A new study says that both men and women put more effort into getting dressed on Mondays than they do the rest of the week. Women reportedly spend an average of 76 minutes getting dressed and made up on Mondays, a number which declines steadily each day of the week. As for dudes? They take 28 minutes on Monday, 14 on Tuesday, and 11 each of the other days of the week. Some possible theories of mine:
On Monday, you’re really effing tired, so it takes you twice as long to do the same things. Like, you spend 10 minutes putting on eye makeup instead of five because you’re cloudy-headed and not as focused. Throughout the week, you get sharper.
I suspect there’s a correlation between looking better on Mondays and having more important meetings with higher-ups on Mondays. My old boss always scheduled shit at 10 AM on Mondays and then spent the rest of the week being a useless douche.
If you went shopping over the weekend and bought something new, you want to wear it as soon as possible. That means Monday.
During the week, you go out and get drunk. Then you might oversleep the next morning and less time to get ready.
Mondays are a hard day because they’re when you have to get back into “work mode.” So you didn’t plan what to wear the night before or put your makeup out in a place where you could just grab it instead of digging around in your medicine cabinet.
Do you agree that you spend more time getting ready on Monday, or do you think this survey is out of whack? Tell me what you think!
I’m loving (in that “I appreciate its artistic merits” way, not in the “making so little money is awesome” way) this “minimum wage machine” created by artist Blake Fall-Conroy. You can check it out here. This description comes from his website:
The minimum wage machine allows anybody to work for minimum wage. Turning the crank will yield one penny every 5.04 seconds, for $7.15 an hour (NY state minimum wage). If the participant stops turning the crank, they stop receiving money. The machine’s mechanism and electronics are powered by the hand crank, and pennies are stored in a plexiglas box.
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.
Writing on the Huffington Post, Friend of STA Brooke Moreland deftly breaks down the main types of holiday party outfits, what they say about you, and what others will think of you for wearing them. Here are a couple of highlights:
The LBD: You think it’s timeless, everyone else thinks it’s safe and predictable. They’re also all wearing LBDs themselves.
The Party Dress: You’re the life of the party. However, that means you also run a higher risk of barfing on someone or accidentally hitting on a coworker’s spouse.
The Business Suit: You just came from the office, which means you’re a workaholic. Your boss thinks that is a good quality, but your coworkers probably think you’re lame.
The Cute Holiday Sweater: Um, do I even need to mention this one? You may think “festive,” everyone else thinks “loser.” Save it for Grandma’s Christmas dinner.
The Elegant Dress: Perhaps you’re overdressed, or perhaps you’re just so good-looking that everyone else is jealous of you. Sometimes, risks are worth taking.
In a totally depressing article, the Daily Mail reports that one third of women in the UK claim they have experienced sexual harassment at the workplace. Some lowlights:
14 percent are “dreading” going to their holiday party because they’ll have to dodge a drunk and/or handsy coworker
20 percent say they have had to fend off a coworker’s sexual advances
5 percent report that they have quit a job because the office harassment was so bad
32 percent say that they have experienced harassment in the form of lewd “humor” or inappropriate jokes
However, that’s not the only disheartening thing about this article. The recommended reading link in the middle of the article links to something entitled “Moody, indecisive, and trying to act like a man, why ladies make truly lousy bosses.” Seriously? I have two things to say to the author of that piece: one, it’s called a colon and you should try using one, and two, shut up.
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.
Hey, remember that movie The Full Monty? Well, now the story is coming to France, as factory workers in the town of Ploufragan have posed for a nude calendar in an attempt to get some publicity and call attention to their plight. After finding out that they would be facing layoffs where 207 of the factory’s 251 workers would likely be laid off, some of the men at the factory decided to, er, make the best of things. The calendars are currently selling for 7 euros each. As for the response?
Ludovic L’Hostellier, 32, is “Mr. February.” His nude pose is in a big box whose lid is closing on him. The box is labeled Chaffoteaux.
“It represents the company closing, just like the box I’m in,” he explained by phone.
He said his wife was pleased with the photos and “we have had only good reactions” to the calendar.” He said if he does lose his job at the end of the year, he will look for another immediately. “We can’t live without working,” he said.
This is really getting to be a naked week around here, isn’t it?
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 – 
