About two months ago I wrote a post about culinary careers. I reported on the significant increase in the number of cooking schools across the United States since 1996 in response to an increased interest in the field. In my post I surmised that this interest was probably, at least in part, tied to the number of cooking shows on television and pointed out the importance of going beyond what you see on tv in choosing a career in culinary arts or in any other field. A woman named Sarah posted a comment to this post in which she expressed her agreement: "I agree with your advice completely. I enrolled in culinary school in 1995, and never realized what that diploma actually brings in terms of employment. It is definitely NOT glamorous. It involves long hours of physical labor, working at times when others (friends & family) are not, and slow increases in payrates. Your advice to INVESTIGATE this future is Great!"

The advice to investigate potential careers applies to all occupations, of course. It's very easy to choose a career for all the wrong reasons. Sarah's experience made me wonder how many of you have made career choices that didn't end up being what you thought they would be. If that has happened to you, what did you do? Did you change careers eventually? If so, did you do a little more investigating the second (or third) time around? Share your stories by clicking on "Comments" below. Please take my poll too.

Like everyone else you probably have a lot of holiday shopping to do. Back in the day I remember spending my lunch hours searching for gifts at nearby stores. You can get a lot of shopping done in an hour if you put your mind to it. Nowadays I find it much more convenient to shop online. If you're looking for bargains, the Web is often the way to go. Since you probably have a computer on your desk at work, you don't even have to wait until your lunch break to shop, right? You'd be in good company. A CareerBuilder .com survey showed that this year almost one-third of workers (29%) planned to shop online while at work. While you can shop while at work, the question is, should you?

Consider this: The 2007 Electronic Monitoring & Surveillance Survey conducted by the American Management Association and The ePolicy Institute found that 66% of all employers who responded to the survey monitor their employee's Internet connections at work. Well, so what? Would they actually fire you for doing a little bit of shopping? Maybe. Thirty percent of those employers reported firing workers for misusing the Internet. Read more about Electronic Monitoring at Work.

Additional Reading:
Surfing the Net on Your Boss's Time
Twenty-Nine Percent of Workers Holiday Shop Online While at Work

The holiday season, which it seems is beginning right now, was always such a fun time at my last job. You could find a tasty treat in the staffroom everyday. If there were two things we had in common they would be cooking and eating — we all liked to do both. As proof of that, I came back from my maternity leave at well below my pre-pregnancy weight! Everyone was always very cheerful during the holiday season. One thing that kept us that way was our respect for one another and our differences.

While we enjoyed celebrating the holidays, work went on as usual. We did our jobs just like we did at any other time of the year. We didn't go crazy with gifts either. We had a grab bag at our holiday party with a spending limit of $10. And speaking of the holiday party, I don't think we had alcohol there. That certainly could be a starting point for things getting out of hand. Here are my Top 6 Rules for Celebrating the Holiday Season at Work.

The Family and Medical Leave Act, better known as FMLA, was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1993. FMLA gives employees the right to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave in a 12 month period to care for a newborn or newly adopted child or for a seriously ill parent, child or spouse without fear of losing their jobs. On November 17, 2008 the Wages and Hours Division of the U.S. Department of Labor published revisions to FMLA, the first since the law was enacted. These revisions will take effect in January of 2009. One major change to the law affects military families who either need time off to care for members of the military who have serious illnesses or injuries. They will be able to take up to 26 weeks during a 12 month period. Another change also affects military families who must step in to manage the affairs of a reservist or National Guardsman with certain qualifying situations such as short-notice deployment and post-deployment activities, to name only two.

With one hand the government giveth and with the other it taketh away. The revisions to the FMLA change the way employees must notify their employers of their desire to take leave. When one had an unforeseen illness that necessitated leave, he or she had up to two days following an absence to inform his or her employer. With the revised law, an employee will be required to use his or her employer’s standard call-in procedures used for all unscheduled absences to inform an employer of the need to use FMLA. That means notification must happen in advance of an absence.

Another change to FMLA involves medical certification. In order to address privacy concerns, an employee's direct supervisor will be prohibited from contacting the employee's healthcare provider to obtain medical certification. A healthcare provider, human resource professional, leave administrator or a management official will be the only representatives of an employer who may contact an employee's healthcare provider.

More About FMLA