Topic: Working

Bullish: F*ck Corporate Personality Tests and Take Control of Your Personality

Bullish: F*ck Corporate Personality Tests and Take Control of Your Personality

Every couple of years when I was in elementary school in Virginia, my whole class would answer a questionnaire about our skills and interests. Two weeks or so later, we would receive recommendations of careers we would enjoy. Someone told me the test had been developed by the Boy Scouts, and that seemed to make sense, because I had read a few Hardy Boys novels, and it seemed to me that the test had been developed by the Boy Scouts circa 1955. More »

Bullish: What I Learned About Success in a Korean Cram School

Bullish: What I Learned About Success in a Korean Cram School

Nineteen days ago, the Wall Street Journal ran Amy Chua’s Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior. As of today, there are 7,590 comments. A few days ago, at 5,700 comments, the WSJ remarked that the piece had already generated more comments than any other in the history of the Wall Street Journal, which is quite astounding when you think about how much the cool kids these days enjoy typing “ha ha u suck” beneath articles about hedge fund derivatives. More »

Party Favors: What Is a Vag Pad?

Party Favors: What Is a Vag Pad?

On The Bachelor, several of the girls went on a NASCAR-themed group date. The problem? One of the girls lost her fiance, a NASCAR driver, in a plane crash. Not cool. – PopWatch

The female equivalent of the penis sock worn by actors while filming sex scenes is a “vag pad.” – Crushable

“We always hated him,” “Why do you have such problems with men?,” and other things you should never say to someone who just got dumped. – The Frisky

Apparently there’s some kind of love-themed holiday coming up next month. If you want to have a date in time for said holiday, you should probably read this. – Betty Confidential

Would you ever quit your job so that you could focus on your relationship? Charlotte from Sex and the City was unavailable to comment. – YourTango

Finally: a guide to saying “No, I’m not interested in you” in as many situations as possible. – HowAboutWe More »

Bullish: Boost Your Career by Never Being Late Again (It’s Not Actually Cute)

Bullish: Boost Your Career by Never Being Late Again (It's Not Actually Cute)

There are lots of things — such as having your phone turned off for not paying the bill and deciding not to shave your pits because you love nature — that are sort of cute when you’re young and adorable and become increasingly grotesque as you age. There’s a life cycle on hapless damsel-in-distress behavior — even Sandra Bullock has outlived her ability to play a winsome, helpless idiot in our nation’s romantic comedy industry. More »

Bullish: How to Win When the Workplace Runs on Feelings

Bullish: How to Win When the Workplace Runs on Feelings

Recently, a colleague of mine — a 24 year old woman in the market for a new assistant — told me that her previous assistants had complained that she never said thank you. “I hate saying thank you to people just for doing their jobs! Why should I have to thank them?”

(Note that, on Mad Men (Season 4, “The Suitcase”), Peggy Olson similarly complained “You never say thank you,” leading Don Draper to thunder, “THAT’S WHAT THE MONEY IS FOR!”) More »

Bullish: How to Get Out of Meetings, Permanently

Bullish: How to Get Out of Meetings, Permanently

If you live to be 85, you will get to be alive for 744,600 hours. If you have a forty-year career during which you spend about an hour a day in meetings 50 weeks a year, that’s about 10,000 hours, or 1.3% of your life, or 2% of your waking hours.

I don’t know about you, but if anything gets 2% of all the waking hours I get for my entire life, it really ought to involve liquor, orgasms, or receiving personalized trophies. More »

Bullish: Maybe Work-Life Balance Means You Should Work MORE

Bullish: Maybe Work-Life Balance Means You Should Work MORE

A lot of career-related writing targeted towards women emphasizes work-life “balance.” So you should really take some time out and nurture yourself, right?

Actually, I’d keep that to a minimum right now. “Balance” is not for the young and sprightly — instead, think of work-life balance over the course of your entire life. Do you intend to retire some day? Would you like to have a baby and invest substantial time in caring for it? If there is some phase of your life during which you will be working 15 hours a week, then maybe you should work 60 now. More »

Confessions of a Former Bible Belt Porn Store Clerk

Confessions of a Former Bible Belt Porn Store Clerk

Let me tell you about my life about a year ago.

My roommate and I –we’ll just call him “Frank”- were both porn store clerks. We never worked the same shifts, so nightly we would get together at the bar, usually around midnight or 1 AM, and swap stories about “Da Life.” We didn’t like advertising that we were “porn peddlers”– we lived in the middle of the Bible Belt- so we merely referred to our profession, in polite company, as “Da Life.” More »

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