Learn From Lehman

Lehman Brothers has 25,000 employees watching their 158-year-old company fizzle out into the larger market and into the bankruptcy courts. Some of those employees "started polishing résumés in earnest, taking calls from headhunters and openly passing around job offers" last week, the New York Times reports.

Pamela Slim, champion of entrepreneurialism and blogger at Escape From Cubicle Nation, writes about corporate employees today:

A very common concern is that their "cushy" situation is as good as it gets, and they would be foolish to leave the "stability" of a corporate job for the "uncertainty" of entrepreneurial life.

I would bet that those Lehman employees who had small gigs going on the side: consulting projects, eBay stores, blogs w/ad revenue, niche products, are feeling a little less panicked this morning.

Slim says that for workers today, "if you are sitting back with your head between your knees gripping your corporate job like a favorite teddy bear, you are putting yourself at risk."