Posts filed under 'Balance'
Going offline till the 21st or so, on a much needed vacation. See you when I get back.
In the meantime, congrats to the lucky recipients of free BizJam passes, listed below, most of whom I had the pleasure of saying hello to at the conference yesterday. I’m sorry I didn’t have more passes to give away, but thank you all for emailing me.
Liz Andrade, CMD+SHIFT DESIGN
Beth Martin Quittman, Samara Lectures
Jen Rotert, Lavish Design Studio
Jenny Zappala, freelance journalist
And thank you BizJam for an excellent conference. (If you’re in the Seattle area, I highly recommend checking it out next year. And if not, see Biznik, an excellent social networking site for indie professionals.) My favorite part of the event was talking to the other enterprising folks between sessions. I also loved that so many people had brought their laptops and were cranking out copy or design between sessions, on deadline. Hilarious. And so fitting.
Have a lovely week!
July 11th, 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
If you’ve visited this blog before, you know I have a love-hate relationship with the web. In the interest of attempting to overcome some of my Luddite fears, I recently put these web productivity questions to Anne Zelenka, web technologist, former editor of Web Worker Daily, and author of Connect! A Guide to a New Way of Working.
Q. Some days, I feel like email is the bane of my existence, tempting me away from deadlines and productivity. How do you recommend self-employed types stay on top of email without letting it rule their life?
A. There are numerous schemes for managing your inbox, but what’s worked best for me is a post-email era approach. I don’t get all my information through email. For example, I use Twitter to stay in touch with my online professional network, instant messaging for quick discussions with colleagues or clients, del.icio.us bookmarks to share things I find interesting, and blogging to think out loud with feedback. That lightens the load on my email inbox and it makes me feel more hooked in throughout my workday. Email on its own can feel a bit disconnected, I’ve found.
Q. At the expense of sounding like I’m writing a white paper for one of my software clients, I have to ask: What are three things even a Luddite like me can do to use the web more effectively and boost productivity?
A. You’re a great example of the most effective way to use the web to succeed in your work life: get yourself a professional presence online with a blog or other website. Don’t focus on making advertising dollars from it — use it to make connections and promote your work. Most of all, be authentic online so that when opportunities come to you because of your online profile they will be opportunities you’re really excited about pursuing.
Q. What are some of your favorite online tools for freelancers?
A. The tool I rely on most for managing my work life is Google Docs. I use spreadsheets to track income and expenses and documents to plan projects and collaboratively edit papers. Gmail, Adium (an instant messaging aggregator), and Twitter keep me hooked in with my professional network — and I couldn’t succeed without that.
Q. You have an entire chapter on online money management, including tips for freelancers. Can you share one or two of those web banking tips for freelancers?
A. If you’d like a good and secure way to manage your various financial accounts, check out Wesabe. It offers a downloadable tool into which you input your login and password information, then you can regularly update your transaction information and see where you’re spending your money and what your balances are. It includes a social network where you can swap tips and share financial goals — so it’s like the Web 2.0 version of Quicken.
If you have a lot of clients and need to manage a bunch of invoices, check out FreshBooks. That site makes it really easy to create and send invoices then track payments.
Q. Despite the fact that this will be outdated next month, what are your favorite social networks for freelancers who want to mingle and market online? Or do you think social networks are one big fat timesuck?
A. Three sites I like for freelancers and in particular freelance writers are Freelance Switch, Freelance Writing Jobs, and mediabistro. These aren’t specifically social networking sites, but Freelance Switch and mediabistro include forums and Freelance Writing Jobs gets good discussions going in the comments.
I tend to network with other web technology geeks, since that’s my main area of expertise. For that, I like Twitter and also networking via blogging. I’ve tried Facebook and it hasn’t been all that useful to me professionally.
Q. As a freelance writer, when I’m in the thick of trying to bang out a draft, email and an open browser is the kiss of death. Do you work on deadline with your inbox and browser open? Just wondering.
A. When I was working on the book, I regularly closed my browser, including my inbox (I use Gmail), and set my instant messaging status to “writing.” I write blog posts on deadline with my browser open because I need it to do research and I’ve trained myself to work while I’m connected. This kind of group-oriented productivity is something you can learn to do, and it’s a mode that we see teenagers of today often using. They stay in constant contact with their friends and use multiple electronic tools, switching back and forth as necessary.
Q. You mention a preference for pen and paper when it comes to writing to-do lists. Why is this? Any other parts of the workday we should be reserving for paper?
A. I personally love the physical experience of writing and rewriting my to-do list, then crossing off items when I’ve finished a task. I also like to be able to take my to-do list away from the computer to work on it, where I feel like I gain some perspective on my priorities. Paper is generally useful for you want to slow yourself down and take a broader perspective. If I want to really think about something — a blog post I’ve written in draft, a project plan, a list of goals — I do it on paper.
Q. In the book, you talk about this brave new way of working called “bursty work.” Can you explain what that is and why we should be doing it?
A. I came up with the idea of bursty work when I realized that many career achievements arrive in discontinuous leaps rather than through step-by-step action.
I observed that many people working online had different habits than [those in] the typical 9-to-5 gig. Instead of working standard hours, they would work when they felt like it, according to their energy, sometimes in bursts. Instead of shutting themselves off from other people in order to get solo work done, they would stay connected via instant messaging or social networking or other electronic tools and get information and inspiration from colleagues and associates throughout the work day. Instead of building things totally from scratch (or just on top of what their coworkers built), they would use what they found online — whether open source software or research that someone had already done or photos that someone else took — to get where they needed to in leaps and bounds rather than step by step.
The reason the web promotes a bursty style of work is because of the network of people and ideas it makes available to us. Instead of just having ourselves and our office coworkers available to us, we have a whole wide world of resources just a hyperlink away. This means you can navigate shortcuts instead of always working step by step.
In practice, bursty work often builds on busy work — there will always be projects where you have to spend lots of dedicated, focused time working step by step towards a goal. Building a network of professional connections, for example, takes effort over time. But once you’ve done a lot of the busy work, bursts of innovation or achievement may happen almost as though by magic. It’s not magic, though; it’s navigating a network.
You can read more about busy vs. bursty in the Web Worker Daily article I wrote on the topic.
Want more web tips? Visit Web Worker Daily and get your copy of Connect! A Guide to a New Way of Working.
February 25th, 2008
I admit it. I hate to cook. I eat out of boxes and cans and to-go containers more than I should, even though I prefer a healthy, homemade meal 10 to 1. That’s why I was excited when Ann Martin Rolke sent me a copy of her book, Hands-Off Cooking: Low Supervision, High-Flavor Meals for Busy People, which clearly was written for lazy and/or no-time-in-the-kitchen sorts like me. Yummy, healthy recipes (Tandoorish Chicken! Fridge Cleaning Frittata! Nutty Pumpkin Lasagna!) that I can’t burn if I have to dash off to my computer and get down one more sentence? What could be better!
As an extra treat, Ann answered a few questions for the blog. Read, drool, buy.
Q. What prompted you to write the book?
A. I was actually approached by an agent who I had spoken to previously about ghostwriting a book with a chef. She used to be a cookbook editor and thought this idea hadn’t been really explored yet in a cookbook.
Q. What 5 to 10 staple ingredients should busy self-employed people always have on hand in their cabinets and fridge so they can easily whip up dinner in 15 minutes or less?
A. Canned tomatoes, canned beans, rice, skinless chicken or fish, garlic.
Q. Any unexpected kitchen equipment hands-off cooks need to stock their cabinets with?
A. I don’t know if it’s unexpected, but a heavy-duty pot is a must for braising and soups (like Le Creuset) and I use my 9 x 13-inch casserole several times a week. I do think an oven thermometer and kitchen timer with multiple settings (so you can time more than one thing at once) are great to make sure everything goes well!
Q. What’s your favorite “I’m on a crunch deadline and need to burn the midnight oil” dinner or late-night snack recipe?
A. Baked pita chips and hummus.
Q. What’s your favorite comfort food recipe?
A. Indian food lately — something easy like my Aloo Cholay from the book or some naan that I buy frozen and reheat, smeared with some simple yellow split peas cooked with spices until they’re like refried beans. So comforting!
Q. How much cash do you think busy working women stand to save by making hands-off recipes instead of ordering take-out or buying a to-go meal at the local market?
A. Well, depending on where you grocery shop, you can really eat well for not much money. We don’t eat meat every night, for example, and that keeps the costs down and the vegetable intake up! So say you normally would spend $7 to 10 a person for to-go (not fast food); you can easily feed four people for $10 and make a great lasagna, soup, or vegetarian curry.
Q. Anything else you’d like to add?
A. The whole idea of this book was to make cooking flavorful, healthy meals less time-consuming and more accessible. We’re all so used to eating lots of different ethnic cuisines and constantly trying to balance health with convenience. So I really tried to make my recipes easy to put together but full of flavor, color, and texture, so that they’re really satisfying.
Want a taste? Order this fine cookbook now. Or visit Ann’s blog for recipes and other quick-cooking tips.
February 14th, 2008
In honor of Valentine’s Day, I bring you this interview I did with Judy McGuire (Seattle Weekly Dategirl columnist) on love in the workplace for nine-to-fivers, freelancers, and temps alike. Judy’s hot-of-the-presses book, How Not to Date, which features more women and men behaving badly than a Jerry Springer show, had me guffawing out loud. Whether you’re looking for the perfect antidote to this incredibly meaningless holiday, need a few tips on how not to behave around potential paramours, or are happily shacked up but could use a good laugh, I highly recommend it. And if you’re in New York or like getting your giggles by web radio, check out Judy’s east coast events and weekly broadcast.
Q. I can see how screwing your boss, your underlings, or anyone else on your immediate team could come back to bite you in the pants. But what if you hold lust in your heart for someone you don’t interact with on a daily basis, like Darcy in Accounting or Dirk in Marketing? Should you go for it? Any tips as to how?
A. I had a long-term relationship with someone I started off sharing an office with, so I don’t really go in for that whole “don’t poop where you eat” way of thinking. Sure, it might get uncomfortable if things don’t work out, but if you look at the bright side, the resulting drama could entertain your coworkers for months.
Sadly office party season has ended so you can’t do the tried and true drunken lurch under the mistletoe, but there’s always happy hour. Invite your intended out, ostensibly for a group happy hour, but “forget” to ask anyone else. This works best if you can catch him or her while they’re on their way out the door (thus assuring no pesky tagalongs).
Q. Any departments you should never, ever, ever touch, not even with your Mother’s vajayjay? (I’m thinking HR might be a no-no.)
A. Mining the Human Resource department for tail is definitely a bad idea, but I think fooling around with anyone in the IT department is far worse. Those techie types can hack into your email, which is a no-win for any dater. In the beginning, he can read all the mushy crap you’re telling your girlfriends about him — thus costing you any pretense of game — and then after you break up… well, that can be even worse.
Q. What if you’re a temp or contractor who’s going to be out of there in three months? Do the same rules of office chastity apply?
A. But being a temp is like being bisexual — it simply widens your dating pool. Who cares if you’re banging the boss if you’re onto the next job in two weeks? What is it my Nike sneaks are always telling me — “Just do it!”
Q. Many a nine-to-fiver meets their romantic match not at work, but through it — a coworker fixes you up, or your eyes lock across the color copier with that sweet young bike messenger. We work-from-home types miss out on all these potential cubicle hookups. Any suggestions as to how we, too, can exploit our jobs to get laid?
A. Even if we’re lucky enough to work at home in our PJs, most of us still have to either talk or email with other humans. I’ve found that married people are almost always anxious to fix a sister up. They’ll try to fool you into thinking that they feel sorry for your sad single self, but really, your uncomplicated, uncommitted sex life is utterly fascinating to them, so let them have at it. The only problem being is that they’re going to want details. “Wait, you didn’t meet him until ten! At night?!? Did he kiss you? Did you guys, you know, do it?!?!”
That can get kind of annoying, but if you’re the indiscrete type anyway, it’s a small price to pay. Plus, spilling dirty details will inevitably spice up your tragically married friend’s sex life, so you’re really just repaying the favor.
Q. You’re a freelancer who’s lucked into an invite to her star client’s annual holiday party. Do you teetotal, or is it okay to have a glass of wine or three and hit the dance floor?
A. Um, you’re asking a woman named McGuire whether or not you should drink? I’m afraid I don’t understand the question.
Want more McGuire? See her live in NY next week. Listen to her on the radio every Friday. Read her hilarious blog. And by all means, get her book!
February 6th, 2008
I was just reading this story in the Wall Street Journal on author Marci Alboher’s “slash” career concept (what some call “portfolio careers”). You know, successful, well-paid Fortune 500 CPA who scales back her hours by 40 percent a week so she can start an after-school arts program for disadvantaged kids or perhaps launch her own clothing line. The article is an inspiring read for anyone who’s thinking of scaling back on the day job to pursue an anti 9-to-5 gig on the side.
But I chuckled when I read this line:
Despite the benefits of workplace flexibility and increased job satisfaction, pursing a portfolio career can have drawbacks, including stalled earning power and trouble maintaining company-sponsored health insurance.
That’s like saying, You could go into non-profit work/the arts/teaching if you really wanted to, but you’d give up all that money that you could have made had you stayed in the corporate gig you found unrewarding.*
That’s why they call ‘em tradeoffs, WSJ! Get your life and happiness back, or get $20,000, $30,000, or however much more a year in benefits and/or pay.
People have been choosing quality of life over guaranteed cash for decades. And besides, if you’re working 80 hours a week at your corporate job (as one of the subjects of this article was), are you really making that $100K salary? I would argue that your salary shrinks to $50K, since once upon a less-overworked time, salaries were based on a 40-hour workweek.
I’ve interviewed a lot of people in the last two years who feel beholden to a 9-to-5 career they hate because it affords them health insurance. For those with kids, the choice is easy; they suck it up because they don’t want to worry about how they’ll pay for a pediatrician visit. I can certainly appreciate that.
But what about those with no humanoid dependents? Is a few thousand bucks a year (how much individual healthcare costs) really worth staying for? I’m not convinced.
Thanks to a milestone birthday and a new insurance law in Washington state, my health plan recently went up by 33 percent. To shave some money off the premium, I raised my deductible am now shopping around for a new plan, though from what I’ve learned so far, unless I want catastrophic insurance only, this is probably the best deal I’ll get. Still, it’s not enough to send me back to the cube working for an industry that doesn’t thrill me. And if I were to work on staff for an industry that does thrill me — say, social service or the media, as many of my 9-to-5 friends do — unless I landed a government gig, I probably wouldn’t fare much better in the insurance department. I would probably have a partially subsidized plan that costs me a little bit more out of pocket each year.
So what about you? Is the health insurance worth staying in a job you’ve grown to resent — yes or no? As always, inquiring minds want to know.
*Before you write in to say that you love your corporate gig and you’re deeply offended by this post, or that your boss doesn’t work you 80 hours a week at your corporate gig, let me be clear: I’m not saying all corporate gigs are unrewarding, OK? I’m well aware that many people like their jobs.
February 5th, 2008
*sniff*
January 23rd, 2008
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