Displaying All Posts from November, 2009

Gaining Office Allies in the Right Places

When you first start at a new job, the one person you are probably most concerned with is your new boss. You want this person to like you, to help you, to defend you, to overlook your mistakes, and to applaud your successes. And this makes sense because your boss is always around and has the most control over your immediate future.

But while managing that very important relationship, it is equally important to pay attention to certain other people in your office as well. These other people can carry you to success or bury you before you even get started.

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Embarrassing Office Story Competition Winners

It’s been two weeks and now it’s time to draw the winners for the embarrassing office story competition!

As promised, I’ve republished the stories the winners submitted in this post. These are stories about embarrassing events, so as you’d expect some of these are a tad crude. My general opinion on office stories is: the cruder the funnier. If you disagree, this is definitely not the post for you to read! Just a warning.

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How to Escape Your Cubicle & Work From Home

I don’t blame you for not wanting to come to work. It’s a good job. But why do we have to get dressed and make that awful commute to this building every day? Surely there’s a better way.

It’s possible to do all this from home. Think about how much money you can save on gas and parking. You could avoid being exposed to H1N1. You can have all this—except for the engaging conversation with me—all from the comfort of home.

If you’re going to sell this to our boss, you’re going to need a good reason. And it’s not going to have anything to do with being able to work in your pajamas or avoid the commute to the office. This has to create benefits for the company, not just you.

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Memo:Random #10

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Excel How-to: Concatenating Cells

Excel is one of the programs that made me want to throw things at Bill Gates but I found ways to make it more usable lest I end up in anger management therapy. Especially if you’re one of us assemblers of lists (guest lists, media lists, potential client lists) you should know for your own good how to combine and separate cell contents.

In this Excel how-to I’m going to teach you how to combine cell contents, which will save you loads of time or at least keep you from traumatizing your interns who enter data manually. I’m using a Mac but the process is the same for PC’s. I hope this article is clear, useful and not too boring. If you have any questions just send me a note!

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Time Management 101

For those of us who are gainfully employed, we all want to work awesome at our jobs. In order to get there we need to be able to juggle our time effectively. I’ve been working full-time for the better part of the last 30 years and have had a chance to take many Time Management courses. In this post I’d like to share with you a little of what I have learned about managing my time at work.

If you take any type of Time Management course there will be some discussion of four different types of issues that can take up your time. Let’s call them buckets.

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Word Tips: Customize Your Workspace

Tailoring your workspace to meet your needs makes you more productive, relaxed, and even more confident. This doesn’t only apply to your desk drawers, or desktop icons. It also works with the programs you use on a regular basis. I always customize my workspaces no matter what program I’m working in. Some programs make it easier than others. Microsoft Word comes with many preset features, but don’t feel you have to leave them that way.

I’m working in Word 2007. Older versions are similar in instruction.

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7 Communication Tips That Get You Noticed

Looking for a promotion, but your boss barely even knows your name? It’s a common problem, especially in today’s environment. Cost reductions and downsizing usually results in supervisors having 2-3 times the normal amount of reports. So, how do you stand out in the crowd and differentiate yourself from everyone else?

Since your communications skills and style molds much of the impression on you as a worker, I’ve put together a few tips to help improve these skills. While these alone can’t get you a promotion, it will definitely put you on the right path.

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