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The Sexualization of Platonic Business Relationships: How Many Families Do You Need?

I’ve always found it odd when people you work with, or collaborate with, or may work with in the future, use the phrase “getting into bed together” as a business condiment as if to somehow oddly sexualize what is, in fact and deed, a working relationship that is, if anything, asexually platonic by necessity of average function.

I wonder why there is a need to make a business contract a personal and intimate formality in such a dramatic manner.  Private relationships are bound by blood and emotion and decrees of love and passion.  No public business should operate under any of those terms.  I always wonder why that “in bed” phrase is so important for some people to utter during a negotiation or in a team spirit meeting.

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Too Pretty to Work Here

Did you hear the one about the Iowa Supreme Court ruling that you can be fired for cause from your job because you’re just too pretty and tempting?

Standing by a December decision, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled Friday that a male dentist who fired a female assistant because she was too attractive and threatened his marriage did not commit sex discrimination.

The all-male court ruled against Melissa Nelson, who sued her former employer James Knight, alleging Knight’s wife told Knight to fire Nelson because “she was a big threat to our marriage.” Knight fired Nelson in January 2010 after more than 10 years working for him, later testifying that she was not fired for performance reasons.

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Why is Silence in the Workplace No Longer Golden?

I amazed by the noise levels that are acceptable in the modern workplace.  I’m a self-employed wonk-for-hire — so I spend a lot of time working quietly by myself on my own terms — but sometimes I have to go to a client’s building and try to get work done in the cacophony that has become the public work space.  I have no idea how people get things done in the midst of the cubicle world where people yell into telephones and cellphones and each person has their own radio blaring and conversations take place from one corner of the workspace to the other and it is all done using a voice that curdles milk into whey.

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The INTJ Interpreter

On June 24, 2005, I wrote — Mark of the INTJ Rational-Mastermind — and today, that article has over 440 comments:

My temperament type is INTJ or Rational-Mastermind and I’ve known that over many tests over the arc of my life and here is a fun link to a fancy online report on my personality type that makes it really easy and clear to understand how your type affects you and others around you.

Living as an INTJ can be challenging because so few people really understand how you think or where you’re coming from, and in a business setting, we INTJs really need to be careful because our comments are so often negatively misunderstood as we operationally make our way through the world.

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Hot-Desking for Dummies

There’s a new trend afoot in academe that sends shudders through the spine of anyone who hoped privacy and intimacy would be preserved for those who dedicate their lives to teaching others. This trend not only threatens the ivy tower. It will soon infect every office in the world. The Scotsman reports Hot-Desking is the newest way to save money by punishing faculty and the students:

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