Office Jargon Demystified

Like every other tribe under the sun, officedom too comes with a cant unique unto itself. Office lingo is filled with words that sound like a clap of heavenly thunder and almost makes you worship the guy who used it on your uninitiated ears. Seasoned office-goers would find it highly dissatisfying if they don’t get to use some of it a few dozen times everyday.

Unless you are the type who’d like to learn things the hard way, here’s a brief primer of some popular office jargon and their probable undertones: ;)

PFA: An email acronym that stands for ‘Please find attached’. The sender doesn’t want to explain things to you and expects you to learn from the attachment, which is usually a very large document that might take you a decade to wade through.

TIA: An email sign-off that expands to ‘Thanks in Advance’. You are being thanked for an act you are yet to commit, implying that you have no way out but to achieve the expected results. Usually comes with a deadline that is surprisingly within the next 30 min and is ALWAYS accompanied with the PFA as interpreted above.

“Let’s take it offline”: Mostly used in telephonic or video conferences indicating that the thread currently being discussed concerns only a select few attendees. But by the time this great truth is realized, all the rest in the call would have blinked away gallons of yawn-induced tears and dug their nails deep into the underside of the table in a desperate attempt to avoid the embarrassment of falling asleep.

Spare Bandwidth: This is a cunning way of asking if you have ‘additional time’ to complete some extra tasks that no one else wants to do. If you declare that you don’t, it has the uncanny ability of coming back to you with increased load and without an option to reject, this time around.

Urgent and Important: Seen in the subject lines of emails that are just that….for the sender, not you. S/he has now made it your mandate and if you are not careful, you will be doing all of it in your ‘spare bandwidth’.

Gentle Reminder: Again, sent as subject lines of emails to invoke actions to the Urgent and Important activities explained above. The ‘Gentle’ part is mostly restricted to the subject line and as days go by, the content gets ‘gentler and gentler’.

There are a gazillion others, what’s your favorite?

Time to A-C-T Stress

STRESS, perhaps is one of the most oft used words of modern world. ‘I am stressed’ is one phrase that I have been uttering more than my name ever since my post education days. Work stresses me, family stresses me, friends stress me, relationship stresses me. And it’s all real I can actually feel the weight.

I got married recently and marriage as you know is a package. New people, new ways of thinking, new ways of everyday living, along with expectations from your existing relationships and demands of your existing job. Till about a fortnight ago I was heading very clumsily attending to both personal and professional life. So busy did I get with this ‘attending’ business that I almost forgot about a life I had once aspired to enjoy. I went around asking friends on how to tackle the situation. But while on surface it might sound similar, actually all of our situations are so different that it is difficult to derive what worked for others into your life.

I realized stress is something extremely internal to me and it is I who can do something about it. After a bout of real hard thinking I embarked upon a method which I would call A-C-T: Ask-Contemplate-Tackle. Many might feel it is a clone of SWOT – well may be.

What I did here is: I first Asked/Analyzed the situation looking at all the whats, whys, whens and hows. Next I Contemplated on the character that I am (good, bad, ugly), people I have around, environment I am in, my financial and social standing. Finally, based on all my derivatives above I charted out on how I tackle the situation.

One bit of caution before we go about the A-C-T exercise is to be as unbiased as possible. Though all questions are extremely subjective we need to keep an independent view of all the entities in question here – ourselves, people around us and our environment.


ASK

What is the situation?
Why have I fallen into it?
When are the times when I fall prey to stressful situations?
How has my external environment played a role in it?

CONTEMPLATE: (A combination of both strengths and weaknesses)

Look at self

What am I like?
How do I react to a situation?
How do I take feedbacks?
How do I react to the unexpected or unknown? …..etc

Look at people around you:

What kinds of behavior make me feel good?
What kinds of behavior intimidate me?
Who all can I open up with and how much?
Role people around me have played in such situations in the past?
Role they could play now?
Do I need to bank upon anyone or is it self handle(able)?

Look at the environment around you

Environment am I comfortable in (could be anything crowded place, not so crowded place, intellectual talks, light talks etc)
Environment I am not comfortable in
What all have I landed myself into, in the past, because of my like or dislike of any environment?
Role, my liking or disliking of my current environment, is playing now

Look at your financial and social standing (independent of stress to asses whether the stress is real or artificial)

Are you fine enough financially?
Are you secure – house, security policies, safe job etc?
Relationship – are you doing fine with all your everyday contacts like spouse, parents, siblings, close friends, boy/girl friend?

Our minds enjoy intense thinking. Stress I would say is another form intense thinking. So sometimes when all is well (finance, security, relationships) we still feel stressed for reasons unknown to us (what many of us call as BLUES). That's because our minds would have created some artificial intense thinking cloud just so that it is occupied. That is why assessing whether the stress is real or artificial is necessary.

TACKLE

Now I have some clarity about:
The situation
How I react and think about something
Impact that people and environment around me have on me
Whether or not I have essential materialistic want

Based on the above make an outline of the following:

ACCEPT: I am stressed because am in real trouble and I want to do something about it.

OR My stress is artificial all that looks wrong to me are actually minor issues

If the stress is real, answer these:

What are those (part of character, people, environment) that I shouldn’t and can’t do away with?
What are those that I should avoid and to what extent?
How much should I get involved intensely (conversation, a situation, a feedback etc)
When should I keep it to surface level?
What are the things that I can let go without hurting myself?
When should I send the ‘I don’t like it’ message?
Which emotions/reactions of mine should I take seriously (based on my experience or real or artificial stress)?
How do I deal with set of people (ones I can/should get closed to, one I should keep it at formal level)?.....etc

There can be many more ways of dealing with a situation. Crux of everything is: The Answer lies within us, all we need is to look for it!


Cheers
Jhinuk

OPINION: ‘Nice’ guys go to heaven; all others could be corporate honchos

Assuming you are not reading this entry along with your boss, you might probably LOL at the notion of a ‘nice boss’. And there are enough Boss Jokes sites anyways. But consider this: what if some years down the line you get into that very position, or if you are already leading a team, what do your subordinates think of you? Can you be ‘nice’ and still get the job done?

In his book, ‘Snapshots from Hell’, Peter Robinson mentions that the workplace is driven by ‘testosterone induced aggression’ - a set of masculine traits such as dominance, fierceness and even ruthlessness. Being a boss entails managing a team to get the desired results within the specified time frame in such a competitive corporate environment. So when the pressure mounts and deadlines approach, a boss can’t be smooth-tongued with the team for a successful completion.

If you look around your workplace vicinity, you might be surprised to see that the guys with candy-sweet words and easy temper aren’t quite high up while the guys who are not considered so are usually in the big league. Don’t confuse this correlation with causation; aggressiveness might be seen in most people high up but it might not be the (only) cause/reason why they are up there. Needless to say, other leadership qualities are essential. But so is aggressiveness. Simply put, you can’t aspire to be the CEO of your company next month by snapping at all the people you meet from now on. But if you ever intend to get there, you can’t do so by being ‘nice’.

A boss who is achievement-oriented can’t possibly be people-oriented at the same time. So he is unlikely to grant you a week’s leave when an important milestone is round the bend, thereby incurring your displeasure and this is where he differs from the ‘nice’ guys. Eventually, it is this that takes him higher up. He doesn’t allow his ‘desire to be nice’ to impede his ‘desire to achieve and deliver’ when he is forced to pick only one of the two. Not that he resorts to aggressiveness at the very first instance but he doesn’t back off when he thinks it is time to do so. And looking at it from an organizational perspective, ‘nice’ guys could end up being repetitive show-stoppers while the aggressive guys could be the ones the organization counts on to deliver progressively. Therefore, being ‘nice’ is perhaps not a quality organizations look for!

If you are planning to climb the corporate ladder, you might probably want to gear up for the ‘not-so-nice’ title. Yea, you can practice putting on that mean face right away but don’t forget to exit Solitaire and show some great results out of the task you are currently working on ;)

Essential Tools for your Virtual Office

Not every business can afford to invest in important utilities and resources, especially during the startup stage. But assuming you have enough dough to own a desktop in working condition and broadband, here are some free web tools to address the 5 most crucial needs of any business:

1. Video conferencing and telepresence: Tokbox is a web utility that enables onscreen Vcon using a web cam. Unlike the more popular Skype which mandates an installation on all terminals and permits Vcons only among registered users, Tokbox is purely online and only one person in the entire team need maintain a profile; all others may directly join the Vcon after they receive the session URL from this user. Dimdim is a similar service but the free version allows only 1 webcam. TinyChat allows upto 12 members in the free version. Chat, session recording, file-sharing, whiteboard and screen-sharing options are other features available between the three.

2. Document storage and sharing: Dropbox, Mozy, Wuala and Box.net are store-sync-share utilities and may be used like an online USB drive. Google Docs, and Zoho enable online creation, editing and sharing of docs, spreadsheets and other Office Suite components. Both have mobile versions so you can access your docs on the fly. Additionally, Evernote, Google Notebook for notes, Flickr, Picasa for pics and SlideShare, Authorstream for presentations are useful sharing options to explore.

3. Finance Management: Mint is a good tool to manage your business’s income and expenditure. You can link your bank account to your profile after signing up and get ready reports, charts and break-ups as the money keeps going in and out, practically eliminating the book-keeping task. Other features like alerts, easy categorizations and mobile access ensure you are always on top of things. Wesabe is an interesting alternative.

4. Project Management: ClockIT takes care of all your time tracking, milestone mapping and Gantt chart plotting requirements. You can assign tasks to co-workers and track progress conveniently. It also has a file storing facility that enables sharing of project related documents with the concerned team mates. Onyaka has a dead simple interface and is a convenient tool for staff scheduling.

5. Space Management: Floorplanner is a cool tool to ensure that you plan and utilize every inch in your office. Starting with a 2D layout, you can drag-n-drop furniture, flooring, windows, doors, plants, electronic items etc from the elaborate library and then render it in 3D at the click of a button. You can also share your workspace designs with non-registered users. Dragonfly is a similar tool with all the functionality of Floorplanner and has a sleeker output, with the translucent walls creating a really classy effect.

So until you can afford a swank office with ubercool telepresence gizmos and a team of expensive-looking finance blokes, the above utils should certainly help you run the show just fine.

It’s About ‘Who’ you Know more than ‘What’ You Know

We post our CVs on a Monster or a Naukri and we think we’ve done our job. Think from employer’s shoes – wouldn’t s/he want to trust what you claim in your CV, wouldn’t s/he want to validate your candidature from an industry connection known to both you and your prospective employer?

May be it’s time we relooked at our job searching approach. Today, it’s about who (who can validate your potential) you know in the industry rather than how much or what you know. Job search through industry connections on social networking sites like Linkedin.com are increasingly getting in vogue.
With millions of resumes hitting HR inboxes, candidates referred through social networks is becoming a popular way for recruiters to filter applicants.
Tarun Hukku, an active social networker feels jobs have become ‘Topic No.1’on networking sites. Hukku is the founder of the regional social networking site - Bangalore Business Network which belongs to Ryze - a business-networking site which has groups based on career and geographical regions.
“It’s easy for an employer to check out the subtler nuances of an applicant’s character which are usually never documented in a CV. For instance a quality like if a person is active on a social network and has a good standing amongst the members then the chances of him being a good team player are high.”
Indians, he thinks, are equal if not more active than most nationalities as far as online social networking goes. “In fact some sites have a dominant Indian presence. And this trend will continue to grow.”

Though job hosting portals are still in, traffic to social networking sites is amongst the fastest-growing on the Internet, claims ComScore Inc.
LinkedIn is thriving in the recession with traffic doubling to 6.9 million in February from 3.3 million a year earlier. Facebook today has 175 million-plus members.
Both Facebook and Twitter have career oriented online groups and applications like Jobster Career Network and sites like TweetMyJobs. In India there is Jobeehive, which not only does company surveys based on user generated content, but also has professionals networking actively.

Software engineer Kushal Das says “Connections on networks are people known to you through work or personally. Added to that if you have couple of recommendations from fellow professionals, it helps building the trust factor for the employer.”
Harit Mankad, manager in a software company, “In social network sites the jobs on display actually match your profile as against talking to consultants who don't always understand the job we do.”
Business Analyst Arun Ghodke who also social-networks for career feels, sites like “Linkedin have features to pinpoint the search for suitable job openings like posts on latest jobs opening etc. That helps.”

So what are you waiting for, get a public profile and start connecting to people.

Websites you could look at:

Linkedin , RYZE , Slip Squad , Tweet-My-Jobs , Facebook , Twitter , Meet Up , Jobeehive

For affective networking:

•Widen your network before getting into the situation of needing another job
•Keep your online profiles (Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin) connected
•Ping your contacts that you are looking for a change
•Help out your connections whenever you can that’s the best way to get noticed
•The more the number of connections and recommendations the better is your social credibility.

Happy networking to all!

Cheers
Jhinuk

More Goats, Lesser Coffee. What next?

Recession induced layoffs has almost become an everyday feature in most of the news sources. But many companies have resorted to less brutal measures to save jobs and cut costs. Of course, the intention of the organizations is unquestionably benign and the employees have no choice either, but some of them seem really odd when compared to the good old times when things were aplenty.

Gone are the times when there used to be unlimited free coffee in the dispenser, organizations now ration caffeine and deliver it to addicted employees in metered doses. Outgoing calls from landlines are being monitored, usage of staircases instead of elevators is strongly encouraged and printing any document more than two pages is almost a luxury! Even Google has decided to use goats to mow lawns instead of the traditional lawn mowers to save on electricity.

Our Product Marketing Analyst, Sneh was involved in an online discussion where she has got wind of the fact that toilet tissues have vanished overnight from the loos of an organization. ;) We bet there are more such measures wafting around. We can’t get a peek into your offices so do tell us some of the cost-cutting measures your org has resorted to, which you think are beneficial, thoughtful, irritating, ridiculous or even downright hilarious… if you are in the habit of laughing at yourself that is ;)

Let Your CV do the Talking

Can a resume interact? Like run my potential recruiters through the work I have done in the form of images, give them a feel of my career growth so far, enable them to see my university degrees or how about allowing them to actually see me?

Sounds over-imaginative? Not really – it’s actually happening – Visual resumes or interactive CVs or Resume 2.0s are a reality today. It is your web based or online profile comprising details of your work experiences, education, and other professional particulars wherein you could add images of your work, university degree certificates, charts and graphs of your career growth so far and if that’s not enough an introductory audio or a video of yourself elaborating on your skills and strength areas.

And all of it goes to the employer in the form of a web link which they just click instead of having to download the conventional word doc or PDF CVs. These online visual profiles can also be imported to social networking sites like Linkedin, Twitter etc.

Some of the sites you could go to for creating Visual resumes are:

VisualCV (I have used this one and for the first time I found something that allowed me to upload samples of my newsletters, copies of my media articles etc. It makes my profile look more complete now.)
NavAgility
Wordle
Picture-it-Solved On Blogpost
Slideshare

But why bother, aren’t the word docs we send good enough? Sure but try answering these: in the last 2 months how many jobs have you applied for and how many calls did you get? Does it range in a ratio of 20:2,3 or max 5?

Why would potential recruiters notice your resume that looks alike thousands of others lying there? With the job market going erratic than ever everybody is as insecure and desperate for a good job as you are.

You could be more skilled than the average – but are you positioning it well? Is your resume standing out?
In an online group discussion at Linkedin an HR team leader of an American retail major stated that technology is fast changing recruitment methods – today recruiters ‘google’ applicants’ profiles to come to a decision soon how the information is represented on the web will also be deciding factor.

Others ask if a visual profile would answer the vital question: "Do you have the skills, training and experience to succeed in this new role?" Many feel visual CVs are only for creative jobs.

To me these arguments sound like those conventional resistances before any change. Afterall an online resume does not only give you details of the work, education and skills (like a traditional CV) additionally it provides the room to substantiate your claims with visual proofs.

I spoke to a few Indian HR and people managers to find out whether there’s any such trend in India. Informed Guruvayurappan, head HR, Omega Healthcare, “I haven’t yet received any CV with visuals. I feel before visual resumes make headway into the Indian job markets they need to tackle issues like size of such files and employers’ infrastructural ability and secondly HR fraternity in India isn’t yet tech savvy enough so awareness about it hasn’t really spread.”

I asked my manager if he’s received any. “So far none! Even the HR doesn’t prefer one because of the size of the files,” says he. Padmini P, leading a team of tech writers hasn’t yet see seen any CV with photos, images or graphics, so far it’s only been PDFs.

I still checked with some more.

Training manager with a software company Binu Kurup too says she hasn’t yet seen CVs with graphics and images as such. “I think the main reason is most of the automated HR tools accept only text based CVs as they are easy to parse. But I would love to see visual resumes as it is a better choice, than reading volumes of text.”

Web designing manager Suresh Nayar adds, “I do get some CVs where the portfolio could be located online but not yet a microwebsite which would house their profile, projects and their contacts. In my field, I would love to see an online portfolio and that really helps me gauge their creative potential.”

Looks like while none that I spoke to has actually seen a visual resume, many are quite excited about it as it will give them a better view of the applicant’s candidature. One reservation which has been stated is the file size and employers’ infrastructures to accept/download them. Well, since it’s a web link accessing it could be as seamless as accessing any image/video heavy sites like a youtube.com.

Some of the cautions, however, you could take before trying a visual resume are:

- Don’t get overwhelmed and end up making it too vague with only images and graphics in it
- Balance content and images
- Do not jazz it up too much
- When sending the profile link mention that it is a secure link
- To be begin with send your plain text CVs as attachments and mention link to you online profile in the email

The ultimate idea is to get noticed!!!

Cheers
Jhinuk