My closest co-worker is a total sweetheart. She’s less than two foot tall, doesn’t shave, always sleeps on my desk in front of me, and her breath smells like tuna. We get on famously, so I really have no experience with office warfare or with the desire to ambush someone by the water cooler.

However, if you are more in touch with those feelings than you even care to admit, I have a post you’re going to love. It’s A LOT of fun and will give you some pretty remarkable ideas.

See The Office Arms Race, soldier, and go get ‘em.

Hmmmm. You know, a few of the ideas in this particular post are kind of inspiring me. See, I have a score to settle with my dentist… Mr. “This won’t hurt much..” – The last words I remember hearing right before my face was pulled off of my skull. I’m just not sure if I’ll set up a USB Missile Rocket Launcher beneath his desk or go at him head on with a Nerf N Strike Raider Rapid Fire CS-35 Blaster.

Hehehe… ouch… heheh… ouch….

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According to a great article on Career Builder.com, there are 10 things you should never, ever say in the workplace.  Below are the top 5 – click the link to find out why each is taboo and unveil the remaining 5.

1. “That’s not my job.”

2. “I don’t mind helping you with that.” (With a fake smile pasted on your face.)

3. “Don’t tell anyone I said this, but … “

4. “I haven’t gotten a raise, EVER.”

5. “I’m so … stressed out/busy/sick of working here.”

You could pretty much make a case for not saying these things anywhere… not just the workplace. Personally, I’ve always hated the, “Not my job” attitude.  It’s as though the individual wants to raise their lazy flag and thinks this phrase gives them permission to do so.

Chumps.

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Below is a guest post that I thought was really cool. Enjoy!

We always hear about strong communication being a necessity in relationships to avoid a lovers’ quarrel, but what abut what about when it comes to professional relationships? Many small business owners might not think those Dr. Laura Love type shows and columns have anything to do with their company, but in fact, they might.

A lot of the problems small businesses have with customers stem from communication issues. Whether it’s too much, not enough, the wrong type or just a misinterpretation between what is said and what is meant, at some point if customers don’t feel the love they don’t call Dr. Laura to fix it. They simply leave, and businesses are left without knowing why.

Since there aren’t any radio talk shows or advice columns for small business owners trying to patch up troubled relationships with their clients, here are a few tips to help improve communications and build a long-lasting relationship.

1. Always be available. The lovelorn frequently complain about their significant other being cold and distant. Clients can feel the same way about you if it takes days or hours for you to respond to calls or emails. Small businesses especially need to make sure they’re available to clients because often one of the main reasons customers choose a small business over a larger competitor is the expectation of better service. For email, consider investing in a mobile phone with data service that allows you to receive emails wherever you are. For voice calls, consider signing on to a virtual phone service for business20calls that allows you to forward your office phone to your mobile device as well so you can take calls anywhere. Ideally, it should also email your voicemail messages to you – just in case you simply can’t take the call live.
2. Think before you speak. How many love relationships are damaged every day because one person makes a statement, the other responds, things escalate, and pretty soon the original issue is well overshadowed by what came after? The same thing can happen in business. It’s easy to let emotion overtake reason, especially under pressure. As the seller, though, you have to remember the cardinal rule of business: the customer is always right. Take that extra moment to calm yourself and think before you respond. If you can’t do it now, say you’ll look into the issue further and get back to the customer. Then sleep on it if you have to.
3. Don’t allow things to fester. This is the other side of the coin. Often in a relationship what starts out as a small issue can quickly grow if left unattended. The more time that passes, the more likely the other person will fill in your side of the conversation with what they think you’ll say. Do your best to answer small issues, complaints, etc. in a measured but timely manner so you can keep them small. And make sure your client knows you’re looking into the bigger ones.
4. Tread carefully with email. It’s a s afe bet to say that few things have done more to put our love lives on edge than email. In addition to the fact that writing in a meaningful way generally seems to be a lost art, email lacks the ability to convey the tone and intention of the writer. As a result, the interpretation is left up to the reader; many a fight has resulted from what the writer thought was an innocent statement. If you find yourself in a situation like that with a client, resist the temptation to respond with your own email. Instead, pick up the phone and talk to the client. You’ll likely achieve three benefits. One is you’ll get a better idea of whether what you’re reading as a snippy comment was just a poor choice of words by the writer. Two is you’ll let the client know you’re taking the issue seriously. Responding to an email with a phone call is much more impressive than simply returning the email. And three, it’s a lot easier for people to be angry when hiding behind email than in a face-to-face (or voice-to-voice) situation. Making the call can help you take the teeth out of paper tigers.
5. Know where the line is between friendly and too familiar. Nothing kills a dating relationship faster than one person getting too familiar too soon. The same is true in a business relationship. While you may have some great and fun conversations as you build the client relationship, it’s still important to maintain the line between your professional life and=2 0your personal life. Remember, while you want them to feel good about you, they’re still your clients, not your friends. Answer the phone in a manner that is appropriate.

Kevin Baker is my1voice Product Marketing Manager for Protus (www.protus.com), provider of the highest quality Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) communication tools for small-to-medium businesses (SMB) and enterprise organizations, including my1voice (www.my1voice.com) the cost-effective, feature-rich virtual phone service that travels with the user from phone to web, award-winning MyFax, the fastest growing Internet fax service and Campaigner, an email marketing solution with advanced automation features. Kevin can be reached at kbaker@protus.com.

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Happiness in the workplace.  A phrase that seems foreign to many, no doubt.  I guess being happy at work isn’t that different from being happy anyplace.  First, you just have to make up your mind that you’ll accept nothing less.  Going to work doesn’t have to be drudgery and you should never fall into the trap of thinking of it that way.  Often, when we keep reinforcing negative thoughts in our mind, we make them far worse than they really are. We have to find a way to focus on the positive aspects of our work and, yes, co-workers.

I guess that’s easy for me to  say, given the fact that my co-workers are cats.

In this economy, finding a positive isn’t that tough – simply having an income should bring about a great amount of satisfaction.  If it doesn’t, there are countless people who’d be more than willing to trade places with us.

Of course, even when you’re extremely thankful for your job and actually enjoy what you do, there will be days when you’d rather be just about anywhere else, doing just about anything else.  My advice for times like that is this:  Dig deep and get through the day. Don’t allow your mind to focus on what you don’t have or what you aren’t able to do at the time.  Being busy is the best antidote I know of for the blues.  Work through it. Then play!

To learn about finding happiness in the workplace,  check out a guest post that appeared on my self help blog.

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Mrs. Beasley’s Thank You Basket, 30 Servings

The gift baskets in this post are from Mrs. Beasley’s Bakery. I was sold even before I saw the baskets. I mean, who wouldn’t want to say they’d gotten a gift basket from Mrs. Beasley’s Bakery. Geez, I’d tell everyone – even people I didn’t know. Sure, they’d whisper about me later, but I’d have homemade frosted cookies, brownie bars, dipped cookies, mini muffins, chocolate truffle cookies, and the like to console me.

Whisper away!

Mrs. Beasley’s Connoisseur Collection Basket, 30 Servings

With the economic climate in the freezer, I’d say the time was perfect for wooing potential business partners and sweet talking existing ones. Of course, these beautiful and delicious gift baskets would also be ideal for showing the boss who loves her (or him).

The extra cool thing about sending extra special gifts from extra special websites? Lean in close, it’s a secret. When you send someone a special, one of a kind gift bought online, you know what they do, don’t you? They go to the website to check it out! Some are like, “Wow, this is gorgeous, I’d like to order one for so and so…” Others, of course, just want to know how much the exquisite gift set you back. Either way, they see that you… well… that you thought highly of them.

You come out looking like a Superhero and they might even share a homemade cookie with you. A nice, tasty way to get an edge in an economy that calls for as many edges as we can find.

Click through either of the links or pictures above to find out exactly what’s in each collection. You can also see the endless types of other baskets they offer. There are Thank You, Get Well, Sympathy, etc. collections. There are also the Miss Grace Lemon Cakes (20 Servings)
, pictured below, that I’m about to die for. Two of these beautiful cakes are sent, and I can practically smell them now. Man, can you imagine, a slice served up with some warm Earl Grey tea…

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You gotta love Dilbert. He’s up against it, you know? Surrounded by nut jobs and screw ups – but he keeps suiting up.

Don’t you sometimes feel like your life is a Dilbert comic strip and it’s YOU who are surrounded? Last night, my youngest daughter, Stephany, and I went to our favorite Subway. We’d never been to it later than 3:00, so the night crew (insert scream) was unfamiliar to us.

Anyway, we order try to order our sandwiches and what is normally a quick and easy ordeal became a long, drawn out, how stupid can these workers be comedy of errors. I was doing a good job fighting back the laughter until I caught sight of Steph’s face – her mouth was literally hanging open. I looked away just in time.

They were two girls and one was (insert a louder scream) about 6 months pregnant. They couldn’t have mustered 7 brain cells between them if their 3 lives depended on it. Seriously, cheese confused them.

Finally, the young pregnant girl says, “My body’s here but my brain isn’t.” I bit my tongue before “Not a first, I’m betting” came out.

The Dilbert calendars in this post are from Calendars.com and the time to buy them is, oh I dunno, now. The circumstances in our daily lives that make us have to bite our tongues make us laugh hysterically when they’re happening to someone else… And they’re always happening to poor Dilbert.

The calendar at the top of the post is the Dilbert 2009 Softcover Engagement Calendar.

Click on any of the links to take a closer look. If Dilbert is a little too close to reality for you, you’ll find an endless selection of other calendars on the website.

Dilbert 2009 Desk Calendar

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I haven’t gotten a chance to read ANY of the biographies/autobiographies about our 4 candidates, but there are two (Obama and McCain) that I’d particularly love to read.

It’s been an exciting ride, but it’s almost over. That’s actually kind of hard to believe. Either way, history will be made, and no matter what side you’re on, that’s pretty sweet.

Personally? I’ll be glad when the election is over so we can all remember that, in the end, we’re all on the same side. Profound for a Sunday night, I know. I roll like that.

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There’s an article over on Life Hack that I think you’ll enjoy. It’s called “7 Habits to Win In Office Politics.” After all, we all know that office politics exists – there’s no denying it.

So, if the game exists, you might as well play it well, right? Hopefully….. better than everyone else. This article might just give you the edge you need.

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We’re offering one free Samsung SCX-4500 printer laser MFP to one lucky Office Freaks reader!

First a little about this gorgeous printer. The Samsung SCX-4500 printer laser MFP was designed to be small, sleek, and silent. Doesn’t sound like a lot of printers I’ve known in my life – large, clumbersome, and anything but silent.

The Samsung SCX-4500 printer laser MFP is actually the smallest laser MFP in the world. With it’s elegant black finish, buttonless soft-touch controls and blue LEDs, it wins the best looking category as well. As if that weren’t enough, at just 45 dBA, it’s the quietest laser MFP in existence. But that doesn’t mean it won’t do its job and do it well. It offers fast 17 ppm printing and copying and 4800 x 4800 enhanced resolution color scanning.

Ultra-Compact Laser MFP

• Smallest laser printer/copier/color scanner in the world
• High-style glossy piano black finish
• Buttonless soft-touch sensor panels with blue LED scan status indicators
• Easy jam clearing
• Quietest printer operation in the world (45 dBA)
• Soft, melodic low toner and low paper alert tones
• Semi-auto sliding paper tray
• Print and copy up to 17 ppm, up to 4800 x 4800 enhanced scanning

So, if you’re ready to work in style, lean in closely and see what you have to do to win one of these beauties:

To be eligible to win a Samsung SCX-4500 printer laser MFP, you have to share your wisdom, your wit, or a little of both. Simply submit your Office Story to Joi (that’s me) to be published on Office Freaks (you’re there). We will publish each “qualifying” entry we receieve – whether it’s 1 or 100.

The post should be connected to office life in some way – whether at home or away. You could tell how you solved a problem, decorated an office, or even tell a funny story about a co-worker. You could also, of course, give a review of a product you loved or even hated.

I’m not that great with following rules, myself, so I’m not going to throw many at you. Other than this: We will not print any words that are vulgar, inflammatory, insulting, or hateful. If we don’t publish an entry, it isn’t eligible, so tell your words to play nice.

If you have any questions, at all, please e-mail me (joisigers@aim.com) and I’ll do my level best to answer them.

So, how is the winner determined? We will have 13 people read the posts and vote on their favorite. The person who entered the winning post will be sent one of these fetching printers. If there is a tie, the entries that were chosen will be written on index cards and placed into a large bag. We’ll then have one of our daughters pull out a card…. ta da, we’ll have the winner of the Samsung SCX-4500 printer laser MFP.

Spread the word and e-mail me your entires asap – I look forward to reading all of them!

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MSN/CareerBuilder had an article recently titled, “10 Habits of Highly Annoying Workers.” I know, for a fact, that none of you would fall under the “Annoying Workers” category – let alone the “Highly Annoying Workers” category. But I thought you might like reading about your co-workers.

As you know, I work from home, so my co-workers are my family and cats. They’re all perfectly charming, even on bad days, so I’m lucky. From what I’ve heard, some co-workers can border on the ridiculous. I’ve heard horror stories about people who snap and pop chewing gum (even while on the telephone), wear their cologne or perfume so strongly that it gives you a headache, and, of course, I’ve heard all about the serial eaters. Somone told me once about a woman who constantly ate at her desk – she had chips, cookies, and crackers stuffed in every available drawer and even kept a little stash of nuts in the file cabinet! Then, she’d complain about the maintenance department “letting” her work area get so crumb-y and messy.

Priceless.

Check out “10 Habits of Highly Annoying Workers” and see if you recognize anyone. For your sake, I hope you don’t!

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