Office Politics

Our news is filled with political games, and we shake our heads at the ugliness of it: insults, name-calling, and below-the-belt barbs. Oh, we say, they should stop this nastiness. But then we turn around and play our own games, the day-to-day politics of the workplace. A colleague recently said to me, "I don't want to work where there are politics. " I understood, but replied, "Then go home and make pot holders at your kitchen table. " Where there are people, that is flawed humans - and that's all of us - there are politics.

Here's how to play office politics the right way: Plug into the grapevine. Use it to advance your point of view, share and learn facts - not to spread gossip or hurtful comments about others. Use it to learn who's on what side and who's backing whom and thus avoid foot-in-mouth disease. Compliment others liberally and look for ways to share the glory. Sit on your ego, take the blame generously and apologize when appropriate. Focus on getting the work done. Do your share and more - on time and correctly - so peers can't accuse you of dereliction of duty.

What do I love when I love my country? What must I do to prove that devotion? What if I'm asked to sacrifice love itself? Those are some of the questions raised by playwright Yussef El Guindi's Language Rooms, a new black comedy about the immigrant experience, the war on terror - and office politics - that will have its world premiere tomorrow night at the Wilma Theater in Center City. Think The Office meets 24. The Egyptian-born El Guindi may be familiar to Philadelphia theater audiences for his highly praised satire about racial stereotyping, Jihad Jones and the Kalashnikov Babes, which was staged last spring by the InterAct Theatre Company.

They are the fastest-growing segment of the work force but they also may be the most overworked and least satisfied. That's the picture painted in "No More Business as Usual," a new report on work-life issues faced by women of color. Co-authors are Jennifer Tucker and Leslie Wolfe, who head the Center for Women Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. The bad news: Thirty-seven percent of the African-American, Latina, Asian-American and American Indian women surveyed said they downplay their race or ethnicity at work.

50/50 It sounds icky, but it's not: Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a twentysomething Seattlite diagnosed with cancer, and given even odds of surviving - or not. There's a little too much deja vu in Seth Rogen's role as best pal (he was sidekick to Adam Sandler's seriously sick movie star in Funny People), but there's honesty, and honestly funny stuff, here. With Bryce Dallas Howard as the girlfriend who can't cut it, Anjelica Huston as the amusingly overbearing mom, and Anna Kendrick as the hospital therapist just out of grad school.

A disturbing Irish tale and a wicked look at office politics top this week's list of new movies on video. The Butcher Boy 1/2 (1998) (Warner) 80 minutes. Stephen Rea, Fiona Shaw, Alan Boyle, Aisling O'Sullivan, Sinead O'Connor. Neil Jordan's daring, disquieting adaptation of the Patrick McCabe novel ventures inside the head of a small-town Irish lad rocked by family tragedy and lost in his own mad fantasies. Crazy with energy and shot in hallucinogenic colors, the film features O'Connor as the Virgin Mary, come down to the peat fields to console the film's lost, rampaging protagonist.

NOT-SO-INNOCENTS ABROAD As business goes global, more of you than ever are thinking about working abroad - especially because many foreign jobs pay well. But don't get your hopes up unless you've got the academic background, business savvy and language abilities these jobs demand. If you've got them, though, you could cash in: "Working overseas usually brings special financial rewards," writes career diplomat-turned-author Eric Kocher in International Jobs: Where They Are, How to Get Them (Addison Wesley)

If you're looking for one good reason why you need to master at least the basics of office politics, here it is: No matter how smart and competent you are, no matter how unique your ideas, you will never make much happen in the workplace if you can't get people to cooperate with you. Furthermore, if you alienate those around you, for whatever reason - you decide they are stupid or incompetent or disloyal - they will eventually bring you down,...

A U.S. District Court civil jury yesterday found that the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission and its employees did not discriminate politically against a West Chester man by denying him two promotions. Charles A. Christy, 38, alleged in a suit filed in 1993 that he was passed over for promotions in the agency's maintenance department because he failed to solicit support from political leaders who hold sway over turnpike matters. The commission spent more than $1 million defending against the suit, which threatened to expose the agency to further legal attacks on its hiring and promotion practices.

You deserve to enjoy your job, to feel appreciated and challenged in it, and to be fairly compensated for your work. If that's not how things are playing out at the moment, it's time to take responsibility for your future. If any of the following scenarios ring true, it's time to make a change. That will make you incredibly vulnerable. An unmotivated and lazy worker is the easiest to let go. And if you're forced out of a job where you have underachieved, it's going to be that much harder to impress future employers.

AWORKAROUND that has allowed some employees of the City Controller's Office to avoid city ethics rules is officially a thing of the past. For decades, a few workers in the Controller's Office have not been subject to a city ban on political activity because they were on the school-district payroll. But the Board of Ethics' executive director, Shane Creamer, on Thursday released an opinion from City Solicitor Shelley Smith that said that those workers should be subject to the same rules as other city employees.

50/50 It sounds icky, but it's not: Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a twentysomething Seattlite diagnosed with cancer, and given even odds of surviving - or not. There's a little too much deja vu in Seth Rogen's role as best pal (he was sidekick to Adam Sandler's seriously sick movie star in Funny People), but there's honesty, and honestly funny stuff, here. With Bryce Dallas Howard as the girlfriend who can't cut it, Anjelica Huston as the amusingly overbearing mom, and Anna Kendrick as the hospital therapist just out of grad school.

What do I love when I love my country? What must I do to prove that devotion? What if I'm asked to sacrifice love itself? Those are some of the questions raised by playwright Yussef El Guindi's Language Rooms, a new black comedy about the immigrant experience, the war on terror - and office politics - that will have its world premiere tomorrow night at the Wilma Theater in Center City. Think The Office meets 24. The Egyptian-born El Guindi may be familiar to Philadelphia theater audiences for his highly praised satire about racial stereotyping, Jihad Jones and the Kalashnikov Babes, which was staged last spring by the InterAct Theatre Company.

You deserve to enjoy your job, to feel appreciated and challenged in it, and to be fairly compensated for your work. If that's not how things are playing out at the moment, it's time to take responsibility for your future. If any of the following scenarios ring true, it's time to make a change. That will make you incredibly vulnerable. An unmotivated and lazy worker is the easiest to let go. And if you're forced out of a job where you have underachieved, it's going to be that much harder to impress future employers.

I WORK IN A small office. Well, I don't exactly work in a small office. More properly, I should say that I work for a small company. This small company is housed, not in an office, but in a townhouse that has offices instead of bedrooms carved out of it. It looks like it can't decide what it wants to be - home or work. And maybe that's why some people, all of the male variety, feel so at home here. Revoltingly at home. There are two restrooms in our office, one downstairs and one up. The downstairs restroom is in a heavily trafficked area, across from the microwave and mini-fridge.

Our news is filled with political games, and we shake our heads at the ugliness of it: insults, name-calling, and below-the-belt barbs. Oh, we say, they should stop this nastiness. But then we turn around and play our own games, the day-to-day politics of the workplace. A colleague recently said to me, "I don't want to work where there are politics. " I understood, but replied, "Then go home and make pot holders at your kitchen table. " Where there are people, that is flawed humans - and that's all of us - there are politics.

Still locked in a battle over an office the size of a walk-in closet, Darby Mayor Paula Brown spent day five yesterday in a standoff with her foes on Borough Council. "I don't really have a choice. I got to stay here," Brown said. She spent the day moving back and forth between her Borough Hall office and a tent outside her door, where supporters were camped out. Brown said that she would have to leave to go to work last night but that her supporters would guard her office.

Facing continued cancer treatments, Willard G. Rouse III stepped down yesterday as chief executive officer of Liberty Property Trust, the real estate company he founded 30 years ago. William P. Hankowsky, 51, former longtime president of the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corp., the city's economic-development agency, will succeed Rouse as chief executive. Yesterday's announcement completes a transition that started nearly a year ago when Rouse's cancer was diagnosed and when, a short time later, Hankowsky was elevated from executive vice president to president.

They are the fastest-growing segment of the work force but they also may be the most overworked and least satisfied. That's the picture painted in "No More Business as Usual," a new report on work-life issues faced by women of color. Co-authors are Jennifer Tucker and Leslie Wolfe, who head the Center for Women Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. The bad news: Thirty-seven percent of the African-American, Latina, Asian-American and American Indian women surveyed said they downplay their race or ethnicity at work.

Here's how to play office politics the right way: Plug into the grapevine. Use it to advance your point of view, share and learn facts - not to spread gossip or hurtful comments about others. Use it to learn who's on what side and who's backing whom and thus avoid foot-in-mouth disease. Compliment others liberally and look for ways to share the glory. Sit on your ego, take the blame generously and apologize when appropriate. Focus on getting the work done. Do your share and more - on time and correctly - so peers can't accuse you of dereliction of duty.