“Creating an action plan to champion the synergies of goal-oriented murdering tactics while front pocketing customer-centric policies to take you offline by EOD.”

“Let me get this straight: The company will side with petulant, unreasonable, angry, demanding customers instead of with me, its loyal employee? And this is meant to lead to better customer service?”

“One of the easiest ways to shoot down good ideas, interesting policies, or worthwhile experiments is by injecting the assumption that whatever you’re doing needs to last forever and ever. Which means that the concept has to scale from 5 people to 5,000 or from 100,000 users to 100 million. That’s a terrible way to get from those 5 people to 5,000 or reach those 100 million users.”

“At our company-wide get together last December we decided that 2008 was going to be a year of workplace experiments. Among other things, we discussed how we could make 37signals one of the best places in the world to work, learn, and generally be happy. Here’s are a few of the things we’ve implemented so far…”

“I was trying to find the public bathroom at Macy’s the other day — no easy task in any department store; why is that? — when I ran across the employee lounge, and this sign. It made me feel laugh, and then feel bad for laughing, because if nachos are the best thing about working at Macy’s, well, that’s just depressing…

What crappy work incentives have you been offered?”

“A few days ago, New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell noted that he’s almost finished with his third book. I’ve learned that the subject of this book is the future of the workplace with subtopics of education and genius.”

“Think ‘great place to work,’ and big companies like Google typically spring to mind. But across the country, many small businesses and nonprofits have built workplace environments and cultures that rival — or even outshine — the big names.”

“Imagine three people who have landed new jobs, each at a different company. All three come to work on their first day breathing fire and decide to read their employers’ mission statements.”

“There have been a couple of interesting articles lately in the Wall Street Journal on the topic of dress. One had to do how appropriate business clothing is defined differently in New York and Los Angeles and the other had to do with how Thomas Barrack, CEO of Colony Capital dresses when he’s in deal-making mode.

Choosing the right dress and adornment is a communication skill. If we’re smart, we can use our clothing choices to send important messages. Chief among them is that we fit in, we belong.”

“Interviewing can be a gut-wrenching process. Most books on how to interview list hundreds of questions you need to be ready to answer, but few talk about the questions you need to ask. Take more control at your next interview by asking some pointed questions of your own. Here are six must-ask questions and why you should know the answers.”

“The United States is the ‘no-vacation nation,’ the only advanced economy in the world that doesn’t guarantee its workers any paid vacation time, says a recent report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington. In fact, 28 million Americans are no-vacation workers, receiving no paid time off, vacation or holidays. On the other hand, managers and professionals often get a good deal of vacation, says John Schmitt, a senior economist with the center and one of the authors of the report.”

“The following has been making the rounds on just about every internal email list I belong to in Microsoft. Here it is to share a little insight with the rest of the world. Microsoft is an amazingly transparent company. Google is not. Any peek is a good peek.

Many of you were asking for the feedback I received from my interview with the former Google employee I hired into ABC Development as a Sr.SDE. Here it is. This candidate is also a former MS employee who left the company and founded a “Start-up” called XYZ. XYZ was purchased by Google and he was hired on as a Senior Software Engineer II / Technical Lead. Here is his take on Google’s environment as well as areas Microsoft should consider improving in order to be more competitive.”

“An obnoxious coworker, a malicious manager, a bullying boss — there’s no getting around it: today’s workplace is beset with jerks. These people deliberately make coworkers and subordinates feel bad about themselves in our day-to-day working environment, and the human and financial toll is high. They poison the work environment, decrease productivity, induce qualified employees to quit and, therefore, are detrimental to business, regardless of their individual effectiveness. Author Robert I. Sutton makes the solution plain: these toxic workers have to go.”

Solid advice from Marc Andreessen on the hiring process: “I define drive as self-motivation — people who will walk right through brick walls, on their own power, without having to be asked, to achieve whatever goal is in front of them. People with drive push and push and push and push and push until they succeed… Finally, although this goes without saying: value the hell out of the great people you do have on your team. Given all of the above, they are incredibly special people.”

“Many of us are stuck in a cube for most of the day. Why not have some fun with your co-workers. They annoy you day in and day out. Here are 101 ways for you to slowly drive them crazy.”