It is eleven o’clock on a Friday evening, and you have been working now for seventeen hours. Your brain is barely functioning, your fingers keep hitting the wrong keys, and you keep stealing glances at your watch, knowing you’re going to miss the last bus home. But yesterday you got to work slightly late; today you went to your colleague’s leaving do; and you simply cannot … [Read more...]
Person, Brand Thyself
‘Today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is youer than you.’ – Dr. Seuss Wise words from another children’s author. Yet in this age of branding, of social media, of digitisation to the extreme, how are we to know who we are? Rather than staying at home and pondering their choices, people go around the world to ‘find themselves’, when the … [Read more...]
What Do I Wear?
Going to work presents a dilemma. Obviously everyone is nervous on their first ever day in the office, but no one expects you to have qualms about going to work the rest of the time. Yet looking in your wardrobe, standing in front of the mirror, hopping on the bus in the morning, do you ever experience a flutter of apprehension? Wonder if you’re giving the right impression? … [Read more...]
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Unlike George Bush, who famously cited The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle as one of his favourite books from his childhood despite it having been published when he was 23, I was born after its publication and have very fond memories of reading it as a child. This year marks its 40th anniversary, and it is still a much-loved classic. Yesterday also marked the beginning … [Read more...]
How to Love Your Job
Allison’s excellent post on being a good boss left me thinking about employees and their place in a company. Having a good boss is a great starting point, but if a business’ employees mope around feeling lost and miserable, the whole thing will fail. As an employee, it can be difficult to muster up enthusiasm for a job you’ve possibly ended up in out of desperation, … [Read more...]
You are where you are; but how did you start?
Primary school. High school. College. University. Job. The commonly accepted ‘normal’ route into the world of... well, almost anything. Whether your passion is academia or advertising, philosophy or physics, the job you’ll spend much of your life toiling over awaits you at the end of university. This is the advice I may have been giving next weekend, if Cambridge Science Week … [Read more...]