ArcaMax

Think you're alone in dreading your company's annual holiday party? Think again.

There's a person who hates the holiday party even more than you. That person is your boss.

It makes sense. You only have to go to the party. The boss has to plan it. And even if the boss delegates the details to an underling -- as the boss tends to do with ...Read more

It's the biggest office party of the year -- the annual holiday extravaganza where even the most remote remote workers drag themselves back to the workplace to celebrate with bad food, fake comradery and fun with a capital F.

And -- oh yes -- firings. Firings have a capital F, too.

It's true! Employees go to the party, ready for fun, and ...Read more

Thinking about using artificial intelligence at work? Here's something you should know. If something goes wrong with the results you get, it's not the AI's fault; it's yours.

If you've experimented with any of the popular systems, you know this is true. Whether you're chatting it up with Chat GPT, cozying up with Claude or are sympatico with ...Read more

Struggling to get through the workday?

You don't need a new job. You need a new ritual.

Or maybe two, or maybe four, or maybe 10. Speaking frankly, it's difficult to judge how many rituals are need by someone in your dire condition.

And what is a workday ritual, anyway? According to "The Research-Backed Benefits of Daily Rituals," an ...Read more

"Think outside the box."

That's what everyone says you should do. But what you if you're the kind of workday weirdo that likes the box -- that cozy, comfy box and the eye-of-the hurricane sense of calm that comes when you're tucked inside and no one can get you?

No one except a rule breaker.

Rule breakers are the hurricane. Ignoring company...Read more

Need a career boost? Schedule a "skip-level meeting."

That's a meeting that skips the person who directly manages your job and your paycheck to schmooze with some dingbat two steps higher on the org chart, who doesn't know you exist.

The concept of a skip-level meeting was news to me -- news I received from Melody Wilding, author of "How to ...Read more

You probably haven't noticed, but there's been an election going on. It's made those of us who have noticed... a tad nervous. Devastating weather events, such as hurricanes and floods, have added to our anxiety, and, of course, the battle for supremacy waging between Chelsea and Tiffany on "The Real Housewives of Yuma, Arizona" has everyone in...Read more

More "thank you's" and fewer "screw you's."

That's what it takes to be a success in business today.

Who says? I says. Taylor Telford says so, too.

"The years spent apart from colleagues have rusted workers' social skills," Telford writes in "Business Etiquette Classes Boom as People Relearn How to Act at Work," a recent article in The ...Read more

Is that a dark cloud of gloom hanging over your workspace?

I knew it!

Why else would you stop what you're doing to find out what this idiot has to say?

And what this idiot says is that you need to read "4 Ways to Turn Around a Bad Day," Jancee Dunn's hopeful column in The New York Times.

The turnaround starts with clinical psychologist ...Read more

Getting fired used to take lots of work.

You had to screw up continually before your managers even noticed you were goofing off. Then they had to prove it. "Document, document, document" was the war cry of the HR department. Months of bad performance had to be tracked before your name could be added to the "wouldn't it be nice to fire" list. ...Read more

"Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in."

That's what Al Pacino so famously says in "The Godfather Part III." He's bemoaning the fate of Michael Corleone, who thought he had gotten out of a life of crime, only to be dragged back in.

It's also what millions of remote workers say when they thought they had gotten out of a life ...Read more

If you work at Amazon, my sympathies. Andy Jassy, the CEO of the retail behemoth, just issued an ukase demanding that all employees come into the office five days a week.

This refers to employees who work in offices, of course. The hordes of Amazonians out on the roads, delivering packages, are exempt. While it must annoy management to free ...Read more