I had no idea how it would be. Back then, we didn’t have helicopter parents and Freshman orientation days. We just turned up and went to our assigned classes. If we could find the classrooms.

The first day of high school was worse than I could have imagined. There were massive riots that first week of school — this was the early 1970s — that ended up with a teacher stabbed, the chief of police clubbed on the head with a baseball bat, police dogs and horses rushing into crowds of fighting students, and school being closed for a week to cool things off. I was a little pee-wee Catholic school boy and that was my introduction to four years of hell.

I thought about that because high school started in our area yesterday. The kids are still getting used to the idea of it. My neighbor missed the bus and his mom was outside clutching her bathrobe around her as she cajoled him to run up the street to see if he could catch it. Kids who were waiting for the bus were standing 5 feet apart from each other, trying to figure out the pecking order of who gets on the bus first. They looked scared.

And I thought about what a first day at work must be like. What it’s like at many shops. Is it scary? Are employees welcomed? Or is it, like I felt on my first day of high school, the beginning of years of hell?

We all have choices about how we welcome people at work. What’s your best experience?

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My company’s parent company just hired a new CEO. One of his first acts was to completely nix casual Fridays, ban T-shirts and jeans, and make ties and non-laced shoes mandatory for men.

I don’t understand corporate culture at all. I just want to come to work, write code in a comfortable, relaxed environment, and go home at the end of the day feeling like I accomplished something. Apparently, this kind of thinking is subversive and counterproductive in a “professional” environment.

Someone explain to me why I’m wrong.

A couple of commenters came up with a great plan:

Wear a bow tie, I’m also a fellow CS and whenever I’m forced to wear that garbage I choose wild and extravagant colors. My favorite ensemble is a pink dress shirt, black pants with pink dress shoes and to go with it; a yellow bow tie. Once the higher ups start discriminating clothes based on color is when you file for racism, sexual harassment and negligence.

Other than that, get a better job.

also, wear the tie or bow tie around the top of your head, rambo-style.

force them to stipulate where on your body you’re allowed to wear the tie. then the next day, after they’ve stated that you must wear a tie around your neck come in with four tied around your neck, one around your left wrist, and another one tied around your head…rambo-style.
continue to push the limits of absurdity while sticking to the letter of the law until they fire you.

then sue

Awesome. How specific is your dress code? When you say that a skirt must “come to the knee,” do you specify that it must start at the waist?

The dress code at our shop is, “Wear clothes.” It works. (Although we do have dress up days. You can see examples here, here, here, here and here.)

But it should be.

Check out Google’s Priority Inbox in this video. It filters email based on importance.

What does that say about where email is headed when machines are making determinations based on email usage behavior? It means your message had better be important and impactful or it’s going to end up in the scrap heap. Google Priority Inbox or not, communicate what’s important. And then get outta there.

That quote pertains to editing, too. When editors dissect writing, they cut out essential pieces. And it’s hard to put the guts back in. Step away from the dissection tray.

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As you may know, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is now requiring private employers and federal contractors to file a report that identifies the breakdown of their employees on the basis of job titles, ethnicity, race and gender. This report, called the Employer Information Report (EEO-1), will be required for companies with more than a certain number of employees. And the September 30 filing deadline is quickly approaching. The question is—are you ready?

We promise it’s not as complicated as it seems. Here you’ll figure out if you need to file, and how to do it.

Does my company need to file?

If you’re a private employer…
Does your company have at least 100 people, and are you subject to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964? (If yes, you need to file.)

If you’re a federal contractor…

1. Do you have at least 50 employees who each make at least $10,000?
2. Do you have a federal contract of at least $50,000, serve as a depository of government funds, or work for a financial institution that sells U.S. Savings Bonds and Notes?

(If both are yes, you need to file.)

What do I need to report?

If your business only has one location…
File a Standard 100 Form.

If your business has multiple locations…
File a separate report for each branch with at least 50 employees. (You’ll also need to file a consolidate report that includes all employees who work at branches with less than 50 employees.)

How does my company file?
You can access the report here. When filing, you can use any payroll period during 3rd quarter as the snapshot that’s filed in the EEO-1, must be between July 1 and September 30, 2010.

This blog post is only a summary. Check out this page on the EEOC’s website for full details.

Unsuck It cracks me up. (It sounds like something The Cynical Girl would say.) Enter your corporate crap phrase and get simple English back. I’m thinking of creating an entire translator for HR communication jargon. It’s fun.

Hat tip to Swiss Miss for this one!

That’s the view from my desk. It’s the Ben Franklin Bridge on the Philadelphia side spanning the Delaware River. The building that’s on the right is pretty, too. It’s the old Sugar Factory. You can see lots of pictures inside our office here.

Working in a great environment influences moods. You can’t get creativity in a cubicle farm. How about another role for HR — to create “ahhs”?

Via the New Statesman:

Employers are allowed to run a search on the web on their applicants, but befriending the employee on a social networking site such as Facebook in order to check out private details would be illegal, de Maiziere said.

Checking out anything in public is allowed and so are postings on professional networks such as LinkedIn, he said.

A job applicant who proves he or she was rejected based on violation of the new law could take the company to court and claim damages, added the minister.

I’d like to see a law like that enacted here in the U.S. As far as I’m concerned, Facebook is none of HR’s business. What’s your take?

Don’t eat anything that has a label.

I read that in UltraMetabolism. Wanna get your employees to eat better? Just tell them that.

Years ago I was standing at that train station in Berwyn, PA, waiting on a young colleague. The train she was supposed to be on came and went. Then a SEPTA worker yelled across the tracks.

“Are you Frank?’

I nodded.

“H____ left you a message. She’s at Bryn Mawr. She got off at the wrong stop.”

I had been waiting for her at Berwyn. She was coming out there so that we could go to an important first client meeting. If you’ve been on the R5 you know that “Bryn Mawr” and “Berywn” sound a lot alike when said over a train loudspeaker. H____i got off at the wrong stop. As a result, she was going to miss her first client meeting because I didn’t have enough time to drive to the other station to get her and get to the client meeting on time.

She was resourceful, though. Somehow got the Bryn Mawr station manager to call the Berwyn station manager to relay a message. That took moxie and perseverance. And told me a lot about the kind of person she is. It would have been so easy to make up something. Say she was sick. Anything. Nope, she just got off the train at the wrong stop.

She ended up being one of my favorite colleagues of all time. We worked on lots and lots of bigtime projects together. And she went on to have a stellar career in HR and operations.

I was waiting and wondering today about that moment years ago. The power grid for trains on the Amtrak system went down this morning for the entire East Coast. I could have been frustrated, but instead I got a smile about a nice moment.