Enough With the Skimpy Office Attire

If you want to please your co-workers, stop complaining

(NEWSER) - LinkedIn asked more than 17,000 professionals around the globe to name their biggest workplace pet peeve—and, surprisingly, the top spot went to something a bit more serious than leaving your smelly food in the office fridge. The top five:

1. Those who don’t take ownership of their actions.
2. Co-workers who complain too much.

That's more than 25,000 hours over 63 years

(NEWSER) - It’s official: women shop a lot. A survey by a marketing firm finds that over a 63-year lifespan, the average female will spend about 2 years and 10 months—or 25,184 hours and 53 minutes—shopping for food, clothes, and the like. A spokesman says the results aren’t at all pejorative. “Men seem to think women only shop when they are buying clothes for themselves,” he tells the Sun . “But they often shop for the entire family and that can be incredibly hard work.” More»

To get ahead, steer clear of religion, politics, and 'The Office'

(NEWSER) - A thoughtful holiday gift for your boss can smooth out your workday and even help your career. But not all gifts are created equal. David Seaman of The Street lists some to avoid:

• The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People: A self-help or management book "implies that you don't think they are at all effective at what they do."
• "A creepy holiday card": It "could get forwarded straight to HR and then you've got a real problem on your hands."

Japanese product latest in long line of often-wacky breast solutions

(NEWSER) - All sorts of Japanese products, from “biscuits and beverages to rather bizarre rack rearranging rollers,” claim to give women larger or more pleasingly shaped breasts, Lee Chapman blogs for Tokyo Times. But those probably all take effort, you cry. Enter the “Sleeping Bust Up Bra,” which allows “the wearer to practically do nothing but simply wake up and marvel at her magically and majestically moulded mammaries.” Click the link to learn more. More»

It can be done, with help from the expert

(NEWSER) - Planning a summer vacation? It may be harder than you think to get away from your needy colleagues, but with “aggressive, simultaneous upward and downward management,” it can be done, writes Stanley Bing in Fortune:

• First, get the boss’s permission and make sure your subordinates know you’ve claimed the dates. “Establishing a bona fide vacation is a war. Yours should not be a casualty.”