-
Employees Sign Workplace 'Love Contracts'
Tweet Share on Facebook May 14, 2008 Comment (2)In this litigious age, it's no longer just the office gossips who are calling out coworker couples—now it's the company lawyers.
ABC News is reporting that some employers are asking dating coworkers to sign "love contracts," which define the nature of their relationship as consensual and restate the company's harassment policies.
-
How to Move On After a Bad Day
Tweet Share on Facebook May 13, 2008 Comment (7)A confession: I fouled up just about everything I did yesterday. The reason is fairly simple. I am not a great multitasker, and I find that facing multiple deadlines is something akin to glancing up Mount Everest before the climb.
On busy days, I scramble to make to-do lists as soon as I sit down at my desk in the morning, believing this to be my greatest organizational weapon. But as soon as things start to veer from those written mandates (for example, I finish writing the story, which was on my to-do list, but I forget to fix the links on the story, which was not), I begin to lose my head. By about 10:30 a.m. yesterday, if you had asked me to do A, B, and C—there was a pretty good chance I'd do A, but the likelihood dropped precipitously when it came to B and C. (Not a matter of willingness, of course, but of memory.)
-
Ask This Question Before You Write Anything
Tweet Share on Facebook May 9, 2008 Comment (1)Darren Rowse is a full-time blogger, with the widely-read ProBlogger site to his credit. Rowse coaches his readers on promoting and developing their own blogs, but sometimes his advice reads a bit more universal. In a recent guest entry for the ScribeFire blog Rowse asks a question that he believes "has been responsible for me growing my blogs to have over 90,000 subscribers and 50,000 daily visitors."
The question he asks is one that all human beings should ask themselves every time they put fingertips to keyboard or pen to paper. It's crucial to great résumés, great letters, great essays or stories or memos or novels: Am I writing something that I would want to read?
-
Warren Buffett on When It's Time to Quit
Tweet Share on Facebook May 8, 2008 Comment (23)When is dogged pursuit of a goal a good thing? In most workplaces today, initiative is encouraged. But knowing whether your ambition has hit a yellow light or a police barricade can be tricky.
On the one hand, there's Hillary Clinton, who is moved neither by Barack Obama's delegate numbers nor by the growing chorus of Democratic dissidents. Her persistence is drawing censure.
-
Tell Us Your Best Internship Stories
Tweet Share on Facebook May 7, 2008 Comment (3)These days, internships are as ubiquitous as the business books that recommend them, and that means we have a nice wide base from which to draw funny internship stories.
To that end—and in keeping with the start of internship season and yesterday's blog item—I ask you, trusty readers, to treat us to your best stories of working life as interns or of sharing office space with interns. Please regale us in the comments section. (The writer of the most entertaining story gets course credit. Sorry, this effort is unpaid.)
-
Rudeness: A Quick Way to Ruin an Internship
Tweet Share on Facebook May 6, 2008 Comment (2)When I talked about internship trials and tribulations with hiring expert Brad Karsh last week, we touched on one issue that I didn't have space to include in the story but really is an important topic.
I told Karsh that I had recently spoken with someone who holds a small but important position in her office—she keeps things, like the coffee machine, running. The woman, who is quite friendly, says she dreads the start of internship season. The reason: She believes the newly desked and penciled corporate contenders treat her with little to none of the respect she deserves.
-
Careers Bloggers Join USNews.com
Tweet Share on Facebook May 5, 2008 Comment (2)Who better to tell you how to improve your career than the experts themselves? Today, USNews.com is launching On Careers: Outside Voices, a blog written entirely by our slate of talented, wise, wry, and often edgy expert bloggers. This is a first for the U.S. News website and a major step toward linking readers with some of the robust content available on the Web.
In today's posts, management sage Alison Green, aka Ask A Manager, tells us why our perspective on job interviews can lead us to take on a job that isn't the right fit, and career adviser Andrew G.R., aka Jobacle, asks us to take a second look at white-collar disenchantment.
We hope you'll want to make their personal blogs and On Careers regular reading. And please use the comments section to let us know of the career and workplace issues that frustrate and inhibit you, as well as any wisdom you can share.
-
When Being Nice Is a Bad Move
Tweet Share on Facebook May 2, 2008 Comment (5)Lois Frankel, author of See Jane Lead: 99 Ways for Women to Take Charge and Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office, offers the kind of tough, constructive advice that I wish women would hear more often. The following—a recent entry from her shared blog The Thin Pink Line—is a perfect example (emphasis is mine):
I have such mixed feelings about this true story. Two college women's softball teams were competing this week in Oregon when one player hit the ball out of the park but couldn't make it around the bases. Apparently her leg gave out from under her and she couldn't run. It's against the rules for one of her teammates to run for her. When a member of the opposing team realized what was happening she opted to carry the young woman around the bases so that her run would count (and as it turned out it was the winning run). When asked why she did such a generous thing, she said she always learned it wasn't about winning or losing but about how you play the game. On the one hand, I love the fact that the young woman who came to the rescue showed compassion for her opponent. On the other hand, I know that this exact same behavior in the workplace causes adult women to miss out on their fair share of pay, benefits, opportunities, etc. As women, we must differentiate when compassion is called for and when it's OK to compete to win. Relying only on behaviors taught in childhood to the exclusion of having other "tricks up your sleeve" is a recipe for ultimate failure. Be compassionate. Be generous of spirit. But also know when—and how—to play hardball.
-
Sign Me Up for Genetic Testing!
Tweet Share on Facebook May 1, 2008 Comment (32)The vast majority of us reportedly are concerned that if we consent to genetic testing, it will come back to bite us at work, where employers could use certain data against us. It's dangerous to our health, however, if those fears get in the way of consent. From the International Herald Tribune:
Without genetic testing, researchers say it will be more difficult to find early, lifesaving therapy for a wide range of diseases with hereditary links such as breast and prostate cancer, diabetes, heart disease and Parkinson's disease....
