How to Keep Your Cool in the Office

Managing your temper and cracking a smile is the most difficult thing to do under stress. This is especially true if the work you’re in demands a lot from you at a split-second pace. When it comes to making crucial decisions that involve your company, and being faced with incompetent staff and a demanding boss or customer, you just want the earth to open up and eat you! However, before jumping out of the 23^rd floor becomes your only option, you should remember that there are better ways at addressing pressure than killing yourself. Along the way, you might realize that it’s the best option...and that this is one heck of a career advice.

When you’re trying to reach a hectic deadline, or at rush hours in the office, make sure you silence the unwanted. This means that anyone who may ask anything that doesn’t involve the crucial papers currently at hand should get out of your space. Make sure that while you’re working and sorting out the details, you listen to the right people, ask the right questions, and get relevant answers right away. Finish everything with a good time margin of about 5 minutes as allowance. After making sure that everything is handled well and delivered on time, take a breather, and get back at it!

Under normal, ordinary office circumstances, dealing with difficult people will be more challenging. You know that you’re not in the position to insist on being a corporate bitch because nothing “special” is happening to necessitate an attitude. Just like what most unhappy lovers do, just fake it! No one really knows whether you’re listening or not, anyway. Might as well, take advantage of the situation and put a smile on your face and think of happy thoughts. You can even divert the stressors’ attention away from you, in order not to pop your last nerve.

Making sure that you have grace under tremendous amounts of pressure or stress is very taxing. It requires from you a great sense of self, patience and a fully charged music player! Bear in mind that if you stay as the professional that you truly are, you’re still the winner in the end. No one can become the champ if they’re the one to lose their temper first. Besides, the best revenge you can give anyone is not by being as difficult as he/she is, but killing them with kindness. Realistically speaking, there is nothing more irritating for a grumpy workmate than to see you smiling while he’s moping and miserable.


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When I am pissed in the office (around a year ago, when I still worked in an office), I surf the net for some funny videos, stories or good music. Sometimes, I also take a couple of deep breaths and close my eyes for an energy recharge. Sometimes I go out for a short walk around the office compound. I bring my umbrella, of course. 


What are your ways to keep your cool in the office?

Facebook Etiquette for the Working Ones

We all know how famous Facebook has become. And we all know what this fame can do to our careers. Now that bosses and employees may get cozy and may take a peek at each other's personal live through Facebook's social networking magic, there are unwritten rules about Facebook Etiquette for employees. I'm listing down those that jump out of my mind:

1. Don't send a friend request to your boss. It's just wrong. However, if he adds you up, clean up your profile (meaning: no drunk and obscene pictures) and click "Approve". Also, you might want a grammar check on your info.

2. Don't whine about work on Facebook. Even if you *think* your boss won't see it, it doesn't mean it won't reach him.

3. Don't badmouth your boss or your officemate on Facebook. It's very unbecoming.

4. If your motto is "Work hard, party harder", change it. Stick with "Time is gold" instead. Haha!

5. No slutty pictures, videos and language. Once in a while, swearing is okay. But don't make it about work!

6. Don't Facebook while you're at work! AND DON'T PLAY FACEBOOK GAMES in the office! Just don't. Unless it's part of your job.

7. Use private messaging for posting personal news. Nobody likes to see you scream on the Facebook walls. Your workmates will thank you later.

8. Avoid oversharing. Enough said.

Here's some more social networking new bits:

A recent survey conducted in 2008 by Jackson Lewis LLP, one of the nation’s largest management-side employment law firms, surveyed 100 employers in New York to determine how on-line social networking sites have affected the employer-employee relationship. Some of the findings were as follows:

• 56 percent of the employers admitted to monitoring employees’ Internet use to determine whether they are accessing on-line social networking sites, among other potential inappropriate behavior.
• 38 percent of the employers blocked employees from accessing such websites.
• 16 percent of the employers admitted checking out on-line networking sites to see what current and former employees might be saying about them.
• 12 percent of the employers use social networking sites to recruit new employees and to assess applicants before extending a job offer.
• 6 percent of the employers have terminated employees for utilizing on-line social networking during work time.

You're welcome! :)

Love,

You are What You Do... No More!

Today, a lot of people have their personal lives and their professional lives all tangled up. And for most youngsters, we have certain passions that we also want to pursue, plus the desire to make a difference. Given these responsibilities and different facets of our existence, it’s easy to blur the lines among them.

What I find the saddest with such situations are the times when one loses his/ her identity to his/ her job. See, after spending years and years of effort, time, money and passion on trying to make an education stellar, achieve AND keep a high profile career, we start identifying ourselves exclusively to what it says on our business cards.

We go through life this way: waking up to fulfill tasks demanded by the job, we go home at night to rest, to have a clearer mind when we go back to our jobs the next day. We take vacations, but dread the last days of it because we’re going to “go back to reality” again. At the end of the day, we all believe all these are paying off; we now hold high positions in the companies we are working at and sometimes, we’re even successful enough to garner enough credentials and capital for a personal business. We look around us; we feel so “up there”; we know we deserve it. Although this might help in keeping a healthy self esteem, it’s too big a gamble for personal identity.

For, what happens when you suddenly lose your job? Or your business? Your affiliations?

Whether you’re a en employee, a businessman or simply a socialite, you must be ready to shake your title off anytime. Why is this so?

When we enclose ourselves to our job titles, we jeopardize ourselves emotionally. When something bad happens at work, we take it personally. A disaster in the middle of our big event? We break down. If you fall into this kind of trap, you lose your presence outside of your office or your business and this will (sadly) lead to you seeing people (outside that world) of less value. You can only get to value and appreciate people who are there to help you advance in your career.

Chill out a little, fellow. Take certain passions that help you breathe easy, those which you have been dreaming since you were a child, or those which you have been dying to do after college. Volunteer work, some art lessons, dancing workshops, whatever. Stop looking upon others and comparing yourself to them. Instead, focus on you, on your well being, and lastly, take a second look on your health. Many youngsters nowadays are unbelievable workaholics that sometimes it shocks me to see them work harder than a single mom who raises 6 kids. And for what? Most of the time, they are not really sure.

Don’t wait for the time when you lose your job and you won’t know how to introduce yourself to a new friend. So really, stop being a workaholic and take time to smell the flowers. Even literally. Trust me, it helps. 

Career Advice: Get Rid of Burnout, Urbanity's Most Dangerous Trap

"Burnout happens, not because we’re trying to solve problems but because we’ve been trying to solve the same problems over and over and over." Susan Scott 

If the word burnout is familiar to you, I hope it’s just familiar because you heard it from others…not because you are experiencing it yourself. However, if you are, indeed, experiencing it yourself, that doesn’t surprise me either. I, too, fall into this urban trap.

According to studies, more than three-fourths of the Americans and more than half of Filipinos admit to suffering from burnout. The sources of this urban stress comes from work, family, romantic relationships (or lack thereof) and business. It also doesn’t help that modernization demands a lot from us, yuppies, nowadays. We are pressured AND EXPECTED to have a great career, a great relationship, great taste and great looks. When we fall short of these “great” stuff, we are deemed underachievers. Worse, stupid.

These demands can overwhelm even the most amazing achievers. Come on, there are only 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and our bodies have physical limitations. We must never forget what we usually hear from Nutrition month jingles: that we must drink 8 glasses of water a day, sleep at least 6-8 hours every night. Even these things get easily forgotten due to the pressures that engulf us lately.

Perhaps the first thing that we have to do is to admit to ourselves that we are not Superhuman. We must always keep realistic expectations and slowly let go of the unnecessary pressures that we bestow upon ourselves. This way, we banish one of the deepest sources of pressure: guilt. When we feel like we are not doing enough, we feel guilty and then we overcompensate. If we banish this guilt, we will slowly begin to accept that it is not our fault that we cannot do all the things that we want to do in a certain period of time. When we accept that it is not our fault, that is when we can move forward.

Moreover, it’s also helpful that we accept that yes, we can be stressed and pressured but there has to be a certain amount of stress and pressure that we can take. When we realize that we are stressed, we must hit the brakes and distract ourselves for a while. A little change of environment wouldn’t hurt. For example, if you are having a tough day in the office, you can simply switch your PC’s monitor for a while, close your eyes and listen to soothing music. Or you can take a short walk in your office block and take in a deep breath of fresh air. A movie a week is also helpful. And when your wallet gives its green light, take time to go on a short vacation.

Stay tuned for more Marketing, PR and career advice! :-)

Love, 

Your New PR Girl

Are You Addicted to Achievement?

(published @ Mindanao Times, Late 2010)

Whenever people ask me what I do, I tell them that I teach Marketing at the Ateneo de Davao University, and that I write online and in print. But really, that’s not even half of the real story.

The truth is, I organize weddings, debuts and corporate events, run an online gift shop, do marketing and PR consultancy, run a small food processing business, teach Marketing, write for a newspaper, write for magazines, write for websites and write for art’s sake.

Usually, when people really have this full list of all the stuff I do and do on the side, they usually say “What a workaholic!” Every time I hear it, I usually laugh because for me, they might sound a lot, but that’s already a summarized list. I don’t even take up a full time office work because usually I get bored and I felt a little unproductive if I physically stagnate in the office.

I recently came across an online quiz which was entitled “Are you addicted to achievement?” The title struck me but I didn’t dare take the quiz because I knew what it’s going to tell me. That I am a sucker for achievement. For quite sometime, I always felt the need to achieve something, to do something that I think I can do just to prove that I really can do it. However, whenever I ask myself about the fulfillment I feel everytime I finish a task well, deliver great results or simply a Facebook message from a class saying they missed me for the day, I knew all those hard work finally paid off.

But not all women think like me.

There are a lot of women who admit to being workaholics and then losing the “meaning” that they used to see in their professions. What used to be careers simply became jobs, and these situations kept women from self actualizing. I even have close friends who admit to being so burned out in their jobs but then they couldn’t let it go because these jobs were paying the bills. (Mostly, credit card bills. Bah.)

There was a recent study in the USA that showed some positive life fulfillment stats during the recession. It said that there were a lot of women who lost their jobs because of the economic downturn and it made them reconnect with their family again.

“I was always busy, I didn’t have time to think things over. The demands of my job kept me distracted.” This was a quote from Dominique Browning, a once-career woman who lost her job and then realized that she found a different form of fulfillment with spending time with her children. Before, she just used to spend extra time with her office mates because she needed to keep up with their office gossip and other worthless things like celebrity chitchat and fashion updates.

My tip for a lot of career women out there—don’t forget to nurture a great personal life. Go date, party, spend time with your family, read a good book, take vacations once in a while, maintain a healthy lifestyle and most of all, don’t be too dependent on your phones and laptops. Also, remember that the more time you spend with work, the higher your expectations will go. And if you’ve got a sky high expectation but then the reality just fares a little above your head, you’ll only end up frustrated.

It’s also best to take some time alone and just enjoy the company of yourself. Get a massage, curl up with your favorite magazine, watch a much-awaited romantic comedy movie or sci fi documentary…whatever floats your boat. Don’t be like those other women who burn themselves out at work and then when their paychecks arrive, they appease themselves with material things that are oftentimes useless. Be a smart spender—of time and money. Invest in the right things. Great investments also make you feel fulfilled.

So if you ever find yourself getting addicted to achievement again, simply reassess your goals. See if it’s worth all the pressure. Put your happiness and fulfillment at the top of the list.

How do you feel about achievements and achieving? Hope you're not burning yourself out there, woman. 

Dating for Workaholics

I know a lot of people in different industries who seem to have just little time for recreation, let alone dating. Also, “I’m busy” holds to be a very good excuse for someone who hasn’t done much dating lately. Well, let those days be gone! Here is a quick guide for dating workaholics, or dating when you’re a workaholic.

1. Are you really a workaholic? The first step is to determine if you’re really a workaholic. Psychological studies show that all the “-holic” tendencies (shopaholic, alcoholic, chocoholic, etc.) means a compensation for something else. So if you are a workaholic you’d have to admit it to yourself. Do you ALWAYS work the extra hours? Do you have a job (a department, a boss and a company) which demands excessively from you? Are you struggling to get promoted, or get a “regular” status? Try to track if there’s something wrong in your chosen career and try to lessen it or, better yet, kill it. If you can’t then work with it and make sure the problem is not long term.

2. Prioritize well. If somebody puts you off because they’re “too busy” then it means that they are working on other things but not on you because YOU ARE NOT A PRIORITY. Yes, that’s the cold hard truth guys. BUT if you use the busy excuse to put off dates, well, you might have an issue with yourself. Maybe you’re not really ready to date and you just need a quick way out. Also, if you have more than one date lined up for the week/ month, try to prioritize which are the ones which are more important. If you are with just one partner, remember the more important dates and determine which the best dates are for your partner to enjoy them the most.

3. Pay attention when you are on the date. Switch off your Blackberries and your laptops. Hey, if you really wanna land with a partner, you better pay attention to the potential ones. Dates are the perfect times to balance your work and your personal life. When your date is talking, listen to them. Observe. Affirm. Get to know them truly. Do not half-listen while running in your mind the next-day tasks. Switch off work mode and immerse yourself in the moment. Also, try not to talk about work with your date. It’s nice to share funny and charming anecdotes but no complaining/ nagging please. If you think that you have found someone to go serious with, or have already gone serious with this person, take a breather from your day job and send them an email or a quick text message saying that you are thinking of them. Communicate well. It might sound like so much of an effort to you, but really, it’s worth it.

4. Start a life outside work. If work eats up most of you, then it must have eaten the best of you already. Avoid this by starting to have a life outside work. Pick a hobby that you’d be glad to improve and invest (not spend) a lot of time working on it. Also, try to broaden your horizons by having fun activities with people who are not from your office. It will really take your mind off work because you will talk about, laugh about and even argue (in a friendly way) about different things. So when you’re out in the dating market, you are not that boring old folk who is always talking about work and people from work. Yes, no matter how funny they are. Besides, getting out of the office is, by common sense, the best way to meet NEW people. That is, if you’re still single, okay?

Okay now workaholics, those busy excuses are all disqualified now. Enjoy dating and cherishing one very good investment—a long lasting relationship.

On the same breath, please do not use dating as an excuse to slack off at work. Haha!

Let me know what you think, workaholics. :-) And if you're not out on a date, rushing off for a date, please take time to like Your New PR Girl's page. Thank you!

No TGIFs Anymore

Is it T.G.I.F. too soon? If you haven’t heard about T.G.I.F., it means “Thank God It’s Friday” and it has been used in the American corporate lingo for a long time in the intention of mocking a boring and seemingly meaningless job. Today, we are lucky that more and more workplaces have dedicated their time in efforts for positive psychology in terms of jobs and profession. Basic human resource management would tell you that the higher the person feels his morale is, the better he will be in doing his job. As I write, more and more offices are being renovated and rebuilt to induce a juicier and a more fun workplace, so work doesn’t feel like work at all. 

Together, we move forward into a society of people who truly love and enjoy what they do and at the end of the day, institutions accomplish their goals and we build a whole new culture of fulfillment.

In the field of Positive Psychology, work may be categorized into three groups: jobs, careers and callings. The first category is the “jobs”. These are the things which we spend a lot of time and effort on but our only motivation towards doing the work is merely salary. There is no passion; everything feels like manual labor. No work, no pay; and no pay, no work.

On the other hand, careers are the kinds of jobs with a mixed reward system: salary + advancement. In careers, there are goals to be met and there is the promise of prestige through dedication. People who dedicate themselves to careers often get promoted and with the same amount of devotion, they will eventually get to the top. 

However, once they are already at the top, they won’t feel the same vigor and challenge anymore and the career will subsequently wither and turn into a (sigh) job.

The last category is the “callings”. As the name implies, it is a calling, a purpose which pulls you towards fulfilling its reason. The rewards are more internal and they provide meaning in our lives. Most callings require special talents or characteristics, like the ones involved in arts and literature. They motivate the individual through sheer being and you, as a worker, will feel like you can do the work without pay, promotion or other forms of compensation. Callings are the dream jobs.

When you find satisfaction in your job, you can easily turn it into a calling by finding the meaning in it and commending yourself for every successful task that you accomplish. Try to see what makes your work special and how you can also motivate other people to do better in what they do, or choose to do what you do. What is inside you, that you can relate to the work, that you consider a gift? You can easily see the difference between jobs and callings. For example, teachers who treat teaching as a job will be moody, inconsiderate and will talk to the students only about lessons and anything school related. But a teacher who considers teaching as a calling will give extra effort when making reports, have a special way to deliver lessons in class, and will treat every student like it’s his or her own child.

If you put some cheer and genuine dedication in the work that you’re doing, you will end up being a more productive worker and not long, you will receive recognition. Everything will look more vibrant when you go to work in the morning and the intrinsic motivation will continue to develop.

So if you’re already in a job that you’re happy about, kudos to you and continue to pour devotion into that job. Not everybody has their dream job under their noses. But then again, it’s always ALWAYS a matter of choice.