Colonel Candid

As you grow you’ll have opportunities to seek out your next job or opportunity. This exciting new step comes with a potential growth in position, responsibility, and hopefully, more money. While your excitement may beam when you accept the next job offer, you may have questions about how to leave the current position you’re in right now. Colonel Candid suggests you solidly think about your next step before positing a “I QUIT” sign on your cube and just take off. Take time to think about who will replace you, your actions and the impact on your reputation, and contemplation on what to say during an exit interview. Replacement. Remind yourself as you walk into your next job that you once arrived with new eyes and had those moments where you didn’t know who to go to for toner cartridges, help with travel, or where accounting was in the building. Better yet, don’t you recall when you needed some antacids or even where the shortest line for the best coffee in the neighborhood? When ...

Despite what Joan Jett says, you should give a damned about your bad reputation. What people associate when your name is said is important. One of my first mentors, who really left an impression on me, told me your reputation matter above all else. As I work to mentor you, this is one of the first topics I need to share and emphasize its truth. Harken back to the old spaghetti westerns, I feel like I should paint a picture of an old grizzled, pencil thin cowboy saying, “your name is the most important thing you’ve got partner.” Seeing how I’m from the homestead of John Wayne, it’s fitting. But really, why does this matter? It matters because as you grow from an intern, to new recruit, to employee, to supervisor, what you’ve demonstrated before will boost you up or weigh you down. How you establish this reputation is demonstrated by your deeds and not your words. Think about people you hold in high regard, what have they done to earn this? Their actions spoke louder than their wo...