Out With the Old: The Modern Workplace

CELL PHONE USAGE in the office. Asking for paternity leave. How much YouTube you're allowed to watch during work hours. Career issues facing members of Generation X and Y seem completely different from those their parents dealt with.

In "Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success" (Warner Business Books; $23), Penelope Trunk, 40, a career columnist for the Boston Globe and Yahoo Finance, aims advice at workers who are more familiar with Maroon 5 than the Fab Four. She tells them how to navigate mid-career crises, delegate tasks as brand-new bosses and not waste time with time-saving technology.

Lynn Thorne chatted with Trunk about her new rules for dealing with the modern workplace.

» EXPRESS: You address a wide audience in your book, from recent graduates to first-time managers to veteran employees. How can the same advice fit them all?
» TRUNK: It's meant for all types of people who want to seriously align their career with their values. It's a book for people who take their lives as seriously as they take their careers and want them to work together, and not have one overpower the other.

» EXPRESS: You tell readers that it's a strategic career move to move back in with your parents after college. Why?
» TRUNK: The cost of living, especially in a big city, is almost impossible to manage on an entry-level salary. In order to use your early 20s to figure out what to do, you need flexibility, and the best way to get that is to live with your parents so that they can support you.

» EXPRESS: You say, "Don't come to work with a preconception about your job description." If you're not clear about what's expected of you, how can you do the job?
» TRUNK: Ask your boss directly what's expected in this job. It will be a very different answer than what's said in the interview. An office is interdependent, and everyone needs everyone else. Even though 15 people need something from you, only two to three people's needs will matter when it comes to [your boss determining] whether you're doing a good job. All work is not equal.

» EXPRESS: The books spends a lot of time talking about first-time managers. What's their biggest challenge?
» TRUNK: Delegation. You get promoted for doing work very well, but good managers are people who help others do their work very well. Start thinking of yourself as a person who's great at helping people. The shift has to happen immediately. The first thing you have to think is, "Who can I delegate this to?" A lot of people think delegating is not taking responsibility. But it's a gift to the people you work with; it's giving them fun work to do.

» EXPRESS: Why is it more important to be likeable than competent?
» TRUNK: There's a lot of research published that says that people are hired because of their skills and fired because of whether they're likeable. People who are competent at work but not likeable are judged by their peers as incompetent, so if you want to be judged as competent, give compliments to people. The most core career advice you can get is "learn to be well-liked." It's more important than skills, job hunting or networking.

» EXPRESS: I love your section on cutting through jargon. We always hear, "Think outside the box" and "We need to be on the same page." What are bosses really saying?
» TRUNK: All the jargon is another way to say, "Shut up and do what I say." You can actually be honest and say that. You can be honest and say, "I know you have your opinions, but we're going to do it my way this time." It's not OK to use stupid jargon to say that. Just be honest.

» EXPRESS: You advocate saying "no" to your boss. How can that help you?
» TRUNK: Your boss wants you to work on whatever is their highest priority, and he or she doesn't always know what's on your plate. It's your job to get recognition by doing great work on the thing that's a high priority. Don't do great work on things that are low priority — say "no."

» EXPRESS: You help readers gauge whether they are organized based on how they handle e-mail. Why?
» TRUNK: The key is to clear out your inbox instead of using it as a to-do list. Your to-do list determines how you spend time. If you use your inbox as your to-do list, if you check your inbox every time you sit down at your computer, you're making whoever happened to send you an e-mail that last hour your highest priority. The likelihood that they should be your highest priority is minimal.

» EXPRESS: You also offer examples of five e-mails you should never send. What's the biggest no-no?
» TRUNK: The one that makes people look the worst the fastest is BCC. People talk about office politics being backstabbing. The BCC function was put there by someone who thinks of office politics as backstabbing. The whole reason it's there is to not be upfront with people. If you're not being upfront with people, you're dead. Pretend it doesn't exist.

» EXPRESS: Do you have advice on the best way to handle leaving a job?
» TRUNK: Think about leaving as a networking opportunity. It used to be whoever you were leaving had authority over you, but now that you're leaving, whoever was your boss can be a networking link. Establish them as a solid person in your network.

» EXPRESS: You've done everything from playing professional beach volleyball to penning a column for a major newspaper. What do you know now that could have helped you along the way?
» TRUNK: Be kind and learn from everything you do. There was a woman who was almost homeless and looked crazy working at a packaging plant we had. I could tell she was in trouble. I took her out of the plant and gave her a job in the office. Ten years later, she started a company with me. [She's been a key person] in my life, and she's so smart and ambitious, but I wouldn't have known it if I hadn't been kind to somebody who looked like a mess.