Although the current economic crisis creates a sense of urgency, we have always had and will always have a large number of people who are unemployed. For many, it is the most difficult time that they have ever faced. Without help, the unemployed face an increased risk of binge drinking, depression, anxiety and suicide. For many, there is a decreased quality of mental health, life satisfaction and objective physical wellbeing. Most feel alone and helpless. Dr Robert Leahy has worked with many unemployed people over the years, examining the psychological consequences of unemployment and exploring ways to help people cope with the emotional fallout of losing their job. This book gives readers psychological tools to handle their period of unemployment and simple, self-help strategies that can be used immediately to help them feel better and act better. The book draws on cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) as well as practices such as mindfulness to help readers boost their self-esteem and confidence, decrease anxiety and feelings of helplessness, and develop resiliance and strength going forward.

In Passionate Work, Renyi Hong theorizes the notion of being “passionate about your work” as an affective project that encourages people to endure economically trying situations like unemployment, job change, repetitive and menial labor, and freelancing. Not simply a subject of aspiration, passion has been deployed as a means to build resilience and mend disappointments with our experiences of work. Tracking the rise of passion in nineteenth-century management to trends like gamification, coworking, and unemployment insurance, Hong demonstrates how passion can emerge in instances that would not typically be understood as passionate. Gamification numbs crippling boredom by keeping call center workers in an unthinking, suspensive state, pursuing even the most banal tasks in hope of career advancement. Coworking spaces marketed toward freelancers combat loneliness and disconnection at the precise moment when middle-class sureties are profoundly threatened. Ultimately, Hong argues, the ideal of passionate work sustains a condition of cruel optimism in which passion is offered as the solution for the injustices of contemporary capitalism.

Career derailment, found at all organizational levels in the workplace, is under-documented. Most books examining how careers go off track deal with abstract concepts and focus only on top executives. This book defines 99 potentially career-ending pitfalls, illustrated with real-world examples, and offers specific advice to employees at all levels in business, nonprofit, military, government and other organizations. Topics include the consequences of power and pleasing, the illusion of immunity, meeting behavior, corrective feedback, ineffective image, nonverbal behavior, self-serving analysis and the perception of management as a science. Perspectives are provided on avoiding the indirect hazards of working with superiors or subordinates who may be on the path to derailment. A reader self-assessment is included.