Your office manager may get snotty every time someone has too many pens on their desk, but it turns out that most companies not only expect you to swipe supplies, they plan for it. A new survey of small business owners says that 54 percent of executives expect their employees to steal “something of value” from the office. Wait… something of value? I’ve definitely swiped some extra notebooks or highlighters in my day, but when they say something of value does that mean they expect someone to make off with a printer or copier? Because the logistics of that are pretty impressive. (Full disclosure: I did get a computer from my former office, but they closed down the company and let us take whatever we wanted from the office, so that doesn’t count. If you get a computer in exchange for being laid off, I think that’s fair. And I would have taken the Foosball table if there’d been a chance of it fitting in my apartment.)
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!
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.
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!
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.
I consider myself a bit of an expert when it comes to profanity – in fact, my roommate is not a native English speaker and he relies on me to teach him how to swear. This new study from Keele University in the UK has just confirmed for the world something I’ve known for ages – swearing is awesome and it makes you feel better.
Their study involved 64 volunteers who were each asked to put their hand in a tub of ice water for as long as possible while repeating a swear word of their choice.
They then repeated the experiment using a more commonplace word that they would use to describe a table.
The researchers found the volunteers were able to keep their hands in the ice water for a longer when swearing, establishing a link between swearing and an increase in pain tolerance.
So, I thinks this means you’re now allowed to curse as much as you want at the office. Because it helps you relieve stress, obviously. Funny, perhaps your boss was onto this phenomenon some time ago.
Everywhere you go, there’s a story on TV or in a newspaper or online about how people are cutting back on luxuries during the difficult economy. More workers are bringing lunches to work instead of going out, carpooling or using public transit to save money on gas, and cutting back on entertainment like concerts and vacations. Now, a study from Rodale (which, coincidentally, publishes Men’s Health magazine) claims that health and wellness related expenses like gym memberships are among the last things to go when someone is trimming their budget. Reasons offered include:
Working out helps relieve the stress of increased work demands, bad job interviews, and the like
People want to get the most use they can out of their monthly dues
Gyms are offering new programs like meditation and yoga classes or, for one gym, a “power nap” session
It’s a great way to meet people when you can’t afford to go to bars
If you’re in better shape you can improve your health and possibly cut down on health care costs
If you’ve been laid off, you may find yourself with a lot of time on your hands
Has the recession made you a gym rat, or was your health club membership the first thing to go out the window?
Have you ever thought “hey, my new job is taking a while to get used to, but I’m sure in a few weeks I’ll feel completely settled?” Well, one British workplace survey claims that the age at which people finally feel comfortable with their jobs is 37.
A study by financial services firm Standard Life, undertaken by YouGov, showed that people have had to spend 30,000 hours in work before they feel totally comfortable with their skills.
John Lawson from Standard Life said: “Whereas a ‘job for life’ is now a thing of the past, fulfilment and job satisfaction are expected. So having worked over 30,000 hours before feeling confident and until age 50 to feel fulfilled, it stands to reason that people will choose to continue to do a job that they enjoy and are good at.”
I’m not sure whether to find this news depressing or not. Lawson makes a good point that people are more likely to move around between jobs and professions now and thus need longer to build up a sense of security, but what concerns me is the use of the word “fulfilled.” Perhaps I’m an exception, but I feel pretty fulfilled by what I do. Of course not everyone gets to do work they find spiritually and emotionally meaningful, but I certainly hope that workers do what they can to make their work personally significant to them. I’d rather feel fulfilled than have job security, but maybe that’s an unfair thing to say, since not everybody gets to choose.
Still, I’ve got quite awhile before 37 comes up, so we’ll see what happens til then.
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.
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.
I consider myself a bit of an expert when it comes to profanity – in fact, my roommate is not a native English speaker and he relies on me to teach him how to swear. This new study from Keele University in the UK has just confirmed for the world something I’ve known for ages – 
Everywhere you go, there’s a story on TV or in a newspaper or online about how people are cutting back on luxuries during the difficult economy. More workers are bringing lunches to work instead of going out, carpooling or using public transit to save money on gas, and cutting back on entertainment like concerts and vacations. Now, a study from Rodale (which, coincidentally, publishes Men’s Health magazine) claims that health and wellness related expenses like gym memberships 
In 
