By Will

So I made a number of mistakes last Friday night that led to a nice bout of Saturday uselessness this past weekend. Firstly I reluctantly agreed to go celebrate my birthday with some drinks last night at the local booze trap near work.

My second big mistake was agreeing to continue the night from the pub to the nightclub. I ended up in a Friday night staple - the 80’s nostalgia night in the bowels of a pub in Mayfair. Earlier last week I contorted my spine like a pretzel while sleeping and managed to create some back ache. On Friday night, through the anaesthetic properties of ale, my back felt fine and danced (as I usually dance) using a mixture of stomping, jumping and flailing. Which lead me to last Saturday, where my back is was in spasm and all I could do is lie down and work on my laptop. My back ache caused me to mirror the mobility of a heavily pregnant woman, where I have to roll to the side and support myself on a something when I stand up from sitting down. I’ve reconciled myself to the fact that I should just lie still. Which lead to the inspiration for this post with the really cryptic title - given that my laptop provided me with company for the day, I thought I’d write about some of the cool (and free) software I’ve been using lately.

By Trina

During our training session, we were told to understand and memorize (for testing purposes) the difference between stereotypes and generalizations. A long debate ensued about the difference between the two words, and we got so busy debating the semantics that we almost missed the purpose of the discussion. The reason for having this discussion was to make us better aware of diversity and the problems that stereotypes/generalizations pose in today’s work place. For this entry, I would like to refer to them as the same thing and discuss stereotypes/generalizations about young millennials.

While on a family vacation I was quite surprised to find that everyone in my family had a strong opinion about hiring young people, except my niece who mainly says “cookie” and “dog”. All of my family members (parents in their sixties; brother and sister-in-law in their thirties) are in management positions, and together they threw out almost every stereotype about young millennials. I have highlighted a few of the main ones:

By James

Don’t talk to strangers? Don’t speak until spoken to? Forget it. Inhibition is useless. How do you start a conversation? Simple: Say ‘Hi’. These are the first Lines in Catherine Blyth’s The Art of Conversation.

Well actually they are the first lines in one of the chapters, but let’s not be pedantic here. As I have found out during my first year in my first corporate job, the saying “it’s not what you know but who you know” is very true. My response to this is to get to know everyone.

Easier said than done I hear you cry and of course you’re right; but if you don’t go out with that aim then you’ll never know that many people. Now I don’t just mean those people that sit near you in the office or even restrict it to those who work for the same company, in the same industry or even those who work at all. Every person you pass in the street, run by in the park or buy your latte from probably is a friend of a friend of someone who could make your wildest dreams come true.

By Rachel

“You are your own company,” my boss said. It pretty quickly made perfect sense to me, but when I analyzed it further, I found out how much impact that statement could have if I lived like it was truth.

You are your own company. You have your own marketing, finance, accounting, legal, and advertising departments. You earn money because you have a client. Who you purchase from are your vendors. If your company decided to terminate the contract they made with you, it simply means they no longer need your services.

You decide how you should market yourself. Maybe you present someone who can get the job done fast, maybe you get the job done right, maybe you can find creative solutions to any problem, or maybe you market yourself as an experienced company that your client can rely on.

By Trina

Right now I am in this fabulous life stage: I’m educated, single, emancipated from my parents, employed, full of life, cute (I have to give myself some credit), and blessed with a derriere that rivals JLO and Kim Kardashian (I’m learning to embrace rather than hate it). This is the time when I am supposed to be dating these great guys and going out for cosmopolitans with my fabulous girlfriends.

Instead, I find myself going through the same routines and doing unglamorous things like drinking wine alone and watching the BBC Pride and Prejudice miniseries (I nearly tackled the delivery guy when it arrived from Amazon). Where do the cute boys and dates come in?

By Daniel

The sentiment and intent behind the article I posted yesterday was never written to cause offense. I apologize for the poor delivery of the message I wanted to convey. I think the backlash that I experienced on Brazen Careerist became an opportunity to blog about issues that are still relevant today.

It’s not completely fair to say that I mis-represented myself - Those were my words and I pushed the button that made it public to the world. What I can say is that it’s not the complete picture and I hope my thoughts this morning will shed more light onto who I am and where I stand on the topic of women in the work place.

What I’m choosing to address in this article are the differences between us, the question of what’s appropriate, and finally the glass ceiling (women in leadership positions). There are numerous angles that encompass this subject. I’m sure I haven’t thought of every scenario because my frame of reference, and my realm of understanding, is limited to that of a man. This article is very much intended to be an open dialogue.

By Trina

In college, free food was like gold.  The promise of free pizza caused college students to sign up for credit cards, attend meetings for organizations they didn’t care about and show up to sorority functions (this one I know about personally).  Even though I have had a steady paycheck for over a year now, I still get excited at the promise of free food.

For traveling I was told that I had approximately $40 per day (or whatever was within reason) to spend on food which caused feelings of extreme joy.  I thought I could eat like a king and drink Starbucks every day with that amount of money.  I found myself saying things like, “Make that a grande instead of tall…of course I’ll have dessert…I’ll take the one with sprinkles and glaze…I can’t take that home so I’d better eat it.” The early mornings in the airports and late…

By James

Economic crisis? What crisis?

As long as you still have your job this spring, you should feel lucky. I know that it’s very hard and I know firsthand what it feels like to find out that there will be no pay rise this year so will have to put the iPhone purchase on hold.
But first and foremost I am relieved that I do not have to look for work in an economical environment not witnessed in my lifetime. The fact that I’m still employed and that hiring rates are decreasing, signals to me that opportunities are abound.

Employers are going to be looking to fill positions internally rather than pay recruiting agencies or expensive contractors large sums of money. This is your chance to move up the ladder and show what you can do.