Come a little closer.
I have a confession to make. At my age, in this age, you can’t admit that there is any aspect of technology you don’t understand or embrace. Not if you want to avoid becoming a permanent exhibit in the British Museum of the Terminally Unemployed or worse labeled “ Old fogey” .
So, here’s my confession — I don’t think I completely understand Linked-In. Read more »
So we hired an American?
Why, you ask when there are so many other immigrants here closer to the United kingdom begging to work and who didn’t learn English from MTV or hate the letter “e”? I wish we could take credit for this enlightened policy. Certainly, we have been lobbying long and hard for another member of staff to slave away to my every whim here at The Penthouse.
If you’re one of those people who starts every new year by making a list of all the ways you will change for the better in the twelve months ahead, I have one word of advice for you: DON’T.
Don’t make a list. Don’t think things will get better. And most of all, don’t change.
Trust me, it’s not worth the effort. Nothing you can do will change your miserable situation, unless, of course, you quit, and then you’ll have to go through all the trouble of getting a new job, which will certainly be no better than the position you currently have. It could even be worse, at least for the first five years, when you’ll have to meet a bunch of new people to hate, locate a gaggle of new people with funny names, and spend precious goofing-off hours finding the bathrooms.
Moreover, all the effort you put into useless changes could better be spent on truly useful endeavors, like scouring your current office to find new places to nap.
But you’re unhappy, you say, in your present position. To which I say, so is everyone else. Even the lucky stiffs in Bank who are collecting multi-million Pound bonuses are miserable. Really! I’m not saying you need to send sympathy cards, but I have read that due to limited production quotas, many of the newly minted gazillionaires will not be able to procure the new £250,000 Ferrari 599 GTB . Imagine how miserable these disappointed banking warriors will be when forced to spend 2010 driving from their Chelsea penthouses to their European beach houses in last year’s Lamborghini Murcielagos. And you think you have it tough!
Another reason not to start 2010 with visions of bettering yourself is that most of these corporate self-improvement projects cause more harm than good. Let’s look at few of the classic New Year’s resolutions and see the consequences of trying to make 2010 a better year by becoming a better you.
Resolution #1: I’m going to lose weight.
I know that your physician may tell you that you will live longer if you lose weight, but I’ll bet your physician never told you that being fat will help your career. It’s true – fat people earn more than 200% more than skinny, healthy people, and that’s a proven fact according to a study sponsored by the NMTWP (National Muffin Top Wearing Public.)
If you start a diet and eat only healthy foods, you will not be spending very much time in the coffee room, gobbling up the cookies, cakes, pastries and left-over potato salad left out from last week’s staff meeting. This means you will be spending significantly less time schmoozing with your clients, developing the kind of interpersonal connections that could elevate you to a top position when one of your coffee-mates drops dead of a heart attack.
Resolution #2: I’m going to work out regularly.
Another really bad idea. Sure, you can go to the gym before and after work, but let’s face facts — no improvement in your physical condition can neutralize the complete mental meltdown you will suffer when seeing your bloated body stuffed into Lycra and Spandex? Besides, if you spend all your spare time in the gym, you’ll lose out on networking opportunities that come from leaning against the bar at the Penthouse ( or somewhere just as cool 
, or the bonding you’ll develop with the co-workers assigned to drag you home every night after a successful event.
Worse of all is the possibility that you will actually get buff and become attractive to those randy, highly-hormonal young employees who are seeking a mentor among the senior staff. With three or four of these love bunnies throwing themselves at you from nine to nine, you are certain to lose focus on your work product, and on your spouse, who will divorce you, demanding custody of your large-screen TV, and leaving you the children.
Resolution #3: I’m going to get organized.
If you want a recipe for unemployment, clear off your desk. It’s OK to do nothing at the office, as long as it looks like you’re busy. Without the clutter, everyone will think you’re the lazy slug you really are. I say: go out a buy a couple of pounds of debris from the nearest skip. You may have to pay extra for the extra smelly stuff, but it’s money well spent – the stench could keep the boss away until January 2010.
This could be you?
For those readers who have not yet gone blind typing quote sheets and reading event sheets all day and all night you will be able to see my photo printed with the text of this blog, I know what you are thinking—a person this movie-star handsome must have had lots of plastic surgery.
Believe it or not, I have yet to have any major work done. Beyond a simple forehead lift, chin and cheekbone implants, eyelid enhancement, collagen lip injections, nose reconstruction, hair transplants, chemical dermabrasion and laser facial resurfacing, I am virtually the same person I was when I started in this business, some four hundred and ten years ago.
Or so it feels. Being the beloved elder statesman in the workplace has its advantages, but getting big fat bonuses and skyrocket promotions are not part of it. Perhaps that’s why so many of us are spending our excess cash in procedures that will mitigate the effects of our excess years.
According to the European Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, the number of plastic surgery procedures and injections increased 54 percent between 2007 and 2008. In 2008, the academy reported, 22 percent of men and 15 percent of women who sought plastic surgery did so for “work-related reasons.”
The surgery academy also reported that the average cost of a face-lift in the United Kingdom was £10,588; a brow lift, £4,000; and Botox injections, £350 a visit. And it’s probably even more expensive if you, like thrifty little me, don’t get your work done at Halfords.
This boom of cosmetic surgery in the workplace has caught the attention of The Daily Mail;, which recently published a breathtaking article on the phenomenon and the fact that a X factor contestant had spent thousands on surgery after Simon Cowell attacked her looks . Frankly, after all our years of bowing and scraping, are we really surprised by the positive effect of a little slicing and dicing?
It’s a rule of the business jungle: good looking people go further, faster. If you haven’t seen it yourself, in your company or in your mirror, many a study has concluded that there is a “sizable beauty premium” in the labor market. And according to the experts, “men and women with above-average looks receive a pay premium, while workers with below-average looks receive a pay penalty.”
The lesson here is clear. If you’re just starting out in your career, instead of paying a fortune for a name-brand education, use that money to buy name-brand cosmetics. Oxford and Cambridge look nice on the CV, but you’ll go further with a degree from Gucci and Lancôme.
Of course, for older workers, drugstore remedies may no longer be sufficient to do, or save, the job. I can’t tell you exactly the right age to go under the knife, but if you’re not a Managing Director by the time you’re 36, I’d say it’s time to empty your pension and call your neighborhood plastic surgeon. Some wonderful Plastic surgeons are likely to have extended hours for your convenience, by the way. Some are even open on Saturdays to sandblast clients who can’t get away during the workweek.
While I wholeheartedly endorse surgery as a way to get ahead in the workplace, objective journalistic standards demand that I throw a caveat or two in your path to the Brad Pitt cheekbones or Megan Fox lips that we know will turbo charge your career. According to one surgery consultant, an ultra-tight face-lift or too much collagen pumped into your lips could “cause your career investment to backfire.”
“When you get back, it can become tea brake gossip,” the consultant rightly suggests. But is that a bad thing? It’s tough to be promoted if no one notices you, and if having lips the size of krispy Kreme doughnuts brings you to the attention of management, I say—go for it.
If you do decide to hide your adventures, face the fact that you will be limited in the procedures you can accomplish. The recovery time for a full face-lift is well beyond the meager two-week vacation most companies dole out. You may want to invent a reason for staying out of the office, like going into rehab for a drug or drinking problems. This never seems to hurt rock and pop stars, and you can explain your addiction problems by your fanatical commitment to your job. Remember: a face-lift also lifts your spirits, and with a chemical dependency and a chemical peel, it will be clear to everyone that when it comes to selecting executive material, you are strikingly beautiful.
There’s life Jim, but not as we know it…
the changing landscape of …
Get out your handkerchiefs, event planners. This is going to be a weeper. “When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life” so said the 18th centaury writer Dr Samuel Johnson.
I’m out on the town with a mate from Switzerland who has not been in London for 10 years. In the middle of the hustle and bustle of a Saturday night I realized, suddenly, that a great cultural institution has virtually disappeared from the urban landscape. I had actually read about the phenomena, but had no personal experience with the acute pain and the loss of discovering that life has changed forever until when, at midnight, I walked from one old favorite club to where to there should have been the other. Something’s rotten in London’s Clubland. In the past 18 months, a confounding number of dance music-centric clubs have shut down, fallen one-by-one like dominoes. We have lost The Cross, Turnmills, China White, The End, Canvas, The Key, Unit 7 and T Bar to name a few. “It’s hard to know what’s going to happen next!” says Matter’s Managing Director, Cameron Leslie. “There has been no downturn in people’s interest in dance music. The club closures are purely a series of odd coincidences. The End’s Closing had no relationship to Turnmills or China White’s Closing, although all of the club closures were due to property-related issues. It has nothing to do with habits changing or new trends.” This has made me thing about my own work environment. If you think about it, you’ll discover many traditional landmarks of office life that have become extinct, or are heading in that direction. For example:
The office manager
Once upon a time the office manager job was given to uptight, agonizingly anal individuals who were too tightly wound to do any productive work, but could be counted on by management to obsess about every paperclip and treat each sheet of carbon paper as their own. Office managers, too emotionally explosive to deal with customers or clients, were given free range to supervise employees who they intimidated with threats of secret powers, little dictators who roamed the floor, hated by all and enjoying every minute of it.
Modern computer systems replaced the need for the traditional office managers, and now all these flawed, bitter, and punishing individuals have been given new assignments where their terror tactics can be put to good use. That’s right; they now work in HR!
The boss’s secretary
In the good old days, the boss had a secretary who answered his phone and kept his calendar – both jobs now performed by microchips. The boss’s secretary was invariably an older woman, preferably widowed, the better to project an image of virginal sanctity that made any idea of sexual relationship unthinkable. Yet, it was offered rumored that there had been a “warmer” relationship in earlier days.
Through grandmotherly nurturing of the “young sprouts,” heaven help anyone who crossed the boss’s secretary. One word and you were dead-meat! What happened to these women, history does not record. I think the majority now work as madam’s in fancy houses.
The sexy receptionist
In ancient days, businesses hired attractive young women to sit at the front desk, the better to project a youthful, appealing image. Today, of course, this is considered rank sexism and receptionists, if they even exist, have been replaced by security guards – dangerous looking corporate bouncers in generic uniforms who carry walkie-talkies and batons and would happily beat you to a pulp if you even considered stealing one of the reception room’s dog-eared copies of Hello magazine.
You
You mean you really didn’t know? Are we the event planners in for the same evolution as the very city we all work in? What has changed in your world, office, city or life?
Haymarket © 1957 – 2012
