The Walk

It’s a beautiful day out, so a man decides to go for a walk. He chooses some nearby woods and takes a familiar trail. He falls into a hole on the path. He picks himself up, dusts himself off, climbs out of the hole and continues his walk.

The following week, the man decides to take another walk.  He sees the hole up ahead and decides he’ll go around it this time. However, just as he tries to side-step the hole, he accidentally falls in. Again, he picks himself up, dusts himself off, climbs out of the hole and continues his walk.

On his third visit down the same trail, the same man walks a little farther away from the hole, trying to by-pass it altogether. However, he trips over a rock on the path and falls in again! And as before, he picks himself up, dusts himself off, climbs out of the hole and continues his walk.

  

On the fourth visit to the woods - the same man chooses a DIFFERENT trail and enjoys his walk. The hole isn’t there; he doesn’t fall, there’s no need to climb out, no cause to dust himself off. He simply continues his walk in peace and enjoyment.

How to pretend that you are working hard in office

If you are working for a boss who equates performance with how busy an employee appears or if you are working a company that rewards only workaholics, you are bound to come across a moment when pretending to look busy is the only way to guard your self-interest. It might sound like a manipulative thing to do but it is an accepted part of contemporary organizational culture and something you should have as a part of your office arsenal.

Get Cluttered For Your Own Sake

Try to keep your desk cluttered. This might make you look unorganized but it will also help to establish the illusion of you being occupied with loads of work. Use every possible resource for achieving this, including your mobile, laptop, documents, files, folders, diaries, calendar, cups, previous reports and dictionary. This also helps in preventing your acquaintances in questioning the kind of work you are doing since they would fear you might seek their help in something that already looks so messy!

Gain From View-Blocking Stance

Try to maneuver your PC in such a way that the screen is visible to others to the least possible degree. Ensure not doing this if a senior has expressed a serious concern over this. Even then you can position the monitor in such a manner that the view of others is hindered to the maximum.

Sometimes Looking Distant Helps

You might be famous in your office as the joke-cracking, rib-tickling, jovial guy but sometimes looking serious can help. Try to use a facial expression that denotes an aura of being highly engaged, as if your work has consumed you—looking unavailable here will help. You can try tapping your fingers on the desk or the chair’s arm-rest. This is a typical sign of someone getting impatient or irritated with work.

Sigh to Elevate Your Degree of Involvement

Inhaling slowly and exhaling deeply with some force or Sighing comes naturally to most of us. It is regarded as a definitive indicator of letting-go of stress or just having gotten over something that was really demanding. Do this every two hours or so, to make everybody around you feel that you are taking some serious pains to wrap-up your day’s work.

Play The Curious Fool To Make Others Dance To Your Tune

One way of keeping yourself awake at the office, making yourself look genuinely busy and ensuring that no one can decode your hidden agenda is to keep engaging the attention of others without actually working. You can do this by repeatedly asking your team-members vague, obvious questions. At most, your colleagues will excuse you for having a bad, forgetful day at work.

Fool-Proof Your Idling Cover

Ensure that you create the perfect illusion of being occupied with work. You can do this by constantly making keyboard sounds. Move around your mouse a lot. If you are wearing a tie, loosen it a bit and ruffle your hair slightly to appear like someone who is totally lost in work. Remain hunched over the keyboard to appear occupied.

Don’t Forget Taking Regular Breaks

Taking breaks signifies that you are slightly tired and need to refresh your senses. Not indulging in your regular tea, coffee or smoking break can create suspicion about your status.

Ensure Your Create Some Noise About Your Workload

Keep reinforcing the perception that you have been kept busy primarily due to a demanding workload. You can grumble about work not being distributed evenly or crib about you being singled out for working on harder tasks.

The perfect woman

Nasrudin was talking to a friend, who asked him: 'Have you never considered getting married, Mullah?''I have,' replied Nasrudin. 'In my youth, I resolved to find the perfect woman. I crossed the desert and reached Damascus, and I met a lovely, very spiritual woman, but she knew nothing of the world. I continued my journey and went to Isfahan; there I met a woman who knew both. the spiritual and the material world, but she was not pretty. Then I decided to go to Cairo, where I dined in the house of a beautiful woman,who was both religious and a connoisseur of material reality.' 'Why didn't you marry her, then?' 'Alas, my friend, she was looking for the perfect man.'

No Pictures on your Resume

By C.M Russell

If you've ever considered putting your picture on a resume, forget about it. I recently posed this question to some HR folks. Here are their responses:

Unless the position was one specifically for facing the public (like an actor, on air personality etc...), I think that photos on resumes are not warranted & would hurt more than help.

Not a good idea. First impressions are so important and a photo is a distraction. Your resume should market your skills, experience and education - not your looks.

I agree that a photo can be a distraction on a resume, and I am a photographer! For Creatives, I would recommend a resume with good graphic and information design that is clear, relevant to the desired position and succinct.

Never a good idea. A good looking person will appear as if they are trying to get a position based on their looks rather than their qualifications. An ugly person runs the risk of frightening a prospective employer.

I would not mind the photo. I'm 100% committed to getting the absolute best person for the job. While there is some information in the photo that some may use in a stupid fashion (make decisions based on skin color, for instance), there is other more meaningful information there as well. I know that if an applicant comes to the job interview looking shoddy, it's not a positive sign. Information that comes across in a photo is just as valid as information that comes across in a face-to-face interview.

Pictures on resumes are problematic for all except actors and models - where people are being hired for looks. 

Currently, with anti-discrimination laws and lawsuits, companies are supposed to hire candidates without considering race, sex, age or looks. If you attach a photo to a job application you now have an employer who knows most - if not all of these items. They may now reject you based on knowing this - since the search is supposed to not include these items. 

The whole purpose of using a resume is to get an interview. Since, based on my networking with other resume writers, recruiters and hiring managers at companies - a resume with a picture is more likely to screen out, rather than screen in a client - I recommend for my clients NOT to include a picture.