Holiday Strategies: Giving Experiences
Corrections or additions?
This article was published in U.S. 1 Newspaper on December 15,
1999. All rights reserved.
Workplace Crimes
‘Tis the season for paranoia.
Crime
in the workplaces is on rise, and it seems some people are in the
spirit of taking more than giving this season, says Earl
Bennett,
an attorney with Saul Ewing. “What’s surprising is how often the
workplace embezzlement occurs,” he says. “I think most major
employers have experienced some instance of a crime every few years
and the issue becomes how to recover against the employee moneys that
have been stolen, and what the employer should do at the criminal
and civil stages.”
“Crimes in the Workplace” is Bennett’s free seminar on
Thursday,
December 16, at 8 a.m. at the Saul Ewing office at 214 Carnegie
Center.
The seminar covers employer responsibilities and rights in cases of
embezzlement or theft, or where employees are convicted of crimes
or accused of violence towards a co-worker. Call 609-452-3133.
When employees misbehave, says Bennett, a company’s greatest weapon
is still the employee manual. “You need a good employee manual
that specifies that employee communication at his or her terminal
is not private property,” he says, “and that all of the
property
is that of the employer so there’s no privacy interest that can be
asserted by the employee.” An employee may claim that his or her
privacy was violated by an employer snooping through presumably
personal
correspondences, but, says Bennett, “I don’t know any that have
been successful as of yet.” The employee handbook should also
clarify that office lockers, desks, and other workspaces are the sole
property of the employer, and therefore, subject to inspection with
reasonable cause.
Top Of PageHoliday Strategies: Giving Experiences
If good things come in small packages, then perhaps
the best things can’t be wrapped at all. Memories, for example.
Rather than giving tons of bric-a-brac this holiday, give people the
gift of a new experience — a chance to go to a movie, the opera,
or get a massage — says Carol Kivler, a human resources
consultant. “When you give the gift of experiences,” she says,
“you give the gift of time for one’s self and I think many people
appreciate that.”
It’s also a gift for the gift-giver — a chance to strip away the
commercial clutter and financial burdens and enjoy companionship,
says Kivler, who offers “Stress Busters for the Holiday
Season”
on Friday, December 17, at 7:30 p.m. at the Cookie Cottage at 3697
Nottingham Way. Call 609-737-8157.
A human resources consultant for large and small organizations for
12 years, Kivler started her business — Kivler Communications
at 8 Hart Court in Titusville — teaching “Grammar for
Grownups”
and “Writing for Results.” She has a BS in business from the
College of New Jersey, Class of 1972, and recently returned to Fordham
University for a master’s in human resources. She recently updated
her workplace lesson plan for the “New Economy” and now she
teaches adapting to change.
“Whether you’re in manufacturing, education, the private or public
sector,” she says, “most people in the 21st century are going
to need new skill sets.” The most important skills professionals
can have: the ability to be life-long learners, develop resiliency,
and move beyond one’s “comfort zone.”
However, during the holidays, Kivler stresses comfort for the busy
professional, and the importance of taking care of oneself. Her advise
to the seasonally frazzled:
Take a mental holiday moment. “Go to one of yourfavoriteholiday memories,” she says, “and those moments can centerand rejuvenate your spirit.”Shop differently. “Catalogs and online shopping cutsdown on the travel and wear and tear on you,” she says.Relinquish outmoded rituals. Tradition is nice, but ifit’s impractical, set it aside. “As your life circumstanceschange,”she says, “so should your rituals. A woman with two small childrenmight want to decide on a more simple menu. This could definitelycut down on stress.”Give experiences. Give certificates to a massage, dinnerout, movie, or theater tickets, instead of the same old presents.”I have too much,” she says. “We all have too much.”Some ideas: tickets to go to Longwood Garden for Sunday, or a giftcertificate for Sunday brunch or for a jazz club, tickets to go tothe theater, or a gift certificate at a good bake shop. “Thingsthey haven’t done — something new that so you stretch them outof their comfort zone,” she says. “But do it far enough aheadthat they can get it in on their calendar.”Kivler prefers to give her family members and friends the giftof experience. She still sets up an Easter egg hunt each year forher grown children; the eggs are stuffed with tickets to concerts,movies, or coupons for lunch with mom. Her husband started thetraditionof experiential gift-giving 25 years ago. Most recently, he sent alimousine to pick her up to take her to the Olive Garden, of allplaces.”It was hysterical,” she says.Sometimes, the best gifts are from the heart, says Kivler. “Writea promise to spend time with a loved one, or a promise to have dinnerevery Thursday with your parents,” she says. “It won’t addto your financial burden, but it will add to your loved one’sself-esteem.”Top Of PageOffice Party EtiquetteMove away from the punch bowl and stop photocopyingbody parts on the Xerox machine. Millennium fever may be upon us,but a conservative demeanor at this year’s holiday party is essential,according to Executive Communications Group, Englewood-basedconsultantsto Fortune 500 companies. Etiquette is more than a kindness you offeryour fellow friends and colleagues, according to a company pressrelease;it’s good business.”Prepare for the holiday party as if it were a client meetingor sales pitch,” says a company spokesperson. Avoid shop talk,and even if you are a homebody, try to be worldly just this once andpractice your most thought-provoking lines.Other ways to be the life of the office party:Ready yourself with a toast, anecdote, or funny story,in case you are called upon.Avoid taboo subjects, such as religion, politics, orsensitivebusiness issues, like downsizing rumors.Limit yourself to one drink.Dress appropriately. Don’t overdo makeup or extras. ASanta suit may not be appropriate.Let your ears work harder than your mouth. Strengthenyour relationships by communicating through the way you listen.Be positive. Don’t cry in your beer about a bad situationat work or home.Focus on the person you’re with. Don’t look at the bigpicture, look people in the eyes.Be prepared to hand out business cards to newacquaintances.Follow up on promises to have lunch or call someone inthe New Year.Top Of PageCreative Office GiftsBuying fruitcake for coworkers may be budget-wise, butit won’t make you friends. Try some other creative, inexpensive giftsinstead. The Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Central New Jersey(609-585-8220) has some reasonable ideas:Gift Baskets. Start with unusual stuff that you can findat yard sales or in your attic. For avid readers, fill with paperbackbooks, or for the coffee drinkers, fill with specialty coffee samplesand a couple of coffee mugs. Dollar stores and discount centers area good place to find tools, kitchen utensils, and baby items.Themed gifts. Think of a person’s favorite animal or hobbyand start small. Look off the beaten path in import stores, resaleshops, and flea markets.Personalized stationery. Create stationery or note cardsby buying white or lightly colored card stock and matching envelopes,purchase different rubber stamps and colored ink pads, and decorate.Package in sets of 10 to 20 and tie with a ribbon.Outdoor gifts. Use plants, pine cones, and old flowerpotsand other things from your garden. Bulbs, such as Amaryllis, in anold piece of pottery are also nice.Kitchen creativity. Consider baking cookies, cakes, orcandies.Flavored spoons. Buy good quality plastic spoons and dipin melted chocolate, cool, and wrap in cellophane and ribbon, witha sprig of holly.Candles. Make your own or scour garage sales.”As with any holiday season, it is the thought thatcounts,”says Scott Dingwall, director of the CCCS. “A personalizedtoken can mean more to the recipient than an expensive, genericgift.”Top Of PageHoliday StressNot surprisingly incidents of domestic violence do nottake a holiday during the festive holiday season. The state’sDepartmentof Community Affairs reports that each county operates a 24-hourdomesticviolence hotline and maintains shelters for women and their children– at no cost.In addition, a statewide toll-free hotline can refer domestic violencevictims to the appropriate assistance. It is 800-572-7233.For victims of domestic violence who also are involved in immigrationissues, there is another program — Manavi — run by UnionCountybut open to anyone in the state. Its number is 908-687-2662.Top Of PageDonate PleaseCentral Jersey Women’s Network is asking people todonatehousehold items to the Providence House/Willingboro Shelter. Theshelteris the only refuge for victims of domestic abuse in Burlington County.They are in need of small appliances, dish towels, pot holders,laundrybaskets, cooking utensils, silverware, mops, brooms, buckets, smallmicrowave ovens and more. Call 908-281-3119.Top Of PageWeb Server LoreYour web server may be more important than you think.To your external clients, over the Internet, it represents a portal.But internally, Web-server based architecture may conduct suchimportantapplications as customer workflow processing — ordering,provisioning,and ticketing.Paul Reeser, technology consultant with AT&T Labs, will discuss”Performance Planning for Web Servers” at the PrincetonACM/IEEEComputer Society meeting on Thursday, December 16, at 8 p.m. at theSarnoff Corporation. The meeting is free and refreshments will beserved. Students and their parents are welcome. Reservations areneededfor the pre-meeting 6 p.m. dinner with the speaker at the RustyScupper.Call 908-582-7086.Reeser is an 18-year veteran of AT&T and currently works in thenetworkdesign and performance analysis department in the AdvancedTechnologiesLab. His interests are in the areas of Internet server performancemodeling, distributed IP network scalability analysis, IP platformperformance and reliability engineering, and loss systems withretrials.He will discuss end-to-end capacity and performance planning forWeb-basedarchitectures and present a queuing model for Web servers indistributedenvironments.Previous StoryNext StoryCorrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
