March 12, 2007

March Madness Spreads to the Office

College basketball's Selection Sunday spills over into Madness Monday at the office today. With the brackets set for the NCAA men's basketball tournament that officially begins Tuesday, the office bookie will spend the better part of this morning perfecting the prize payouts and printing out pages for all his co-workers to fill in. Is this legal? Moral? Ethical? And how can we get in?

For anyone remotely interested in sports -- or remotely interested in gambling or remotely interested in not doing work on a Monday morning -- March Madness provides a unifying excuse to procrastinate on the day after daylight savings time was enacted. It's time to strut your basketball knowledge. Or, to pick your favorite school based on location, name, color or mascot -- and probably give yourself a better shot at winning the pool than the Dick Vitale wannabes in the office. Whether the office pool costs workers $1 or $100, it is a great uniting force in an office filled with politics and competition -- if only for a few weeks. For that brief period, the custodian, the intern and the CEO can all compete on the same level. Aside from the chance at camaraderie, though, it's safe to say that between pre-tournament speculations, morning-after game analysis, surfing the internet for research, and even watching Thursday and Friday's games live on the Web, the NCAA Tournament will surely cut into many companies' productivity this week. We'd place a small wager on that. [Baltimore Sun] [ABC News]

March 5, 2007

The Taxman Cometh

While life's two certainties may be death and taxes, quarterlife's two certainties are debt and taxes.

This time of year, it's good to focus on both.

Trouble is, that tax return you were banking on to wipe out your debt might not be the windfall you wished for. Why? Well, if you're a recent grad in any field aside from pharmaceuticals, you're most likely in one of the lowest tax brackets north of the poverty line.

And if that's the case, you ain't getting much back from Uncle Sam. That's because a smaller percentage of your income was taken out of your check than that of your pharmacist pal. But your paycheck seemed miniscule, you say? Easy answer: One, you ain't making that much to start (see above), and two, the rest of your pre-tax income was pillaged by other scoundrels. Namely, your company-provided health and dental benefits (did they not remind you that 15 percent of the cost would come out of your monthly income?), social security (good luck attempting to collect that in 39 years), Medicare (good luck attempting to collect that in 39 years), and that company pension plan (let's hope the Enron accountants don't have their paws on yours).

So you're left with small paychecks that barely give you enough cash to buy no-frills-version Rice Chex, let alone the milk to wash it down. And now you're sitting in the chain-store version of an accounting office with some semi-retired 74-year-old former bank teller giving you an unabridged lesson in Savings 101. But you're hardly contributing to your 401k, you're paying off the credit card minimums on debt you've accrued since day one of freshman year (note: buying kegs and reserving keg taps on a credit card is not the best move), and you've got no Scrooge McDuck inheritance to fall back on.

Your one shot at redemption -- interest from college loans -- yields no fruit for you, however, since your parents graciously told you they'd take care of the payments while your career was getting off the ground.

Meanwhile, Granny McCountant crunches the numbers on her abacus and reveals that you're the big winner -- you don't owe Uncle Sam. In fact, you'll be getting two hefty checks -- one from the feds, the other from the state. The grand totals: $18.67 and $1.38, respectively. Not even enough to cover the minimum payment on your credit card.

Perhaps it's time to start looking for some income elsewhere. No, not the double-your-return scratch-off game from the accountant. It's time to get a better job.

March 2, 2007

Show Me the Money

It's no secret that workers would love to know what their colleagues earn. Who's making more? Who's making less? How's her salary higher than mine when I've been here longer? Such questions boggle the minds of corporate workers. Others are more consumed by their market worth. Am I making enough money for the work I'm doing? What do workers in comparable positions at other companies earn? Thanks to PayScale, workers needn't spend hours gossiping around the watercooler to answer some of these questions. A simple visit to PayScale.com and some mysteries might be easily resolved.

Launched in 2000 by Joe Giordano amid the envious days of inflated salaries and options of the Internet bubble, "PayScale is used by tens of thousands of job seekers, employees, and hiring managers every day." PayScale is "highly interactive: The site collects real-time pay data directly from workers and spits out an analysis showing what an occupation is worth -- organized by a given city, industry, or company -- with the speed of an online stock quote. So far PayScale has collected the salaries of 5.5 million American workers." Are you one of them? [Business 2.0] [PayScale]

March 1, 2007

We've Got Big Balls

The newest trend in office seating is… giant balls? That's right, at companies from Google to BMW, professionals are abandoning their $2,000 leather thrones for posture-enhancing, bright-colored exercise balls. The irony is, it's often the Zen-seeking higher ups who choose the big balls (perhaps attempting to make up for shortcomings elsewhere), looking more and more childlike while sitting on a Romper Room-esque bright blue ball instead of a commandeering CEO chair. Yet while they sit atop their plastic playroom pedestals, they still treat employees like children -- children in safer seats.

The risks of having an exercise ball as a workstation accoutrement are vast. Workers must stay on their toes all day. Some experts suggest a total lack of back support. Exercise balls are easily stolen. And at any point, a violent game of dodgeball might break out.

We prefer the old school office arrangement of workstation seating reflecting the hierarchical status of employees, wherein the top brass get the giant Darth Vader pod, those just below get am souped up Dr. Evil robotic chair, other big wigs get the stuffy English leather highbacks, mid-level managers get computer chairs with arms and wheels, those just below get random task chairs, and the drones get folding chairs. [CareerJournal]