Category Archives for "Cube Rules Commentary"

Sometimes, the best thing is to get laid off. It, of course, is tumultuous, chaos, stressful, and oftentimes, maddening. In the long run, however, a layoff can help you define yourself, what you want to do and who you want to work for. But, as John Maynard Keynes noted: “In the long run, we’re all […]

I believe in jobs that have good salaries, bonuses, and benefits. But I also believe that every jobs ends. And when that job ends, you need to have skills and accomplishments to grab that next job. It didn’t used to be this way. Companies brought you on board, helped you in your work, promoted you […]

In my interview the other day on Vocate, the first question I was asked was “What are the most important lessons you’ve had to learn in your professional life on finding and thriving in a job? My first bullet point, of many, was this one: We owe a company our work, but not our loyalty […]

I was fortunate to be able to provide some of the Cubicle Warrior perspective on jobs, interviews, and careers over at Vocate. It’s a pretty long, wide-ranging interview. If you wanted to find out about the Cube Rules approach to working in corporations, you’ll do well reading this interview.

Most people would not have noticed because they were looking somewhere in the past where a thousand articles have been published, but since May, 2017, I officially paused Cube Rules. For a lot of reasons, I needed to back away. Cube Rules was becoming more of a burden, I didn’t know if I was making a […]

While there are many reasons employees voluntarily leave their positions — and companies are looking at those reasons plus other life events to try and prevent people from leaving — I think there are simply two broad reasons why people move on. Those two reasons are: The level of threat against the person and the […]

I always like the “break the rules” posts about your career. What they require is that you have enough confidence in yourself about how you want to conduct your career that you can pull these off. Not everyone can. So take a look at yourself, your abilities and your career framework. Then give a few […]

The information in this infographic is, no doubt, oriented to students in a classroom taking notes. When I looked at it, though, I thought it pertained better to taking notes — or capturing minutes and action items — in meetings. I know I’ve struggled with taking notes both handwritten and on a laptop. In most cases, […]

Take a survey of remote workers. Compare it to a survey of 200,000 office workers. See what it says. That’s the idea behind TINYpulse, an employee engagement company, surveying “509 U.S. employees who work remotely at all times to find out about their experiences in the workplace and compared their responses from over 200,000 employees across […]

For many years, I wrote about the x number of actions based on the years in the new year. But 17 actions to take seems a bit much, even for the best of New Year Resolution types. This year is also different. Regardless of how you voted in last year’s election, this is the first […]

I’ll bet each of these positions have their own level of stress. If any of you out there are in this kind of position, I’d love to hear from you on what stresses you have in these jobs. From Quantum Binders:

There are hints. And rumors. And some facts about what is happening at your company. Stuff that will impact your job one way or the other. It’s called “the writing on the wall.” Plain truth coming at you, obvious to any impartial observer. Of course, we’re not impartial, are we? Let my friend Jason Alba […]

You know that sinking feeling when your hard drive starts acting up? First, you sort of ignore it. Then it gets serious enough to run diagnostics and then run a disk repair. And the repair program tells you that you have an unfixable hard drive. Make a back up of everything you have and talk […]

Infographic Credit: Headway Capital

What’s a manager to do? As it relates to Cubicle Warriors, it seems to me the answers are straightforward: Understand the Cubicle Warrior’s strengths when it comes to the job Assign tasks and projects to the Cubicle Warrior that uses those strengths Support the Cubicle Warrior by removing roadblocks Provide organizational guidance to the Cubicle Warrior so that he […]

  This infographic was created by Vera Marie Reed. Vera is freelance writer living in Glendale, California. This mother of two specializes in education and parenting content. When she’s not delivering expert advice, you can find her reading, writing, arts, going to museums and doing craft projects with her children.

The surprise announcement of Microsoft purchasing LinkedIn is being praised by a lot of pundits as an excellent strategic choice for Microsoft’s effort to further its goal of being the best choice for company infrastructure. And with good reason. LinkedIn provides a much better social graph than the more Facebook-like Yammer, purchased for so many […]

We’ve talked about how the commute isn’t healthy for you, different ways you can hack your commute, and finally, the most walkable or bike friendly cities. But we haven’t presented anything about the costs of your commute, especially if you drive gas cars (my situation is a lot less costly since my car is 100% […]

When you know you’re bound to spend most of your workday in a cubicle parked in front of a computer or on the phone, it can be key to spice up other areas of your life to keep things interesting. That includes the daily commute to and from work. There is evidence that the daily […]

  Commuting almost certainly wouldn’t make it onto a list of favorite daily tasks, and studies show it’s responsible for many ailments. However, unless you’re lucky enough to have a telecommuting option, commuting is probably your only choice when it comes to getting from couch to cubicle. Fortunately, the transit time doesn’t have to be […]