NOTE: This is a work-related experiment, something to do with your co-workers (from the Working For The Man book):
It is absurd how many emails one gets in the course of a day. 100 emails before lunch is not unusual. If you go on vacation for a week, you can come back to thousands of unread messages. Add in the spam, and the number goes up exponentially. The efficiency of instant communication has created a hulking and unstoppable monster of inefficiency.
Put together a competition to see who gets the most emails in a day (or week). It doesn’t really matter who wins — the winner could either get free drinks at the nearby pub or a booby prize. The more interesting thing will be each person revealing how many emails they get each day. Though the ridiculousness of the numbers will just confirm what everybody already knows — that we all get too many emails — the individual tabulations, not to mention the collective number, will still blow everyone away. If only you got an extra day of vacation for every 100 emails received…
What was your inspiration for writing your book Skirt! Rules for the Workplace?
Kelly Love Johnson: The idea for Skirt! Rules for the Workplace came from an essay I wrote for Skirt!’s March 2006 issue the month after Betty Friedan died. It was called "Being Betty" and tried to answer the question "who will step up to fill her shoes?" Meaning, who will be our next Betty? Who will fight for our workplace rights? Who will help us close the wage gap? Break the glass ceiling? Change the fact that there are only seven female CEOs on the Fortune 500 list? My answer was that we should ALL step up — at the very least, work to close our own personal wage gap. After the essay ran in Skirt!, the director of The Center for Women in Charleston, Jennet Robinson Alterman, asked me if I would put a workshop together for young women to help prepare them for the working world, focusing on things like negotiating salary, picking your battles, not baking for the office (because we don’t have to act like men to get ahead at work, we just have to stop acting like their mothers), etc. I loved doing the workshops and my boss Nikki Hardin (Skirt!’s founder and publisher) encouraged me to use the energy and passion I was getting from being on my soapbox and channel it into a book proposal.
I just posted the original essay from March of 2006 here. And that’s how it all started!
Kelly Love Johnson
Johnson’s Blog — Microfamous
Another great work-related site: Office Sign Project. This web-based project “seeks to document the under-appreciated art of office sign making.” These types of laser-printed and scribbled-note signs have a way of revealing just how ridiculous it can get in the workplace, whether it’s the warning/demand conveyed in the note, or the fact that someone in the office took the time to not only put the words down on paper, but then hang up the sign for all to see. Surely you’ve got some ridiculous signs posted up around your office. Consider photographing them and submitting the documentation to the site.
Got something negative to say about your job or the people you work with or your boss? Something you’d like to say out loud (loudly), but for obvious reasons can’t take it past the under-your-breath level? Of course you do! Confess it anonymously at trueofficeconfessions.com. Better to get it out, even if it’s only in writing, than to let it fester within your stressed out head.
After you say this particular wrong thing, well, there’s just nothing left to say or do. Ever. An apology just won’t cut it. Inspired by the Working For The Man book.
This video stars the amazing Jaime Mendola and Liz Hanslik. Special thanks to Jessica Reed (for the excellent camera work) and Kevin Leslie (for the masterful editing).
This very important how-to article is featured over on the MySpace Books page blog. Please do check it out (while you’re on the clock, of course), and for all of you who have a myspace page, be sure to leave a comment with your own ideas on how to get your holiday to-do list done on company time.
The awesome SaveTheAssistants.com is running a great contest around the Working For The Man Rules. All the details are here, but the basics are that you submit a rule related to assistants AND the holiday season. Lilit and Ashley, who run SaveTheAssistants.com, and myself, will pick the 5 best rules. The 5 selected rules will be posted at SaveTheAssistants.com, and the writers of those rules will each get a free copy of the book. The deadline is Dec. 17, so get your submission in soon. Samples of the rules from the Working For The Man book can be found here and here.