factoids and oft-repeated lectures we groaned at in our argumentative youth, either. But some things that are actually worth knowing, like recipes for the West Indian dishes we grew up eating, the patterns for our favorite sundresses, and the full-length versions of family ghost stories we’ve been hearing in snippets for years.

It shouldn’t be all that long before we (gasp) have our own children, and if we want to be even decent approximations of the good older people in our lives, we’d better start asking the right questions now. There isn’t much of a precedent for that in our country, and goodness knows we Yers are sometimes considered the worst offenders when it comes to valuing our elders, but I do know that we value expertise, and more often than not, the people who raised us have some that’s worth sharing.

4. Sometimes, you just have to say, “Look how amazing I am.”

As little as we know, there is something to be said for a little self-affirmation in spite of it all. Consider my brother Kamran, the RIT freshman. We’re all sitting at the dinner table over the holiday, chatting away, and our mom gets a call from one of the engineers at her office, who was dealing with a problem. She hangs up, shares some (general and totally over my head) details with us, and Kam says, “Oh, so he has to replace the filament.” Mom says something along the lines of, “Yes, precisely, exactly, quite right,” our collective eyes glaze over, and somewhere in the ensuing self-absorbed silence, Kam says to himself, and I kid you not: “Look at how amazing I am.”

Laughter, of course, erupts. But he’s so far off in his own world that he seems a tad confused about the reaction, still smiling to himself over his little triumph. Obviously, he suffered merciless derision the rest of the holiday (for this and his sheepish admission that, until this Christmas, he thought Elvis Presley’s “Blue Christmas” was in fact called “Hullabaloo Christmas” — classic).

But my mom rightly pointed out that for a kid who, after getting his first 80-something on an elementary school spelling test, spent the entire afternoon with a sheet over his face, emerging only to cry, “I’m the only one who gets B’s in the family,” some quiet self-regard was a big deal, as it should be. So regard yourself quietly, and remember how amazing you are. Just don’t tell your siblings, if they’re the sort that, you know, live to mock you.

5. A good job is like a good boyfriend.

And that, dear readers, is why I’ve been gone so long. Because, if I’m being honest, I’d tried to open my apartment door with my office key just one too many times. And had even answered my cell phone, “Fortune,” on more than one occasion. Never mind the sad realization that, as far as my brain was concerned, I’d used and abused every word I had to give, and might in fact have had nothing left to say. My work boundaries were so fluid that I was drowning on and off the job, and that does not a good life — or good Gig writing — make.

But as the proverbial “they” say, absence makes the heart grow fonder. And with a few weeks away from you and the real-life boyfriend, I’ve returned excited to see you both, with new and (I hope) interesting things to talk about, and a fair amount of starry-eyed optimism about what this year might hold. If you’ve read this far, you’re feeling pretty optimistic, too (certainly about the outside possibility that this’ll end up being worthwhile reading ). And you can probably also tell that, whatever I might say, as monstrously long as this post has been, I obviously missed writing to and for you. And that’s just the kind of re-discovery I’m hoping is in store for all of us. So here’s to making our work work for us in 2008. It’s going to be fun.

Allrighty then. Guess I did miss pontificating with you guys. But now that we’re done with that, on to the 56 million new posts I’ve been planning. And in the meantime, if my musings got you to thinking, let us know what you learned — or un-learned — since last we blogged…

With December officially here, Monday marks the beginning of that most dangerous of times — holiday party season. For the geniuses among us, this will be the chance to show your best side — that witty, charming, well-dressed person you usually leave at home — and get a little work done at the same time. (What better place to do some low-key relationship-building than the company party?) But for everyone else, the holiday party can be a veritable minefield: What to wear, what if anything to drink, which folks to engage, which to avoid at all costs, and the list goes on. So we enlisted the help of a few experts to answer our questions and ensure that this year’s company party experience is your best — and, more importantly, not your last.

• Dress to impress (your boss, not that hot number at the club). The office party may be a party, but the key word for our purposes is “office.” Treat your holiday party like any other professional event, says Mary Crane, whom you may remember from 60 Minutes‘ Gen Y piece. The lobbyist turned assistant White House chef turned business coach — herself a Yer in spirit — cautions against outfits that are too revealing, obviously bedazzled, or play music. (That last one should be obvious, but Crane points to the gentlemen who insist on wearing those bow ties that play “Jingle Bells.” We’re laughing at you, guys.) If the party is directly after work, Crane recommends wearing the same clothes you wore to the office — lest one appear to be trying too hard — and says business casual is fine for off-site, weekend holiday events. And if formal attire is specified, gentlemen should go with a tux. As for ladies, they “may wear a formal-length or cocktail-length dress. They should, however, avoid any dress that will reveal more cleavage or leg than would normally be revealed at work (forget those thigh-high slits). And ladies, please do not pull ‘a Britney.’ At all times, wear appropriate undergarments.” Sage advice, to say the least.
• Drink like it’s dinner at Grandma’s, not happy hour. Get sloppy at the office party, and you’ll probably regret it on Monday, if not forever. And that’s the kind of infamy you don’t need. But we’ve had this talk before: “How much is too much at happy hour?”
• Do NOT show the love. A few drinks in, and everyone starts looking like your own personal Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie. But resist the urge! As Stephanie Losee and Helaine Olen, the authors of Office Mate: The Employee Handbook for Finding—and Managing—Romance on the Job, have a few thoughts on this one: Don’t use the holiday party to hit on a colleague, to make out with a colleague, or to go home with a colleague. The overarching theme is fairly simple: No romance at the office party. (Even those who’re already openly together should think twice about excess smishling; your coworkers don’t appreciate the gross-out.)
• Mix, mingle, and be interesting! The office party is a chance to talk to all the folks you don’t interact with every day, so take advantage of the opportunity. Crane encourages keeping the conversation light and social, and choosing topics you might conceivably discuss during office hours, such as holiday plans. And while the office party can be a good time to get to know a colleague you particularly respect, or to chat with your managers about what you’re working on, be sure to keep it casual. As the Office Mate authors put it, “Your boss is there to relax with colleagues, not fend off requests for raises or juicy assignments or—heaven forbid—advances from a subordinate who has decided the time is right to reveal a long-simmering crush.”
• Don’t close the place. Everyone agrees on this point. Nothing says lame like being the last one to leave.

And there you have it. We’ll hear more from Mary Crane in the coming weeks — about holiday gift-giving and cards — and in the meantime, check out her comments in yesterday’s New York Times story, “What Do I Do? Depends on What Week It Is.” It’s a fun Gen Y career story about oneweekjob.com specifically and Yers’ fickle career tendencies generally. Have a great weekend!

It’s been one of those weeks where I’m doing so much at any given moment that it doesn’t seem like anything’s getting done at all. Not exactly the best psychological environment for writing, if you know what I mean. So much so that after stressing for days over how to end a story I’ve been working on, I ended up getting it done in about half an hour at 4 a.m., with some random late-night TV turned down low in the background and my feet up on the coffee table.

That — and this “Career Couch” column from The New York Times last weekend — got me to thinking about spaces. When I was struggling with the aforementioned piece, I kept trying to articulate it to my long-suffering friends by saying I wasn’t in the right “head-space.” In retrospect, it’s probably that I hadn’t found the right work space. And though I know the prevailing wisdom is that one should choose a space to work and stick to it, I’m finding that as circumstances change — the type of story, the time of year, my own mood — I need a corresponding change of scenery to work. Sometimes, it’s nice to be at the window, looking out a serene city scene. Other times, it just makes me want to be outside (or depending on how things are going, jump out the window). And with this most recent piece, I think I just needed to be removed from civilization. (Hence, the bad television.)

What does all that mean for the time we spend at our desks, in our actual offices or cubicles? If the Career Couch question is any indication, it means that we need to feel at home in our offices. (Aren’t I just so clever? ;o) The column asks, “Can you decorate your workspace any way you want?” The answer, of course, is no. But there’s much more to it than that. While it’s basically common sense that you don’t want Jenna Jameson posters or banners from your last anarchists’ meeting on your wall — at least if you want to stay employed or, say, get promoted — the way you personalize your work space says something about you to your coworkers, and more importantly, helps you feel good about being there. Which is especially important these days, as the lines between the personal and professional become increasingly blurred. So what does your office decor say about you? I’ll think about it and answer myself on Monday. And in the meantime, tell us how you get into the right “space” (head, desk, or otherwise) for work…

The continuation of Friday’s “My life as a first-year… Entrepreneur, Part I”:

Back to launching the business…

Armed with my great idea, I got to work. On the weekends and at night after work, I started to lay the groundwork. I did a lot of research to make sure that the need for this kind of service was there. It is. The entry-level job market is incredibly competitive. Many of the “hot” entry-level employers these days, including major corporations, government agencies, and even non-profits, hire less than 10% of applicants. That means that getting a job at the Department of State or at a major investment bank or consulting firm or at Teach for America is tougher than getting into Harvard or Williams. And liberal arts colleges aren’t doing much to help their graduates prepare for this competitive process: At Ivy League colleges, the average student to career-counselor ratio is over 1,000 to 1, and undergrad career-oriented clubs are rare.

I also worked on my business plan and budget. Since my goal is to grow this into a national company someday, I wanted to make sure that I built a solid strategic foundation. I came up with the name – no easy task — and I developed program materials. I even started marketing a little bit and working with some “pilot” clients to test the program. Pretty quickly, my focus shifted away from my responsibilities at my old job. Somehow the “direct costs task force” that I’d been selected to lead for my former employer didn’t seem as exciting as getting my new business off the ground, so, thanks to my ever-supportive husband, I got the green light to quit my old job and work on my new venture full time. In classic upbeat, entrepreneurial fashion, I remember assuring him that I’d be up and running in no time and easily generating the equivalent of my old paycheck in no more than a few months.

Not surprisingly, things didn’t move quite as quickly as I’d expected.

Today, an inside look at one entrepreneur’s road to success — in this case, as a career coach. Emily McLellan is the president and founder of Springboard Career Consultants, a company that helps undergrads and twentysomethings identify and realize their professional dreams. An alum of Morgan Stanley (MS) and McKinsey, Emily also spent considerable time in the for-profit education sector, with Kaplan and the Edison Schools — all excellent preparation for her new profession as a career guru for young people. So though this Xer isn’t a first-year corporate American, she is pretty close to a first-year entrepreneur, which is at least as exciting as climbing the corporate ladder. So let the schooling begin…

*****

Three years ago, I would have laughed if someone had suggested that I’d launch my own business. In fact, I remember agreeing when my brother told me that he thought I’d make a great “company [wo]man” — a lifer at an organization whose product and mission I supported and where I could rise through the ranks to a great job in senior management. I guess that where I am now isn’t that far off — I believe in the product we offer, and I have incredible senior management responsibilities. The only difference is that instead of rising through the ranks, I’m creating them.

My motivation for taking some risk and going out on my own came from my idea. It’s good — a lot better and more exciting to work on than anything I was responsible for before — and I quickly became obsessed with making the concept work. The idea, which I think will resonate with many of you, is to provide structured support and guidance to college students and recent graduates entering the job market — to give them the up-to-date, unbiased, and high-quality advice that they aren’t getting on campus or from their parents.

I certainly needed the kind of advice we offer when I was in college!