Get your Groupon with Bikram

For all our NY followers, here is a great deal from Groupon for Bikram yoga classes in NYC. $59 for one month of yoga (max. of 2 classes per day) available at four locations. Note* This is limited to new customers only. Instead of sitting at my desk all day I'd rather be stretching into my downward dog pose and losing some lbs!

What's with the GONG?

Another fabulous post from our guest blogger - If you work for a sales driven organization as I do, you probably have a GONG, a bell, a light, a siren or a drum that goes off every time some moron in your company closes a deal. While I truly appreciate the support and the recognition, this idea reigns very familiar to the “gold star chart” in kindergarten. I mean really people; have we made that little progression in the past 25 years?

I don’t see other people getting a GONG at their job. What would happen if everytime you went to McDy’s for a burger and the guy said “would you like fries with that”...the manager hit the GONG. You would probably start to wonder. Turst me, the deal is not that much more enhanced with the sound of the GONG. It is both distracting and annoying and to be honest, makes me think “RECESS”, so I start to put my coat on when I realize that I have been fooled yet again.

Do they even consider that I could be on my headset with a client at that very moment (it could be one of those precious 15 minutes I am actually speaking with clients). Just as the next guy is closing his sale with a great big GONG, I am getting F’ed because my client thinks the fire alarm is going off.

I say do away with the GONG, the bell, the light, the siren and whatever other crap people use to celebrate…

lets get in, get it done and get GONG.

Let US Think Outside the Box

I like to think that we are fairly smart girls with enough experience to manage our daily tasks independent of our bosses. Our bosses probably think the same way but despite our obvious capabilities, their obsession with being involved in every aspect of the business has left us being micro-managed (poorly may I add). We know this company is their baby but why hire us if you’re not going to let us do our job?

Today I had to write a press release about a product and since I am Director of PR and Marketing, was about to send it off to journalists when one of my bosses found the sheet in the printer and decided to mark it all up in red and tell me to change a couple things (its like he makes the changes just to prove he is in charge, majority of the time they hurt not help). I am a "great" employee, so I do it. Once I changed them he wanted me to review it with him once more. How can I be efficient if my work is being quadruple checked like a 4th grade student being monitored for bad grades? Ohhh and my favorite part is that this doesn’t only happen to me….my boss always grabs papers off the printer, people’s desk, the conference room and marks them up with comments. He wants to standardize all documents but he is the one changing everything on a daily basis that it’s hard to keep up. I have watched him change the font size of the title for an INTERNAL document 5x in one day. GET A GRIP, news flash - it doesn't matter. It’s especially comical since he is grabbing old versions (I’m talking from July) of these documents and then asking us why they haven’t been updated. That’s when I bite my tongue and say “that’s an old version" but what I really want to say is GET A CLUE BUDDY!

It’s not 5 yet, get back to work!

Shop (online) Until You Drop

So while in my just woke up still hazy state at 7:30 this morning, I heard Meredith Viera talking on the news about Cyber Monday. Who knew? To my surprise it is Black Friday but online. Don’t get me wrong I love a good shopping day, but all those great sales are not enough to get me into a store on Black Friday in New York. Well this news of Cyber Monday helped motivate me to get to work today. Holiday shopping can be quite stressful and this is a great way to shop stress free while still reaping the benefits of sales. I know what you are thinking; the shipping cost negates the sale. Not today, most websites are offering free shipping if you spend a certain amount. I got into the office, did what I needed to do, and went straight to it. I have already finished shopping for 3 people on my list and am still going strong! I would say today has been a successful work day!

Enjoy the list we've put together for you. Happy Shopping!

General Distractions

Best Buy

Great deals on Ipods

Free shipping on orders totaling $25 and more

http://www.bestbuy.com

Home & Decoration

Crate & Barrel

Save 14% and Free Shipping

Code: SAVE15

http://www.crateandbarrel.com

Williams-Sonoma

Free shipping on over 400 items

http://bit.ly/5hkrl6

Toys to Keep Your Little Monsters Busy

Target

Free shipping on orders of $50 or more + lots of great sales

Through 12/12

http://www.target.com/

Toys R Us

Free Shipping on orders of $49 or more with thousands of items marked down up to 60%

http://bit.ly/6KhXWw

The Disney Store

Save 25% off your order of $149 or more

Code: CYBERMONDAY

http://www.disneystore.com

All About YOU

GAP brands (Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic, Piperlime, Athleta)

20% off entire order + Free Shipping

Code: MONDAY

http://www.gap.com/

Bloomingdales

Take $50 Off When You Spend $250 Or More

http://www.bloomingdales.com/

Ugg Australia

Free shipping on purchases of $100 or more

Code: CYBERMONDAY

http://www.uggaustralia.com/

Victorias Secret

Save 20% of all purchases

Code: VSSAVE20

http://www.victoriassecret.com/

Sephora

Free shipping on purchases of $50 or more

Free metallic clutch with purchase of $25 or more

Code: CLUTCH4U

http://sephora.com/

Other Fun Discounts

Virgin America flights

Flights starting at $39 each way. Book by December 8th, 2009

http://bit.ly/4AvvcU

Shutterfly

Enjoy $10 off orders of $50 or more plus Free Shipping on orders of $25 or more

Code: HOLIDAY25

http://www.shutterfly.com/

Red Envelope

Enjoy 15% off your entire purchase

Code : SRCHSave15

http://www.redenvelope.com

Barnes & Nobles

Save 50% off all NYT Bestsellers!

No code Needed

http://www.barnesandnoble.com

It's not 5 yet, Keep Shopping!

Opening Pandora's Box

I've always been the type of person who can focus while listening to music. I actually need music to focus (aka drown out my bosses voice yelling my name 500 times a day). My website of choice these days has been Pandora. It's basically an automated internet radio station where once you have entered a song or artist, it will play other songs that you may like. You can also create your own radio stations which makes it easy to click when you go back to the website day after day (obviously the case here). The tricky situation is that although I like listening to music at work, my cubicle mates (and boss) probably don't. I have to turn the sound on to the perfect level where I can hear the music well but where it's low enough not to be heard by anyone else. Although headsets are allowed, earphones here are out of the question so that option is out.

When a song is playing you can either give it a thumbs up, thumbs down, or nothing, Thumbs up meaning you want to hear the song again and more like it. The downfall is that if you give the thumbs down to too many songs one after the other it won't change the song. I think that's a bit OOC (out of control)..Actually, that's too IN control. Why is there always a catch with these programs?

I am a big fan of Meiko, Missy Higgins and Ingrid Michaelson these days while Polly is a big rap fan. She is a petite adorable girl but she can rap like I've never seen. She knows every word to EVERY rap song. Too bad I sit across the office from her. Sometimes she gets so into her music she'll im me and tell me she caught herself rapping out loud and got weird looks from our co-workers who sit next to her.

As I'm writing this post, my co-workers' speaker just yelled out "kidnapping a baby" and her face turned red as she said "sorry!" Clearly she hasn't mastered the volume controls yet. Good to know she is listening to the news though while I shop online and listen to music. Definitely a bit more productive in her "not working" than mine.

Check out Pandora at http://www.pandora.com/

It’s not 5 yet, get back to work!

I Do Declare

I know to most it would seem pretty frustrating to have Michael Scott as a boss but we would be in heaven if he were our boss.

So we have decided to give you our favorite Office quote weekly. Our favorite from last weeks episode (other then I do declare! of course):

“I only slack off when things are good.” – Jim

Our thoughts exactly (well, for the most part)!

It’s not 5 yet, get back to work!

Ready-Headset-Go!

We have decided to introduce a guest Blogger, a close personal friend who shares our same basic beliefs about work. She is a frequent aim conversation during the day for me and has most of the same work woes as the rest of us… I think you will enjoy her biting humor. She will be divulging her knowledge, tips and stories once a month. Enjoy!

The real trick to not doing work at work is to be a deceiver. If no one knows, no one can bother you or fire you (which don’t get me wrong… looks like a good option 98 percent of the time). After a few years of working, you start to understand that as long as you do more than the bare minimum, people will think you are exceeding.

For example, I always hit my weekly numbers…takes me a good 45-60minutess to do a full days worth of work…and trust me, I “work” from 730am-7pm to appease the micro-managing trolls that are considered management. So the trick is to simply do everything right when you get in. Get it done and over with, then the rest of the day you can screw around, go on AOL, check Facebook from your phone, go to the bathroom and chat with a couple friends. It is certainly possible to have a full relationship breakdown, rent an apartment, order a new wardrobe and plan a birthday party while still managing to succeed at your job.

I have one vital piece of advice that has saved me from meetings, tasks and other menial office work…. if you put your headset on during personal calls, people think you are actually working. I wear my headset 6-7 hours per day, yet I speak with clients for a total of 15 minutes; on a VERY busy day. As you can imagine…I am, of course, wearing my headset now.

More tricks and tips to being a deceiver to come, but for now…I have to tend to a very important AIM conversation.

It’s not 5 yet, get back to work!

Putting Out The Fire(wall)

I am usually not the routine kind of person, I don’t need a plan and I go with the flow. Not when it comes to my mornings at work. I get in, get coffee, read emails and then go to work. And by work I mean read all of my blogs/websites. Here are some of my regulars in no particular order:

http://www.popsugar.com/

http://justjared.buzznet.com/

http://www.seaofshoes.com/ (she is pretty badass for a 17 year old)

http://www.bravotv.com/ (especially after a great episode of RHW!!! All the reality stars blog)

http://gawker.com/

http://ny.eater.com/ (yes we are foodies too)

All three of the Kardashian sisters’ Blogs (definitely a guilty pleasure)

I also visit various magazine websites for legitimate gossip (People, Usweekly) as well as check some celebrity tweets

So my boss decided to start his own company and as a loyal employee (eh hem a better position and higher salary) I decided to go with him. To my dismay as soon as our network was put in place I was BLOCKED, yes BLOCKED, from both Perezhilton (of all sites it had to be perez…the Mecca of celebrity dirt that I just can’t get enough of) and Facebook. What’s a girl to do? How was I going to see the progression of an old friend’s weight gain or my ex’s engagement?

Then a miracle occurred, a friend sent me a photo pasted in an email and I accidently clicked on the photo, it brought me to facebook!!! A place I hadn’t been to in over 4 months. I swear I heard ahhhhh and saw the light. My day went from boring to fun in a matter of seconds. Try the trick and you’ll be amazed at how simple it was all along to start socializing (aka stalking) again at work.

We never took it too far until recently. We were really missing Perez and let’s face it we spend enough time on the damn computer all day that it’s the last thing I want to do when I get home. Problem solved, rules are made to be broken…there is a loophole. My favorites that I’ve learned are proxy sites to access websites and blogs that are usually blocked on our server. I found that http://dowl.info/ is your best bet and could take you anywhere from youtube, twitter to our personal Mecca – perezhilton.com. You can only imagine the dance I did with my feet under my desk when I hacked in to the gossip control center. Some of my friends have praised me for discovering this site. Just in case dowl.info does not work for you (some companies just won’t make it easy on you!) here are other proxy sites:

http://ipsilo.info

http://studentfirewall.co.cc

http://proxy-friend.co.cc/

http://recessforeverbypass.info

You can even try typing the IP number in the web browser instead of the URL but this is not always a sure way in. Proxy sites like the ones above are your best chance at cracking your company’s system. Unfortunately for us youtube is still a no go; we will keep you posted.

It’s not 5 yet, get back to work!

I once googled "bored at work," found this website http://www.personalityquiz.net/ and spent the remainder of my day doing every last quiz and personality test. - True Story

Back To The Drawing Board

Article from MetroNY 11.9.09

We have a doodler in our office who has doodled in his calendar all the way through January 10, 2010 and we are only in November 2009! Who knew it was such a widespread tactic for getting through the day? Maybe this is his calling. Apparently it's not frowned upon anymore so doodle away while listening to your boss drone on and on about budget cuts (as long as you arent the one who gets cut).

Here is a link to famous doodles. If our nation's fearless leaders have done it, why can't we?

http://www.presidentialdoodles.com/index.html

Send us some of your doodles and maybe we'll post them!

It’s not 5 yet, get back to work!

All in a Day's "Work"

2:30-4:30pm, the lull, you know what I’m talking about. That time in the day when you think “is this really how I spend every day?” 2 and a half more hours you have got to be kidding me? Well just about every day at this time, my co-worker and real life best friend (I say real life because we all know the difference from “work” friends and friend friends) and I whole heartedly plan our way out. If I don’t say so myself we have had some pretty great ideas (misc. baby products, clothing lines, a ton of websites) to make it big and strike it rich. Yet something, I can’t say what, keeps us at our 9-5. Then it hit us, we had been thinking too big, trying to reinvent the wheel if you will. Yesterday at 3:36 (yes I know it was exactly 3:36 because obviously we were talking on aim) it came to us like magic. What do we spend 8 hours a day doing? I will tell you one thing, it’s most certainly NOT work…well definitely not enough work. Now I am going to say something just to get it out of the way , we both happen to be great at our jobs and our “not working” rarely interferes with our office obligations. Now I can’t say the same for the other way around!

We knew we had found our release. We know all around the world at this very moment people are suffering in cubicles, staring at their computers. So we immediately designed a blog and got right to writing our fist post. Of course midway through my 4th sentence, right when my juices were flowing, I heard the dreadful sound of my boss’ voice calling out my name. And I honestly thought to myself “Is he serious right now? How dare he disrupt me?” At this point it was 4:53pm, I finished his menial task in five minutes and for the first time in months I actually considered willingly staying past 5:00… clearly just to finish this very post. So this is it, a blog totally dedicated to getting through your long boring work day while making the most of your time. I would say I am pretty much an expert at this point, as I have planned vacations, completed my holiday shopping, got around firewalls…and the list goes on all in a day’s “work”.

It’s not 5 yet, get back to work!