A new book, BULLETPROOF YOUR JOB: 4 Simple Strategies To Ride Out The Rough Times And Come Out On Top At Work by Stephen Viscusi couldn’t have come out at a better time especially with the news about Lehman, Merrill Lynch and AIG.

It doesn’t matter if you don’t work on Wall Street what happens in the world’s financial capital can be felt thousands of miles away from Manhattan.

Viscusi’s book delivers a sucker punch to the gut – one that wakes you up and knocks you silly with real strategies to protect your job and your family’s financial future.

He writes that this is no time for crybabies so quit your boo-hooing about merit and fairness and start improving your chemistry with the boss right now!

Viscusi sounds like Col. Nathan R. Jessup, (“I know deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties, you don't want me on that wall, you need me on that wall…") when he says work is war, and if someone is going to get fired, let it be someone else – someone the boss doesn’t like, not you.

Other Viscusi tips include:

• Set a Google alert to your personal email account with your boss’s name so you know if he or she is in the media for anything.
• Set a Technorati alert for your company and stay in touch with the blog chatter about your company.
• Company gossip is gold -- but never be known as the company gossip.
• Bosses are trained to say, “Office politics don’t exist in this organization.” Only dumb employees believe that.
• Mentees-mentors and networking: Create a sleeper cell of friends in your company and industry who will support you in a time of crisis.
• Career coaches are for sissies. If you need a career coach, you don’t have a career!

And here’s some old-fashioned but “ain’t it so” advice: Have money in the bank. Money equals confidence and having that confidence helps you think and act strategically not out of desperation.

• Wilbur Ross: Possibly a Thousand Banks Will Close
• Lehman After Chapter 11: Where Can Employees Turn?

Questions, comments?