Surviving the Workday

I’ve always railed against gross corporate behavior, but it’s only recently that I’ve been making the connection between the upsurge in interest in spirituality in the workplace and the omnipresence of the corporation as the workplace model.

So what I am very deliberately trying to do is shift my financial resources away from many of the sources of corporate power. Other people are doing this too. And the latest issue of Yes! is full of their stories (not currently on-line though).

In Five Ways to Get Free (from corporate power), Catherine Baily in Yes Magazine lists options for food that free yourself from corporate power. She writes:

Most domestic food is grown using GMOs and vast amounts of petroleum. Importing food contributes to global warming.

Good Eat seasonal foods. Buy local/organic.

Better Try the 100-miles diet. Start a garden. Support farmer’s markets.

We’re trying only to buy produce grown in California, which is notably harder than you might think. Most is shipped elsewhere and not sold locally. Jim also grows some of our food (soybeans, tomatoes, kale, red chard, grapes, herbs) in our garden, and I supplement that with the farmer’s market (haul from this morning in photo).

I would love it if people would post their experience with any of these techniques (or others) for food.

While reading an issue Yes magazine about standing up to corporate power, I made quite the connection that I wanted to share.

I think that the rise in popularity of spirituality and the workplace as a movement (800 books published in the last decade. That is not a typo. 800) has to do with the absolute omnipresence of The Corporation in our lives. And lest you think to yourself, Hey, I work in a nonprofit or Hey, I work in a university, both types of institutions are being run more and more like corporations.

Perhaps this was obvious to everyone else?

More on this later.

Self-selected sampling is notoriously unreliable because if you select to take the survey often you have a stronger opinion than someone who simply opts out of survey taking. So in the last survey with a self-selected sample, we saw that roughly 60% of the people sampled perceived that people with children got more perks in the workplace. Interesting. I’ll use that later.

I’ve written another survey to figure out who the readers of Surviving the Workday are, which might serve to guide the content of the blog (slightly). It’s in the side column. And, by the way, you can select more than one answer.

A McDonald’s franchisee had to pay $550,000 to young women because of sexual harassment by a middle-aged male supervisor.

One of the victims of the case was Amanda Henry, currently a junior at Northern Arizona University. Henry said, “Teenagers who are employed need to know that they should report any inappropriate behavior to their employers, to their parents, and the EEOC, if necessary. I am happy that our complaints and our actions against LC for the last four and a half years will finally lead to changes which should keep something like this from happening again in the future.”

In the United States, you are protected against sexual harassment under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. If you are sexually harassed, you may find the information on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) website invaluable:

Sexual harassment can occur in a variety of circumstances, including but not limited to the following:

• The victim as well as the harasser may be a woman or a man. The victim does not have to be of the opposite sex.

• The harasser can be the victim’s supervisor, an agent of the employer, a supervisor in another area, a co-worker, or a non-employee.

• The victim does not have to be the person harassed but could be anyone affected by the offensive conduct.

• Unlawful sexual harassment may occur without economic injury to or discharge of the victim.

• The harasser’s conduct must be unwelcome.

It is helpful for the victim to inform the harasser directly that the conduct is unwelcome and must stop. The victim should use any employer complaint mechanism or grievance system available.

I would add to this that I was sexually harassed at two different jobs from 16 to 19 years old. If you are a parent with a teenager, I would add sexual harassment to one of the on-going issues workplace spirituality issues that you should talk with them about. I honestly had no idea of my rights in the workplace, and I think my parents assumed that the workplaces were inherently safe.

Original story via the Labor Law Center Blog

The Yes Men are my heroes (and I don’t even have heroes!). Who are the Yes Men? A group of guys who impersonate leaders at corporations and organizations such as the World Trade Organization who actually say the truth. They call it “identity correction.” They admit their mistakes. They’re honest.

And then sometimes they take it further as they did on June 14 of this year when, posing as Exxon Mobil and National Petroleum Council representatives, they predicted mass catastrophes if our current energy use continued (the absolute truth) and proposed turning the people who died in the catastrophes into oil called vivoleum (not quite possible).

In this interview with the BBC, a Yes Man impersonates the spokesperson for Dow Chemical, and lets Dow actually take responsibility for Bhopal.

You can also prank like a Yes Man.

Perhaps the perfect product: Ecojot notebooks.

• 100% recycled paper

• Sweatshop free facility in Canada that runs on landfill gas

• Vegetable-based dyes

I just can’t seem to figure out how to purchase them. I think they must not be for sale quite yet.

A summary of the notebook saga? I fell deeply in love with The Moleskine last summer, which worked well with my hipster PDA, but then found out from Scott that they were made in China, so switched to Miquel Ruis notebooks. They are lovely, but I’m always willing to honor my notebook fetish with more notebooks.

Via Treehugger

Bulling of Academics is a blog that is new to me. Here’s the description:

The bullying of academics follows a pattern of horrendous, Orwellian elimination rituals, often hidden from the public. Despite the anti-bullying policies (often token), bullying is rife across campuses, and the victims (targets) often pay a heavy price.

“Nothing strengthens authority as much as silence.” -Leonardo da Vinci

“All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men [or good women] do nothing.” -Winston Churchill.

You might enjoyed the recent posts on dignity, narcissism, and manager training. There is some really good stuff on that blog. I should probably send it to my parents who are academics…perhaps that’s why this all sounds so familiar.

This week I made some notes on the general sorts of things that I do as a consultant that are successful and that work in different kinds of companies. Feel free to chime in with a comment.

The Listening I listen. Intently. All the time. It’s exhausting, and it’s why my services aren’t free. But it’s extremely important. In fact, if you only did one thing as a consultant, and that thing was to listen, you would be a very good consultant.

The Questions I ask a lot of clarifying questions (hopefully not to an annoying degree). Most of the time, I function as a consultant for a men who are geniuses in some fashion, but lack a specific skill set (usually marketing or publishing skills) and need someone to manage them. This means that I often have to figure out exactly where they are with a project and where they need to be and how I can help them get there. I can’t figure that out without asking questions.

The Introductions When I work in person for a client, I introduce myself just about religiously to other employees and don’t rely on the client to do this. Introductions help me get a better sense of the organization and how it is structured as well as let people know that I’m on the floor so I don’t get kicked out by security, but do get invited to lunch.

The Tasks I stay on task as much as I can. I don’t surf my personal sites. You don’t see any blog posts on someone else’s dollar. All I do is check email and research for the client.

The Suit As silly and clichéd as it sounds, I am treated far better when I wear a suit, so I do it almost entirely for selfish reasons. And, I should note, it’s my preference for it to be a pant suit, because just about every time I consult, I end up crawling around the ground trying to plug in some sort of electronic device. I don’t want to worry about flashing people, so I wear pants.

Very often I’ve found that when I’m asked to facilitate one short workshop, I’ll show up and find my name all over the agenda as if I’ve suddenly become very popular while out of the room. This is a practice known as Make the Consultant Do It. It’s extremely popular. I may have thought I was doing 60 minutes in a workshop on Effective Questioning in the Classroom, and instead I have a half day for whatever I want (or for a topic that has spontaneously been assigned to me as my expertise). On the opposite end of the spectrum, and more recently, I thought I had a half hour for one very specific activity, which was quickly whittled to ten minutes because the speaker before ran late.

Rather than arguing with a timekeeper about “my” time, I find it’s easier to have an activity, talk, or presentation that is easily expandable or shrinkable given the time allotted. Ms. Kitty talked about this in terms of sermons and audience. This means that beforehand I need to have engaged in something called “backwards planning.” I figure out what I need people to come away knowing from the activity, talk, or presentation. And then I figure out how to get them there and what is absolutely necessary to say and do and what is helpful, but could be cut. Because, of course, things always change.

And they are “Oh shit,” which is what I said this evening in rush hour traffic on the 405 as a giant metal pipe flew straight toward my windshield and cracked it. It was so loud and so scary that my jaw remained dropped for fifteen minutes afterward as I tried to figure out what happened.

Jim and I have a habit of reciting scary shit we’ve seen on the 405: cars on fire, porn playing on TVs inside cars (visible at night), reading of the newspaper and books, all sorts of amorous activity, and stuff flying across the road (fence posts, 2 x 6s, gates, mattresses, dining room chairs, small appliances, and, of course, stoves). I suppose statistically speaking I was bound to have to take one for the team. But oh shit. And thank whoever invented shatterproof glass. I think you might have saved my life.

The Top 10 Mistakes When Hiring a Consultant certainly covers the major snafus in client-consultant relationships. As the client, you’ll want to have the consultant sign a contract that clearly describes the project as well, how the consultant will help, and, of course, you’ll want a signed confidentiality agreement. Indeed, I’ve signed so many that I basically never blog about my own work. At least not recent work.

Guidelines for Hiring Consultant is equally, if not more helpful, since it’s worded positively. This particular site stresses the importance of describing your goals, assessing your needs, and then finding someone who can help you specifically with that. Certainly this is wise advice because often consultants are brought in to save the company or project and “saving” is often an impossibly complicated task for one person. I try not to take projects in which I’m asked to do unreasonable things or treated like Christ (She’s here! The Consultant! Save Us!). It’s creepy for one thing, and I’m destined to fail. I wish I could call a specific example to mind but the protective psyche seems to have blocked that. No doubt it’s a confidential memory anyway.

I think cubes may be inherently depressing.

My cube for my day of consulting in a business park had half walls, which were gray. Actually, everything seemed gray: the walls, the carpet, even the laminate desk. It was a new facility so there weren’t any of the things that make workplaces slightly better like plants or art. Just gray.

If I had more time, I would have been best friends with the woman one cube over. But…such is the life of a consultant brought in for troubleshooting and last minute assistance. No work friends for me.

After I finished work around seven, I went to get a burrito at Del Taco next door, but it smelled so bad I left, drove around for a while, and ended up here. I just couldn’t face going from 10 hours in an office park back to the corporate hotel.

Women are a vital part of our society and important contributors to the general workforce. Employers are fully accountable for their employees and are obliged to comply with ministry regulations. However, it is also the duty of the employees to be aware of their own rights, to raise issues of concern in the workplace without feeling threatened and to promote change for a better work environment.

I generally agree with the more obvious sentiments above expressed by Najeeb Mohammed Al-Ali, Executive Director of Centre for Corporate Values in the United Arab Emirates. However, if female employees feel threatened in the workplace, I think they may have much less of a duty to raise issues of workplace rights than their employer does to make them feel safe. This is an issue of working women not given full rights granted by law.

Take 1 Consultant recently showered, lotioned, and in need of a haircut and add 1 Last minute Haircut at Fantastic Sams, and you will have one sticky consultant, freshly shorn, and covered with little sharp pieces of hair stuck to her lotioned skin, driving on the dreaded 405. Not a pretty (or comfortable) picture.

Food is scarce other than what I brought (protein bars, peaches, bananas, snap peas). The restaurant is meaty and expensive (all entrees in the twenties and thirties), and there’s a McDonald’s and mall next door, which I’m sure we all know are things I truly enjoy.

At least I’m not covered in hair anymore.

It is not uncommon for a boss to find a current employee’s resume on-line. It’s also not uncommon for a boss to have current employees apply for a job advertised in a blind ad. How to Minimize the Chances Your Boss Will Know You’re Looking suggests quite a few tips to avoid showing your hand:

• block your company and any affiliates from viewing your resume on career sites, if that’s an option;

• keep your name, address, and current job confidential on career sites, if that’s an option;

• avoid wearing interview attire to work, if work is casual;

• conduct all correspondence from home;

• use your personal email and home phone on your resume; and

• photocopy and fax resumes from Kinko’s or home, not work.

Inconvenient? Yes, but not as inconvenient as being fired. I would add that it is difficult to feel good about yourself and your job if you are using your employer’s resources during the workday. It’s inherently sneaky.

One of the great things about poetry is that really all you need is the back of a receipt and a pen and you can write a poem. It’s the ultimate no-accessory hobby, and is especially good for those moments of downtime in the workplace.

Moxie Life has a poetry contest. You are supposed to write a poem that introduces a family member and a superhero. The prize? The Practice of Poetry.

Now does Jesus count as a superhero?

It looks like we’re having quite the management seminar here on Surviving the Workday: managing an “overly sensitive boss” yesterday, and today, managing older employees. One of the general trends in the workplace, which you’re going to see identified in popular media as well as work literature, is Generation X managers of Baby Boomer employees. It’s part of a larger school of thought about generational differences in the workplace:

The impending clash of generational cultures has potential to create stress both for young bosses and their aging subordinates. Long-tenured veterans who have prospered for years in traditional top-down hierarchies have grown accustomed to the dictum, “With age and experience comes authority.” One can readily imagine a baby boomer’s shock and concern when someone twenty years younger is promoted over him or her: “Am I being tossed aside?” “How can someone with so little on-the-job experience tell me what to do?” “How in the world am I supposed to interact with a boss younger than my daughter?”

Young bosses may experience high anxiety as well: “Will a subordinate with twenty-five years in this business take me seriously?” “How do I overcome resentment?” “How will I authenticate my authority?” “How in the world can I inspire workplace senior citizens to abandon stone-age notions and interface effectively with the technology and culture of today’s information age?”

Roy Richard, described as “a long-serving representative of our graying North American workforce” identifies seven challenges for younger managers of older employees, and a number of solutions in Managing Older Employees. He summarizes them in statements from the older employees

“Tell us what you want.”

“Respect our experience, both in the workplace and in life.”

“Make us feel special.”

“Offer us the training we need.”

“Try not to lord it over us that you are the boss.”

“Please recognize that we have invested many years in this company and have a lot to lose.”

“Above all else, do not stereotype us or assume that we are unable to adapt to change.”

MTV and The Associated Press have released results of an in-depth study of people age 13-24 regarding happiness. Demographically speaking, this is part of Generation Y (born after 1976) and part of the younger generation. If you teach in a middle school, high school, or college, I would suggest perusing the entire summary.

Some of the findings are relevant to spirituality and the workplace. Here is the summary of spirituality and religion findings (bold for emphasis is mine):

3) Religion and Spirituality - Religion and spirituality are an integral part of happiness for most American young people. 44 percent say that religion and spirituality are either a very important or the single most important thing in their lives, with more than one in ten reporting the latter. And those for whom religion and spirituality play a bigger role in life tend to be happier. 80 percent of those who say spirituality is the most important thing in life say they are happy with life in general, compared with 60 percent of those who say that spirituality is not an important part of life at all.

Wow. I think that figure of 44% is extremely high. I wonder how they are conceptualizing spirituality and if these are churched or unchurched folks. And now let’s look a bit at their goals in the workplace

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4) Fortune and Fame - Money and its relationship to the happiness of young people is a complicated issue. Almost no respondents mentioned anything financial or material as a source of happiness when asked an unaided question about what makes them happy. But many young people report financial woes as a source of unhappiness. In looking to the future, 70 percent say they want to be rich - and nearly half think it’s at least somewhat likely they will be someday - but just 29 percent want to be famous. Only 17 percent think they will be famous.

One of the fascinating thoughts expressed when I work with young people is this dream of being rich (and to a lesser extent famous). Considering the odds of that happening, I wonder what the future work landscape looks like for them. It does look like they understand the connection between financial woes (debt? unemployment? poverty wages?) and unhappiness.

There’s good advice in Dear Prudence on dealing with an “overly sensitive manager.” I’d also be willing to call the manager a crazymaker:

Dear Prudie,

My manager is extremely sensitive, the sort who borders on being self-involved. I can honestly say she’s been a very good boss professionally, but personally she is driving me crazy. She and I are friendly, but she’s pushing for us to be best friends. I enjoy her company, but want to keep it business-friendly; after all, she does my performance review! If I’m not overly animated and happy to see her, she assumes I’m mad at her. She then asks around about whether or not I’m mad at her and what she did to make me mad. If I see people from the office on the weekends, she’ll sniff out all the details (which I do not broadcast), and then ask me about it, informing me about how much she can drink or how late she can stay up or how she would have added to the fun.

Prudie advises managing the manager quite well. I’ve had several “overly sensitive managers” and being direct seemed to help, something along the lines of, “Gee, I would LOVE to get together this weekend for Pilates, but we’ll have to wait until you’re not my manager.” Anyone else had an “overly sensitive” manager?

I’m doing some last-minute consulting for the rest of this week, and trying to get ready to stay in a hotel away from home.

My checklist for transforming from work-at-home-slob to face-to-face-consultant:

Washed car, vaccuumed the inside, and bought full tank of gas (well, washed car at least and put in 30 bucks of gas)

Hair cut and stray hair removal (stray hairs removed, and hair trimmed)

Snacks purchased (fruit, snap peas, and granola bars)

Sigh.

I did pack a suitcase with professional clothes. That may have to be enough. I love how my consultant preparation is almost entirely external in nature, which lends me to think I’m fairly shallow.

I send flowers a few times a year for work (and for parents), and have been trying to shift from traditional flowers to more sustainable businesses that pay fairly and stay away from carcinogenic pesticides and fertilizers.

Elizabeth has great resources on organic sustainable flowers, including my favorite Organic Bouquet, but many more that I’m going to try.