Good afternoon readers! I love short weeks after a holiday. Almost as much as I love the holiday. But today’s column came upon me almost too fast.
Nonetheless, today I have a vast and hopefully interesting selection of weird news for your viewing pleasure.
Seeking out the bad news as a manager rather than waiting for it to come to you seems like a good skill (providing you don’t always seek entirely negative news all the time). It also avoids one of the common traps of upper management: believing you have an “open door” policy when people truly have to get past double lines of reinforced management in order to tell you anything, which may be met by hostility, or worse, on your part as manager.
A summary from the article of this particular facet of management:
Simple human nature is part of the problem: No one likes to hear bad news, no matter how useful it may be. Managers who appear to blame the messengers bringing word of, say, poor sales or a competitor’s inroads, can easily discourage future reports.
Niko Canner, the managing partner of Katzenbach Partners, a consulting firm based in New York, said that when an employee comes to him with news of actual or potential problems, “I try to deal with bad news in a way that I get more of it rather than less.”
That entails thanking his informant, then discussing ways to resolve the problem and — as a final step — setting aside time in the future to discuss how the problem started. That way, the people delivering bad news realize that they will not be punished for their candor.
That seems like great advice to me.
David Robinson of the Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley, takes on the issue of whether to tell your business hosts of your vegetarianness (scroll down to the second question) at a work function (where steak was the entree). Here’s part of his response:
Since (rightly or wrongly) carnivores are the norm, there’s a social burden on you to let your hosts know ahead of time about your food preferences. You can avoid the drama up front with a simple comment: “Oh, I’d love to come. And I should let you know that I’m a vegetarian.” Then offer some work-arounds that seem to work when you are in the home of meat eaters.
From the point of view of your hosts, they panicked because they wanted to make a nice meal for everyone and there’s always some uncertainty about how deeply vegetarian you might be. Would a cheese omelet be acceptable or do you avoid all animal products?
I’m really of two minds of this. I’d rather not have anyone ever make me a special meal, so I’d rather not say anything. Why? I don’t like the fuss. I know I’m picky about food. And often the special meal has an entirely new set of issues (e.g., the cheese omelet).
But as a host, I’d really rather that everyone told me her eating preferences and guidelines upfront so I understood the challenge appropriately. I should note that at one dinner party, when I did finally accumulate the preferences of 8 Californians, I decided it was impossible to create a meal that pleased everyone, and that it needed to be a potluck.
I see that I considered this thoroughly before as Ms. Theologian advising disclosure. The only thing I would add is that if you choose to disclose, it’s important to explain what vegetarian or vegan means to you (e.g., I’m a vegetarian, so I don’t eat red meat, white meat, fowl or fish). Many people don’t know, and the words aren’t always used in the same ways.
And how so!
A workplace poll from Zogby found that three-quarters of workers in the United States say the “American dream” is not as attainable as it was 8 years ago, and slightly more than half say it is unattainable for the average worker.
The survey defines the American dream as “the opportunity to have a nice home, financial security for you and your family, and hope for the future.”
What I found even more interesting is that nearly half of those 30-49 admit to being bitter because of their economic circumstances, but only 38% of 18-29 felt bitter. Just wait, I say. And note again a generational difference here between the Generation Y/Millennials, who roughly make up the younger bracket and the Generation X and younger Baby Boomers who make up the slightly older bracket.
Oh, look! The dumbest article of the year has come out in Forbes (shocking): Want more pay? Get a night shift job. Yes, working the night shift may result in more pay temporarily, but the article conveniently overlooks the downside of night shift work, and long-term repercussions of the night shift.
Briefly,
* Night-shift workers have a 40% to 50% increased risk of heart disease compared with day workers, various studies have found.
* People who get five hours of sleep, common among night-shift workers, are 50% more likely to be obese than normal sleepers, Columbia University researchers have found. Several dozen other studies have tied sleep loss to weight gain as well.
* Women night-shift workers have higher rates of miscarriage, pre-term birth and low birth-weight babies.
* Night-shift workers show increased rates of breast (by 50%) and colon (by 35%) cancer in numerous, independent studies. And animal studies have shown that exposure to dim light during the night-time can substantially increase tumor development.
Yes, it’s more money, but at what carcinogenic and other medical cost?
Given the cost of gasoline, if you’re a car commuter, it’s not a bad time to consider whether or not you could convince your boss to let you telecommute some or all of the time.
Convincing employers of the benefits of telecommuting is a good place to start, because you may need to do a fair bit of convincing. Here are the off-the-book strategies that have worked for me:
1. Job #1 I just plain asked my boss. I sat across from her office in a cube, and she knew that I was on task most of the time. I also had a history of working out alternative arrangements in terms of hours because I was in graduate school. So she allowed me to telecommute across the country for four years.
2. Job #2 I annoyed my boss. We were moving into a different facility in which we would have had to share a space. I knew she didn’t want to share with me as she had previously had an enormous space to herself. So I just plain asked again, and was allowed to telecommute most days, and on the days I had to come in, I had an alternative non-rush-hour schedule.
3. Job #3 I arranged it from the beginning. One client hired me as a consultant, and that I eventually morphed into an employee for tax purposes. I’ve always worked at home, and continued to do so.
For more tips on convincing your employer, consider reading a full article on the topic.
Consider whether or not procrastination is the enemy. If you’re a writer (or anyone who works at home), you may tend to think of it as your nemesis, but there is often necessary mental work going on during procrastination. The last time I was truly procrastinating, I went bowling with a neighbor-friend. That worked out so poorly that I got straight to work when I came home.
Procrastination as your Ally breaks down what we do when we procrastinate into three categories: working on something trivial, working on something more important, and recreation, and suggests a number of cures.
I’ve been watching episodes of Extras, Ricky Gervais’s comedy in which he plays an extra and guest stars appear as themselves (well, hopefully they are nicer in person). It has a great theme song, Tea for the Tillerman, which comes on at the end of the clip, but it’s really a funny look into the work lives of extras.
A new survey reveals that quite a few corporations are reading emails of workers, supposedly on the look-out for inadvertent releases of information:
E-mail security is an important issue for most companies because leaks have many competitive and regulatory implications. The Internet makes it possible for leaked information to travel quickly and be replicated endlessly. Sensitive trade secrets or internal strategy information is highly vulnerable to third-party interception and abuse. Companies also have to contend with the risk of falling afoul of complex privacy laws intended to protect confidential information about customers and employees.
It’s hard to wrap my head around this, but when I’ve worked with sensitive information, usually only my boss knew what I knew was sensitive and confidential. So would a general screener know it was confidential? I don’t think so. Sigh. I guess this could mean anyone is reading. It’s just a matter of luck (or supervision) at any given time.
I’m currently drafting a letter to the editor of the local paper to express my extreme discomfort (repulsion? horror?) with the religious columnist’s (”The Catholic View”) endorsement of Courage Apostolate as a response to the Same Sex Marriage decision by the California State Supreme Court.
And, by the way, the California Governor’s office has set up a hot line public opinion vote on the recent Supreme Court decision. Call and vote your support. There are supposedly more votes in OPPOSITION than to support currently.
To vote in support of the California Supreme Court’s decision on same sex marriage, I called the California Governor’s office:
1. call 1-916-445-2841; and then I pressed
2. option 1 (english), 5 (to vote), 1 (about same-sex marriage), 1 (vote in favor)
This is fully automated and NOT limited to CALIFORNIA voters. I had to call three times by the time I got through.
This is the Academia edition.
And how better to travel around college than with a bike. Preferably a cheap bike that you can replace if it gets stolen. You might want to read How to Start Bicycling to Work for practical tips, including how to buy a bike (they disagree with me on the cheap bike point). In any case, it is bike month, after all.
How Green Is the College? is about Oberlin’s efforts with the sustainable house. You’ll have to read the article to figure out how they live with an unplugged fridge.
What happens to adults who have just aged out of foster care while in college? They usually get screwed. No one can co-sign their loans or provide money for books and food. No wonder 90% of children in foster care don’t even attempt college. Western Michigan University provides a Lifeline for Students Left Behind as they age out of foster care.
I received a weird group e-mailing from Wesleyan this week about hearing Barack Obama at commencement. It was odd in that it assumed a certain about of knowledge about what is going on currently at Wesleyan (Bad graduate! Bad graduate not living vicariously!). Evidently Obama was speaking to Wesleyan graduates (I had no idea) at commenement, and apparently in place of Ted Kennedy (I also had no idea). And, now apparently he spoke. The email suggested there were no tickets left, but I could sit on Foss Hill with a blanket if I wanted to. That’s about as likely as me drinking the punch at a party at Eclectic House right now.
I mention this mostly because of a discussion in comments on commencement speakers, how they’re chosen, what they say, and an institution with recent sexual miscoduct allegations choosing Clarence Thomas. This is probably the most sympathetic audience to Barack Obama in the United States. Nothing wrong with that. But it is the university voted something like, “World’s Most Annoying Liberal Arts College”….
Today we have the Early Edition of WWN, because my boss loves us and let us leave early–I guess he had a party to go to. Speaking of party, we’re going with a musical theme today.
I don’t have the heart to try and find art for this post, but there is more evidence that being overweight, particularly being obese, can hinder your career:
“This is not just something on the margins,” says Mark Roehling, Michigan State University associate professor of human resources management and author of an upcoming meta-analysis of 30 studies examining weight-based discrimination in controlled employment settings. “At the obesity level and higher, we have every reason to believe [discrimination] is having a very significant impact on people.”
Weight-based discrimination consistently affects every aspect of employment, from hiring to firing, promotions, pay allocation, career counseling and discipline, according to Roehling’s work.
You’ll have to endure a little advertising at Forbes for the whole article, but it appears the bias is most strongest in hiring, and the bias is strongest against overweight white women.
Flexibility, here defined as flextime or the ability to negotiate arrival and departure times periodically, can be predicted in a number of ways according to a new 2008 National Study of Employers (available in complete form here):
Those most likely to be flexible are employers that:
• are nonprofits;
• are in the finance and in professional services sectors;
• operate in more than one location;
• have fewer union members;
• have fewer hourly employees;
• have more women and more minorities in top positions or who report directly to those in top
positions; and
• have more part-timers.
Interestingly, more flexible employers report less difficulty hiring hardworking self-starters and less
difficulty dealing with the retirement of highly valued employees. It is impossible to separate the
cause and effect here. Does seeing one’s employees in a positive light (as hardworking, self-starters)
and managing human resource issues well (such as the retirement of key staff) lead to or result from
providing greater flexibility?
That certainly fits with my experience. The most flexible places I worked were all nonprofits with multiple locations, no union members, few hourly employees, and many womn in top positions (and minorities, depending on which nonprofit I consider). Other thoughts on flexibility prediction?
I am having some sort of middle-aged brain freeze as I look for articles about work today. Nothing makes sense to me. It’s like my brain has stopped working.
Apparently there is a victory for sexual privacy rights for public employees. It involves the military and don’t ask, don’t tell. That’s literally all I can tell you because nothing more makes sense.
A is for Apathy is about how managers have to conquer apathy. It’s an intriguing premise, and yet I’m apathetic halfway through.
Oh, I’m not even sure I can summarize this story without weeping.
The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an award of one million dollars to a farmworker, Olivia Tamayo, whose supervisor raped her repeatedly, including at work and in her own home, and the employer’s (Harris Farms) solution to the rapes was to move her to an isolated location for easier access:
Tamayo’s ordeal, unfortunately, is not an isolated incident. The sexual harassment of female farmworkers has long been a dirty secret of migrant labor. Studies are sparse, but one by the Southern Poverty Law Center found that 90% of female farmworkers in California surveyed in 1993 said sexual harassment was a serious problem. Vulnerable because of their poverty, their limited English skills and often their immigration status, these women are easy prey. Harassers sometimes threaten to report illegal immigrants or their relatives if victims do not remain silent, advocates say.
The article goes on to describe how women disguise themselves as men in the fields so as not to be victimized.
Vacation envy is on the rise in Canada. Apparently not taking a vacation makes you jealous of others who return from one.
Vacation deprivation symptoms can lead to vacation envy - feelings of jealousy when a co-worker or friend returns from vacation. This year’s survey revealed that 42 per cent of Canadians admit they have felt vacation envy at some point in their life. Some Canadians are more susceptible to envy - women (48 per cent) are more likely than men (35 per cent) to have felt vacation envy and younger Canadians aged 18 to 34 (59 per cent) are twice as likely to have suffered from vacation envy, compared to those over the age of 54 (26 per cent).
I thought that The Language of Loss for the Jobless was going to be about using the language of grief to cope with loss of a job, but it’s far more about spinning your lay-off to folks in your life as you deal with it inwardly. That said, it’s always interesting to read how others cope.
A bunch of colleagues were laid-off last week (ugh!), and it’s interesting to reflect on the language they’re using to discuss it (aside from the very real pain of the lay-off). I’m trying not to be too chaplain-like about it and encourage them to talk about their feelings (not a chaplain!), and instead just let them be with it.
On a related note, I joined an “alum” group for those of us on Linkedin who worked for the same corporate employer, and had my own dose of grief (or shock!). I read through the members of the group and was stunned by the number of smart, capable employees who no longer worked there, who presumably left on their accord or were laid-off. It makes me think about what some of the larger implications in our culture are for a generation used to being laid-off regularly.
This was a big week in workplace weirdness. I found so many articles that my bookmarks overfloweth. But fear not, I have culled out the best of the week’s weirdness to entertain you as we move into the weekend. It’s all about people this time. Because I’m a people person.
I can’t claim to have had much success with receiving a dramatic raise without changing jobs, but reading What Not to Do (when asking for a raise) made me feel better about avoiding mistakes in the asking process. For example, at least I haven’t asked while drunk. That I haven’t done.
And, no, I’m not looking for advice on asking.