Lost your job? Got your hours cut? Either way, there’s a trend on the rise among the gainfully underemployed: recession booty. In other words, if you’re stuck at home all day, you might as well have some hot body to keep you company. And, if you’re bored and tired of reading the want ads and watching The People’s Court reruns, why not have sex with somebody in order to keep yourself occupied? I mean, hey, it’s a nice way to compensate for having to give up your gym membership.
Archive for the 'Buzzwords' Category
Page 3 of 6
Remember when you were a kid, and didn’t want to do something, and your mom said ‘a little broccoli/making the bed/math homework never killed anybody?’ Well, sometimes work can kill you, as any of you who read this site can easily attest. The Japanese, who have a word for everything, have a word for “death by overwork.” This word is karoshi and was officially coined in 1987, when the Japanese government acknowledged overwork of employees as a potential cause of death.
The most recent person to die by karoshi was a senior car engineer at Toyota. The man, whose name has not been released, was working on a new hybrid Camry model. The man’s wife’s lawyers said that ”in the two months leading up to his death, the man averaged more than 80 hours of overtime per month.”
I don’t drive anymore, but when I did I could definitely see why people got road rage. Now, living in New York, I get subway rage–sometimes it’s all I can do not to punch the woman who “accidentally” stepped on my foot three times. But considering how most people spend way more time at work than they do in a car or other mode of transportation, there’s been an uptick in reports of “desk rage.” Whether you’re the one on the giving end or the receiving end of yelling, hitting, name-calling, stapler-throwing, and the like, you have definitely witnessed some desk rage moments in your office.
So why are we turning into a nation of Naomi Campbells?
Just like a bad relationship, a bad job continues to follow you around even after you’ve severed ties. I had an ex-boyfriend who, as if by magic, only called me to be cute and cordial and chatty as soon as I’d started seeing someone else but couldn’t care less about me when I was single. Evil bosses and bad jobs are like that too. You move on to something better, go to a company that treats employees well and score yourself a snazzy new title, and then suddenly one day you’re sitting at your shiny new desk when it happens–a flashback. It’s the workplace equivalent of an acid flashback. For a few terrifying seconds, you’re back at your old cube, answering six phone calls at once while simultaneously signing for a package, ordering your boss’ lunch, and getting screamed at, and…whoosh.
In situations like that, the best thing you can do is open your eyes and remember it’s over. Go and look out your window. Close your office door just because you can. And then think about how, now, it’s your job to help save assistants, just like you got saved yourself.
Have you ever suffered from Workplace PTSD? Tell us your stories.
Procrascipline, as coined by Slacker Manager, is a term he got from combining the words “discipline” and “procrastination.” And, considering how much I love procrastinating, I was intrigued by the idea of having a method to my slacker madness.
Procrascipline: (v) pro-crAS-sip-lyn, the discipline of procrastination. As in: “Boy, I really procrasciplined my way through that project!” Or, “Wow, what a talented procrascipliner you are! Will you marry me?”
I’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating: highly effective slackers are very good at doing what is important to them. But maybe not so good at doing what’s important to others. That makes for fertile ground for procrastination to bloom and flourish. This is the bane of all highly effective slackers.
The first rule of procrascipline is that you must not ignore the task. The second rule of procrascipline is to que it up in one of your lists that you actually look at. Don’t bury that task in your “List of things that must never be acknowledged.” The third rule of procrascipline is to communicate your progress.
You already know what ‘tone deaf’ means, but words have a tendency to take on new meanings when applied to the office. ‘Tone deaf’ is basically a way of saying ‘can’t read a room.’ You know the scenario: your boss is totally gung ho about some new project that’s going to save the company, even though it’s a huge money drain and everyone else sees it. Or maybe your boss thinks ‘everyone is obsessively checking their watches during my presentation’ somehow translates into ‘they all think I am a genius and were in awe of my great new ideas.’
Is your boss tone deaf? Or maybe just delusional? Let us know.
Ashley here. I recently came back from my first vacation in, um, three years. Surprise, surprise, but I’m having a really hard time actually getting back into this whole work thing. Checking email gives me a headache, sitting in on meetings gives me rigormortis of the ass, and trying to work on “deliverables” doesn’t get beyond staring at an empty Word doc, eventually wiping drool from the corner of my mouth and deciding to go get my umpteenth coffee of the day.
At first I figured I just wasn’t into the job, but – and I do realize the blog I’m writing this on – I actually like my job. I like vacation more, of course, but my job definitely does not suck. So what gives? Why am I not well-rested and able to concentrate?
I blame Post-Vacation Depression Disorder (or PVDD), an anti-email, anti-meeting, anti-cubicle malaise that most of us pick up after a really excellent vacation. While there is no immediate cure, PVDD is definitely grounds for a mental health day, so feel free to use it to prolong that vacation one… more… day.
It’s really hard to escape buzzwords at work–after all, that’s why STA even has a “buzzword” category in the first place. The BBC asked readers from around the world to submit their least-loved office terms. Here are a couple of the standouts:
- My employers recently informed staff that we are no longer allowed to use the phrase brain storm because it might have negative connotations associated with fits. We must now take idea showers. I think that says it all really.
- In my work environment it’s all cascading at the moment. What they really mean is to communicate or disseminate information, usually downwards. What they don’t seem to appreciate is that it sounds like we’re being wee’d on. Which we usually are.
- I work in one of those humble call centres for a bank. Apparently, what we’re doing at the moment is sprinkling our magic along the way. It’s a call centre, not Hogwarts.
- The business-speak that I abhor is pre-prepare and forward planning. Is there any other kind of preparedness or planning?
- The latest that’s stuck in my head is we are still optimistic things will feed through the sales and delivery pipeline (ie: we actually haven’t sold anything to anyone yet but maybe we will one day).
Here are the only two existing definitions for the word “assistant” on Urban Dictionary:
1. A modern day slave. A person who has no life of their own and insist [sic] on serving others like a cheap whore with no backbone. Some whores are more expensive then others but still all of them lack backbones. A position for employment that requires little to no dignity.
2. This word says it all. Ass is tant.
It is seriously time to send over some definitions of our own that are a little less…demeaning, shall we say? We know UD is a place for snark, but this is way over the limit. Also, there is not a single definition available for “personal assistant,” so the blank slate belongs to us.
Assistants, start your engines!
It is the technical term for something we all know about: fear of failure.
However, is there a word for fear of success?
Because sometimes during my shitty assistant job I was pretty sure I had it. I was afraid of being good at my job because I thought if I was too good I’d never get promoted and be consigned to assistantland forever. And it’s possible I stayed at my job, despite the tons of yelling and throwing-of-things and general office abuse, because I didn’t think I deserved better. A crap job is kind of like an abusive relationship, and I stayed in it way longer than I should have. So, that brings me to…
