Dear Evil HR Lady,

I just read your article, 5 Reasons employees aren’t sharing their ideas, and I’ve recently joined an organization as a manager where your list of reasons were the norm under my predecessor. I’m getting a lot of the ‘That’s not how we’ve always done it’ response, and nil creativity. The open and inclusive, asking for ideas style is drawing blank looks, confusion and well, fear I think.

Bear in mind, these people have worked for ten years in this repressive culture and are having a hard time letting it go. How can I demonstrate I want their ideas and will consider them thoughtfully, if they won’t try it out?

To read the answer click here: 5 ways to shake up your new team’s culture

You’re on the verge of the bank foreclosing on your house, your spouse was laid off 6 months ago, and your 13-year-old twins need braces. What you really need is a big promotion. So how come, just when you need it most, it goes to the guy who has no student loans, a wife who just got made partner at her law firm, and kids with perfectly straight teeth?

To read more, click here: Are your personal financial problems ruining your career?

Jeanne who wrote this comment:

I had a doozy of a co-worker. She had multiple issues bu this was the worst. In a shared office, someone arranged the pushpins on a corkboard to make a smilie face. She went to HR claiming that out west some serial killer had used smilie faces to show he was the killer so now she knew the guy who played with the pushpins wanted to kill her. It caused a lot of problems.

In honor of her coworker, I’ll add some smiely faces. :>) :>)

I do have Jeanne’s email address (thanks!), so I’ll hook her up with the fabulous people at Lovesac!

Working through lunch seems like doing a favor for your employer, but it could get you fired.

To read, click here: Can you be fired for skipping lunch?

Dear Evil HR Lady,

I work for a great company! We have a culture that we’ve worked hard to establish and continuously improve …. we have an extremely low turnover rate and, for the most part, great feedback scores from our employees. Unfortunately, one of the things we seem to have an area of opportunity on is “employees feeling comfortable providing their opinion.” What could be behind this? How can we ensure that employees feel that they can talk with us?

To read the answer click here: 5 Reasons employees aren’t sharing their ideas

We had two really unexpected things happen on our last vacation. First, my husband was walking down the street in Turkey when two big, black, scary looking dogs crossed his path. The first just walked on by while the second decided take a big chomp into his leg. He instinctively kicked the dog in the head and both dogs ran away.

We’re really grateful because even though my husband is 6’4″ tall, if both dogs had decided to stay and fight he could have been in real trouble. But, they ran. After a trip to a Turkish emergency room, a couple rounds of antibiotics and multiple rabies shots (one more left to go!) he’s fine.

The other unexpected thing that happened to us in Turkey was my first real experience with internet censorship. I’m an advice column addict, so when I clicked on my daily dose of Annie’s Mailbox I was surprised to find that it had been deemed a questionable site and was blocked. Now I agree that that site is questionable, as their advice tends to be dumber than Dear Abby’s, which is quite an accomplishment, but I hardly think it needs to be blocked.

In all my world travel, I haven’t run into this before and quite frankly it shocked me.

Now, as my regular readers know, I’m no friend of plagiarizers. As a writer, I value copyright laws. But the current SOPA and PIPA legislation is similar to the dog that bit my husband. There was no need for the dog to bite in order to tell him that this was the dog’s territory. The bite was painful, infectious, and (ultimately) expensive.

Together we can kick back as effectively as my 6’4″ husband did. To learn more about why you should, check out the Wikipedia article on SOPA and PIPA and if you agree with me, please contact your senator and representative.

Because the government shouldn’t have the power to bite like this.

(The photo is of the Circumcision room at Topkapi Palace in Istanbul. Don’t you wish you had a room in your house dedicated to that procedure?)

What terrible thing would happen if your employee started coming in 15 minutes late?

To find out, click here:  Stop managing by the clock

The wonderful people at Lovesac Slippers have generously donated the above pair of slippers to one of my readers. They look warm and comfy, don’t they?

1. You must leave a comment describing your worst coworker. Please don’t write anything that would identify that person.
2. I will pick the winner by using a random number generator so as to be fair.
3. Lovesac can only ship to US addresses, so sorry!
4. Please put in your email address when you leave your comment. I’m the only one that can see it and I’m way too lazy to spam you, but that way if you win I can contact you.
5. Contest ends at 12:00 noon East Coast time on Tuesday, January 24.
6. I may well use your answers in an article be published somewhere.

A new study by the Heritage Foundation found that, contrary to conventional wisdom, teachers are actually overpaid when you compare them with “comparable private sector workers.”

To read more on this surprising study (and why I think their conclusions are wrong) click here: New study: Teachers are overpaid?

Dear Evil HR Lady,

My boss and I seem to have run into a huge problem. I have worked for him as a consultant for 3 years. We were in the middle of starting a new real estate firm, of which I have become a full-time employee as opposed to the self-employed consultant, but this has just begun in the past few weeks. Well, his wife has suddenly taken on a huge jealousy of me. I’m not sure why other than I’m a fairly likable person and she…well, isn’t. I have been in the middle of working on getting the office together, internet up, decorated etc., and once the decorating part hit, she found out we were at a floral shop together and everything went down from there.

We had a difference of opinion on a counter top my husband built, and when I found out that she tore that one out and hired a new contractor to install a new one, I lost it. Yes, unprofessional, but I apologized and after posting something on Facebook without using anyone’s name (and blocking her from seeing my stuff), she logged into her husband’s account and found the post, again, no names. Well today, she insisted that my boss make a decision; either fire me today or she is divorcing him and taking the kids. After many long phone conversations with me, he told me that he has to fire me in order to get her to calm down (I believe there might be a bipolar tendency coming out at this point, but could be wrong). So he is going to continue to pay me, I’m going to work from home and we will figure it all out later.

My question is, is this legal? My boss does not want to fire me. In fact, he told me that he doesn’t want to open this business without me. So he’s open to any loopholes we can find so that I’m not fired. I just cannot believe that all of this happened over a stupid counter top. I found it in very poor taste to trash someone’s work, and I said so. Whether he was paid wasn’t the issue to me. I see it as someone commissioning a painting being done, and then throwing it out on the lawn to be put in the trash. Anyhow, I know I’m repeating myself, but I’m trying to be as thorough as I can about this. Oh, I’m also a named VP/Secretary of the new corporation as well as a signer on the business and escrow account (she doesn’t know any of this). What exactly should I do at this point?

To read the answer click here: Dealing with your boss’ irrational wife