Employees can make an employer look good. But who makes the boss look good? The brownnoser. To Ann, that’s too dull and has a pejorative ring to it. Nobody wants to be called a brownnoser. With so much free time on her hands from being unemployed for almost a year, Ann has spent a good deal of it [...]
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Just when I thought I had the email cover letter and interview down pat, along comes a new style guide that tells me I’m doing it all wrong. I had no idea that I shouldn’t address the interviewer by his last name if I can’t pronounce it. According to this style guide, you should “simply refer [...]
Friday, October 30, 2009
Let’s get the mortician, embalmer and grave digger out of the way and get to a really scary job—department store Santa. Hot merry velvet red suit, scratchy fake beard and evacuation-long lines of children who are herded by their stressed-out parents to sit on Santa’s lap in a massive throne chair. Think of it from a child’s [...]
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
ANN’S NOTE: Ann makes a splash in the Washington City Paper—Washington Post Profile Brings Up Touchy Subject: What Claim Do Writers Have on Their Bylines? Every time I a write about Viagra men tell me they don’t need it, and they use subtle words that beat around the bush, as if I should be impressed. I’m flummoxed [...]
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
My urge; have to pee. My luck; enter bathroom at The Diner in Adams Morgan. Two stalls. Both occupied; one with a female caregiver (me thinking young grandma) talking to her three-ish something girl. “When did you throw up?” says the caregiver. No answer. I cross my legs. No action in the other stall—feet hanging off the toilet [...]
Monday, October 19, 2009
Job-posting boards go beyond telling us who’s hiring for what. They give us advice about how to makeover our resumes, write cover letters and prep for an in-person interview. There always seems to be the top 10 do’s and don’ts. I spend too much time thinking about potential questions on a job application and contemplate answers for [...]
Friday, October 16, 2009
Most online job applications require you to submit references from the get-go. I don’t have a problem with that. I understand a prospective employer wants to make sure I’m not a lunatic. It seems so unfair, though. Why can’t I ask for vendor references to see if the company I might work for pays its bills [...]
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Apparently, you can drink, drive, get busted, serve jail time and still merit the attention of The New York Times to honor you with ink. Enter America’s No. 1 bad (stupid) girl Lindsay Lohan in her latest attempt to reinvent herself. For Lindsay, the world of couture beckons. This is from her point of view, [...]
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
As I struggle through life, love and work, I have become a closer observer of movement—the way people do or don’t integrate gestures with words to get across a point. Some people also call this nonverbal communication. For many people, body language is too normal to notice. But it forms part of the fiber of our social [...]
Friday, October 2, 2009
High open rates for email often define the success of e-marketeers. It begins with the subject line, which is the first thing a recipient sees. They toy with length and angst over words. They strive to turn impersonal email into a personal message with words that they hope will resonate with recipients so they open the [...]
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Monday, November 9, 2009
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