The real meaning of christmas....

It is not my intention to go all puritanical on you or anything, but i just thought I'd let you know a few things about the festivities that we are experiencing. Have you ever wondered why people put trees in their houses this time of year, and decorate them with lights and tinsel? Why people exchange gifts on Jesus' birthday? (surely he is the one who should be getting gifts, its his birthday).

Ok so the long and short of it is, that Jesus was not actually born on 25th December, historians mainly put the date of Jesus' birth as occurring most likely in October or September about 6 months after passover. The celebration of this holiday is not biblical, but came into prominence after Roman Emperor Constantine in the 4th century BC when Christianity was not so vogue, and most people were Pagans. So Emperor Constantine decided to merge some pagan festivities, with some biblical things and out came Christmas.

The original 25th of December was the birth date of Nimrod, a Babylonian king and the 25th December was his birthday. After his death, his mother  claimed that an ever green tree grew over night and the spirit of her dead son would visit her every year  and leave gifts upon it. This shows the origin of the Christmas tree. So people, this is just a short summary of what Christmas is actually about.

You can think I am a weirdo, a freak or a kill joy, and i am far from telling any one what or what not to do, however, the symbolism of this once pagan festival has been hidden and swamped in commercialism and a frenzy of present and gourmet food buying. However, it does bring families and long lost friends together and remember that a man called Jesus did indeed live...

Happy holidays people

Measuring happiness? Thanks Cam!

Right, so DC (David Cameron, UK, PM) announced a couple of weeks ago that he wanted to measure the level of people in the UK's happiness levels. Some people have stated that can we actually measure happiness at all? Psychologist, sociologists have developed questionnaires which measure this and have been for years, one measurement that I have used in the past, is the general well being questionnaire. My problem with the process is that the office of national statistics is devising the questions. I think that PSYCHOLOGISTS should be devising them, as a group of people who make a living out of studying and trying to make sense of human behaviour, its probably quite logical that they should do it? Secondly although this is an important aspect of life, trying to measure happiness is a very abstract and difficult task. It seems slightly as though the government are trying to distract us from the doom and gloom austerity cuts they have announced, but measuring how badly people feel, will this actually help?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11756049

The curse of the temp...

Some people really like temping, not really worrying too much about finding the career, good way for students to earn money or to try out different parts of a profession and getting your foot in the door. I have personally temped so much and at times it has made me feel dirty, sad and used (in a non hooker way.../ simple clean admin work).  A lot of  people's experiences of temporary work are unhappy, brain numbingly boring prison sentences. Here are some tips for employers of how to get
the most out of your temporary workers.

• Never refer to them as the "temp", they have names, it's rude.
• Try not to humiliate them with work that simpletons can do, especially if they have a degree, like from personal experience " can you turn my computer on?" response in brain- I AM NOT YOUR PA and even if I was, not on your nelly.
•  Give them fun stuff to do- to stimulate innovation and increase well being this will increase output
• Integrate them into the team as much as possible
• Give them time - they aren't going to learn over night, give them space and time

For temporary workers:

• Always look bothered to be there, even if you aren't.
• get involved, if you have run out of work, find some thing else to do
• Be polite, it always leaves a lasting impression
• Be on time!!

You never know where these tips will get you...

Entrepreneurial spirit...

 

This girl is a  7 year old entrepreneur, making her business by using her passion,  interests and skills. You may think that its just a bit of jewellery, but its inspirational, let no one tell you that you can't succeed, you have no excuse, if she can so should you.

What came first, the chicken or the egg? (Personality...)

The age old question of whether personality is  predetermined in the womb, by genetics or can it be influenced by our environment? Well, one of my jobs is working with small children tutoring them, yesterday I accidentally made a 5 year old cry, not because I did any thing nasty, but simply because of an eraser. Yes an eraser, a rubber, something that eradicates lead pencils.

The child was working on his handwriting, writing the letter d, and he asked for an eraser. I couldn't find one and told him so, a few minutes later a crying 5 year old approached me. I asked him what was wrong and he said he needed an eraser and insisted that I find him one, i asked him what he so desperately needed one for, (whilst consoling the poor child) and he said it was because he wrote one of the letters wrong, (the letter looked perfectly fine to me). I managed to locate an eraser and then he was happy. I then began thinking about his personality, extremely smart, strong willed and very conscientious, with a perfectionist streak. Whilst I tried to let him realise that was doing his best and not being so hung up on the negatives, this is indeed his personality, very formed at the age of 5, he will probably end up being an engineer or some high powered business man.

It really made me think though that people's personalities can be changed but the essential essence of our personality is brought from or genetic make up and altered by our experiences.

Do you know the way to San Jose?

Sorry about the distasteful title, every time  I hear about the Chilean Miners, I think of the Dionne Warwick song. In all seriousness being trapped underground for two months is not easy (understatement), the enormity of the 33 men and the experiences that they faced down there, will probably never truly be realised by any of us. The despair, confusion and extreme stress they must have faced I cannot even imagine. After watching a Panorama (BBC program) documentary I had a slight insight into one of the miners mental states. Edison, as coping mechanism took to running around underground to try and deal with being trapped underground.

I would love to know how these remarkable men will cope on the outside after such a harrowing ordeal.
Good luck to them for the future, and I hope they learn to live with their ordeal.

The curse of the 2:2...

So it seems that these days people going to University are just expected magically to get a 2:1, as if waking up and turning up to 50% of lectures is a divine right for any one to be able to achieve such a grade. The gold standard now is the 2:1, its like a get out of jail free card in monopoly. In the olden days, ( ok i mean like the 60s and 70s) when less people went to university and there were less universities, getting a 2:2 was seen as something of a great achievement, now however, daring to apply for a graduate job with such a grade will be looked upon as if you were committing a crime worse than death or time wasting.

The reason why I am so incensed, is because I am speaking from experience, when I received my 2:2, I was absolutely "devoed" not because I was ashamed of the grade, because I knew the perception of this grade would hinder me in what I wanted to achieve. It meant that in anticipation I applied to about five masters degrees in occupational psychology and low and behold three told me to run away, as they didn't want to be tarred with the 2:2 brush.

Recently, when at an interview for a  job, despite having had a masters degree they asked me why I got a 2:2. I had to rack my brain, as I had done nothing wrong, I wasn't out till all hours, I went to 99% of my lectures on time, I handed in all assignments on time and enjoyed the course overall. So why the question?

The 2:2 degree in recent years is seen by some as a failure, but not all degree classifications are created equal. A 2:2 from Cambridge is NOT the same as a 2:2 from London South Bank University. EVEN within Universities, different courses criteria of classification is not the same, some courses have 100% course work and no final formal written examinations in the whole three years, some universities allow you to take 20/ 30 credit modules from second year courses which count towards your final degree. Some poor souls will have five three hour exams and six essays throughout the year and another, one hour exam and three 2000 word essays; and they are all judged the same.

 The new obsession with a 2:1-the apparent gold standard of degrees is unhealthy, especially considering that in 2003/4 50% of graduates were achieving 2:1s, means that there maybe something wrong with the system. The mean average grade in any educational establishment should be a bell curve, that is the majority of people falling in the middle, ie 2:2s.

So for those of you who have just achieved your degree classifications, do not despair, life still goes on with a 2:2 you can  get post graduate funding ( you just have to try very very hard) and you can get your dream job, just be creative in your experience. Its nothing to be ashamed of, well done!

So you want to be a psychologist?

The popularity of psychology has increased massively in the twentieth century. From the defining works of Dr Freud, Albert Bandura and whoever created Big Brother, the study of human behaviour has captured many individuals imaginations. A- Level Psychology is one of the top 5 A-levels taken in the UK, and over 10,000 students start undergraduate degrees in it every year. However, the majority of  graduates do not go on to be professional psychologists. So here is some information about the area. There are five main areas which psychologists train for:

• Occupational Psychology - the psychology of work and organisations, how people make organisational decisions.
• Educational Psychology - the psychology of how people learn in educational settings, psychology of teaching and interventions to aid learning.
• Forensic Psychology - refer to investigative and criminological psychology: applying psychological theory to criminal investigation, understanding psychological problems associated with criminal behaviour, and the treatment of criminals.
• Clinical Psychology -reduce psychological distress and to enhance and promote psychological well-being.Working on anxiety, depression and eating disorders
• Sport and exercise psychology- help athletes prepare psychologically for competition and to deal with the psychological demands of both competition and training. Examples of the work they carry out include counselling referees to deal with the stressful and demanding aspects of their role.So its not all about learning how to read minds, many courses include modules from each of these areas. 

The British Psychological society ( http://www.bps.org.uk/ ) is the governing body for all psychologists in the  UK and has information about careers in psychology. To begin a career in psychology, you will first need to choose an undergraduate degree which is accredited by the British psychological society, both of which can be found on the website, this will give you graduate basis for registration or GBR. You don't need to have an a level in psychology to be able to be accepted onto an undergraduate course. Most psychology courses will require you to have at least a C in GCSE maths.

If you have not completed a psychology degree at undergraduate level you can study a conversion postgraduate diploma at many universities, which give you required entry. All postgraduate psychology courses will require an individual to have GBR. For example clinical psychology requires you to have experience working with mental health patients in order for you to acquire an assistant psychology post, then you may be able to apply for a clinical doctorate which are very competitive sponsored by the NHS.

Many psychology undergraduates do not pursue careers in psychology. According to the prospects website around 4% of psychology undergraduate go on to go further study in the subject. Therefore if you are determined to go down this route, the work is varied and interesting but it is a long process. So if you think you have the stamina for it, and interest, grab a career mentor preferably a psychologist, or talk to a careers advisor (me!!) about it.

How to write an effective CV

Ok people, I am no expert, but I just wanted to let you know what I have observed when looking at other peoples CVs and the small stint I did working in a recruitment consultancy. There are many different types of CV but there are some guidelines to follow to make sure people don't throw yours in the bin.

• Do not lie on your CV, these things will always find you out.
• Unless you are an executive or a medical doctor, don't make your CV more than two pages long, no one wants to know what you did on the weekend. Play around with the margins of the document for it to fit on two pages if you need to. 
• Do not waster your time using thick paper, card, or coloured paper, save your money, as if the content is poor, its all going to the same place... (the bin)
• Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar, at risk of sounding like a school teacher never underestimate how excited people get when its done well,  and how upset and or offended people get when you can't even spell your name right.
• Instead of listing what you did within each role, write down what specific projects or roles that you did which made your role different from the average "administrator" " solicitor" " customer service operative". What were you key accountables? What difference did you make in the role?
• Make sure your spacing and layout is consistent 

To strike or not to strike, that is the question.

Is it ever ok to strike? To be honest I'm not sure about it, but it seems like these days individuals are doing it willy nilly, tube drivers all the time, fire fighters, BA cabin crew and now these airport workers.

The UK, like any other democracy has a long history of trade union's standing up for the common working man, demanding better pay,  conditions and trying to make work fairer for all. A proposed BAA strike that has thankfully been resolved threatened to hamper Britain's main airports. Workers in one of the worlds busiest airport (London Heathrow) and many others in the UK were facing the possibility of wild cat strikes which may have forced them to close and face possible losses of millions of pounds.

This to me was extremely ridiculous, they rejected their 1% pay increase and wanted more, in the time where we are in the wake of a vast global recession, where thousands have people have got pay freezes and millions more have been tossed onto the 'dole' heap? You must be having a laugh, however, the workers had themselves in a very unique position, due to the freak of the ash cloud earlier on in the year and the subsequent mass loss of money for airports, the airport simply could not risk any more potential losses of money.

 Now everyone's happy, the BAA workers now have 2% pay deal and the airports are kept open. Obviously the talks paid off. Its all right for some who have the luxury of even considering strike action, I am sure there are plenty of nursing staff that would love a pay increase too...

B:Has any one seen Dave? G: Yeah he's sick, bedbound even. B: thats funny, ive just seen him at the post office

Have you ever taken an extra sneaky half an hour at lunch, pulled a few sickies to have a slob day, accidentally borrowed a pen and forgot to give it back or written down your hours wrong on a time sheet? Do you think ah,  everyone does it, Jane was late all last week and no one said any thing, or the boss has been getting on my nerves all week, so i'm going to pull a sickie even though he's short staffed.

The "scientific" term for this is counter productive workplace behaviour, in other words doing bad stuff which doesn't help the organisation. This includes: thieving, taking unauthorised absences; extending you half an hour lunch to 2 hours for a shopping spree; and being just a meany that doesn't contribute to any thing. Figures from  1985 show that apparently 50 hours per employee per year are lost to unauthorised extensions of break, 50 hours! Apparently also $50 million is lost to businesses who thieve, so next time you steal that pen or take a sneaky extra 20 minutes at lunch, think twice about it, the next thing you know you could be out of a job.

How to reduce career barriers

What stops you from changing jobs or applying and getting that promotion? Is it the abusive, irritating boss who won't take you seriously? The skills that you don't think you have,  the fear of rejection or the fear of potential perceived discrimination? These are what career counsellors call career barriers and originally they were used to try to explain barriers to women's career progression. Now  research around barriers has centred around barriers to ethnic minority career progression mainly in America.

So what should you do if  you feel that you are stuck in a dead end job? Here are some quick tips to smash those career barriers, in order to reach your goals.

• Write a plan of your career goals and what you want to achieve in immediately, in the next 2 and 5 years. Visualising this and putting it some where you will see it, will help make the goals more real and increase your chances of actually making things happen. 
• Find a career role model/ a mentor,  someone who has succeeded in the area that you want to go into. If you can find someone who you think can and will help you,  approach them. Literally go to networking events, google organisations or people, find people on Facebook or Linkedin.  That's what I did and it  does work, you will find someone who takes you under their wing. What is hard is keeping in touch with your mentor and not expecting them to hand you a job on a plate. 
• To increase the confidence in your ability to succeed, take part in as much work as possible, for free,  put your self forward for additional projects, ask for a secondment at work,  voice your opinions and get your views heard. Make sure people know who you are in your organisation or the organisation that you want to get into and work hard and eventually people will accommodate you. The bottom line is, when people know you can make them money, they will pretty much tolerate most things. 

• Network, Network, Network, this I know sounds a bit vague, but believe me it works. Have you heard of the saying, "its not what you know, its who you know."- its true, nepotism is rife in every industry especially ones like law, consulting and media. Have you ever wondered how some wierdos get their jobs when they have poor qualifications, no social skills and no job knowledge- networking is how. There are many professional networks who run dinners, marketing and recruitment events,  in specific industries. Find out, google them, you never know who you might meet and believe me CEOs and MDs do go to these events so they are worth a try.

 So I hope this has given you an insight as to how to over come career barriers, and remember to stay positive. I just realised I sound like rev run or something.

This is such an inconvenience!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/aug/05/naomi-campbell-liberia

Ok, I can't help this so I have to talk about Naomi Campbell and her ridiculous show at the Charles Taylor war crimes trail at the Hague. I was handed some DIRTY looking stones, and I didn't know where Liberia was till I spoke to him? I struggle to believe this is true and she is actually this stupid. Just because she is a model it doesn't mean she has to live up to the stereotype, what happened to being all right looking and not being a bit thick? Come on love, do yourself a favour and sort yourself out. There  I said it!

A portfolio career?

Whether we like it or not, a career, a job, or just a way to make money is what most of us will have to do for a large proportion of our lives. There have been lots of theories and ideas which try and explain why and how people chose their chosen career paths.  So what is a portfolio career? I'm just going to find out...


So the main idea of portfolio working is that people tend to concentrate on a range of different working arrangements that are termed: wage work, fee work, homework, gift work  and study work (Mallon 1998).  Basically, due to an increase of temporary workers and less traditional formal careers some people think that there has been more emphasis on the self employed, and those who charge for services and outputs. 


What does this actually mean? It means that you can chose to carve out a living which is entirely of your own making, you can consult on your expert area, such as design or I.T. whilst charging by the hour, you can work for free for charities at the same time also. You are in effect in charge of your own career, not tied down to any one organisation or any one profession and not bound by any career hierarchies. Therefore you can  go in do your stuff and leave in a few weeks, months or years. You can be a plumber,  a hairdresser and an IT professional if you so wish. 


Now let me put in a disclaimer, this kind of career is NOT for everyone, if the thought of not knowing where you are going to work tomorrow, fills you with dread and you have a set career such as a doctor or a nurse, this may not be for you. However, if you want to be savvy in the post recession world, a portfolio career offers many interesting benefits, such as: being your own boss, concentrating on you skills, increasing your networks and giving you variety in life. However, you need to be careful in how you do this and not just jump into the deep end expecting other people to just understand. If you think this is really the career path for you, make sure you plan  and have many contingencies, friends, money to fall back on and a vision!

Occupational psychology and other stories...

Right, after being successfully annoyed after any one asks me what I do, I have decided to set up this blog to try and explain my chosen profession, talk in a hopefully humorous way about by career escapades, and interesting things that I come across in every day life. I have worked everywhere, from retail to a gym, to a council to a student union, to hotels, I've practically worked in every industry for free and for money. 

Occupational Psychology, is what I like to call, glorified HR, and includes many of the things that HR functions in organisations  have.  For example: selection and assessment, producing selling and administering psychometric tests for selection purposes; career counselling, advising organisations on training and organisational change, and advising people on reducing stress in the work place. The occupational psychologists role is to help people in the work place to become more productive and happier. Lets face it, we all have to work and  people are spending more and more time in the work place every day so we might as well make sure people have a good time there.