6 Tips to Make Yourself Promotable

6 Tips to Make Yourself Promotable 6 Tips to Make Yourself Promotable Article by Lisa M. AldisertI work with a manager who has a solid employee whom well call Chris. Duringhis annual performance review this year, Chris broached the topic of receiving a vorrcken. Chris does a good job, but frankly, it isnt anything out of the ordinary. He works 9-5, does what is required, but never really goes that extra mile. He isnt a mentor to junior team members. He rarely works late. He doesnt apply strong critical thinking to his work and has missed some key opportunities as a result.The manager asked why he felt he should have a promotion, and Chris responded, Well, Ive been doing this job for a long time.An employee who thinks he deserves a promotion just because hes put in the time is misguided. The challenge, however, is that managers dont always provide exact guidelines on how to achieve a promotion, so the route can be unclear. Every company is different, but the following adviceshould h elp you get you on the right track. 1. Avoid EntitlementThe biggest mistake people make when theyre trying to get a promotion is assuming they deserve it. An attitude of entitlement about receiving a promotion, even if it is deserved, is never going to work.A give-me monologue, without any substance to back it up, wont convince anyone.An attitude of entitlement may also drive you to fixate solely on the promotion, instead of on what you need to do to get it. When you think youre so great that thereis no doubtyou willget a promotion, you are probably ignoring the feedback previously given to you about what it will take to get that fleck.Another common misstep people make is bypassing their managers in order to kiss up to more senior leaders in an attempt to show off or demonstrate their value. This kind of behavior is always noticed, but not necessarily for the right reasons. This sneaky strategy will likely paint you as manipulative in the eyes ofyour direct manager, the senior lead er, or both. 2. Know Your WhyIts common to feel as if a promotion is the next logical career step and to start moving blindly in that direction without thought of what the promotion will mean. Before you lock your sights on a position, take time to identify what you want and why you want it. If you dont know the why, a promotion just for the sake of a promotion may lead you down an unfulfilling path.Examine your motivations. Are you looking for a better title, more money, increased power, career advancement, additional responsibilities, team management, a learning opportunity, or something else? How will the position satisfyyour career desires, whatever they may be?After you have identified your motivation, examine the position itself. Setting aside your desire for the title, consider the responsibilities of the job and how much time you will spend doing each of the tasks required. Is the job going to call for late nights?Will it spill over into weekends? Will you have to be on call ? What additional skills does the job require, and which of those skills do you possess? Will you be comfortable with the new responsibilities of the job?If, after a full assessment,the position and your motivationsare aligned, it is time to take steps to get noticed. 3. Go the Extra MilePeople who put in extra hours, take on additional responsibility without being asked, and anticipate project needs will get noticed. You could even start doing part ofyour target jobs responsibilities before you get the position, provided doing so does not step on anyones toes.One of my clients had an aspiring young employee who wanted a promotion to a position that didnt yet exist. When his boss pushed back and said he wasnt ready, the employee came prepared to his annual review with a list of tasks he was already doingthat would fall under the positions purview.The boss couldnt argue, so the new position was created andthe employee got the promotion. 4. Do Your Current Job FlawlesslyIn your curren t job, you should aim as close to perfection as possible. If youre functioning on autopilot or even neglecting parts of your job, you will give off the impression that your work is sloppy or you just dont care. If you cant shine in the position you currently have, why would a managergive you additional responsibilities? Doing your current job well is part of proving that youre ready for advancement. 5. Ask for ItIf you want the promotion, make sure your manager knows. Ask what you need to do to get the job, and then start doing those things. Even if you dont get the role this time around, you willidentify yourself as a potenzial candidate forfuture promotion opportunities. 6. Dont Be Afraid to Self-PromoteRemind your manager of all the outstandingthings youve accomplished on the job. Dont expect your boss to necessarily know how great you are. Plus, offering details of your achievements will help offset any perceived weaknesses you may have in your bosss eyes.- Making yourself promo table takes time, strategy, diligence, and commitment. Dont rely entirely on your own self-evaluation to prove your worth. Ask a trusted colleague or mentor for feedback, and listen to whatthey tell you. A little self-awareness will go a long way.Act as if youre already in the job you want - not the job you have. Acquire the skills you need. Take some of the load off your bosss desk. Demonstrate creative problem-solving skills.And, of course, remember to ask. It would be a shame to do all of this work and miss out because you didnt let your intentions be known.A version of this article originally appeared onSUCCESS.com.Dr. Lisa M. Aldisert is a speaker, author, and business advisor based in New York City. She is the president of Pharos Alliance. Her latest book is Leadership Reflections 52 Leadership Practices in the Age of Worry.

How Engineers Put Astronauts on the Moon

How Engineers Put Astronauts on the Moon How Engineers Put Astronauts on the Moon How Engineers Put Astronauts on the MoonWhen the world heard President John F. Kennedys declaration that the United States would attempt to land astronauts on the Moon by the end of the decade, it welches seen as a dareif move by a bold, young leader. For NASA engineers like Robert Schwinghamer, a technical associate at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., Kennedys May 1961 speech welches more than that. It welches a call to action.At the time of Kennedys address to Congress, NASA was an organization less than three years old and had achieved only 15 minutes of human spaceflight experienceAlan Shepards suborbital flight in a small Mercury capsule. The agency had very little infrastructure or hardware and did notlage have a lunar landing in its immediate plans. NASA was now tasked with turning an aspirational idea into actual konzepts, procedures, and hardware.The reality sank in fast th at going to the Moon would require ordnungsprinzips far more sophisticated than those used for Project Mercury. Therbeie were legitimate reasons to question the timeline Kennedy demanded. Some experts doubted it could be metbut not NASAs young technical workforce.We were all young, Schwinghamer recalled many years later. We didnt know what failure meant and we knew we could do it.Schwinghamers can-do attitude was pervasive throughout the fledgling space agency. Over the course of the next eight years leading up to the Apollo 11 lunar landing, engineers would confront hundreds of technical challenges.History remembers Kennedys bold statement I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. But a few moments later he stated, In a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the Moonif we make this judgment affirmatively, it will be an entire nation. For all of us mu st work to put him there.This is the story of some of that work.Finding a WayOnly weeks after Kennedys speech, NASA awarded the first contract for the moonshot programnot for a rocket or spacecraft, but for the guidance and control system. The priority of that contract reflected the degree of challenge NASA expected in the konzeption and construction of the system.The contractor was the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, a research arm of the university. The lab was headed by Charles Stark Draper, who had designed a revolutionary Inertial Guidance System used to navigate a B-29 bomber from Boston to Los Angeles in 1953. Inertial navigation quickly became commonplace in submarines, ballistic missiles, and aircraft.NASA wanted this type of system for its Apollo spacecraft. The plan was to use a basketball-size inertial measurement unit (IMU) that would make use of three gyroscopes mounted perpendicular to each other to measure changes in direction and three accelerometers to measure chan ges in velocity.While the IMUs design challenged the labs engineers, the real unknown was how to build the digital computer the astronauts would use to interface with the IMU to receive and input information. In the early 1960s, even the most compact advanced digital computers were large enough to fill several roomsmuch larger than the size of the proposed spaceship. When the engineers working on designing what would become the Apollo command module asked how much room to reserve for the computer, there was no immediate answer because such a computer had never been built.Dick Battin, the labs technical director, conferred with his colleagues. Their estimate 1 cubic foot.Then they had to build it to that spec.The Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) was one of the first to use integrated circuits, and engineers led by the labs deputy associate director, Hal Laning, came up with an elegant method for prioritizing computing tasks to speed up processing.Even with that breakthrough, engineers were still unsure of the computers ability because of limited memory capacity and no firm grasp of the software needed.The AGC that guided Apollo to the Moon had a memory capacity of only 72 kilobytes, mostly composed of copper wires woven in a specific pattern. Raytheon, which assembled the AGC, had a team of expert seamstresses who threaded the wires through magnetic rings (a wire going through the ring was a 1 and a wire going around the ring was a 0) to create the memory. Once this so-called rope memory was installed at the factory, however, it could not be changed. Computing pioneer Margaret Hamilton checking out systems in the command module. Photo Draper/Hack the MoonGetting the programming right became the challenge, a task that was underestimated by engineers from both NASA and MIT. Margaret Hamilton, who led the team that would write the software for the AGC, summed up the reality of that development period. When I first got into it, nobody knew what it was that we were doing. It was like the Wild West. There was no course in it. They didnt teach it, Hamilton said. In this vacuum, her team of more than 400 people not only developed the necessary programming for the AGC, they also essentially led to the creation of software engineering as its own discipline.Listen to the latest episode of ASMETechCast Engineering the Apollo 11 Lunar ModuleEven so, the technology was unproven. NASA chose to use radio navigation to guide the Apollo spacecraft to the Moon with the AGC serving as backup. But the AGC would be the sole guidance system used during the critical phases when the spacecraft was on the far side of the Moon as well as to guide the lunar module to the Moons surface.The big test occurred as Apollo 8 circled the Moon in December 1968 and re-emerged from the far side after being out of contact with Mission Control. A position check corresponded exactly with Earth-based calculations, verifying the AGC had the spacecraft exactly where it was supposed to be.Notably, this first-of-its-kind computer never failed during any of the Apollo missions.Design, Test, and RedesignAt the time of Kennedys address to Congress, rocket engine technology was starting to mature, but engineers faced a daunting challenge in developing a single system capable of lifting a 100,00 payload to the Moon. The first stage of the Saturn V launch vehicle was fired at the NASA Mississippi Test Facility. The F-1 engines in that stage were plagued by instability issues, which required repeated testing and redesign before they could be counted on for a mission. Photo NASA Conceived by Wernher von Braun, the Saturn V started as a concept on a drawing board. As designed, it stood 363 feet tall and weighed 6.1 million pounds fully fueled. To lift it from the launch pad would require developing rocket engines 10 times more powerful than any U.S. rocket in existence. Each rocket would produce 1.5 million pounds of thrust and consume three t ons of fuel and oxidizer every second together, the five rockets making up the first stage of the Saturn V would propel the Apollo spacecraft to an altitude of 38 miles and a speed of Mach 7.Engineers at NASAs Marshall Space Flight Center and Rocketdyne, the prime contractor, now had to make it reality.Some engineers confidently believed that developing the rocket engine, called the F-1, was simply a matter of scaling up existing engine designsthat the basics of rocket engines were the same. Early tests challenged that confidence when several engines exploded in the test stand.Engineers traced the cause to combustion instability, a rotation of the flame inside the combustion chamber that could reach 2,000 cycles per second. The size of the engine was a contributing factor and there were no ready solutions. This led to questioning the feasibility of the engine. Donald Hornig, a member of the Presidents Science Advisory Committee, lamented, The engine might just be too big to make wor k.The entire Apollo program was in jeopardy.Faced with this major challenge, the attitude of the engineers was crucial. We had problems we did not know what to do about, said James Murphy, the deputy manager of the Saturn V program. It was the buildup of enthusiasm that made solving them possible.The investigation pointed to the injector, the showerhead-like mixer that fed the fuel and oxidizer through tiny holes into the combustion chamber. Initiating and sustaining combustion required the proper mixture ratio, pressure, and spray pattern. Once instability started, there was no way to stop it. It would destroy the engine in a matter of seconds.The engineers experimented with enlarging the diameter of the orifices, adjusting the angles to control fuel and oxidizer impingement, and adding baffles on the injector plate to limit the rotational motion of the gases. In one series of tests, engineers placed small explosive devices inside the combustion chamber to create instability and me asure the engines ability to recover.There was no single engineering solution that fixed the problem. It took a meticulous approach that involved design, test, and redesign. After 18 months and thousands of engineering hours, including 78 hours of live engine testing, the F-1 engine was certified for flight on Sept. 6, 1966. The Saturn V flew 13 times during the Apollo program, and the F-1 engines achieved a 100 percent reliability rating.Flexible and FunctionalIt would not be sufficient for astronauts to merely land on the Moonthey would need to explore. But the near vacuum of space and the temperature extremes on the lunar surface presented dangerous challenges. Astronauts would need a pressurized suit with a life-support system to provide oxygen and a comfortable temperature, as well as layered protection from the environment and micrometeoroids. In addition, the suit needed to be flexible enough to allow the astronauts to move around and perform tasks.The silver spacesuit used b y the astronauts on Project Mercury was an adapted Air Force high-altitude pressure suit. Walking on the Moon, however, would require something brand new. Like many other technological challenges for Apollo, the design requirements for such a suit were unknown.In 1962, NASA invited companies to submit bids for the Apollo spacesuit. Eight companies entered the competition and the surprise winner was the International Latex Company (ILC), which proposed a simple design with flexible rubber joints. But ILC had no experience with space suits or working under a government contractits most famous product was Playtex womens undergarments. NASA appointed Hamilton Standard, a well-established aerospace supplier that had received the contract for the life support system, to oversee the entire program.NASA required a very flexible suit that would enable the astronauts to stoop and bend in order to work on the Moon. In designing the suits, ILC made use of its talented pool seamstresses, who soo n transitioned from womens products to spacesuits. I never thought in my wildest dreams I would be making space suits, Eleanor Foraker, who managed the sewing operation, later declared. Foraker demanded the sewing quality meet the highest standards, as the astronauts lives were on the line.Meanwhile, Hamilton Standard engineers were designing the Portable Life sttze System (PLSS) The backpack that pressurized the suit, provided oxygen, removed carbon dioxide, and ensured a comfortable temperature. A main challenge was maximizing the oxygen capacity with minimal weight. Design engineer Earl Bahl had the assignment and, like other Apollo design tasks, he noted, Nobody had done this before. Bahl came up with a re-breathing system Lithium hydroxide filters reacted with the exhaled CO2 to make lithium carbonate and water, while oxygen passed through the filter and was recycled. This reduced oxygen consumption by more than 20 percent.In 1964, ILC and Hamilton Standard started to deliver f inished suits. NASA rejected them because the suits were heavy, bulky, and not very flexible. The suits also failed a major test where astronauts had to fall onto their backs in the suit and stand back up.In 1965, NASA took the drastic step of cancelling the contracts with ILC and Hamilton Standard and began an entire new competition. Starting from scratch was liberating for ILC, which proposed an innovative and very functional design based on its experience as a clothes designer. ILC again won the suit contract, this time reporting directly to NASA. (Hamilton Standard also retained the PLSS contract.) The new suit was three garments in one A water-cooled undergarment a pressurized inner suit that had flexible joints and an outer nylon garment that protected against the temperature extremes and micrometeoroids. The suits, tested extensively, passed all of the requirements and were now ready for flight.The Apollo 1 fire, which killed three astronauts during a ground test in January 1 967, prompted another redesign. Following the accident investigation, NASA mandated the removal of all flammable material from the spacecraft and suit. ILC reached out to experts in fabric technology and found a material called clothtightly woven silica fiber coated in Teflon. With an outer shell made of beta cloth, the A7LB spacesuit was certified for flight.Prepared for Any ContingencyThe spacesuit delivered protection from the Moons harsh environment, but could the astronauts do meaningful work on the lunar surface? Project Gemini provided the proving ground to train astronauts for what NASA referred to as an extravehicular activity (EVA) and prepare them for the moonwalks.Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov completed the first EVA when he left his spacecraft for 12 minutes on March 18, 1965. The spacewalk was a great achievement for the Soviet program, but what was not reported at the time is that Leonov had to depressurize his spacesuita very dangerous procedurein order to make the suit flexible enough to re-enter his capsule. It illustrated the unknowns of conducting EVAs.Astronaut Ed White became the second spacewalker and the first for NASA when he exited his Gemini 4 spacecraft three months later. His 23-minute EVA proved the ability to exit and survive in space, but NASA quickly discovered that EVAs were not as easy as they might have looked. On NASAs next EVAduring Gemini 9 in February 1966astronaut Gene Cernan ran into trouble almost immediately. Cernan was tasked with assembling equipment outside the spacecraft, but without any handholds or foot restraints, Cernan mostly spun around as everything he pushed against pushed back. It was as if NASA had completely forgotten about Newtons Third Law of Motion and Cernan got a refresher course.The extra exertion sent Cernans heart rate to more than 170 and he quickly overtaxed his environmental cooling unit, which caused his visor to fog up. Cernan struggled for two hours before returning to the safety of the spacecraft. No meaningful work was accomplished and Cernan lost nearly 10 pounds in completing his dangerous EVA.Following the flight NASA conducted an independent inquiry and found that planning and preparation for the EVA was severely deficient. It would not be until November 1966, the final flight in the Gemini program, that a successful EVA took place. Buzz Aldrin, who later became the second man to walk on the Moon, conducted extensive training in an underwater tank named the Neutral Buoyancy Trainer. Working with a mockup of the Gemini 12 spacecraft, in which the underwater environment simulated the zero-g experienced in space, Aldrin was able practice all the procedures.Using installed handholds and footholds Aldrin conducted three spacewalks and was able to perform his entire task list without problems.Editors Pick Engineering Remember the Making of the Lunar ModuleTraining and practice in outdoor, indoor, and underwater environments became commonplace following Aldrins suc cessful Gemini EVAs. By the time of Neil Armstrongs one small step, he and Aldrin were prepared for any contingency on the lunar surface.One might look back on the success of Apollo and believe it was pre-ordained. From a public view the 400,000 engineers, scientists, and technicians who contributed to the program made it seem easy. As unterstellung four Apollo technology examples illustrate, it was not.The engineers and scientists who made Apollo possible never wavered. They displayed Robert Schwinghamers can-do attitude of . . . We knew we could do it. Because of their ingenuity, today we celebrate the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 as a historic engineering and technological achievement.Burton Dicht, an ASME Fellow, is the director of student and academic education programs at IEEE. His interest in aerospace history has made him a frequent lecturer on space-related topics.

Video ASME Innovation Showcase in Pune India

Video ASME Innovation Showcase in Pune India Video ASME Innovation Showcase in Pune India Video: ASME Innovation Showcase in Pune, India Twelve teams of social entrepreneurs from across India and Southeast Asia converged in Pune, India, to compete as finalists at ASMEs inaugural ISHOW Innovation Showcase. The competition, held in April, was the first in a series 2015 international competitions, scheduled also for Washington, DC, and Nairobi, Kenya. ISHOW is a global competition that focuses on hardware-led social ventures. The winners in Pune were: Imaduddin Majid, Ridwan Wicaksono, and partner Syauqy Aziz, from Indonesia. Though their company, Atnic, the trio are developing a system to monitor the water quality of shrimp ponds, to help farmers increase their yield. Anurag Agarwal, from near New Delhi, India. Agarwal and team members from New Leaf Ventures, are developing an off-grid refrigeration system powered by farm waste designed to reduce food wastage by farmers. Rajeev Kumar, from Bengaluru (Bangalore), India, and team members from Neurosynatoic, are developing diagnostic system using mobile technology to improve healthcare in remote, rural regions. Read the full article about the competition in Pune. The copyright of this program is owned by The American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Video produced, directed and written by Roger Torda, ASME Public Information.

7 Resources for People Working Remotely - The Muse

7 Resources for People Working Remotely - The Muse 7 Resources for People Working Remotely If you’ve ever been curious about working remotely, we’ve got you covered. Even if it’s not an option for you right now, it’s no doubt a growing trend that’s worth knowing more about. After all, your next position might give you the option to do it. So, we’ve put together the best resources to get you up-to-date, and even better, how you might explore it and make it fit for you. Let’s start with the exciting part: Studies have shown that letting employees clock-in without going straight to the office raises productivity. (Harvard Business Review) And while it seems counterintuitive to bring your business responsibilities back home, there are actually a lot of great reasons why doing so makes sense. (Tech Republic) Want to see more tangible benefits of remote work? These three companies have been making it an option for a long time. (Fortune) Want to try it for yourself? Here are some great guidelines for doing it without getting into hot water. (TIME) You can also learn from the pros: Read up on the habits of successful remote employees for ways to envision how this could apply to your own trade. (The Next Web) Can’t imagine this working for you right now? Well, you can still take a page out of remote workers’ books on structuring their days. (The Huffington Post) Or, if you’re ready to test it out, here’s how to convince your boss to let you give it a stab. (The Daily Muse) Photo of person working from home courtesy of Hero Images/Getty Images.

Grammar rules you were taught at school that are wrong

Grammar rules you were taught at school that are wrong Grammar rules you were taught at school that are wrong Do you remember being taught you should never start your sentences with “And” or “But”?What if I told you that your teachers were wrong and there are lots of other so-called grammar rules that we’ve probably been getting wrong in our English classrooms for years?How did grammar rules come about?To understand why we’ve been getting it wrong, we need to know a little about the history of grammar teaching.Grammar is how we organize our sentences in order to communicate meaning to others.Those who say there is one correct way to organize a sentence are called prescriptivists. Prescriptivist grammarians prescribe how sentences must be structured.Prescriptivists had their day in the sun in the 18th century. As books became more accessible to the everyday person, prescriptivists wrote the first grammar books to tell everyone how they must write.These self-appointed guardians of the language just made up grammar rules for English, and put them in books that they sold. It was a wa y of ensuring that literacy stayed out of reach of the working classes.They took their newly concocted rules from Latin. This was, presumably, to keep literate English out of reach of anyone who wasn’t rich or posh enough to attend a grammar school, which was a school where you were taught Latin.And yes, that is the origin of today’s grammar schools.The other camp of grammarians are the descriptivists. They write grammar guides that describe how English is used by different people and for different purposes. They recognize that language isn’t static, and it isn’t one-size-fits-all.1. You can’t start a sentence with a conjunctionLet’s start with the grammatical sin I have already committed in this article. You can’t start a sentence with a conjunction.Obviously you can, because I did. And I expect I will do it again before the end of this article. There, I knew I would!Those who say it is always incorrect to start a sentence with a conjunction, like “and” or “butâ €, sit in the prescriptivist camp.However, according to the descriptivists, at this point in our linguistic history it is fine to start a sentence with a conjunction in an op-ed article like this, or in a novel or a poem.It is less acceptable to start a sentence with a conjunction in an academic journal article, or in an essay for my son’s high school economics teacher, as it turns out. But times are changing.2. You can’t end a sentence with a prepositionWell, in Latin you can’t. In English you can, and we do all the time.Admittedly a lot of the younger generation don’t even know what a preposition is, so this rule is already obsolete. But let’s have a look at it anyway, for old time’s sake.According to this rule, it is wrong to say “Who did you go to the movies with?”Instead, the prescriptivists would have me say “With whom did you go to the movies?”I’m saving that structure for when I’m making polite chat with the queen on my next visit to the palace.That’s not a sarcastic comment, just a fanciful one. I’m glad I know how to structure my sentences for different audien ces. It is a powerful tool. It means I usually feel comfortable in whatever social circumstances I find myself in, and I can change my writing style according to purpose and audience.That is why we should teach grammar in schools. We need to give our children a full repertoire of language so that they can make grammatical choices that will allow them to speak and write for a wide range of audiences.3. Put a comma when you need to take a breathIt’s a novel idea, synchronizing your writing with your breathing, but the two have nothing to do with one another and if this is the instruction we give our children, it is little wonder commas are so poorly used.Punctuation is a minefield and I don’t want to risk blowing up the internet. So here is a basic description of what commas do, and read this for a more comprehensive guide.Commas provide demarcation between like grammatical structures. When adjectives, nouns, phrases or clauses are butting up against each other in a sentence, we s eparate them with a comma. That’s why I put commas between the three nouns and the two clauses in that last sentence.Commas also provide demarcation for words, phrases or clauses that are embedded in a sentence for effect. The sentence would still be a sentence even if we took those words away. See, for example, the use of commas in this sentence.4. To make your writing more descriptive, use more adjectivesAmerican writer Mark Twain had it right.When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don’t mean utterly, but kill most of them â€" then the rest will be valuable.If you want your writing to be more descriptive, play with your sentence structure.Consider this sentence from Liz Lofthouse’s beautiful children’s book Ziba Came on a Boat. It comes at a key turning point in the book, the story of a refugee’s escape.Clutching her mother’s hand, Ziba ran on and on, through the night, far away from the madness until there was only darkness and quiet.A beautifully descriptive sen tence, and not an adjective in sight.5. Adverbs are the words that end in ‘ly’Lots of adverbs end in “ly”, but lots don’t.Adverbs give more information about verbs. They tell us when, where, how and why the verb happened. So that means words like “tomorrow”, “there” and “deep” can be adverbs.I say they can be adverbs because, actually, a word is just a word. It becomes an adverb, or a noun, or an adjective, or a verb when it is doing that job in a sentence.Deep into the night, and the word deep is an adverb. Down a deep, dark hole and it is an adjective. When I dive into the deep, it is doing the work of a noun.Time to take those word lists of adjectives, verbs and nouns off the classroom walls.Time, also, to ditch those old Englishmen who wrote a grammar for their times, not ours.If you want to understand what our language can do and how to use it well, read widely, think deeply and listen carefully. And remember, neither time nor language stands still â€" for any of us.Misty Adoniou, Associate Professor in Language, Literacy and TESL, University of CanberraThis article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

How to Stop Crying (or Delay Your Tears) at Work - The Muse

How to Stop Crying (or Delay Your Tears) at Work - The Muse How to Stop Crying (or Delay Your Tears) at Work Have you ever felt an ominous lump form in your throat during a meeting? Maybe you’ve noticed tears forming and then slowly gathering, giving the office a slight blur as you try to sniffle them away. Or maybe you’ve felt your breath catching and you pray no one will look at you, let alone ask you a question, because you’re certain that if you open your mouth to try to speak, you’ll break down. If you’ve been there, you might also have wondered how to stop crying, or how to avoid or delay getting there in the first place. You’re certainly not alone. A recent survey from the staffing firm Accountemps found that 45% of respondents, who were all workers in the U.S., had cried in an office environment. Common as tears in the workplace may be, you might still feel like you’re breaking some sort of unwritten rule of conduct. Denise Dudley, a behavioral psychologist and the founder and former CEO of SkillPath Seminars, says that no one ever reaches out to her to ask about “how not to cry in a movie or how not to cry in a funeral, how not to cry in social situations with my friends.” But people do frequently ask her how to stop crying at work. In other words, what’s considered a normal reaction in other settings feels taboo at work. We’re going to start with some background on crying at work, but you can also jump straight to our tips on how to avoid crying by clicking here. When and Why Crying at Work Could Hurt You Is it okay to cry at work? The short answer is that it depends- on what kind of situation you’re in when the tears come, how frequently it happens, who’s around when it does, what kind of environment you work in, what your personal philosophy around crying is, and more. But most people believe crying can have negative consequences. According to the Accountemps survey, roughly 70% of both workers and CFOs agreed either that “crying is OK from time to time, but doing it too often can undermine career prospects” or that “crying is never OK at work- people will perceive you as weak or immature.” Only about 30% thought that “crying has no negative effect- it shows you’re human.” Kimberly Elsbach, a professor of management at UC Davis Graduate School of Management who’s studied perceptions of crying in the workplace, found in research with her colleagues that, at best, you can expect a neutral response. When someone cried because of a personal issue (such as a death in the family, a divorce, a layoff), they were perceived neutrally, “as long as the person didn’t cry extensively or disrupt work of others.” But crying in other circumstances- during a performance review, while facing a stressful deadline, or in a formal meeting- could lead others to “perceive you as weak, unprofessional, manipulative.” Dudley agrees that there are situations in which it’s best not to cry. “Not that I approve of the environment I’m about to describe. I’d prefer to say let’s make an effort to change it, but in the meantime let’s face facts,” she says. And so until the culture around crying can change, she advises trying to avoid tears when you’re in a “one-down position.” That might mean you’re an employee talking to a supervisor (especially if you have a complicated relationship), a woman in a group of men, a presenter standing in front of a board of directors or others in power, in a tense situation, or at odds with a colleague. “The dangerous part of crying is it repositions us into a farther one-down position,” Dudley says. “In any situation when we cry we run the risk of losing our power and credibility and our believability even.” What’s Gender Got to Do With It? It’s impossible to talk about crying at work without talking about gender. In a survey of 700 people by Anne Kreamer, author of It’s Always Personal: Navigating Emotion in the New Workplace, 41% of women admitted they’d cried at work, compared to only 9% of men. Women are more likely than men to cry at work, Elsbach agrees. By the time she and her colleagues had collected 109 “crying stories,” as they called them, they had only nine from men. Although they didn’t collect enough data to come to any empirical conclusions about men crying at work, the handful of stories they did hear mostly led to positive perceptions, suggesting a possible double standard. As Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke once said, “a man gets a standing ovation for crying because he’s so sensitive, but a woman is shamed.’’ There are biological and physiological reasons that play into why women are more likely to cry at work as well as socialization factors. “The expectation in our society is girls should not be expressing anger, but it’s okay for girls to cry,” says Mollie West Duffy, co-author of No Hard Feelings: The Secret Power of Embracing Emotions at Work. But although girls are socialized to cry, when they become women and cry at work, that’s not necessarily considered acceptable either. In That’s What She Said: What Men Need to Know (and Women Need to Tell Them) About Working Together, Joanne Lipman says that many of the men she spoke with for the book told her they dread women’s tears. That dynamic can end up hurting women’s careers if their male bosses hold back crucial feedback for fear of tears in a way they don’t for their male reports. So crying at work- or even the notion that you might cry- can have real and lasting consequences. 7 Ways to Stop Crying (or at Least Avoid or Delay It) So let’s start with the caveat that you don’t necessarily have to consider crying at work a career crusher- or even something you need to be so afraid of, depending on the situation. But here are a few things you can do to tamp down oncoming tears, to delay them long enough to find a safe place to let them out, or to make you less likely to cry in the first place. Keep in mind, though, that none of these are magic bullets, and you may not always be able to stop yourself from shedding some tears. Read on all the way to the end for a few words about why that’s okay. 1. Take a Deep Breath A common suggestion for avoiding tears is to practice deep breathing when you feel the waterworks coming on. “I think that’s ambitious,” Dudley says. It’s not quite realistic to think you can go into full deep breathing mode when you’re sitting in a staff meeting (at least, not if your goal is to fly under the radar). Instead, Dudley suggests trying a mini version of the technique. “Inhale one deep long breath, hold it for a moment, not too long, and then exhale,” she says. “Even if it takes 10 seconds, it resets a few things in your brain or throat.” And you might just stave off those tears until after the meeting. 2. Use Your Tongue, Your Eyebrows, or Your Muscles If you’re trying to stop crying without drawing attention to yourself, you can also try one of a handful of other tricks that won’t be too obvious in public. “Simply push your tongue to the roof of your mouth,” body language expert Janine Driver told The New York Times, or try to relax your facial muscles, particularly those behind your inner eyebrows, which tend to come together when you’re sad. On the other hand, Ad Vingerhoets, a researcher at Tilburg University who studies emotional tears, told The Cut that “increasing muscle tension and moving may limit your crying response.” As with most advice about how to stop crying, you might have to try out a few strategies to see which actually works for you- and keep in mind that none of them are sure bets. 3. Take a Break and Get Away From the Situation If you think you might start crying and you’re in a setting where you don’t want that to happen, the best thing you can do is remove yourself from the situation. If you’re leading a meeting, you can tell everyone to take a 10-minute break and reconvene. Otherwise, you can quietly step out- people go to the bathroom all the time, after all. “Research shows that we usually feel better either if we’re crying alone or if we just have one other person there,” Duffy says. “More than one person and we get overwhelmed because we’re thinking about how we are being perceived,” which might make us cry even more. So go somewhere you can be alone- whether that’s to your office (if you have one), the bathroom, or outside for a walk- get a drink of water, take some deep breaths, and tell yourself it’s okay. And if you could use the support, grab a trusted colleague on your way or text them and ask them to meet you. “Try during that time to focus on something else, so that you’re not ruminating on the issue that was leading to the tears,” Elsbach says, especially if you’re hoping to collect yourself and get back in there. If you think you’re ready, “test yourself,” she adds. “Can I think about that thing and not start to get emotional? If you can, maybe rejoin the meeting.” Removing yourself from the situation might be more complicated if you’re having a one-on-one meeting. If you’re talking to an otherwise kind and supportive supervisor or colleague you know won’t use it against you, Dudley says, you can ask for a moment. Try: “This is difficult for me to hear, but I know we need to talk about it. Would you mind giving me a couple minutes in the hallway?” But if you’re speaking with someone you’re not sure is 100% on your side, you might want to try another technique. 4. Stop the Thoughts That Are Making You Cry (This’ll Take Some Practice) If you can’t physically get away from the situation, that doesn’t mean you can’t mentally get away. You can borrow from an intervention technique sometimes used in therapy called thought stopping or thought replacement. It’s exactly what it sounds like. Whatever it is that’s provoking your crying response, try to put that out of your mind and think about something totally unrelated instead. Dudley recommends having a go-to replacement thought. Maybe it’s your dog, who always makes you laugh. “I love my dog so much,” you might think to drown out the thoughts about how poorly your co-worker just treated you. “She’s going to be so happy when I come home.” You’ll want to practice this one in lower-stakes situations before you try to rely on it in a crucial moment, Dudley says, because it’ll take practice to do it successfully. “In the beginning you might keep hopping back, but practice really does help,” she says. Even so, it “may not work for everybody in every situation.” 5. Pretend You’re an Actor in a Movie Dudley has another suggestion that’s a bit unconventional, but she insists it’s helped her get through difficult interactions when she worked at psychiatric hospitals and in frustrating moments at home (for example, finding her kids drawing on the wall after a long day). “If you feel you might be about to cry or are going to scream or say something you might regret, pretend that you’re an actor in a movie. What’s the script?” she says. “Now it’s not just me, Denise, who’s really upset because my boss just told me I didn’t get a raise,” she explains. Instead, you can distance yourself and play “the role of the employee who is a quintessential professional,” one whose words are “calm and well thought out.” 6. Eliminate or Reduce Stressors in Your Life, if You Can You can take steps to avoid crying well before you find yourself in a tear-inducing situation. Make sure you’re getting enough sleep and that you’re properly fueled (i.e. fed) and hydrated. Try to reduce or eliminate other stressors in your life, too. For example, if you’re constantly fighting with your spouse or roommates, doing what you can to address those situations could help you establish a less precarious baseline. “If you’re out of balance, you’re more likely to cry,” Dudley says. So “check in with all the usual suspects” and see “if there are weird things going on in your life that you can control or eliminate.” 7. Figure Out What Might Make You Cry, and Why You Cried Last Time If you go into a performance review expecting a glowing assessment and instead get some pretty significant criticism (constructive as it may be), the shock of it may make you react more severely. But “if you’re expecting it, if you know going in, you can kind of prepare yourself for that, gird yourself,” Elsbach says. So try to anticipate situations that might be difficult and prepare yourself. It could help you keep your composure until you can get a moment alone. And if you have cried in a similar situation in the past, don’t just brush that aside. Often, “the tears happen and then we like to immediately forget about it because...we feel ashamed or we feel angry that it happened so we’d like to just never think about it again,” Duffy says. But that approach “can cause you to cry more in the future because you haven’t paused to figure out why you were crying,” she explains. “Tears contain really important emotional signals. But you only learn from those signals if you take the time to pay attention to them.” Particularly for women, tears can be a sign of anger- as Duffy says, “men yell, women cry.” And while yelling isn’t necessarily a better way to go, she adds, “unfortunately crying in the workplace when you’re angry isn’t going to necessarily express to others that you’re angry, it’s going to express to others that you’re sad or ashamed or out of control.” So once you’ve calmed down, try to figure out why you started crying and what the underlying emotions and factors were. Whether you’re angry or overworked or hate your job or anything else, think about how you might address the root cause (or causes) when you’re not feeling so emotional. It might help prevent the tears from coming up again in a similar situation. If you notice that crying has become a regular occurrence, it might be a sign that there are bigger issues to address than how to stymie tears in the moment, such as depression or a truly toxic work environment you need to figure out how to leave behind. The Argument for Not Avoiding Tears at Work Next time you’re thinking about how to stop crying, consider that it might not always be such a terrible thing, and you can help make it just one more normal response in the spectrum of what’s acceptable at work. Dudley, for one, would like to live in a world in which crying is normalized and just as unremarkable as laughter, though hopefully less frequent. Duffy echoes that sentiment, and is convinced we’re moving in the right direction. “Crying at work is not going to ruin your career,” she says. “I think there is still a stigma around that but it’s a pretty dated stigma...from 20 or 30 years ago when we worked in a work environment that was male-dominated and so women had to put on this coat of armor to go into the male workplace and crying was not appropriate.” And don’t forget that you can play a role not only when you’re crying, but also when you notice someone else in the office crying. “We can only start changing this if we start to change how we think about [it] with others as well,” Duffy says. So don’t be so hard on yourself if you feel the tears coming at work once in a while. And don’t be so hard on your colleagues if and when they cry at work. As Duffy says, “I actually think crying is a sign of our humanity and we want to see humanity in our colleagues and in our leaders.”

Why Connecting With Other Women is Critical to Your Career

Why Connecting With Other Women is Critical to Your Career Why Connecting With Other Women is Critical to Your Career In my work interviewing remarkable women leaders, I’ve been seeing a huge trend of women connecting with and investing in other women. Whether as mentors, advisors, philanthropists, or investors, women are increasingly supporting each other in their careers, goals, and lives.And yes, we can all tell stories about negative experiences connecting with other women- I’ve had my own horrible boss and catty acquaintances. But these experiences are no reason to write off building female relationships. In fact, creating a strong network of women and female role models is critical for your career and your life: It can propel you to reach your full potential- and it can even change the world.Women Will be Your Sounding Board“I wanted to be respected as a business owner and leader, not as a woman who owned a business. But, I now realize that there are differences in the experience that only women can relate to… So I am making a concerted effort to associate myself with women’s resourc es.”- Shara Mendelson, Founder of Plum BenefitsSome situations in the quest for leadership are unique to women. When negotiating a salary or raise, women face different challenges than men do. Mentorship relationships are more difficult to find and build upon when most role models in positions of leadership are older men. Men may not see the challenge in being the only woman sitting at the boardroom table, but other women can relate.And when you surround yourself with female mentors and role models, you have a sounding board- a group of people who will understand your frustrations and can help you decide when and how to handle tough situations. You’ll begin to recognize that, no matter what you’re facing, you’re not alone. You have the emotional support of other women who’ve been where you are, and who get it.Women Can be Role ModelsWhether it’s deflecting compliments on how fabulous we look or doubting that we really did ace that big presentation, we women tend to be ou r own worst critics. When we don’t fit the mold of what the media tells us we have to look, feel, and act like, we think something is wrong, we judge ourselves, and we sometimes talk ourselves out of our goals and aspirations.But having great female mentors and role models can be what changes that. When you learn from the women who have been there and back, and surround yourself with people who will encourage you along the way, it will give you the strength and inspiration you need to pursue your dreams.You Can Change the WorldAccording to CARE, women do 60% of the world’s work, yet earn just 10% of the world’s income and own only 1% of the world’s property. While women continue to gain leadership roles in business, at nonprofits, and as entrepreneurs, if we continue at the current rate, it will take 500 years for women to reach parity with men.But an exciting movement is teeming beneath the surface, and women are joining forces to challenge these statistics. From Gilt Group e to GEMS’ Girls are Not for Sale, countless companies and campaigns have been born out of the collaboration of women who were not afraid to take a risk.If you want to make a change in the world, join them. It is because of the many women throughout history who dared to do something that we have the ability to share our voices. And it will be because of today’s women that we are able to challenge the status quo and shape the direction of the future.When you find the women who inspire, challenge, and push you to be your best, it can be just the therapy you need in work and life. And, best of all, it can even be glorious fun!Image courtesy of Dell's Official Flickr Page.