Welcome to the Jill on Money podcast. It is Sunday, May 2nd. And today we are airing the

second part of our interview with Gorik Eng. I love when you go to his website, the

first thing that it says about his book, which is called the unspoken rules, secrets

to starting your career off right. The first question is, you've landed a job now what?

And he's got some really good advice about navigating your career. One area that is of particular

interest to me is this delicate balance between trying to be enthusiastic, trying to show

that you're there to work and roll up your sleeves, but not seeming like a complete

kiss-ass to your coworkers or even your boss, because no one likes a kiss-ass. So in this

segment, we're going to start with how you can balance your enthusiasm without being

psychophantic. And then we go into more of the unspoken rules with Gorik Eng. How do you

show your enthusiasm and put yourself out there without seeming like a past or a kiss-ass?

Yeah, and it touches upon commitment, where commitment isn't a binary state. It's not

that you're committed or you're uncommitted. It's on a spectrum, where in the middle is the

zone of commitment, and you can undershoot to the point of looking apathetic, but you can

also to your point overshoot to the point of looking threatening or overbearing. And so in

this case, my one-size-fits-all approach is to mirror your coworkers, and to take a look at

those who are near to you in level of seniority, who are similar to you in terms of identity,

because they're going to be a host of unspoken rules and double standards around race and gender,

and to see who is the most respected of this group of people, and to see how they come across,

because they're likely going to be tacit knowledge that this individual may not even realize that

they know around how to manage up without coming across as a brown noser, and without having all

your coworkers see you as that kiss-ass. How do you know when it's time to leave a place?

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