3 Dumb Moves That Can Hurt Your Career

3 Dumb Moves That Can Hurt Your Career

New Line Cinema
By Brian O'Connell, MainStreet

What's the most common way to breach workplace etiquette and curb your career growth, if not derail it altogether?

AccountTemps says employers and staffers don't always see office etiquette the same. But bosses certainly have more leverage in the matter, since they can fire employees who buck the rules, and a company survey finds U.S. chief financial officers are most often bugged by workers "being distracted" on the job (27% of CFOs say so) and "gossiping about colleagues" (18%).

Other top offenses cited by CFOs:

      • Not responding to calls or emails.
      • Being late to meetings, or missing them.
      • Not crediting other staffers when appropriate. 

    Employers and workers may not see the top etiquette breaches equally, but they agree on professional decorum more than they disagree, and the shared message is easy to sum up: "Most jobs today require teamwork and strong collaboration skills, and that means following the unwritten rules of office protocol," says Bill Driscoll, a district president of Accountemps. "Poor workplace etiquette demonstrates a lack of consideration for coworkers."

    Related: Modern Etiquette: Outclassing the Competition

    Of course, the list of workplace professional breaches exceeds the AccountTemps list.

    "I've seen it all," notes Nicole Williams, a workplace consultant and a career contributor to NBC's The Today Show. "Employees who lie on expense reports; who badmouth the company or boss on social media or to clients; proofreading mistakes; missing deadlines. Just to name a few."

    If you do trip up on the job, it's best to be accountable. "If you really screw up, you have to suffer the consequences in silence," Williams says. "Don't protest, don't try and get out of it, and don't put the blame on someone or something else. People will respect you more for owning your mistakes."

    This article originally appeared on Main Street

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    This article originally appeared on Main Street.
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    We’re All Becoming Distracted Victims of Smartphones

    		<p>The interview isn't the time or place to prove you're an early adopter of new technology. So don't whip out your new iPhone or any other gadget in an effort to win cool tech points. Some job candidates arrive at interviews with more than just their r
    iStockphoto
    By Millie Dent

    Your phone buzzes at work. You promised yourself you wouldn’t check your phone until you turn in your half-finished assignment that’s due in an hour, so you don’t. But you start to wonder — who is texting you? What does the text say? Your mind wanders.

    A new study has found that even when we try to disregard a notification, just being aware of a new message distracts us enough to impair our concentration and hurt our performance. These distractions are equal to actively opening the notification on your mobile device.

    A Gallup poll reveals that 81 percent of smartphone users keep their phone in close proximity “almost all the time during waking hours.” Depending on the volume of notifications users receive, keeping a phone so close could lead to a noticeably negative impact on work performance.

    Related: The New Workplace Trend — Smartphone Mini-Vacations

    The study adds to the growing list of negative affects smartphones can have on users. Other effects include impaired sleep, increased pressure to communicate with friends and family, and the inability to detach from work.

    Smartphones are only going to affect more and more individuals. The number of people who own a smartphone has increased from 35 percent in 2011 to 64 percent in April of this year. Among millennials, 84 percent report owning a smartphone.

    As millennials begin to enter the workforce and the number of apps available for download increases, the potential for distraction only grows larger.

    Can Anyone Stop the $38 Billion Airline Fee Squeeze?

    People are seen in the United Airlines terminal at Newark International Airport in New Jersey, July 22, 2014.  REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
    EDUARDO MUNOZ
    By Beth Braverman

    U.S. airlines earned $2.6 billion in fees and frequent flier mile sales in 2014, an 18.7 percent increase from 2013,  according to an annual report by consultancies IdeaWorks and CarTrawler.

    That represents the eighth consecutive year that carriers saw substantial revenue ancillary to ticket sales. Globally, ancillary revenue soared more than 20 percent to $38.1 billion.

    “Ancillary revenue is an increasingly important indicator of commercial success, and a major contributor to the bottom line of airlines across the globe,” said Michael Cunningham, CarTrawler’s Chief Commercial Officer, in a statement.

    Related: 6 Sneaky Fees that Are Making Airlines a Bundle

    By passenger, additional revenue grew by 8.5 percent to $17.49. Low cost carriers increased ancillary revenue by 32.8 percent for the year, or $2.9 billion.

    Ten airlines earned two-thirds of the ancillary revenue, led by United Airlines, American/U.S. Airways, and Delta. Delta brought in $350 million through its Comfort Plus program, which allows passengers to pay extra for more legroom and priority boarding.

    Among passengers’ most hated fees are checked bag fees. Airlines typically charge $25 for the first bag, $35 for the second, and more than $100 for a third bag.

    As frequent fliers turn to branded credit cards as a means of avoiding fees, airlines are still earning money. Last year, American’s Citibank-issued credit card, which gives consumers one free checked bag and priority boarding, yielded an additional $624 million for the carrier last year.

    The additional fees are not improving the customer experience. More than 60 percent of consumers surveyed by the U.S. Travel Association in March said they were frustrated with air travel generally.

    Memo to Michelle Obama: Americans Still Aren’t Eating Their Greens

    Jack Puccio/iStockphoto
    By Millie Dent

    Maybe First Lady Michelle Obama should refocus her healthy eating campaign more on adults than children. Fewer than 20 percent of American adults are eating enough fruits and vegetables, newly released data from a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey.

    The United States Department of Agriculture’s nutrition guidelines recommend that Americans have two to three cups of vegetables every day, along with 1.5 to two cups of fruit. Based on those criteria, only 13 percent of adults in the survey ate enough fruit and a meager 9 percent of individuals ate enough vegetables. These numbers are worse than in years past. Between 2007 and 2010, 76 percent of Americans didn’t consume the recommended amount of fruit and 87 percent failed to eat enough vegetables.  

    Related Link: The 11 Worst Fast Food Restaurants in America

    What’s more, while consumption of fruits and vegetables varies substantially from place to place, the residents of each and every state in the union fell short of the USDA recommendations. In Tennessee, 7.5 percent of residents consume enough fruit, while in Mississippi, a mere 5.5 percent of individuals eat enough vegetables. California ranked highest for eating both fruits and vegetables, but even there, just about 18 percent eat enough fruit and 13 percent eat enough veggies.

    “Substantial new efforts are needed to build consumer demand for fruits and vegetables through competitive pricing, placement, and promotion in child care, schools, grocery stores, communities, and worksites,” the CDC report says.

    The report comes out after a study published in last month’s JAMA Internal Medicine found that fewer than one-third of Americans are currently at a healthy weight. The majority of individuals are either overweight or obese. 

    Diane von Furstenberg Will Sell a Purse that Charges Your Phone

    Designer Diane von Furstenberg speaks to the media backstage before her Fall 2015 collection "Seduction" show at the Singapore Fashion Week
    © Edgar Su / Reuters
    By Julia Boorstin

    Fashion mogul Diane von Furstenberg said she will launch a high-tech purse that automatically—and cordlessly—charges smartphones.

    The purse, which does not yet have a price tag, will go on sale in limited edition this holiday season, before rolling out broadly next year. The designer is working with an undisclosed technology partner on the handbag.

    "My role in fashion is really solution driven," von Furstenberg said. "I'm always on the go, so [it's important] you have everything at the right time."

    The idea of creating a handbag that charges a smartphone isn't entirely new. Kate Spade recently announced that it will launch a similar product line this fall.

    Related: 16 Must-Have Products to Make Your Home Smarter Right Now

    Von Furstenberg, a regular in Sun Valley, Idaho, took the stage at this year's Allen & Co. conference for a panel on the future of fashion, along with Spanx founder Sara Blakely.

    She's there to meet with technology companies as she works to bring fashion into the future.

    "Technology is the biggest revolution," von Furstenberg said. "It's such a big part of our lives, we do everything with technology, so it's not even separate anymore. It just is."

    Related: 10 Biggest Tech Flops of the Century

    Though she doesn't wear an Apple Watch, the designer said she's also interested in wearable technology. At her New York Fashion Week show in September 2012, she sent models down the runway wearing Google Glass.

    But von Furstenberg cautions the term "wearable tech" will soon become obsolete.

    "Wearable technology won't even be a word anymore, because everything you do will have technology," she said.

    Von Furstenberg added that technology isn't just important for the future of fashion products—it's already crucial to their marketing.

    "If you're interested in millennials, everyone is on social media and everyone is a brand," she said. "It's very interesting to brands to see how they can work with a generation, who each of them is [their own] brand." 

    This article originally appeared on CNBC.
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    Corporate Sponsors Pass on Women's World Cup Ticker-Tape Parade

    Soccer: Women's World Cup-Semifinal-United States at Germany
    © USA Today Sports / Reuters
    By Beth Braverman

    While the country celebrates the U.S. Women’s Soccer team’s World Cup Championship with a New York City ticker tape parade, corporations have been reluctant to pony up cash to cover the $2 million celebration.

    Major League Soccer, Nike, fod company Mondelez and video game giant Electronic Arts have contributed a total $450,000 toward the parade, leaving New York City to cover the difference, the New York Post reports. That includes the cost of cleanup and security.

    By contrast, the 2012 parade that celebrated the New York Giants winning the Super Bowl had more than a dozen corporate sponsors.

    Related: For World Cup Hero Carli Lloyd, 16 Minutes Can Mean Millions

    City officials told the Post that the dearth of sponsors reflected the short period of time in which the city pulled together plans for the parade. The team is the first women’s squad to receive a New York City ticker tape parade, although the city has honored individual women, such as Olympic athletes and Amelia Earhart.

    More than 12,000 people entered a lottery for tickets to the parade, which will feature the team atop patriotic floats moving down the Canyon of Heroes in lower Manhattan as spectators throw confetti from surrounding buildings.

    While companies may not have shown much interest in the parade, they are clearly interested in star Carli Lloyd. Her agent has repeatedly received more than 200 inquiries from marketers who want to work with the athlete.

    That’s good news for Lloyd, who like all other National Women’s Soccer League players, is subject to a $37,800 salary cap, about one 10th of what the average male Major League Soccer player makes in a year.