Managers often say that they expect their employees to leave their personal life at the front door when they come to work and not without good reason. Every office is almost afflicted by someone who has to bring in their personal baggage and then proceed to tell everyone what their boyfriend did last night, or didn’t do and whom they have had an argument with and so on.

Generally this is viewed as disruptive behaviour, it can irritate colleagues and stop them from getting on with their work. But if you are the person ‘sharing’ all your woes, then you should also be aware that it can harm your career prospects as well!

Managers do not want to promote people who tell all and sundry of their trials and tribulations. Instead they are looking for someone who is discreet, someone who can be trusted, often with confidential information and someone who doesn’t irritate other colleagues.

Telling everyone your problems can also make you look very needy and, shocking as this may seem, if you have to rely on your work colleagues to share your troubles with, then it seems like you don’t have many friends. If you don’t have many friends, then is that because you don’t have very good interpersonal skills?

So sharing every intimate detail of your personal life can actually do your career some serious damage and you may never be taken seriously. Colleagues will also view you differently (as will management) if they know too many intimate details about you and whereas you may move on in your personal life, they may still remember that night you locked your boyfriend out of the house….. It may also be very irritating for colleagues, who after all, will all have their own problems to sort out and deal with.

Some people who may be temping and working for a recruitment agency may think that this isn’t applicable to them, because after all they aren’t permanent, but what happens if you then decide that you would like to work at that company on a permanent basis? Again, if every aspect of your life has been discussed to death by you and your colleagues, then you are much less likely to be employed.

The moral of the tale is therefore, that when you come to work, you leave all your problems behind and just get on with the job in hand!

Love may be a many splendoured thing, but sometimes it is a nightmare in the office. It can lead to colleagues being jealous; people feeling that they cannot talk to one half of a couple for fear that it will become the subject of ‘pillow talk’. Then there is the potential fall out if it all goes wrong. What happens then? Does one of you leave, or do you both stay and try to make life as awkward as possible for the other person?

If you do want to date someone at work, remember that it can and often does go wrong. You may feel that this is not an issue, but you should check out your options about other employment, with a recruitment agency or just keep an eye on adverts for other positions. Yes sometimes office romances do work and love and marriage follow, but often things go wrong and if one half is bitter, life gets pretty (sometimes very) complicated.

You should also be aware of whether or not it is actually permissible to have an office romance. Many companies are very much against it, with some even asking employees to sign a ‘No Dating’ clause, whereby they promise not to date someone at work.

But sometimes, love is worth taking a risk for, so if you do meet someone at work who catches your eye and whom you think is pretty special, then maybe, just maybe you should give love a chance. After all isn’t love worth more than a job and your job won’t keep you warm at night or support you when times are hard. So give the issue some close consideration before you vow-undying love, then if you decide that the other person is worth taking the risk for then go for it!

The prospect of the Christmas Party is one that strikes terror into the hearts of many! But it is part of the whole Christmas tradition and you should try to attend and do let your hair down…but within reason.

Do enjoy a drink…. But don’t get drunk and risk making a fool of yourself. If you get drunk inhibitions can fly out of the window, meaning that you tell the boss that you really fancy him or her, or, equally as bad, you tell the boss that you don’t like them.

There is also a risk that you end up going to bed with someone as part of a drunken exploit and then live to regret it for the rest of your time at the company. So a 1-night stand after the Christmas Party is a real No No! Even if you do really like someone, don’t just get tipsy and declare undying love. Instead wait until you are both sober and you don’t risk being ridiculed in front of all your colleagues. There is a time and a place for asking a colleague out on a date and the Christmas Party is neither the time nor the place.

Don’t feel under pressure to do something that you aren’t comfortable with, for example, drinking too much or playing Truth or Dare or anything that potentially could leave you feeling embarrassed.

Do have a good time though and try to remember that this is one night, where you are all just having a little fun and forgetting about work. It isn’t the time to settle old scores or face up to the office bully, but it is about some good food, a bit (not too much) to drink and a little bit of frivolity.

But even if you do get really drunk, make a fool of yourself and cant face going back in the New Year, remember that a recruitment agency will be able to provide you with some alternatives: but perhaps just drinking less is a more secure option!

This article does not discuss the legalities of affirmative action, I leave that to the courts. This article is solely about the philosophy of affirmative action.

According to Wikipedia, affirmative action “is a policy or a program promoting the representation in various systems of people of a group who have traditionally been discriminated against, with the aim of creating a more egalitarian society”. In my opinion, affirmative action, at least as it has been instituted in this country, is wrong, harmful, racist and prejudicial. Affirmative action, at least in this country, seems to be based, solely, on race or gender.

In example, take two male high school students, both attend the same low income area high school, one is ‘black’ and one is ‘white’. The ‘black’ student’s family, immigrated to this country from Canada fourteen years ago, his father works full time and his mother is a ’stay at home mom’. The ‘white’ student’s ancestors immigrated to this country eighty years ago, his father was killed, in a home invasion robbery, when he was six years old and his mother works part time as a waitress in a diner. The ‘black’ student has a grade point average of 3.05 with an S.A.T. score of 1085. The ‘white’ student has a grade point average of 3.55 and a S.A.T. score of 1270. Both students are polite and well mannered. Neither belongs to a gang or has any criminal record. Both want to go to a good university so both apply to U.C.L.A.. Under affirmatve action, which student would be accepted? The ‘white’ student would not be covered under affirmative action, as ‘whites’ have not traditionally been discriminated against, and no duty is owed him for being poor and fatherless (being poor and fatherless is not considered disadvantaged and the fact that he attended the same low income school as the ‘black’ student is also not considered a disadvantage for a ‘white’). The ‘black student, however, is considered disadvantaged and is considered to come from a race that has traditionally been discriminated against (The fact that his family recently came here from Canada, the fact that he has a parent that works full time and the fact that he has not suffered racial discrimination does not matter.). Under affirmative action, the ‘black’ student would not only be accepted, he would be eligible for financial aid. The ‘black’ student would go to U.C.L.A. and the ‘white’ student would probably end up at a community college.

Change the above example to a ‘black student and a ‘hispanic’ student and the ‘black’ student would be accepted because ‘blacks’ rank higher on the disadvantaged charts. Between a ‘hispanic’ and a ‘white’ the hispanic would be accepted because ‘whites’ don’t rank on the chart, neither do ‘orientals’, South East Asians or Jews. The fact that Orientals, South East Asians and Jews have been discriminated against in this country doesn’t matter as the ‘political correctness’ police in this country do not consider them, to have traditionally been discriminated against enough, to be disadvantaged. The only student that would be ranked higher on the disadvantaged chart would be a ‘black’ female student. Furthermore, a rich ‘black’ student who attended the best schools would rank the sames as a poor ‘black’ student who attended a low income school.

Some universities are no longer allowed to use affirmative action as a criteria so they now use ‘cultural diversity’ as their criteria. To me affirmative action and cultural diversity are the same thing. Both use racial and gender profiling in order to decide who is accepted. This is America and everyone is supposed to be equal and recieve equal treatment. Racial and gender profiling tells people that some races and females are less capable than others and therefore need special help in reaching their potential. Profiling harms this country by telling people that they are not all equal under the eyes of the law. Profiling tells some people that they are not as intelligent or as capable as other people and that they can’t make it without help. It tells other people that because they are ‘white’, they don’t deserve help. It rewards some people while punishing other people. This divides the country and causes, in effect, class warfare. America is a land of immigrants who should have been melded into one great class of people, Americans. To tell them that ‘blacks’, whites’, ‘hispanics’, ‘orientals’, etc. are all different and have different abilities keeps this country from being united. To grant advantages to one group over another is discriminitory and divisive. To tell ‘blacks’, ‘hispanics’ and others that they can’t make it without outside help is to tell them that that they are not as capable as ‘whites’, ‘orientals’ and others.

Some of you may be wondering why I keep placing single quotation marks around certain words like ‘black’, ‘white’, etc.. It is because I do not like using labels like ‘black’ and ‘white’ to describe people. Other words like ‘hispanic’ are, in my opinion, used improperly as they tend to catagorize people from many different countries or groups into one group. All ‘blacks’ are not the color of black, all ‘whites’ are not the color of white and all ‘hispanics’ are not necessarily of Spain or Spanish speaking (Brazilians, for example, are classified ‘hispanic’ even though they speak Portuguese and most are descended from Portugal or some African country.). As far as I am concerned all people that are American citizens (naturalized or other) or live permanently in the United State Of America are either American citizens or American residents. To label them otherwise is to denigrate, isolate and seperate them from each other. Discussing concepts, like affirmative action and cultural diversity, force the use of such labels.

The people of this country need to be brought together, not seperated. Being proud of your ancestors and your heritage is one thing, being rewarded, punished or seperated because of your ancestors or heritage is something else entirely. Being rewarded because others of your race or gender were mistreated in the past is wrong and being punished for what others of your race or gender did in the past is equally wrong. How would you like to be fined for horse stealing because you are a ‘white’ male and some other ‘white’ male stole a horse over fifty years ago or even last week? Untill all people in this country are treated equally, and with the same respect, and are given the same chances, we will never be “One nation under God, indivisable, with liberty and justice for all”. Discrimination is wrong, no matter who is being discriminated against.

Note: For any of you that object to my keeping the phrase “under God” in that last quote, tough. That is the way I say it. If you don’t want to say it that way, then don’t. Just don’t try to tell me that I can’t say it that way. To those of you that object to my using the word ‘black’ instead of the words ‘African-American’, again I say tough. To me ‘African-American’ is just as much a misnomer as ‘Hispanic’. I believe that the word ‘black’ is improper, however, I hate to use the word American when there is a hyphen before it. To me an American is an American. I didn’t write this article to be ‘politicaly correct’, I wrote this artice in order to say what I think. If you want ‘political correctness’, go elsewhere.