It's your job, and it's your maternity leave. Protect your ownership of and access to both by communicating clear boundaries to your boss and co-workers.

Cost is, and should be, a significant factor when somebody chooses a college. But why do we have anxiety about taking out loans to pursue a college education and question whether or not a degree from a high-ranking school is worth the student loans that come with that degree, but then have such few qualms about taking out a significant loan for a car. Does that mean that a car is more valuable than a college education?

Kid Rock is teaming up with bourbon brand Jim Beam to create a very unique job opportunity for a budding bartender with a love for music. Kid Rock is looking for his own personal bartender to go on tour with him.

According to Crowd Rules host Pat Kiernan, there are times when debt is good for business. That's kind of hard to believe. The only time debt may be a good thing is when it gets you a slot on Crowd Rules and a chance to win $50,000. Let's meet this week's business owners:

These days, if your staff members don’t have smartphones your business could fall behind when it comes to productivity, customer outreach and innovation. But the truth is that company mobile phone plans can be quite expensive. The good news is that if you want to cut your business mobile phone costs, opting for a prepaid service can be more affordable than signing a contract. Gone are the days where small businesses and even larger corporations need to pay the higher price tag for staff members’ data overage charges, other fees and unused minutes that come with most two-year mobile service contracts. But should your business make the switch from postpaid to prepaid?

According to our 2012-2013 study on How Tips Impact Incomes, waiters and waitresses earn the lowest base salaries in the service industry. The average base is $5.10 an hour and in some states, it may be lower.  Employees in the service industry are often underpaid and rely quite heavily on the tips they receive for basic living expenses. Although rare,  once in a while we hear of waitresses and waiters who have received larger than normal tips from customers.

The Defense of Marriage Act, in addition to being a civil rights battle, has implications in the workplace, too. That's why some major companies like Disney, Amazon and Microsoft (to name a few) have submitted amicus briefs encouraging the U.S. Supreme Court to reform the meaning of federal marriage to include same-sex unions. Their argument: It's good for the country, but it's also good for business.

Nearly every workplace has at least one “ogre”. This is a manager who appears to be mean as a rattlesnake for no apparent reason. You may have a tendency to avoid this type of manager at all costs, because of not-so-pleasant interactions you’ve experienced in the past. This is a boss who has a reputation that precedes him or her, leaving co-workers shaking in their boots at the very thought of upsetting this volatile volcano.

If you're one of the tens of thousands who will be graduating this year, then you might want to pay attention to this informative SpareFoot infographic.

Airbnb, the popular online community marketplace that allows you to rent out your home to travelers, has been ruled illegal in New York City by an administrative law judge despite efforts from the web service to persuade the city not to do so. PayScale investigates why this happened to one of the Internet's biggest recent success stories and what it means for business travelers.

A big part of the president's healthcare reform plan is to extend coverage to those who need it most – the old, the poor and the young. To make it affordable, the program relies on young, presumably healthy, adults to opt in. If they don't, they pay a fine. But what if they opt to get penalized instead of sign on up? What would that do to the Affordable Care Act?

When the nation's economy close to tanked five years ago, 60-somethings who lost a share of wealth in the downturn panicked, worried they were out of time to recoup. But a recent study shows that Baby Boomers are actually in pretty good shape – they've recovered most of their earnings thanks to some cushion afforded from back in the dot-com era. Gen X and even younger boomers, on the other hand, have had a tough time recuperating from the Great Recession.

Since the golden age of television, we've been watching firemen and police officers put their lives on the line in order to protect the innocent. But those are just actors and although a few have been known to get hurt in the performance of their duties, acting isn't usually a dangerous profession. On the other hand, the stars of these four reality shows are truly risking life and limb every time the cameras roll. Why do they do it? Because with big risks, come big rewards.

In our technology-driven world, it should come to no surprise that the number of available tech jobs continues to grow. Market trends show that IT is now one of the top drivers of how businesses operate; from communication to productivity, to marketing and improving products. Even though some jobs are disappearing due to the development of so many new and emerging technologies, others are adapting and even more are being created.

Forget Google's celebrated five-month maternity leave. If you lived in one of these nine countries, you'd have a year off (much of it, paid) to spend with your brand-new family member.

Working from home as a freelancer can go one of two ways -- you find yourself wasting hours in front of the TV, running errands or other distractions that take over your productivity, or you find that you are more productive than ever. More likely than not, you'll have to go through the first option to get to the latter. If you are a freelancer who works from home, here are a few tips to make your days as productive as possible.

Let's face it, the conventional resume is pretty darn boring. There's only so much you can do to make a one-page piece of paper containing your entire collegiate and professional career unique enough for a recruiter to notice it out of the hundreds and hundreds of resumes submitted. So how does the skilled, accomplished, and qualified candidate stand out in the crowd? Visual.ly might just have the picture-perfect solution to this very problem.

We've all heard the benefits of taking a real vacation, such as stress reduction and better quality of life. The problem is that so few working people get to take a good, long break from doing any work or thinking about work.

American business has overcome many obstacles over the years thanks to significant advancements in technology. But as many of us know, civic organizations and government services have fallen behind when it comes to tech trends -- with costly results. In a bustling, tech-driven society where efficiency is key to productivity, the U.S. government is now turning to innovative startups to develop new software that will help government organizations run much more efficiently.

Social media is a booming industry. Becoming a specialist in this field could be a good avenue to job security, as this Schools.com infographic demonstrates.