Tag Archive for 'office politics'

Monday Coffee: Don’t Call It a Cubi-kill

Published on February 21, 2011 in Week in Review. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Can a new outfit help you get promoted? I don’t know, but it’s a really good excuse to go shopping. – Shine

Though it’s early in the year, one boss in Sweden is determined to be 2011’s worst boss. He snapped pics of secretaries in G-strings and sent them out to the entire staff, encouraging them to guess which body belonged to which employee. – The Frisky

Work really can kill you: a Los Angeles county employee apparently died at her desk on a Friday and no one noticed the slumped-over body in her cubicle until the next day. – KTLA

Think bank offices must be as boring as actual banks? These pictures will make you think again. – Business Insider

How “ethnic” can you be in the workplace? Women talk about everything from sporting dreadlocks to showing up for meetngs in a sari, and how it affected them at the office. – Marie Claire

Remember the awesomely disgruntled JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater, who reached his boiling point at work and slid out of the plane on the inflatable ramp? This profile examines what made him crack and what’s coming up in the future. – New York Magazine

Today is President’s Day! If you’re American, that means you should have the day off. Here’s a primer if you need one. – Wikipedia

Dispatches from An All-Female Workplace

Published on September 29, 2010 in Manifestos. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Last week, many beauty and style bloggers participated in No Makeup Week, forgoing makeup and photographing themselves in the process. I was one of the bloggers who didn’t take part, however. No, it’s not because I love putting eyeliner on at 8 AM when I’m still groggy and liable to poke myself in the face by accident. It’s because I almost never wear makeup to work, which would make participating in the exercise kind of pointless. There are several reasons for this (overwhelming laziness being chief among them), but a huge factor is the fact that I work in an all-female office.

That’s right: B5 Media, the company that owns The Gloss as well as our sister sites Blisstree and Crushable, does not have a single male working in the New York office. We have between 10 and 14 women in here every day (depending on which interns are in). A lot of people like to think that a large group of women can’t work together and that cattiness and backstabbing will inevitably ensue, but that hasn’t been our experience in the least. We’re lucky enough to work in an informal, close-knit, open office. Most of us dress casually to the office – no sweatpants, but no suits. Because we spend most of our day looking at computer screens instead of meeting with clients or vendors, we only have to dress to impress each other. As a result? I come in to work barefaced 99 percent of the time.

Working in an office full of women doesn’t make me feel like I have to dress better or get skinnier. Instead, it makes me feel like no one will care if I have blotchy skin or limp hair. More likely, one of my coworkers would lend me her favorite hand lotion or concealer if I needed it. My coworkers and I talk openly about everything from our relationships to our gray hairs. Part of the reason for that comfort is because we work at a startup, where a small group of core employees worked round-the-clock to launch three sites in a period of weeks. At some point, between late nights coding and early mornings trying to get a jump on the headlines, you have to lose your vanity.

That’s not to say that everything about our office is sunshine and roses. There are definitely disagreements, but that has to do with the fact that we’re all people with opinions rather than because we’re people with vaginas. It’s also pretty entertaining to watch how people react to walking into our office. A male janitor in our building calls us “the lady office” without a hint of humor. Guests who come into the office for meetings sometimes ask why there aren’t any guys in our office and start peeking behind doors, as if we’re stashing our male employees in the coat closet. And there are also plenty of people who don’t notice, which I consider the biggest achievement of all.

Every workplace is different, and I’ve worked in enough of them to feel pretty lucky about this one. And the reason I’m talking about what it’s like here is to refute some of those old notions that women can’t work together without becoming catty bitches, or that we dress up out of some desire to make other women jealous of us. Sometimes, we just go to the office to work.

This post also appears on The Gloss.

recession means ass-kissing is on the rise

Published on July 28, 2009 in Junk Drawer. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

You may find this information positively shocking, but as the economy continues to suffer and companies find ways to cut costs – and jobs – asskissing at work is on the rise. That seems entirely logical to me, since when people are worried about losing their jobs they’ll do things in order to prevent that from happening, and one time-tested way of keeping your job is getting your boss to like you.

According to the same survey, backstabbing and office politics are also up 40 percent. I have no idea where these numbers came from. I mean, it’s one thing to be able to say “backstabbing is on the rise” because you’ve noticed more people doing it in order to preserve their job security, but that can only ever be a casual observation at best. How can you possibly quantify the amount of backstabbing that is going on? Even if you did a survey of workers, you could come up with something like “40 percent of people say backstabbing is on the rise,” or “40 percent of workers admit they’re more backstabby now,” (which seems to be what the surveyors did, since the rest of the piece is about a worker poll) but that would still be a little bit of a stretch.

Anyhow, you can find the entire study here.

what role do looks play at work?

Published on July 11, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

The Evil Empire, the company where Ashley and I used to work, had a certain unusual hiring practice. While it wasn’t a rule, they tended to interview a group of people for an open entry-level position and then hire whoever was the thinnest. The person was usually qualified and had all the right credentials, but consciously or subconsciously the folks in charge of hiring seemed to prefer hiring skinny chicks. The New York Times’ Freakonomics blog (based on the popular book of the same name) delve into the topic of “beauty quorums,” where unspoken advantages go to people who are considered more attractive. But how did they put their theory into practice? By asking some people to rate their own looks and then talk about their careers.

As awful as this sounds, I don’t think the people should have been allowed to rate their own attractiveness. While it was pretty heartwarming to see some positive body image on display, a “beauty quorum” is decided by the looker and not the person being looked upon. As a result, the results of this particular survey seem a little off-kilter, even though the topic they’re discussing is incredibly relevant.

your office: democracy or dictatorship?

Published on July 1, 2008 in Junk Drawer. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

A recent study found that less than half of American workers think that their office encourages or fosters creativity. The Workplace Democracy Association, who sponsored the study, found that at least a quarter of workers are in a “dictatorship” situation at the office, meaning that they are expected to fall in line with commands from someone in an absolute position of power.

This news shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone who is or has been an assistant. In fact, the boss/personal assistant relationship kind of defines “dictatorship”–they’re the general, and you’re the lackey who picks up dry cleaning and makes lunch reservations.

So how can we make workers feel like they have a say in what happens between 9 and 5? 80 percent of respondents wanted the ability to make their own decisions about how to do their work. 18 percent suggested that they new employees be hired by a group of coworkers instead of a single boss. If they had called STA HQ to ask our thoughts, “treating us like human beings instead of drones” would have been high on the list, as would “no yelling, throwing things, or name-calling.” Come to think of it, the latter would really be appropriate for a kindergarten as well.

buzzword: tone deaf

Published on June 30, 2008 in Buzzwords. 0 Comments Tags: , .

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.

do tattoos belong at work?

Published on June 26, 2008 in Junk Drawer. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

I am really annoyed by how many career advice articles out there relating to tattoos sound as if they were written by my grandmother. I mean, the “advice” for careers that you can have while still having semi-visible ink and/or piercings is always confined to “barista,” “bartender,” and “tattoo parlor employee” [such as Kat Von D, below]. Most of these articles fail to acknowledge the fact that tattoos are more and more common these days, and that includes not only employees but bosses and people in management positions. Sure, if you work in a corporate law office or something you probably can’t get away with that giant neck tattoo you’ve always wanted, but the rules regarding visible tats have really changed in the last few years.

This CNN article, while still a bit stodgy, is positively ultramodern when it comes to discussing tattoos in the workplace. This story deals with not just whether visible tattoos are OK but whether men and women have to follow different standards about body art. While lots of employers are coming around, there are plenty more who haven’t.

somebody lied on their office survey

Published on June 23, 2008 in Junk Drawer. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

According to a recent study, 19 percent of office workers have stolen supplies from the office. Of those, 22 percent report feeling guilty about it.

To that I say…only 19 percent? Really? I mean, I’m not talking about stealing laptops or anything, but pens, Post-Its, and even toilet paper should be considered fair game. If your boss is allowed to have a company car and have his brand-new iPhone paid for as a ‘work expense,’ then by all means you should take home a three hole puncher. You should consider yourself the Robin Hood of the workplace.

You can see more detailed results–and who is lying–here.

is it cool to talk weddings at work?

Published on June 20, 2008 in Survival Guide. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Since it’s June, weddings are a pretty popular topic of conversation. Either you’re in one, going to one, or having to hear about one. But should weddings remain an off-limits topic at work, like your sex life? One office where I worked had a girl whose entire purpose in life was to get married, so when she got engaged we all had to hear about it constantly. I’d be like, “Hey, so and so, can you move that meeting to 3:00?” and she’d be like “3:00 is fine, because it’s the exact time my dad is going to start walking me down the aisle!” In case you were wondering, I hated her.

That said, it is possible to talk about what’s up in your life–your wedding, your kids, your trip to Las Vegas, whatever–as long as you do so with discretion. Maybe you want to limit your personal-life talk to the coworkers you actually hang out with in real life. Or, if you’re just so happy you could burst, try to keep it to no more than five minutes per coworker unless they ask followup questions. Regardless, other people will give you cues, and then you should follow them accordingly.

To weigh in on either side of the debate, you can go here.

are you in a workplace tribe?

Published on May 15, 2008 in Survival Guide. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Every office has factions. It may be divided up by department, age, or just plain old cliques. The office where I used to work was basically “bosses” vs. “assistants,” and we all hung out together. My current office is more divided into “20-somethings who go to happy hour after work” and “30-somethings who don’t.” However, the Gallup Management Journal claims that there are five office tribes at every company, and the trick is figuring out which one you (and your boss) are in.

  • Stage One: These tribes are distinguished by hostility and despair. Their members say things like “Life sucks.”
  • Stage Two: These tribes are characterized by apathy and a sense of futility. They don’t try, they don’t care, they don’t innovate, they don’t hold one another accountable for anything, and they revel in their disengagement. Their members say things like “My life sucks.”
  • Stage Three: Tribal members are selfish at this stage. They are in it for themselves, and they are extremely averse to collaboration. Their attitude is “I’m great . . . and you’re not.”
  • Stage Four: Tribe members have a sense of shared values; they willingly share knowledge and collaborate. Stage-four tribes are extremely competitive, but their competitive focus shifts to other tribes or companies. These tribes believe that “We’re great . . . and they’re not.”
  • Stage Five: Tribes that attain this rare level are characterized by a sense of “innocent wonderment.” They apply themselves to the creation of things no one has dreamed of and are frequently incredibly successful. These tribes say that “Life is great.”

See more in-depth analysis here.