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How Do You Cope With 100 Hour Work Weeks? 10 Stressed Employees Tell Us The Truth
Forget the 40-hour work week: for many working professionals, 80+ workweeks are not only common but expected and deeply entrenched into their companies’ culture. And, as anyone who’s ever run their own company or worked at a startup can tell you, it’s not just lawyers and investment bankers who are doing the hard time at the office. And it’s not just at the office: many working professionals leave their offices and go home – only to open their laptops at the dinner table and work into the wee hours of the night remotely.
So how do these overworked souls deal with hours and hours of work? Ten overextended workers weigh in on their de-stressing mechanisms, from channeling their inner rock star to pole dancing in the office. More »
‘I Haven’t Eaten Lunch Away From My Desk In 20 Years’: 8 True Stories
Sometime within the last few weeks, eating lunch away from one’s desk suddenly became the cool thing to do. Arianna Huffington challenged her staff at the Huffington Post to eat lunch away from the office. McDonald’s launched an ad campaign promoting the joys of leaving the office to eat, “free from the fear of crumbs in our keyboards.” A woman who lived in France for four years wrote a wildly popular article for Slate about why America should embrace the “long, leisurely lunch hour.” But optimistic ads and news stories about trendy offices ignore the fact that for many of us, eating lunch at our desks is a way of life. Here are eight stories from hard-working employees (and business owners!) who aren’t falling for the latest fad. Meet the military recruiter who’s getting sick of reheated leftovers, the woman who worked six days a week in order to avoid taking lunch breaks, and the guy who hasn’t eaten lunch away from his desk in 20 years. More »
My Job Is My Bulimia Trigger
The above is a quote from actress Portia De Rossi’s memoir, Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain, on her struggles with both anorexia and bulimia. Though she explains she had always struggled with eating disorders, when she worked on the show Ally McBeal in the late 90′s, her battle with food reached its peak. At her worst, she was down to 82 pounds and collapsed on a film set. Yes, Portia was working in an industry that is very focused on looks and she was on a show that featured some of the skinniest actresses in the business at a time when being as thin as possible was becoming the new requirement for actresses, but this job triggered her bulimia. With it being National Eating Disorders Awareness Week, we wondered if the pressures and stress of most jobs can be a bulimia trigger. More »
Taking Yoga May Make You More Employable
Karnataka, India is the home of a women’s-only engineering college, GSSS Institute of Engineering and Technology for Women. In order to prepare students to face this very competitive industry it is encouraging them to take up yoga. The institute believes soft skills like these will help these women be more employable. Being able to deal with stress calmly is certainly a very employable trait.
In 2007, the college constructed a meditation hall, it was conceptualized as an add-on facility to help the students ease out academic stress. The facility is now being used to accustom the girls to handle stressful situations, thus increasing their employability. More »
Birchbox: The Club Every Career Woman Needs To Join
What busy career woman doesn’t need a little pampering on the side? And why not indulge in a little pampering that helps your appearance? In a new series for The Financial Times called “Women In Finance,” Snjezana Maclean, an image consultant, said image is integral to a person’s “brand.” And according to a Newsweek survey, 59% of hiring managers advised investing as much time and money on your appearance as you would crafting your résumé. But then again, you don’t want to spend every free moment you have casing crowded make-up counters for the best products without breaking the bank.
Being A Small Business Owner May Be Bad For Your Health
Watch out small business owners. Your work may be causing you to get fat and irritable. Small businesses are doing well this year but it may be at the risk of their owners’ health, according to new research. The latest Manta SMB Wellness Index shows that new business activity was up more than 12% in the third quarter of 2011, compared to the same time last year.But almost half of respondents (44%) say this year’s business climate has taken a toll on their personal health–one in three say they work out less, 22% say they’ve gained weight and 14% say they are more short-tempered and argue with family and co-workers. More »
Taking Clients To The Gym May Be The Future Of Networking
Your work/life balancing act may have just gotten a little bit easier. According to a recent article in The New York Times style section, bringing clients to the gym may be the newest trend in business. The article by Courtney Rubin featured interviews with a number of people that look at doing a spin class or a boxing match with a client as the ultimate icebreaker. “People love it if they can get in a workout and check networking off the list at the same time,” said Trish Gubiotti Lynn, an advertising account director for Yahoo. More »
Fight Fatigue and Up Your Energy — But Not By Finding Balance
If you’re tired of feeling tired all the time (both physically and mentally), as well as particularly stressed out with no energy level to speak of, I may just have the answer for you. Or rather, Linda Hawes Clever, M.D., author of the new book The Fatigue Prescription: Four Steps to Renewing Your Energy, Healthy, and Life may just have the answer for you. (And guess what? The answer is not balance!) This book is no pretentious meditation on the concept of fatigue: It’s a practical, no-nonsense guide filled with concrete tips on how to make your life better. And what could be better than that? (Besides feeling less fatigued, of course, and Dr. Clever also helps us with that dilemma.) The Fatigue Prescription is an interactive workbook both because of the way it’s laid out, and because I’m in the process of making it work for me. You should, too. But in the meantime, check out my Q&A with Dr. Clever about some of the finer points in her book: More »
Morning Links: Coast Guard Lowers Passenger Limits to Accommodate Obese Americans
Too Fat to Travel – The Coast Guard is lowering passenger limits to accommodate Americans’ weightier physiques; how do Americans not realize they’re obese? (Shots)
Spring Fever is Real – Turns out spring really does get us in the mood (but if it doesn’t work for you, click anyway for tips on how to boost your libido). (SELF)
Get Flex-Time for Your Health – Studies show that jobs with flexible schedules improve family life and reduces turnover; time to work from home. (PsychCentral) More »
Morning Links: High Cholesterol In Middle Age Linked to Memory Loss
Gym-Phobic – Getting yourself to work out might take more than strong motivation; you may need to overcome your fear of the gym. (That’s Fit)
Join the Conversation – An interesting personal essay about why more men need to speak up about abortion. (Salon)
This Is Your Brain on a Diet – A new study ties high cholesterol and blood pressure in middle age to memory loss; time to get a check up. (ScienceDaily) More »
“Parenthood” Season Premiere: Too Much Family Is Boring
In your standard television drama, family stuff takes a backseat to whatever’s going on at work, typically at a hospital, law firm, or police precinct. A noble surgical resident has more time for her patients than her husband (Grey’s Anatomy), a scorned wife gets back on her feet by returning to work as a high-powered lawyer (The Good Wife), an alcoholic detective tackles the city’s drug problem but can’t make it to his kids’ ball games (The Wire). NBC’s Parenthood, which had its season premiere last night, reverses the work-family dynamic: Work is what gets in the way of family, not vice versa.
In last season’s pilot, Julia (Erika Christensen), a high-powered lawyer, struggled to put down her Blackberry long enough to take a family picture with Santa. In this season’s opener, she tells her husband Joel (Sam Jaeger) she wants a second child, but he’s already feeling restless staying home with their one child. Crosby (Dax Shepard) struggles with a long-distance relationship with his young son and former girlfriend, who recently moved across the country to New York to take a dream job dancing with Alvin Ailey. Eldest son Adam (Peter Krause) is reprimanded at work by a jerky boss (a slick William Baldwin) for letting his family interfere too much with his work.
The show’s focus on the family is admirable, but it’s not all that entertaining. Without the thrills of the E.R. or the courtroom, we’re left with only the character’s suburban personal lives to amuse us. And, while said lives are depicted by a flock of talented, you-loved-them-on-that-other-show actors—Peter Krause from Six Feet Under, Lauren Graham from Gilmore Girls (again playing a single mother), and Craig T. Nelson from Coach and The District, just to name a few—Parenthood’s characters, and the situations they find themselves in, feel more like archetypes than unique, fully fleshed out people and moments. More »
The Best Places to Work Aren’t Always Great for Women
You have a bad day at work, you go to the grocery store, and the latest “100 Best Places To Work” headline mocks you from the magazine rack. You might pick up one of those lists and drool over the companies you wish you worked for, but Joanne Cleaver of BNET’s Insight Blog says to think twice before you hand in your notice and apply to every office on that list.
Want proof? Cleaver points out the case of Novartis, the… More »
Is Having Kids a Waste of Your Degree? Study Shows That Highly Educated Women Opt for Motherhood
A recent report on childlessness and women from the Pew Center shows a trend that seems obvious: On the whole, more women are opting out of motherhood today than in the past. But under the surface is an interesting twist – among the most highly educated women, rates of childlessness have actually gone down.
The Pew Center’s report looks at the percent of women ages 40-44 who’ve never borne any children during the periods 1990-1992 and 2006-2008. Overall, and across racial… More »
