Story Highlights

At Work: Control what you can, keep your eyes open

As you enter another year of uncertainty, take a cue from the people I met recently at our hotel.

Story Highlights

• New technology, trends that make jobs obsolete add to job insecurities
• There is satisfaction in doing well the job that you are doing now
• Most workers are confronting their own personal 'fiscal cliff'

Last week, I was in a place where they speak Papiamentu, a lilting Creole amalgamation of Spanish, Dutch and sometimes Portuguese, sprinkled with dabs of English that makes you want to grab a stool and listen even though you have no idea what they're saying.

5 I especially like the adjective " dushi," which means pleasing, sweet or delightful.

Most residents of Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao, islands in the Caribbean, also speak fluent English and Spanish, which I understand much better — especially when the latter if spoken slowly.

But at my hotel, another language was palpable. The one that every worker in the world 10 knows fluently: worry.

Just days before and apparently out of the blue, new management had taken over. Despite assurances that everything will be fine — new management almost always says this at the start — employees are uneasy. Can you blame them?

For many of them, the hotel has been their home since it opened in 2010.

15 No one knows the daily routine of breakfast, lunch and dinner like these workers. No one knows better the nooks and crannies where washed-up ocean debris hides, where sidewalks lead and stairwells end. No one can better anticipate and soothe anxious guests.

And yet, they worry that new management will take away their livelihood. It is their 20 personal "fiscal cliff."

In America, 74% of workers say they are concerned that unresolved fiscal problems in Washington will lead to layoffs, according to a survey conducted in December by Lee Hecht Harrison, a global career resources firm.

Workers around the world are uneasy about job security -- for various reasons, from 25 new management to new technology and trends that make their work obsolete, and a federal government that can't seem to work out long-term legislative solutions to help stabilize the economy.

This is a good time to remind you of the precautions you've seen me write about the past 25 years but that are particularly meaningful these days. They include:

30 • Don't assume everything will go along as is, or that your job will stay the same and you're safe and sound as long as you do a good job.

• Observe and analyze technological trends and social changes that can affect your career. Be focused on the new skills and knowledge you might need that will support and adapt to the changes.

35 • Assume you don't know everything you need to know. Always be thinking about what to research to enrich your skills. Consider who and what you should be listening to and reading to deepen your insight about your work and your industry.

• Don't be afraid to offer your two cents at the right time and in the right place to reinforce your good reputation at your company and in your industry. Speak up when 40 you have something to contribute.

And for the hotel workers in particular, a hope that Arthur Ochs Sulzberger was right.

In an eulogy to the former publisher of The New York Times, Donald E. Graham, chairman and CEO of The Washington Post recollected Sulzberger's prediction that the playing field for family-owned newspapers would dramatically change at some point.

45 Sulzberger, Graham recalled, said: "I just hope the new managers will be a little bit broader than just looking at the numbers."

You never know what will happen. As we all enter another year of economic uncertainty, take a cue from the workers at an island resort, where I was treated with a generous spirit and sincere caring for my well-being even as they worried about their employment 50 future.

Even though their job insecurity was on the rise, they took great satisfaction in the job they were doing — the one thing they could control at that moment.

They seemed able to forget a far bigger fear — a future that isn't yet here. They paid full attention to the tasks at hand so that they and we could have a dushi day.