Make it to 6pm today and you'll have done it: one whole year at work, finished (OK, there is Monday and Tuesday next week, but let's not pretend you'll be doing any real work then). Hopefully, you will have also survived the Christmas party without mishap, although Metro reckons the odd indiscretion may be career enhancing. This week it suggested: Have Christmas sex with the boss to get a promotion. It turns out that of the 10% of workers who admitted to having ended up in bed with the boss following the office party, 12% ended up getting a promotion as a result. Exactly what happened to the remaining 88% is unclear, but I bet the next morning's team meeting was uncomfortable.
Talking of uncomfortable, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) has come out all Christmassy and announced that next year will be an annus horribilis for the jobs market with even more people to be made redundant in the first few months of the year. "It is now inevitable that things will become bleaker still," says the CIPD's chief economist, John Philpott. "Although there is some comfort in the fact that there are still thousands of vacancies to be had, the number of jobseekers chasing each vacancy is growing by the day as unemployment heads toward at least 2.8 million in 2009." All together now: "Jingle bells, jingle bells … "
At least he is being honest. Not something you can take for granted in the workplace, according to David Woods at HR magazine. He reports that an astonishing 82% of us lie for our managers on a daily basis. Apparently, most of these lies don't amount to much more than telling callers the boss is in a meeting, but one in five of us have taken the blame for management slip ups. It does still seem an incredibly high figure (and, indeed, can it be trusted?), but maybe we will see more people trying to shift blame in the current climate. It is one thing taking responsibility for your own mistakes, but a person has to draw the line somewhere. Preferably as far away from your own in-tray as possible.
Maybe that is a shirker's attitude. But never mind, because who wants to be successful? In Canada, success makes you fat. In fact, the more successful you are, the fatter you get: more than two-thirds of overweight or obese Canadian men belong to the country's upper-middle and high income brackets, despite the evidence that low income households generally have the worst health. Bizarrely, affluent women are no more or less likely to be overweight than the general population. I fear this is because men believe that so long as they have cash they remain attractive, whatever they look like. If it works for Simon Cowell …
Lastly, if you have ever wondered what Christmas in a UK office looks like from abroad - complete with party, secret Santa and tinsel taped on to every surface - ask BBC China's language department, who have produced this marvellous guide. Merry Christmas!
