Prepare for a Layoff

by Pamela Skillings      Send to a friend

Do all of the recent headlines about corporate job cuts make you nervous? Have you heard rumors that a downsizing may be on the horizon at your company?

Unfortunately, no job is 100% secure in today’s market. But there’s no reason to panic. There are steps you can take now to minimize the negative fallout from a potential layoff.

Check out my post on Lifehack.org for advice from someone who has become a reluctant expert on corporate layoffs and reorganizations.

Office Holiday Party Survival Guide

by Pamela Skillings      Send to a friend

It’s that time of year again. The office holiday party is supposed to be a festive occasion, but we all know that some people can take a good time a little bit too far. That can be incredibly entertaining to watch, so remember to pace yourself and let somebody else be the poor chump that everyone will be smirking about tomorrow. After all, the drunks at this party are the same people who may be determining your year-end bonus and you can’t count on them blacking out and forgetting all of your transgressions by morning. The following are some common office holiday party blunders that can continue to cause shame and regret well into the new year:

• Inappropriate Intoxication — Keep your drinking to a minimum, especially if you’re a lightweight. There’s a fine line between happily tipsy and embarrassingly inebriated. Beware of open bars as free drinks tend to go down much more easily. At my first-ever office holiday party as a recent college grad, I watched as one of the young associates got ridiculously drunk, passed out on the dance floor, and had to be taken away by ambulance and treated for alcohol poisoning. The CEO rode along to make sure he was okay (probably for liability purposes). It was no surprise when the poor guy was transferred to the Bombay office soon after.

 

• Inappropriate Affection — It’s generally best to avoid drunken public make-out sessions with bosses and/or coworkers. What happens at the holiday party never stays at the holiday party especially if there is tongue involved.

 

• Inappropriate Attire — Leave the Santa sweater at home. You may think you’re being ironic, but you still look like a doofus. It’s hard to see executive potential in somebody wearing a Santa sweater. At the same time, avoid trying to look too hot (I know that’s hard for you). Showing off your goodies at work (even a work party) is likely to lead to gossip and attention that you don’t want.

 

• Inappropriate Dancing — Take a lesson from Elaine. Displays of spastic dancing will not soon be forgotten by your peers.

by Pamela Skillings      Send to a friend

Had a bad day at the office? Feel like throwing something?

See how others have handled bad cases of cubicle fever in this strangely satisfying video.

Warning: Innocent office equipment WAS harmed during the production of this video.

by Pamela Skillings      Send to a friend

Forget about all of the pilgrim crap. The best way to think about Thanksgiving is as a time to express gratitude for all of the great things in your life — your friends, your family, your health, your access to massive quantities of poultry and pumpkin pie.

And don’t forget to say a little thanks to the universe or your deity of choice for your job. You’re probably rolling your eyes right now if you’re stuck in a corporate job that doesn’t make you happy. Or if you’ve been recently downsized or restructured or otherwise unceremoniously shown the door by your corporate overlords.

But trust me, there are plenty of things to be grateful for if you really think about it:

Give Thanks for Your Paycheck — If you’re collecting regular paychecks or severance payments, you’re doing better than a lot of people. That’s not to say that you should settle for a job that’s only about the paycheck or avoid taking risks to find more fulfilling work. You can have both a paycheck and a meaningful career. And you will.

Give Thanks for All That You’ve Learned — Your experience in Corporate America has made you wiser. You have learned valuable business skills, developed a network of helpful contacts, and built a resume.  You’ve also learned a lot about what you DON’T want to do for a living. All of these things will come in handy in your dream career — whether it’s starting your own business, becoming a third-grade teacher, or writing the Great American Novel.

Give Thanks for the Fire Under Your Ass — Sometimes, people need to be miserable in order to find the motivation to change. If you know anything about Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey or have seen a few Hollywood films, you know that the hero must go through crisis in order to achieve victory. A wise woman in one of my writing workshops put it this way — "a character doesn’t change unless you light a fire under his ass." What this means for you is that you will probably never take a leap until you feel flames on the seat of your pants. That fire could be the burning passion for your new career or it could be the slow, smoldering misery and/or frustration of a job that doesn’t inspire you. Whatever your inspiration, if you find yourself giving thanks for a brilliant new career by next Thanksgiving, you have that fire under your ass to thank.

Give Thanks for a Day Off — Most good corporate citizens in the U.S. get a paid day off for Thanksgiving. Many even get two (say thanks twice in this case). And if you’ve been laid off, look at it this way: You can do whatever you want for Thanksgiving and you don’t have to clear your plans with any boss this year. Take a break from the job search and do what so many terminated executives say they’re going to do — spend more time with your family. Or ditch your family if they’re a pain in the butt and spend time with people who are more supportive. Eat well and wear loose-fitting clothing.

by Pamela Skillings      Send to a friend

Think you work in a cramped, depressing cubicle? Check out the winners of Wired’s recent Saddest Cubicle Contest and you may start to feel a little bit better about your own work digs. My personal favorite is the pathetic workspace that’s been jerry-rigged out of old filing cabinet drawers (Photo 2 of 11). Some of the others actually don’t look much worse than my own cubicle homes from back in the day.

Actually, the average cubicle has been getting smaller. Some managers say that more open workspaces with no privacy encourage collaboration and keep employees on their toes. And it’s true that some cubicles – the large, well-lit ones, for example – can be decent work environments. But even the inventor of the cubicle, Bob Propst of office furniture innovator Herman Miller, said he never meant for them to be used the way they are today — as "barren, rat-hole places" in Propst’s words.

What’s so bad about working in cozy little cubes?

• The noise: I don’t need to hear my coworkers sneeze, gossip about the latest episode of The Hills, or have loud speaker-phone arguments with their spouses. This does not make me feel more collaborative.

• The smells: People with heavy workloads like to eat lunch at their desks. Often, they eat tuna. Others spend their lunch hour at the gym and save time by skipping that annoying post-workout shower. Still others favor bold personal scents that do not mix well with old tuna and B.O.

• The distractions: It’s hard to focus on work with the noise, the smells, and the constant visits from coworkers, bosses, random passersby and habitual hoverers. For those working on tasks that require focus and concentration, a cubicle environment can be a nightmare.

• The lack of privacy: It’s hard to preserve a dignified professional image when your coworkers can eavesdrop on your phone calls from your doctor, your accountant, and your bikini waxer. And I really don’t need to know about Linda from Sales’ preference for the full Brazilian or about Ted from Accounting’s foot fungus. Really, we should all be taking care of that sort of business on our personal time. But that’s assuming that we have any personal time in the average work day.

Do you have any other cubicle pet peeves? Do share. Do you have a dingy little cube that puts the Wired winners to shame? Do send photos.

by Pamela Skillings      Send to a friend

A new study from the UK found that chronically stressed female workers were 73% more likely to become obese than their coworkers — even with similar eating and exercise habits.

The study authors, as quoted in Glamour magazine, explained that this could be because long-term stress increases your levels of cortisol, a hormone that can encourage storage of fat in the gut area. I guess that’s a big part of why bare midriffs are against the dress code in your office.

Apparently, staying in a job that you hate can cause you to pack on the pounds even if you manage to eat right. And we all know that stressful jobs make it much harder to squeeze in trips to the gym and time for planning and preparing healthy meals. Now, it seems that the stress itself can lead to weight gain. Still no word on whether stress about the weight gain will lead to additional weight gain.

If you’re feeling the effects of corporate corpulence, it may be time to start shopping around for a less stressful job. At the very least, make a little time for relaxation and exercise in your schedule this week. And if anybody makes a crack about your spare tire, just blame it on your boss.

by Pamela Skillings      Send to a friend

Thanks to the US housing slump, we’ve seen 87,962 job cuts in the financial services sector so far this year. According to consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, that’s 75% more job cuts than the sector reported in all of 2006. In the last week alone, more than 8,600 mortgage-related job cuts were announced.

This depressing news is just another reminder that mass layoffs are now business as usual. That doesn’t make it any easier for those who received their walking papers. Speaking as someone who has been through plenty of downsizings, my sympathies go out to those who lost their jobs.

Once the shock has passed and the severance checks have cleared, though, things will start to look a little brighter. Just think of all of the B.S. work projects that they will never have to worry about again.

Getting laid off sucks, but it’s not the end of the world. Everybody that I know has been laid off at least once and most of them went on to find jobs that they liked better than their old ones. Sometimes it takes a layoff to motivate someone to make a move to a more fulfilling career or a better company.

by Pamela Skillings      Send to a friend

As part of my research for my upcoming book, I conducted an unscientific online survey regarding employees’ attitudes toward working in Corporate America today. So far, 140 people have filled out the survey (in addition to the 70+ people that I have interviewed one on one) and the results have been very interesting. Just to give you a taste of the big picture…

What are the best things about working in Corporate America?

• Salary — 70.2%

• Health insurance — 64.9%

• Sense of job stability — 29.8%

What are the worst things about working in Corporate America?

• Too much bureaucracy and/or office politics — 53.1%

• Difficult and/or incompetent bosses and/or coworkers — 42.3%

• Lack of work/life balance — 40.8%

The top 3 "best thing" answers don’t surprise me, though it is a shame that things like "interesting work" and "meaningful work" didn’t make much of a showing. Then again, we all have to put food on the table and most of us didn’t get into corporate work for the thrills.

In terms of the "worst things," I think it’s pretty interesting that bureaucracy and annoying bosses/coworkers seem to bug people more than seemingly more serious issues like overwork and lack of work/life balance. I think a lot of people underestimate how frustrating a bureaucratic environment can be. Bureaucracy can seem funny and harmless in Dilbert cartoons, but it can also slowly but surely drive you insane in real life. I’ve actually been conducting a lot of research on bureaucracy and its insidious effect on corporate innovation and culture (this research is actually a lot more interesting than it probably sounds).

I will post more results from the survey in the future — including some interesting job satisfaction stats and info about those who escaped from Corporate America and why/how they went about it. In the meantime, if you’re interested in voicing your opinions on corporate life, you can still check out the Escape from Corporate America survey.