Tips From A Temp

Hello my cubicle cohorts! Today's article is from Anne Altman who provides us with a guide on how to survive in the cutthroat world we know as the corporate sector. Tread carefully!

1. Relish the Comfort of Corporate Largesse

Two jobs ago I shared a conference table in a windowless room with 12 other people five days a week. My last gig was a step up: an office in the Empire State Building, a jewel of an historic building with climate control from another century. Imagine my delight when I arrived at my current job to find not only my own air-conditioned cubicle, desk, phone, computer, and Aeron chair, but a nearby pantry stocked with free coffee, milk, and cereal -- including my guilty pleasure, Corn Pops.

2. Learn the Jargon, but Use It Carefully

Each time I'm assigned to a new company, it's like moving to a new country. I've got to learn the local language. In my current office, the underwriters talk about "sublimits," "percentage deductibles," and "quota-share excess renewals." It's Greek to me. There's also an account service notification form, otherwise known as an ASNF. Say that one aloud and see if you don't laugh as hard as I did.

3. Follow the Manual, Keep Your Sense of Humor

Bureaucracies are big on protocol. There's a right way to do everything -- like recording your voice mail message. My company manual suggests this: "Hello. This is Anne Altman. I am unavailable . Please leave a message and I'll return your call as soon as possible. Thanks and have a nice day." Here's what I'd really like to say: "Hi. This is Anne Altman and I'm screening your call. I will most likely reply to your voice mail with an e-mail so I don't have to speak with you. Buzz off."

4. Drink the Kool-Aid, Just Don't Chug It

Bureaucracies are little subcultures that sometimes seem more like cults. Take sales meetings. They bear a cult's telltale signs: leader [an over-caffeinated VP of sales], mantra [Accelerate in 2008!], big production number ["The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades"], and ritualistic insignia [logo-emblazoned totes]. I sit in the back where nobody can catch me scrawling "KILL ME PLEASE" on my handout.

5. Don't Get too Comfortable

Settle in. Master the language. Sip the Kool-Aid. But remember: You could be out on a moment's notice. I was once denied a dollar-an-hour raise. At first I was insulted. But the next week two execs were canned with no notice, led down the hall like criminals, and spirited out with a "We'll mail you the contents of your desk." Young guys right out of college were speechless. Me? I poured myself a bowl of Corn Pops and sat back down in my Aeron chair.

I've adapted so well to my new environment that my boss wants to offer me a job, make me legit: an underwriter. "So, Anne," he said. "Do you like insurance?" After some stalling I said: "Look, I don't understand this stuff, but I love the cereal here. I love the chairs. I really, really like a few of the people, and I'd like to stay. How can we make that happen? Could I have a demotion? Order staplers and stuff? That I know how to do."

You said it, lady!

Resume Mistakes

Hola office ogres!

Today we're going to educate you on what not to include on those nifty resumes of yours. You may think it's common sense, but you'll see from the following examples (true stories) that some people don't have any!

1. Personal: Married with 5 children. Only two are mine.

2. My strength is in my tremendous loyalty. Don't tell my current employers though.

3. Although I have listed 17 jobs on my resume, I am not a job hopper. In fact, I have never quit any of them.

4. Reason For Leaving Last Job- I couldn't work for Mum forever now could I?

5. Please call me after 6pm. I am self-employed but my employer does not know I am looking for another job.

The Things We Think And Do Not Say

========= PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT ========

A man is the sum total of his experiences.

How can we do something surprising, and memorable with our lives? How can we turn this job, in small but important ways, into a better representation of ourselves? Most of us would easily say that we are our jobs. That's obvious from the late hours we all keep. So then, it is bigger than work, isn't it? It is about us.

How do we wish to define our lives?

Is it important to be a Person and not just a slave to commerce and industry? Do we want to be Remembered?

Let's bring soul and character to what is already there. I propose that we recreate everything that we're currently about. Right now we're at the top of our game. Traditionally people do one thing at this point in their success. They try like hell to maintain what they did to get there.
Their personal and intense road to success, their original inspiration (which is at the heart of every success) is now lost in the pursuit to keep the money machine smoothly rolling forward.

Delivering crisp green sheets of greater and greater amounts of fortune. But there is a problem with this stage in the success game. In so doing this maintain-success cycle, they forget the original glimmer of passion that got them there.

And historically, no one successful ever pauses to think that they might tumble like everyone before them who forgot. The whole success cycle dooms the very thing that causes the success in the first place - it puts shutters on the windows of reality. It makes us all forget that monetary success comes from something very pure. It comes from a desire to do well, to make life better, not just to do well with financial regularity.

Let us be honest with ourselves.

Let us be honest with them.

Forget the dance.

Focus.

What do you REALLY want?