Displaying All Posts by Jason Finnerty

Fast Recipes for Work #1: Pierogi Casserole

Everyone knows that freelancers live on caffeine and nicotine, but it’s important to put the right fuel in your body occasionally.  Based on the feedback from a previous article, I’d like to present a few fast recipes that let you create a quasi-healthy meal, with a minimum amount of prep time, cooking time, and most importantly, clean up time.  Try out the recipe, and let us know what you think.

Pierogi Casserole

  • 1 small bag frozen pierogi
  • 1 jar of your favourite spaghetti sauce
  • 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese(or mozza, or both)

_____________________

Turn oven on to 350°F

Place frozen pierogi in a casserole dish (um, remember to remove from plastic bag…)

Add pasta sauce (pour over top of pierogi  – recycle jar)

Sprinkle with shredded cheese

Bake in oven for 45 minutes to an hour

Remove from oven, scoop into bowl, serve with side salad and/or garlic bread.

Go back to coding/writing/designing – with a full belly.

Click Here to Read Article …

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Is It Lunch Theft?

You forgot to bring a lunch today, and you don’t have time to run out and get anything.  Time constraints aside, you also forgot your wallet.   You’ve got a long day ahead of you, with a client presentation in the afternoon. You need to get something in your system to stay on top of things.  There are a few lunches in the fridge, and they’ve been unclaimed for a little while.  What do you do?

  • Grab one of the unclaimed lunches.  Check to make sure the green parts are supposed to be green, and chow down.  They’re probably going to get thrown out later this week anyway – so where’s the harm?
  • Skip lunch – you can afford to miss a meal or two.
  • Find the owner of the best looking lunch, and beg them to share.
  • Send an email out to the team, asking everyone to give you part of their lunch.
  • “Accidentally” eat whichever one you want – even though the name is clearly on it.
  • Send the office intern out to get you a lunch, with your promise to pay them tomorrow.

Since I’ve experienced “lunch theft” on more than one occasion, I’m curious to know what you folks think.

What would you do? Click Here to Read Article …

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To Beer or Not to Beer: Do You Liquid Lunch?

The other day I went out to have a quick lunch with a good friend of mine.  Nothing fancy, just a cheap pizza place that just happened to have a few excellent beers on tap.  (I’m not 100% sure, but I think it might be illegal here in Canada to eat pizza without drinking beer.)

Since I’m self-employed, had no need to drive, and was enjoying the first nice Friday afternoon in what seemed like an eternity, I opted to have a beer with my pizza.  I tried to get my beer-loving friend to join me, but he felt that it wasn’t appropriate given that he still had to go back to his office.

It got me thinking over the past week:  When is it okay to have an adult beverage?

When I was a cable guy, driving a company vehicle – no question.  And let me say this clearly – if you are driving, there’s no acceptable time to have a drink.  But when I got into the advertising world and learned that a beer fridge in the office was not grounds for immediate termination – let’s just say I didn’t think it was that big of a deal to have a “pop” and then walk back to a communications position in an office building.

Now, there’s a world of difference between wanting a drink and needing a drink – and if you are in the latter stage on a regular basis, you might want to consider asking for help.

My question to the folks in WorkAwesome:  Is there an acceptable time to have a drink during the work day?  Do you take part in a “liquid lunch” ritual? Click Here to Read Article …

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Burn Your Resume: Alternative Strategies to Get Your Dream Job

A dream job usually isn’t something conventional. Nor should your approach to getting hired. Have you ever thought of the whole resume process?  You spend many hours, and in some cases many dollars, creating – fabricating – a document for that your potential employer is going to probably dedicate less than 30 seconds to reading it.  Sure, there are going to be some occasions where they will read the whole resume because they are hoping to find that you have listed your hobbies, and you share a love of butterfly collecting.  But a happy coincident like that is a tad rare. Click Here to Read Article …

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Win The Lottery, Lose The Job?

Life is pretty good here in Canada.  Things are generally pretty quiet, so much so that a lottery jackpot going unclaimed for three weeks in a row is newsworthy.  Very newsworthy.

LottoMax is a weekly lottery where you pick seven numbers, from 1 to 49, for your chance to win.  The pot starts at $10 million, and once it hits $50 million it goes into super-fancy “maxmillions” mode, with additional $1 million draws on top of the main jackpot.   The other night there was one draw for the $50 million prize, and an additional 45 – $1 million draws.  No one won the $50 million.

The odds of winning are 1 in 28 million, but considering that there are only 33 million people in Canada – it’s surprising that it hasn’t been won yet, but not that surprising that it’s featured prominently in the news.

So what does this have to do with WorkAwesome?  I’m sure I’m not the only one to play the “what if?” game:

“What would I do if I won the big jackpot?”

How much would you need to win in order to quit your job?  Or would you keep working where you are if you had an extra $50 million in the bank?  Would you move on to something else altogether – something you truly love?

What would you do if you won the big jackpot?  Click Here to Read Article …

Self-Initiated Productivity Killers

While we clearly discuss ways to be more productive here at WorkAwesome, we don’t often delve too much into the productivity killers that you bring on yourself.  I was thinking about this as I was enjoying the 10th round of solitaire on my iPhone, accidentally-on-purpose avoiding a looming deadline.

It’s not that I didn’t want to do the job; I just didn’t really want to start.  The getting paid part of it was really great, and landing the project is always exciting.  The project itself…not so much.  So I found myself focusing my efforts on winning one more round.  And if it’s not solitaire, it’s crib – trying to get that elusive 29.  Curse you iPhone apps!

So what do you do to avoid doing what you should be doing, and how do you get yourself back on track?

Or am I the only one that does this? Click Here to Read Article …

Leadership 101

There are two basic types of leaders; those in a leadership position, and those who lead.  One is called a leader because their title or level of seniority (or authority) says so, while one has a calling to be a leader.

It’s important to be able to tell the difference between the two. Click Here to Read Article …

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Time-Saving Tips for Life Stuff

From reading the posts and comments throughout WorkAwesome, it seems that a common complaint of many of the writers and readers is a lack of time. Hopefully this is because you are too busy with work and raking in the financial benefits that come with this.  Perhaps you’ve got a busy life – and you can use some tips to save time doing the things you don’t enjoy, so you can spend more time doing the things you’d rather be doing.  Or, maybe you really enjoy your World of Warcraft – but your spouse would rather you do a few things before you go dragon hunting.

So – here are a few ways to save time in your day. Click Here to Read Article …

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