PinkonWednesday

Your Ethics Can Get You Fired

Maintaining a positive reputation at work means that sometimes you don’t speak up when something’s wrong. We all know the sayings, “don’t rock the boat” and “pick your battles.” When the issue goes beyond a gray area, or a slight bending of the rules of the employee handbook, you’re in a tough position. Several years ago I had a conversation with two mid-career lawyers about sexual harassment in…

Look Two Lanes Over

You know when you’re driving on a multi-lane freeway and you want to change lanes? Every once in a while when you’re moving into a center lane, someone on the far side of it wants to enter that lane, too. Hopefully both of you aren’t just looking to see if the center lane is clear, but also checking the lane on the other side of it for this very reason. This analogy is great for a lot of work…

Choosing Who to Confide In at Work

The people you work with are often either the best or the worst parts of your job. When those relationships are positive, it can make you more productive, successful and happier. When the other parts of your job aren’t going well, having trusted colleagues to confide in can help you get through the day. Whether they are work friends, your staff, your boss, your peers, people in organizations that…

Dealing with career disappointment

It is disappointing when you are not where you want to be in your career.   Maybe you thought by the time you were this age that you would be managing a department or earning a milestone salary. Maybe you hoped that after working this many years in your organization, that you would have been promoted by now. Maybe you expected that after the education and training you spent time and money on that…

Dream Big, They Said

Remember when we were little kids and we were told we could do anything we set our minds to? We heard it mostly in grade school, but also in after-school programs and from parents. We were told inspiring accounts of people who achieved great things. We learned of career options from astronaut to president and told we could have those jobs. We were taught about Mother Theresa and Martin Luther…

The Coffee Can Method of Getting a Dream Job

Elizabeth Gilbert tells a story about a woman who dreamed of traveling the world, but was an impoverished single mother. The woman put a single dollar bill in a coffee can every day. As Gilbert tells it, the woman figured that they had so little money that one dollar didn’t make a difference. After many, many years, once the kids were grown, the woman finally had enough money saved to travel on a…

What Makeup Taught Me About Business

Or an alternate title for this post: My Fake Beauty Blog. I like makeup. I like learning about new products, talking about them, trying and buying.  I did a great job of limiting the buying part for a couple of years. Then I had a streak of steady paychecks from my consulting work and suddenly the pursuit of the perfect moisturizer seemed like a good hobby. I found it after a long quest through…

If you are struggling with your toxic work environment – good

If you are struggling with your toxic work environment – good. I’m sorry that you’re in a negative work situation, but the fact that you’re struggling with it is positive. If you are resistant when your management instructs you to take actions that are bad for customers or waste shareholder money – good. You care about doing the right thing. If you are caught between the need to speak up about…

Your Equal Salary is Not as Equal as You Think

April 12th was National Equal Pay Day. On April 11th, Microsoft posted a blog that indicated salary equity across gender and race. I applaud Microsoft and other organizations that publish their salary data. This transparency is a great first step. It would be tempting to conclude from the information provided that there is pay equity and move on. However, salary data is not the whole story and it…

Your Performance Review Isn’t Fair

Your performance review is not about how well you served your customers, increased profits, reduced costs, expanded the business, or improved employee morale. Your performance review is not fair whether it is positive or negative, whether you want to believe it is 100% true or 100% false, and whether you like or loathe your manager. Your performance review reflects how well you served the…

Lets Take a Break From Politics to Complain About Our Jobs

Can we just take a break from despising each other because of our political beliefs and unite in agreement that our jobs suck? Yes, our mutual distaste for our jobs can bring us together. What? You say you would like to complain about your job but you don’t have one? All right, fine, circle the number below that best describes why we should scorn you for your lack of employment: Victim of…

Visual Clutter Leads to Mental Clutter

Or the title that I prefer: My sock drawer is good for business. I work best in an environment that is tidy and minimalist. When there is clutter or too much artwork in my line of sight, I get distracted more easily and feel like there’s less blank space in my mind to have fresh ideas. When I work at my desk at home, all I see over the top of my computer are white closet doors. What I recently…

Remembering What Was Good About A Bad Job

Last weekend I spent time with a friend that I met when I was at a not-so-favorite job. Let’s just say that particular job had many challenges. And not the exhilarating kind that lead to career success and personal fulfillment. I hadn’t seen this friend in a long time and it popped into my head that her friendship was one of the best things I got from that job. We had a lot of fun while we helped…

Biz Lessons from the Diner, Zola Twitter Style

Give me my pork and pineapple before this gets ugly OK listen up. Long story. So I’ve been having these cravings for pork & pineapple. No idea. So today I walk by the local diner & see an ad for BBQ pork + pineapple omelets. So I’m like damn, my craving! I lowkey sit at the counter cuz it’s busy. Coat’s not off & the busser puts coffee down–nice! I ask, can I order and he’s like no the waiter has…

Writing About the Writing on Jezebel

I’ve only recently discovered Jezebel and now have the pleasure and pain of reading old articles that I’m too late to comment on. It’s like reading about conversations on topics I care about that took place at the most amazing dinner party that I didn’t know I had been invited to. The articles are well-written and sometimes shine a light on under-represented groups and the dark sides of societal…

How To Tell If You Have A Cat And Other Business Problems

I have a problem. I’ve been experiencing unusual symptoms and can’t tell if I have a cat or not. You’re probably thinking “Seriously, how can you not know if you have a cat.” Let me remind you that a 47 year old woman recently gave birth one hour after realizing she was pregnant. Sometimes it’s hard to tell these things. Today I met with a trusted advisor to see if she could help me determine if…

Damage Control at Work

Some of my worst moments at work were when I pissed somebody off. Fortunately, I can only remember a handful of times when someone was really angry with me. And even more fortunately, I learned early on in my career how to do damage control. I took a 12 week Dale Carnegie course that changed my life for the better in many ways, and learning to recover when someone became angry with me at work is…