Blog Posts by TheGrindstone

Despite the ad campaigns in the western states of the U.S. for people to stop the insanely destructive use of methamphetamine, it's still all the rage for some. And while you'd think some people would be able to keep their meth addiction under wraps during office hours, it's just not happening.

According to the U.S. workplace drug-screening tests, meth is the most common drug found in the system's of employees. Quest Diagnostics Incorporated found that between January and December 2010, of the 4.5 million urine samples collected, nine states "showed dramatically higher positive prevalence rates for methamphetamine than the national average." Number one on the list? Hawaii, with a 410% greater than the already high national average. Why anyone living in the Hawaii would need to resort to meth to get through the day, or life for that matter, is shocking. Beautiful beaches or meth? You choose meth?

The ability to use meth in the workplace and still be able to perform is

Are you searching for happiness in your career? Is your primary goal to find bliss in your occupation, while all other factors fall secondary? But what if you can't find happiness in your work life? Well, maybe it's time to stop trying.

June Gruber, author of the recently released study, "A Dark Side of Happiness? How, When, and Why Happiness Is Not Always Good" says, "People who are striving to pursue happiness have a need to maximize their happiness, and those people are the ones who actually feel less happy and more disappointed." Which makes sense. If you're constantly trying to fit happiness into the equation, you're liable to miss the bits of happiness along the way. Sometimes asking for an overall big picture of complete happiness is really asking for too much.

Even if your job is dissatisfying, trying to search for the happiness in it, may end up fruitless and lead to more dissatisfaction. It's like love: they say it comes to you when you stop looking for it.

The

Office Etiquette is a weekly column focusing on the do's and dont's of office behavior. A well-respected workplace reputation should be a goal for everyone.

We've all dreamed about ditching the cubicle and working from home in our pajamas, nestled under the covers. If you're among the lucky people who have experienced this joy, you know that it can also have its downfalls (e.g. neglecting to brush your teeth until noon).

Whether you're a seasoned telecommuter or just interested in knowing more about working from home, here are some basic rules to follow:

1. Wake up at a decent hour. You may think, "Eh, I'll just sleep in for a few hours and work later tonight." Please. Very few people actually do this. It's better to wake up when you normally would for your 9-to-5 job. After all, you don't want to still be working when your friends and family get home from the office.
2. Take breaks for healthy meals. I learned two very important lessons when I worked from home: 1.

By a show of hands, who has seen the How I Met Your Motherepisode where Ted dates someone they refer to as "Oh honey"? I like to call her and those like her "Bambi". This woman believes absolutely everything that people tell her, she never assumes the worst and sarcasm completely escapes her. She makes The Little Mermaid's Arielle seem like a world-weary cynic. Bambi is the epitome of the word naive.

It seems sweet to think about a person who believes intrinsically and trusts completely. Its sweet until you need them to operate in the real world. People like Bambi belong in fairytales. Its the only place where they aren't chewed up and spit out by society. They do not belong in a business, specifically not one where I'm working. Because Bambi is so kind and so helpless and so intensely frustrating.

Most people assume that Bambi has to be female. That's completely false. Blissful ignorance is not a female attribute. For men, they're just normally seen as idiotic, instead of

The only thing that runs through my head when "The Charmer" speaks is Elvis Presley singing, "A little less conversation, a little more action please." I realize that he wasn't referring to sly co-workers who talk a big game but rarely put actual effort into their job… OK, that might have been what he was talking about. Just minus the co-worker bit. Either way, Elvis was onto something. Some people are just all talk. And no matter how this person is connected to you, be it lover, friend or co-worker, they're all annoying.

A sibling of "The Ego", "The Charmer" has spent a long time getting by on their looks, their charisma and their image. In fact, some of them spend so much time perfecting their persona, they forget that there's more they could be doing. I have no proof of this, but some of the sly dogs I've worked with honestly can't see the real work that they gloss over. Or they often assume that doing the job is someone else's responsibility.

So how do you work with

Well this goes with our Horrible Bosses theme of today, though, I suppose she had good reason. Styleite reported today that no one on Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour'sVogue staff was allowed to attend designer Azzedine Alaia's Paris show yesterday.

Perhaps this was just to save face because Anna couldn't attend the show herself. She was too busy at the premiere of the seventh Harry Potter film with her good friend Daniel Radcliffe (he presented a Webby to her earlier this month) in London, at the same time as the fashion show. Well it is nice to know that Anna appreciates a good fantasy film about teenage wizards being chased around by a villain with a nasal problem, but apparently she also knows how to hold a grudge.

According to Styleite, "It's no secret that the Wintour and the Tunisian-born Alaia are anything but friends. The feud started in 2009 when Alaia was not featured in Wintour's "Model As A Muse" exhibit at the Met. Last week, tensions got tenser when Alaia told The

Though a lot less people will be driving over the holiday weekend, the number of people expected to fly this weekend has increased by almost 10%. A fair number of those fliers will be men and women who want to get as much vacation time in as possible but still be at their desks by 9 am on Tuesday or earlier. And everyone knows the only way to get the most play and still make it to work is to take the red-eye.

Jess Dudley is a marketing manager for L'Oreal and already has 75,000 miles under her belt for this year alone. She flies anywhere from two to eight times a month on average, including the occasional red-eye. She warns that red-eyes result in a tough day at work no matter what (mostly because you aren't sitting on the beach like you were the day before) but she has a few great tips on how to survive the red-eye so you can show up at work and look like a semi-functioning human being at your desk.

1. Try to reserve a bulkhead or window seat: If you aren't sitting in