We are all familiar with the term “Dream Big” and most certainly everyone in their lives have thought of having so much money that will let them do anything and everything they want!

People say that money can’t buy happiness, however, in my opinion money in many ways lead you to happiness. When you walked across the streets, did you ever wonder if you could buy that shining Lamborghini looking at you? Yes you definitely did!

Sometimes a safe and secure job is not enough to make it to your dreams. When you are holding a pair of 5’s in a poker game, you might still go all in, with the hope of wining. This hope is risky, but you never think that way, chances of losing with a pair of 5’s is very high.

Relating the idea of taking the risk to dream big, Briana Morgaine, a blogger at Bplans, talks about the “8 Tips for Entrepreneurs Who Are Balancing Their Business with Their Day Job”. In this blog, people who have their day jobs are encouraged to spend time on starting their own business. It also, discusses about many ways and techniques that individuals can use during their day job to work on their start up businesses.

Creating a schedule is very handy when it comes to business. Study has proven that most students who are high achievers also create schedules to study efficiently. During a job, if people make schedules and stick to them for working on their new ventures, it helps to focus on business besides doing a day job. Also, finishing office tasks ahead of time makes extra hours to work on the ventures. Sometimes, even after making schedules people are carried away with alerts from social media and other leisure activities. So experts in this field, block sites which distract them using special software.

In my opinion, the most effective technique is to set a monetary goal during doing a day job. Say, once I earn $10000/ per month from the business, I will stop doing a day job. This is an indicator of both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.

Word Count: 353.

Works cited:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poker

http://articles.bplans.com/author/briana-morgaine/

http://articles.bplans.com/8-tips-for-entrepreneurs-who-are-balancing-their-business-with-their-day-job/

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/tips-templates-creating-work-schedule-excel/

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/get-distracted-more-disable-automatic-alerts-from-social-media.html

http://www.goonlinepoker.info/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/bad-poker-players.jpg

When you get a call from the office and you are asked to come for an interview, it means that the company is interested in “You”. You are pumped up, you share the wonderful news to everyone, your friends, family, mentors, etc., but your job is not quite done. Have you ever thought how would it feel if you got rejected? Everyone would ask afterwards that did you get the job or not? That’s why many people suggest not to inform anyone before the job is confirmed. You might feel that your image might get ruined if you do not get the job, but how many people get their resumes moved to the “Yes pile” and get called for an interview? Not many right? So I believe that whatever makes you feel right to do for an interview is right, whether it is sharing with others or keeping it to yourself. It’s called “positude” in the urban dictionary, where you thrive with positive attitude!

That’s all about staying positive after you receive a call. I had an interview today at ZARA, a fashion retail company owned by Inditex. Oh boy, I feel like that I should start advertising for them for free! I know a lot about them. But how? Do you remember when you got a chunk of homework from school that you did not want to do? But after doing it you felt really good that you were actually prepared for your upcoming test. So, I did my research. I read all about the company, their team, their current activities, their mission statement, from head to toe. I was really prepared, I aced the interview and I felt that I could start the job right away, and perform better than anyone else competing with me. 

Also, after you think that the interview deal is almost set, there comes the salary negotiations. To determine my goals and create a win-win situation for both parties, I had to know “target” and “resistance” points for both parties. For example, I had to spend 10 hours a week for transportation to my job, so I mentioned about my opportunity cost and also their resistance point for the salary, to maximize the benefit for both parties.

On another note, there are issues about prejudice and stereotyping which are a case in point during interviews. Many hiring managers do stereotype and treat applicants unfairly. My colleague Nicholas Chan’s blog post discusses about prejudice and perception if someone’s name was “Mohammad”. I also agree with his idea as many people who do have potential cannot get jobs because of stereotyping.

Word Count: 434.

Works Cited:

http://www.bridging-the-gap.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/photo-1-300×225.jpg

http://www.mytotalretail.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2015/06/zara-store-1.jpg

http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199828340/obo-9780199828340-0097.xml

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nancy-michaels/reinventing-winwinwin-bus_b_6291030.html

https://www.inditex.com/home

https://www.zara.com/ca/

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=positude

https://blogs.ubc.ca/nicholaschan/2017/02/05/what-if-my-name-was-mohamed/

In Physics, power is simply work done per unit time. Comparing this idea to a workplace is very similar. In a workplace, the management has to use its power bases, which include coercive power, reward power, expert power, informational power, etc., to make its employees finish their tasks in a desired amount of time.

Sometimes, work done per unit time is not effective. This means that some employees will finish their tasks on time but the quality of work may not be standout. This may create a tension amongst the management of a company as they may lose potential customers, may get rejected from getting a loan or even on severe cases go bankrupt.

Now, anyone would use tactics to save their butts. These tactics may be ethical or unethical, depending on the performance of the workforce or situation the company is now in, for example, is the company going bankrupt or underperforming. Then comes the power of influence, where the boss says, “I know exactly what to do.” In most situations the management uses pressure and legitimizing tactics, which are often using demands, threats and claiming an organizational authority to make a request. These techniques do force the employees to work more sincerely and pay close attention to detail so that they do not make mistakes.

Many organizations think very differently in this modern workplace environment. Previously, I talked about the reward power, where bonuses on performance, promotions, preferred shifts can be earned by employees as they are provided with extrinsic motivation. So, organizations believe that to increase productivity, they can create incentives for employees using some sort of reward. My colleague Gaurav Varshneya’s blog post talks about a workplace is where people level up by completing quests and challenges. Completion of these tasks accurately also provide the employees with rewards. Gaurav mentioned that highly effective reward schedules can help individuals to do difficult task which were not possible previously due to the lack of motivation. I also agree on this idea as many people look for rewards in completing tasks which are difficult to complete.

Word count: 347.

Works cited

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/power-influence-politics-workplace-19058.html

http://www.skillofstrength.com/putting-power-back-into-power-cleans/

Level-Up!