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Friday 6 April 2007

Newsletter Issue 129, April 2007



Sam Young Newsletter

Issue 129, April 2007
Hi guys,
Is anyone at work making eyes at you? Check out Office Romance: Worth the Risk? below.
If you send or receive emails through Xtra, find out how to avoid Xtra's Mail 'Wrapping' Problem
Don't forget, if you want to be taken off my mailing list, click here to send me a reply e-mail and I will remove your name.

Office Romance: Worth the Risk?

Karen Card is a US relationship coach who helps successful business people become successful in their private lives. She has kindly allowed me to reproduce an article she wrote for the American Management Association here for all of you to enjoy.
You regularly see your co-worker in the tearoom. In fact, you have started drinking more coffee just to increase your chances of an encounter. She occasionally sees you in meetings and tries not to stare. You both know there is a spark between you, but you have been trying to act professionally and ignore it. You are definitely interested in a romantic relationship, but you both value your careers. Should you take the chance for romance?
People always set out to act professionally at the office. However, romance is not about being professional; it is very personal. Romantic decisions are not made with your head, but rather with your heart. And because your heart is involved, you may not make the best decisions in regards to your career.
Before you start an office romance, ask yourself if it is really worth it. Is this person you are attracted to worth the risk of damaging your reputation or possibly losing your job? Office romances are risky because:
  • Everyone will find out How will your co-workers feel when they find out you are dating a colleague, or perhaps even the boss? Even though you may try to keep an office romance quiet, it doesn't stay quiet. People like to talk to their co-workers and friends about their love lives, so if she lets it slip that she is dating someone in the office, or if he casually mentions he is interested in a woman on his team, the rumours will be brewing. Once a romance begins, you can't act on impulse because public displays of affection at work make everyone very uncomfortable. Getting caught kissing in the office is a quick way to lose the respect of your co-workers. Or worse yet, lose management’s respect. When you date someone from outside your office there is no need to hide your feelings. When you love someone, you want to show it. But keeping a relationship hidden is not emotionally healthy for either partner. Turning your love and affection off during the day and back on after 5.00pm can prove very difficult and stressful.
  • Competition How would you feel if you found yourself in competition with your new love for the big promotion? It is natural for men and women to compete at work, but do you want to compete in your romance? How will you feel if your new partner gets promoted and you don't? Will you feel like celebrating after work? It is very hard to turn off the competitive drive at the end of the work day. Healthy relationships are based on love and respect, not competition.
  • Arguments happen Relationships are problematic and occasionally there will be arguments. If you work with your partner it will cause increased tension at work—especially if one partner's position is superior to the other, or if you are working on the same team. If you are dating your boss and you have a personal argument, will you be able to treat them with appropriate respect at the office (even if you think they are being a jerk at home)? Time spent apart during the day helps distract couples from their personal arguments and relieves some tension so they can communicate better when they get together at the end of the day.
  • Damage to your reputation A potential office romance will always fuel the rumour mill. Remember, in an office setting, perception is reality. Even if you aren't having an affair, subtle flirting at work will be enough to start the rumours. There also could be the claims of favouritism. If you get a promotion, your colleagues may think it is because you are sleeping with the boss, and you will lose their respect. In a healthy romantic relationship, you should be able share all your personal and professional successes with your co-workers and your new love interest. Your personal life should enhance your happiness, not negatively affect your career.
  • Losing status What happens if the relationship ends? Does it cost one of you a promotion? Nobody starts a romance with plans to have an ugly break up, but it happens. If you end up with a bad break up, will you be able to avoid a major confrontation at work? If you break up with your boss, will you still be considered for a promotion? Even if you don't intend to hurt the other person, breaking up is hard to do, especially at the office. Ideally, when you experience a break up, the only effect on your career is that you will have more free time to work overtime—which may ultimately earn you a promotion.
  • Losing your job If an office romance ends badly, the situation may become too uncomfortable. Are you willing to leave your job? Or, if confrontations happen on a regular basis, you may be asked to leave your job. Is your office romance worth the cost of your job? Many times people spend so much time at work that they don't have time to look for romance outside of the office. But just because it happens frequently doesn't mean it is the best choice for you personally or professionally.
So before you start an office romance, ask yourself if the person you are interested in is really worth leaving your job. If not, keep your work relationships friendly and platonic. To help keep your job and promote your career, it is best to think of everyone at the office as your first cousins—you might feel an attraction, but there is no chance of romance. So for the sake of your career, take some time and look outside your office for romance.
Author Bio: Karen Card, a certified relationship coach, is the author of the upcoming book From Here to Engagement. For more information please visit: www.coachingforlove.net.

Xtra's Mail 'Wrapping' Problem

I am sometimes getting - and apparently sometimes sending - emails as an attachment, 'wrapped' in an outer xtra email which says:
"This message has been processed by Xtra's Anti-Virus filter.
"Unknown00000000.data was not scanned for viruses because too many nested levels of files were found.
"For more information on anti-virus tips and technology, visit http://xtra.co.nz/stopviruses"
The email that was sent straight now appears as an attachment to this Xtra message email, and must be clicked on to be opened and read.
As I have more than adequate antivirus, malware, spyware and spam filtering protection, I didn't want Xtra determining that my outgoing or incoming email needed extra checking or warnings. So after a dig on Xtra's website turned up nothing relating to this, I emailed Xtra about the problem.
They replied that "this is an imperfect feature of Xtra's Anti Spam filter that is currently being investigated to be corrected. When an email contains more than 9 or 10 levels of communication this message is generated. When you get this message back from help@xtra.co.nz there will be 2 levels of communication (your email, my reply), if you reply and send an email back to me there will be 3 levels. So on and so forth.
"The best way to correct this problem at this point is to copy all levels of communication, and paste it into a new email with your reply so that 10 levels are not made. Or, just send a new email with the previous communication omitted."
So it looks as if there will be a fix at some point, but just not yet. In the meantime, I suggest that if you have a new topic on an email, start a new message. Otherwise, just copy and paste emails with nine or ten iterations into a new message so you can keep all the information together.
I will keep you posted on when a fix is coming.

Unbootable System Fix

If you have ever received an error during startup about a missing or corrupt system file (or the Windows Registry), and cycle around and around, not managing to get into Windows at all, you will know the nightmare of an 'unbootable' system.
It is best to get into DOS (keep striking the F8 key during the black screen part of your PC startup, then select a DOS option from your PC's menu) try doing some repairs, as follows:
  • What you can try first is using the bootcfg /rebuild command. It iterates through any existing Windows installations and offers the user an option to add them to the boot.ini file.
  • If that doesn't work, then move on to trying chkdsk /r (the /r switch tells chkdsk to look for bad sectors and recoverable data and take recovery action). The chkdsk function scans the entire hard disk looking for disk-related problems.
And that should sort you out.
 

TLAs for SMEs

Here is this newsletter's TLA for you:
  • SOA, service-oriented architecture. The underlying structure supporting communications between services. In this context, a service is defined as a unit of work to be performed on behalf of some computing entity, such as a human user or another program. SOA defines how two computing entities, such as programs, interact in such a way as to enable one entity to perform a unit of work on behalf of another entity. Also ebSOA (Electronic Business Service Oriented Architecture).
Please feel free to email me with any TLAs that you want to get the bottom (meaning!) of.

Tips, Short+Hot Keys
In this newsletter, we are going to look at all you can do with arrow keys in Word:
  • Word "Move selected paragraphs down in document outline" Alt & Shift & Down Arrow
  • Word "Move a paragraph up in outline" Alt & Shift & Left Arrow
  • Word "Move a paragraph down in a document's outline" Alt & Shift & Right Arrow
  • Word "Move selected paragraphs up in outline" Alt & Shift & Up Arrow
  • Word "Go to previous object or display previously viewed Help topics while using Office Assistant" Alt & Up Arrow
  • Word "Select an entire column when working within a Table" Click In The Column's Top Or Bottom Cell, Shift & Up Arrow or Down Arrow
  • Word "Move one paragraph down" Ctrl & Down Arrow
  • Word "Extend a block of text within a column, selection (or block) within a Table" Ctrl & Shift & F8, Then Arrow Keys; Press Esc To Cancel Selection Mode
  • Word "Select or unselect one word to the left" Ctrl & Shift & Left Arrow
  • Word "Select or unselect one word to the right" Ctrl & Shift & Right Arrow
  • Word "Go to the beginning of the paragraph in which is positioned" Ctrl & Shift & Up Arrow
  • Word "Move the insertion point to the beginning of the previous paragraph" Ctrl & Up Arrow
  • Word "Select text up to a specific location in a document" F8 & Arrow Keys; Press Esc To Cancel Selection Mode
  • Word "Extend a selection to adjacent cells" Shift & Arrow Keys
  • Word "Select one line down of current line" Shift & Down Arrow
  • Word "Select or unselect one character to the left of the cursor's position" Shift & Left Arrow
  • Word "Select or unselect by one character to the right of the cursor's current position" Shift & Right Arrow
  • Word "Extend selection one line up" Shift & Up Arrow

Hot Linx
For those of you who are trying to lose weight, check out an TVNZ article on whether diet or diet and exercise is the best approach at http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/1001923
If you are looking for a book to read & have run out of inspiration, tick a few of your interests at http://www.whichbook.net/ and take a journey you would not have otherwise taken
If you use AA batteries in any mobile devices, then think about getting the new USB cell rechargeables at http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/news/news.phtml/4813/5837/moixa-usbcell-usb-batteries-aa.phtml
And lastly, if you are a bloke with a yen for your Uni days, check out the beer throwing fridge at http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070308/ap_on_fe_st/beer_tossing_fridge

                                Catch you again soon!! E-mail your suggestions to me here

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