Snakes and Ladders - Times Online - WBLG

7 reasons for not working from home

Computer programmers don't need to go in to the office to get their jobs done. As long as they have access to the internet (so they can use instant messaging to stay in contact) and plenty of coffee (helps to counteract the effects of a low-fibre diet) they can write away in their strange foreign languages pretty much anywhere.

But there are still reasons to commit to the daily commute. Jim Buckmaster, the CEO of Craigslist, tells Management Today one of them: "Even the most introverted techie likes to have people around to withdraw from." In other words, if you don't come in to work, your colleagues don't know that you're ignoring them.

If you'd like to know more about Buckmaster's approach to management, take a look at Carol's interview and podcast with him here. If you want more reasons not to work from home, keep reading.

'Fess up...they're on to you

Excuses, excuses. Who hasn't told the occasional porkie at work?* A former colleague of mine made it a matter of personal pride to come up with inventive reasons for his habitual lateness. They started out at the safe end of the believability spectrum with - usually plausible - "transport problems". These stopped abruptly after he realised his boss actually took the same train as him - yet miraculously arrived on time.

* In case my editor's reading this - I haven't, honest

Hot chicks with job goggles

A colleague has passed me a booked called 'How to eat like a hot chick'  - yes, it is rather naff and its approach strikes me as a rather irritating marketing ploy to sell yet another book about healthy eating, but it does have some amusing lines. And I guess if it works for some women, then why not?

It also has its own dictionary of buzzwords which includes such things as twitterpated which means "to be giddy and overjoyed and anxious with feelings of love", and OWL syndrome which "stands for overwhelmed with life."

But what's this got to do with management or work? Well in the section on beer goggles - the invisible glasses which you don after a few drinks that make everyone look way hotter than they actually are - there is mention of another kind of goggles, job goggles. Here is what authors Jodi Lipper and Cerina Vincent have to say on the topic: "We also want to warn you about another kind of goggles: job goggles. If you're bored at work all day, office colleagues slowly start appearing more and more attractive. This has nothing to do with food, but just be aware of it before you start snogging the office boy at your next office Christmas party."

You've been warned. Twitterpating at work will not be tolerated.

Is your job bad for the Earth?

This is just a quick blog to alert you to a survey being conducted by my colleagues over on the Green Central blog. They are trying to find out which industry has the most destructive jobs - not in a raze-an-office-block-to-dust kind of way, but in a private-jet-burn-the-planet kind of way.

Power couples

Carla Bruni and Nicolas Sarkozy, Charles Saatchi and Nigella Lawson, Sam Taylor-Wood and Jay Jopling, Nicole Farhi and David Hare, bat man and cat woman ... the power couple is in. Men no longer want arm candy; they want intelligent, successful, hard-working women. Hurrah.

Any man worth his bonus has got with the programme and ditched the idea of a trailing wife in favour of someone whose professional status is a bonus in itself. A study published earlier this year shows that a professional man's salary is 5.5 per cent higher for every 1,000 hours worked by his wife. This is in contrast to the 1980s when the higher a man's salary the lower the hours worked by the wife.

There could be any number of reasons why the dual income couple thrives, including that the professional network is doubled for such couples, as is empathy and understanding for the stresses a full-on career brings, which when added to the halo effect of basking in each other's glory is bound to shower you both in professional accolades and opportunities.   

Annoying colleagues

I have been feeling very irritable lately. Mostly this manifests itself in harmless ways, as when I accidentally thump large men with my handbag as they try to push their way onto the train while I am disembarking.

Unfortunately, when the people I work with annoy me there's no such simple cure. It has, however, got me thinking about some of the most annoying habits of coworkers past and present, so here's a list of things that have managed to rile me (or my current colleagues) to the point of inflicting harsh and bloody vengeance on the annoyer. Or at least forgetting their order next time we make tea.

Swift exits

Last week when my colleague Sarah wrote an article on interview blunders I promptly posted a blog on my own experiences. This week her article on first day howlers has me stumped though. I don't have any first day stories to tell however I do have a couple of swift exits to report.

The first a new recruit who had been a highly impressive interview candidate seemed a little shocked on her first day when I ran through what was expected of her. But she seemed to settle in well. That was until she didn't show up on her third day. Anxious I called to see whether she was ok. She didn't return my call. But when she did, several days later, she told me quite bluntly: "I'm not coming back. I don't like you, and I don't like your team." Charming.

The other was a likeable and well-respected guy who was transfered to my team after his department closed down. We were delighted to have him on board. Sadly though he was none too pleased at the transition from a small quiet department to a large frenetic one. He too didn't show up to work one day and failed to return our calls. We had no idea what had happened to him until a Christmas card arrived a little while later apologising for the swift exit explaining that "a man's got to do, what a man's got to do." Quite.

Loony tunes and new lampshades

It's difficult being the one left behind by redundancy. The desks around you are empty and except for the odd mouldy-looking mug, there's nothing to suggest that your ex-colleagues ever existed. Next up: tumbleweed and comfort eating, so thank goodness for scatter cushions.

Though the colour of a couch may not be foremost in a manager's mind when the dust settles on a vigorous exercise in downsizing, "it's a business imperative to transform the space quickly to send a clear message to the remaining employees," James Ludwig, the vice-president of design for Steelcase, an office furniture maker, tells BusinessWeek (April 14). So clear away the unused desks and create meeting places instead. That way the skeleton crew have a place to gather and whisper about the company's future. And don't forget to chuck in a massage chair - those left to pick up the workload will surely need it.      

Proof that work is no laughing matter

What do you think of your manager? A dynamic leader or a drunken lemur? If it's the latter, I hope you manage to hide your disappointment unlike Dave Steward, a security guard at Catfish Bend Casino in Burlington, Iowa, who chose to fight back and lost his job. Steward was fired after putting a Dilbert cartoon that compared managers to drunken lemurs on the staff bulletin board. His act of subversion was unfortunately caught on CCTV.

Star signs in the office

It is almost certainly a quirk of birth but I know a lot of Steves aged about 40 years old who live in the South East of England. This is excellent news should I be in need of a man to wine and dine me in the manner to which I could easily become accustomed.

A survey of more than 850,000 jobseekers conducted by reed.co.uk suggests that Steves aged between 40 and 50, who are Capricorns, and live in the South of England are the most ambitious people in the UK - ie they expect to earn the most money.

No you don't need to reread that, it does say Capricorns. Now the Steves I know hold a range of positions including bakers, cartoonists, journalists and management consultants. All are extremely nice people who are successful at what they have chosen to do. But none, I think, are Capricorns.

This prompted me to research deeper. Can your star sign really be an indicator of your success at work or earning potential?

How the other half sit

It's difficult not to be impressed by the glass office-blocks housing international law firms, banks and the like that are dotted along the Thames and throughout the City. Great shiny factories, complete with brass nameplates, corporate art collections and a cohort of security guards keeping watch over the comings and goings of workers in well-cut suits. The money made by their collective efforts is no less visible. Everything is designed to yell wealth and success.

Or so I thought as I dodged the tourists and raindrops on my daily (ahem, weekly) run. As I rounded a corner and schlepped up an alleyway, the sight of a man at a desk in an open loading bay nearly floored me. How the other half live - or rather sit - out of sight. The guy must have been freezing cold. Still, there are some perks to sliding off the corporate ladder: he was rolling a cigarette.    

No f***ing swearing in the workplace

Abusive language in the office is a tricky subject; at least, it is for journalists. We work in a famously foul-mouthed profession - not here at The Times, of course, which is a bastion of courtesy and polite discussion, but certainly in other newsrooms I've occupied - so anything we say about it runs the risk of a certain degree of hypocrisy.

And, to be honest, a bit of effing and blinding sprinkled around the place doesn't bother me, as long as it's equal opportunity swearing rather than an attack on someone because of their age, gender, race etc. (In other words, it's fine to say "Who left their swearword used teabags in the sink again?" but not okay to accuse someone of being a "swearword little girl who can't swearword a swearing story for her sweary life". Even if it's true.)

Top ten toys for city boys

On my desk in front of me there is a foam boulder, a plastic goldfish, a foam car, a tube of hand cream and two pot plants. All except the tube of hand cream were sent to me by publicists promoting products they'd like featured in The Times.

Deal toys, popular with bankers, lawyers, and the like, take the concept of the desk toy one step further. Deal toys are mementoes of successful transactions. The more deal toys piled up on your desk the better you are - it's quantity that matters in this game. Deal toys can literally be trophies but the more creative ones are tailored to the deal ie a rubber duck to celebrate a floatation.

This prompted me to search the net in search of the best deal toys and offer up my own top list of deal toys. Please do send me pictures or descriptions of any you might have on your desk which are worthy of entry into the league.

1. A plastic hotdog. Possibly the most scrumptious looking deal toy on the planet. Not.

2. A shiny soldier on the phone. Presumably just sealing a deal for more ammo.

3. A plastic torso wearing a pink bra. What can I say? 

4. Toast in a toaster. Giving new meaning to the phrase you're toast. 

5. A hand grenade for really explosive deals.

6. A mini TV complete with remote control. For creative media types.

Post from the past

I have a confession to make: I don't own - or yearn for - a BlackBerry or a MacBook Air; I don't run my life via a page on Facebook; and officially old-skool, I have a pencil case sitting on my desk because it's a handy place to store paperclips. Of course that also means that I occasionally turn the pages of documents rather than scrolling down. In fact, it's safe to say that technology is more like a second cousin twice removed than my closest friend.

So far so dark ages and if the future of technology is Blindsight, an audio display for mobile phones, then it would appear that my bytes are well and truly toasted.

Get the most from your holidays

Holidays aren't about lying on a foreign beach toasting your way to skin cancer or following your children around the Disneyverse. Nor are they about anything as wet as spending time with friends and family (say that and people will assume you were simply too broke to take a proper holiday, anyway). Nope, annual leave exists for one reason only: to make people who aren't currently taking it very, very jealous of those who are.

Having just been on holiday (Australia: sunny, plenty of wine, no unfortunate run-ins with dangerous wildlife) I am well-placed to offer my advice on how to maximise such annoyance:

Eyeball alerts

Being on call 24 hours a day could soon become easier if a little bit too immediate. Researchers at the University of Washington, Seattle, are developing a contact lens containing metal circuitry and light-emitting diodes that communicates with mobile devices.

Forget casually glancing down at your Blackberry to see if you have a new e-mail message or an incoming call, the new lens will literally project images in front of your eyes. All this portable high-tech wizardry will either make you feel hugely in-demand and on Her Majesty's Secret Service or like a hunted animal, depending on how much you enjoy being plugged into the corporate machine.   

The lenses are now being tested on rabbits according to BusinessWeek (March 3)  - which raises more questions than it answers - but not for lack of human volunteers. "What surprised us are the dozens of people calling to volunteer to test them," Babak Parviz, the lead researcher, says. 

The US government is backing the project that could have military applications such as directing soldiers' movements via GPS units.

Credit: This image of the least suitable candidate for contact lenses comes from Island Med Student 

Leveraging laughs

Is your boss a "humour initiator"? That's the question posed by a new book - The Levity Effect: Why it Pays to Lighten Up by Adrian Gostick and Scott Christopher (John Wiley & Sons, £12.99) - that recently landed on my desk and performed a little tap dance. The modern leader, its writers argue, should be able to wisecrack their way through difficult situations to give those around them a boost. Some companies seem to riding at the front of the japes 'n' giggles bandwagon already, but I wondered whether their employees are really rolling in the aisles or contemplating a swift exit. Among the culprits are...

Please don't be my Valentine

What could be worse than falling madly in love with the oddly hairy guy in accounts who Carly kindly introduced in advice about office romances? Even the vague possibility that the bunch of drooping red roses and unsigned card that plays "Wild Thing" (Hallmark's bestseller, or so I read in Fast Company this month) is from said Hirsute in accounts. Perhaps he's watching you over the top of his computer screen, right now?

Oh, the horror of unsolicited attention at work. Struggling home on the bus with a vast bouquet is exhausting but dropping the unwanted gift into the nearest bin seems such a waste. What about all the air miles that your flowers have racked up?

But not everyone shares my run-a-mile-and-keep-on-running attitude to Valentine's Day. In some companies, my friends tell me, it's celebrated as just another part of the "who's for table-football as we brainstorm?" culture of office life. But what if you don't want to play? 

The 11th e-mail gaffe

Following on from Sathnam's post on the top 10 e-mail gaffes here is another. This will make anyone who works in law or any other sensitive role cringe and journalists the world over smirk.

Network World reports: "A simple e-mail slip-up, the kind any one of us could make at any time: A Philadelphia lawyer addresses his electronic missive to an Alex Berenson instead of Bradford Berenson.

But what happens next is anything but routine; it's front-page news in the New York Times. That's because Alex Berenson happens to be a reporter for the New York Times, as opposed to Bradford being another lawyer, and the e-mail happens to concern settlement talks between the U.S. government and pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly that include the proposed sum of $1 billion. Oopsie."

Oopsie indeed.

How Rambo saves the (working) day

John Frusciante over at Topless Robot clearly has a bit too much time on his hands, which of course we like as he's used it as an opportunity to describe how Rambo would solve every day office dilemmas. Unsurprisingly, most of the time it involves the sort of weapons that get teenagers kicked out of all but the hardest schools.

The future is adidas (or Nike. Or maybe Reebok)

The latest issue of Harvard Business Review contains its annual list of breakthrough ideas for 2008. These include things that we've been hearing about for some time (peer-to-peer networks, employing Gen Y-ers) to those that could perhaps seem like old ideas rebadged (these days top executives need to understand the opposition, which is not the same as the competition, no siree) and the odd snapshot of a frightening future (MRI lie detectors and their potential workplace uses).

But the one that got my attention was a vision of the board meeting of the future that had executives in tracksuits walking on treadmills while discussing corporate mergers and whatnot. The idea is that physical activity improves brain activity and therefore workplace performance, not that seeing your CEO in lycra is enough to scare anyone into productivity.

Advice about office romances

Valentine's Day is coming up and the social pressure to express your love by buying ill-fitting joke lingerie or booking an overpriced restaurant table is growing every day. But things could be worse: your love bunny might be not your old university boyfriend or the hot spinning instructor you met at the gym but the oddly hairy guy from accounts.

Please note, however, that getting him to do a Frank Lampard with his chest won't help - it's your shared employer, not his hirsutism, that's at issue here. Office love is a minefield that goes well beyond aesthetic concerns, a press release from Acas (the conciliation and arbitration organisation) helpfully reminds us. Here's its advice:

Grave matters

Following on from my blog about standing still, John Naish reports in The Times that Samsung Electronics employees have taken it one step further by paying £165 each to play dead. They have discovered that being nailed in a coffin for 15 minutes is a cathartic experience. Dead weird.

Monkey Business

You wouldn’t guess it from my shambolic conduct in the office, but I’ve been on tens of training courses in my time. Managing conflict. Clowning. Spiritual intelligence. But if I had to pick the most ridiculous course it was one offered by training company 23Twelve, which, a few months ago, required a trip to the Port Lympne Wild Animal Park in Kent to learn what gorillas can teach us about business.

I ranted about the idiocy of making an analogy between apes and officer workers at the time, but now the New Scientist reports that 'the office and the jungle are surprisingly similar.' The report continues: 'Both are ruled by stringent hierarchies, they are grounded in the need for co-operation, and complicated by the drive to compete. Add in the risk of hostile takeovers, a marketplace of favours and favourites, brazen opportunism and a long-held tradition of brown-nosing, and you can't tell the savannah from a forest of cubicles.'

The magazine sets out five 'rules of the jungle' that would apply equally in the office: avoid taking credit for work that is done collectively; keep in with your boss; don’t bear a grudge; be a team player; be a good boss. However, I'm still not ready to admit I was a baboon in originally dismissing the idea.

7 embarrassing breaches of workplace etiquette

I recently dropped my underpants while talking to a colleague. I wasn't wearing them at the time (I was dashing off to get changed into my running kit when I bumped into him) but there was still a moment of awkwardness, which naturally I filled by saying "oh look, my knickers are on the floor." I don't know what the correct etiquette is in such a situation, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't it.

This got me thinking about other breaches of workplace manners; not all of those listed below are mine, I swear...

Watching bees with Bill

Ever since the time and motion studies of the early 1900s bosses have monitored workers in the name of productivity. This could now be taken a step further with the discovery that Microsoft has developed office spy software to monitor workers' productivity, physical wellbeing and competence.

It is perhaps a little surprising that it is Microsoft that has filed the patent given that just three years ago The Times reported that "When it comes to monitoring employees on performance, Microsoft UK thinks that the perception of the employee as a ticking time bomb has gone too far. Recent research by Dr Carsten Sorensen at the London School of Economics, sponsored by the software giant, says that excessive monitoring is affecting productivity as employees react to guidelines rather than customers. In short, it’s time to return to trust."

But then we all change our minds. I'm not panicking though. In particular I'm not worried by claims that all this will make middle management redundant. No, no, quite the opposite - this will create jobs. Anyone who has read Dr Seuss's Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are? will know what I mean.

Nerds 1, Jerks 0

I was always considered a little nerdy at school - this was based, as far as I could tell, on being good at science and wearing lace-ups. Now, I'm willing to put money on the fact that David Anderegg, child psychologist, academic and author of Nerds: Who They Are and Why We Need More of Them was (is?) a nerd too.

Mr Anderegg describes nerds as "some combination of school success, interest in precision, unselfconsciousness, closeness to adults and interest in fantasy." His book is about nerdy kids and how to look after them. Bullying often leads kids to bend to peer pressure and hide their geekiness under a bushell. And "when these bright children start switching off their own lights to avoid being branded nerds, it is bad news for everyone - and for the economy."

Yep, as you grow up you discover that many of the highest earners - management consultants, investment bankers, lawyers and ...Times journalists (ok, perhaps not the latter) were considered nerds at school.

Stand like a tree, with lipstick on

Like many people at this time of year I am resolved to get fit and lose weight. Yet despite the best efforts of The Times Health Club I suspect I may be missing a trick.

There is a new fitness craze which is sweeping the corporate world - standing still. Yes that's right, not moving is a fast moving trend. Edge magazine reports that Zhan Zhuang or Qi Gong or Standing like a tree, as the art of stillness is variously called, is where it's at.

Work-life balance problems? Take this test to find out if you have an 'extreme' job

Hands up those of you who couldn't but help yourselves from having a little peek at your work e-mails while you were supposed to be on holiday? Yes - quite a few I suspect.

According to Sylvia Ann Hewlett, successful professionals are working harder than ever before and find themselves in 'extreme jobs' - which she defines as one in which an employee works for 60 hours or more per week, is a high earner and holds a position with at least five of the following characteristics:

Room 115 Tea Club News

When staff need to buy their own tea and coffee for the workplace all sorts of friction can arise - unless, that is, you have someone like John* to keep track of what's going on. A source kindly forwarded me his latest e-mail update:

"Hello everyone and welcome to the Room 115 Tea Club News for December 2007. The news for this month is very good in that we have a healthy stock of tea and coffee. The sugar level is holding its own, with milk being the main drain on our funds.

"An updated list of the current Tea Club funds and a 3D pie chart (not too sure what a 3D pie would taste like, though) of what the money was spent on during the year has been posted as normal near the kettle in the kitchen.

"Also, as I mentioned in my November issue, if anyone can think of a suitable (printable) name for our Tea Club, please let me know."

*not his real name.

How to deal with those pesky people at work

If it wasn't for people, it would be so easy to run an organisation. You'd run through your SWOT (strengths, weaknesses. opportunities and threats) analysis, design and create your product and put together your marketing and advertising strategy. Then press the button and bingo, you'd be top of the pile before you can say Jack Welch.

But you can never account for people. Despite your best laid plans, they always get in the way. There are always people who think they know better than you and will ignore you and your plans and choose to set off on some solo path far away from your original vision.

This is where you need Terry Tate, the office linebacker. Apologies to those in the US who are familiar with Terry - but for the rest of the world - here is the missing element on your career route to global domination.

The next time John in marketing commissions a creative that is diametrically opposed to your concept, don't get mad, get Terry Tate*.

* Don't try this at home.

What to buy the accountant in your life for Christmas

Finally, evidence that accountants are just like the rest of us: research by business-to-business publisher Sift Media found that bean-counters' favourite gadget is the Nintendo Wii. Small business owners want an iPod Touch while HR managers want the fancy new iPod AND an Xbox 360.

Read more about top tech toys in Carol's post from last month.

Your child can't draw

The Times' Arts Editor, Alex O'Connell, wrote a highly entertaining feature for T2 yesterday about Dan Crowe, former editor of the now-defunct literary magazine Zem-bla, who has set up a company, Kinbote’s Bespoke Art Commentary Service, which passes critical comments on the artistic works of children.

Apparently, parents e-mail him a j-peg of their child’s art work, the child answers a series of questions (What is the painting of? What are her aspirations? What does she like to do?) and Crowe returns a mini-essay that compliments and complements the picture. The daubings of Alex's own three-year-old daughter were deemed “highly sophisticated” and "rather Fauvist", and Snakes & Ladders would agree entirely.

But not everyone is so generous towards kiddie art. Here's someone who has been driven to distraction by pictures displayed by proud parents in offices. The site isn't brand new, but great art criticism, like great art, never dates. (Warning: the page contains strong language - don't click through if you're easily offended, or if you have an aversion to bright colours and scrawling...)

Top 10 most excruciating e-mail gaffes

My recent piece about workplace mortification made reference to a couple of famous e-mail gaffes and inspired Olivia Bennett, a young journalist working with The Times’ Business team, to compile a list of the most cringemaking examples. If there’s anything that'll inspire you into being more careful with those “reply all” and “forward” buttons, it's the following:

Get ahead at work: treat the CEO like a person

I have never walked into the office of the editor of The Times and asked him whether he had a nice weekend. I've never walked into his office for any other reason either, but if I was going to take up his time I'd make sure I had a hell of a scoop in my notebook first.

Mistletoe and (alcohol free) wine

What marks the start of Christmas for you? The first snowfall of the year? The bumper festive edition of the Radio Times? For me it only begins to feels like Christmas once I have seen a newspaper story about a borough council or corporation somewhere doing away with Christmas in the interests of diversity, or attempting to rename it “Winterfest” or “Winterval” for the apparent sake of racial harmony.

Top tech toys

Bored executives used to watch balls swing but now office sorts are getting their kicks from sticks -  that's stick people in boxes. Cube World (below right) has been named the top tech toy for working folks by Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.

This list of top tech toys for Christmas 2007 was developed by three Tuck MBA students -  Adam Bulakowski, Shilpa Karnik and Kate Reiling under the direction of Professor M. Eric Johnson, director of the school's Center for Digital Strategies. Johnson is a toy industry expert who has consulted with and written case studies on Mattel and Hasbro.

The full list of top tech toys for big kids and their offspring are:

Cube World (Radica Games) "This toy isn't for everyone. In fact, it didn't make our list last year. But after a year on our desks, and the addition of another pair, we could see how these cubes could provide some workplace fun." Recommended for working adults.

Tooth Tunes (Tiger Electronics) "Brush with a little force and music streams out of the bristles, vibrating your teeth, and turning your mouth into a music chamber." Recommended for everyone over age 7.

Tamagotchi Connection (Bandai) "An update on the ultimate virtual pet. Not only do you get to raise a Tamagotchi, you can now interact with others who have Tamagotchis." Recommended for 8 to 14 year olds.

Cosmic Catch (Hasbro) "A great way to encourage kids to get outside and play." Recommended for 7 to 11 year olds and their unfit parents.

EyeClops (JAKKS Pacific) "Fun for the exploring (or gross out) types." Recommended for 6 to 11 year olds and anyone considering a career change into lab work. 

Hot Wheels Maniacs (Mattel) "This $30 toy won't make your kids any smarter, but it will make them laugh." Recommended for 5 to 9 year olds.

Rescue Pets (MGA Entertainment) "This toy pet grants access to an online world through a secret access code around the pet's neck." Recommended for 3 to 7 year olds.

Easy Link (Fisher-Price) "Interfaces with a parent’s computer to provide controlled online play and learning." Recommended for 3 to 6 years and office luddites.

GBaby Magnetic Play System (Geomag) "The delightfully attractive blocks are the right colors and size to catch an infant’s fancy." Recommended for children aged 9 to 24 months old

Have the business boffs have got it right. Will we really all want these for Christmas?

Top 14 spurious productivity surveys

Last week I wrote about workplace productivity, and claimed barely a week passes without someone somewhere publishing an outlandish, pr-inspired survey supposedly exposing a way in which workers waste time. Eager to maximise my own productivity, and eager to minimise the workplace productivity of timesonline readers, I kept a record of the weirdest ones as I did my research, and am now delighted to present a list of the top 14 most ridiculous productivity surveys, as presented in the press, in reverse order of spuriousness. Somehow “14” seems an apt number for an arena that routinely sees the production of bizarrely precise estimates.

The law of Billy (no mates)

Last Saturday I examined why friendships formed at work – “workships” as some call them - are so difficult to sustain beyond the office, and received some intriguing responses. One reader wrote in enquiring whether companies really do, as I mentioned, have so-called "non-fraternization" policies in place to stop employees developing friendships outside the office. I could barely believe it when I read it either, but they really do. Some businesses apparently even put up posters encouraging staff to grass each other up – though it remains unclear how transgressions would be defined. Where would you draw the line? A drink after work? A smile across a supermarket aisle?

People would rather have coffee than sex

I like starting my working day with a cup of coffee. It's hot, it's caffeinated and it gives me something to do with my hands while I listen to my boss outline our schedule. I do not, however, like it enough to give up sex. This apparently puts me in a minority: Fast Company reports that more people would give up sex than would give up coffee.

I'm not sure if this means that they have access to truly fabulous coffee or utterly dreadful sex.