TURN IN THE DIRECTION OF THE SKID. In the business world, the wheels of change are burning rubber. A permanent job has become an oxymoron. Once-potent corporate giants are staggering around on a lean diet to survive and thrive. Companies synonymous with gold watches and large pension funds are either laying off thousands of people, being bought out or disappearing from the corporate landscape.

Due to rapid changes in technology, restructuring, and global competition, you can’t rely upon the status quo. Virtually all of us will be between jobs or businesses, perhaps frequently, during our work lives. We need to continuously recreate and reinvent ourselves and our skills. It is important to detach our sense of self-worth from transitional circumstances and maintain perspective on who we are by enhancing our sense of “self-mirth.”

CORPORATE VOODOO. Companies in transition like to rotate buzzwords to describe the same predicaments. A friend of mine works for a large defense contractor, and four years ago he said the company was going through a major “reorganizing.” When I saw him a year later he said the company was “restructuring.” How is that different from reorganizing, I wondered. “Phase two. New level of reorganizing,” my friend said. The following year he asserted that the company was “redesigning.” I assumed this was a more stylish version of restructuring, emanating from the evolved management practices that originated in reorganizing.

Last year, he proclaimed at a recent networking event that the company was now “reinventing.” Changing letterheads, painting the lunchroom, even cleaning out one’s desk qualifies as reinventing. The bathroom on the third floor had a sign on the door that said, “Closed for Reinvention.” Everything in the company is being reinvented, from the cooking utensils in the cafeteria to the CEO’s wardrobe. Use your imagination to invent your own buzzword for various tasks you do.