Do you work like a dog?

Work Like A Dog Books knows real estate professionals work hard for a living. The publisher asks realtors to describe the craziest thing that has ever happened to them.

Work Like A Dog Books is compiling funny, outrageous and heartwarming stories for ‘All In a Day’s Work for Realtors(R) – Humorous and Heartwarming Stories.’

The book will be a compilation of true stories by real estate professionals detailing funny, heartwarming and one-of-a-kind stories about the many things that can and have happened to realtors in the course of their jobs. It will be a book for realtors, by realtors.

Entries are being sought by real estate professionals across the country for possible publication in the upcoming book. Believed to be the first of its kind, ‘All In a Day’s Work for Realtors – Humorous and Heartwarming Stories’ is designed to celebrate and acknowledge this often misunderstood career field.

Entries must be received by July 30, 2005. They may be e-mailed to editor@WorkLikeaDogBooks.com with ‘All in a Day’s Work for Realtors story submission’ typed in the subject line or mailed to Work Like A Dog Books, Essay Entry, PO Box 4713, Canton, GA 30114.

All entries must be true accounts of something that happened in the course of being a real estate professional and all names in the piece (such as a client, fellow realtor or managing broker) must be changed to protect anonymity. Stories that become finalists will be published in ‘All In a Day’s Work for Realtors’ and become the property of Work Like A Dog Books.

Published contributors will each receive two complimentary copies of the book, a byline with the story, an announcement to local and trade media and a certif”

Click here for more information.

You are too good looking to work here…

Can plunging necklines and tight skirts hamper a career?

You bet they can, management experts say. “Dress influences the image that people create about you and how they fill in the blanks,” said David A. Thomas, the H. Naylor Fitzhugh professor of business administration at Harvard Business School.

Desiree Goodwin, 40, of Arlington, is at the center of a federal court lawsuit that focuses on workplace attire and alleged bias. Brought by Goodwin, an assistant librarian at a Harvard University library, the suit claims a supervisor implied that the reason Goodwin was turned down for promotion 16 times was because of her attire and physical attractiveness.

READ: BostonWorks – Jobs, Events, and Information from The Boston Globe

Show me the money!!!

“Do what you love and the money will follow” is great in theory, but the truth of the matter is, certain jobs and fields simply pay more. The Bureau of Labor Statistics National Compensation Survey, published in August 2004, showed that white-collar earnings — which averaged $21.85 per hour — were the highest among occupational groups. Blue-collar pay averaged $15.03 per hour, while the hourly pay of service occupations averaged just $10.40.Though many of these occupations require an advanced degree, there are jobs at every education level that pay more than other jobs for workers with similar levels of schooling. Here, courtesy of the Employment Policy Foundation, is a look at the best-paying occupations at varying education levels:Top Paying Jobs OverallThe jobs that pay the most require at least a four-year college degree.

According to the Employment Policy Foundation, the nation’s 12 top-paying jobs — and the mean annual income reported in 2003 (the most recent year data was available) for each — were:

Top Paying Jobs Overall

Physicians and surgeons
$147,000

Aircraft pilots
$133,500

Chief executives
$116,000

Electrical and electronic engineers
$112,000

Lawyers and judges
$99,800

Dentists
$90,000

Click here for rest of the Top Paying Jobs Overall, Top Paying Jobs That Do Not Require a High School Degree and Top Paying Jobs for a Two-Year College Degree.

Atttention companies: This is how you keep employees!

While I was in the hospital, I shared a room with another patient (I’ll save the customer sat aspects of that policy for another blog post…).

For a few days, one of the patients was a 9-year-old boy who was hit by a car while riding his bike without a helmet. He had a 10 inch scar down the side of his head that I’ll always remember. Remarkably, he was in good spirits, and will likely recover nicely.

His father and mother were there in the room with him most of the time. Just after they moved in, I heard the boy’s father on the phone with his company. He was asking his boss for two things: 1) for two weeks vacation to help take care of his son; and 2) access to his retirement account (401k) funds to help with medical bills. His company flatly denied both requests. Because he was two weeks shy of being there a full year, he was told he had no accrued vacation. They told him if he took any time off, he’d be fired. Additionally, he was told the only way he could access his retirement account was if he left the company.

Contrast that to my situation.

READ: John Porcaro: mktg@msft: Work Relationships Matter

This sounds oddly familiar…

India Inc reduced its headcount by 18,378 in 2003-04. It is jobless growth all over again. Not only is the Indian corporate sector not creating new jobs, it is destroying jobs as well. And that is happening despite stellar growth in company profits. Indeed, India Inc reduced its headcount by 18,378, or 0.6 per cent, in 2003-04. However, the decline in the number of jobs in the corporate sector would have been far higher had it not been for the information technology industry having created 45,872 jobs. Excluding the IT industry, the manufacturing sector shed 64,626 jobs, or 3.1 per cent of jobs in the sector.

READ: Companies & Industry

Never be late for work again…

Scientists at MIT’s Media Lab in the United States have invented an alarm clock called Clocky to make even the doziest sleepers, who repeatedly hit the snooze button, leap out of bed.

READ: Like Something Out of a Cartoon…

“The Top 10 Things to Expect After Your Spring Break

“The Top 10 Things to Expect After Your Spring Break (and What to Do About It),” by Susan Dunn, MA, EQ and Life Coach

1. A letdown.

What goes up must come down. If you had a great time, returning to the normal routine is hard. Perhaps you saw loved ones who live far away, or went to a beautiful resort where you were waited on hand and foot, or you left one of
the worst winters in Massachusetts for an island in the Caribbean. It’s “back to reality” and it’s a jolt.

REMEDY: Expect it. Ride it out. It will pass. You can’t live in the highs and lows all the time.

2. Fatigue.

Typically you work harder before you leave to clear off your desk. Then when you return, it’s piled high again, and you over-compensate by working very hard the day you return. There can also be jet-lag.

REMEDY: Don’t try and do a week’s work your first day back. Plan on getting a good night’s sleep that night. Give yourself a break. If, in thinking it over, you planned too hectic a vacation,plan it differently next time!

3. Rejuvenation.

You’ll have a new perspective on your life. Getting away does that for us. That’s one benefit you can count on.

REMEDY: You just got one! Enjoy it!

4. Better health.

Even though you may experience fatigue and let-down, your inner wisdom, your body, knows it had relief and you’ll benefit from this. This is especially important if you tend to get on adrenalin-highs where you can’t relax. Hopefully your vacation achieved this, and it gives your over-worked immune system some relief.

REMEDY: Count this in when you assess the stress before and after the vacation, especially if there were travel woes. You may have that “Two minutes back here and I’m a mess” feeling, but if you were able to truly relax during your vacation, you’ve done your body a lot of good, at the elemental level.

5. Fantasies

Some of us, when we leave on vacation, are afraid they’ll find out they can do without us, and we’ll lose our job. Others, when we leave on vacation, are sure we’re indispensable, they’ll not be able to function without us, and think we’ll get a standing ovation when we return.

REMEDY: It’s likely the truth is neither of the above.

6. Having to work your way back in again.

We’re all a bit xenophobic, eg, afraid of strangers. When you leave, you leave the fold and they go on without you. Then when you return you’re just a tiny bit “the stranger” again.

REMEDY: You’ll need to hang out in the coffee room to catch up on the news, visit around and chat, find out what went on while you were out, and let them get used to you again (and vice versa).

7. Wanting to get it back

You may find yourself wanting to eat out at a fancy restaurant “just once more,” or to wear those comfortable sandals to work, or have trouble concentrating as you daydream about the great Broadway shows you saw in New York.

REMEDY: Snap out of it. Negotiating beginnings and endings is an important lifeskill.

8. Wanting to “Show and Tell.”

You’ll want to tell everyone about the wonders of your trip and show all your pictures.

REMEDY: Find the right person, place and time. Use a little sensitivity. If they’re busy at work, that’s not the time! If you and your new lover just went on a $7000 river cruise up the Volga and your colleague just filed bankruptcy and is going through a divorce … well, what does your EQ tell you to do?

9. Focusing on what went wrong.

Just like in the newspaper, bad news makes a better story. You may find yourself telling everyone about your canceled plane flight, your lost luggage, your car-sick kid, or the big fight you had with your impossible sister, with who you plan never to travel again.

REMEDY: War stories effect everyone negatively in terms of physiological stress. When we tell them, we relive the adrenalin rush, and the same thing happens to our listeners. Why bring this back with you, and back to the folks at home? Why not focus on all the good things!

10. Processing

Your mind will be full of what went well and what didn’t.

REMEDY: Do think it through and put the information to use. You may have discovered that you and your partner need a more active vacation, or that you’d feel more rested if you’d been lying in the sun somwehere instead of skiing (or
vice versa), or that 10 days with your in-laws is too much of a good thing, or that finding a Snooze-You-Lose cruise on the Internet is a superb and economical solution. Make some notes, mental or on paper, to use in the future. Use your Intentionality, an EQ competency. Consider the PURPOSE of your vacation, and what fulfills that. We each have our own answer.

Jeepers! I’m a heavy hitter…

Two years ago, I wrote an article entitled Recruiting Redefined: The New Recruiting Models. In it, I highlighted several early adopter companies that were starting to redefine how their staffing model operated. The key learning in all of this was that a few progressive companies were realigning their teams, processes, and, in some cases, technologies to focus on passive and less active talent, in recognition of the unique talents and skill sets of individual recruiters.

These companies were dedicating resources towards more proactive recruiting and sourcing

The spam filter ate your resume…

How do you know if your resume was received by the intended party? Did you get a “read receipt” notice? (Available in Outlook) Or (as in most cases), did you simply assume it got there? Well, in some cases it never did. Why? Spam filters thought your resume was junk mail. Here is a clip of a marketing article that discusses how to safeguard your email from being considered spam.

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Here are seven innocuous words (or phrases) you can’t “say” in an email without risk of alerting the spam filter police.

enlarge

win

long distance

free

big bucks

click here

spam

And, for good measure, here are a few others: billion dollars, breakthrough, bulk, call now and closeout.

VERY GOOD ARTICLE: The Seven Things (And More)
You Can’t Say In Email.

On a personal note, I would also add that you be careful when mentioning your “Magna Cum Laude degree. (wink)

All work and no play… well, it sucks…

Who is more likely to feel they are carrying the biggest work load?

According to a survey of more than 1,000 US adults by the Families and Work Institute in New York, the parents of teenagers tend to feel more burdened and overworked than the parents of younger children. Released last week, the findings add a new wrinkle to the available research on work hours and stress.

“We found out, for the first time, that parents of teens are more likely to be overworked than the working parents of younger children,” said Erin Brownfield, a spokeswoman at the institute. “In fact, parents, in general, are not any more overworked than others. That was a big surprise.” The study also reinforced the idea that people who enjoy the work they do and know their contributions are valued are less likely to feel overburdened by work, even when they’re doing more.

“Low-value work is perceived as a waste of time and that makes people feel even more overworked,” said Brownfield. “Multitasking can also make people feel overworked. When they have too many tasks that must be done at the same time, they feel as if they are working too hard and too much.”

The report also further confirmed what overburdened workers have been suffering through for years: that too much work and too little play can cause depression, poor health, and higher stress levels.

READ: Too many tasks, too little play, can cause depression, poor health