New Landlord Lou! (Shameless Work-related Plug)

Plug for work stuff:
We just launched the new Landlord Lou site and videos for Killam Properties. It's really funny, I promise: Book Now or Live in a Dump!

My previous favourite Landlord Lou campaign, "Blockbusters," is here: http://www.landlordlou.ca/blockbuster/

HOW-TO Make friends at the office -- UPDATED

So I've already told you how to dress business casual at work, and now it's time to throw down a little wisdom about making friends at the office.

It can be a grueling thing to do, as most people are kind of, well, boring, you know?

But it's important to try because someday you might need them for something. Like money or drugs.*

Step one: Assert yourself.

Find someone in upper management whose personality you find abrasive and show them what's what. When they try to be nice and ask you if you'd like to join them and their colleagues for lunch, say, "yeah.... not so much."

Then they'll know that you make the calls around here. They won't make the same mistake again.

Step two: Be a little coy with the women.

Some days the office will be a little quieter while your coworkers are out "making deals," or sleeping in. If you sit near a member of the opposite sex, make sure you respond to their comments about how quiet the office is by saying, "yeah, there's no one here to hear you scream."

The silence is golden and laced with friendship.

Step three: Have priorities and make sure people know them.

If anyone asks you a work-related question, make sure you say, "shhhh, I'm watching a YouTube."

Step four: Don't listen a single thing I say.

Seriously, I've done every one of these things and @a__money and @pirie can attest that it's not helping in the friend-making department. But what would those jerks know?

*Like alcohol or Benylin Night

UPDATED: @a__money reminded me of another piece of advice I should pass along:
Step five: Know how to put people in a good mood.

People can be a little testy on Monday morning, so make sure you're able get the day off to a great start. I recommend having a "pump up" song to get everybody smiling as you set off on another busy week. Here's the song I play a few times a day to make sure office morale stays high.

I really just do this to get famous

Step number one complete: Mentioned in the Financial Post.

Neat.

My Hiring Announcement

I don't normally talk about my day job here specifically, but I thought this would be cool to show you.

Colour, my new employer (yes, the website is a single page of Flash... I know.) has announced my hiring and @pirie's appointment to Vice President, Social Media using a social media news release. Traditional press releases are difficult to parse if you're just looking for some quick facts or quotes or pictures, are annoying to post to social networks (as they're so often just PDFs), and are typically lenghty reads when you're just trying to find out what the main point is.

So Colour is now doing all their news releases as social media releases. Check out the latest, "Social Media Growth at Colour Leads to Promotion and New Hire."

HOW-TO Dress "Business Casual"

I wrote a guest post over at the lovely @aliasgrace's blog East Coast by Choice about how to dress "business casual" for your office job.

2) Jeans. Notice I didn’t says “pants,” or “bottoms.” This is non-negotiable. If you’re not wearing jeans don’t whine about not being comfortable: YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG. Jeans = comfort. Except if you accidentally buy jeans with a button-fly at the Gap because you’re terrified of clothes-shopping and store clerks and dressing rooms and taking your pants off. If that happens (I have this friend who says it can happen and that you shouldn’t judge him!) then you’re in trouble and you’ll only wear them when your other jeans are dirty or something, or you can’t find them because they’re lost in the pile of dirty clothes and sadness somewhere on the carpet of your bedroom floor. Where was this going?

Go check out "Joel Kelly’s guide to dressing sensibly in an office environment."