ArcaMax

"Hyper-social mammals."

That's how professor Dacher Keltner describes human beings.

While Keltner might feel differently if he spent time with people from your company's IT department, it won't be easy to bring the mammals together again in the zoo that is your office.

Which brings us to "Need to Dust Off Your Social Skills?" This recent ...Read more

Told you so! I told you that the moment there was good news on COVID-19, your managers would celebrate by demanding that you get your cute little butt back to the office.

It isn't that they feel verklempt at the idea of sending your paycheck to a beach hut on Bora Bora. It's just that your managers like you so very much they want to see your ...Read more

What is your dream job? For me, it's a job in which I get paid for dreaming.

Sad to say, professional sleepers are not in demand these days, or any days, for that matter. The good news is that you can get paid for sleeping if you do it in secret and in small doses. Best of all, if you do get caught, you can tell your boss -- and yourself -- ...Read more

Do you yearn for office life?

Do you miss co-workers whose only goal in life is to pester you from morning to night?

If so, you are part of the 73% of knowledge workers who "want to divide their week between home and office working after the pandemic."

So says Nigel Davies, the author of "5 Ways to Support Hybrid Working In The Future ...Read more

Here's the good news: The economy is opening up and there are jobs you can qualify for.

Here's the bad news: The economy is opening up and there are jobs you must interview for.

The interview. It's the biggest -- and shortest -- stumbling block between you and a long, successful career. It's scary to think that 30 minutes of chit and 30 ...Read more

Oh, how fun it was.

Locked down and locked in, we suddenly had an easy, breezy way to communicate. It was called Zoom, and it meant that, like our Neanderthal ancestors, gathered around the fire, we could sit around a high-tech campfire and share stories without ever leaving our caves.

Too bad the fire went out.

"Video-call-induced ...Read more

In last week's sermonette, we discussed when it's time to quit your job. This week, we will discuss when it's time to not quit your job.

Confused? Good! I'm doing my job.

Also doing her job is Alison Doyle, who covered the matter of "to quit or not to quit" in a matched pair of articles on the job site The Balance Careers.

As is apparent in...Read more

Should you quit your job?

It's a question that's providing job security for writers of employment advice, myself included. Studying up on the topic, I found articles about the seven signs you should quit, the eight signs you should quit, the 15 signs you should quit and the 22 signs you should quit.

Of course, you really only need one sign ...Read more

Let me ask you a question: How many questions will you be able to answer successfully at your next job interview?

It's a fair question.

You've been locked down and locked. You haven't been looking for a new job, and if a new job is looking for you, it's having a tough time finding you. But now, with vaccines starting to flow -- or starting ...Read more

You need one! You deserve one! By virtue of your hard work and steadfast allegiance to your company's vision statement, no one could deny you one.

Know what I'm talkin' about?

An assistant.

How wonderful will it be when you finally have your assistant? The jobs you don't want to handle will seamlessly drip down from your to-do list and land...Read more

It's 5 p.m. Do you know where your workday went?

Many people consider the end of the workday as an appropriate time to look back and decide whether it was a highly productive use of eight precious hours or an irredeemable catastrophe.

Maybe this is you. Or, maybe, you know after lunch that everything is going south and that no matter how hard ...Read more

Tired of your current position? Don't apply for another job. Apply to be another boss.

You may not be very good at what you do, but you are supremely excellent at telling other people what to do. And when a deadline is blown or an important project goes sideways, you always know exactly who to blame for it. Even when it's you who should be ...Read more

Today's column stubbornly refuses to answer this question: Both of the approved COVID-19 vaccines are effective, but which vaccine is more stylish?

That's the question I have: Fancy Pfizer or Mid-Century Moderna? It doesn't matter which one you get, I suppose, because both are incredibly wonderful and miraculous. Still, I can't help but wonder:...Read more