Due to ongoing political turmoil and social unrest, the Middle East is not exactly everyone’s dream job destination right now. Except for one daring woman, that is. Sweet, polite, and just 29 years old, Raquel Vasquez Llorente doesn’t look like the kind of person you’d expect to see flying into military airports in the midst of war. But don’t let her appearance fool you — she packs a serious punch.

Companies and entrepreneurs looking to spread their tendrils throughout the world step into a very complex and risky game. Doing business in one country is not necessarily the same as doing business in another.

Dear Liz, I love your practical advice and I’m glad I found your column. I am shocked to find myself with a workplace dilemma because I’ve been at my company for eight years with no problems. I am the Operations Director for a commercial insurance firm. Our revenues have been nearly flat for two years and I could bore you with the reasons for that, but it’s affected the culture at my job and has also led to a round of cost-cutting.

Dear Liz, I’m in the middle of a job hunt and I’ve just received a job offer. I don’t want the job, but that’s not the employer’s fault. It’s just that several other opportunities I’m pursuing are more interesting and offer more career advancement than the offer I have in hand. Shutterstock Here’s where my job search stands. I had two interviews with the company that gave me the job offer.

Last Sunday was Mother’s Day, and only my second one as a mom. I am still new enough to motherhood to have vivid memories of my childless days. Recently, there has been a lot of discussion about the divide between working moms and childless women in the workplace. For starters, online hostilities seem have broken out between moms and non-moms over a new novel by Meghan Foye.

I criticize many of the standard business scripts that we have been taught to follow. At the same time, traditional scripts can come in handy. I don’t want you to improvise your resignation speech and possibly say something you’ll wish later that you hadn’t said. Shutterstock Here is the standard resignation speech and protocol: • You sign an offer letter to go and work for a new employer. You stop and get a nice gelato on the way home.

I once had a client, Shanelle, who asked her employer for a demotion and a salary cut. Yes, you read that correctly. Shanelle, suffering from extremely low self-worth, was intimidated by the responsibilities of her role and felt incapable, despite regular encouragement from her employer that she was excelling in her position. Photo: Shutterstock Sometimes we are our own worst enemies.

It’s been more than four decades since the older brother famously declared that finicky Mikey liked it. The “it,” of course, was Life cereal, and anyone who grew up in the 1970s can answer that question without blinking. That campaign, with the TV commercial as its centerpiece, will forever be tightly stitched into the fabric of 1970s and 1980s American culture. The Clio Award-winning commercial first aired in 1972.

If you’ve ever messed up on the job (and let’s be honest, who hasn’t?), then you know how bad it feels: the sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach, the recurring thoughts of I should have done that instead and the lack of confidence that lingers long after the storm has blown over. Trust me: Everybody feels like this once in a while. Even at the C-level, I find myself making the occasional blunder.

Dear Liz, I read your story about Jarek, who was getting pushed out of his company. You recommended the Third Path approach to Jarek. In Jarek’s case they were planning to fire him and he knew it so he suggested that instead of firing him, they could give him a transition package and he would  leave on his own. I have the reverse situation going on at my job right now.