Are you infuriated by the fact that rich bankers get Washington bailouts and six-figure bonuses while you’re still scraping by? You are far from alone. Tim Hunkin, an English man who runs an arcade in Southwold, Suffolk realized there was a market for people who wanted to take out their frustration on capitalist pigs - so he created “Whack a Banker,” a game based on the popular “Whack a Mole,” where little heads of men in business suits pop out of holes, and you beat the hell out of them with a mallet. Hunkin, who charges a mere 40 pence per turn, is already raking in the cash.
”It’s proving very popular. I keep having to replace worn-out mallets.”
”And, of course, the bankers never really lose. If you win the game a banker’s voice says: ‘You win. We retire. Thank you very much to the taxpayer for paying our pensions’.”
Looking for a new job in 2010? Well, here’s some good news - one of the ten best professions for job prospects next year is Executive Assistant. In other words - you!
Here’s what Careerbuilder (via Robert Half International) has to say:
Companies with leaner teams are looking for employees to take on a wider range of duties. Executive assistants who can wear many hats, support multiple managers and adapt readily to change are in particular demand. These individuals are likely to see starting salaries of $35,000 to $47,000.
In case you didn’t catch that, it’s a fancy description for “Combo Job.” But hey, at least it’s a job. If you’re thinking of switching careers, this list seems to indicate that you should probably check out IT or financial services.
When I was an assistant, my entire day consisted of organizing my boss’ life. I had dozens of phone numbers - for his wife, his accountant, his lawyer, his best friend, etc - committed to memory. I spent hours arranging his travel, buying his kids’ birthday presents, keeping him on time for appointments, and prepping him for meetings. If you’d seen me at work in full on assistant mode, you would have thought I was a really organized person. The thing is, though, that I was so good at being his assistant that I had absolutely no energy left over for myself.
At home, things were really different. I would go to the grocery store without a list, only to come home realizing I’d forgotten some important ingredient. My room was a mess. I let dishes pile up in the sink until my roommate had to flat-out tell me he wasn’t going to do them for me. I was often late to meet people because I couldn’t keep my own schedule organized. It’s a sad and scary truth: assistants spend so much time running another person’s life that they often don’t have the time, energy, or incentive to run their own.
Has this ever happened to you? Have you ever been so good at your job that your own life faltered or had to take a backseat? Tell me your stories.
There are tons of ways to calm down/feel less stressed at work - taking a break to chat with a coworker friend, listening to music, organizing a company yoga class - but poetry isn’t one I normally think of. A new website called Fiscal Haiku encourages readers to submit haikus about the economy and the current financial climate. Here are a couple of my favorites:
Food court smells so good
But my wallet is empty
It sucks to be broke
Pour water through seives
Wanting and spending money
Yet life can’t be bought
a college degree
can’t afford health insurance
unpaid internship
This is fun! I might have to work on some STA-related ones.
In my many office experiences, I’ve done everything from group yoga classes to company-wide ropes courses, all in the name of “bonding” or “boosting morale.” As lame as both those things were, they were the company’s idea and not something mandated by the government. Now, though, there is a new law in Japan regulating how much people can weigh and how big their waists can be. Additionally, companies are expected to keep their employees slim - and fire the ones who don’t make the cut.
Under Japan’s health care coverage, companies administer check-ups to employees once a year. Those who fail to meet the waistline requirement must undergo counseling. If companies do not reduce the number of overweight employees by 10 percent by 2012 and 25 percent by 2015, they could be required to pay more money into a health care program for the elderly. An estimated 56 million Japanese will have their waists measured this year.
Perhaps more astounding, even before Japanese lawmakers set the waistline limits last year, the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) amended its recommended guidelines for the Japanese. The new IDF standard is 90 centimeters (35.4 inches) for men and 80 centimeters (31.5 inches) for women. But the Japanese government has yet to modify its limits.
If they tried to pull this shit in America, I feel like people would riot. My obsession with sour straws should be no one’s issue but mine.
This morning while waiting for my bagel, a song came on the radio. It’s a catchy oldies tune that I’ve always liked called “Take a Letter, Maria.” Then, as I was singing along in my head, I realized something: the song is about an assistant - well, a secretary, but you get the idea. Basically, the storyline is that this guy finds out that his wife is cheating on him and starts dictating a letter to his secretary. While he’s dictating the letter (which is going to his lawyer, presumably so they can start divorce proceedings), he pours his heart out to the secretary, Maria, and by the end of the song has asked her out to dinner.
Here’s the thing - obviously it’s hard to glean this sort of backstory from a two and a half minute long song, but is the ending romantic or creepy? I mean, it could go either way. Maybe Maria had been secretly pining for her boss, but it took his wife’s infidelity to get him to notice how awesome Maria was. Or it’s possible that the boss was just depressed and looking for affection and Maria just happened to be there. Anyway, one thing is clear - I spent entirely too much time thinking about this song today. And, possibly, I spend too much time thinking about assistants in general, but, hey, I like my job.
Here’s the song so you can listen for yourself, and if you’re not able to watch video you can check out the lyrics.
Thanks to that exact form of science known as “monitoring people on Facebook,” we now have conclusive proof that people hate Mondays. Those of us with jobs know this already, but for some reason people seem to believe things whenever there’s a study to back it up. The FB team charted status updates on particular days to see when people were most happy and most sad. Happiest day of the year is apparently Thanksgiving - I give credit to the tryptophan.
Two professors at the University of Southern California, have done a study showing that the dumber and less competent someone is, the more likely they are to yell and try to intimidate other people.
“Power holders feel they need to be superior and competent. When they don’t feel they can show that legitimately, they’ll show it by taking people down a notch or two,” says Nathanael Fast, a social psychologist at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, who led a series of experiments to explore this effect.
Fast and Chen asked their volunteers to select a punishment to be given to university students for wrong answers in a hypothetical test of learning. Volunteers chose between horn sounds that ranged from 10 decibels to a deafening 130 decibels.
The volunteers who felt the most incompetent and empowered picked the loudest punishments – 71 decibels on average. Workers who felt up to their jobs, selected far quieter punishments, between 55 and 62 decibels, as did those primed to feel incompetent yet powerless.
I still can’t believe people get paid for “discovering” things that any assistant could have told you about. Then again, I suppose it’s the nature of being an assistant to watch other people get paid for shit that you deal with every day.
Have you ever uttered - or heard someone else utter - the phrase “I don’t have time to get sick”? Well, for people who don’t have the time or desire to be sick, a Japanese clothing company called Haruyama Trading has developed a suit that they claim can help ward off H1N1 (aka the swine flu).
It is coated with titanium dioxide, a chemical commonly used in toothpaste and cosmetics and that breaks down when reacting with light, supposedly killing the virus upon contact.
Shinto Hirata, vice director of merchandising at Haruyama, says the suit is proven to kill 40 percent of the latest flu virus in about three hours and will retain its protective capability even after being washed several times.
I guess this is the next thing you’ll have to expense for your boss. It costs $590, which is a lot of fancy lunches.
Have you ever thought “man, I had a long day at the office, all I want to do is go home, eat ice cream, and veg out in front of the TV”? Well, you’re far from alone. Some Canadian scientists have apparently proven that the more stressed you are during the day, the less likely you are to exercise later. I can’t believe people get research money for this - I’d happily just take the money and observe my friends for a week. Anyhow, here’s the science:
Kathleen Martin Ginis, an associate professor of kinesiology – the science of movement – who led the study, said we all have a limited amount of willpower which is whittled away by stress.
Miss Martin Ginis, from Canada’s McMaster University, explained: “Cognitive tasks, as well as emotional tasks, such as regulating your emotions, can deplete your self-regulatory capacity to exercise.”
The study, published in journal Psychology and Health, also concluded that willpower can be stretched by constantly challenging yourself to resist temptations such as eating a piece of chocolate cake, or forcing yourself to study an extra half-hour each night.
Miss Martin Ginis added: “There are strategies to help people rejuvenate after their self-regulation is depleted. Willpower is like a muscle: it needs to be challenged to build itself.”
In other news, you’re stressed out and lazy. There’s an extra spot on my couch if you want to join. Bring your own spoon.
Are you infuriated by the fact that rich bankers get Washington bailouts and six-figure bonuses while you’re still scraping by? You are far from alone. Tim Hunkin, an English man who runs an arcade in Southwold, Suffolk realized there was a market for people who wanted to take out their frustration on capitalist pigs - so he created “Whack a Banker,” a game based on the popular “Whack a Mole,” where little heads of men in business suits pop out of holes, and you beat the hell out of them with a mallet. Hunkin, who charges a mere 40 pence per turn, is already raking in the cash.
Have you ever thought “man, I had a long day at the office, all I want to do is go home, eat ice cream, and veg out in front of the TV”? Well, you’re far from alone. Some Canadian scientists have apparently proven that the more stressed you are during the day, the less likely you are to exercise later. I can’t believe people get research money for this - I’d happily just take the money and observe my friends for a week. Anyhow,