Unwritten office rules you better observe

There are some things in the office you just don’t do unless you want everyone with whom you work to despise you. Here are some of them.
1. Don’t ever take something out of the community fridge that isn’t yours. Stealing from people in the office is unacceptable. Stealing their portion of daily sustenance is downright evil. Lunch is a mid-day motivator. Taking that from someone will quickly create an unengaged employee. Even worse, it will foster a culture of mistrust.
2. Don’t smell. There are different types of offenders in this category. There is bad breath guy. There is the guy that didn’t wash his clothes. There is one-shower-a-week guy and his twin brother, no-deodorant guy. But the king of all bad smells is the guy that walks into your cube, office, or desk area and passes gas. There is no justification for violence in the workplace, but that could make somebody wait for you in the parking lot at quitting time. Making an office area disagreeable for others through neglect of personal hygiene will not win anyone friends.
3. Don’t touch something on a coworker’s desk without permission. We all want to be team players, but everyone has personal boundaries, even at work. Our desks, offices, or cubes are some of the real estate that we actually get to put our personal touch on. There are pictures of our families, quote-of-the-day calendars, various awards we have won, work gifts, nameplates, office supplies and other trinkets on our desks. They are in their places for a specific reason. Please keep your grubby mitts off. And never, EVER sit on my desk.
4. Don’t send non-work related email. We have enough correspondence in our inbox to wade through without your invitation to the pub for cocktails after work. Or your inspirational message of the day. Or your jokes. If you have something personal to say to me, call me on my cell phone. If it’s not that important, send a text. I’ll get back to you when I have time.
5. Don’t gossip. Seriously. If you are spilling personal details about one person to another, all that you have really told the person that you are speaking to is that you have no regard for the personal lives and privacy of others. Talk about other people, and soon no one will talk to you anymore.
6. Don’t bring in your offspring’s school fundraiser. We all like to support each other’s families, but this is unprofessional and unethical for so many reasons. Some employees may not be able financially to purchase anything. It will cause undue stress on that person if they cannot contribute, especially if everyone else in the office does. If you’re the boss, employees will feel pressured into buying something. It could also be seen as a quid pro quo that contributes to a hostile working environment if someone who makes a large purchase suddenly receives a commendation, award, or promotion. Even worse, if someone is disciplined, even legitimately, but didn’t give up any money to the fundraiser, the boss is going to have a problem with perceptions of unfairness. Most of all, people just don’t like spending money on overpriced, sub-quality calorie bombs that they didn’t need and didn’t ask for in the first place.
7. Turn your music off. If you must have music on while you work, wear headphones. Make sure the volume of those headphones can’t be heard at the next workstation. Sure, everyone along with you loves the poignant interpretations on social integration made by Milli Vanilli, but we really prefer not to contemplate them at work. Some of us also get distracted from our work by music in the work place. Please cease the aural assault.
8. Don’t park in someone else’s space. Perks are called perks for a reason. They perk up employees. If your place of employment has seen fit to designate parking places for employees, respect that. They’ve earned it, and they need it. There is no trespass more grievous and foul than a usurpation of delegated territory by an opportunistic colleague. That last sentence might even get etched into the bonnet of your hooptie if you violate this rule.
9. If you use all of the office supplies, go to the supply closet and restock them. Have any of you ever gone to the copier to make 20 copies of your presentation packet 20 minutes before the meeting only to find there is no toner in the copier? How close were you to spontaneous combustion at that moment? Using up all of an office resource and not replacing it is not only inconsiderate of others, but it makes the entire office horribly inefficient. If you use it, replace it.
10. Don’t be passive-aggressive. If you have a problem with someone at the office, be an adult and talk to them. Get it worked out. You don’t have to like the person, but you both share organizational goals. Sabotaging someone at work with loaded comments in front of others, or doing things that you know will pester them is immature and counter-productive.
There are many other norms and unwritten rules within organizations. It’s always a good idea to follow a positive corporate culture example.

Smart Answers to Stupid Interview Questions

A job interview is a weird experience. Sometimes you go to a job interview and meet wonderful, sparky people you could talk with for hours. Other times you show up and your first thought is "I wouldn't work in this toxic waste dump for whatever pay!."
The traditional interview format is a big part of the problem. Somebody came up with the standard, lame interview script sixty or seventy years ago and it's still going strong.
The standard interview script is brainless and insulting and it doesn't even do a good job of separating the best candidates from the worst ones. Still, people who are afraid to try new things don't dare deviate from it.
You know the script I'm talking about. It's the one with these three stupid interview questions in it:
•What's your greatest weakness?
•With all the talented candidates, why should we hire you?
•Where do you see yourself in five years?
It isn't the interviewer's fault that they ask such thoughtless and uncreative questions. Somebody told them to. I wouldn't count out an entire organization just because somebody uses some of these dog interview questions, but if everybody in the joint is stuck in the same sixty-year-old interview-script time warp, you may want to keep looking.
As a manager, you don't have to ask the standard, stupid job interview questions when you interview candidates.
As a job-seeker, you get to decide how to answer stupid job interview questions when they come up. You can go the good-little-sheepie route and give the standard answer, like this:
THEM: With all the talented candidates, why should we hire you?
YOU: Well, I'm hard-working and I've got a lot of experience, I'm loyal and thrifty and never come late to work, and besides that I walk old ladies across the street.
People tell us all the time "I went to the interview and the words that came out of my own mouth horrified me. I felt like a loser. I don't talk that way in real life. I fell into the script and I couldn't climb out!"
We've all been there. You're likely to fall into the good-little-sheepie job seeker script by accident if you don't prepare yourself in advance. You can get off the script and stay human in a job interview, and you'll be happy if you do.
For starters, if you shake up the script and give your interviewer an answer s/he wasn't expecting, you'll force him or her to think. That's good. You'll be more memorable that way, and if the interviewer is horrified that you'd step out of the box, what does that tell you?
It tells you that you don't want that job anyway.
Here are our three stupid interview questions and a choice of two answers for each one. The first answer is the standard sheepie answer, and the second one is for use when your mojo is high and you feel like busting a frame and flexing your muscles a little.
Stupid Interview Question: "What's your greatest weakness?"
SHEEPIE ANSWER: "I'm a hard worker, and I can be too hard on myself and other people when I think that either me or somebody else could give a little more to a project."
HIGH-MOJO ANSWER: "I used to obsess about my weaknesses. I used to think I had a million defects that needed correcting, and I read books and took classes to try to improve on them.
Gradually I learned that it makes no sense for me to work on things that I'm not great at, and it makes no sense for me to think of myself as having weaknesses. These days I focus on getting better at things I'm already good at -- graphic design, especially."
Stupid Interview Question: "With all the talented candidates, why should we hire you?"
SHEEPIE ANSWER: "I've been working in this arena for sixteen years and I've got a great track record."
HIGH-MOJO ANSWER: "That's what we're here to figure out, I guess! I can't say that you should hire me.
There might be somebody else who's perfect for the job - you've met the other candidates or will meet them, and of course you know more about the needs here than I do.
I can say this - if this match is meant to be, both of us will know it."
Stupid Interview Question: "Where do you see yourself in five years?"
SHEEPIE ANSWER: "Working hard here or in another Financial Analyst role, with luck moving up to Senior Financial Analyst and being more involved in strategic investments than I've been so far."
HIGH-MOJO ANSWER: "Exploring one of my passions, undoubtedly -- maybe in Finance, or my interest in ecommerce or in an international role. I have a lot of passions!"
You get to decide how far to turn the mojo dial in every interview. You already know how it feels to sit in the chair and play the Good Little Job Seeker. What would happen if you stepped out of the box on your next job interview, and played yourself?

Why dreaming is not enough to achieve success

Anyone can come up with a goal, but not everyone has the ability to achieve it. For that to happen, you need to take action first. Goals are not like dreams or prayers. You cannot just close your eyes and wish for it to happen. You have to do something.
Just do it.
The first step is always the hardest. Your mind will come up with all sorts of scenarios to prevent you from taking that scary first step toward your goal. That does not mean you are a coward, though. It is just your brain’s way of defending yourself.
Sometimes, though, you have to listen to what your heart has to say and just do it. Everything else will be a lot easier once you get past the first hurdle – and that is to ignore your brain’s dire warnings and go with your gut instinct.
Doing something is not always a physical thing.
It is understandable if you mistook the need for taking action as doing something literally or physically. Yet you see, there are many other ways for you to take action without even lifting a finger. For that matter, consider the act of planning.
It is never wise to try achieving a goal without a plan. If you want to spend the least amount of time and effort in achieving your goal, then you need to come up with a step-by-step plan for accomplishing it.
A good plan takes into account all potential consequences as well as all the possible avenues you may take in order to reach your objective.