How do you handle making a personal call while on the clock? Here’s a hint: don’t use your boss’ direct line. – Corporette
The “close door” button in your building’s elevator? Doesn’t work. The office thermostat? Yeah, that doesn’t work either. Notice a trend? – Consumerist
What’s the difference between a dream job and your goal? A plan. – Lifehacker
Will having a professional nemesis drive a woman to become more successful? I don’t know, but I hope people quit using pictures of people from The Hills to illustrate these stories. – ForbesWoman
Trace the assistant from Flipping Out is really hot. – DListed
You never knew that pictures of people at their desks could be this beautiful. – The Guardian
Some people, like Megan and Jane from Mad Men, think it’s cool to marry your boss. This much wiser person does not. – The Gloss
Danny McBride, aka Kenny Powers on Eastbound and Down (the show every dude in my life is obsessed with) talked to Nerve.com to give sex advice to some of their erstwhile readers. Among his deep thoughts:
I hooked up with my coworker while drunk at an office party, but I’m not interested in dating her. What should I do now?
Kind of too late. You already took a shit where you eat, homeboy. That’s not a good thing. Just ride out the awkwardness. See how weird it’ll get, and maybe she’ll quit. Make things weirder. Push it a little. Maybe send flowers to her from an anonymous person. Just start coming off like a stalker.
It’s nice to know that he and I agree on something.
Senator Harry Reid referred to his colleague, Senator Kristen Gillibrand, as ‘hot’ at a recent fundraiser. Since Reid’s the majority leader, he could be seen as Gillibrand’s boss. So CNN went to the street to ask people how they’d feel if their boss called them hot.
Is there such a thing as the “too casual” casual Friday? Sadly, the decision is not up to me. – New York Post
Crappy assistant task of the day: carrying Chace Crawford’s umbrella for him as he walks. Or maybe this is the best assistant task ever if Gossip Boys are your type. – DListed
What should you say to the coworker you’re crushing on at the office? Probably not “Hey, want to get fired for fraternizing?” – YourTango
The kickass Jen Dziura (I am biased because I’m her editor, but she really is awesome) points out that there are certain personality traits that count way more than anything on your resume. – TheGloss
Sometimes it is more stressful to get dressed for work than it is to actually work. Unless you are Miranda Priestly, obvs. – CollegeCandy
Rapper The Dream is married to singer Christina Milian, and the couple has a young daughter named Violet. However, US Weekly got photos of The Dream in the Caribbean with another woman, who turned out to be his personal assistant, Melissa Santiago. While it’s normal for PAs to travel with their bosses, it’s pretty clear from these photos that she was not only there to help with his scheduling and taking phone messages. Milian’s rep has since announced that the couple is separated and will be divorcing.
Workplace harassment is no laughing matter. A current lawsuit going on in London absolutely made my blood boil:
Jordan Wimmer, a 29-year-old financier who earned more than $1 million (Cdn) last year, is in the midst of $7 million suit against Mark Lowe. Lowe, 59, is the principal at hedge fund Nomos Capital and a legend in London investment circles. He owns a castle in France and has a reported $200-million fortune.
Testifying in front of a London employment tribunal this week, Wimmer accused Lowe of peppering her with sexual innuendo, making her watch lap dances and forcing her to share office space with prostitutes he passed off as relatives.
Let’s read that last sentence one more time, shall we? Forcing her to share office space with prostitutes he passed off as relatives. OK, there are so many weird things about that sentence. First of all, why would the prostitutes need offices? If they were, uh, working as prostitutes then they probably would have needed bedrooms, not offices. If they were doing their work in the office, then did Ms. Wimmer have to watch them have sex? That is some fucked up shit right there.
Wimmer said the poisonous atmosphere ruined her health. She told the tribunal that she was speaking slowly because of medication she was taking for depression. She claims to suffer from bulimia and anxiety as a result of working at Nomos.
I don’t know either of these people personally and had never heard of them before reading this article. That said, I almost always believe an underling over a boss, because it’s much harder for an underling to get away with lying in a corporate environment. This is one lawsuit I will definitely be following.
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.
Remember when the economy first started to tank and all these big companies were getting bailouts? There was a fun buzzword – buyout sex – for employees of companies that were about to go under and figured protocol didn’t matter anymore. Now, there’s the more broad recession sex, which is when people have lost their jobs and are thus poor and have a lot of free time, so they start boning more often.
AdAge, of all places, has an article about this trend. The news hook for them is that sales of personal lubricants and “sexual enhancement devices” are way up.
“When the economy goes down, sex goes up,” said a Johnson & Johnson [who makes K&Y Jelly] spokesman by way of explanation, but he and the brand team declined to elaborate on why their products seem to be booming when the economy isn’t.
“These seem to be products people are actually gravitating toward in a recession,” Mr. Daniels said. “I’m not a psychologist, so I don’t know why that is. We are seeing people spending more time at home. We’re seeing people’s relationships being stressed. We’re seeing people looking for means to reconnect with their partner and invest in relationships. In some cases, people may have more time on their hands if they’re not working.”
Isn’t this the same reason why there’s always a mini baby boom nine months after a hurricane or blackout – people are stuck at home with no TV or internet and need something to keep them occupied? Regardless, if you can’t afford to go out and buy things, you might as well stay home and get it on.
How many times do I have to tell people not to bone their coworkers?
Sometimes it means you get fired and publicly embarrassed. Sometimes it means office politics are thrown out of whack and, when you stop boning, things at the office get mega-awkward. And sometimes, things like this happen: a pair of coworkers, Salvatore and Angelina, couldn’t contain their passion for each other at the clothing store where they worked in Bergamo, Italy. Consumed by lust, they got it on in the bathroom, only to get stuck when Angelina developed a leg cramp. They were eventually found and rescued – by Angelina’s husband, who (shockingly!) was pretty pissed about the whole situation.
Both Salvatore and Angelina were dumped by their respective spouses, and Salvatore got fired. Angie, however, got to keep her job after it was determined she’d finished her shift before they started doing the nasty. Got to love the Italians.
Anyway, the moral of this story? Don’t bone your coworkers. And if you really can’t resist, at least wait until you get home.
I love a good workplace novel, and I’m happy to report that I found a great one recently: E, by Matt Beaumont. It follows in the proud tradition of epistolary novels – but instead of letters, this one’s entirely in email. More specifically, the novel tells the story of a crazy, eclectic, and sometimes coked-up London ad agency trying to win their biggest client ever. I was worried that the email concept would be a gimmick, but it totally worked because Beaumont does a great job using minimal language to effectively capture different personalities for all the characters in the office. Almost all the office cliches are there – the frenemies, the executive who goes through assistants like Kleenex, the coworker hookup, the assistant who is so blindly loyal to her boss you wonder if she’s in love with him, and the like. Plus, I really love British slang. Anyway, the book is absolutely worth a read – I was reading it on the plane, and was actually disappointed when the plane landed. If that’s not an endorsement, I don’t know what is.
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How many times do I have to tell people not to bone their coworkers?
I love a good workplace novel, and I’m happy to report that I found a great one recently: 
