Published on
October 16, 2007 in
Saved.
STA reader Amanda just quit her terrible assistant job, and has thankfully offered to share her goodbye letter with us. Enjoy her tasteful-but-funny exit letter below:
I find it impossible to make a 1,2,3 ranking of the reasons as to why I am leaving my position at X company and X division. My reasons, of which there are far more than three, merit equal consideration; furthermore, it is impossible to accurately account for my decision in the absence of a close examination of each reason’s closely interrelated affect on its preceding and following ones. To wit, the big picture:
I believe one root cause for leaving lies in a deep dissatisfaction with supervisors, who presented very little opportunity for me to grow. This in turn led to dissatisfaction with my job responsibilities and a concurrent lack of recognition among superiors (barring of course notice for grievous errors like failing to deliver the correct condiments for the lunches I frequently delivered). Without career-track job responsibilities and recognition, there exists limited advancement opportunity.
Running on a parallel track is the fact that this job does not pay a living wage for a New York City resident, nor does it apparently offer standard cost of living raises as those at the bottom of the company’s feeding chain received $300 bonuses in lieu of raises in the 2007 fiscal year. Furthermore, many employees work investment banker hours (I must admit this does not apply to me, as I have come to believe work, if divided equitably among coworkers and done efficiently, can in fact be completed in eight to 10 hours time), leading to a work/life imbalance.
When these reasons, along with the realization that the industry’s direction—rife with layoffs and doom and gloom forecasts—lead any intelligent individual to:
Return to school
Change careers
Start their own business or freelance
Currently, numbers 2 and 3 apply to my situation, though 1 is not out of the question.
Published on
October 16, 2007 in
Holidays.
Believe it or not, we almost forgot it was Boss’ Day today. Luckily, our friend Jeff of 52 Projects (and author of the upcoming book Working for the Man, about how to be awesomely subversive in the workplace) posted this hilarious entry to remind us. Enjoy his collection of suggested cards that you can get for your boss to show you really care, like this one below:
If you’re still low on ideas, we also enjoy this site.
We hear a lot of weird workplace stories, but this one managed to shock us: a man claims that his former employer at a financial company forced him to take female hormones and wear women’s clothes to work. From the article:
Tong, 37, claims in his Manhattan Supreme Court suit that his boss, top trader Ping Jiang, 41, ordered him to swallow estrogen pills and to wear women’s clothing at work to “feminize” and supposedly make him a more successful trader.
You can see the whole head-scratching story here.
Even though TV shows like Grey’s Anatomy and The Office feature a string of coworkers hooking up with other coworkers, it’s certainly not acceptable in the real workplace. Or is it?
An article in the New York Times insists that age-old rule is reversing. And why would bosses ever be OK with their employees dating each other? Because it keeps employees that much more connected (or tied to) their work. From the article:
SOON after word spread that Sarah Kay and Matt Lacks were conducting an office romance, Ms. Kay found herself in the office of the director of human resources. There was a time when such a meeting would have signaled a death knell for the relationship, and even jeopardized the employees’ careers.
Yet as Ms. Kay, 29, cheerfully recounted, the human resources director told her, “We’re just all really glad that you made a friend.”
Think about it: did you ever make a point of showing up ten minutes early for your college bio lab, even though you hated the class, because there was a really hot guy or girl who sat next to you? Bosses are now hoping that the same trend rubs off at work. If you have a crush on a coworker, you’ll spend more time at work. People who have sex are happier people, so two coworkers getting it on means two people who come in with smiles on their faces every morning.
Not totally convinced? Neither are we, but you can check the article out here.
Forget Casual Friday. The new way one company is signifying the end of the work week is by having Email-Free Friday. Their idea is to force employees to have actual face-to-face in person interactions at least once a week. Novel idea, huh?
As we live in a world where the workplace is increasingly wired, and we’re all coping with the effects of technostress, tired eyes, and carpal tunnel, why is it still so gauche to actually speak to each other?
Considering that no one wants to get any work done on Friday anyway, email-free Friday is a great way to get people up and moving and not just staring at their computers like zombies. And we’re totally in favor of that.
According to rumors on Gawker, a Columbia U. class of 2007 graduate has landed the role of a lifetime–as Sarah Jessica Parker’s personal assistant. For the honor of fetching Ms. Parker’s lattes and getting her shoes resoled, this lucky assistant is apparently making $200K a year. At first, our response was “dude, fuck that shit.” But after some time to reconsider, we thought…”Only 200,000? Seriously?”
Assistants to celebrities tend to have to sacrifice their lives for their bosses. It’s not a nine-to-five corporate gig by any means, it’s a form of indentured servitude. During one episode commentary for Sex and the City, SJP admits that she sent her assistant out to get her a pregnancy test the day she found out she was with child. All we’re saying is… if you have to go on a pregnancy test run for your boss, 200K is a pittance. We bet J.Hud is making way more than that.
Are you guilty of “dining al desko”? Translation: are you guilty of eating your lunch at your desk, while continuing to work? If you say yes, you’re far from alone. The blog Embrace Your Heart covers the world of heart disease, and they’ve cited dining al desko as not just damaging to your morale but damaging to your body.
Staying chained to your desk is not healthy. The second assistant may not love you for asking her to cover the phones for fifteen minutes, but you deserve time to get up, walk around, and go outside. Even if you pack your lunch, eat it somewhere other than your desk–if you can get outside, do that. If not, try an empty conference room, and invite one or two of your coworkers to join you. The point is that you get a physical and mental boost from taking a break. You can rest your eyes from the harsh light of a computer. You can flip through a magazine and enjoy not stressing about work for a second. It’s allowed. We promise.
For more tips, click here.
Gawker’s new advice column, Ask Tionna, covers everything from sex to interpersonal relationship. This week, the topic is our favorite: work! A beleaguered employee writes in to complain about mistreatment, but no-b.s. Tionna has this to say:
JOBS TREAT THEIR EMPLOYEES A CERTAIN WAY BECAUSE THEY DON’T NEED YOU.
Yeah, we all want to believe that if we left our place of employment that it will burn up in fire and no work will get done, but we’re wrong. Jobs can find an employee that will work your job for even less money and they wouldn’t give a hot shit about benefits, etc. What I realized also is that it’s up to you whether or not you’re going to be taking bad treatment from a job. Sometimes, as bill paying people, we take our jobs wayyyyyyyyy too serious. At the end of my job route, I was stressed. My hair on the side was falling out and I was becoming a raging bitch. I hated all the customers and I just wanted to shoot my co-workers and when you get to that point like any relationship, it’s time to be out!
So what I think you and your friend should do in a position like this is take y’all asses on Craigslist, Monster.com, or Simplyhired.com, and look for another freaking job. Life is hard enough, who needs to be stressed at work, a place where you’re smarter than your boss anyway.
I think ‘they just don’t need you’ is the new ‘he’s just not that into you.’ Thanks, Tionna!
Ever had a moment where you thought ‘Man, so-and-so is totally crazy. Like, she’s so crazy she eats all the poppyseeds off the bagel before eating the bagel, and she likes filing! She is, like, clinically insane!’
Well then, enjoy these guidelines for getting your coworker committed. It’s time to take a real close look at your boss’ behavior and see what you can do about having him locked up forever. Is repeatedly forgetting your name a sign of douchiness or of mental decay?
Published on
October 10, 2007 in
Holidays.
A blogger we like let us know that today is World Mental Health Day. What does this mean?
World Mental Health day is an attempt to make mental health more recognizable and better understood around the globe. And because so many of us find that our mental health is negatively affected by our workplaces, here’s a list of simple things you can do to make yourself happier today. Please add any of your own tips in the Comments.
- Tell your coworkers a good dirty joke
- Invite the new girl out to lunch
- Spend an hour this afternoon browsing online shoe sales
- Use your lunch hour to go for a walk (exercise boosts your endorphins)
- Arrange a spur of the moment happy hour with some friends you don’t see often enough
- Make an appointment for a massage
- Sync up your iPod with your work computer and put your headphones on
- Try a nice-smelling herbal tea instead of your usual fifth cup of coffee
- Go home “sick”
- Or better yet, take tomorrow off
