Archive for June, 2008
Workplace dress codes are a suprisingly big issue for small business owners — yes, even at that cute five-person creative agency you’ve always wanted to open. I wrote about this last week on abcnews.com. The photo is well worth the click.
A small business owner I know was recently lamenting the fact that one of his employees constantly brought two friends with her to work: her “girls.”
“She happened to be very well endowed and thought it was a good idea to share her blessings with the rest of the office,” my buddy Joe explained, a bit bewildered.
When the 23-year-old administrator had interviewed for the position, she’d worn a business suit, he said. But after she got the job, she came to work dressed as though she was making the walk of shame from the nearest nightclub: Six-inch-high strappy sandals. Gauzy white skirts, complete with red panties showing through. Low-cut tops that revealed “the girls pushed and pressed, saying ‘howdy!’”
Worried that staff and clients of his four-person creative agency might be uncomfortable with his new hire’s sexy summer wear, Joe solved the problem by instituting an employee dress code.
But his predicament was no anomaly, as anyone who’s ever had a coworker or direct report under age 30 can attest. With “business casual” the de facto dress code in an increasing number of workplaces, and no one 100 percent sure what business casual means anyway, managers find themselves addressing more and more wardrobe malfunctions, especially during the sweltering summer months.
In fact, a June 2008 CareerBuilder.com survey of nearly 2,800 U.S. companies found that 35 percent of employers have sent home an “inappropriately dressed” worker so they could slip into something a little less comfortable.
Everyone knows that in a casual workplace you can get a lot of summertime mileage from a clean pair of khakis and short-sleeved polo shirt (grads, are you listening?). But what if your personal style doesn’t lean toward Tiger Woods or Bill Gates? What threads can you get away with wearing to work when it’s so hot out you’re sweating 20 seconds after you step out of the shower? And which ensembles should you steer clear of no matter how high the mercury rises?
Read the rest of this article on abcnews.com.
June 30th, 2008
At Sara Champion’s previous job as a project engineer for one of the country’s top construction firms, visible tattoos for professional staff were against company policy.
She found this ironic — not to mention frustrating — given that her position entailed inspecting job sites filled with tattooed construction workers.
“I was out on site all day, and I wasn’t allowed to show any of my tattoos,” says the 28-year-old Florida native, whose six large tattoos on her arms and back include a brightly colored sunflower, a marigold and a rendition of a Dia de los Muertos bride and groom on her upper left arm. “Ninety-eight degrees and long sleeves is not so cool when you’re in Miami.”
After six years with the construction firm, Champion decided to move north and find an employer that wouldn’t needle her about her body art.
She found her “perfect job” in Danbury, Connecticut, as a project manager at a design and branding agency.
Now, “I have no problem showing up to meet a big client in a T-shirt and jeans,” tattoos in plain view, she says. “I wish more companies were like this.”
You can read the rest of this article by yours truly — complete with suggestions for scoping out a tat-friendly employer — on cnn.com.
Favorite tip(s) from the article:
“Visit the employee parking lot to see how they are dressed and whether many of the employees have visible tattoos,” says the psychologist and founder of Bridgeway Career Development, a career counseling firm in Seattle. “Also ask colleagues and friends if they know anyone who works there who can give you some insider info.”
“The Web is also a gold mine of information,” she says, adding that the Web site ModifiedMind.com, which is dedicated to body art and other modifications, features a database of companies reportedly open to tattoos.
To read the whole article, lookie here.
June 24th, 2008
This year’s skyrocketing gas prices are enough to make even the most diehard office suck-ups fantasize about finding a job that lets them telecommute. But is finding a new job that lets you work from home a realistic goal or just a pipe dream?
Thirty-three percent of U.S. companies allow employees to telecommute on a part-time basis, while 21 percent allow it full-time, according to the Society for Human Resource Management.
In other words, although work-at-home jobs do exist, they remain few and far between…
You can read the rest of this abcnews article written by yours truly — complete with tips on how to find a telecommuting-friendly job — here.
Favorite tip from the article:
Rather than waste your time reading scam after scam advertised on Craigslist and through Google ads, see RatRaceRebellion.com, which screens work-at-home job listings and posts the pick of the litter on a daily basis. Run by the authors of The Two-Second Commute: Join the Exploding Ranks of Freelance Virtual Assistants, this site features both “earn a little pocket money” job listings (such as filling out online surveys) and “earn a living” listings (such as transcription and call-center jobs), as well as a list of telecommuting-friendly companies and a goldmine of tips for weeding out work at home scams.
Okay, here’s the rest of the article — for reals.
June 24th, 2008
Please pardon me as I ease back into the wonderfully addictive world of blogging. I think I may have devised a plan for how to proceed (but as I’m ever the commitmentphobe, don’t quote me on this):
Mondays through Wednesdays: original blog posts from yours truly
Thursdays: abcnews.com column and/or highlights from the NWjobs.com work/life balance blog
Fridays: highlights from the NWjobs.com work/life balance blog and/or Q&As with or guest blog posts from other relevant bloggers
I know it’s not Thursday anymore, but I wanted to share this week’s abcnews.com column, as it’s a topic people feel so strongly about:
Paternity Leave: When a Week Isn’t Enough
An excerpt:
I’ve always felt the world was divided into two kinds of people: the family-track folks (most of the population), and the holdouts (people like me) who were too busy, too unprepared, or too satisfied with their status quo to raise a child.
Then, one of my fellow holdouts — a friend I’ve known since college — decided to give parenting a whirl. Suddenly, I took great interest in every detail of how she and her husband planned to juggle raising a baby with their office jobs, especially during those first few trying months.
You can read the rest here. Happy dad’s day!
June 13th, 2008
Things have been pretty quiet around here lately. But now that I’ve put book #2 to bed — first draft, revised draft, and any day now, review of copyedits — I can resume sleeping and blogging again.
As of May, you can also read me here:
ABCNews.com career column, aimed at cubicle workers. Here’s the current column, on workplace revenge. And here’s a past one, on how to make a case for telecommuting to work, despite the souring economy.
NWjobs.com “Nine to Thrive” blog, featured on the Seattle Times’ career center site and aimed at Northwest folks looking for better balance and a bit more bliss in their work lives. Topics include coworking, baby-friendly workplaces, what not to wear (to work), and more.
Feel free to send ideas for either, as I will be churning this stuff out each week. More from me soon. I’m going back to bed because, at last, I can.
June 1st, 2008
