Day Jobber: Have You Hugged Your Receptionist Today?

I’m sitting at a borrowed computer, looking out at a single crow on the powerline—we’re both looking down on I-5 hurtling past, happy to have already landed for the morning. I’m drinking bad coffee made marginally better with an extra shake of powdered creamer. I’ve got minimal supervision and even less responsibility for the day, save the [...]

Unemployed

Yeeeep, that’s right. As of Monday last, I am now a free agent, a woman of leisure, if you will. (Some might say I’m a drain on society, but truly, I’m hoping that expression is demode by now, and I’m really hoping it won’t last that long to prove anyone right.) Here’s what happened: A [...]

Year of Gratitude #18

This is the WorkPlace version, for all the Office Cogs out there. Today I am grateful for: 1) Morning Routine. Sounds crazy, but I love the consistent start to each day in the WorkPlace. Computer on, “good mornings with TheBossLady, emails and post-its for daily tasks, and the first cuppa joe. This morning–like most mornings [...]

Vanities, none! (well… hardly)

It’s a funny thing to be a writer by passion and profession. There are a lot of us. English majors who dedicated their academic lives to poetry, essay, criticism, fiction, and memoir, people who write to express our opinions, ideas, and ideals, to display our talent or simple affection for creative and carefully constructed stories… [...]

Re: Re: Re-evaluation

I think it may be a bad thing when your boss tells you that — “although it’s really admirable” you can “spread yourself so thin” with “all the things you do… and you do a lot!” — perhaps you need to “re-evaluate what is important to you” and plan your life accordingly. If not a [...]

C-corporate f-f-freezeout!

Old buildings mean old air ducts. This, in turn means unstoppable, ungovernable, and seemingly relentless sub-arctic blasts from above. And that means: freeeeeezing employees! Just for the record, we’re doing what we can. Layers, blinds down, a little modified “chair calisthenics” every so often. And we’re talking layers, people. Undershirt, long-sleeved shirt, turtleneck sweater, zip-up [...]

Goofus & Gallant Grow Up and Give Status Reports

Ever read those “Goofus and Gallant” comics in the kids’ magazines? Two kids doing the same thing two different ways. Steal a cookie from the jar like Goofus OR politely ask for a snack like Gallant. Interesting, isn’t it, that the comic didn’t ever actually say that one way of life was the right one? [...]

Complimentary?

Compliments in the work place can be touchy. That is, thanks to the very bad behavior of a few, every office-worker in the world now knows that the people they work with are not their real friends, and you must therefore be very very very careful about who and what you compliment, and in what [...]

There’s that “Aspirational” again

New awesome site to check back on: Business Guys On Business Trips.com. Catty, hilarious “translations” of your every-day office conversations, particularly if you work in the creative online world. Uh, better not read it if you’re a project manager. Or a creative director… Here’s one of their older posts: And another, for those of us [...]

Cybertext Newsletter: Awesome Tech Writing Resource

TheBossLady is so excited about this blog she just discovered: Cybertext Newsletter (at wordpress dot com). It’s a blog written by employees at Cybertext Consulting, a technical writing and online documentation firm… and man, does it have a lot of good stuff! There’s all kinds of great tips for “savvy” Microsoft Word users (aka “power [...]