Goldman Sachs, one of the only financial giants to remain standing, has decided to take the conservative approach and cancel their annual holiday party. The move is hardly shocking, as many companies in a variety of industries have also cancelled their parties, either because of financial reasons or because it would look tacky to have one when the economy is doing so badly. However, Goldman is going one step further in its party-banning, telling employees that they can’t throw their own parties for coworkers at their homes:
The firm has canceled its annual holiday party, just as it did last year. It also instructed the smaller business units that they should not organize their own smaller parties, which had been a long tradition at the firm. The parties are banned even if no firm money goes to pay for them.
But Goldman employees were surprised to hear that even parties within private homes fall under the ban. The firm apparently believes that it would be inappropriate for its employees to be seen partying while the economy is still so shaky and unemployment is so high.
Man, companies trying to keep you from having fun even when you’re not on their time? Next they’ll try to tell you what the dress code should be when you’re lying in bed on a Saturday morning watching TV. Or they’ll issue appropriate protocol for how to behave on your next date.
The office manager at my company loves to do corny decorations for holidays. This year she did a whole Halloween thing with orange streamers and cutouts of ghosts and stuff. In the break room, there were a whole bunch of paper tombstones on the wall. My friend and I got a sharpie and wrote names of people who got laid off this year on all the tombstones. When my boss saw it, he was REALLY MAD. We all had to go to this big meeting where he and the office manager yelled at us and told us how us writing names of laidoff people on the tombstones was bad for morale. Funny, I thought actually laying people off was the part that was bad for morale.
- Submitted by Aaron, New York City
It’s Labor Day. For most of us, Labor Day means a long weekend off from work, the end of summer, and a moratorium on wearing white shoes. However, as assistants we should remember the real meaning of Labor Day – a holiday to celebrate the worker. Here are some links you should check out if you want to learn more:
- Wikipedia, of course – learn about how Labor Day differs from International Workers’ Day and more
- If you’re unemployed, why should you care about this holiday? The Associated Press weighs in.
- Are you a history buff? Check out this great series of Labor Day-related videos from the History Channel.
- It’s not truly a worker’s holiday unless you get free stuff. Chick-fil-a is giving away free sandwiches to people who show up today in sports-themed gear (click here for details).
- Should you really want a challenge, take this Labor Day quiz – and don’t cheat by scrolling down.
The Hollywood Reporter has announced that director Garry Marshall is putting together a big-name cast for his new film Valentine’s Day. The movie, which kind of sounds like an American version of Love, Actually, features multiple interlocking love stories that take place in and around Los Angeles on, of course, V-Day. Already cast or close to being cast are Shirley MacLaine, Jessica Biel, Julia Roberts, Ashton Kutcher, Jennifer Garner, and Bradley Cooper. The cast also includes Anne Hathaway, whose character/storyline has been described thusly:
Hathaway is an assistant working at the biggest talent agency in town and dating a mailroom assistant.
Oh, good, we all know how many happy endings there are for assistants who work at big-deal Hollywood talent agencies.
April 28th is Equal Pay Day. I’m not sure exactly whether the day is supposed to be about “celebrating” the fact that men and women are allegedly being paid equally or about bemoaning the fact that men still make more than women for doing the same jobs. I’m going with the latter, obviously. Marie Claire has some sobering stats that we should keep in mind today:
- For every dollar a man makes, a woman makes 78 cents. That number has climbed 1 cent since 2006.
- Fresh-out-of-college women make $15,498 less per year than the boys; over a 35-year career, they’ll make $210,000 less.
- A 25-year-old female PR specialist makes the same as her male colleagues; 20 years later, she’ll make about $35,000 less.
- She-EOs make $303,000 less than their male counterparts.
- Male primary-care physicians make 22 percent more than lady docs.
- Male IT workers make 11.9 percent more than geekettes.
- According to the American Association of University Women, at the current rate, we’ll reach pay equity in 2040.
Woo, what a fun holiday! Time for some Jager bombs in the break room!
In all the hubbub around Admin Professionals Day, I totally forgot that yesterday was Take Our Daughters to Work Day. Originally planned as a day to introduce girls to the workforce and educate them about career options, some now argue that feminism in the workplace has advanced enough that girls don’t have to be taken into offices to see positive female role models – they’re on TV, at home, and everywhere else.
Brazen Careerist founder Penelope Trunk has a post on her personal blog about how she thinks the day should be be abolished, dismissed as no longer necessary.
This holiday now strikes me as one similar to Secretaries Day, which is a relic from the days when there were no computers and secretaries had thankless jobs and the men who were having sex with them on the side always forgot to thank her in the spotlight for the typing, so there is an official reminder day to buy her a card. That made sense. Twenty years ago.
She makes the valid argument that for many people, there’s no line between work and home anyway, and it seems uneccessary at best and annoying at worst to bring kids into a professional workplace.
Continue reading ’should we take our kids to work?’
Administrative Professionals’ Day is tomorrow! My lips are sealed, but I promise some cool things for tomorrow. However, because a day is not enough to praise assistants for all they do, the whole week is now Administrative Professionals’ Week. Here are a couple of links you should check out as you prep for the big day:
This horror story is very appropriate for St. Patrick’s Day. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some green beer to drink in order to wash the bad taste of this story out of my mouth.
One day I was driving my boss to yoga and he some how brought up the fact that my last name is Irish (along with being Irish, I’m English. Czech, French, German, etc.) and he starts sort of awkwardly with “Well, so, you know. I am Jewish and you know how like Jewish people like to feed people and eat a lot, do you and your family, like you know, being Irish, do they drink a lot?”
What the Fuck.
–Submitted by Laura, Philadelphia
Wednesday is Hump Day, the sign you’ve slogged through half of the week. But this Wednesday, July 23, is also Insult Your Boss Day. MIT lecturer A.C. Kemp invented the holiday as a way to let workers vent about their boss-related frustrations. (Wouldn’t it be awesome if there was some website where you could do that all year?)
If for some reason insults related to your boss don’t flow quickly and easily, Insult Your Boss Day’s official website has some helpful snark tips. However, as an STA reader, I sincerely doubt you need any assistance. Frankly, around here every day is Insult Your Boss Day. That said, it’s about time somebody made up a fake holiday I could really get behind. I mean, at least this one has a goal other than selling Hallmark cards or making single people feel like shit for not having a Valentine.
Happy Fourth of July, everyone!
Most of us make New Year’s resolutions. But one year my friends and I started a tradition that I still keep up–every Fourth of July, we have to answer the question, “What do you want to be independent from this year?”
If, for you, the answer is “my job,” I challenge you to devote part of your long weekend to thinking about exactly how you’re going to become independent from it. Make a couple of really attainable, practical goals–”I will send out at least five resumes a week” or “I will follow up with every person I meet at a networking event.” Because it’s one thing to hate your job, but it’s another thing to do something about it.
When Ashley and I first started STA, we concieved it as simply a place to share horror stories like the ones we enjoyed swapping with our friends at postwork cocktails. However, it didn’t take long for that idea to get old. As much fun as it is to rant about your job, we realized that the true aim of the site should be to help people get out of those horror-story-inducing jobs. I actually made one of my work-independence goals to “spend as much time trying to find a new job as I do complaining about my current one,” and now I don’t work at The Evil Empire anymore.
So, this Independence Day, add a little something extra to your menu of fireworks, beer, and hot dogs. And then write in, and let us know how you’re doing.
