Career

“If you’re too right-brained,” says author and speaker Lee Silber, “you’re never getting anything done; you’re all over the place. If you’re too left, you’re too rigid. So, let’s put them together.” Here’s how to make sure your awesome halves stay sharp.
Retrieve useful information in a snap by creating reference lists … Success through kindness … Make your vacation feel longer … Ever heard of the Comics Code Authority? … The enduring design of the umbrella … What was Helmac? … Humans glow in the dark!

If a staff member is grieving

July 29, 2022 Categorized in: Personal Development

The workplace functions on elements that are naturally in opposition to anyone trying to heal; it demands and prizes focus, productivity and the ability to keep emotion out of all processes. But stepping around a colleague’s difficulties, in most situations, is not the best way to deal with it. Here are some basic governing principles to adhere to when someone’s going through a dark time.
“To do our jobs effectively,” said Julie Perrine, Founder and CEO of All Things Admin, at May’s online Admin Pro Forum 2022 event, “we need to hit reset and reenergize our careers to stay relevant. This is how you become CEO of your own career. We have to reinvent ourselves to avoid extinction. We have to bring new ideas to life.”
There’s plenty of advice for gearing up your career, but not enough suggestions about how to gear down. Here are some tips for plotting your escape from the unforgiving ladder.

Postal ode

July 6, 2022 Categorized in: Personal Development

If I could be in two places at once, I’d show up every Monday ready to rock it with sorting, bundling and delivering the mail, steeped in postie serendipity, greeting customers when I bring their parcels to the door.
Patricia Highsmith, author of the suspense classics Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr. Ripley, once wrote on the empty mirage of arriving at a place you’ve dreamed of.
More than 23 million households in America welcomed a new pet into their homes during the pandemic, according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
In the book The Boomerang Principle: Inspire Lifetime Loyalty from Your Employees, Lee Caraher tells the story of a good worker named Amy who got tired of the drudgery at her job at a big e-commerce company.

3 tips for the freshly fired

June 2, 2022 Categorized in: Personal Development

If you’ve ever been fired, you know what a rollercoaster your brain can be in the hours and days to come. In the immediate fallout of an unexpected dismissal, it’s very important to try to take care of yourself.
Writer Morra Aarons-Mele is a believer in having a fully stocked “kitchen cabinet,” meaning a digital sisterhood of subject-matter experts and confidantes. With your kitchen cabinet, you feel comfortable sharing doubts and vulnerabilities, whereas you wouldn’t express these things to your exec, your mentor or even the person in the cubicle next to yours.
Are there people you look up to, who inspire you? Your heroes can comfort you, guide you, advise you, help you through challenging times and also—let’s face it—make you feel kind of inadequate. Megan Day, author of New Mom, New Job, proposes an exercise in her book.
Chris Hopwood of the University of California, Davis has created a realness test to measure one’s ability for acting the same way on the outside as they feel on the inside, an important component of authenticity and the ability to defeat our own neuroses.