Just in case you've been living under a rock - or have a limited interest in baseball - here's the 10-second version of the controversy surrounding baseball this week.

New York Yankees' third baseman Alex Rodriguez was running the bases.  There was a pop fly. As he passed the player who was waiting to catch the ball, he yelled, "Ahhhh!"  The player dropped the ball.  The Toronto Blue Jays were mad.  Screaming mad.

Some players have called it "Bush league" - saying it was a play out of an eight-year-old little league game.  Others have said that A-Rod was desperate for a Yankee win and was doing anything he could to help.

Now I pose this question to everyone: Would you want a "screamer" on your team?  Someone, who isn't necessarily cheating, but is willing to do what it takes to get your team "a win."

In the business world, people are desperate to meet quotas, make sales and hit targets.  And sometimes, you have to reach deep into your bag of tricks to stay afloat. Now, I don't care if it's on the baseball field or in the car manufacturing plant, the question is simple - how far do you want your employees to go to ensure success?

I'm always amazed at the number of people who write me bashing the Yankees.  Save your breath - I could care less.  This is not about hating the Yankees, despising A-Rod or judging a simple baseball play - let's view it on a larger scale in a different context.

I look forward to your thoughts.

My take: I am NOT a big A-Rod fan.  I would not play the game the way he does.  However, as a Yankee fan, I do appreciate the fact that he brings something to the table other than stock answers and quiet at bats.  When you're a fan - you want your team to win.  It's a game.  And yes, it's THAT simple.

No business wants an employee to tarnish their good name - but secretly, they love a victory - at almost any cost.

We've been enjoying a nice warm stretch of weather here in NY.  I curse the sunny days that I'm anchored to my cube, breathing nothing but recycled air and baking in the glow of florescent lights.  That's why I figured it was a good time to remind you (and myself) that only fools save sick days.

Of course, this doesn't apply to the unlucky (but wealthy) blokes who work for the bastards at Merrill Lynch (check out their sick day memo).  These guys will show you the door if you take 9+ sick days.  Check out more asinine company policy here.

So, if you're looking for days that are ripe to (COUGH COUGH) call in sick, be sure to consult our official 2007 Sick Day Calendar.

And if you're just looking to have some fun this June, why not celebrate one of the following:

June 1 - Donut Day
June 18 - Int'l Picnic Day
June 20 - Ice Cream Soda Day
June 21 - First day of summer

Your boss will use days.  Your boss's boss will use days.  Don't play the hero.  And if you're holding out for a "perfect attendance" award - click away from this blog. Now!  ;-)

My wife is a teacher and I was shocked the day she brought home a book that was nothing but report card comments. At first I was stunned, shocked and appalled that the teachers I so dutifully respected and looked up to were recycling comments on me!

Andrew effectively uses non-verbal communication techniques. Hells yeah!

Andrew is able to work independently and with confidence. Yes, leave me alone!

Andrew encourages others in the group. Really?

You mean all of those words of praise that made mom and dad so proud weren't solely for me? Ouch!

Let's face it, managers adapt the same crummy comments for our annual reviews. Check out the list below. And no, you're not special.

To read the document click where it says "Download as PDF."

A few years back, when we were in a full wedding planning craze, I had my first experience renting a tux.  I couldn't believe the expense.  And the thing that blew is that it wasn't just me having to dip into my wallet, it was my groomsmen too.  But as I suited up on that amazing day (and it was worth every penny!) I couldn't help but send a silent salute to the bastard who figured out how to turn a $500 outfit into thousands. I guess the same could be said about all of those bowling alley shoe rentals.

Enter Net Tie - a Netflix business model for you corporate suits out there. 

I first learned about these guys when there Google ad appeared alongside my Web site. Here's what they do, it's quite simple.  You pick a subscription plan, get ties in the mail, wear the tie (for as long as you like), send it back, and get more ties.  The more you pay, the more ties you are allowed to have out at once.  And a la Netflix, you'll receive a postage paid envelope to mail the noose back.

All members get a virtual tie rank which allows you to keep a wish list.  When a tie on your list becomes available, it's sent to your doorstep via First Class Mail.  FYI: You must have a valid credit card and live in the U.S.

Different plans range from $45 - $80.  Now I personally haven't tried out the service (we're currently enjoying "casual summer"), however I might give it a shot in September.  I'll let you know how it goes (there's a 14-day free trial).  Also, I'm going to invite the founder of the biz to be a guest on a future episode of the Working Podcast.  So, please subscribe to the blog AND the podcast and stay tuned!

You might recall that I've pontificated on neckties before with why they annoy me - plus some history.  Your comments are always welcome below!

"You idiot!" "Monkeys could do a better job." "Utter incompetence." These are direct quotes from Joseph Damon's Big Bad Boss.  He's a regular reader/listener who sent in the following e-mail:

"Recently my boss has taken an uber-aggressive attitude with me and my co-workers. I don't know what gives but I almost feel like it's bordering on abuse. What do you recommend I do?"

Well Joseph, you raise an excellent question with an annoyingly vague answer.  While every situation is different, and I'm, by no means an expert (I haven't been having the best luck with this situation recently, either), I will outline a few options.  I ask that readers of the Jobacle blog add their two cents too - and maybe together - we can get your bully boss to pipe down.

Push back, immediately. Like most abusive relationships things get worse over time as the bully feels empowered that they can get away with this behavior.  The tricky part is HOW to push back.  One tactic that I have found pretty effective is to simply tell your boss, "Your tone is making me uncomfortable" or "can we please pick this up a little later when things are calmer."  While a boss can get you to apologize for making a mistake  (or not!) but they can't have you apologize for feeling a certain way.  "Your point is well-taken, but I would appreciate it if you didn't direct such negative language towards me."

Point to past successes. If your boss is disappointed or angered over a recent "failure" and takes a combative tone - remind him/her of past successes. Sure the corporate world is driven by a "what have you done for me lately" mentality, but if he thinks you're an idiot, he's the idiot who hired you.

Engage. Strong eye contact is a must. Your eyes darting away or looking sheepishly away is like blood to a shark - they'll only bite faster and more furiously.  You don't need to puff out your chest and stare down the enemy - but keep your posture firm and your eyes focused.

Write it down. You're not rat  but you are a cautious cat.  If these instances of verbal abuse are happening regularly you should be jotting them down in a notepad.  When, where, what was said and who else was in the room or within earshot.  Eventually, this information can be parlayed into an official memo to either your boss, your boss's boss and/or HR.  They key is to make it factual and unemotional.  Never send it via e-mail.  You might look back at the words and realize things aren't as bad as you originally thought - or maybe they're worse.

Frequently, this question of tape recording a boss's rant comes up.  Can anyone speak to that point?

Be accountable. If you get roped into something that was not your fault - you might want to consider taking a tiny slice of the blame.  Nothing irks a boss more than a lack of accountability.  A small concession can save you hours on lecturing meetings.

Gain leverage.  Having your resume ready to fly will give you the confidence you need to battle back with courage.  Make sure it's updated every few months so you can jet outta there if necessary.

As always, there's plenty of other tactics - and we want to hear about them from YOU.  Don't get pushed around. Nip it in the bud ASAP and I guarantee - while you might not win the war at work - you will win the internal battle kicking around inside your head.

**Also check out this interesting article on the science of the bully phenomenon.**

I used to spend everyday commuting into the city on the Long Island Rail Road.  While I don't miss it 99% of the time (I've since become an auto commuter)  - there's tiny part of me that enjoyed the time I had to put pen to paper and get lost in my own imagination.  Since I'm taking the holiday weekend off from the Jobacle thingy, I figured I'd post a short story I scribed on a train ride last year.  While it's technically not work related, I figured a little fiction never killed anybody.  Hope you enjoy...

Riding the Train to Nowhere
by Andrew G.R.

Most of the time, naked windows have little to offer; vacant rooms, silent dwellers, and other boring nouns that sadly, make my life seem exciting. Of course, there is the occasional fight or fleeting nipple, each pumping my adrenaline into a cyclonic fervor.

But this alone is not why I choose to ride the train.

I take it to find out what pictures you have hanging on your walls. I take it to see if you have plastic shoe racks hanging from closet doors. Do you dine alone? Scrub the kitchen floors? These are things I like to know about, because the more I know you, the more I learn about myself.

For as long as I can remember, the train has always been there. My childhood was spent struggling over homework under the symmetrical shadows of the tracks.

“According to the story, the protagonist is ---

WHOOSH

The train would fill a mostly empty house with sound and take the correct answers with it. Being brought up this way, makes my commitment to the train, that much easier to understand. As long as there are windows revealing life, I’ll ride, hoping to regain a little more of myself than I had before.

The greatest city in the world lies ahead as we fly past Chinese store fronts and a slumbering Shea Stadium. Big buildings across the horizon climb into the heavens, creating the illusion of the accessibility of opportunity and wealth. There was a time in my life, before this cold listlessness washed over me, that I actually though I could be an angel in the penthouse, making decisions that really mattered. That was until the unforeseen surfaced in a whisper.

My eyes bounce off the walls, zigzagging from window to window. I peer, glance, inspect – hoping that today will be the day I find something to hold onto. The small houses of Corona have nothing to offer, at least not tonight. A well-lit billboard for a major financial institution is the only thing that reaches out to shake me.

“When you drink from the cup of life, chug”

It takes every ounce of restraint coursing through my veins to resist screaming back,

“What if life’s cup has been drained as I die of thirst and gasp for air, you f**kers”

Recently, when I breathe, I feel as if I’m reaching for butterflies. They circle over my head and fly in front of my face, but slip through my fingers like sand. When air enters your body both short and shallow, you wish you could hold it, if just for the moment, and celebrate. I scan the packed train for other butterfly hunters. Seemingly, there are none, and I feel more alone than ever, a lone rider on a crowded train. Destination, nowhere.

We make our way through Woodside, which tonight, is bustling. A large flannelled man eats a bucket of fried chicken with zeal. An elderly couple clings to each other as the ever-knowing and self-important Alex Trebek drones on and on about “true daily doubles”. A little Asian boy sits at a desk and foils away at his geometry homework. A man is hulked over a refrigerator, the little light bulb offering just enough radiance to display his dissatisfaction with the offerings.

The street lights line the tracks, bee lining by in uniform succession. We’re between stops ---

between lives.

The equilibrium of existence is beautiful, with squares of life delivering my sanity.

We pass over the Grand Central Parkway. Tail lights and headlights swirl together, creating a candy cane road. A nondescript warehouse reveals dozens of workers standing patiently as a conveyer belt moves life past their very eyes. I’ve seen this place hundreds of times, but could never get a handle on what was going on inside. I imagined some sort of button factory, or a place that puts the knobby things on top of baseball hats, but had no reason to believe either. Some women wearing long aprons sit on a stoop at the side of a building, smoking their cigarettes and staring up at the sky. I look down at them through a cloud of smoke and suddenly realize that I have no choice but to find out exactly what they are manufacturing.

On the way home I didn’t even have the desire to watch. My head stayed low as the possibilities of the factory rattled around my brain, quickly putting me down. The next time I opened my eyes we were at he last stop. I shuffled off the train, went straight home and proceeded right to bed.

The babies came right off the assembly line – shiny, perfect, and new. Wrapped tightly in innocence, each was individually packaged and prepared for final inspection. Most make the cut, others do not. What the inspectors were specifically looking for, I have no idea, but when a bad baby came along, they knew immediately. There was a special red conveyor belt for these babies that led to a gray square in the wall covered by thick opaque plastic. I went to find out what happened to the babies once they entered this room. Quicker than I thought my frame would allow, I stealthily jumped onto the belt for the ride, and hoped I would clear the window and make it to the other side.

The phone sent me upright and cost me the opportunity to find out where the bad babies go. The factory continued to manufacture thoughts. Rather then waste the day wondering, I decided to hop into my car and find out. Taking the train during these daylight hours was out of the question.

After making a right at Northern Boulevard, I quickly realize that I’m in uncharted territory. There are many factories. Warehouses. Graffiti ridden garage doors. And a serious litter problem. I entered a world that knew no garbage cans.
Rusty fire escapes suffered paint loss. Rooftops sprung unsightly steel from all directions. Ducts, vents and chimneys collaborated. Windows wore wrought iron, as if they had something to hide. Antennas and satellite dishes connected a fragmented world. Barbed wire protected all. Ivy shrouded dark brick walls. Blue tarps corked backyard pools. Sheds melted into the ground. Telephone wires contained unruly trees.

From the train trestle I knew exactly where to begin; now, thrown into the mix, I had no idea where the factory stood. Combing the oddly wide streets led nowhere and inquiries of a foreign population were sure to be fruitless. Discouraged, hungry and more infatuated than ever, the only option was to return home and ride the train again tonight.

Practically every apartment on the sixth floor was illuminated. A woman in a pink housecoat tended to the dirty dishes. A shirtless man in shiny Adidas pants drank some OJ right out of the paper carton. His younger brother knelt in the foreground, tapping his hamster’s plastic cage repeatedly. A stove stood wide open. Button down shirts hung off plastic hangers. Window fan. Bronze teapot. A couple eating at a small round table.

Sickness.

It’s a feeling that is difficult to articulate. Somewhere between carsickness and Attention Deficit Disorder is where it is. With eyes working overtime to capture every detail of the consecutively lit apartments, my body began to reject my body. A stabbing pain developed over my left eye, made tolerable only when I cradled my head in cold hands. There was nothing left to do but shut eyes and wait for the stretch of land that held the factory of dreams, thoughts, and hope.

Finally, we approached the warehouse. It’s amazing how darkness not only hides the world away but shifts everything into the unforeseen. The train was more crowded than usual and all the window seats were taken, leaving me no choice but to stand by the doors and glare from there. Interior train lighting is quickly becoming Public Enemy No. 1 and when presented with the opportunity, I have been removing the bulbs from their sockets, creating a more conducive environment for sight. It’s a maneuver that can only work in the still of the night. In this age of terror, a dozen people will bring you down before you can touch the ceiling. Being such a flat, non-descript area, I needed to find a visible marker to track the factory during daylight hours.

Wow, what a big television you have.
Your kids work well together in the kitchen.
How many apples do you really need?

It struck me odd that a mirror hung over the microwave. Or that you seemed to collect large paper cups from fast food restaurants and stack them next to the sink. Bright red flowers crept out of the flowerpot and hung for dear life.

A beautiful obstruction.

Trickling down the glass panes, a window that once stood starkly revealed was now conflicted by botany.

The houses ended and that’s where I began to count lamposts. 15, 16, 17…

And the factory was there in all its glory.

A concrete smokestack worked the whitest smoke I’d ever seen into the air. Maybe it’s a cloud factory. Hundreds of windows that had earlier revealed much of the room’s composition now appeared shut. No one took a cigarette break and the train passed by faster than ever. I wondered if the factory even existed. The people, the cigarette breaks, maybe they just dwell in my mind. Maybe they help me to believe that such places exist.

Places of wonder.

Places other than my own.

I think I’ll let the factory remain a mystery, I won’t pursue it any longer. I’ll gaze at it every night and I’ll see the women on their smoke breaks looking to the sky, looking to something other, maybe even looking at me, wondering about the man on the train who looks tired.

I won’t crack the mystery. Not today.

The Career Filter is a regular segment on the Working Podcast.  In it, we highlight three little-known career resources on the Web.  Since it's been a long time between podcasts - and might be even longer - I figured why not bring you a the 411 on a Web site I was recently turned on to: JustLanded.com.

If you're thinking of working in another country they have all juice you'd even need.  Let's say for example you wanted to work in Switzerland - hey, why not! Here's some of the useful info you'll find on the site:

The job market:
For most foreigners, Switzerland appears to be a paradise for working conditions. Swiss employees enjoy some of the highest salaries in the world. Despite widespread job losses in Switzerland during the early 1990s recession, unemployment is still among the lowest in Europe. more
 
Work permits:
Since 1998, Switzerland has a dual priority system for the issuance of work permits: this means priority is given to workers from EU member states and a more restrictive admission policy is operated for non-EU citizens. more
 
Job applications:
Your job application acts as your "business card" for your job search as well as being your passport to a first contact with potential employers. Job applications and the selection process in Switzerland might look and work differently then what you're used to at home.

You can also find out about qualifications, cost of living, social security, insurance, etc. 

If you've had enough of America and want to press your career luck elsewhere - maybe Portugal, Kuwait or dozens of others - JustLanded.com is the place for you.

Just hand me a pink slip now... and the rest of the workforce for that matter.  If you've ever gossiped about your boss - your job could be in jeopardy.

Four folks who work for the town of Hooksett, New Hampshire say they were canned for discussing the possibility of their boss and a mystery woman.     

The boss felt his family life was being threatened by the rumors and took swift action against the chatterboxes.  

It's an interesting question. There's nothing more conducive for idle chatter then meaningless break-room banter.  Are you telling me that employer's are in the right for letting these people go for opening up their mouths?  Has Pandora's box been opened or will this foursome get their gigs back?

I can understand both sides of the argument and am honestly not sure where I stand.  While I think it over - why don't you tell me what you think by leaving a comment below.

I've got some "real" work to do this morning so here's a quickie roundup of random career links that will have a minimal impact on your working world.

Shortage of Women Truckers - I'd like to say I'm surprised.

Class of '07 Job Boom? New grads might be mad lucky.

Jersey Is Shrinking Away - Don't steal in the Garden State.

Smokers Need Not Apply  - Hotel smokers get snubbed out.

Knotted Necks - Formal dress code makes comeback.

That's a thought that has crossed my mind during every sick, vacation and personal day.  It can be a rainy Wednesday afternoon in October - yet everything is packed!   

Chris Colin has written a neat article for SF Gate: Why Aren't You Working?

It's about time someone asked the question on everybody's mind!