Dear Joyce: At 34, I'd like to start a family, but dare not quit my job because my husband was fired from his last three jobs and who knows how long this one will last. He's actually quite brilliant in his field, information technology, but his lack of social skills gets him in trouble. I've attached a list of behaviors that have caused co-workers to complain. Should I just stay out of it and hope for the best? -- C.N.

Dear C.N.: Your husband's objectionable behaviors on the list -- from acting as though everyone whose lives were shaped by the Great Depression and World War II are imbeciles to habitually grunting monosyllabic answers when explaining technology to technically challenged co-workers -- suggest that you may be married to a man who lacks emotional intelligence.

Daniel Goleman challenged the way we think about what it means to be smart with his 1997 bestseller, "Emotional Intelligence." Other authors jumped on the bandwagon of factoring in emotions for successful work lives, and this year Goleman came out with targeted insights in "Working with Emotional Intelligence." Read these books to broaden your perspective.

In yet another insightful new book, "Maximum Success," Harvard business psychologists James Waldroop and Timothy Butler write that people such as your husband have a hard time recognizing emotions in others, which puts them at an enormous disadvantage at work. Waldroop and Butler call people like your husband "Spocks" (for brilliant but emotion-free Vulcan Mr. Spock in "Star Trek"). They see trouble ahead for the Spocks of the business world: "(In earlier times) engineers, accountants and a host of other specialists had to worry about only their specific responsibilities or expertise. But in the new service-oriented economy, everyone has a customer, whether the customer is outside the company or within it. And customers are far less predictable and malleable than numbers. You can't explain something to one person with the same language you use with another... More understanding of other people is more necessary today than in the past."

Waldroop and Butler describe a Spock client whose boss, responding to an epidemic of complaints, insisted Spock get psychological help. After a year of assigned drills in which the authors required Spock to praise or thank at least two people in every meeting or practice some other humanizing activity such as making direct eye contact, Spock, unsurprisingly, did not morph into a different person. But the good news is that Spock did acknowledge his emotional deficiency and worked to paper over it. Spock's behavior changed for the better.

Did that list of your husband's behaviors really come from his workplace or is it a product of your observations? I urge you to consult a family therapist before making a major life change.

Dear Joyce: I am 32, have some college but no degree, and thus far, have had no trouble at all changing jobs, with each better than the last. But I've noticed that lately the business media is mentioning "recession" and "soft landing for the economy." What's your advice -- get my degree, stay planted or change jobs quickly so I'll be established in case the economy goes bust? -- E.I.G.

Dear E.I.G.: A conservative strategy is to remain employed and get your degree at night or by distance education. A lack of the degree credential shuts you out of many jobs -- your résumé won't even see daylight if a degree requirement is entered as a keyword in a computer search.

Switching jobs in an economy where storm clouds are said to be gathering used to be an easy call because layoffs were governed by the LIFO process -- last in, first out. You didn't want to be the new kid on the block. But now when layoffs occur, employers don't always chop the latest hires. That questionable honor increasingly goes to the oldest and best-paid employees.

This fabulous economy may pale -- who really knows? But even though you've never experienced a poor job market, be bullish on yourself. Keep climbing and don't be spooked into a rut. But do try to hang around a job long enough to get pension benefits vested.

Send career questions for possible use in this column to Joyce Lain Kennedy at Box 368, Cardiff, CA 92007, or e-mail her at jlk@sunfeatures.com. Sorry, the volume of mail makes personal replies impossible.

© 2000, Los Angeles Times Syndicate