Corporate Misadventures: Solitaire-y Confinement
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DetailsTurn Off Your Electronic Devices During Meetings…Or Else JEFF SMASH!
You won’t like me when I’m angry, and when people are on their iPads/iPhones/Blackberries/Blueberries while I’m giving a presentation, I get angry! If you know someone in your office who is a repeat offender, send them this video, and maybe they will take the hint. Otherwise, you have my permission to get your smash on!
Should You Post Your Thoughts About Your Job Online? Answers Below!
Recently a news anchor at a local Alabama television station was fired for comments she made on her personal blog. Among other things, she admitted to stealing people’s mail to learn things about them, and she also mentioned that she is terrified of old people. Apparently her silly bosses thought it was inappropriate for one…
DetailsUs vs. Them! How to Deal with Generational Issues in the Workplace
As some of you know, I have recently put together a new presentation – Us Vs. Them – Putting the Other Generations in Their Place. If you’d like to see a bit of it, you can find a video here or on the Presentations page at www.jeffhavens.com But I know some of you prefer reading to watching…
DetailsHow NOT To Handle Emotions At Work
So this last weekend I went back home to say goodbye to my youngest brother Matt, who is leaving the nest with his pregnant wife to take a job in Dallas. It was an emotional time for everyone, partially because everyone’s worried that Matt will turn into a Cowboys fan but mostly because they are…
DetailsHow to Write a Resume (That Will End Up In the Reject Pile!)
So, you’re writing a resume. I feel sad for you. As a former resume writer myself, I know how crappy your day is going. I also know you probably don’t even really want the job you’re applying for. You’re only doing it to get your friends and family off your back. In fact, after almost…
Details3 Fun Ways To Bring Your Business To The Brink of Ruin!
So it’s corporate earnings season again, and the chatter from the business news outlets is that analysts are really starting to pay more attention to corporate earnings than they have in the past. Apparently they are only now remembering that how much a company earns is, um, KIND OF IMPORTANT IN DETERMINING ITS VALUATION! Some…
DetailsHow To Get Job Experience!
Last week at one of my presentations, someone asked me how you’re supposed to get experience when every job seems to require you to have prior experience in order to be hired. It’s the horrible catch-22 of youth, the same conundrum that 16-year-olds everywhere face when they get their license. “Ok, I need a job…
DetailsWorkplace Gossip and Why It’s a Problem
Workplace gossip might seem harmless but it can have some serious consequences. Take this video, for example: I know what you’re saying to yourself, “that’s fine Jeff, but I know the difference between Sheri and Ted. Sheri has cute side swept bangs and Ted has an ugly toupee and always smells like feet”, but even…
DetailsWhat Darwin’s Theory of Evolution Can Teach You About Conflict Resolution
So it turns out that Charles Darwin may have been wrong about the mechanism that governs the formation of coral atolls. If you didn’t know that Darwin even had an opinion about the way atolls are formed, you’re in good company – no one else did either. Most people are, however, familiar with the theory…
DetailsHow to Become Part of a Minority Nobody Should Want to Be In!
Well folks, it looks like posting Spring Break pictures and engaging in long, incoherent rants against strangers actually can come back to haunt you. According to a recent study, approximately 10% of people between 16 and 34 have been turned down for a job based on something they’ve posted on their social media sites. Notice…
DetailsHow to Use Social Media to Make Your Life Miserable!
Wedding season is just around the corner, and we all know what that means. It means that all across the world, women everywhere are going crazy trying to figure out how to incorporate all of the things they’ve pinned on Pinterest into a single, cohesive wedding. I’m pretty sure some girls are already trying to…
DetailsFun Ways to Get Free Business Skills Training When You Don’t Have a Training Budget!
We all know that we need continuous training to get continuously better. That’s true in every profession. Football players continually train, watch films, exercise, and run into cement walls to make sure they’re always at the top of their game; mimes continually don’t talk to anyone and get trapped in boxes so they can hone…
DetailsHow NOT To Use Instant Messenger At Work
Thank you, random Internet searcher for your curiosity about instant messenger at work! As some of you know, I have a professional development presentation called Becoming a More Annoying You! that covers issues of conflict resolution, dress code, office behavior, and sexual harassment. Which means that when someone wanted to learn more about instant messenger etiquette, they…
DetailsI Just Want A Bag!
So yesterday I went shopping. It’s something I generally don’t make a habit of, because there aren’t an enormous number of things I need to buy. I already have all the stuffed animals I need, and I’m not allowed to get an attack helicopter until I clean out the garage, which I really don’t want…
DetailsFun Ways to Live in the Past!
Well, it’s official. As of last week, Hotmail is dead. All Hotmail accounts have been ported over to Microsoft Outlook. If you have a Hotmail account then it will still say blubberfan@hotmail.com, or whatever your screenname is (which I hope isn’t blubberfan), but you’re really on an Outlook account. The user experience isn’t going to…
DetailsHow to Continue Being Unhappy
Hello, and welcome to May! It’s finally spring. Everywhere you look, the butterflies are blooming, and the daffodils are coming out of hibernation and looking for salmon in the mountain streams. Ants everywhere are gearing up to kill other ants, and bees are researching new and improved ways to administer anaphylactic shock. Maybe we’ll get…
DetailsKeyboarding Skills Are Totally Useless!
Last week, NBC ran a TV segment predicting the potential demise of keyboarding classes. It seems that so many kids are becoming accustomed to texting that they don’t see the need to learn formal keyboarding skills. It also seems that smartphone manufacturers believe that predictive keyboarding is advancing at a rate that will make the…
DetailsHow To Make Embarrassing Mistakes!
So apparently a Fox affiliate in Dallas-Fort Worth ran a story where they accidentally named Zooey Deschanel as a possible suspect in the Boston marathon bombings. It was an obvious error, and easily corrected, but it still had to be a weird half-hour or so for Zooey before everything got cleared up. That’s how most…
DetailsHow To Lose a Fortune with Bitcoins and Other Crazy Ideas
By now there’s a good chance that you’ve heard of Bitcoins. If you haven’t, Bitcoins are fake money that some guy invented about four years ago, kind of like the bottle caps you sometimes use as poker chips when you can’t afford to buy real poker chips. Then, because playing the stock market was apparently…
DetailsQuick and Easy Ways to Ensure That Nobody Cares About Your Opinion
By now I’m sure you’re familiar with the Princeton mom, the woman who wrote a letter addressed to Princeton’s female college students encouraging them to find a man to marry while they were still in college. Pretty much everyone in the world has commented on it by now, and most of those comments have included…
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