by Jaramogi Adams
Who was it that uttered the infamous words in relation to the workplace, “To Flirt, or not to flirt; that is the question!”
Ah. Yeah. Nobody! Whether you’re just setting foot in an office for the first time, or have been around since the WordPerfect days, flirting in the workplace is considered a big no-no. For all those who think about it, it conjures up visions of pink slips and sexual harassment suits. . .perhaps divorce.
So unless you have Terry Tate at your office to keep you in check, you must do it yourself. There are many pundits who will give you the consequences of endeavoring to have a relationship with your colleagues. Ariana Bianchi suggests:
The possibility for attraction always exists among co-workers, and the temptation to take a working relationship further may seem particularly strong if two people, who spend a great deal of time together already, also feel that they have limited opportunities to meet other people outside of work. While it may seem harmless, workplace romance may result in disastrous consequences and should be approached cautiously.
I for one am against it. As someone who has bills to pay and cares about his reputation at work more than his love-life at work, I avoid flirting or dating situations at my workplace. I have even gone so far as to create a checklist of things I do to ensure I don’t come off as flirtatious or interested in a dating situation with my colleagues:
- Pick out 3 women I find most attractive whom work in my vicinity (not on my team) and ignore them.
- Eat lunch at my desk during the summertime as the dress code for women seems to be non-existent during those months.
- Watch my eye contact. Not many men realize that subconsciously, they put on inappropriate stares (i.e. a two buttons on a blouse are too far apart, or lipstick shade or protruding hips in a skirt) we’ve all given a look before and been caught!
- Never confuse my 9 – 5 with my other 9 – 5 as the Bud Light commercial suggested. Even at social gatherings.
- Act busy if an attractive woman comes to you shooting the breeze or inviting you to drinks, or to the theater or any other situation that you know would cause you to start acting like your true self, player!
If you consider some of my suggestions chauvinistic, then let me tell you right here, right now. . .I agree. But to err on the side of caution is far better than to have no form of salary when as Outkast would say, “baby gotta eat!”
This week Barry Bonds became the all-time home run king. Bonds’ achievement has been tainted by allegations of steroid use piled on top of many peoples’ perception that he is just not a nice person. Hank Aaron, who previously held the record has been quoted as saying:
“Eventually, if I happen to see him somewhere, I’d probably say something to him,…”[t]o be honest, I’m as happy for him as anybody.”
(via ESPN)
Well, nobody seems to be happy about Bonds holding the record. Accordingly, Aaron’s statement could easily be construed to mean that he isn’t happy about it at all. Take for example, Bob Costas’ comments:
“I would say that Barry Bonds was, on his natural merits, one of the five or six greatest all-around players in baseball history,” Costas said Wednesday on FOX GameTime Live. “Then something highly questionable and inauthentic happened in the late 90s and at the turn of the century, which took him from a first-rate, tremendous, Hall of Fame player to a nearly superhuman player. Therefore his late career performances and the records, not just the HR record, but some of the single season records, including slugging, on-base percentage, and others, cannot be viewed as authentic.”
(via Fox Sports)
Eventually, Bonds’ record will be broken, and although Bonds has never tested positive for performance enhancing drugs, there is sure to be dancing in the streets when another player breaks Bonds’ record. - IM
photo by dps
Now that I have been working for a while, I have accumulated a fairly significant collection of dress shirts. My shirts fall into two categories. I have “dress” shirts and I have “work” shirts. My collection of “dress” shirts includes offerings from Zegna, Thomas Pink, Brooks Brothers and Charles Thyrtt. When I began building my wardrobe, I tried only to buy very high quality. This led to two problems. First, I had a very small rotation of shirts to wear to work and/or other functions. Second, because my rotation was small, my shirts took a beating due to work related incidents like coffee spills, ink stains, and snags caused by office furniture, etc.
After spending a lot of money on quality shirts only to see them irreparably damaged by the rigors of work, I instituted my current system. I try and visit my neighborhood “off-price” retailer (in my area that’s either Marshalls or TJ Maxx) once every couple of months. There, I can buy decent name-brand shirts anywhere from $20-$50. Some of the names I have been able to buy include Polo, Nautica, an Joseph Abboud. I try to spend about $30 on each shirt I buy, which enables me to buy “in bulk.” These shirts become my “work” shirts.
Now, I still mix in an occasional “dress” shirt, but the “work” shirts carry most of the load during the week. This frees me up to pull out the “dress” shirts for power meetings and special occasions. The good thing about wearing my less expensive shirts to work on a regular basis is that I don’t care if they get messed up. One disadvantage is that the fit of my “work” shirts is noticeably poorer than my “dress” shirts. Most of my “dress” shirts are a bit slimmer which gives me a nice tailored look. In contrast, a few of my “work” shirts balloon out at the waist adding about 10lbs and making me look like I have no idea how to tuck my shirt in.
After visiting a tailor last week to get some pants hemmed, I learned that he could make alterations to my shirts that would remedy this problem for $15 a shirt. My plan is to have a few of my favorite “work” shirts taken in. My hope is that this will result in having decent custom fit “work” shirts for a total investment of about $50 a shirt. I still periodically add to my “dress” shirt collection, but until I can completely transition, I think this provides me with a nice intermediate solution.
If you have any tips you would like to share about building and managing a business wardrobe let’s hear about them in the comments! - IM
- African American firm lands Lexus account [via adweek]
- Clinton gets cozy with powerful black men [via blackamericaweb.com]
- Who writes this stuff? Below is an excerpt from an interview of some guys about what they liked and disliked in black women [via the voice]
Men told The Voice that weave is a big turn off because not only is it expensive to maintain, especially if they are giving money to the women but women with weave tend to shed hair on furniture like cats. Other turn offs included a poor attitude, especially having a major chip on the shoulder, gold diggers, flat shoes, a woman not taking good care of her physical appearance or wearing dowdy clothes, body hair and callused feet.
(emphasis added)
I have never heard that one about weaves and ladies don’t high heels cause calluses???
Most financial goals require you to save money over a specified period of time. This may usually requires you to cut your spending. The Simple Dollar suggests 40 ways to reduce your spending including for example this nice “green” tip:
Install CFLs Compact fluorescent light bulbs are receiving a big push right now and their advantages are great: a longer lifespan and significantly less electrical usage. Stick with the name brands for now, even at a premium - my entire house switched to GE CFLs more than a year ago and I have yet to replace a single one. A tip: when comparing bulbs, use the lumens number to compare bulbs, not the equivalent wattages - the lumens indicate the actual amount of light emitted by the bulb. Remember also that under normal usage (4 hours a day) and normal electrical rates ($0.10 per kilowatt hour), replacing a 75 watt bulb with a 20 watt CFL saves $0.66 per month. Multiply that by all the bulbs in your house to see how much you’ll save every month.
We scoffed at this when we first read it but after counting the number of light bulbs used in a few rooms (3-6 on average) this can be a significant savings. Of course, if you are a tortured soul that lives in the dark this won’t help you very much.
Another strategy for cutting expenses is finding free alternatives for services that you now pay to use. For products and services you can get for nothing check out these freebies from Kiplinger.com. The article includes such gems as:
FREE ATMS: A buck or two here and there may not seem like a big deal, but if you’re frequenting ATMs outside your bank’s network, the surcharges can add up quickly. Get money from an ATM that belongs to a surcharge-free network. Allpoint has about 200 participating institutions and 32,000 ATMs. Money Pass has 600 members and 8,000 ATMs.
In addition, if you don’t have a need to deposit a lot of physical checks see if it makes sense for you to move to one of the new online checking accounts. We have heard good things about ING’s electric orange checking account which also offers free ATM usage.
If you have any additional advice for saving money and/or quality free services let us hear about them in the comments. - IM
