The Monster Blog

Remembering Your Work Life

Yesterday, I read in Newsweek about a woman who remembers just about every detail of every day of her life. It sounds like a gift, but as she puts it, most days are mundane, and she just “hung out.” For example, her memories consist of eating soup on cold days, watching TV and conversations with her parents.

I think many of our days are the same, and that extends to work. However, some workdays are unforgettable. One of my most memorable workdays is September 11, 2001, but there are less dramatic examples of good and bad days that stick in my head. There was the day I discovered I needed to rehome my beloved dog. I spent the day crying in my cube, comforted by coworkers. And then there was the morning my boss called me into his office and told me he was promoting me, complete with a hefty raise.

One of my relatives remembers the day a coworker with a bad attitude had her performance review. When the boss tried to address the issue during the review, the person quit in such a firestorm that security had to be called.

What are your most potent workplace memories? And what makes a workday memorable? Let us know in the comments below.

How Becoming a Working Mom Has Changed Me

After years of reading about issues facing working mothers, at the beginning of April I became one myself. It’s not an easy job, working and raising a family. So with Mother’s Day this month, I starting thinking about how being a working mother has transformed the way I live and work.

Becoming a mom, and especially a working one, has made me a morning person, like it or not. I no longer just roll out of bed and go to work. I need to get another little person up, changed and out the door.

The work that goes along with motherhood, coupled with the demands of my job, can really tire me out -- now I understand Thad’s post about his exhaustion from a few years ago. It’s been important (and not easy) for me to put my pride aside and ask for help when I need it, whether it be from my husband, my mother-in-law or my own mom.

As every parent knows, raising a child is not a 9-to-5 job. When my son is up in the night, the next day at work can be difficult. I’ve learned to live on fractured sleep, naps when I can take them and caffeine.

Having a child has also changed the way I work. Knowing my workday could be pierced by a call saying my son is sick and needs to be picked up (it hasn’t happened yet, but it’s only a matter of time), I’ve learned to triage the tasks I can only do in the office first. It’s also made me more efficient time-wise -- not only do I work a compressed schedule, but I have a hard stop at the end of every day, since my son needs to be picked up.

Finally, and most importantly, I think becoming a mom, and particularly a working one, has put my career in balance and perspective for me. My job is still important, sure, but so is being there for my son. He’s one of the main reasons I work, after all.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms -- we all work, whether we have a job outside the home or not. And feel free to tell us about your experience of being a working mom in the comments below.

High Gas Prices Are Hurting Workers

We’ve talked about steep gas prices before on the Monster Blog, but never have they been this high. Yesterday, the national average for a gallon of gas was $3.60 for regular, and crude oil futures were at $120 a barrel. With summer coming up and the threat of stagflation -- inflation coupled with slower economic growth -- there doesn’t seem to be much relief in sight.

Yes, it’s painful for me to spend $50 filling up my Camry, but workwise, I feel the biggest pinch on my commute. Workers who are really feeling gas pains are those who drive as part of their jobs -- for example, delivery people and truck drivers (especially independent owner-operators).

So what’s a worker to do? The obvious solution: Take steps to improve your gas mileage. If you can, try to take public transportation, carpool or even work from home. If you must drive, Mapquest can help you find the cheapest gas in your area. And let’s hope that what goes up will eventually come down. 

How are high gas prices affecting you/your job?

Giving Thanks to Admins

How often do you show your gratitude to the administrative professionals who make your day-to-day work life a little easier? If the answer is "not often enough," then it's high time you do something about that. And since this is Administrative Professionals Week, why not start today? Whether it's a card, a bottle of wine or a promotion that you're handing out, give your sincere thanks to the admins who keep you organized and help make you look good.

And if you're an admin yourself, then make sure you reward yourself this week, too. You certainly deserve it!

Now whether you're an administrative professional or not, you might also want to check out our "Is Your Job Like a Sitcom?" contest this week. We'll be giving away a cool prize for the wackiest, wildest true story of office hilarity. If your workplace would make the perfect setting for an "Office"-like TV show, then jump into our Administrative Careers forum and tell us all about it.

Is Lying Part of Office Life?

The relationship between boss and subordinate is often littered with distrust, game-playing and even dislike. For example, according to a study by Florida State University, 39 percent of workers said their supervisor didn’t keep a promise, 37 percent said the boss withheld credit, and 23 percent said their supervisor blamed others to cover up mistakes or to minimize embarrassment.

But bosses aren’t the only ones who lie. Subordinates also do things to erode the trust so essential to good working relationships. This survey reveals most workers have lied to their bosses about something, like the reason for a day off, why they’re late or why they’re missing a deadline.

So a lot of lying is going on in the office. That’s life, right? While some lying is essential to making the (polite) world go round (“Great haircut, Martha!”), I think an atmosphere of trust between worker and boss helps build good working relationships. That’s good for your career -- think how much easier your working life would be if you got along with your boss -- and for the company. Infighting and strained relationships ultimately cause productivity losses and ultimately, turnover

So next time you’re tempted to tell the boss you’re late because wild turkeys attacked your car (wait, that really happened around here) or not tell your employee he’s doing a great job, try stepping outside the norm with some good old-fashioned honesty. Like the spring breezes that are starting to blow through here, you may find it refreshing.

For more on this topic, check out these resources from the Monster Blog:

• "Building Trust in the Office”


• “Trust in Management Is More Important than Money”


• “Lessons from Enron: Who Do You Trust?”

Does a Messy Desk Matter?

One of the most active threads on the Monster message boards over the last couple of months has been “Employee keeps a messy desk.” We’ve had more than 140 posts to this lively discussion, which kicked off with this message:

I'm new to management and have a predicament I'd like an opinion on.  I have a worker who keeps a very messy desk.  I'm not a neat freak, but there are piles of paperwork as far back as mid-'07 among other things that, if someone had to fill in...would be very confused.  I've already lightly mentioned that it be cleaned up, then again when it didn't happen, I actually gave a timeline of one week for it to be cleaned up...and of course, it didn't happen.  So, is it something I should just let be and assume the employee works better in a controlled chaos environment?  Or should I step up my requests and not be so nice about it?  I'm not sure how much it is my place to tell someone to clean up their work area if it really doesn't bother anyone but me. Thanks for reading!

The Monster members who’ve been responding to this initial post generally fall into two camps:

• As long as the employee’s work is getting done, it doesn’t matter how messy his desk is or isn’t.
• A messy desk is no doubt a sign of a cluttered mind! Continue to insist that the employee clean up his workspace.

This question hits home for me, because I’ve worked hard since starting my first professional job 10 years ago to overcome my natural tendency of allowing piles of paper to cover my desk. In my case, a messy desk often did mean I was trying to handle too many tasks at once or not properly prioritizing my to-dos (check out this article on optimizing your multitasking if you’re in a similar boat).

These days, I try to ensure that the top of my desk only contains files and papers that I need at that particular moment. When I move on to a new project, said paperwork gets filed away, out of sight.

However, I’ve also had plenty of colleagues who are organized and on top of all their projects, in spite of their desk’s appearances to the contrary. Indeed, they almost seem to thrive in what the rest of us would consider a cluttered and chaotic workspace.

I contend that we should leave employees like the one described in the message board post to manage the neatness of their own desks, unless there’s evidence to suggest that their disorganization is impacting their work. After all, don’t managers have more important things to worry about?

What’s your take?  Let us know in the comments section below, or jump on to our message board to join in the conversation there.

Top 5 Things to Do When Returning from Maternity Leave

This is my first week back in the office after three months off caring for my son, who was born at the beginning of January. It’s been a strange and stressful week -- everything is somewhat the same, but a lot has changed while I was on maternity leave. And yet, as painful as it was to put my son in day care (I’m working a compressed three-day schedule), being back at work is almost comforting in its familiarity. After all, I’ve been a mom for three months; I’ve done my job for three-plus years.

According to this Career Journal article about getting back to work after maternity leave, the first 90 days should be a time of easing back into your job and reestablishing connections. In that vein, here are five things I’ve done for myself that I think have softened my return. They might help you if you’re in the same situation:

• Schedule Meetings with Everyone: It’s fun to catch up about the baby, but it’s also good to find out what everyone’s working on, where projects stand and how you’ll fit into the new equation.


• Establish Some Duties Right Away: You’ll want to ease back in, sure, but it’s good to have something to work on to get those feet wet.


• Read: This includes corporate communications, new departmental documentation and news about the company. This will help you get caught up on the way things are now, not how they were three months ago.


• Touch Base with Your Child: The transition back isn’t just difficult for moms -- it’s hard for a baby who doesn’t understand why someone new is caring for him. I’m fortunate to have a day care center right in the building, but even if I didn’t have the option of going down for a visit, I’d call so he could hear my voice.


• Go Easy on Yourself: Just like when you became a mom, you’re going through a big transition. Try to schedule some downtime every day.

For more on this subject, check out these Monster resources:

• “Returning After a Leave”
  


• “Pregnancy and Your Job”
  


• From the Monster Blog: “What I Learned During Maternity Leave”

Why We Really Do Like Meetings

As much as we like to bash meetings and complain about how much time they suck out of our workday, most of us actually don’t mind them.

That’s what Steven Rogelberg, director professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, discovered during a recent survey of some 800 US workers.

In fact, a whopping two-thirds of respondents said their ideal day would include at least one meeting.

Are you buying it?

In an interview on the NPR morning show The Bryant Park Project last month, journalist Jared Sandberg says there are four real reasons why meetings happen:

• They feed our social nature.
  
  
• They’re “company-sanctioned prattle” sessions -- essentially, an excuse to get together on company time for chit-chat.
  
  
• They serve as show of power for the organizer(s).
  
  
• They just might include free food.

So, depending on your work style and the size of your ego, at least one of those elements probably appeals to you and makes meetings not nearly as bad as we all proclaim them to be.

After all, attending a meeting or two each day has to be better than staying chained to your cubicle, right?

Are Achievements All That Matter on a Resume?

This morning I came across this nugget from Penelope Trunk in a blog post about writing your resume:

"Don’t focus on your responsibilities, focus on what you achieved. A resume is not your life story. No one cares. If your life story were so interesting, you’d have a book deal. The only things that should be on your resume are achievements."

I don’t agree.

As important as achievements are -- and you can read our articles from Joe Turner and Monster Resume Expert Kim Isaacs on the value of selling your top accomplishments on your resume -- including some of your specific duties from former jobs is helpful for a recruiter, too.

"Achievements are great, but I like to get into the nitty-gritty of what [candidates] are doing daily," says Melissa Shaw, an HR manager for Perkett PR.

Monster senior recruiter Dianne Iannelli offers similar sentiments. Iannelli, who reviews some 150 resumes every week, says that understanding some of a candidate’s previous day-to-day responsibilities gives her a good initial sense of whether that person’s experience would be a good match for the position she’s trying to fill. If she were to only see achievements on a resume, Iannelli says, making the links between the roles would be more difficult.

The How Matters

In other words, including bullet points on your resume about what you actually did to win that award -- managed the project with the help of 10 direct reports, wrote the concept plan and then coordinated the execution with a team developers and designers, etc. -- can provide a recruiter with more meaningful information about you than simply trying to make the honor stand on its own.  You need to provide context.

Here’s how one corporate recruiter friend, who asked not to be named, put it to me: "If I just see achievements, I don’t [really] know what you did."

What do you think?

So, what’s your take on the extent to which you should highlight achievements on your resume?

Building Business Relationships Outside the Office -- with or Without the Drinking

In the spirit of St. Patrick’s Day, I thought I would revisit one of the most popular -- and contentious -- posts from our Monster Blog archives: Alcohol: Income Booster?

In that post, my former Monster colleague Maya pointed to a research study that linked drinking with increased earning power. According to the report, "drinkers earn 10 to 14 percent more than teetotalers, and…men who drink socially bring home an additional 7 percent in pay."

Does that mean you should start drinking to begin making your way up the corporate ladder? Hardly. But the article is a good reminder of the importance of spending time with coworkers, clients and other business colleagues outside of the board room, cubicle farm and company cafeteria. Whether that involves meeting for evening cocktails, chit-chatting in the hallways at a conference, or going out for a round of golf, strengthening existing relationships away from the office -- as well as starting new ones -- is the essence of networking. In fact, it could make the difference in landing you a new job or getting you that promotion you’ve been waiting for.

So if you’re not hitting up the local pub to toast the luck of the Irish with your workmates tonight, what are you doing this week to build better business relationships?