Dan Lovejoy

How To Improve Your Business Writing Skills

A few weeks ago, I wrote about grammatical errors that can make you look bad to the important people at work who care about such things. Grammar, punctuation, and spelling are important mostly because people THINK they’re important. They are not intrinsically, practically, or morally important, despite the protestations of your 9th grade English teacher. [...]

April 10, 2013 CONTINUE READING THIS POST →

5 Persnickety Grammatical Errors to Avoid in Your Workplace

by Dan Lovejoy

Disclaimer: Dan Lovejoy is the grammar snob about whom your mother warned. Dan holds a Bachelor of Arts in English and a Master’s Degree in Technical Communication, but don’t hold that against him. In every workplace, there is a disapproving grammar snob or two who will look down his nose at every real or perceived grammatical [...]

February 20, 2013 CONTINUE READING THIS POST →

Emotional Intelligence 2.0: Getting Along and Thriving in the Workplace

by Dan Lovejoy

In the first part of this two-part series on, we answered the question, What is Emotional Intelligence?. In this part, we’ll share a review of the book Dr. Jason Jones recommended in Part 1, Emotional Intelligence 2.0, along with a few tips from that book to get you started. How many books earn praise from [...]

February 4, 2013 CONTINUE READING THIS POST →

What is EQ? Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace

by Dan Lovejoy

This is Part I of a 2-part series on Emotional Intelligence and the Emotional Quotient (EQ). Have you ever met someone who can’t help telling you his IQ? Isn’t that charming? Ironically, bragging about a high IQ indicates a deficiency in another kind of intelligence, emotional intelligence. How can learning about Emotional Intelligence help you? [...]

January 7, 2013 CONTINUE READING THIS POST →

Take Planning Your Career to the Next Step

by Dan Lovejoy

You plan your holiday meals; you plan your vacation; you plan your grocery shopping. But do you take planning your career seriously? If you haven’t made a plan for what you’d like to be doing in the next five years, the next ten years, or by the end of your career, you may be missing [...]

December 25, 2012 CONTINUE READING THIS POST →

Ten Ways to Deal with Difficult Co-workers and a Terrible Work Environment

by Dan Lovejoy

If you’ve been reading my posts on Blogging4Jobs, you might accuse me of being a Pollyanna. You know that annoying co-worker who always looks on the bright side of life? The one who tells you to take a problem to your boss when your boss is your problem? The one that believes that policies work? [...]

December 10, 2012 CONTINUE READING THIS POST →

Funnel Vision: Viewing the ATS from a Candidate’s POV

by Dan Lovejoy

If you’re an HR professional, I suspect you’re tired of hearing terrible candidate experience stories. If you’re a candidate, you read these stories nodding your head. Almost every one of these terrible candidate experience stories prominently features a terrible applicant tracking system (ATS). Candidate Experience or Applicant Experience? The problem with ATSs is that they [...]

November 26, 2012 CONTINUE READING THIS POST →

Career Skills: Rehearsing Difficult Conversations at Work

by Dan Lovejoy

Handling Difficult Work Conversations and People A few years back, I had talked myself into a bad situation at work. I was unhappy in a vital role, so I told my boss. They listened to me and moved me into a different role – a role I thought I would really like. Unfortunately, the economy [...]

November 12, 2012 CONTINUE READING THIS POST →

Avoiding Office Injuries: Keeping Workers Safe and Saving Money

by Dan Lovejoy

How Safety Impacts Work Incidents “Wow. I’m going to be working in an office. How dangerous can this job be?” I thought as my current employer asked me about how I approach safety in my second interview. I was dead wrong. According to Liberty Mutual’s Workplace Safety Index for 2011, virtually all of the workplace [...]

October 30, 2012 CONTINUE READING THIS POST →

Five Tips for Winning at Office Politics

by Dan Lovejoy

Thriving and Surviving Amongst Office Politics I’m tired of hearing people complain about “office politics.” Sure, nobody likes the office suck-up, the liar, the manipulator, or the guy who takes credit for work he didn’t do. Those people aren’t “playing office politics.” Those people are being jerks, and nobody likes them. Wherever there are two [...]

October 15, 2012 CONTINUE READING THIS POST →

PUSH: Productivity at Work, Part 4: Creative Blocks

by Dan Lovejoy

Pushing Through Creativity and Innovation at Work This is the fourth and final article in a series on PUSHing through obstacles at work. We’ve covered obstacles your co-workers present, obstacles in yourself, and obstacles in projects. Today we’re going to cover creative obstacles. What do I mean by creative obstacles? These are often just obstacles [...]

October 1, 2012 CONTINUE READING THIS POST →

PUSH: Productivity at Work: Part 3 – Projects

by Dan Lovejoy

This is part three of a series on PUSHing through obstacles at work. Be sure to check out part 1 and part 2. In the first two of our series on PUSHing through obstacles at work, we’ve covered how to use the PUSH technique to clear obstacles related to your co-workers and how to PUSH [...]

September 17, 2012 CONTINUE READING THIS POST →

PUSH: Productivity at Work: Part 2 – You

by Dan Lovejoy

This is a series of blog posts about PUSHing through obstacles at work. Every workplace is full of obstacles. If you want to be effective (and you want your boss to THINK you’re effective), you’ve got to learn how to get PUSH through obstacles. Here’s Part 1 of the series. Internal Conflict: Man vs. Self [...]

September 3, 2012 CONTINUE READING THIS POST →

PUSH: Productivity at Work: Part 1 – People

by Dan Lovejoy

PUSHing Your Peers to Being Productive at Work Think about the most effective folks at your job. Now, think about what they have in common: They probably get along well with people; they don’t get hung up on personal conflicts; they do excellent, high-quality work, and they don’t get stuck, because they PUSH through obstacles, [...]

August 20, 2012 CONTINUE READING THIS POST →

Five Thoughts You Can’t Afford at Work

by Dan Lovejoy

Thoughts Impact Your Attitude in the Workplace A wise friend once told me that I can’t control my first thought, but I can control my second thought. You can’t change what pops into your head, but you can change what you choose to dwell on – the thoughts that will form your attitudes and [...]