No matter how many resumes I look at, there is always one constant problem that almost nobody can seem to get away from: Making something out of nothing. Wait a minute, isn’t that the point of a resume? To pull every last ounce of impressiveness (patent pending) out of your accomplishments? The answer is that both points are valid. Before your head explodes, let me explain.

There is a big difference between describing your accomplishments in glowing detail and attributing successes or skills where they don’t belong. Here’s an example:

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Here’s the situation: You’re working on a document for work, and suddenly you realize that you’re using the same terms over and over again. However, you can’t think of a different way to describe what you’re writing about. What can you do? You can either whip out the dead weight that is a standard printed thesaurus, or you can simply use the one that is included in Microsoft Word.

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If you need a good laugh, check out the test answers shown in the link below. You’ve probably seen it before, but I came across it the other day it gave me a chuckle:

Funny Test Answers

Maybe we should adapt this for the office?

With the title of this post in mind, I’d like to address one of the largest myths that surround the act of being a “manager”: Managers have to know everything. How do we fix the server? Can I expense this? What day does that obscure holiday fall on in 2047? Pretty much any question is fair game for a manager or supervisor, and rightfully so. As the person in charge, your people are going to look to you when they have such questions. However, the important point to remember is this: Just because you’re the focal point for these questions, it doesn’t mean that you necessarily have to know the answer.

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If you haven’t yet experienced the sublime joy of reviewing other peoples documents, you don’t know what you’re missing (and you should probably keep it that way). However, it’s pretty much unavoidable that in some point in your career you’ll have to do this. Once you go through this process a few times, you’ll realize that there are a few things that you keep seeing over and over again. No matter how many times you make a comment about it, these issues just won’t go away. With that in mind, I’ve listed two of the most common mistakes that I’ve come across below. Despite my best efforts, I see them in almost every document I review.

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If you use Excel 2007 (Currently my company has not upgraded yet), you might be interested in reading the thread below from the google user groups:

Microsoft Excel 2007 Calculation Bug

It looks like a problem with the floating point representation of certain numbers. Fortunately, from what I can see this specific problem is unique to 2007, so if you haven’t upgraded yet you should be ok. Otherwise, if you use 2007 I’d read up on it to see if this affects you in any way.

Ah Wednesday. Possibly the worst day of the week, as I’ve previously documented in this article: Think Mondays are Bad? Wednesdays are Worse. In keeping with this train of thought, here’s a little something to brighten up your day:

Creepy bathroom hand soap

Let’s just say if I saw this in the bathroom, I might just take my chances with the water.

Happy Wednesday!

Furthering your education can be one of the best ways to advance your career. However, many people write it off as impossible for a number of reasons. Here is the one I hear the most often: I can’t go to classes, go to my job, and take care of the rest of my life at the same time. While this is a valid concern, the advent of the internet has provided a potent cure to this ill: online degree programs.

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I came across this humorous resume on Reddit, and I thought it was a good Friday laugh for everybody. I especially like the reference to the Excel spreadsheets, as that is so damn true sometimes.

Happy Friday!

Unfortunately for many of us, this summer is shaping up to be tremendously hot and uncomfortable. Even worse, many offices don’t offer much better protection from the heat than just being outside. Maybe the air conditioner is on the fritz, or maybe you have a ton of glass windows with little shading. Whatever it is, working in an 80 degree office is nobody’s idea of a good time. To alleviate some of these problems, here are three tactics you can try to keep comfortable:

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