Published on
December 21, 2009 in
Polls.
Tags: Polls.
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.
Having an evil boss doesn’t just hurt morale and your will to live – it’s also bad for the economy. A new study from USC’s School of Business finds that bad bosses cost the US economy about $300 billion a year. That is a lot of money. Where does it come from?
- Lawsuits – wrongful termination, harassment, creating a hostile work environment… you name it.
- Lost productivity – people bitching about their bosses, hiding from them, crying in the bathroom, etc., instead of working
- Retention/hirings and firings – employees are more likely to leave jobs with unpleasant working environments (note: the Evil Empire went through about ten assistants a year. That is a lot of time devoted to reading resumes, arranging interviews, making offers, training new people, and the like.)
- Morale – not just unhappy employees, but if clients, vendors, or customers get wind of how unhappy a place is for workers, they are 80 percent less likely to continue their business there
In other words, you now have a really strong case for getting your boss fired. Good luck!
In an awesome study released just in time for the weekend, researchers in Sweden have proven a correlation between people who have good (or at least regular) sex are happier, more motivated employees. Those of you who aren’t currently getting any don’t need to worry – healthy emotional relationships with friends and family members also make you happier at the office.
I’m sure there are more in-depth scientific reasons for why these things connect, but it seems obvious to me – happy people are happier employees. If having healthy emotional relationships make you a better worker, it’s probably because a) you have people you can vent to about work who then remind you it’s not your fault, and b) you have other things that give your life value and meaning and don’t have to rely on your boss to compliment you. And as for the good sex thing, well, anyone who’s ever had The Glow can pretty much attest to its general life benefits.
What this study doesn’t explicitly say – but gets at – is that not only are happy people better workers, companies should keep that in mind when they’re building offices and planning schedules. It seems so fucking obvious to me that if you create a corporate culture that encourages caring about employees’ emotional health, it pays off for you in the long run. Then again, I once worked for a company that considered morale a buzzword instead of a workplace concern and where you practically had to ask permission to go pee, so perhaps I’m biased on this one.
Pamela Skillings, author of the new book Escape from Corporate America, is one of the best known names in the “your life is more important than your job” movement. She has a quiz on her site called Are You a Corporate Casualty? Take it, and then begin to reassess your life. Again.
Today, the Spoiled Useless L.A. Brats edition:
Spencer “Prat” Pratt
OR
“One Night In” Paris Hilton
Another week, another celebrity outed as a racist. For this Friday, we thought we’d play a little round of ‘death is not an option–who would you rather assist?’ Leave your choice in the comments.
Dog the Bounty Hunter
OR
Michael Richards
You know that “death is not an option” game where you say the names of two really gross people, and you have to say which one you’d sleep with? And death is not an option, even if they’re Carrot Top and Danny Bonaduce? We have our own version to play today.
Death is not an option: who would you rather assist?
Option A: Britney Spears
Or Option B: Kevin Federline
Let’s hear your comments in the Comments. And then you can go take a nice long shower.
