Are you a windbag at work?

Think of someone who's long-winded (we all know such people). Chances are you also think of him or her as boring and self-absorbed. But is it possible people think you are a long-winded Benny Blowhard or Chatty Cathy? The more questions to which you answer yes, the more concerned you should be.

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Recognize that you'll pay a big price for talking too much at work. You will be held in low esteem and will be less likely to have close friends. Some bigmouths believe it's worth the price -- talking is pleasurable and helps them clarify their thoughts. But you should consciously decide, perhaps on a case-by-case basis, whether it's worth the price.

Now, some remedial advice. Keep saying to yourself, Be concise! As you're talking, ask yourself whether you might be boring your listener. Recognize that you're probably rationalizing that your long stories are interesting. Details and tangents are usually much more fascinating to you than they are to your listener.

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A rule of thumb. If, in any conversation, you're speaking more than 60% of the time, you're talking too much. Fifty percent is better. Thirty to forty percent is usually best.

Remember: If you care about other people, you'll make them part of the conversation. And if you tend to care more about yourself, know that you'll get further if you trade in your jibber-jabber self for someone who truly listens. Think of it this way: Big talkers learn little. Good listeners learn a lot.

Yes, we all know the guy who simply has to dominate the conversation, and who doesn't know how to pick up on nonverbal cues. Here's a killer product idea: a conference table that comes with a built-in buzzer that tells the loudmouth to zip it!

KillerStartups.com reviews Coworkers

KillerStartups.com: "As is has been previously stated above, Coworkers.com is considerably more reliable than other business social networking sites because it provides anonymity. This being said, perhaps the individual would prefer a site where only good reviews could be written according to social acceptability, but on the other hand this is a more reliable source for employers who desire an honest reflection of abilities on the part of current and former colleagues. Everyone knows that resumes and written testimonials themselves rarely act as an unbiased source of information, and this website provides more than an excellent solution..."

Read the full review...
- and feel free to give it a "+" vote ;-)

Fat staff eat into profits

Well, no big surprise here, but it turns out that overweight employees are much more (twice) as likely to make workers' comp claims...

Overweight workers cost their bosses more in injury claims than their lean colleagues, suggests a study that found the heaviest employees had twice the rate of workers' compensation claims as their fit co-workers...

Of course this puts "gravitationally challenged" folks in a negative light, but one could spin it the other way. After all, a large part of the reason that we are an obese society is that most of us sit in a chair all day and barely move more than our fingers. Most employers also do very little to encourage active lifestyles outside of work. It's clearly in a company's best interest to be proactive about the health of its employees. Yet most don't seem to be able to put two and two together.

Playing e-Detective

"Checking out applicants online can save you trouble - and get you into it."

This is an older article, but still pertinent.

Coworkers.com Spring 2007 iPod Giveaway

We're giving away an iPod Nano (8 GB), and we want YOU to win it! No purchase is necessary, get the details here.

Hey, this is a new website and traffic is still relatively low, which means you have great odds of winning. You haven't clicked yet?

And we're off...

Hi there, and thanks for stopping by. We are excited to announce the official launch of Coworkers.com! As you may know, we were previously operating in semi-stealth mode under the name huRu.com. In addition to the name change, we have worked our tails off to make Coworkers.com as fast, friendly, and bug-free as possible. We are proud of the new and improved site, and we think it's pretty darn cool (if we do say so ourselves). But we're not planning to stop here, or even to slow down... we will keep listening to our users and adding more and more cool features. So come back often, and please pass the word around. Our goal is to make this the destination for coworker reviews, ratings and feedback.