Mar 16

 

Every workplace has them ‘ass toxic’ people who make life miserable for their colleagues. Every single person’s experiencing it all over the world. Here’s how to handle them. This one’s a good read; it may take time, though! 

“You didn’t reach secondary-school level!” the supervisor at the Manila manufacturing company yelled. Camelia Santos* was intimidated by her supervisor’s anger. Even more serious was that without her help, she couldn’t get her job done. The supervisor gave

Santos instructions for labelling products, but sometimes they weren’t clear. When she asked for clarification, the supervisor would ignore her. If

Santos ended up making mistakes, through no fault of her own, the supervisor would shout at her in front of everyone.

Santos agonised for months. Finally, she approached the company’s human resources department for help. Both she and the supervisor were called into a private meeting to work things out.

Santos said she was willing to learn but she had to have clear instructions. She also needed to know that she wasn’t going to be humiliated in front of her colleagues if there were problems. The supervisor agreed to

Santos’s requests and from that day, they worked together without problems.Another subordinate at the same company used a different strategy: avoiding the supervisor. She confided, “I would just keep quiet and tolerate it, and as far as possible avoid and ignore her shouting.”Difficult bosses, co-workers or employees exist everywhere. “Encountering difficult people in the workplace is inevitable and dealing with them is no easy task,” says Dr Mahfooz A. Ansari, a professor at the Universiti Sains Malaysia’s

School of

Management in

Penang and author of Managing People At Work.Difficult people can be just plain annoying or worse - bullies.“Workers in Western countries exercise their rights to protect themselves from victimisation more than we Asians. Victims are often fearful of losing face and family respect, so they suffer in silence,” says James Y. Lin, president of QLQ International, an organisational management consultancy in

Singapore.Even without legal protection, there are strategies you can use to cope - everything from confrontation to avoidance.  

Form a united front Employees in the human resources department of aManila company were becoming increasingly frustrated because their manager never responded to their comments or suggestions. What was worse, the manager was barely doing his job - instead, he would spend his office hours playing computer games or working on his thesis. As a result, work in the department ground to a halt. The employees decided to approach their general manager.Because the employees had banded together, the general manager could not dismiss their concerns as a personal conflict. The company looked into the matter further. They discovered that the manager had lied about his credentials, saying that he was a university graduate when he wasn’t, and that he was having an affair with an employee in another department, which was prohibited by the company. The manager was asked to resign.“You can get a lot of support by sticking together and sharing ideas on how to deal with the person,” says Josa D Puno-Landayan, the Philippines representative of the UK-based Human Resource and Organisational Development Consultancy.

Show them up

James Lin of Singapore recalls helping one company that was having problems with a manager who regularly cursed his subordinates. Lin organised a drama in which employees reenacted the manager’s behaviour, so he could see what all the fuss was about. “The manager watched the person who played him cursing in the office. When he saw his own behaviour played out - and realised what other people were seeing - he accepted that he had an unconscious habit of cursing and agreed to change his ways,” says Lin.

Use humour

“Although we are becoming more willing to confront issues, Asians are normally non-confrontational and aren’t prepared to take their concerns to management out of fear that they might be criticised for not being a team player,” says Dr Ricardo A. Lim, a professor at the Graduate School of Business at the Asian Institute of Management in Manila, who has done research on conflict within teams.Lim says humour is a great tool in situations like this. “I once had a colleague who was famous for being tough with her staff. She would change arrangements at the last minute and get angry with her team when things did not work out. After several heart bypass operations, she remarked during lunch one day that she effectively had only half a heart. I said, ‘That is not true. Your staff knows that you have no heart.’ She laughed, but she got the message. From then on, she changed her behaviour.” 

Be subtle

 James Lin recalls the case of a Singapore insurance company where a female employee spoke loudly on the phone. Other people in the office found it very distracting.Finally, one of her colleagues casually mentioned that she was concerned about the family problems she had overheard the woman discussing on the phone. “The female employee was very surprised and embarrassed that people could hear her talking. Since then she has toned down her voice on the phone,” says Lin Be vigilant

Ricardo Lim says that as soon as employees see a potential problem, they should talk to the person involved and ask them to stop. If that doesn’t work, they should report it to their employer. “Prevention always, always works - it is the best medicine,” he says.Dr Sununta Siengthai, associate professor of human resources management and industrial relations at the Asian Institute of Technology’s School of Management in

Bangkok, agrees: “If the workplace has fewer power plays - whether they are betweenco-workers or between bosses and subordinates - and more collective responsibility, it will make the work environment much nicer.”

How to React to Difficult Co-Workers

According to consultant Gerry Smith and Shaun Belding, author of three books on dealing with difficult people at the office, how you handle the people described below can improve the quality of the work environment for everyone. 

 1. People who blame others, including you. Call them on it by saying, “Why is it always someone else’s fault?” Chances are they’ll laugh your comment off or become upset. Either reaction is evidence your point may have been taken. 2. People who take credit for your work or ideas. This can be difficult to prove, so put your name on any document you develop. If someone swipes your idea at a meeting, point it out straight away - using humour if possible. Later follow it up privately with the offender to tell him or her, “Don’t do that again.”3. People who constantly interrupt. Don’t put up with it. Say coolly but firmly, “Please wait while I finish.”

4. People who embarrass you publicly. Put them on the hot seat by saying later, “I’m sure you didn’t intend to embarrass me, but you did.”

5. People who don’t follow through. A co-worker cannot hold another employee accountable, but you could try telling them their behaviour is frustrating and that you’ll inform the boss if they don’t start pulling their weight.Then do it.

Mar 16

 

I have this attitude that when I’m angry or stressed with work, I indulge myself with shopping (as long as the blanket’s not getting short). That’s my way of relieving all the burdens I’m feeling inside. But sometimes, it’s also not a good idea ‘coz when I’m out shopping —I’m an impulse buyer! I hate discussing prices and bargaining with vendors, the tendency is that when the price is ok with me and I really like the stuff then I’ll buy it right away. This is the reason why my sister always say - ‘do not make Joyce angry! for she’ll waste money’. Well, she’s got a point there! And now, before it’s too late I’m trying my best to compensate every penny that I can. So if you’re bitten by the ‘buying bug’, these strategies might help to curb your spending:

Keep track. Write down everything you buy for at least two weeks: groceries, petrol, even a cup of coffee. Being aware of where your money goes will put you in control.

Quell the urge. Postpone buying what you think you want for 48 hours. If you still want it, make your well-thought-out purchase.

Simplify. Figure out a weekly budget that includes only basics like food and transport. Don’t buy anything not in your budget for a month to discover what you can do without.

Quit cold turkey. Put your credit cards away and pay for everything with cash. Even better, institute a buy-nothing campaign.

Mar 16

 

 

The percentage of couples divorcing is getting higher and higher as time pass by. Fiscals are earning more money out of it, children are adapting to the idea that being divorced is totally OK, it becomes a habit (sometimes)….but why do we have to let this thing happen to us if we can find a good formula for staying together. Isn’t is nice to be with our love one for the rest of our lives? Arguments are part of the relationship. You can’t escape it! It’s the major reason why couples usually end up separated. Next time you have an argument with your partner and you can’t reach an easy conclusion, agree to disagree and move on. Apparently you’ll have a better chance of staying together in the long term. According to Sydney University mathematician Dr Clio Cresswell, couples who compromise the least usually stay together the longest. She says that a conversation between a couple will always be bursting with patterns, just like in mathematics. “Studying newlyweds’ conversations revealed a similarity in the equations of the couples that were still together six years down the track.” Mathematics is showing that those who stand their ground in those early disputes will have a better outcome.

Mar 16
Popcorn: The Best Snack?
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Who among us don’t like popcorn? Young & old people enjoy watching movies with a bucket of popcorn plus fueled by some cans of soda…hmmm, yummy! Especially, if it’s cheese flavored popcorn! But do you know much about popcorn? Well, here are some things about your fave snack:

Popcorn is crunchy, tasty and has fewer kilojoules than other snacks (about 0.37 kilojoules for three cups). It has fibre and virtually no fat when you pop it in a hot-air popper. But movie popcorn is a different story! It may be popped in palm or coconut oil (both saturated fats), and the average small bag has 1.67 kilojoules, with 27 grams of fat. Added butter almost doubles the fat and adds another 1.04 kilojoules.

Microwave popcorn isn’t much better. Even those “lighter versions” may be heavy in fat, kilojoules and sodium. But the best choices are Healthy Choice, Newman’s Own Light Butter and Orville Redenbacher’s Natural Light. Each has three grams of fat or less for three cups of popped corn.

So, careful with the kind of POPCORN that you’re eating…we don’t wanna have a heart attack here, eh?

Mar 16
Phone Bullying
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Although playground bullying in itself is not new, it has changed with the rise in children owning and using mobile phones. Some kids are now using mobile phones to send insulting, threatening or unpleasant voice, text and picture messages, either directly to their victims, or to spread malicious rumours. The Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association has recently launched a new section on its website (www.str8tlk.amta.org.au) to offer advice to both children and parents if bullying is occurring. Here are tips for dealing with the problem:

• Encourage your child to discuss bullying with you. Make it clear that being a target is not her fault.

• Advise your child to protect her phone number by only giving it to friends, and keep a note of who she’s given it to. 

• If she is being bullied directly, tell her to not respond – responding gives the bully the “kick” they’re after.

• Encourage your child to keep any message (and time and date it was sent) as evidence, and to tell you, a teacher or another adult.

Mar 15
The Science of Love
icon1 jivy | icon2 Science | icon4 03 15th, 2007| icon32 Comments »

 

Since I’m a Chemistry teacher I love reading articles connected with Science. While consuming my free time, I found this article from ‘Reader’s Digest” an interesting one.

Find, fall and stay in love. Your ultimate guide to relationships!

Here are 12 scientifically proven ways to increase your chances of finding the perfect partner. (Yes, academics actually get paid to research interpersonal attraction, as psychologists rather drearily dub this thing called love.) These findings dispel many clichés beloved of romantic fiction – from opposites attracting to absence making the heart grow fonder – while confirming others.

1 Like Seeks Like 
Look for someone as much like you as possible, because chances are, he or she is looking for you too. We prefer mates with similar backgrounds, interests, values and beliefs because they validate our own. We even gravitate towards people who look like us. Eminent scientist Sir Francis Galton drew attention to this phenomenon a century ago, and since then it has been confirmed by numerous studies on the resemblances between spouses.

2 Declare Your Desire 
Ditch the strong and silent act because a major turn-on, according to social psychologist Dr Arthur Aron, is the simple realisation that someone fancies you. It makes you feel good about yourself, which, in turn, overflows into feeling good about them. We warm to those who flatter and are nice to us, which is why the stereotypical Byronic hero trading barbs with his love interest (until near the end when they eventually melt into one another’s arms) is a romantic cliché that does not bear close examination.

3 The Eyes Have It 
On one point, however, the bodice rippers are right: there can be such a thing as love at first sight. It’s been shown that the longer a pair of prospective partners lock eyes upon meeting, the more they like what they see. It helps if you have dilated pupils because these are the single most attractive physical attribute, according to research conducted by the late Eckhard Hess, who was a professor at the University of Chicago’s psychology department. He found that subjects shown two pictures of a member of the opposite sex – identical save for pupil size – were twice as likely to pick the larger-pupils photo as the more attractive, even when they could not spot the difference. Enlarged pupils signal intense arousal.

4 Body Language
Run out of sweet nothings to say? Fall back on body language, a form of non-verbal communication understood by both sexes. The most obvious – and effective – overture is simply staring at the prospective partner and smiling; then there are ”preening” gestures, such as playing with your hair.

According to Allan Pease, author of The Definitive Guide to Body Language, what really turns men on is female ‘’submission” gestures, which include exposing vulnerable areas such as the wrists or neck, as well as the leg twine (the manoeuvre at which Princess Diana, that premier flirt, excelled: it involves crossing the legs and hooking the upper leg’s foot behind the lower leg’s ankle).

Men typically make themselves look more dominant by taking up space and engaging in ”crotch display” – thumbs hooked in pockets, fingers ”pointing” at the genitals (worked for Michael Jackson . . . for a while, anyway).

5 Be Beautiful 
Ignore everything your mum told you about inner beauty – good-looking people are almost universally viewed as smarter, sexier and more successful than their homelier counterparts.

According to evolutionary social theorists, we value those attributes that improve the chances of successful reproduction, which is why men prefer younger women with long, shiny hair and hip measurements a third larger than their waists (all markers of youth, health and fertility), while women prefer taller, older men because they’re most likely to have the most resources to invest in offspring.

6 Home Is Where It’s At 
Forget about long-distance romances: proximity rules. Being situated close to your potential love object – whether at the next desk or in the next street – ensures repeated exposure, beneficial because the more we see someone, the more we like them (unless we strongly disliked them at first exposure, in which case the opposite is true). That’s why we so often end up with workmates or the boy/girl next door.

7 Avoid Comparisons 
All that said, it seems that we gauge prospective partners against the prevailing norms, if the findings of Sara Gutierres and Douglas Kenrick of Arizona State University’s psychology department are to be believed. The researchers asked men to rate their dates’ looks after viewing Playboy centrefolds or watching a TV show with pretty female stars. You guessed it: the dates rated worse after the show or centrefolds than before.

This demonstrates a phenomenon called the contrast effect, whereby our perception of relative differences is distorted according to the order in which things are viewed. For example, if you look at a dark object after a light one, it will appear much darker than if you’d looked at it first or by itself.

8 Love at First Fright 
In the 1994 film Speed, Sandra Bullock tells Keanu Reeves, ”I’ve heard relationships based upon intense experiences never work out,” to which he replies, ”We’ll have to base ours on sex, then.”

The truth lies somewhere in between. The more aroused we are in the presence of a potential partner, the more attractive we’re likely to find them, as psychologists Cindy Meston and Penny Frohlich, of the University of Texas, found when they asked subjects to rate members of the opposite sex before and after riding on roller coasters. This effect – known as excitation transfer – is a misattribution of arousal; regardless of the cause of our thumping heart, if we ascribe it to the person we’re with, we feel attracted to her or him.

9 Naming Game 
Dr Albert Mehrabian of the University of California’s psychology department has discovered that many names – such as Darcy, Roxanne or Bertha – are linked with negative attributes. And if you share a first name with a well-known person, you’re considered to share their traits – bad news for people called Adolf, Homer or Saddam.

10 Beer Goggles 
Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker, as poet Ogden Nash once said. Studies have shown that single people seeking partners in pubs are less choosy closer to closing time, a finding dubbed ”the beer-goggles effect.”

It was identified by Professor Jamie Pennebaker of the University of Texas, who decided to test the premise of a song whose lyrics claimed ”girls get prettier at closing time.” He asked bar patrons to rate potential partners three times over an evening (at 9 pm, 10.30 pm and midnight) and yes, both sexes looked best at midnight. This doesn’t mean you’re too drunk to notice someone has two heads; just that as the time available to find a mate runs out, whoever’s still around starts to look good.

11 Keep Them Happy 
The better we feel, the more we like whomever we’re with, so if your date isn’t in a good mood, cheer them up fast or you haven’t a hope. This doesn’t mean you must be directly responsible for engendering the desired positive emotion; simply being in the vicinity while they’re experiencing it will imbue you with an associated glow. This is why you should be very selective of the venue where you meet or take your date. And avoid taking them to stressful places. The resulting anxiety will be forever associated with you.

12 Choose Your Words
The gender differences mentioned above are reflected in the wording of personal  ads. Research shows that ads placed by women emphasise their appearance, those by men their resources; and that the older a woman admits to being the fewer replies she’ll receive, while the opposite applies to men.

However, it should be some consolation for all those Plain Janes and
penniless men out there to know that there is one word that’s always worth including in any personal ad: ”warm.” People who are described as warm are believed to be happy, sociable, wise and popular.

Put It All Together
So here’s the bottom line: If you really want to score a perfect partner, take your date bungy-jumping or sky diving to ensure they are well aroused, catch a movie featuring lots of ugly actors, then finish the evening in a dimly lit bar. Even if the beer-goggles effect doesn’t kick in, the darkness should dilate your pupils and enhance your chances.

Mar 15
Love Hurts
icon1 jivy | icon2 CooL ReLationShips! | icon4 03 15th, 2007| icon32 Comments »

images.jpg

There’s something about cuddly couple cuteness that irks us like nails on a blackboard. If you’re guilty of committing any of these offences, you, too, are startling strangers with your achingly amorous affectations.

 

Stealth heavy petting You can’t keep your mitts off her. We get it. But don’t think we don’t know you’re tickling your lover’s thigh under the table. Keep your paws where we can see ‘em!

 

Glimpse of heaven Your house is perfect. You’re both beautiful beyond belief. You’re healthy, hip and hygienic. But don’t torture me with the beach photos from that fabulous trip to Tahiti.

 

All-dressed So he doesn’t bow to the altar of GQ. That doesn’t give you the right to drape sweaters over him like he’s your personal Ken doll. Let the man dress himself.

 

Nauseating nicknames Poopykins. Honey bear. Baby boo. Muffin cake. Whatever happened to good ol’ ”dear?”

 

Frankenlovers That’s not how it happened . . . Oh, Sweetie, you always forget what I wore on our first date . . . Sound familiar? If you want to maintain separate identities, quit correcting your lover’s version of events. Let Poopykins speak!

Mar 15
…….
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click the link: dearpenis_1__12.exe

Once in a while, my colleagues and I share cool stuffs like jokes and articles through emails. Tony, is from Aussie and teaches Business Studies. He has the passion for his profession and what other people don’t know about him, is that he’s so funny. He loves to make jokes and it usually make us laugh hard in the staff room. Last Exam Period (some months ago) we were so devasted with all the work that we do, so he decided to send this email to me, just to make me smile and remind that ” Hey, they’re not gonna cry for you when you die because you’re working hard “. And since I don’t have a boyfriend he said this one is just right for me!

Mar 12
Get a Life!
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Live your life to the fullest for life’s short! It’s easy to say but hard to do. There are so many obstacles hindering our happiness and I don’t know why we let those obstacles to stand on our way! We always complain with so many things….a reason why we don’t enjoy our blessings…now that I’m in a crossroad of my life, where everythings going wrong…where I can’t find solace to the people around me…where I have to start all over again…I’m thinking of the things that will make me happy. WRONG! should I say things that makes me happy. Then I will start to count…I will count all of the things that makes me happy. For a while, I tend to forget the chaotic world….tears, tears, tears…how I hate ‘em so much. I’m such a cry baby!

From this day on, I’ll do my best to be better, stronger, wiser and I’ll learn more how to protect my love ones from all the harm that the world will bring! 

Mar 10

Goosebumps are known to doctors as a manifestation of the pilometer reflex. The reflex, triggered by cold and the adrenaline rush of strong emotions, involves the arrector pili muscles. There is one muscle for each hair that connects a hair follicle to skin tissue. When touched by cold, the muscle contracts, causing the hair to stand on end, trapping precious body heat. However, there is a difference between these tiny muscles on the body and those on the face. The arrector pili muscles in the body are attached to one side of the hair and they yank the hairs aloft when they contract. In 1993 a Japanese researcher found that the muscles surround facial hair, but when they contract, no net movement is produced. However, there is still some debate as to whether the face actually has any arrector pili muscles.

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