Entries for May 2008

Sure, you might be efficient, effective, fluent in six languages, able to recite large chunks of the employee handbook, and never complain about the freezing cold or feverishly hot office thermostat settings.

But if you have no personality, you might get canned. MSNBC reports that in a tight economy, bosses tend to hang on to the people they like, while loners should "start sprucing up" their résumés.

What do gaming managers at casinos and flight attendants have in common? They are among the nation's most surprising six-figure jobs, according to Forbes, which compiled the list of occupations from Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Not all gaming managers and flight attendants make six figures. For example: "The top 10 percent of gaming managers, whose primary responsibilities are overseeing staff and catering to gamblers, earn $106,220 a year, while the average annual salary is $69,600," according to Forbes.

Using recent BLS data on average salaries by occupation, I offer my own list of surprises:

• Economists make less than mathematicians: $86,700 versus $90,930.

Scott McClellan, once the voice of the nation's executive branch and spokesman for the leader of the free world, is just another powerless Dilbert with a lousy manager. That, according to Politico's report on McClellan's new book, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception.

Most of us learn at a young age the rather pat phrase: "You're either part of the problem or part of the solution." But in a culture that has a fondness for gray areas and moral relativism, the phrase seems to have lost its applicability. In the workplace—and particularly in the case of McClellan, a former White House press secretary—we've come to prefer "pass the buck."

The website Lifehacker is asking, "What's in your office survival kit?" Michael Wade of Execupundit.com (and one of our stellar Outside Voices bloggers) says he packs raw almonds and a moleskine notebook. The post that started it all, at SimpleProductivityBlog.com, suggests a quick stain remover and a sewing kit, among other things.

The fact is, we can all survive with very few things: a working computer, a decent chair, a phone, a pen that dispenses ink. But many of our work-related frustrations are the same things our parents and our parents' parents encountered. We're frustrated by dueling assignments and troubled by the challenge of prioritizing. We're frustrated by the austerity of our workspaces, and we feel the anxiety rise as we work to the tune of our own worries.

If you're a successful person, you're probably a problem solver—not just at work but elsewhere in your life. Maybe you'd stop and help a confused gaggle of tourists find their bus stop, or stoop to fix a shaky table at a restaurant. So what's your solution for American Airlines? Seriously. (I'm guessing that airline problems have already negatively affected your business travels and your work.)

Nobody—frequent travelers least of all—is happy to hear that the airline's parent, AMR Corp., is slashing flights, retiring planes, and about to start charging $15 for the first checked bag on some domestic flights. From yesterday's statement:

Business cards are most often basic. Sometimes they are attempts to be innovative in a way that can make eyes roll.

The website [Re]Encoded, however, has a fantastic gallery of card designs that are innovative and not the least bit cheesy: A landscape team prints its phone number on seed packets. A post-marriage counselor's card is ripped and taped back together. A chest physician's "cards" are printed on balloons.

It's creativity done right.

Many people I know suffer from an epidemic of busyness—a result of saying yes to many things and no to few.

I do not, however, belong in this camp. In fact, I say no to many things: No, I do not want to come to your party next weekend. No, I would rather not join your kickball team.

Here's some bad news for wives with high-paying gigs: A survey conducted by women's website BettyConfidential.com found that "most women in this role are simultaneously proud of themselves and resentful of their husbands."

The site's editor, Nicole Christie, notes that women who rake in more money than their husbands find it a blessing and a curse—causing "a gap between husband and wife that's difficult to bridge."

A book landed on my desk called Office 101: An Illustrated Guide. It's a compact picture book of office-isms (like "Don't get carried away on Casual Friday") accompanied by silly illustrative photographs (like an office worker with his mug of coffee, dressed in a carrot suit).

One of author Geoffrey Day-Lewis's office rules plays on Rudyard Kipling's poem "If":

If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, it's quite possible you haven't grasped the situation.

Another: "If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried."

Dear readers, what office-isms can you offer?

Question: Is the term "sweetie" a great way to make an ambitious professional woman feel silly?

Sen. Barack Obama called a female journalist "sweetie" yesterday. The Democratic presidential candidate's use of the term of endearment for a TV reporter he didn't want to answer has sparked a little controversy.

But he's not the only man to be recently quoted as saying it. A quick news search shows that so did Ron Stone, a Houston anchorman who died recently. But Stone said it to a 5-year-old girl who was crying because she'd lost her front teeth.

In this litigious age, it's no longer just the office gossips who are calling out coworker couples—now it's the company lawyers.

ABC News is reporting that some employers are asking dating coworkers to sign "love contracts," which define the nature of their relationship as consensual and restate the company's harassment policies.

A confession: I fouled up just about everything I did yesterday. The reason is fairly simple. I am not a great multitasker, and I find that facing multiple deadlines is something akin to glancing up Mount Everest before the climb.

On busy days, I scramble to make to-do lists as soon as I sit down at my desk in the morning, believing this to be my greatest organizational weapon. But as soon as things start to veer from those written mandates (for example, I finish writing the story, which was on my to-do list, but I forget to fix the links on the story, which was not), I begin to lose my head. By about 10:30 a.m. yesterday, if you had asked me to do A, B, and C—there was a pretty good chance I'd do A, but the likelihood dropped precipitously when it came to B and C. (Not a matter of willingness, of course, but of memory.)

Darren Rowse is a full-time blogger, with the widely-read ProBlogger site to his credit. Rowse coaches his readers on promoting and developing their own blogs, but sometimes his advice reads a bit more universal. In a recent guest entry for the ScribeFire blog Rowse asks a question that he believes "has been responsible for me growing my blogs to have over 90,000 subscribers and 50,000 daily visitors."

The question he asks is one that all human beings should ask themselves every time they put fingertips to keyboard or pen to paper. It's crucial to great résumés, great letters, great essays or stories or memos or novels: Am I writing something that I would want to read?

When is dogged pursuit of a goal a good thing? In most workplaces today, initiative is encouraged. But knowing whether your ambition has hit a yellow light or a police barricade can be tricky.

On the one hand, there's Hillary Clinton, who is moved neither by Barack Obama's delegate numbers nor by the growing chorus of Democratic dissidents. Her persistence is drawing censure.

These days, internships are as ubiquitous as the business books that recommend them, and that means we have a nice wide base from which to draw funny internship stories.

To that end—and in keeping with the start of internship season and yesterday's blog item—I ask you, trusty readers, to treat us to your best stories of working life as interns or of sharing office space with interns. Please regale us in the comments section. (The writer of the most entertaining story gets course credit. Sorry, this effort is unpaid.)