cheryl santa maria

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I’m on vacation until 2010.

I’ve been lounging around the house, eating and drinking, meeting up with friends, having in-depth conversations with my cat … life is good.  I didn’t mean to neglect this blog completely, but it appears that I have.  As an offering of good faith here’s an article that I found in my archives.  It was written in July ‘09 for Jobacle.com.

***

Work-related stress is on the rise in North America and with it has come an unprecedented spike in disease, disorders and discontent. Obesity has reached epidemic proportions, heart disease is soaring, divorce rates are mounting and “me” time is becoming obsolete.

According to Work Stress, some of the primary causes of workplace discontent are:

- long hours;
- incompetent leadership;
- conflicting demands; and
- lack of recognition.

I’m sure you can sympathize with most of these things. Many of us have buckled under the pressures of strict deadlines, zero communication and bureaucratic red tape. Throw into the mix the bumper-to-bumper traffic that commuters are forced to endure and it’s a wonder we’re still standing, let alone reporting to the office.

Forced to take on too many projects? Unable to move forward because you’re busy fixing other people’s mistakes? You’re not alone. These things wear us down eventually, that’s for sure, but oftentimes it’s the little things that push us right over the edge.

For most workers, the “last straw” isn’t the incoherent manager but rather, the photocopier machine that’s always jammed and out of paper.

Or the coffee mug that keeps disappearing from your desk.
Or the person who keeps stealing your lunch from the communal fridge.
Or the printer that’s always out of toner.
Or the people who make a mess of the bathroom.

If you ask me, one of the main causes of work-related stress is the fact that we’re forced to share our offices with inconsiderate people that we (likely) wouldn’t socialize with in real life. And to make matters worse, jerky behaviour appears to be contagious.

I’m not going to lie. I’ve done some pretty inconsiderate things when no one is looking, simply because everyone else appears to be doing those things, too.

And that’s the problem.

Being thoughtless at work may seem like a small thing but it can snowball rather quickly and working in an office that appears to be void of human decency is far more depressing than an impromptu board meeting or a demanding client.

As much as we’d like to blame our companies for everything, we tend to be the biggest sources of our discontent. Workplace stress is unavoidable, but it becomes a heck of a lot more manageable when people learn to be considerate of one another.

Remember that the next time you’re about to leave your dirty plate in the kitchen sink for someone else to clean.

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My Friend Ernie works as an IT Technician for a small consulting firm.  For the first three years Ernie enjoyed his job but he found the four-hour daily commute daunting.

When he decided to look for a job closer to home he informed his boss out of courtesy. He joked with his co-workers that he dreamed about being laid off.  In reality, receiving one of his company’s generous compensation packages would be like a dream come true.

A few weeks later strange things started happening around the office.  First a pay freeze was initiated.  Then the Christmas party was cancelled.  And then, one by one, the people from Ernie’s department started to disappear.

Eventually Ernie was the last person remaining.  His work week, which had ballooned to seventy hours, was excruciating.  He was too exhausted to search for a job after work but he plowed on, convinced that a pink slip was in his future.

Three months later Ernie cornered his friend from the HR Department and demanded to know why he hadn’t been laid off.

“Everyone knows that I want a job closer to home,” he said.  “Why am I still here?”

“Layoffs are expensive,” the friend replied, lowering his voice to a whisper.  “Why should we pay you tens of thousands of dollars to leave when you’re planning on doing it voluntarily?  We needed someone to compensate for the  lay offs.  You were the most economical choice.”

The moral of the story, my friends, is that you must be careful what you say at the cubicle farm because if you reveal too much, there’s a strong possibility that it will come back to shoot you in the foot.

Sixteen months later, Ernie is still employed with the same company.

I don’t see much of him anymore.

All he ever does is work.

* Yes, this is a true story. I've changed the name to
protect my poor, over-worked friend's identity.

I first wrote and published this back in June.  It got some good reviews (read: my mom liked it) so I’m re-posting.

Hi Mom!

***

Ego kills everything.

It really, truly, does. Trust me on this one.

Ego obliterates all good intentions. Ego kills careers before they even start. Ego the reason we have bureaucracy. Ego is the reason some up-and-coming artists vanish into obscurity before reaching superstardom. Ego is the reason most managers are completely inept.

A little bit of ego is healthy. It’s important to know our talents and to develop them. But the moment a person starts believing they’re too important to do certain things is the moment things start to go downhill.

Why is that, you ask?

Well, people who think they’re too important to do the small things often hire other people to do them. Those people then hire other people to do the small things for them, and so on. What you wind up with is a bunch of different teams (or departments) working under the first, self-appointed Big Head. Everyone wanders around in their respective departments trying to find someone they’re superior to and they all share the work one person could handle perfectly well on their own.

There’s a difference between being too busy to do the small things and appointing yourself too important to do them. Being too busy is completely legitimate, but it’s a lot rarer than we’d like to think. We’ve all had managers whose sole purpose is to delegate their work onto other people, and have you ever tried to go through government channels? It can take months to get one document approved because that document has to sit on the desk of at least seven different people before it’s finalized and sent back to you. I think it’s pretty safe to argue that some (or maybe most?) of the people that employ entourages and personal assistants do it because their fragile ego needs constant fluffing – not because of their “busy” workload.

This doesn’t just happen in corporate America and in government. Big Heads everywhere are employing people to do ridiculous things. Puff Daddy (or whatever the hell he’s going by this week) has a Personal Umbrella Holder and Mariah Carey went out and got herself her very own Professional Drink Holder.

And what’s the end result?

Over time, a massive ego will slowly kill off all the good traits the Big Head once had – traits like personality, originality, and drive. And people with ego problems are known to attract sycophants.

Having a couple of admirers may sound nice at first, but it can and has been the end of so many promising people. Sycophants follow their Big Head around day and night (probably because they’re paid to do so) and tell them that everything they do is utter genius. It’s this constant, and often unjustified, praise that can lead a Big Head to believe they don’t need to maintain their integrity (have you seen what Spielberg and Lucas did to Indiana Jones?)or business sense (Conrad Black, I’m looking at you), or even basic social skills (oh hi there, Michael Jackson and Britney Spears).

Do you have a dream? Are you working towards some sort of goal?

Think about that dream long and hard before you begin your journey.  Do you want to be successful?

If so,  never, ever forget this:

You aren’t as important as you’d like to think you are.

You actually aren’t important at all in the grand scheme of things, and you never, ever will be.

Now keep that thought with you day and night, and you’ll do just fine.

Promise.

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The United Nations Climate Change Conference is set to commence today in Copenhagen.  Approximately 15,000 public officials, 5,000 journalists and 98 world leaders (including U.S. President Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper) are expected to attend the event and with them, they’ll be bringing a whole lotta carbon dioxide.

According to the Telegraph 1,200-plus limos are going to clamour into the city. Copenhagen’s tiny airport won’t be able to handle the 140 private jets swirling the area so planes will have to land in other airports, some of them in Sweden. Passengers will then be transported to the conference via private limo.

The fully-booked hotels, which are going for about £650 a night, have prepared a special menu of scallops, foie gras and sculpted caviar wedges for the VIP guests.

That’s right folks.

From December 8-17 the most “prominent” people in the world, many of whom have flown in via private luxury jet, will drive from their hotels in private, chauffeured limos – but not before dining on a variety of exotic, and at times imported, meats – to a conference where they will come together and find ways to fight global warming.

I’m telling you: sometimes these blog posts just write themselves.

While I understand there are security issues that would prevent someone like President Obama from flying on a commercial plane, there are always ecological options. Fuel efficient cars in lieu of limos and a sustainable food selection would be a start.

It isn’t the hypocricy of the (majority of the) climate conference participants that gets to me most; rather, it’s their ridiculous sense of entitlement. As I see it global warming and the general destruction of mankind will persist despite our good intentions because the policymakers of the world rarely, if ever, practice what they preach.

For whatever reason the rich and influential believe that their stature absolves them from practicing the environmental (and corporate and social and moral) responsibilities that the rest of us are expected to maintain.

There is a slight chance that I’ve mis-read this particular situation, though. Maybe the delegates plan to offset the exorbitant amount of pollution they’ll be bringing to Copenhagen. Maybe they’ll be car-pooling to the conference and dining on organic veggies instead of imported meats.

Maybe – but that’s a big stretch. Twelve hundred limos, one hundred and forty private jets and the renowned egos of a few of the participants leads me to believe that this conference is more about photo ops and hob-nobbing than saving the freaking planet.

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“I try not to think about my job too often,” Anna* says as we sit down for tea. “I’m a receptionist a at a high-end car dealership. The salesmen are pigs and the work is boring. Most of the clients are rich, condescending snobs.”

She pauses for a minute to look out the window.

“I guess you don’t have to ask me how I feel about my job,” she says, watching the rain. “It’s pretty obvious that I hate it.”

After graduating from university in 2005 with a Bachelor of Arts in sociology, Anna bounced from one low paying job to another. A few weeks after uploading her resume to Workopolis, she received a call from a temp agency.

“The car dealership was the first gig [the agency] set me up with,” she says. “It was only supposed to be for a couple of months but I was offered a permanent position. I didn’t want to accept it but I didn’t have anything else to fall back on. I figured I’d put up with the job temporarily and search for something else.”

That was four years ago. Anna is still working at the same dealership, with no prospects in sight.

“The economy is in a bad place and competition is fierce,” she explains. “I sent out 250 resumes last year and I’ve only been to two interviews … I’d love to go back to school and upgrade my skills but I have no idea what I’d like to do.”

Anna doesn’t want to spend the rest of her life stuck behind a receptionist’s desk. “I used to be a photographer. I want to get back into it but I haven’t been feeling very artsy lately. It takes every bit of energy I have just to get up and go to work in the morning.”

Anna hopes to find a job that will allow her to help her community, use her creativity and become a better person. She doesn’t feel like she can accomplish any of these things in her current position.

“I wish I could take all of my fears, doubts and self-pity and turn them into something positive. I wish I was doing more with my life … but right now I just feel trapped.”

She sighs.

“Can we change the subject?” she asks me.

“All this talk about work is really starting to depress me.”

* Name has been changed.

“Profile” is an ongoing series in which people share their work experiences. If you’re interested in being featured on Profile, contact me. Anonymous submissions are welcome. Please include “PROFILE” in the subject line.

I’m thrilled to have a guest post running at The Glass Hammer, an online community for female executives.

In my article, The Great Divide: Study Reveals a Growing Disconnect Between Employers and Employees, I discuss the current apocalyptic sentiment that is swirling through corporate America.

Click here to read my article.

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The Internet is a great resource for wannabe entrepeneurs. Here are some of the websites that I look to for inspiration and advice.

1. The Creative Life.  According to its website, The Creative Life aims to “…share, lament, ponder, explore, celebrate, and vent about the [creative] paths we’ve chosen, the destinations we strive to reach, and the wheels we’ve decided to reinvent to get [there] safely.”  While not updated frequently, The Creative Life acts as a sounding board for those interested in pursuing a full-time career in the arts.  Fears, triumphs and failures are disucessed with an honesty that is nothing short of refreshing.

2. The Anti 9-to-5 Guide. In 1993, freelance writer Michelle Goodman said goodbye to her 9-5 job to pursue a full-time career in writing. Two books and a successful blog later, she’s doing better than ever. On her website, Goodman offers writing tips (I first learned of HARO through her), discusses ethical quandaries and demonstrates how fulfilling (and lucrative) a freelance career can be.

3.Where the Hell is Matt .While this site has nothing to do with career development, I find it profoundly inspiring. I n 2003 Matt quit his job to see the world. A travel buddy suggested that he dance in front of the camera in front of various places he’d visit. The result was a video that went viral. To date, it’s received over 20 million views.

But the story doesn’t end there.

Matt was picked up as a sponsor for Stride gum. He now travels the world on their behalf while picking up lucrative endorsements on the side.  It just goes to show how far an “outside the box” approach can take a person.

4. Freelance Switch.  Freelance Switch is a beautifully-designed website for freelance professionals. Freelancers are able to network with one another, browse jobs and listen to podcasts.  If you have a question about freelancing, chances are you’ll find the answer here.

5. Entepeneur.  This is a great website that I’ve recently stumbled upon. Countless well-written articles, an “Ask Entrepeneur” section and an area dedicated to women in business are just a few of the site’s features. You’d be wise to visit Entrepeneur daily.

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In the corporate world, it’s the early bird who gets the worm. Those who speak first, and with the loudest voice, often reap the biggest rewards. Group interviews are a great way for employers to spot the much-coveted “go getters” in a pack, and they indicate how a candidate responds to stress and interacts with others. During a group interview job seekers are at their most vulnerable, and some would-be employers like to exploit the situation. One way they’ll do this is by interjecting a particularly off-putting question near the end of the interview, at a point when candidates are starting to feel comfortable.

There are a few variations on the type of “bomb” questions that employers like to drop, but the most popular incarnation is this:

Besides yourself, who in this room would you hire?

Scary, right?

On the Tenure Track rightfully refers to this as the “most cutthroat interview question ever” and to make matters worse, there is no “right” way to answer the question. If you list the fine points of your competitors, you take attention away from yourself – the last thing you’d want to do in an interview. If you pick the same candidate that everyone else picks, you’ll come across as unoriginal. If you go for the underdog in the room, you may be deemed unqualified too properly assess a situation.

Lionel, a long-time bank executive tells me that this question is often used as a “scare tactic.”

“[The question] is a way for potential employers to pit interviewees against one another,” he says. “It’s sneaky because it forces candidates to surrender what little control they had in the interview process.” The only plan of attack is to centre the answer around yourself.

Instead of saying:

“I think Jane would make a great programmer because she’s analytical and she knows the product,”

you could say:

“Like me, Jane is analytical and she understands the product. I think we’d be a great team because, in addition to Jane’s strengths, I also have solid experience as a software developer.”

It’s not perfect, but it’s the best solution I’ve come up with. Seeing as most companies – even the “hip” and “forward thinking” ones – like to use this question, it’s only a matter of time before this bomb is dropped on you.

While I can’t guarantee you’ll pass your group interview with flying colours, being prepared will save you from dissolving into a sputtering, crimson mess. Sad to say, but that may give you a huge advantage over your competition.

Happy job hunting.