On the Job Harassment – When It’s Not All Fun and Games Anymore

August 19, 2011

Have you ever felt uncomfortable at work? Is there someone you work with that you feel intimidated by to the point of actually being fearful of them? If you have ever experienced any of these feelings then you may have been the victim of on the job harassment.

Your workplace, although it might not be your home, is still a place where you have every right to feel safe in and be able to focus on your job instead of how you are treated by other employees. You and your fellow employees should complement each other as you work together and you should never have to work in an environment where you feel bullied, discriminated against or where you feel that you can’t speak your mind for fear of retribution.

What Is On The Job Harassment? – Basically, on the job harassment is when a coworker might touch, hit, punch, feel, fondle, caress, maul or lick any part of your body in a way that makes you feel uncomfortable. While contact is not always necessary and there are guidelines and books written on the subject, if a coworker does something that you feel fearful of speaking about with them or a third party, then you have probably been harassed.

There might be times when your harasser might say that the contact or comment was welcomed. But instead of blaming yourself or feeling as if you are trapped, just think about this. If you were close enough with this coworker then you wouldn’t have a problem with telling them to knock it off. The important aspect of any sort of harassment is how you feel and not what your harasser thinks since many harassers or bullies are very good at manipulating and your particular instance of on the job harassment probably isn’t an isolated case.

What You Can Do About On The Job Harassment – While you might wish to just sweep it all under the rug or hope that your coworker or boss just forgets about it or never does it again, this is seldom the case. Your first step towards resolving the issue and getting back to living your life and loving your job again should be to confront your coworker. If this is an isolated case and a simple misunderstanding then talking with them should set them straight and there will never be such a misunderstanding or any form of harassment again. This might make things a little weird for a while between you and your coworker or boss but they will get over it or they can deal with option number two.

Option number two can also be your primary option if you truly feel fearful of retribution or you just don’t want to deal with the situation. After all, you are there to work and there are people like your Human Resources person, who is trained to deal with harassment and that is who you can go to with your concerns if you feel fearful of talking with your harasser.

A skilled HR person will know how to handle things and if there is retribution for talking to someone in human resources about the incident then you have another problem that you can talk to HR about. In situations that involve harassment your concerns should be kept anonymous and a good HR person will be able to handle things so you shouldn’t feel as if you did something wrong or be perceived as a rat or tattle tale.

Harassment is a serious problem and one that often carries the penalty of immediate termination in most companies. You have been hired to do a job and so has your coworker. Part of your job is not to feel intimidated or demoralized in any way and your coworker was not hired to harass employees. You have the right to work in a place that is safe for you both physically and emotionally and that is your employers responsibility to maintain a peaceful and safe place for you to do your job free from on the job harassment.

5 Fun Christmas Games to Play at Your Next Christmas Party

Christmas is the time for fun holiday parties with friends, family and co-workers. To make your next party a real hit you will want to have some fun Christmas games at your event. Below is a list of five fun games to play at your next Christmas party. These will get everyone involved in the joy of the holiday season.

Stocking Guessing Game – In this game you will have two large Christmas stocking and twenty x 2 (20×2) Christmas/Holiday objects. Make sure they are small enough to all fit in the stocking. Both stockings will have the 20 objects inside them. So you will need 2 of each to place in the stockings. Once you fill each one tie a string or robe around the top so nobody can see inside. You will then give everyone a piece of paper and let them know they have to figure out what the 20 objects are by feeling for them. The person with the most correct wins. You can do this with one stocking it will just make the game last longer.

Christmas Pictionary – Another great Christmas party game, you will be splitting up into teams of 3 or 4 depending on how many people are going to play. Set up a large pad of paper so everyone can see what will be drawn. Each group has to have everyone drawn something at least once. Make out about 20 to 30 cards to pick from all about Christmas, ex: Santa, Reindeer, sled, snow, north pole, etc. Every right answer gets one point and the first one to 5 wins.

Siamese Gift Wrap – For this Christmas game teams of 2 will race against the clock to see if they can wrap a gift. Sound simple? The twist is that they can only use one hand each, the other will be around their partners waist. They will have to work together to get it done the fastest. This is also a great way to get your gifts wrapped for free, just make sure it is nothing breakable.

Christmas Bingo – This is a printable Christmas game. You will need to print out some Christmas bingo game cards. For this do a search on the internet to find the ones that you like. Once you have the cards you want figure out how many numbers you will need and what letters for each one. Either right them out or do it on the computer and print them out. Then you will place them in a hat or bag and pull them out to call during the game. This can be a great game for kids and adults.

Christmas Trivia Games – For our last game let’s try to see how smart our party guests are. There are so many different categories for this game that it is almost endless. Here a just a few to get you started: Christmas movies, Christmas songs, Santa nick names, reindeer names, etc. As you can see you can have many different questions and really never run out. Once you figure out what you want the questions to be about do a search on the internet. You can find many printable Christmas trivia games so you don’t have to do a bunch or research or writing.

Why Book Reviews Are So Important to Book Marketing

Book reviews are not only important to book marketing, but they are crucial, especially when it comes to self published book marketing. Most writers should do whatever they can do to get favorable self published book reviews in order to promote their writing.Most book reviewers write for a living. They work freelance at this type of job, read books and write about them professionally. They know how to write about a book without giving away an ending or too much about the plot. Good book reviews should leave the reader wanting to read more, they should give a reader a glimpse into the writing that can help the reader make a decision as to whether or not they want to buy the tome.If a writer has a self published book, it can be difficult to get a writer to write a review. Not so if the writer sends the work to a book review service. A book review company can allow for the writer to be heard in that someone will read the work and write a professional review about it. Some services will allow for more than one review to be written about the work. And these are important as many people base their decision on whether or not to buy the book on the reviews. If a novel comes highly recommended by reviewers, it is much more likely to sell than one that no one has ever heard about.It is in the best interest of any writer to see to it that their book is reviewed by professional book reviewers and is given a proper notice as this can be vital to the success of a book. Using a book review service is a good idea, especially in the case of a self published author as they will not have a good chance of getting a professional writer to look at their work without using this type of service. Book reviews are the way that the public gets to know if the novel or writing is something that will interest them. They should not be a sales pitch for the writing, but should just discuss the plot of the book, the writing style used by the writer and the strengths of the book for the reader. It will then be up to the reader to decide on whether or not to read this novel, based upon what is said in book reviews.