Megamix

A year into your new job and you’ve seen it happen all around you – job hopping – as shifts and changes have become part of the landscape at work. You too begin to ponder; maybe it’s your turn to move on… But, wait! Do you really have to?

The credentials are right, you are a marketing professional with a management degree, and two years plus experience in multinational. That’s reason enough for people to make offers, for a placement co-ordinator to call, or for the advertisements in your daily newspaper to invite your attention, for jobsites ‘sms-ing’ you details of new job listings and make you think again. But before you go decide about that move to shift from your present job, the question to ask yourself – Is there anything unique which I know or have done which very few people have done or know?

If the answer to either of them is in the affirmative then it may not be a good idea to consider a change and if the answer does not apply to either of them then it may be a good decision to change.
Here are a few things that you must consider while making that big leap.

Risk Analysis
Before getting into that new job that one is getting, you need to analyze the new job. Two questions need to be asked —Whether the company is on a growth path and will the new job help me acquire new skills? However, the information available on growth aspects may not be correct and there will be some element of doubt which can only be minimized by analyzing the financials, checking out the credibility of the company, analyzing track records of the people in top management, talking to employees of that company; the interview process is a good opportunity to probe and form an opinion.

Consider The Work Culture
Do work ethics culture, management policies, welfare practices, team management, organizational structure et al figure in your reason for seeking a shift? Quite often it is the case. A young marketing professional says, “Office atmosphere and work ethics are not issues of concern when somebody joins the company for the first or second time, but they do become influencing factors later while making a quit/stay decision.”
Understanding the corporate culture, vision and values of a company that you either wish to quit or join is a good way to determine the feel of the place and your commitment to that organization.

‘M’ Alias Monetary Benefits
Money is magnetic, especially when you are contemplating a quit or stay decision. Nothing seems a better indicator of the rise in your career graph and your sense of worth! But actual satisfaction in your work experience will require you to dig deeper. How does your compensation compare with your peers in the organization or outside? What is your present dissatisfaction about? Will the shift to a new job with enhanced monetary benefits eliminate the present dissatisfaction? Does the new job offer you scope? Cross-functional movement? Does it capture your interest because it focuses on your area of expertise? Answering these will infuse meaning into your decision.

Discussion With Friends/Contacts
A friend of yours has joined a new organization and thinks the place will be a good fit for you as well. Trust him/her, but ask for more information about the company’s work environment, company’s vision, team management spirit, HR policies, mentors, the pitfalls—people profiles, office politics and other possible blocks. These impressions from a friend are likely to be value based and can effectively answer questions like, “Does the organization resent dissent? Is the place very hierarchical?” etc. If it’s a consultant’s call, he/she is likely to sell you the obvious attractions—money, projects, overseas assignments etc. Ask for time and ask for more information.

Optimistic Approach
Your satisfaction level is high when you have just completed an interesting and challenging project. But sometime a week later, anxiety begins to creep in about the new project you are to work on . The wait builds on your dissatisfaction and the project is finally not up to your expectations. Prepare to deal with such issues on a positive note. Keep the momentum going by investing time in learning something new, by signing up for a training program or making it to an interesting seminar. Work on smaller, achievable personal goals and targets. Looking for a change during this period is absolutely the wrong time to do.

Run Checks On EQ And IQ
Run periodic checks on your Emotional and Intelligence Quotients(EQ and IQ). This will clue you in to the ‘right break’—an opportunity that will help you grow both intellectually and emotionally. A high emotional quotient will find you feeling respected and consulted, with a sense of belonging to the organization. Does the project you are on excite you? Do you look forward to spend more time on it, and does it challenge you with real possibilities? Have you learnt new skills? Have you been rewarded for good work? Have you earned a promotion? Have you been selected for a coveted training program? A positive response to these questions gets you a high score on the intelligence quotient. When you are contemplating a quit or stay decision, remember to view the decision in totality and use the rule of rationalizing to make the right choice. Last but not the least, career planning is an art and the sooner one masters it, lesser are the mistakes one is likely to make.

Tuberculosis is an infection that often can become deadly. Tuberculosis is caused by the bacteria known as mycobacteria. Tuberculosis can attack the lungs, the central nervous system, the lymphatic system, the circulatory system, the genitourinary system, the gastrointestinal system, bones, joints and the skin at times. The specific name of the bacteria that causes tuberculosis is mycobacteria tuberculosis. Symptoms of the disease are a chronic cough, blood in the phlegm, night sweats, fever and unexplained weight loss. Tuberculosis can be spread through the air very easily. People with the disease can send the disease through the air when they cough, spit or sneeze.

There are a variety of tests that doctors need to perform before diagnosing tuberculosis. They include a chest x-ray, tuberculin skin tests, blood tests and a microscopic examination and microbiological cultures of body fluids. Treating tuberculosis is a difficult process for doctors and patients. It entails various antibiotics. Sometimes there are strains of tuberculosis that can be resistant to antibiotics. Preventing tuberculosis involves screenings and getting oneself vaccinated against the disease.

Tuberculosis is a disease that has been affecting not only human beings but also animals for over 18,000 years. Mummies entombed in Egypt have been examined and it has been scientifically proven that some of those mummies, when alive, were infected with the disease as evidenced by remnants of it in their spine. Scientists have also found strains of tuberculosis in the remains of bison that date back to 18,000 years before the present date. The one thing scientists still aren’t sure of is how tuberculosis developed over the past thousands of years. They aren’t sure if it developed from cattle and then spread to humans or if it spread from an ancestor to other humans and then animals.

The very first doctor to identify tuberculosis as a contagious disease was Ibn Sina in the 1020s. He wrote “The Canon of Medicine.” He is also responsible for developing the method of quarantine to avoid the spread of the disease or any other contagious disease. There was thought at one point that tuberculosis would be eradicated across the globe because the number of cases was beginning to drop appreciably. In 1987, cases of tuberculosis in Great Britain numbered 5,000 after numbering 117,000 in 1913. But then in 2000 the number of cases rose again to 6,300 and the number rose again in 2005 to 7,600.

The recent rise in tuberculosis cases, especially in the 1980s, is somewhat credited to the rise in HIV and patients with tuberculosis not finishing their medicine or treatment regimens assigned by a doctor. People would be heading back to the workplace and other public places before being completely healed of the condition and would begin to infect others by coughing, sneezing and spitting the contagious strain into the air around them.

As of right now it looks as if tuberculosis will never be eradicated on a worldwide stage because of the development of drug-resistant strains. This makes it difficult for doctors to treat their patients because antibiotics will not do the trick in curing the disease.