Q. I’m about to graduate High School and I don’t know what I want to be “when I grow up”. Do you think that a career quiz might help me decide?

A. Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! But maybe not for the reasons that you think. You see, as the great Quizmaster, I’ve found one thing to be true: A career quiz, or any quiz for that matter, is always biased towards the thoughts and belief’s of the person who wrote it.

Usually a career quiz is written for entertainment purposes only. Now, if you are calling it a career quiz, but you really mean some sort of standardized occupational guidance test like professional career counsellors and the military use, then those are typically valid assessments of your career capabilities.

However, since you are asking the question here, and I am definitely not a career counsellor, then I’m going to assume that you are talking about your run-of-the-mill career quiz like the type that you find in typical magazines and on a variety of general audience web sites.

So, the reason that I said “Yes, yes, a thousand times yes” is because anything that gets someone thinking about career options is a good thing. A well-written career quiz has the effect of causing you to brainstorm over your career options. What you want to be “when you grow up” may be a moving target for you. Most people evolve as they mature and their goals change. What sounds like a good idea now may be far away from what you will eventually become. However, as I said, a career quiz gets you thinking and that’s a start!

When looking for a career quiz take a good look at the type of questions that are being asked. Remember what I said about the author’s bias earlier? You want to find a career quiz that asks “horizontal” questions rather than “vertical” ones. For example, a horizontal question might be: “Do you enjoy working against deadlines?”, while I vertical question might be “do you prefer the precision of hand tools versus the speed of power tools?”.

Horizontal career quiz questions are designed to explore general career likes and dislikes while “vertical” questions tends to try and shoehorn you into a particular career path. Now don’t get me wrong, there is a place for a vertical career quiz. For example, if you are thinking about a career in woodworking, and you are trying to decide if you want to be a cabinet maker or a house framer, a vertical career quiz is exactly what you need.

The important thing to remember is to never make a career decision based solely upon the results of some career quiz that you happen to come across. If the quiz gets you to thinking that you might enjoy some particular career, then research that option more fully. A career quiz is simply another tool to help you navigate the pathways of life. Good luck!

Why should you tip? It is amazing how often this question is asked and debated. To me the answer is painfully obvious. When someone asks me why people should tip, I answer their question with a few of my own. Do you want hot food? Do you want your drink refilled? Do you want the person taking your order to care about the quality of food you are going to eat? The answer to these questions is always yes. So why would a person that is getting paid hourly whether you eat there or not care about any of those things if there is nothing extra in it for them?T.I.P.S. – Tipping Insures Prompt (or Proper) Service. The argument above is usually very hard to argue against because there is no doubt that servers give good service based on what they perceive to be a carrot on the end of a stick. They will work hard for you and you will reward them at the end for a job well done. So to me, the question is not really to tip or not, but rather how much to tip.

Tipping standards vary greatly from region to region and country to country. To complicate matters, tipping standards change over time and what services require a tip also change. Back in high school I had a friend who believed that tipping on drinks was not necessary. I never did figure out his logic on that one but it does go to show that there are many ideas about tipping.

When figuring your tip, you should consider the following circumstances that may or may not apply to the server depending on which state you are in.

* Hourly wages are typically significantly less in the service industry, because tips are considered part of the servers income.

* Your server does pay income taxes. In absence of proper documentation of tips, the government will look at the servers food and beverage sales and base their taxable tip income on a percent of it. So if you do not tip the server, it has actually cost the server money to serve you. See the IRS tipping tax laws.

* Believe it or not, servers do not always get a paycheck. Sometimes, because of the taxes they pay and/or deductions, servers must pay in to the company rather than get a check.

* Your server has to tip too. It is very common for a waiter or waitress to have to tip out their supporting staff, ie; the bartender, buss person, food runners and others. Bartenders may have to tip out their bar backs. These tips are based often on the sales of the server, so if you don’t tip them, in addition to the 8% the government gets they often have to shell out money to the support staff putting them further in the hole. Sometimes the support staff is tipped a percent of the servers tips. So not tipping the server is the same as not tipping any of the hard working support staff in the restaurant.

* Servers do a lot of work that they are not tipped on also. It is called side work and it is work that is done for no more than their hourly rate. Side work usually involves cleaning the restaurant, stocking supplies and getting the store ready for the next shifts business. Side work can be time consuming and at times physically straining.

The most common argument (and frankly the most annoying and ignorant) against tipping is that by not tipping you are “helping” the servers cause for better hourly rates. For starters, hurting one server here and there on any given day is not going to further any cause. Second there is no cause. Most servers do not rely on their hourly income. Serving is hard, fast paced work. Servers can earn a good living from the tips they get. If servers were going to work for a strictly hourly rate, I can assure you that rate would be high. If the hourly rate were high, guess what would happen to the prices you pay when you go out to eat or drink? That money would have to come from somewhere.

Do you legally have to tip? No. Occasionally, you will have a situation where gratuity has been automatically added to your bill. This is usually on larger groups or parties. This gratuity has been added because it is easy for the server to get a tip that is far less than they deserve, because in a group setting it is easy for one or two people to under pay causing the rest of the group to fall short. Again, you do not legally have to pay this gratuity, but if you don’t you should have a talk with the server and/or manager and explain why. Remember, just because a gratuity has been added, it may still be less than a good tip for the server. For example, a gratuity may have been added at 15%. This is a tip for average service. If your server did a great job it is good to add in the difference to make up to 20% or more. Many times the server had to give up several other smaller tables to take your party, so even with automatic gratuity they end up making less on their shift.

After all that, why do servers do it? Well in the end, there are enough people out there that understand that a good tip is a kind reward for a job well done. And waiting tables can be quite profitable. It is no surprise that the most financially successful servers are typically the most friendly, efficient and entertaining. These servers are rewarded for exhibiting those behaviors. And we all want to encourage those behaviors. Don’t we?

In dating, there are a lot of written and unwritten rules. Once a particular question is asked, it can lead to a start of a debate between the sexes.

An example of such question is: who should pay for a date? Some women will answer right out, it is the guy who should pay. Some may insist on going Dutch.

Money and dating should not be in the same sentence when you are enclosed in that romantic haze, but you have to be practical and think about who should pay when you go out on a date.

The dating game is very complicated, and any aspect about it can start arguments between both genders. The least that one can come up with is some unwritten, modern-day guidelines when it comes to paying for a date. Take a look at the following:

1. The one who initiates the date would have to pay.

If you are a man going after the woman of your dreams, the basic rule of thumb is, you should be the one to pay.

If you are on your second, third or fourth date and it looks as if you will continue to see more of each other, then you can easily make arrangements on who should pay for which meal.

Should there be other expenses when you go out that needs to be taken care of, you can both decide on it as you grow more familiar with each other.

If you are a woman and you casually invited your man to go out, it would not be awkward or bad-looking for him if you offer to pay for your date since you were the one who issued the invite.

The only thing that you need to remember is that the inviter should pay for the invitee.

However, there are times when you would have more than one tab to pay.

If you decide to go to a movie first before dinner, the one who bought the tickets should not have to pay for dinner, too. Make sure that you contribute something and not let your date pay for your entire evening together.

2. If you have it, flaunt it.

Not in your date’s face, though.

If you are on a date and one is obviously more affluent than the other, then the more financially capable one should dole out the money.

If you are a woman and you know that you are more well-off than your date, do not hesitate in offering to pay up. Should your date refuse the first time, cave in, but make sure that the next time you go out, you will be the one to shoulder the bill. This rule can also apply to friends going out to eat somewhere.

This does not go to say that the one without funds should never pay, but always consider the other person’s financial means when going out on a date.

3. Get this matter out of the way right before your date starts.

To avoid awkwardness, you should immediately get this issue out of the way. For example, just before you sit down to dinner, the person who will shoulder the bill should say, It’s my treat, or Dinner’s on me. This is so that you would not have to resolve the issue – should an argument ensue – after you have eaten.

4. For men, give ample consideration for traditional or conservative women who still think that it is should be the man who would have to pay for the a date.

This rule particularly applies to women who are above 40. If you want to get on their good graces, it is still a good thing to pay for a date especially the first one. Most women from this age group might feel awkward or uncomfortable offering to pay for a date.

Generally, women will feel more pampered when a man pays for the first date. In fact, most women expect it.

Men, on the other hand, feel like it is their role to pay for the date. In this case, it is okay to throw the modern, unwritten dating rules out the window and let the men pay for the date.

5. Going Dutch is not a very good idea when going out on dates.

Aside from the complications of splitting the bill, going Dutch would not apply to every situation. This would only be good if you are a dating couple and you are both students, then you can split the bill with no harm done.

However, as mature adults, one shouldering the full bill for your night out would show your way of looking at things at a broader sense.

Paying for a date does not show what you are capable of, financially. It would also show your generosity and the fact that you want to take care of each other’s needs.

Finally, if you are in the habit of alternating payments between dates, then you are building a give and take quality that every relationship should have.