Blog Posts by Dory Devlin, Shine staff

Thanks to Jessica for this TGIF laugh. Seems everyone is trying to economize on gas, even the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile, Check out this Chicago Tribune video of the sleeker Wienermobile, a Mini Cooper adorned with the famous giant hot dog.

"It's aero-dog-namic." I didn't make that up. The hot-dog driving guy said it. The Mini Cooper wiener gets 25 to 30 miles a gallon, compared with the 10 to 15 the older, gas-guzzling model gets. But no, I don't think it really runs on high-octane mustard. Nice try.

Chicago Tribune

NBC/The Office
Played well, a good internship can be a great way to see if a field of work you're interested in is right for you while giving you the chance to prove yourself at the very bottom of the heap and make connections with professionals who will help mentor you along the way up.

Or... they can be slow-ticking hours of absolute drudgery, doing unappreciated tasks that have nothing to do with the work you hope to do one day, while paying little money (or nothing).

Like the unwitting, shy high school boy who nearly fell into the swag-less snare set by Michael Scott at the Valley View High School job fair in last night's 'Office' episode, many of us have been smart enough to avoid a deadly dull, pointless internship at the last second. And many of us have not. Am I right?

My summer job after my first year in college was at a mortgage loan company. Why would someone who knew she wanted to write for a living do such a thing? A friend talked me into it because a few other friends were working

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There's never enough time in the day to read all of my favorite blogs and definitely not enough time to link to all of the good and helpful posts out there. So once a week, I'll point you to some good reading on some of my favorite work and money blogs and web sites. Right now, take a break from your work...to focus on work:

• Office gossip is as inevitable and unavoidable as the need to earn a paycheck, but there are ways to deal with it -- and to graciously skirt it -- Jobacle
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• Top 25 most wanted U.S. jobs -- Sales, accounting, and retail jobs top the list, but there's an interesting side note. Workers who seek even the most in-demand jobs are asking for less money than they did a year ago -- Jobfox

• Resume redesign -- Over on SavvySugar, a graphic designer gets some help with her resume, and the advice is applicable for all of us -- SavvySugar

• Got a boss who loves to dish out criticism -- that you know isn't true? You're first instinct might be to call it as you see

Suze Orman private collection
With Mother's Day fast approaching, it's easy to fall into the what-gift-should-I-get mode, when it might be so much more worthwhile to reflect on what gifts our mothers have given us, and thanking them for it.

As the youngest in my family with three older siblings, my mom was back to work full time as a school nurse from the time I was in second grade. So I came of age with a mom who enjoyed her work, was an equal partner with my dad on family finances and everything else, and who nudged me to always think about what I wanted to do for a living when I grew up. I am grateful to her for all of that.

This Mother's Day is a good day to think about how our moms have influenced us in the choices we've made in our work and how we handle our money. So who else to better talk to about such matters than Suze Orman, best-selling author and omnipresent speaker on a mission to empower women to take charge of our financial lives? I spoke with Suze about her mom, Sue, who recently celebrated her

The office worker who submitted these signs to passiveaggressivenotes.com notes that, yes, these letters are colored in by hand. Clearly, someone has lots of time on their hands to get a passive-aggressive point across. And, yes, clearly some kind of breakdown in communication is at play in this office.
But the sign maker should get an A for effort, and coloring.

passiveaggressivenotes.com
Thanks again to passiveagressivenotes.com for a much-needed mid-week yuk.

Getty ImagesJennifer Romolini is all over the news that lipstick is back in vogue with a recession threatening. Well, I've got some less fashion-forward yet interesting economic news: Coupons are making a comeback it seems, too.

And while it's tough to know how many people are grabbing scissors and clipping paper coupons, online coupon sites are seeing a rise in activity. As BusinessWeek Online reports, the number of page views and time spent on web sites that offer money-off coupons for all kinds of stores and products is up in recent months. Pages views were up 38 percent to 281 million in March from a year earlier, according to comScore, the Internet marketing research firm that measures such things.

But before you sharpen your scissors and start clipping and clicking away to find coupons, we have to ask the obvious question: Do coupons really save enough money to make it worth the effort and time spent finding, clipping and using them?

As this Real Simple article notes, many people buy

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I had a good chat with Allison O'Kelly, the founder and CEO of Mom Corps, a staffing firm that places professional women/moms in flexible jobs, about whether moms are hiring out their time and skills for less than their experience demands. O'Kelly, a Harvard MBA and cum laude accounting whiz from the University of Georgia, was on the management fast track at Toys 'R' Us after a stint at KPMG when she became a mom.

When the corporate world template didn't fit her life as a working mom, she started her own business, providing small businesses with strategic planning, accounting, and tax services. She began hiring women, mostly moms looking to stay in the workforce without giving up all hope of a balanced life, and an idea was born. Mom Corps.

O'Kelly says Mom Corps does not have a set "rate card" that it provides clients, but generally, women candidates' time is billed out at between $25 and $100 an hour. "We've turned clients away who've said 'you're just too much,' " O'Kelly said.

eBay
It was a good try, but, alas, it turns out you cannot auction off your family's debt on eBay.

The mom who put up her family's debt totaling $103, 254.11, including her Erie, Pa. house and car, commented on my initial post about the eBay listing that eBay pulled it because "it wasn't really selling anything."

"I guess that debt isn't real enough for them," Destiny says in the comments. "That's how the cookie crumbles."

Before her auction item was pulled off of eBay, the mom of three came to Shine to comment on my post after I reached out to her to say she never expected someone to really buy her debt, though it would be nice if someone would. Putting her debt up for bid on eBay was really a cathartic move by a frustrated mom with an excellent eBay reputation. She wrote:

"Hi, I'm the mother who posted "My Debt" for sale. It was just another frustrating day in the life of my family and I felt trap(p)ed. What could I do to just let off some steam? Then it came to me why not post all my