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How refreshing to have leaders with family priorities. And even more so, a woman. It is unheard of for a female CEO to stand up and declare her familial priorities. She knows it is risking her job and she knows it opens the door for thoughts and comments about "allowing" a female with children to be CEO. But Shelly Lazarus, CEO of Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide, stuck to her guns. As a result, she sets a phenomenal example for us all to follow. Here, (quoted from Reader's Digest) Shelly discusses an experience she had as account leader on the American Express account: Two weeks after Lazarus landed the American Express account, the client announced an all-day meeting to discuss a five-year strategy for its ad campaigns. American Express was the largest account at the Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide ad agency, and it was unthinkable that Lazarus, as the account leader, would not attend. But she had other priorities.How easy it is for us to fool ourselves by saying, "I really have to attend this meeting, they're counting on me. There will be another game".  Our priorities get reversed so easily because adults hold us much more accountable (at least externally) than children do. A child will smile and say "that's okay" when we fail them. In attempt to compensate (in reality to relieve our own guilt), we take them for ice cream or buy them a new video game. We know that a boss or coworker's currency is not toys or ice cream and we believe that they will be much less forgiving. That is, unless we set it straight with them.The saying is true, we teach people how to treat us. If we are consistent and firm about our priorities, we teach our bosses and coworkers what's important to us and they will ultimately learn to accept it. And that works both ways. If we consistently stay late and blow off family priorities, we teach our employers that work is our priority and that family comes second. Of course, it's no secret that bosses love this attitude. But then again your boss doesn't need to feel your support and hear your cheers at his soccer game. Take a minute to reflect at the message you're sending out about your priorities. How are you teaching people to treat you? Visit Link » ( http://www.rd.com/content/openContent.do?contentId=29375) comments ( 0 ) |  post to digg |  post to del.icio.us |  e-mail it
Sept 25, 2006
Preventing Major Mistakes When Starting a New JobTags: New Hires, Employees, Success,A short and sweet piece on mistakes people make when starting a new job and ways to help prevent them. It's a brief interview with Milo and Thuy Sindell, husband and wife co-authors of a book called Sink or Swim. Even if you're not starting a new job yourself, it's worth a read as there's information to be gleaned to help out new coworkers. A quote from the article: Successful people know themselves. As a new employee, you need to know what you value, and what success looks like for you. Not all of us want to be the CEO. If you have a clear mental picture of your own success, it will help you understand what skills you need to develop, and recognize opportunities to do that.I always appreciate when others acknowledge the fact that there's more to life than being driven up the corporate ladder and recognize the fact that you can be successful at any rung you like. Visit Link » ( http://money.cnn.com/2006/05/31/news/economy/annie/fortune_annie0531/index.htm?p) comments ( 0 ) | post to digg | post to del.icio.us | e-mail it
Sept 22, 2006
The Office Season Premiere - What'd Ya Think?Tags: The Office, NBC,After a long summer of wanting more, the season premiere of The Office finally aired last night! I still say this is the funniest show on television and was pretty happy with how the episode went. Spoiler Alert if you haven't seen the episode yet! In last night's episode, we learned that Jim took a sales job at the Stamford branch to get a fresh start away from Pam. Ryan, "the temp", took Jim's old job and is sitting at his old desk. But I was happy to see that it doesn't look like Jim fits in at his new job. Maybe he'll come back to Scranton!  Last night's episode also introduced a new character, played by The Daily Show's correspondent, Ed Helms. He plays a character (whose name I can't remember) who works at the Stamford branch with Jim. Ed's character is so much like people we've all encountered at work—the corporate tools with no sense of humor—that it almost hurts to watch.And to my relief, after last season's Jim and Pam cliffhanger kiss, the show delivered and revealed that Pam didn't marry Roy after all. Stay tuned to find out what's in store for them. I know I will. According to The Office website, next week's episode will be following Michael and Dwight on a trip to the paper industry convention in Philadelphia where they will interact with Jim and the Stamford manager. Michael has some issues with Jim leaving, and Jim is trying to get news of certain individuals who work in Scranton. And Pam goes on a date with someone new. Didn't get enough of NBC's The Office last night? Check out The Office website for a bunch of funny deleted scenes that are worth the watch. Visit Link » ( http://www.nbc.com/The_Office/) comments ( 2 ) | post to digg | post to del.icio.us | e-mail it
Sept 20, 2006
Starbucks Coffee Commercial - Don't Believe The HypeTags: Trends, Society, Corporate Slaves, Motivation, Caffeine,Yesterday I saw a commercial for Starbucks DoubleShot Coffee Drink—a concentrated drink in a mini-can that is marketed for a serious energy boost high. I guess it's been playing all summer, but I saw it for the first time yesterday and I'm still disturbed by it. So the commercial goes like this:  The sun comes up over a city skyline. An actor in a suit and tie stands in front of an office building and cracks open a can of DoubleShot. As soon as he takes a drink, he begins a cadence chant and is immediately accompanied by other office workers. The chant goes like this:I will make today the day I will make today the day Tell success I'm on my way Tell success I'm on my way There aint no ounce of doubt in me Cause I move the economy Who da man? You da man Who da man? You da man So? It may seem harmless, you know, a nice commercial about a guy excited about taking on his day and the "little help" he gets to turn him into a lean mean corporate machine. What's the big deal? The big deal is that people will easily buy into this mentality. The song is really catchy (as it's supposed to be) and I can sure see how the average Joe could crack open a can and begin the fun little chant inside his own head, with a little more pep in his step. Again, so?  So, they make it really easy and attractive for us to say to ourselves, "That's it! That's what I need! I've been unhappy and sluggish at work, all I need is this powerful drink in a little can and I will take on the day and be on my way to success! If these people in the commercial can look so happy, confident and fierce going to work, then so can I!"And most of us will try it at some point as we cling to the idea that we are supposed to want success. We're supposed to want to climb the ladder and take every corporate bull by the horns. And what happens when we don't have the energy or drive to succeed or put in our time in depressing cubicle land? Well we're supposed to chug a magical caffeinated elixir to fix our "motivational problem". We're becoming a society who is hopped up on caffeine and energy drinks to keep us going and keep that midnight oil burning. They have even placed energy drink vending machines outside the local Home Depot. And ever notice that the commercials you see on TV are becoming more and more littered with ads for sleep aid drugs? It's because we're so stressed out and wired during the day that of course we're having problems sleeping. And we need a drug to fix it.  So say you do perform better with high levels of caffeine in your system—who wouldn't? A few things are likely to happen: 1) You'll become a real tiger at work but will become a slave to extreme levels of caffeine to keep up the charade. Or 2) The promises of caffeinated success will fall flat and you'll become depressed (or even more depressed than you were) because you're still not seeing "success" even though you crack open a can of double espresso every morning. Or 3) A little of both. You'll be more socially alert and productive at work, but you'll ultimately become depressed and confused because the "successful" person you have now become isn't you—it's you on caffeine.Which one do you think Starbucks prefers that you become? I suspect they don't care so long as you're buying. (To see the commercial click the link below, then click on "Make Today the Day" and then click on the computer screen where it says "Watch the TV Ad".) Visit Link » ( http://www.doubleshot.com/) comments ( 18 ) | post to digg | post to del.icio.us | e-mail it
Sept 18, 2006
Xobni's Response to The Job Schmob Blogger and The Boston Globe.Tags: Only in America, Privacy, E-mail, Spying, Software, Trends, If I'm holding an egg and I tell you it's a snowball, is it still an egg?Recently, The Xobni Team, left a comment on my blog entry The Latest E-mail Spying Software - Just in Time for the Holidaysthat was an effort to correct what they feel was a misrepresentation of their software in a Boston Globe Article. In their response, they write: Xobni Analytics is not about spying on employees. It’s about improving the business process. Which emails waste the most time? What customer is the engineering team most actively emailing, and what is being discussed? How quickly do we respond to emails from customers? How much time do people spend reading and writing email, and about what topics?Ohhhhhh okay! I get it now. You're only scanning the CONTENTS and RECIPIENTS of my e-mail to monitor my productivityand efficiency. And we all should believe that monitoring the contents of my e-mail in the name of "improving the business process" is perfectly okay. Stupid me. Guys, I know you're a couple of developers just trying to make a buck for yourselves. I get it. But come on! Consider what you're enabling companies to do. One of the JobSchmobbers, Dharmadee, said it best when she commented: "...allow me to point out that Albert Einstein was a pacifist, and it certainly was not his intention to contribute to the development of the atomic bomb. Sadly-the intentions of the developers of a technology usually do not have a say in how that technology is used or misused in the secondary market.". This is not to say that there aren't monitoring packages out there for companies who want to spy on their employees. But yours is unique in that it allows companies to cloak themselves under your convenient attitude, which I understand to be, "We're not spying on you, we're just trying to improve the business process. If a side effect is knowing the contents of all your e-mails, then so be it." Gentlemen, I'm a software developer myself and understand the high of creating something from nothing and selling it. But I think that it's extremely unfortunate that developers sell out to The Man in this way. At some point, you had to have thought or realized that your software allows companies to read the contents of an e-mail and exploit them for purposes other than what you intended. Perhaps you justified it to yourselves with the old "if a person isn't doing anything wrong, then he has nothing to hide" attitude. And if you truly never thought about the privacy implications, well then we're all thinking it for you now and hoping you do the right thing. I realize that both of you Xobni founders are in your twenties and you have much to learn and many mistakes to make. But let's not let this be one of them. If you act now, you may have time to get your soul back. As an aside, we're not alone in feeling this way. Jobschmobbers, feel free to chime in. Visit Link » ( http://www.xobni.com/blog/2006/09/04/25/) comments ( 6 ) | post to digg | post to del.icio.us | e-mail it
Sept 14, 2006
Bored at Work No More!Tags: Funny Stuff, Internet, Bored at Work,This is the funniest thing I've seen in a long time!! Hopefully you've seen the original GEICO commercial to fully appreciate the comic genius of this clip. But even if you haven't it is still funny as hell. Enjoy! Little Richard translates for Bush: I just keep watching it over and over. Visit Link » ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-rBc9jxG1U&eurl=) comments ( 0 ) | post to digg | post to del.icio.us | e-mail it
Sept 12, 2006
10 Preventable IT Interview MistakesTags: IT, Interviewing,The article is geared towards interviewing for an IT job, but many of the tips are applicable to other jobs. As an IT worker myself, I'm including this article because I know how badly IT people are hurting these days. A study released the week of Aug. 28 by Menlo Park, Calif., staffing firm Accountemps found that one of the most common mistakes made by candidates in job interviews was having little or no knowledge of the company, according to 47 percent of the senior executives surveyed.Looking for an IT job? Be sure to check these tips out. Visit Link » ( http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2011140,00.asp) comments ( 0 ) | post to digg | post to del.icio.us | e-mail it
Sept 07, 2006
Dehumanizing Ways to Lose Your JobTags: Dehumanization, Only in America, Trends, Bad Bosses,On the heels of the news that 400 Radio Shack employees were laid off by e-mail last week, I thought I'd bring you an article listing other great insensitive ways to be laid off. I've listed my personal favorite here: One company herded employees into an auditorium and gave them one of two color-coded information packets. Those with the same color packets sat together. The two groups were then escorted out of the auditorium through different exits. One led back to the office, which meant that group of employees could stay. The other led to the street, which meant the workers should file for unemployment.  Why is this my favorite? Because a very similar thing happened to me. I wasn't led out to the street, but I was given a color coded folder. In my case, we had to sit and watch as each employee's fate was revealed. We waited for our names to be called and one by one we went into an office and got a color coded folder. If you got yellow, it meant you stayed. If you got a teal color, it meant your job was being outsourced. Guess which color I got?And to add insult to injury, like many other JobSchmobbers, if we were pissed off about it, we were told to read Who Moved My Cheese. We were treated as if wewere the ones who didn't know how to be human. While I was pretty pissed off that particular day, in the end I didn't feel too bad because 1) 1600 other people were coming with me, 2) Who wants to work for a supreme jackass of a company like that? and 3) The company is pretty much in the crapper now. Visit Link » ( http://money.cnn.com/2006/09/06/commentary/sahadi/index.htm?cnn=yes) comments ( 3 ) | post to digg | post to del.icio.us | e-mail it
Sept 05, 2006
The Latest E-mail Spying Software - Just in Time for the Holidays.Tags: Only in America, Privacy, E-mail, Spying, Software, Trends,Ahhh well, we knew it was only going to get to worse. the latest employee spy software will be out on the market this month. And just in time for the Holidays. The Xobni software, which should be available for individual use Sept. 20 and is expected to be rolled out to businesses starting this winter, works by measuring the amount of time people spend reading and writing e-mails. From there, Xobni (that's inbox spelled backward) can chart when people send and receive e-mails, as well as how long it takes them to reply to messages.Wait. It gets better. "What we can start to do is predict," Brezina says. If an employee wanted to send an e-mail with numerous people copied on it, for example, before that person hits send, a box would pop up saying how many hours that e-mail would cost the company and questioning whether the worker still wanted to send it. "Essentially what we can do is allow people to start to change behaviors," Brezina says.Uh-huh. How about the amount of time it's going to take me to read the stupid box, think about whether or not I was "sure" and click on the stupid "YES" box every time? Huh, genius? All time-wasting crap aside, the privacy issues here really bug me. When is it going to end? Why don't you just make me hook into a monitor when I arrive to my desk so that you can monitor my heart rate, breathing and whether or not my lunchtime soda was diet or regular. Or better yet, why don't I just get wired up to brain sensors (I'm assuming that's the next corporate monitoring software being developed in the technology sector) so that you can monitor my every thought when I'm working for you? Then you'd know absolutely everything. That way you can pop up boxes on my screen that ask me whether or not I'm sure that I want to be thinking about how much I hate working for you idiots. I can see it now. Boxes would be popping up on my screen all day: "Are you sure you have to pee right now?", "To continue repeated feelings of oppression please click 'Next'", "Please confirm deletion of company loyalty thoughts" and finally, "Are you sure you want to get fired today?" Ugh. It's so much fun being just a faceless piece of data. Visit Link » ( http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/09/03/software_may_let_boss_spot_) comments ( 5 ) | post to digg | post to del.icio.us | e-mail it
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