2026 Career Disasters You Just Might Avoid

Robert Goldman
Wed, 31 Dec 2025 23:00:00 -0800
Lifestyle

You're one of the lucky ones.

You have a job.

You also have a worry. Will the job you have at the start of 2026 be the job you have at the end of 2026?
Updated: Thu Jan 01, 2026

You're one of the lucky ones.

You have a job.

You also have a worry. Will the job you have at the start of 2026 be the job you have at the end of 2026?

Considering the challenges to your career trajectory from expected developments in technology, economics and politics, there are dozens of potential career disasters facing a normal, non-paranoid person. (If such a person exists.)

If a career disaster is expected, you can prepare for it. You can start applying for a new job or start training for a whole new career. Never forget — the world needs more snake milkers.

But it's the unexpected that can blow up your job and, maybe, derail your career. I've got five good bad examples, which I sincerely hope won't happen to a nice person like you, but probably will.

No. 1: Your Boss Decides They Like You

If you've watched your required minimum of holiday rom-coms, you know it only takes an instant for a close personal connection to happen over a hot chocolate or a hot snowman. Certainly, you don't want your boss to fall head over heels in love with you, but if, one magical day, your manager spots you across a crowded coffee room, they definitely can fall in like with you, all over again.

They did hire you, after all, so those positive feelings could reignite.

If the magic does happen, play hard to get. Explain that you're too busy with work to go to lunch or dinner. As for that visioning walk on the beach at sunset, you'll have to take a rain check.

Play it right and your new relationship could lead to a promotion where good business practices require the two of you to spend more "together time." Still, be careful. Bosses are notoriously fickle and they could just as quickly fall out of like. But you'll always have that walk on the beach.

No. 2: You Finally Do Something Right

Do enough stuff for long enough and you will eventually do something that moves the needle. What's important is to be prepared. Make sure your desk is piled high with "top secret" file folders and your whiteboard sports a Picasso-worthy hotchpotch of arrows, graphs and Venn diagrams. You can point to this material as the "data" you carefully analyzed to make your breakthrough contribution to the bottom line. Trust me — they'll never figure out it was a complete accident.

No. 3: You Get a Great Job Offer

There's nothing that boosts your ego like an out-of-the-blue job offer. I'm not talking to those spammy emails offering you the opportunity to earn $150K a year by working 4 hours a week monitoring web traffic in Kazakhstan. (That job has already been taken — by me.)

You don't want to accept the offer, of course. Starting a new job means you might actually have to do some work. Instead, use the offer to improve your current job conditions. All it takes is telling one person in marketing and the office gossip network will do the rest. You should definitely tell your manager. Let them know that even though the job pays more and includes a mountain of yummy perks and in-the-money stock options, you're turning it down.

"I am fully invested in this company," you declare. "If there's one thing I'm all about, it's loyalty."

Management will appreciate your commitment. It won't stop them from firing you as 2026 wears on, but they'll definitely feel bad about it.

No. 4: You Take a Job Away From AI

A.I. has many abilities and, if it sets its mind to it, there's no question that in the next 12 months it will learn to do your job faster and better and cheaper than you. But no matter how many fancy-schmancy chips are cranking away in nuclear-powered data centers, A.I. can't match your soft skills. It can't suck up to management as well as you and it cannot pretend that the CEO's most recent brainstorm isn't a bunch of hokum. AI can't spread rumors about your co-workers, either or bring a chocolate-covered pretzel gift basket to the head of H.R.

Want to pull the plug on the AI system threatening your job? The solution is simple. Play your cards — and your pretzels — right.

No. 5: You Start Listening to My Advice

Resolve right now to ignore the 52 weeks of bad advice coming your way in 2026. Fact is — you don't need me to blow up your career. Your own screw-ups are more than enough.