tidy girl in messy job

Betty is 19 and found her first job through an agency which put her on a course in coding and guaranteed her a placement. Unfortunately the placement turned out to be a square peg in a round hole type job - it was a bad fit for her.

"I'm a tidy girl and this is a really messy job!"

"I've been in this job for three months now and I'm still technically in training," says Betty, "but there’s no designated trainer, nobody knows what they're doing - although everyone claims to know it all - and there’s nothing in manual format to standardize the work."

She has been bombarded with information from co-workers - much of which conflicts, or is totally unnecessary - and because she is prevented from doing her job properly she feels miserable and incompetent.

"My mom tells me not to despair," says Betty, "but I didn't expect a job to be anything like this. Most of my co-workers are very much older than myself but I am not experiencing reverse ageism."

"On the contrary," says Betty, "the company and staff bent over backwards to make my commencement pleasant."

"There was a week-long induction program that had me learning the detailed history of the company from its inception in 1898 right through until the present time," says Betty.

"I also got to formally meet every single person in the company from the CEO to the janitor," says Betty, "and I was shown around every nook and cranny in the building in order to familiarize myself with the various departments and what they do."

Exhausted from this exercise, Betty was eager to settle down in her job and get some work done in peace and quiet in her second week on the job.

However, peace and quiet escaped her. In stark contrast to the detailed induction program, her on-the-job training was woeful.

"There was absolutely nobody in charge of training and absolutely nothing documented in writing to give me an inkling of what was going on," explains Betty.

"The two guys on either side of me took me under their wing." laughs Betty. "They were so helpful - but one told me to do this, the other told me to do that. And when I asked a third guy what I was supposed to be doing, I was then told something completely different from what the first two guys had told me. And then all of the guys came over and put in their two cents worth!".

"Everyone was so helpful," laughs Betty, "but the place is crazy!"

Betty is sorely confused and overloaded with useless information.

She would start on something and someone would come over and say: 'No, you do it this way.' Then as soon as she had changed what she was doing, someone else would come over and say: 'No, you do it this way'.

Given this sort of on-the-job training anyone would soon go quietly, if not loudly, insane, and Betty couldn’t understand what was going on.

"The guys are not being deliberately obstructive," explains Betty. "They are all laid-back and don’t seem to care that nobody is in charge and nobody really knows what they are doing."

Being a tidy sort of girl who likes to have everything in order and be in total control of her work, Betty could not believe that after three months on the job she was still none the wiser because nobody really had a clue what they were doing even though they all somehow managed to fill eight hours a day doing something.

She describes the place as complete and utter bedlam and is in the process of quitting and looking for another job.

"Next time around," laughs Betty, "I am going to make sure that I have written into my contract who will be training me, how long the training will last and whether work practices are consistent and detailed in manual format."

"I'm the only one having a problem coping with lack of structure and consistency in the workplace," admits Betty, "so I guess it's a classic case of being a square peg in a round hole."

"I'm looking forward to finding a nice square hole into which I can fit," laughs Betty, "but my mom wants me to give the job at least two years."

"I told her that a job isn't like marriage," explains Betty. "I made no vow to stay with it forever and since I'm starting out in life I want to be learning and doing something constructive so that I can get ahead. At this job, I'm going backwards and feeling incompetent. That's why I've made up my mind to move on."

untouchable managers

Rosemary is back home being a stay-at-home mom after six months of working in a high pressure, high stress job with a manager who pushed her around like she was a bit of dirt and she's so upset by the experience that right now she's not sure how long her 'between jobs' period is going to be.

"I suppose that manager treated me badly because he thought that with my qualifications I would be coveting his job one day," says Rosemary, "and I suppose I was - that's natural - but when I couldn’t bear it any more, I was in a dilemma about the correct protocol for resigning."

"We all know what the employment gurus advise about resigning," laughs Rosemary, "but all that crap about a desire to expand one's horizons and regret about leaving such a wonderful job with wonderful managers and co-workers - is absolutely and totally anathema to me."

"Because of this admonition to tell lies and protect future career prospects," says Rosemary, "nobody will ever know the truth about why people quit jobs and nothing will ever get done about removing the problems that cause resignations."

"Why are these lies perpetrated? asks Rosemary. "Why is it not okay to tell the truth?"

Rosemary makes the point that when relationships come to an end, it is very rare that two people have anything good to say about each other and that is perfectly acceptable.

"If the two people still liked each other, they would not be splitting up, would they?" asks Rosemary. "So why is it unacceptable, for instance, to resign a job on account of 'irreconcilable differences' with one's boss or co-worker?"

Rosemary feels that irreconcilable differences is a wonderful explanation for job quitting, expressing a perfectly understandable human condition, without getting down and dirty about the specifics.

"The employment gurus say that you will be branded as someone unfit for teamwork - and will not find another job easily - if you even hinted that you had an interpersonal problem at your last job," says Rosemary, "but I reject this."

"I cannot believe that employers and their HR departments are so naive that they do not understand that just about everybody resigns a job because of some interpersonal problem."

"If it is not the main reason," says Rosemary, "then it is definitely a very close secondary reason."

"Basically," says Rosemary, "jobs are relationships. Forget about the product, the pay, the building and other window dressing. It is the people you will be working for, and with, that make or break a job. And, it is far more apparent now than it ever was because of the increasingly competitive job market."

"These days," says Rosemary, "both staff and management work in team structures and individuality is no longer a prized characteristic. With shared tasks and sometimes being within elbow's reach of adjacent co-workers, we must bury all that primitive individualism that once separated us from the apes."

Very few people are naturally and overwhelmingly 'people' persons - team players - and Rosemary is one lady who knows only too well that it is a very thin veneer of civility that we affect in order to get through the day at work.

Eventually that veneer cracks.

"Most people are smart enough to keep their cool and plan their resignation," says Rosemary, "but it is not always possible to find a new job before an explosion occurs."

Rosemary agrees that married women like herself, with a working husband, are greatly advantaged in being able to quit lousy jobs while they are ahead and still in control of their faculties.

"I have single friends, especially single working mothers," says Rosemary, "who are badly disadvantaged in the workplace because employers and co-workers know that they can't quit jobs easily."

"Some people get a real kick out of making life hell for the poor single mothers," says Rosemary, "and when workplace scenes do occur it is often some poor single woman breaking under the strain."

"There was a single mother who ended up in hospital in her first week at my old workplace because she was too stressed by one of the stinking managers to attend to a medical problem," says Rosemary, "and when she returned to work he continued to harass her - because he knew how desperately she needed the job."

Rosemary admits that she has never yet come across a person who did not resign a job under suspicious circumstances.

"If honesty were a prized characteristic in the workplace," says Rosemary, "then irreconcilable differences would become as common and acceptable in resignation matters as it is in divorce and there would be no more suspicious circumstances."

"The reason for resignation is a stock interview question for both parties," says Rosemary, "and it’s about time it was dropped. Pick up most interview preparation books and the guru will tell you to rehearse the following silly scene:

'Why did you resign your last job?' asks the Interviewer.

You dutifully reply: 'I needed to broaden my horizons.'

Then you ask: 'Why did the person resign this job I'm applying for?'

The Interviewer dutifully replies: 'Ms Smith needed to broaden her horizons.'

It is an utterly ridiculous question for both parties to ask and someone has to stop this madness."

"When interviewers say that the previous person resigned because she wanted to work overseas, or spend more time at home, or broaden her horizons," claims Rosemary, "the truth is that very few people quit a job for the reasons they state."

"Some people may actually go overseas on an extended holiday to justify giving 'working overseas' as an excuse to quit a job," says Rosemary, "but I know from asking around that everyone’s main reason for quitting a job - not the only one - is that they were being harassed by a manager or co-worker."

"Enough of these lies!" screams Rosemary.

"Does it not occur to management that one bad apple - even within its own management team - is often the cause of many good workers quitting?

"If a three-strikes-you-are-out policy were adopted in workplaces - for both management and staff - then these bad apples can be removed legally from their jobs."

"When staff members do not tell the truth about why they are quitting, these bad apples are given carte blanche to continue their bad behavior," says Rosemary. "They thrive and bask in our lies to the point where they may actually believe that they are 'wonderful' managers and co-workers."

"I refused to perpetuate this madness," says Rosemary. "My resignation letter stated 'irreconcilable differences' and if my next employer doesn't accept that reason as being good enough then I'll find one who does."

"As you can tell," sighs Rosemary, "I'm very upset by my experiences in that job and I'm going to need as much time as necessary to recover from it. I can't apply for another job when I'm so stressed out, so it looks like my time 'between jobs' is going to be weeks if not months and that means money lost and this makes me angrier than ever because that jerk of a manager is still raking in his dough."

brazening out a bad fit

Vivienne is 43, a millionaire's wife working for pocket change, and she was selected from 165 applicants for a basic team position in a large, high profile organization. Co-workers whose friends had been rejected for the job are, understandably, hostile to her and make it plain that she's a bad fit for the position.

"Most of the applicants were single mothers desperate for a decent job," explains Vivienne, "and when it became known that I was a millionaire's wife with grown-up children, and only wanted the job for fun and a bit of pocket change, the mood in my team was black."

"I work with very poor women," explains Vivienne, "and I guess they just don't like working with a lady who looks like a million dollars - and can afford to look that way. They call me a rich bitch."

"I believe I was selected because I would be a great asset to the company image-wise," says Vivienne, "but everyone tells me that it was unfair to select me because I wasn't the most qualified or experienced applicant."

The advertisement for the position emphasized qualifications and experience and mentioned absolutely nothing about appearance, so everyone wanted to know why Vivienne was given preference over single mothers who had worked hard to gain qualifications and experience and desperately needed a better paying job in order to improve themselves and the lot of their children.

"It's true that the income I receive from this job will be spent wholly on beauty parlors, clothes and shoes," confesses Vivienne, "but I see no reason to feel guilty about spending my money on looking good."

"My spending habits are keeping beauticians, hair-dressers, garment and footwear manufacturers and retailers in business," explains Vivienne, "so I see no injustice in giving me the job even though I was not only one of the least qualified and experienced of the applicants but also the least needy of them all."

"There's talk that I got the job because of a bit of string-pulling at the top," laughs Vivienne, "but I didn't. My husband doesn't play golf with one of the directors and my luncheon companion is not one of the wives of one of the directors."

"I am well aware that thousands of single working mothers, through divorce or unexpected pregnancy, are often left with the sole responsibility of raising and financially supporting their children," says Vivienne.

"I am also well aware that these women are desperate for a decent job and yet are often forced by their vulnerable circumstances into accepting menial low-paying jobs, totally incongruous with their education and experience."

"It is far too facile to say that women like me are taking jobs away from the women who need them," says Vivienne.

"It was a management decision to give me the job. I did not pull strings to get it and if my co-workers want to vent their spleens they should do so to management, not me."

"I have grown up children living independently," explains Vivienne, "and it's quite likely that the company simply saw me as a good employment risk."

"Everyone knows how working mothers, especially single mothers take time off at the drop of a hat when their kids are sick or something is happening at their schools," says Vivienne. " I don’t pose that sort of risk."

Vivienne is also very stable emotionally. Nothing fazes her - she believes that stress is very aging and avoids it like the plague - and in that respect she is a good balance for a team of younger and poorer working mothers who are easily stressed and prone to sickness.

And, of course, Vivienne is well presented.

The women on her team chuck together whatever clothing is clean and relatively uncrumpled in the mornings. Vivienne, on the other hand, looks like she has a maid lay out everything for her. No creases, no crumples, no color clashes. Everything is perfect.

And while the rest of the women can only find time to smear a bit of lipstick on breakfast egg-stained lips, Vivienne has time for a total make-up routine.

And hair?

"Well, one of the women on my team was seriously thinking of affecting the look of a Moslem woman so that she can wear that wonderful scarf that hides everything," laughs Vivienne

"Yes," says Vivienne, "I suppose I put the women on my team to shame in many ways. My hair is glorious. Even when the wind blows it, it looks perfect. But I look at it this way - I am a role model they can aspire to. I am not a threat."

"I am a fun lady and I do my fair share of work - and the other women do like me, albeit begrudgingly," says Vivienne, "and I take with a pinch of salt their remarks about my being exceptionally vain and shallow."

"They tell me that I should stop play-acting as ‘Barbie the Working Girl’ and go back home to Ken so that my job can be given to a woman who really needs it," laughs Vivienne, "but I just tell them 'tough'!"

"Until employers are made responsible for social problems by being forced to give preference to the needy," says Vivienne, "I feel that I have every right to the job."

resigning with style

Victoria is married with a high income husband and when a job becomes unpleasant in any way she has the advantage of being able to nip things in the bud very quickly and resign with style.

"I work for fun rather than money," explains Victoria, "and when a job becomes stressful or coworkers become nasty I just don't hang and allow things to get so bad that my health and looks suffer -- I give notice to quit immediately, whether or not I have another job lined up."

"My husband has a six-figure salary and is more than willing to financially support me if I'm not working," says Victoria, "but so far I've never experienced a between jobs period because another job always come up and I'll tell you why it does."

"The secret of my success in being able to get out of bad work situations and into another job quickly is to resign as soon as I feel uncomfortable and to do so with style."

"Because I'm pleasant about the whole thing, the employer I'm leaving is more than happy to give me excellent references and in many cases he or she will recommend me directly to a new employer, starting immediately!"

"I pay heed to the early signs of trouble at the places I work, and I turn the process of quitting into a fine art rather than the stressful experience it is for most other people."

"If you get out of a bad workplace before it becomes really toxic," explains Victoria, "you can make your resignation a pleasant experience for both yourself and the employer."

"I give ample notice of my intention to quit, I tie up all loose ends before I leave, and I hand over my work to the next person with the minimum of fuss. No matter how bad my situation was in these jobs, I've always been rewarded when I leave with great references and a farewell party."

"It sounds hypocritical, and it is," laughs Victoria, "but that's the way the world works. People whose nasty behavior is the reason for your resignation, will be all smiles and sweetness as soon as they know you've resigned."

"It doesn't matter whether you've been with a company for two days or twenty years," says Victoria. "It's vitally important to pick up the early signs of trouble at work and quit while you're ahead and in control of the situation."

"Too many women have a habit of either rationalizing the early signs of trouble, or missing them altogether and as a consequence of this failure they end up stuck in an intolerable situation at work and become so stressed that they are unable to quit with style."

"When the obvious signs of trouble hit you, it's too late to save yourself," says Victoria. "By then, you've become very uncomfortable and very stressed. Let's face it, that's exactly what the obvious signs of trouble are designed for. You didn't take the hint at the first sign of trouble -- you rationalized it -- and now they want to make you feel absolutely miserable. They want to get rid of you and if you are not going to resign on good terms, then they are going to force you into resigning on bad terms or, worse still, sack you for being the stressed out, incompetent person you've become as a result of their harassment."

"I always resign at the earliest stages of trouble," says Victoria, "so I've never experienced the humiliation of being forced out of a job. But I've seen many, many women who hang on in there until the bitter end and totally ruin their lives in the process."

"I realize that a lot of women desperately need their jobs," explains Victoria, "but isn't health more important? Women can become physically ill when they're stressed every day with unpleasant things happening at work."

"I advise all women to quit before they get seriously ill," says Victoria. "Yes, I appreciate that many women are single - have a family to feed, a mortgage to pay and may have tramped the streets for months before they got their present job -- but the more you put up with bad treatment at work the more heartbreaking your ultimate quitting experience is going to be."

"If entitlements are due then it is obviously in your best interests to obtain legal advice about whether to deliberately slack off and force them to fire you," says Victoria, "but as money is never an issue for me I always opt to get out immediately before madness sets in."

"No matter what the truth is," says Victoria, "the advice given by employment gurus about resigning is absolutely the right thing to do."

"The gurus say that the only acceptable reason for resigning a job is 'a desire to expand one's horizons, having achieved all one is capable of doing in one's present job and being regretful that one must leave such a wonderful job with wonderful managers and co-workers' and that's the only way to resign with style."

"Yes, of course, it's a pack of lies but you've got to do it in order to get good references," says Victoria. "If you don't like lying, or you're not good at it, then learn how to do it -- go to drama school or something -- because if you can't lie convincingly in these situations then you'll never get anywhere."

"You can only resign with style when you're not stressed," says Victoria, "so if you've allowed a bad situation to get worse then you've gone way beyond that point where you can resign with style."

"When you're stressed out of your brain in a bad work situation you are incapable of lying convincingly about your reasons for wanting to leave," says Victoria, "and even if those responsible for your misery are not gloating at your demise it is very difficult not to become very angry under these circumstances."

"Losing your cool at work is a no-no," says Victoria. "If you've reached that stage, you really need to get out of the place as quickly as you can, under any pretext, before you explode."

For a resignation to take effect immediately, Victoria says that nothing beats one simple sentence: "Due to a medical condition I must regretfully tender my resignation, effective immediately."

"You don't have to state what the medical condition is," explains Victoria, "and you don't even need to have a medical condition. Just invent one for the purpose of getting out of the place quickly and let them imagine what they will about the nature of your mysterious medical condition."

"Lie, lie and lie some more!" laughs Victoria, "And smile, smile and smile some more, too!"

"On no account," says Victoria, "give in to the temptation to vent when writing a resignation note, and under the special circumstances of your resignation do not elaborate -- a single sentence is sufficient."

"I cannot stress how important it is to your future career to resign with as much style as you can no matter the circumstances," says Victoria. "If you even hint that you had an interpersonal problem at your last job you will be branded as someone unfit for teamwork and, because 99% of positions require teamwork, you will not find another job easily."

"It’s possible," says Victoria, "that married women are preferred employees because they often do have the advantage of a husband to support them and can quit with style."

"Hopefully, after one bad quitting experience every woman can see the point of never allowing a bad work situation to escalate to a point where anger takes over."

"If employers cannot or will not fix work problems," says Victoria, "then you've really got to bite the bullet and take control of your life."

anyone for lunch?

Renata is 44, divorced with three young teenagers living at home, and she was delighted to win a job that paid almost twice her old salary. There was, however, a hidden catch that Renata hit head on with the sort of style that often separates the winners from the losers in the workplace.

"Since becoming a single parent nine years ago I've had to do some awful jobs for miserable pay so it was about time I started earning what I was worth," says Renata, "but I was absolutely shocked out of my brain on the first day at the new job when nobody took a lunch break and frowned at me when I got up to leave!"

Apparently, nobody had warned Renata that her new job involved working through the lunch break.

"The boss would send out for sandwiches, at company expense, and everyone grabbed a plate and went back to work at their desks," explains Renata. "I didn't see any chains around their ankles or necks but there may as well have been."

"I was pleased to be earning a good salary," says Renata, "but I had no idea that no lunch break was the price I had to pay for it."

The lunch break, for Renata -- and most people -- is not so much about eating but getting a break, getting some fresh air and sunshine, and getting some exercise. It is also about removing ourselves from a work environment in order to have a proper break. Sometimes it is about removing ourselves from co-workers in order to spend time with people we do not work with. And for busy single working mothers like Renata it is often about doing some shopping to enable an immediate return home at the end of the workday.

Renata has found, through trial and error over the years, that a one-hour lunch break is ideal for her.

"Including the time it takes to get out of the building, and how far I need to travel to get to the shops," explains Renata, "half an hour was really not enough time to refresh myself, grab something to eat and do some shopping."

Without a proper lunch break, Renata was a wreck by the end of the first day at her new job.

After being denied what she considered her right to a lunch break, Renata just took an hour off for lunch the next day and her employer had to like it or lump it.

"When you've been on your own raising a family as long as I have," says Renata, "you get to a stage where you've got a bit of money saved, your kids aren't so demanding, your self-esteem has picked up and you're no longer capable of putting up with the sort of stuff you had to put up with when all the chips were down."

"There were really heavy frowns at first," says Renata, "and then just about everyone but the brown-nosers followed suit. I started a revolution!"

"If my employer had dared to maintain that I had no right to take a lunch break or tried to cut my salary," explains Renata, "then I was prepared to seek legal advice immediately."

As Renata pointed out, we are living in the 21st century not the Dark Ages.

"Forced labor and slavery are crimes against humanity," asserts Renata, "and if employees don’t assert their rights then employers will try to get away with as much as they can."

Renata was lucky in that most of her co-workers agreed with what she was doing.

"Had I been the only employee taking a proper lunch break, I might have found myself out of a job," says Renata.

"I know that kids and immigrants are often subjected to illegal or immoral work practices when they take on a job," laughs Renata, "but I had no idea that some employers try cute tricks on regular workers. This experience has been a real eye opener for me."

"I can’t believe that before I started the new job absolutely nobody had dared complain about being deprived of a lunch break," sighs Renata. "It just goes to show how timid some people are and how one person can make a difference. I’m glad that one person was me."

"Yes," agrees Renata, "my relationship with management remains a bit icy. The big boss is probably mad as hell at me and may be hatching up some plot to get even with me, but I’m doing what I consider to be right not just for myself but for everybody here."

"I work really hard, I'm good at what I do and now that my kids are older and capable of taking care of themseves I don't mind staying back a bit," says Renata, "but I won't work through lunch -- not for a million bucks -- and if my employer can't appreciate that fact then he's a fool."

"He's no fool so I'm not really worried about losing my job," adds Renata, "but you can never tell about these things. He should be smart enough to see that everyone is happier -- and more productive -- now that they get a proper lunch break and he should be thanking me not snarling at me!"

"Like I said before, I was totally incapable of asserting myself when I was newly separated with little kids to support," says Renata, "so if you're a single mom stuck in a lousy job don't feel bad about not being able to change things. Believe me, you'll grow stronger with every day spent in adversity and the day will come when you can tell a lousy boss to stick his job."

telephone food chains

Doris is 46, married with two teenagers, and she has reached that stage in her working life where she is earning good money and expects to be treated with the respect that her position confers upon her. Being required to answer everyone's telephone is not in her job description and she refuses to do it.

"When a job title does not read receptionist, telephonist or customer service representative," says Doris, "one would expect that answering telephones is not going to be a major part of one's job, right?"

"I'm an executive secretary," explains Doris, "and while I realize that many unscrupulous employers suck you into positions with wonderful titles and job descriptions that, when you start the job, turn out to be little more than answering telephone calls that nobody else wants to answer, I did not expect this sort of thing to happen to me."

Being glued to a telephone all day is not Doris’s idea of fun. In fact, it is the most stressful work she can think of. She is quite happy to answer some calls, some of the time, but she most certainly does not want this type of work to monopolize her day.

"Answering other people's telephone calls wasn’t in my job description," says Doris, "and I'm annoyed that I find myself in this situation."

Doris has come to the conclusion that nobody likes answering telephones at work.

"I've worked at some places that have clever systems that put calls on voice-mail after three rings," says Doris, "but where I work now the preferred system is to transfer calls from phone to phone until somebody answers."

"Nobody does," laughs Doris. "They pretend they’re deaf."

Some workplaces have solved the problem completely by using Call Centers to take calls, leaving the workers to do their work in peace, and Doris wishes her employer would adopt this system.

The type of telephone call Doris fears most is from an irate client.

"They are irrational to start off with," sighs Doris. "And they get progressively worse. Nothing I can say will placate them."

Doris is usually the final resort for this type of call after the receptionist and junior secretary have had their patience worn thin by the caller.

Doris usually answers with the following spiel: "No, sorry, sir, you cannot speak to the CEO. He is playing golf. Oops, he is at a conference. Yes, sir, I am the CEO's executive assistant but I do not have the facts of your case at hand and I am not at liberty to advise you in this matter."

Often Doris ends up with the caller slamming the telephone down, resulting in poor Doris' ears ringing for the rest of the day.

For some people, of course, answering phones is a career choice. Doris’s eldest daughter is a receptionist and earns very good money for seemingly doing little more than looking pretty and answering telephones, but actually her role in the company is quite pivotal.

"My daughter provides the image of the company as well as the first point of contact for all visitors and telephone callers," explains Doris. "And, being young, perfectly groomed, good looking, patient and a skilful communicator helped get her the job."

"Technical support and customer service representatives are also a special breed," says Doris. "My two boys work in this field and they received not only excellent training in their company's product but also in the art of communication."

"The boys actually enjoy their jobs because they can actually help customers with their problems," says Doris. "And let's face it, nothing is more satisfying that solving a problem for someone. I wish that I could be more help to the people I have to speak to."

"At the bottom of the telephone call food chain," says Doris, "is Call Center employees. They have the highest turnover employment rate of any industry, and that’s where my children got their start but, of course, a lot of these Centres have moved offshore now."

Doris says that most Call Centre employees are itinerant workers, travelers and students filling in a bit of spare time to earn a few dollars. They receive very little training, their natural communication skills are often woeful and they are basically doing a job nobody else wants to do.

"I pity them," says Doris, "yet I appreciate that the experience itself is valuable to any young person."

"Not only do the hellish Call Center jobs teach kids to deal with stress," says Doris, "but they also improve communication skills."

Because of the problem of nobody wanting to answer calls in her workplace, Doris has become an expert on tricks to avoid answering everyone else's telephone calls.

Some people in Doris’s workplace shamelessly divert their telephone calls to another extension without the person at that extension knowing.

Doris, on the other hand, chooses to turn down the volume on every telephone within earshot, on the basis that if she cannot hear the ring it doesn’t bother her.

Most of the time the calls that come in are personal and she refuses to spend her working day taking personal messages for other staff members.

"If the message is important," says Doris, "the caller will either call back when the person he or she wants to talk to is back at their desk, or they will do what I do -- send an email."

As Doris says, an email annoys just one person, the recipient. A telephone call annoys and disrupts the whole office.

Another trick Doris has used to avoid answering her calls is to unplug the telephone at the wall when she needs absolute peace to complete an urgent task.

Sometimes she just tunes out completely using a Walkman or uses earplugs.

"Telephone trauma is a very real malaise, and I don't think I'm being unethical in unplugging my telephone when I've had enough," explains Doris. "I was put off answering telephones at work by the very first office job I ever had."

"It was one I took on during a summer school vacation, a very long time ago," explains Doris. "I worked on a busy switchboard with a panel of flashing lights."

"I was given mumbled instructions by a woman who sounded like she was drunk - and probably was by the smell of her breath," laughs Doris, "and as you can imagine, I made a total mess of the job. I lost every call that came in. I was flicking switches and pulling plugs and crossing wires and getting abused by callers who wanted to know why I had disconnected them!"

After a day of this Doris could not take any more. Her employer gave her some typing to do instead. Bearing in mind that this was also the time before word processors, that task turned out to be a disaster, too.

"I used so much white-out on my typing errors that the letters I typed looked awful!"

Anyway, that first brush with office telephones was so traumatic that Doris has avoided taking jobs with heavy telephone work ever since.

The perfect office for Doris would be one where all communication with the outside world was done by email. Not only is email a quiet mode of communication but it also has the added bonus of providing a written record of transactions.

"I'm amazed that in this era of electronic communication that telephones are still used as widely as they are," says Doris, "and I can't be the only person complaining about the amount of telephone work I have to put up with."

"The trauma with telephones at work has also changed my attitude towards answering the telephone at home," sighs Doris. "Thankfully, my husband and children like answering the phone, otherwise I wouldn't bother."

"After listening to phones ringing all day, I want peace and quiet when I get home!"

internet access denial

In the eleven years that Ursula has been with her employer she has witnessed the exciting introduction of the Internet into her workplace to its gradual demise where its access has now been denied.

"In 1995 the Net was heralded as a resource to be used by staff to enhance their work performance," says Ursula, "and it was an incredibly exciting time for us."

"In those early days, very few people were online at home," explains Ursula, "so it was a really novel and fun thing to have the Internet at work. I took to it like a duck to water and I still have my first contribution to the company’s website. I framed it!"

"Over the years, though, I've seen Internet access for staff develop into a monstrous problem of rights and privileges that most companies, including mine, would rather do without. And most have, by restricting access or denying it altogether."

"The temptation to use Internet access for private surfing had become such a problem at my workplace that the company had to remove the privilege of Internet access to all but a few staff whose jobs needed the resource," explains Ursula. "Unfortunately, my job didn’t need Internet access and I'm upset that my right to Internet access at work has been denied."

"Yes," says Ursula, "I am now online at home, of course, but with a husband and three children all wanting to use the system, I don’t get a look in on the two networked computers at home. I relied upon having Internet access at work to do a bit of surfing and catch up with email - in my own time, either at lunch or before or after work - and I was told that Internet access for private use is no more a right than expecting the company to provide a television set and hot and cold running water at every desk."

"I never abused Internet access when I had it, and the company is aware of my honesty -- it employs a guy to monitor staff Internet use," says Ursula, "yet the amount of abuse that was happening, mostly by young staff members, was so pervasive that denial of access was applied to everybody whose job didn’t need it, and that included me."

"The young people at work," says Ursula, "had made private surfing in company time an art. They used special programs designed to show a spreadsheet -- or some other work related design -- when a supervisor or manager appeared unexpectedly in their area."

"The young guys were particularly bad abusers, surfing porn sites and spreading offensive material by e-mail attachment," sighs Ursula. "They also printed porn on the company printers and pinned it up on walls."

"Because of the offensive nature of this practice," says Ursula, "some of the young guys lost their jobs. And quite rightly so, I believe."

"I'm aware, too, that the company’s system had been attacked by viruses on many occasions -- either by e-mail abuse, downloading infected files or personal disk infection -- and with just about every young person these days being familiar with hacking and cracking techniques, the company system had also been attacked by saboteurs."

"Where I work, the staff turnover of young people is very high and there’s talk that a couple of guys who had been fired had wreaked a bit of revenge by hacking into the system," says Ursula. "And if denial of Internet access were not bad enough we're now required -- because of the high turnover of staff -- to change all passwords when somebody leaves, and that's almost monthly."

"Such a security measure would not, of course, deter someone determined to do damage," says Ursula, "but it's just an indication of how alert companies are becoming to the problems inherent in this age of e-crime."

Ursula believes that a happy medium between putting in a day's work and indulging in a bit of private surfing might be obtained if companies set aside a couple of stand-alone PCs in a staff room for use during lunch-time and before and after work - yet the argument she keeps hearing is: "Why should we? Most people have Internet access at home, and providing it at work is not an entitlement."

"While agreeing that it is only fair that people work at their places of employment, and play at home," says Ursula, "I'm nevertheless peeved that what I once considered a right is now denied to me. And I'm angry that the youngsters at work are responsible for this."

"I suppose it wouldn't be so bad if my husband and children didn't commandeer the Internet at home," says Ursula, "but the current situation at work and at home has really put a damper on my life."

"In that the Internet has caused divisions at work and at home," muses Ursula, "maybe its costs far outweigh its benefits. But, of course, it's not the Internet per se that's responsible for these divisions, it's my reliance on it -- even my addiction to it -- that's to blame."