“Problems to solve by lucy kellaway & the Financial Times”

Do I have to invite co-workers to my wedding?

This is a very interesting question. When you see it if no one asks you to think about it one is likely to think “what a stupid question, that has an obvious answer”, but you would be wrong. A person that works in a company will most likely spend more time there then at home. It shouldn't be to much of a predicament if the person holding the wedding gets is friends with everyone at work, which might happen if you work for a small company, and the work space consists of a small work force. What if you don’t like some one in your work place? or even if one feels that the time they spend with their colleagues is more then enough? It really depends on the person who is about to take the ultimate step in a relationship. One can invite everyone and just have to deal with those who are not to their liking, which will prevent any future resentments. One can invite just the ones they get along with, this with the notion that others will find out about the happening, and might result in future quarrels in the future. A politically correct approach can be taken by not inviting their co-workers to the wedding using the expenses as an excuse. As a person that has never worked in an office environment, and hasn’t even pondered on the idea of getting engaged, it is hard to considered the approach that I would take. Based on school environment birthdays, I believe if I was eccomicly able to do so I would invite everyone in the office, and ignore thoose would did not please me. It all depends on ones personality, and also position in the company, for if you are the boss it might not be as influential for you to not have your subordinates at your wedding, as it would be if you were to not invite your boss. As Joseph heller would put it, it’s a “Catch 22”.

Backstabbing confidant is asking for reference

Hard question, which will really depend on the person that suffered the backstabbing. Some individuals forgive and forget, and some are vindictive. In the article the situation is very serious, considering that this backstabbing led to some ones loss of their job. It would be completely acceptable for the man who lost his job to just ignore the request, because what was done to him is not easy to swallow. My take on this one would be to write the letter without talking to highly of him, for this way I would take the moral high ground, and hopefully would be able to forget about the incident. None the less I doubt in my inner core I would want him to get a good job in the future, for I’m sure that if he had done that to me he would do it again, and I do believe there is a need for good ethics in the professional environment.

Web search reveals disturbing job applicant profile

This has become issue with the increase of social networks, and blog, for before this the only way a company could look at peoples back round was limited, they could either look at their CV, and their criminal record. With the privacy of social networks being very dodgy, one is always at risk of having some part of their life exposed without having the notion that this is happening. The two main questions here are: does a company as the right to reject a worker using their personal life as means of selection? and will the way you behave in your personal time affect your production at the company? For the first question my opinion is that no, no company should look at a person personal life as an indication of how competent or not they are. As for the second one the answer isn’t as strait forward. An individuals background might influence they way he works, and the way he relates to co-workers, but it also might not. I believe it has a lot to do with the persons personality, and how he or she deals with personal vs. professional life, If a person is capable of separating the two, one won’t influence there other. Independently a company won’t know this by looking in to their online profile.

My wife is the boss from hell

This one I need to start by stating that in my eyes relationship will be very hard to work well if both individuals work together. It takes two very balanced, and focused individuals to leave their work problems at the office, and just as hard to leave domestic problems way from the office, so if you bring home “part” of the office, you will bring the problems with it. One other issue in this article is that not only to they work together, but one it the boss of the other. This can cause serious problems for both the boss and employee, the boss because they need to be able to look at their romantic partner as any other work (which I find close to impossible), and for the employee because as to understand that they have to treat their better half as their boss, and not their wife/husband. The big issue here is that the boss here is a woman, which is still a somewhat of a tabu subject, because even though it is hard to admit, there aren’t many man who are willing to be overachieved by their wife, much less to be over powered. The path to take here isn’t and easy one, I believe it all depends on what matters more to the person, if it’s their career or their love life. In my point of view the smart idea would be to leave the company, even if it was for a lower position in another, and hope that I would still be in time to salvage the relation.

How do I encourage people to be punctual?

This is probably the hardest question in this article. It is hard to tackle this issue without looking at influence the person holds, only two ways there can be a positive answer to this question, first when the person encouraging is held in great respect, second when the individual encouraging holds a lot of power over the others. In no way can I see this working, for being late is an educational issue, and like saying goes “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks”!

How do I get rid of my lazy and incompetent HR director?

To be honest the problem this chief is talks about seems to relate more to him being afraid of being politically incorrect. I guessing if he putts forth rules and goals, this human resources director, has no option to but to be effective or she fairly fired, and will have no way of legally complain. If this chief wants to get rid of her in an expeditious manner then we will have to pay for compensation, which in my opinion if the HR director is really that unproductive, it won’t be long before she fails to meet her goals. As mentioned in my first sentence I believe because of the worker being a minority, the chief is afraid he will be thought of negatively by the other employees, which is something that seems to matter to this employer.