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Penny Millionaire Project - Week 31

Monday - Wayne was walking past our table on his way out of the office, and suddenly stopped behind Andrew, bent out of sight, then walked over to me with a 5p. Excellent work.

There's every chance it had fallen out of Andrew's pocket, but he had his headphones in listening to music and I didn't like to interrupt...

Wednesday - my mum handed over a penny she'd found while going to college for her evening class. It was in the college doorway, and she managed to pick it up on the third attempt, with students clamouring behind.

She says she then held it at arm's length in a bizarre attempt to convey its significance to anyone who might have seen her struggling over it. I now know where I get these things from.

Also on Wednesday, my friend Steph handed me a 20p from her former boss, who'd found it when they were on the train together, asked if it was a nearby man's (it wasn't) and then Steph asked her if she could have it! Well, you don't ask, you don't get.

Thursday, Nix handed over a 2p and a 1p she'd found on the counter of Spar in Cricklewood. I also got another penny mum had found on the bathroom floor in her college.

Friday, there was a 2p sat minding its own business on top of an envelope on our reception desk. Luckily, we don't yet have a receptionist, so I nicked it completely unseen.

Week Thirty-one

How much found: 32p

Total found so far: £14.31

How it could now be spent: an Alma'Ch art print of some carrots.

Overworked and under-appreciated?

Do you really have time to be reading this?

Judging by the results of our December survey you guys are seriously busy and overworked! The survey showed that 56% of you feel stressed as a result of your job and the main causes of your stress are:

• Lack of recognition or development.
• Unrealistic expectations of Supervisors.
• Heavy workload.
• Long hours.

First of all I have to ask – have you told your supervisors this? It’s always tempting to believe that our supervisors should instinctively know how to manage us well but the truth is – many people find people management difficult. If you seem to be handling a heavy workload, your Supervisor may have no idea that you’re struggling to cope.

So speak up! Get hold of a copy of your original job spec. If you’ve taken on a lot more work than you were originally hired to do then perhaps you need to talk to your Supervisor about delegating some of your less important tasks.

If you’re getting loaded with work from all directions maybe it’s time you learned to say ‘No’. Saying yes to every request for more work might sound like it’ll get you in your Manager’s good books but people probably aren’t aware of how much stress they’re putting you under. If you can say honestly, calmly and politely say ‘No, I won’t have time to do that’ most people will respect you for it.

If you’re responsible for managing people, try to watch for signs that your team are overworked and stressed. The, fairly obvious, signs to watch for include: consistently working late or working through lunch, taking work home, coming to work even when sick and generally appearing run down and frustrated.

Make the effort to ask how your employees are doing. If someone is feeling overwhelmed even just the chance to talk about it can provide some relief from stress. And if someone is working hard – thank them for it! You’d be amazed at how much easier it is to deal with a heavy workload when you at least know your efforts are noticed and appreciated.

Penny Millionaire Project - Week 30

Wednesday - Wayne, our resident creative genius, handed me two pennies. He'd found one in the footwell of the passenger seat of his car and the other in Foot Locker.

Thursday, Nix gave me a penny that she found "somewhere or other". That's good enough for me. The devil's in the details.

I also found something myself on Thursday. I was meandering past Hammersmith tube station when I spotted something shiny on the floor. I didn't really want it to be money, because it was lunchtime and the area was swarming with purposeful types striding about carrying coffees. But sure enough, it was a penny. Damn.

There was a man hanging around waiting for someone or something, and I'd felt him clock me as I slowed down on my approach to the penny. I could still feel his eyes on me as I arrived at the point where I had to either pick it up or walk on, and my head started pounding with the feeling that a thousand high-heeled women and besuited men were all looking at me thinking 'surely she wouldn't pick that up, would she? Nobody's that poor'.

I wrestled with myself, but for the first time in the project, I walked straight past some cash.

I only got about 3 metres before the guilt and shame hit me. I felt like a complete coward. So what could have been a fairly casual sweeping-up manoeuvre in passing became a double-back walk of shame and a squint around on the floor, all the while being watched by a man who'd seen everything. For a penny.

I tried to look grave, like I'd dropped something valuable, but not so grave that anyone looking on would offer to help. I found it, and with my back turned to the man stood there watching, I picked it up. Feel the fear and do it anyway, people.

Saturday, I was in town with my little brother and sister, when my brother Luke found a 2p and gamely handed it over.

Sunday - went to my nan's house, who gave me a penny she'd found - shock horror - in Tesco's car park, right by a children's ride. There had been children on the ride, so it probably belonged to one of them. The brats should be more careful, shouldn't they?

Week Thirty

How much found: 7p

Total found so far: £13.99

How it could now be spent: a Pest Decide fly zapper (for the sadistic among you).

Economic forecast - more gloom than boom?

I’m already feeling rather guilty about this blog and I haven’t even written it yet. Being as we are in the darkest depths of winter I feel as if I should be writing something positive to counteract the gloom.

I don’t know though –  we all swam to work this morning. This would have to be a remarkably jolly blog to perk us up..and I’d run the risk of failing and having you all throw shoes at me for being so unduly chipper.

So. I’m going to continue as planned.

According to The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, 2008 is forecast to be “easily the worst” for employment since Labour came to power in 1997.

Despite Gordon’s triumphant claims that a post is filled every 3 minutes, employment is set to increase by just 0.25% over the next year. (Also, just as a very quick aside, one post being filled every 3 minutes doesn’t seem very high to me.)

John Philpott, Chief Economist at the institute explains thus:

"In the early part of the decade, periods of slower growth in private sector employment were masked by relatively rapid growth in public sector jobs.

A downward trend in public sector employment in the past two years has in turn been more than offset by rising numbers of private sector jobs. But 2008 will be the first year for a decade that the engine of job creation will be spluttering right across the economy.”

So, not only can we look forward to a raised cost of living with fuel and food prices on the increase, but it will be even more difficult to get a job.

Oh dear. These are just forecasts though…I mean the weather forecast is wrong all the time. But seriously – there is always a margin of error in economic forecasting.

Happy 2008 everyone.

Yoghurt Hangman

I’ve had enough of all this doom and gloom in projecting the fortunes of 2008, so think it’s time to put the ‘happy’ back in ‘happy new year’. I’ll do it. I’ll share my much lauded office game with you.

Introducing: Yoghurt Hangman©:

The rules are pretty straightforward really. Simply bring in a yoghurt and when spooning it in, allow your colleagues to make guesses at the flavour. Each time they get it wrong, you get to devour a mouthful. This continues until either a) you have eaten the entire pot, or b) they guess the right flavour. The prize is dignity.

Having read that back, I can see how it may be misconstrued as being a rather stupid game. But wait, give it a try, experience the mass elation that a victory entails, and you’ll be hooked. For there are, like with all serious games, certain strategies that you can adapt:

a) Obviously, you should never let your opponents see the label or the colour of the glob of yoghurt in transit to your mouth, as this greatly reduces the possibilities of flavour.

b) Shop around for weird flavours, and throw the scent after a string of successful oddities with blander common ones like Strawberry. I found fig and prune to be particularly successful, a peculiar combination might also bear fruit (ha ha).

c) Say ‘oooh’ after an unsuccessful guess that was nowhere near, to make opponents think that they were close with that effort.

d) If you are older than an opponent who guesses correctly, put the age limit just above their current age – ‘players must be 36 or over’, thus negating their victory.

If you win, in your moment of triumph you can of course overturn the empty pot onto the desk of an opponent of your choice.

This might also work with soup (although it takes longer to eat, thereby increasing your chances of losing, boo), but other foodstuffs might be trickier. I can’t imagine apple hangman would be particularly taxing, for example.

Penny Millionaire Project - Week 29

Monday - Nix handed over 3 pennies she'd found at the bottom of her old handbag when she was transferring stuff to a new one.

Tuesday afternoon, I came back from lunch to find a huge mound of assorted coins on my desk -  a whole 66p's worth! As far as I could remember, I hadn't lent anybody any money, bought anyone anything or bet anyone 66p that I could do something.

I fired off an 'all staff' email to get to the bottom of it, but was met with a stony silence. You know what's happened don't you? The mystery benefactor has returned...

Wednesday night (lastnight), I was coming out of Bank tube station en route to the O2 arena to see the Spice Girls (brilliant by the way, but Geri and Mel B still hate each other), when a man in front of me spilt the entire contents of his wallet all over the stairs. Bingo!

I stopped to help, and he said something about needing all the money to pay for his train fare. As I helped him look, the devil in me started thinking of all the coins he'd inevitably miss, and I must confess I did look around to see if there were any high-denomination coins he hadn't spotted. Annoyingly, the much more dominant goody-two-shoes in me found 1p, and immediately handed it to him.

He seemed disappointed that all I'd retrieved was a penny, and it took several seconds of me holding it out to him before he cracked and took it. He didn't even want it!

Week Twenty-nine

How much found: 69p

Total found so far: £13.92

How it could now be spent: a pair of Armadillo Workwear chef's trousers.

Hate your colleagues as much as Geri and Mel B do? Time to look for a new job.

How to Make a Million Dollars

I’m always on the lookout for a quick buck, or an easy penny, and I’ve contemplated and executed enough get-rich-quick schemes in my time to know that one day, one has to eventually work. It’s the law of averages, the law, right?
Well, having exhausted my usual idea stealing haunts, I began searching wider for some good (and easily stealable) ideas. What I came across was entitled, ‘How to Make A Million Dollars’.

Being a little sceptical but nonetheless duped once again by the lure of my first million (dollar signs started spinning in front of my eyes) I began stealing, I mean reading. Imagine my surprise when I realised it wasn’t the Holy Grail I was looking for, but instead several success stories about ordinary punters that had become self-made multi-millionaires. Being an ordinary punter myself and never one to knock the underdog, I ignored the nagging pint-sized devil on my shoulder insistently whispering in my ear: ‘steal something, anything, just steal, steal, steal’, and continued reading. What I found common in a lot of these anecdotes (I wasn’t going to read all of them c’mon pffft, there was, like, a whole ten of them) was that the punters had an idea that they essentially, and perhaps stupidly, believed in beyond reason. Some of them ransacked their savings, took out massive loans, even drove themselves into considerable debt to get these stubborn ideas to fly. And eventually they did. Boy, did they fly.

Take American Kevin Plank for example. Plank is the athletic genius and clothing pioneer behind Under Amour, what is now the official supplier of compression apparel to the American Major League Baseball and Soccer industries. This kid began researching the apparel in college and after graduation racked up a huge credit card debt to the sum of $40,000 just to raise the start-up money for what he envisioned. Plank further dug himself deeper into debt by trying to patent his idea costing him an added $7,000. For several years he worked from his grandmother’s house, skimping on rent until receiving a $250,000 loan which he mostly used to repay outstanding debts. Skip a few years ahead and Under Amour now employs 450 people and has grossed over $200 million in a single year. 

Now I’m not saying that any schmuck with an idea and money can make it big, these were essentially good ideas that just needed to get noticed. So don’t go re-mortgage your house with the expectation that the world needs to notice your inflatable dartboard or pedal powered wheelchair. It just made me think, how many people out there have had an idea they utterly, beyond reason believed in and despite common sense, despite the nay-sayers, despite looming failure, poured every ounce of effort into making it happen. How far would you go, or better yet, how far did you go? Are you reading this whilst brokering a multi-billion pound deal from the comfort of your own private jet as your onboard butler squeezes fresh orange juice with one hand and simultaneously flips pancakes with the other? Or maybe you found this print out rummaging through the garbage of what was once your own neighbour’s rubbish bin, drenched in the unmistakable stench of failure, muttering incoherent ramblings of how it should have been…

The rise of the Fun-sultants

Every office has its dull days sometimes right?

We’ve all sat through a day where you’re convinced the clock on your computer isn’t working because although it claims it’s only 11 o’clock in the morning you’re sure you’ve been sat at your desk for at least ten hours.

Well those days might be a thing of the past as we see the coming of…..

The Fun-sultants.

Yes, that’s right, an entire army of people who will come into your office and teach you how to have fun at work. The Fun*cilitators website insists they are ‘funominal’ (see if you can spot a pattern).

I don’t mean to sound judgmental but that has to be the stupidest job in the world.

Far be it for me, however, to stop the rest of you having some lovely organised, managed fun. You might find it difficult to book the Fun*cilitators for your own office, their client list being depressingly long and including some really big companies. Don’t panic though, I’m sure there’s some sort of fun waiting list you can join, and in the meantime here are some top tips from Fun*cilitators’ Gail Hahn to get you started:

· Office Olympics. This includes inspired events such as using disks/CDs for discus and the interesting sounding human bowling. Telling a group of employees so dysfunctional they need outside help to get along to throw things at each other and hurl each other about the office - I can’t help but think they haven’t thought that one through.

· Celebration days. These are basically an excuse for having a bit of an office party only for people who feel that ‘just because it’s Friday’ isn’t a good enough reason. ‘Made up day’ suggestions include: National Correct Posture Day, Asparagus Day and Revise Your Work Schedule Day. Here’s a little tip from me – if your office is so dreadful that a day dedicated to the wonder that is asparagus would make it better it’s probably time to leave.

· Practice fun shui (try to stay with me). Apparently colour coded files, coloured paper clips etc can make the office a happier place. Though to be honest if you’re the kind of person whose entire day can be transformed by some colourful stationary you’re probably not in a position of great responsibility and pressure anyway.

If you can stomach it then there are plenty of other excellent ideas on the Fun*cilitators website. I’d highly recommend it – I haven’t laughed so hard in ages.

Penny Millionaire Project - Week 28

Monday - Kirsty arrived in the office clutching a penny she'd found on the road I'd just walked down to get to work. I didn't see a thing. January, it seems, has mugged me for my mojo, kicked me in the face and run away laughing.

Light relief

Still, I've noticed it's finally starting to get a bit lighter at both ends of the day - 3 minutes more daylight every day until the clocks go forward I'm told. So hopefully before long I might start finding properly again, even if it means getting up early on a Saturday morning, making myself some Quorn ham sandwiches and a Thermos of coffee and heading out to forage for coins, hunter-gatherer style.

Saturday night, I did manage to find a little something. In the pub after going to see a play with Kirsty I spotted a penny on the carpet. No mean feat after sinking an unspecified number of large glasses of wine. (I've decided to drink my way through January.)

A modest harvest, but by this time next week there'll be 21 minutes more light to play with...

Week Twenty-eight

How much found: 2p

Total found so far: £13.23

How it could now be spent: a LuxyLine laptop bag.

Your job driving you to drink? Upload your CV and let's see what we can do.

Tips for CV database submissions

Now that our CV database is up and running, I thought it might be useful to provide a few tips for getting the right keywords in there to make your CV pop up for the right matches. It’s all about parler la même langue, you see.

Firstly, the basics: make sure you fill in every section requested, otherwise potential employers will just be presented with blank areas that will reflect badly upon your ability to perform perfunctory tasks competently. Make sure it is fully updated (remember to update it online if something changes), and Word documents are preferred, although PDFs are also accepted. Spell-check it thoroughly; the way the search works, it will be very obvious if you have been slack there. Finally, remember that this is essentially an advert that employers will scan for very specific attributes and terms; avoid the life story and concentrate on key terms from your experience and qualifications that will match you up with the career path for which you wish to be considered. Here are some further tips.

Second, a few points about job titles from prior positions held. Your best bet here is to look at the ‘browse by job titles’ section on our website to see the syntax of these searches. For example, if you have held a position of ‘Director of Finance’, change it to ‘Finance Director’ for best results. Also, if you have been a ‘Financial controller’, that syntax is fine, but if you were an assistant or deputy, use ‘Assistant Finance Controller’. Essentially, just use a term that is easily recognisable, nothing fancy as searches just won't match with it. Use specific job titles then, but also use a variety to increase your match rate; if you get the balance right, you should get more appropriate matches, rather than random key word matches that do not correspond to your desired career path.

Finally, a note about locations. Again you should consider a range to increase your possible matches in case your ideal position comes up just outside your desired location. If you are flexible, rather than listing 20 possible towns, just indicate a region such as ‘South-East’ or North-West’. If you are willing to relocate anywhere in the country for the right position, just put ‘England’.