Dear Jeremy

Problems at work? Need advice? Our agony uncle has the answers. This week: stuck on three months' notice; wondering what career to follow next; trapped and unhappy in a family-run business

Guardian readers are a generous and resourceful lot, always happy to share their know-how with others. Both the next two letters appeal for wider help. If past experience is anything to go by, many imaginative suggestions should be forthcoming. We'll publish edited versions of the best.

What can I do about my long three-month notice period?

I am looking for some advice on my notice period. I am a secretary with a notice period of three months in my contract; it is very unusual for someone in my position to be on such a long notice period. I am looking for another position and am sure this will go against me. How am I to approach this issue in interview, or indeed with my current employer, when I am ready to resign with the purpose of reducing the notice period?

It seems to me to depend very largely on the confidence with which you go about looking for that new position. Only if you're pretty certain you'd be a favoured applicant elsewhere, is it worth the risk of handing in your notice now – well before the next job's in the bag.

Another obvious consideration is your relationship with your current boss. If it's a good one, and if the task of finding a satisfactory replacement for you seems relatively routine, you've every chance of being released long before your three-month notice period is up.

As always, I'd counsel against fibbing and fudging – tempting though it sometimes is. It doesn't make you feel good and all too often comes back to bite you.

I'm 37 and have qualifications. Where do I go from here?

I'm about to be made redundant and am considering a career change. I'm 37 and have public and private sector experience in several fields – accountancy, auditing, project management/improvement specialism, etc. I'm also nearing completion of a master's in public health and have a certificate in counselling. I'm seeking a role which is more practical and helps people, and have considered teaching. Any other career options or ideas would be appreciated. I'm also considering self-employment and the role of a life coach appeals, but I'd like to undertake some study in this field to give myself credibility. Can you or your readers recommend any such courses?

I worry a bit that, at 37, your interests still seem a little unfocused. You have enviable qualifications and much useful practical experience, but I'm not sure where your passions lie. What was it that prompted you to take your master's in public health? And why, apparently, aren't you following that line of thought with single-minded determination when your master's is complete? Almost the last thing you need, it seems to me, is yet more career options and ideas.

I urge you to cast your mind over the past 15 years or so and try to remember just when you most looked forward to going to work and felt most fulfilled at the end of the day. The time's come, I think, to follow heart as well as head.

Trapped, made to feel small and not being taught anything

I feel trapped in my current job. I work for a small, fairly new, family-run business where I am a trainee. The MD is constantly trying to catch me out and makes me feel two inches tall in front of my colleagues. I do have my own line manager, but the MD is constantly interfering in my work and telling me all the things I must do, even though he is not technically in charge of the department I work in. He is a control freak who assumes you know what it is he is talking about. I don't feel able to talk to my own line manager; what would she be able to do, when he owns the company?

I am looking for other trainee roles but they are really hard to come by in this line of work. The company I am with is not training me and giving me the experience I need. Instead, I am used as an office skivvy.

Should I stay six more months in a company I despise and makes me feel miserable, in the hope I might one day receive training?

It's not often that I feel certain enough to advise my correspondents to give up and move on, but in your case, I think I probably do. First, though, one or two safety checks.

Are you absolutely certain that you're learning nothing useful? So often, when you hear successful people reminiscing, they say things like: "My first manager was a mean-minded old bastard and I hated him. But looking back, I now realise just how much good sense he instilled in me."

Does your current company have a reasonably good reputation in its own sector? If so, a completed traineeship would have a real value on your CV, whereas leaving a respected company early doesn't look good at all.

Might you have the opportunity to make some specific project, at least in part, your own? If so, such concrete evidence of your ability could greatly help you springboard to another company later.

I hope these questions have encouraged you to reflect. They may even encourage you to hang on in there. But if your answer to each of the three questions is an unequivocal Yes, No, No, then you'd be better off quitting now. You're hating every minute of it, learning nothing, enduring routine humiliation – and as a result, almost certainly losing all-important confidence in your own future.

As you've already discovered, it's going to be tough to find another slot. But I suspect that, once you've taken this extremely difficult decision, you'll find new optimism and determination. I do hope so.


Readers' advice

Jeremy's advice about alternative employment for a "resting" actor (4 September) prompted replies:

I am in exactly the same position and it is not easy. I have found regular income by doing the following:

1. I work for a charity that requires various skills but cannot afford to pay much. Consequently, it is willing to be flexible and I do lots of extra hours while "resting" so I am in credit, as it were. My performer's brain is kept busy with presentations to clients and sponsors – the work is rarely dull.

2. I've set up a training company dealing with presentation skills and vocal techniques for business people. I advertise a preferential rate for those willing to accept I may have to alter a training date at short notice, and I have a network of actor friends who are willing to be on standby.

A friend of mine runs a school breakfast drama club. Parents like the early morning childcare, and the timing leaves her free to go to auditions later on. Early morning cleaning jobs work in the same way. Katie McDaniel, by email

Running your own business would put you in the best position to manage your time. Your cooking skills might be a good avenue to exploit here. You could consider going into partnership with a couple of others as caterers for posh people's private dinner parties. As an actor, you presumably have presentational skills. Your absences whenever acting jobs beckoned could be absorbed by your business partners, and the nature of the work would leave your days largely free for auditions and meetings.

Work for a caterer first to discover what the business entails. The pay won't be marvellous, but later, when you have your own business, the profits won't be somebody else's. Robert Harris, by email
