Girl Quits Job By Exposing Boss - Was it Brilliant or Stupid?

This story caught my full attention this morning. I wasn't going to open the link at first, because how interesting does "girl quits on dry erase board" sound? But I had a ‘why not?’ moment when I saw it was hashtagged #womaninnovator on Twitter. I was absolutely floored by what I saw. This girl, who was the assistant to the person she trashed, sent 33 photos of her holding a dry erase board to 20 workers at the company. On the dry erase board, she wrote that she would miss all of them, except for one person - her boss. She then, began bashing her boss for his bad breath, temper and putting her in a “special hell”. She then exposed her boss for monitoring how his employees spent their time on the Internet by using special codes – which he gave to her! So, in an effort to show the workers how their boss spends his time online, she says that she found he was on Scottrade for 4 hours a week, TechCrunch for 5.3 hours a week and finally, on FarmVille for 19.7 hours a week. Nice to know how he spends his time on the top.

On one hand, I can say that this was incredibly genius and heroic; on the other hand, what an incredibly stupid way to leave your company. Sure, you get the satisfaction of humiliating the man who made your work experience a living hell, and get a laugh out of the deal, but what was it worth? There is no possibility of a recommendation (I’m sure), AND now that it was made public – the name of the company is safe, so her boss is safe, but her face is out there. Now, any company is able to see how she left her previous employer. If I was in charge of hiring, I would be very adamant about hiring this woman because of the lack of her lack of professionalism.

So as epic as her exit may seem, next time she should follow the rules.

Internship Don'ts... That I Did!

I had my first internship when I was 14 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I can't even tell you what my position was - I know it had something to do with numbers. Anyway, there were very clear rules that had to be followed on how to dress, how to act, how to address others and the like. It was a very... interesting(?) experience for a 14 year old girl on her own in New York City.

This year, I've participated in 3 different internship experiences that completely defy the rules, or the "Don'ts" I was taught 7 (wow, it's been that long??) years ago, as well as the Don'ts I learned as I got older.

DON'T: Go on Facebook or Twitter while at your internship

Maybe in Public Relations/Communications, this rule is almost meant to be defied, since a majority of my duties consist of interacting with different audiences through social media.

DON'T: Dress inappropriately
Not to say I wore short shorts or a see-through shirt, but as a rule I hear that you're not supposed to wear jeans, flip flops or shirts that show shoulders. At my internship during the spring I followed all of those rules, but at BOTH of my summer internships, I noticed ALL of the clothing and accessories we're told generally not to wear. So because it was deemed appropriate at these places, I occasionally wore flips flops or shirts that show my shoulders (but not in a way that it looked like I was about to head for the beach).

DON'T: Take your shoes off/walk around barefoot
Okay, so we're never told this because it seems pretty obvious that you should NEVER do this. At one of my internships however, my director wanted us to feel really comfortable. After running around the city in less than comfortable shoe-wear, the feet need a little rest outside of the shoe/sandal. My boss actually found it funny that I needed to take my shoes off because she did the EXACT same thing. I would definitely NOT recommend this to any intern, it was just acceptable in this atmosphere (thankfully for my feet).

Besides these few exceptions, I follow the other rules (i.e. Don't be negative, Don't gossip, Don't come unwilling to learn, etc.). This just proves, however, that not all experiences will be the same, and not all will have the same cut and dry/black and white rules.

Beauty?

After playing “Where’s Waldo?” to find the model's rib cage in the new Ann Taylor ad , I really started to think “Wow, we’ve really learned nothing about beauty.” For some reason, I was under the impression that we were moving ahead with innovative campaigns such as the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, and magazines such as Seventeen looking for “real girl” models. But as it turns out,  we still as a society (at least in the media) equate beauty to being thin.

If you haven't seen them yet, on several ads throughout the city, the new Pretzel Crisps ads portray the words, "You can never be too thin." Though it depicts a stack of thin pretzels on top of each other, creators of this marketing campaign could not have been that naive to think that viewers of the ad and consumers would not see a message pertaining to body image.

In an effort to appease those of bigger proportions, New York magazine's The Cut blog suggests that Marc Jacobs may consider a clothing line for 'above average' sizes. Though I actually am of petite stature, I loved the idea that Marc Jacobs was first off, against the term "plus-sizes," and that he was considering catering to the needs of those who do not fit into "women's size" or less. After posting the announcement on New York magazine's Facebook, I was shocked by the amount of backlash against this idea. Comments such as, 

How about "clothes for normal-sized women, not anorexic toothpicks?"

 How long has Marc Jacobs been making clothes? How long have there been 'plus size' women? This seems markedly disingenuous. 

Okay, I understand why many would take offense to Ann Taylor or Pretzel Crisps and the like, but I believe that if Marc Jacobs put together a line of clothing for the 'above average,' I believe that it would be completely genuine because his business partner said himself that he's a big guy (210 lbs). Also, the new line that's in talks is said to be sizes 18 or greater (since Marc Jacobs already carries up to size 16), so I wouldn't say they cater to "anorexic toothpick."