Sounds like a leadership-track guy to me. . . Does he have good hair and a hearty laugh? Can he mansplain?

That's funny, I've heard that before. It's actually a significant point—though I think the golf metaphor might be antiquated or industry specific... at least in my circles!

Absolutely—the work needs to get done regardless of who is doing it. But occasionally there are opportunities to choose what you are doing, which hopefully these points can illuminate for some people.

Stuff like this is really important to consider. Back in Canada I went from being a bakery assistant to managing a bakery full time after the manager was injured on the job and was off work for over a year for surgeries. (Pallet fell on and crushed her foot and part of her ankle.) We were short staffed, had been for a…

Bowties are cooler.

Of course, you can't always just say "no thanks!" when your boss asks you to do something—rather, these tips refer to tasks and assignments that you might volunteer for to demonstrate what you can do, and to show your potential to move up the ladder. So don't just pull a Bartleby and say you'd prefer not to work!

You also should watch out for last-minute-thrown-on-your-desk assignments that are destined to fail. Sometimes people give you work just because they have already screwed it up and they know it is going to turn out badly, so they pass off the turd and the basic assumption is that the last one that touches it is on the…