Let’s make things clear: It’s impossible for everyone in the workplace to be your close friend. It’s possible, however, to grow positive working relationships with them. So, what do we mean when we say positive relationships?
Every employee dreams of working in an environment where positivity resonates. Where people are supportive of each other. Where you feel motivated to work hard, not to mention score a perfect attendance, because your colleagues are encouraging.
We all aspire to be apart of a team made up of awesome people. How do you ensure now, that you, yourself, are a good colleague to your teammates?
You know you need to attract pleasant treatment before you receive it. With that, here are a few tips for becoming the co-worker everyone loves:
1. Be Pleasant
Remember the golden rule? Don’t do to others what you don’t want others do unto you. This also rings true in the workplace.
If you treat people around you coldly, and refuse to share even a smile, then you could as well expect your colleagues to seem distant.
Although people will have varying attitudes, they can still work together well. It takes open-mindedness to survive and thrive in such environment. So, learn to look past differences. Accept others as they are. Show kindness. It will be returned in situations you need it the most.
2. Be Innovative
It is easy to live on your own while in the workplace - minding your own tasks, limiting talks with your colleagues and going straight to home after work. Your motivation to go to office everyday is the paycheck you receive. You comply to what you’re told to do, but do not really extend efforts going beyond what is expected of you.
If there’s anything you want to explore in addition to the tasks assigned to you, let your boss know. Volunteer to assist your colleagues who might be able to use extra hands.
If the resources given you are not enough, then take the initiative looking for more. Consult your colleagues; ask your boss. Nobody wants someone who depends on spoon feeding.
3. Respect The Bosses
They can sometimes be difficult. They, sometimes, reach out to the team as though they’re on the same rank with them.
Bosses are not created equal. They may be using different approaches to inspire their team. There are times when you would find their rules too stringent, or perhaps lax.
However, they act. Remember, they are your superiors, your leaders. Even if, at times, you might find their behavior uncalled for, never speak negatively about them to your colleagues.
If there is anything you need to say, tell it straight to them. This is not to say that you smarm your boss, however, it would help that they have a positive impression toward you.
4. Sustain Healthy Competition
How do you look at your workplace? Is it something you see as a battlefield, with all your colleagues as your enemies? Is it a place you call your second home with people you deem as your other family? Is it a haunted mansion with everyone around acting like zombies?
It’s okay to be competitive. But to aspire for progress so much that you’re already building barriers from your colleagues can be harmful.
You are a team still, and to get ahead doesn’t mean you’d need to leave people behind or hanging. Do your best while reaching out in any way you can to your colleagues.
This post was originally published at an earlier date.
The Tangs department store had been undergoing a lot of renovations which took place in staggered phases so that only small areas were closed off and the main areas were still open for business. After enduring what seems like an eternity of renovations at Tangs, it seems that everything is now complete. During our visit to Tangs recently, we were struck by the beautiful design and decor of the now fully revamped store. If this was not a food blog, I would be quite happy to give you a full description of Tangs. But for now I will let you see some photos to give you a sneak preview until your next visit. The new Tangs is not a facelift, we would say that it is a total makeover and we think the inconvenience and effort have been worth it. We hereby nominate them for the most beautiful department store in Singapore award.
The icing on the cake is that on the second floor, part of the retail space had been cleared to make way for a cafe by The Providore. Word seems to have travelled fast as the place was already packed at 11.30 am in the morning. Don’t these people have to work?
The folks at Providore have certainly made a name for themselves after branching out of retailing artisanal foodstuff from their warehouse at Tan Boon Liat Building. Their foray into the cafe business started with their outlet at Mandarin Gallery and has been very successful, judging by the packed tables there. It seems that their drawing power is still strong and in this new and improved Tangs, the small cafe (we guesstimate a seating capacity of 30 pax) was full. Unfortunately we were not able to stop and sample the food, but if the items on display was any indication, we would say that it is carrying on its winning formula.
The Providore’s menu is understandably limited in view of the smallness of space here. The pricing is similar to the Mandarin Gallery outlet (i.e. not low). Some sandwiches are available in the $15 price range. There are also some more interesting items such as poached salmon nicoise ($19), lobster mac & cheese ($25.50) and porkloin involtini ($24.50). We suspect that a large number of their patrons will be shoppers taking a break from their shopping. For them Providore’s refamed pastries and coffee would be the main draw. The pastries on display are very attractive and the rum baba ($12.50) in particular was calling out to us.
The cafe has the same opening hours as the department store i.e. Monday to Saturday 10.30 am to 9.30 pm; Sunday 11 am to 8.30 pm.
Gold medalist Michael Phelps built a custom sleep chamber in his bedroom.
For busy, successful people, sleep is a precious commodity — rare and treasured.
So when it comes to getting a solid night of shut-eye, some do everything they can to not let insomnia, pressure at work, or snoring spouses get in the way — even if that means creating a weird nightly routine or napping to get through the day.
Here’s a look at the most bizarre sleeping habits of 13 highly successful people.
This is an updated article originally written by Vivian Giang.
Tom Cruise sleeps in a sound-proof ‘snoratorium.’
Cruise’s snores are apparently so bad, he sleeps in a sound-proof “snoratorium.” Once a nursery, Cruise converted the small room at the back of his house to a sound-proof space where he can snore in peace.
Churchill would often work through the night and became known as quite the night owl. Due to his irregular sleep schedule, he was said to hold War Cabinet meetings in his bath.
Mariah Carey surrounds her bed with 20 humidifiers and needs 15 hours of shut-eye per night.
The singer also admitted to sleeping with 20 humidifiers around her bed, which soothe sore throats and add moisture to dry air. “Basically, it’s like sleeping in a steam room,” she said.
All of Stephen King’s pillows are pointed in a certain direction.
“I brush my teeth, I wash my hands. Why would anybody wash their hands before they go to bed? I don’t know,” he says. “And the pillows are supposed to be pointed a certain way. The open side of the pillowcase is supposed to be pointed in toward the other side of the bed. I don’t know why.”
Leonardo da Vinci’s sleep schedule included 20-minute naps every four hours.
This unconventional sleep cycle may have given the artist/inventor/scientist more awake time during his days, but could have also made it difficult for him to work on long-term projects.
Martha Stewart only sleeps four hours per night.
Stewart’s hard work is evident in her success, but other parts of her life have suffered, including her sleep schedule. She gets up hours before her crew arrives at 6:30 a.m. to cook breakfast for a host of pets — including horses, donkeys, and over 200 chickens.
Stewart also stays up late reading or watching late-night TV. “It’s an exhausting lifestyle, and I always say sleep can go,” she told WebMD. “It’s not important to me right now.”
Eminem puts tin foil on his windows to keep out the light.
Most people put dark shades on their windows to keep their rooms dark, but rapper Eminem takes it to another level by wrapping tin foil around his windows to get better quality sleep.
He also listens to white noise throughout the night, which he claims helps him sleep better when traveling between different time zones.
Novelist Emily Brontë walked around in circles until she fell asleep.
The 19th century novelist and poet suffered from insomnia, and would walk around her dining room table until she felt tired enough to fall asleep.
Charles Dickens slept facing north to improve his creativity.
Dickens, who reportedly suffered from insomnia, always kept a navigation compass with him to ensure that he wrote and slept facing north. The writer believed this quirky practice improved his creativity.
Marissa Mayer catches up on sleep during weeklong vacations every four months.
Yahoo’s CEO is known to be a workaholic, sometimes clocking as many as 130 hours in a week, which doesn’t leave her much time for sleep. To catch up, she recharges by taking weeklong vacations every four months.
Michael Phelps sleeps in a chamber with air comparable to 8,500 to 9,000 feet.
By placing his bedroom at a high altitude, Phelps decreases the amount of oxygen available, which forces his body to work harder to produce more red blood cells and deliver oxygen to his muscles. It also helps Phelps increase his performance endurance and prepare himself for competitions at high elevations.
“I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success … Such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything,” he said.
Lyndon B. Johnson divided his day into two shifts.
The president split his day into two parts in order to get more done. He usually woke up around 6:30 or 7 a.m. and worked until 2 p.m. After a quick bout of exercise, Johnson would crawl back into bed for a 30-minute nap, getting up around 4 p.m. and working into the early morning.
Johnson reportedly picked up his napping routine from his predecessor John F. Kennedy, who also broke up his day into shifts.
Now that you’re grown up, you still crave popularity – except, instead of being the cool kid in your high school, you want to be the cool kid in your industry.
Becoming popular in the professional world takes much more than making hundreds of LinkedIn connections. Sure, having lots of connections on LinkedIn is great, but if you’re just mindlessly connecting with people and not working to build relationships with them, your network will be useless to you.
Not only are they not going to remember you when an opportunity comes up, but they probably won’t even know you’re looking for an opportunity in the first place.
So, what’s the secret to becoming popular?
The answer: Super-connecting.
What’s Super-Connecting?
According to J.T. O’Donnell, founder of CAREEREALISM.com, a super-connector is someone who focuses on putting people within their network together. So, instead of building a network for their own direct use, they actively comb their network and match people up who would be beneficial to each other.
Why Does It Work?
“Okay,” you say, “that’s all fine and dandy, but how does that help me? Why should I put in that effort if I’m not even the one benefiting from the connection?”
Well, actually, you are benefiting from the connection.
How? By making the extra effort to set people up with your connections, you’re building a reputation of a powerful professional who focuses on giving. Who wouldn’t want you in their network?
Not only that, but in return for introducing people to your connections, you’ll get the same kind of introductions in return. It’s a win-win for everyone!
Super-connecting grows your network, increases your trust-factor and recommendations from others, and helps you to become the person that “knows everybody.”
AKA – Super-connecting makes you a popular (and valuable) career friend. Pretty cool, huh?
This post was originally published at an earlier date.
“I’m a recovering workaholic,” admits Jullien Gordon, a nationally recognized speaker and founding partner of New Higher, in a recent LinkedIn post.
Workaholism, he says, looks similar to high performance on the outside — but they’re actually nothing alike.
Gordon has spent the last year doing research and conducting experiments on himself to understand the difference between workaholism and high performance. He found that while they both look like hard work, “the big difference is how the individual feels on the inside about who they are in relationships to their work,” he explains.
A high performer works hard in “healthy sustainable ways and feels happy and inspired,” he says. Meanwhile, a workaholic “works hard in unhealthy unsustainable ways and feels unhappy and burned out.”
Here are three more subtle differences between workaholics and high performers:
1. High performers know their value. Workaholics allow others to determine their value.
“A high performer knows their self-worth and can thus work with a sense a freedom,” Gordon says. They do periodic self-evaluations of their performance so that they can constantly improve. And, he says, “they create their own feedback loops rather than waiting on feedback from others.”
A workaholic, on the other hand, relies on external validation from those around them: bosses, colleagues, and clients. They wait for external evaluations, such as mid-year or annual reviews, to understand how well they are doing, which causes them to work with a constant sense of fear.
2. High performers give 100% at the right time. Workaholics give 110% all of the time.
Gordon says a high performer knows when to “turn it up.” They know when they’re expected or required to give everything they have — and they save their energy for those occasions.
“They don’t buy into the illusion of 110%,” he says. “They know that 110% is unsustainable. Instead they focus on increasing their capacity so that their 100% is better than the competition’s 110%.”
A workaholic attempts to go all out, all the time. “They have difficulty prioritizing what’s important, therefore, everything is important in their mind.”
3. High performers do business. Workaholics are busy.
A high performer’s primary goal is to do business. “The only thing that matters to them are results,” Gordon says. “If they can’t see a way to create value in the moment, they facilitate or strategize instead. They know that like the economy, business comes in waves, therefore they get ready during the dips so they can capitalize during the upswings.”
The No. 1 goal of a workaholic is to be busy at all times — as they believe that the busier they are (or appear), the more important they must be.
“Workaholics fill any space in time with busy work because they feel insecure doing nothing,” Gordon explains. “The insecurity comes from not knowing their value.”
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To make a name for yourself professionally, it’s important to get out there and take chances. But when you’re first starting out, it’s tempting to second-guess your abilities and shy away from opportunities.
Don’t.
“Get out of your comfort zone,” says Marillyn Hewson, CEO of Lockheed Martin, in a recent LinkedIn post. “Don’t put constraints on yourself because you want to be perfect. Just get out there.”
When beginning her own career, Hewson let little insecurities take a big hold of her life. Negative thoughts such as, “You didn’t attend an Ivy League school” and, “You haven’t been in the business long enough” kept her from reaching for leadership opportunities and held back her career. “My self-doubt became self-limiting,” she recalls.
Eventually, Hewson realized the problem with her mindset: it’s impossible to know it all from the get-go. The more you put yourself out there, the more you learn and experience. “Often, the adversities you face are what really forge your character and improve your confidence,” she says. “It’s the problems you’ve worked through in the past that will position you for future success.”
By the time Hewson became CEO of Lockheed Martin, she’d held 19 leadership roles within the company, which she credits to her current success. “It’s that collection of lessons, experiences and relationships that I now draw on every day,” she says. “It’s what has equipped me to lead, more so than any specific skill or talent.”
So for every young professional hoping to further your career, remember Hewson’s sage advice: quiet the inner voice that says you’re not good enough. Instead, go prove that you are.
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Horrible bosses run the gamut from occasional offenders to the lawsuit-worthy — but, according to one expert, the biggest common thread across the board is a lack of emotional intelligence.
She says the worst bosses typically lack humility, integrity, and respect for their team. “Their myopic view is that they’ve attained a place of power primarily due to their unique abilities, not because of your contributions. Over time, however, this Achilles heel is exposed — turnover and absenteeism soar, and profits plummet.”
In national independent studies commissioned by Lynn Taylor Consulting that identified changing perceptions of bad and childish boss behavior over five years, the top bad boss behavioral traits were ranked.
In the most recent study, these behaviors were revealed in prioritized order, described as: self-centered, stubborn, overly demanding, impulsive, interruptive, and tantrum-throwing. Personality traits such as self-centeredness, impulsiveness and stubbornness rose up to 50% over five years.
Lynn Taylor Consulting
“Other offensive behavior that continues to plague bad bosses includes passive aggressive traits, such as ignoring staff; territorialism; poor communications; lying; micro-management; and the most egregious, bullying employees,” Taylor says. “The common theme for many of these traits centers around emotional immaturity, inability to communicate effectively, and a lack of respect and sensitivity towards others.”
Horrible bosses who have an exalted view of their power act out in ways similar to “terrible two” toddlers, who are unable to deal with stress or frustration in socially acceptable ways, she explains. “But employees who become adept at managing up and taking the high road, ultimately are in the best position to thrive despite the challenges.”
There is only 12 months in a year. When you get paid a '13th month' of wages, you will feel delighted, no? No. Why do you think footballers in the English Premier League are paid weekly?
Ponder over these points.
Unless you are on commission or special bonus wage schemes, chances are you are paid a fixed amount of money monthly in Singapore.
Is there a possibility you get paid $10/hour on some days and $12/hour on some days in your course of work over the year? Of course not. You get paid the same rate year in year out, until you get a raise. If that's the case,
"Why are you paid the some amount of money in January and February?"
If you still don't get it. There are 31 days in January and there are 28 (normally) days in February. The question now - are you overpaid for February or underpaid in January? You choose what you want to believe in.
To me, February is the only month you get paid correctly in the whole year in Singapore. Employers in Singapore will never overpay you in February. Fat hope and you know it. There are four weeks in a month and we get paid for 28 days in a month. that's it. Straightforward.
In short we are underpaid in every other month other than February.
January - 3 days
March - 3 days
April - 2 days
May - 3 days
June - 2 days
July - 3 days
August - 3 days
September - 2 days
October - 3 days
November - 2 days
December - 3 days
1 month 4 weeks.
You get paid 12 times a year = 12 x 4 = 48 weeks.
There are 52 weeks in a year. 52 - 48 = 4 weeks unpaid
The fact is that Singapore employers hold 29 days of your pay over the year and could refuse to pay you your rightful money if you did not 'perform'. Even if they do it, that meant many employees in Singapore did not get any bonuses from their companies at all. The 13th month is your pay. It is Not a bonus!
In reality, if they pay us back the '13th month bonus', they employer still owe us 1 day's wages (29 - 28) and get away with it year after year, decade after decade. If you leave the company before the year is up your '13th month bonus' is forfeited instead of pro-rated. That's robbery.
This is ridiculous. The manpower laws in Singapore are not stopping the businesses against such unfair practices and the NTUC is not doing their job fighting for the rights of workers.
The next time you receive your "13th month bonus", ask yourself why are you feeling so happy getting back what you deserve in the first place?
According to a recent CareerBuilder survey, a whopping 43% of US retailers plan to hire seasonal workers this year. But not all of them are a joy to work for.
CareerBliss.com, an online careers community, recently identified those that are in its new list of the retail companies with the happiest employees.
Ross Dress For Less ranked No. 1, followed by Costco and Ikea.
A Ross employee wrote on the CareerBliss site: “I feel challenged every day; love the new opportunities. The culture allows us to figure things out on our own and that gives me a great deal of independence at work.”
To measure employee happiness, CareerBliss analyzed thousands of reviews from retail employees who evaluated nine factors that affect work happiness on a five-point scale: work-life balance, senior management, compensation, benefits, job security, whether the employee would recommend their employer, the work the employee does, the company culture, and the employee’s work environment.
CareerBliss combined those numbers to find an average rating of overall happiness, which they call a “Bliss Score,” for each respondent and sorted the results by employer to determine which retail companies have the happiest workers.
“Knowing you are shopping at a company that truly embodies the holiday spirit by treating their employees with respect and letting them feel some holiday cheer about their career makes shopping an even happier experience,” says Heidi Golledge, CEO of CareerBliss.
In 2010, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg was on record stating that “the age of privacy was over.” He went on further to explain, if he were to create Facebook again today, user information by default would be public, not private as it was for years until the company changed dramatically in December.
When the founders, co-founders and developers of social media platforms are confronted with the question of privacy, they often answer the question with a pseudo-philosophical response about how the world is evolving and everyone is becoming more connected.
This is nonsense. The real reason these platforms are continually exposing more of their user’s private information to the public is to monetize their platforms.
As a social media marketing manager for seven years, I’ve seen social media rise since it’s infancy. I’ve also done a great deal of ad buying. One of the things that’s always been a hinderance to conversions (leads and sales) has been the lack of information social platforms such as Facebook or Twitter offer to advertisers. This makes for terrible conversion rates because the demographic you advertise to is too broad. As such, Facebook is constantly on the prowl to gain more personal information from their users.
Linkedin has apparently taken notice of advancing their ad platform as well, which is why they’re facing a class-action lawsuit.
You should be very concerned.
The lawsuit alleges that a product developed for premium users (typically job recruiters or employers) violates the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), a law passed in 1970 to protect people from being unfairly denied access to a mortgage, credit, or employment based on a background check or credit report.
The product being referred to is Linkedin’s “Reference Search” tool.
This tool allows premium users to check the references of a Linkedin user and send them a private message using Linkedin’s Inmail system.
This opens up Pandora’s Box for obvious reasons, because it allows a recruiter or employer to contact a prospect’s former co-workers or employers to ask for details about a job candidate that are not allowed to be legally obtained, according to employment laws in most states.
Instead of simply saying yes or no to the question, “Do you deem person X hireable?” a conversation could carry on about a person that leads into illegal territories by exposing excessive information about a job candidate that leads them to being denied for a position.
This is especially true when considering that a prospective employer could contact a former co-worker of a job applicant who may not have a favorable opinion of that person. That opinion could then be used to sway the opinion of the hiring manager or recruiter, and therein lies the problem. This is a gross violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. At least, I think it is.
In case you think this is all a bunch of theories and hypothetical circumstances, you’d be wrong. One person involved in this class-action lawsuit has had a prospective employer come forth who admitted to denying her a job because of a reference she contacted from Linkedin.
Linkedin claims that the information premium users have access to is information that the user’s have already made public, which takes them off the hook legally.
Unfortunately, that’s true.
By nature of Linkedin’s public resume’ platform, your career history and everyone you’ve worked for and worked with is on display for the entire world to see. So, is Linkedin really responsible for the abuse committed by those who use their platform?
The answer to that question is irrelevant.
The real question is, do you feel comfortable continuing to be a member of Linkedin, knowing that the information you opt to post publically can be used against you?
The most frightening thing is that you could have been denied jobs and didn’t even know it because backdoor conversations could have been taken place without your knowledge.
Michael Price is the author of “What Next The Millennial’s Guide to Surviving and Thriving in the Real World” endorsed by Barbara Corcoran of ABC’s Shark Tank. Book now available at whatnextquest.com. Watch the trailer below:
Disclosure: This post is sponsored by a CAREEREALISM-approved expert. You can learn more about expert posts here.
