The only thing I enjoy more than a new buzzword is laziness, so obviously I’m on board with the new word “lazylancing.” It’s defined as “when you subsidize your travel with freelance work.”
Here’s the thing: that doesn’t sound lazy to me. Traveling is the least lazy thing ever! It involves planning and moving around and carrying shit and rushing to make it to the museum before it closes and figuring out where to get lunch. Traveling requires lots of stamina. If I were to define lazylancing, it would be more like “person who claims to be working on freelance projects but is actually just putzing around on the internet and watching old Big Love episodes.” Not that I, uh, know anyone who does that.
At my last job, there was a lot of turnover, so by the time I passed the two year mark I was a bit of an office veteran, especially among the assistants. I knew how to do everything and was put in charge of training the newbies. That meant that not only was I a bit of a know-it-all, I was also pretty deep into a rut. In other words, I was the “office curmudgeon,” as defined by Canada.com:
Employees can also create their own workplace woes and not know it.
Chances are, if you’re unhappy with your job or career, you’re not at your best in the workplace, says Caston.
“Even if you’re on your days off, are you likely to be doing some of the things you do for money?”
If your answer is a resounding ‘no,’ it’s time to consider leaving. If you don’t, you’re likely to become physically ill and you won’t perform well at work.
But even those who aren’t at such an extreme point can behave poorly without knowing it.
Now, I think the real question is a little more complex – are you being grumpy and complaining about everything because you’re just a disgruntled person, or are you bored to tears? For me, it was definitely the latter. It’s time to take a good hard look at your situation and decide if you need to change up your current situation or if you need to get out of it entirely.
It never ceases to make me laugh when newspapers or magazines ’suddenly’ catch on to the ‘trend’ of working remotely. Still, as the economy sucks and people are taking pay cuts or working multiple part time jobs, these trend pieces are not going anywhere. Now, the Washington Post has coined the term ‘digital nomad‘ to identify and describe people who – like yours truly! – can do their jobs from anyplace they want (provided it has wifi, of course). Here are some of the reasons/benefits the article gives:
You can wear whatever you want.
No one makes you get up at 7 AM.
You can avoid traffic or crowded public transit.
You are able to work flexible hours, which is particularly awesome if you have kids or are working multiple gigs.
“Meetings” can be conducted from your living room, a Starbucks, a library, or basically anywhere else.
Buying an iPhone is a “work expense.’
You can meet other digital nomads at your coffee shop of choice.
If you want to go on vacation, you don’t have to request time off – you just have to make sure your laptop will work from the beach or hotel or airport or wherever.
In other words, your company needs to get with the times and let you be a digital nomad already.
“I know you can be overwhelmed, and you can be underwhelmed, but can you ever just be whelmed?”
“I think you can in Europe.”
- Ten Things I Hate About You
OK, I’ll stop with the quoting of awesome ’90s movies now. But that was the first thing that popped into my head when I saw an article in today’s NY Daily News about something called “undermanagement.” I have to admit, usually the thing people complain the most regarding bosses and the workplace is being micromanaged – having a boss who breathes down their neck all the time and hyperstresses about even the smallest and most irrelevant of tasks. Now, we’re also supposed to be worried that someone might be managing too little? This kind of reminds me of how tabloids freak out whenever a celebrity puts on a pound or two and immediately starts a round-the-clock “bumpwatch” but then castigate her when she loses any weight and accuses her of having an eating disorder. There’s no middle ground, and there’s no way to win.
It usually isn’t up for debate whether abused assistants are bitter – the question is more likely to be about how bitter they are. But last week, at the American Psychiatric Association annual meeting, the members discussed a new phenomenon they’ve named Post-Traumatic Bitterness Disorder. Similar to its cousin, PTSD, the newly named ailment is described as “angry plus helpless.” It’s becoming increasingly common as already-beleaguered workers cope with the results of a suffering economy, thus compounding their emotions. In addition to being disgruntled, they’re being laid off, forced into a combo job, or hanging on for dear life. Here’s what German Dr. Michael Linden, who coined the PTBD term, had to say:
Embittered people are typically good people who have worked hard at something important, such as a job, relationship or activity, Linden says. When something unexpectedly awful happens — they don’t get the promotion, their spouse files for divorce or they fail to make the Olympic team — a profound sense of injustice overtakes them. Instead of dealing with the loss with the help of family and friends, they cannot let go of the feeling of being victimized. Almost immediately after the traumatic event, they become angry, pessimistic, aggressive, hopeless haters.
Wow, so did he come and spy on me in order to come up with this diagnosis? And believe me, “failing to make the Olympic team” is something so unlikely to happen to me that I am not worried about how I might react when it happens. Trust.
Remember when the economy first started to tank and all these big companies were getting bailouts? There was a fun buzzword – buyout sex – for employees of companies that were about to go under and figured protocol didn’t matter anymore. Now, there’s the more broad recession sex, which is when people have lost their jobs and are thus poor and have a lot of free time, so they start boning more often.
AdAge, of all places, has an article about this trend. The news hook for them is that sales of personal lubricants and “sexual enhancement devices” are way up.
“When the economy goes down, sex goes up,” said a Johnson & Johnson [who makes K&Y Jelly] spokesman by way of explanation, but he and the brand team declined to elaborate on why their products seem to be booming when the economy isn’t.
“These seem to be products people are actually gravitating toward in a recession,” Mr. Daniels said. “I’m not a psychologist, so I don’t know why that is. We are seeing people spending more time at home. We’re seeing people’s relationships being stressed. We’re seeing people looking for means to reconnect with their partner and invest in relationships. In some cases, people may have more time on their hands if they’re not working.”
Isn’t this the same reason why there’s always a mini baby boom nine months after a hurricane or blackout – people are stuck at home with no TV or internet and need something to keep them occupied? Regardless, if you can’t afford to go out and buy things, you might as well stay home and get it on.
This week’s BusinessWeek has a really interesting article about what the current economy means for interns. I know that when I first moved to New York, without any friends or contacts, I considered myself really lucky to snag an internship at a magazine where I could learn about the publishing world and also make contacts and new friends. However, as the economy worsens and companies are laying off lots of employees – including assistants – they are recruiting additional interns in order to force these unpaid employees to do the work that was being done by salaried workers. While it may seem like a great opportunity for an intern, who wants to do something more interesting than make copies all summer, it could inadvertently bite them in the back when they try to get a real job and find out everyone wants them to keep working for free and nobody’s hiring.
No doubt many companies are keeping interns on board for longer stints to cover up for the fact that they’ve had so many layoffs. Says perma intern, Ruben Sanchez: “I believe that I have been taking on projects not normally given to interns. I have handled highly classified information from “secret” clients due to the lack of employees.”
The article quotes Lauren Berger, the excellent resource known as The Intern Queen, about the rise of perma-internships.
I have been way behind on 30 Rock this season, but got caught up over the weekend. And it turns out I missed a major assistant-y episode: because of cutbacks at the company, Jack (Alec Baldwin) had to fire his lovestruck assistant Jonathan. But since a top executive like Jack can’t go without an assistant, he did a pretty realistic thing. He forced Kenneth (Jack McBrayer), the dutiful NBC page, to take on a combo job, becoming his assistant – for no additional pay, of course. The whole episode is here (it’s about 22 minutes, so wait til your lunch break or after you get home).
The act of baking something delicious in order to make up for a major screw-up at work.
Ex: “I totally bombed my performance review, but then I pulled an Amelia Bedelia and brought in some pumpkin-ginger cookies and now I’m getting a raise!”
If you read any of the Amelia Bedelia books as a kid – like I did – then you’ll totally appreciate this one. Have you ever noticed how many of the “quirky” heroines for little girls had red hair? Amelia, Anne Shirley, Pippi Longstocking, Anastasia Krupnik, and Mallory from The Babysitters Club. Maybe I care too much about this.
[This buzzphrase was shamelessly stolen from the wonderful hortense over at Jezebel.]
Have you ever thought “man, I wish I didn’t have a day job so that I could get that crazy neck tattoo/chin piercing/mohawk I always wanted?” Well, once you get laid off, the roadblock suddenly disappears. Matthew Saccoman, 31, works as a schoolteacher and sports a healthy-looking beard. He organizes the annual New York City Beard and Mustache Championship, which this year featured a new category: “recession beard.” The winner of that category was Nate Stahura of Rochester, who spent five months growing his beard after he was laid off from his job in banking.
Sadly, the only category open to women is one where you make your own beard out of any products or fabrics you want. It’s fun and crafty, but not quite the same. Maybe I should organize my own Yoga Pants Championship.
At my last job, there was a lot of turnover, so by the time I passed the two year mark I was a bit of an office veteran, especially among the assistants. I knew how to do everything and was put in charge of training the newbies. That meant that not only was I a bit of a know-it-all, I was also pretty deep into a rut. In other words, I was the “office curmudgeon,” 
“I know you can be overwhelmed, and you can be underwhelmed, but can you ever just be whelmed?”
It usually isn’t up for debate whether abused assistants are bitter – the question is more likely to be about how bitter they are. But last week, at the American Psychiatric Association annual meeting, the members discussed a new phenomenon they’ve named 
Pull an Amelia Bedelia:
