Guru

Economic uncertainty, a slump in the housing market and UK inflation hitting a 15-year high. Guru understands that tough times could well be forcing people to go that extra mile to boost their earnings -- but just how far would you go to get ahead at work?

Well, quite far, according to a new survey by the crappily named online dating firm parship.co.uk (that's PARTNERSHIP merged with RELATIONSHIP, geddit?!)

It says one in five British workers - double the number recorded in 2004  - would flirt with the boss in order to get a promotion, with men more willing than their female colleagues to use 'charm' to get ahead. 

Female bosses were said to appeal to men because they were intelligent, self-confident, open-minded, honest, had good communication skills, a sense of humour, the ability to compromise, and an optimistic attitude.

Who the hell is this woman - she sounds like some imaginery workplace goddess. Guru notes there is no mention of good looks and a shapely figure as part of the criteria. 

Dr Nafsika Thalassis, a preposterously titled 'singles coach' at the company, said women have learnt through "bitter experience" that using sex appeal to get ahead at work can backfire. "Women who flirt with their boss run the risk that their bluff will be called, ending up in a sticky and even embarrassing situation."

What does she mean 'sticky situation'? That conjurs up all sorts of disturbing images in Guru's mind. If anyone has seen the episode of comedy series Peep Show where the characters Mark and Dobby rendezvous in the stationery cupboard (with unexpected consequences) - they will know what Guru is driving at. 

Those that suffer hell on earth trying to get to work - otherwise known as commuting - or a hellish workplace one you've arrived, praise be as help from above has arrived.

The Church of England has devised a prayer for stressed out workers in a bid to lure people back to God. The Church pinpointed this week as a good time to target commuters as they returned to work after the summer break or school holidays.

The prayer reads as follows:

Dear God,
You know me. Don't you?
I'm not just a person on a bus or a train. I'm not just another face on CCTV; or just another login name.
I'm me, and I have other stuff going on.
Love life issues; bills to pay. Egos at work to deal with; an overflowing inbox.
So please, give me strength.
Guide me to focus on what's really important.
And help me make the most of every moment of this new day in this new month.
Thank you. Amen

Wise words I think you will admit. Guru is always looking for divine inspiration when stuck on the Tube with his face in some bloke's sweaty armpit.

Guru can confirm he will not be going Back to Church on Sunday 28 September - the target day for the campaign. Guru will be spending it where he spends every Sunday morning, in bed recovering from the excesses of Saturday night.

Guru has previously noted London mayor Boris Johnson's plans to make the capital's employers open up access to the loos to the general public.

In a variation on the theme, the Holiday Inn in south London ghetto Sutton (not a million miles away from Guru's stately residence) is making its showers available to local sweaty workers.

People who walk, run, crawl, hop, skip or cycle to work in Sutton town centre can now enjoy free morning showers at the hotel. The deal covers an estimated 5,000 staff in 70 businesses, so there could be a bit of a queue in the morning.

However, Guru has been told that workers must bring their own soap and towels, and the showers are segregated. Guru once had a very similar idea of encouraging more people to shower in the workplace, but no such segregation was in place. Unisex is the way forward, Guru strongly believes.

The plan was only thwarted after a visit from the boys in blue, reminding Guru that mounting recording equipment in shower areas is illegal. Such a shame; in Guru's world, work would be so much more fun.

Snails are funny creatures, aren't they? What with purpose built homes on their slimy backs, eyes on stalks and fear of the French.

But Guru was most surprised to see the little blighters pop up in the Sex and Power report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) on the lack of women in top jobs.

Bizzarely, the equality watchdog used the pace of snails to demonstrate the lack of progress in women breaking the so-called glass ceiling.

Here are its examples, for your amusement. A snail could crawl (slither?);

• nine times round the M25 in the 55 years it will take women to achieve equality in the senior judiciary
• from Land's End to John O'Groats and halfway back again in the 73 years it will take for equal numbers of women to become directors of FTSE 100 companies
• the entire length of the Great Wall of China in 212 years, only slightly longer than the 200 years it will take for women to be equally represented in Parliament.

Guru wonders who at the EHRC calculated how long these epic snail journeys would take, and how much that individual is being paid.

At the risk of labouring the point as well, why would a snail want to travel from one end of the country to the other, or circumnavigate the M25 motorway nine times? Just who exactly is this snail trying to impress?

Guru wonders what relevance these stats actually have. Answers on the back of a snail please...

Guru can't wait for 25 years' time. Admittedly, the chances of Yours Truly still walking this earth by then might be slim - Guru plans on dying a rock star's death sometime around Christmas 2014.

But if by some miracle he makes it to 2033 then he certainly won't be commuting to work. The impressively titled Future Laboratory predicts that by then hardly anyone will actually physically be 'at work'. The growth of something they call 'the internet' will mean a huge rise in flexible working - putting an end to crowded trains, tubes, buses and the traditional rush hour.

Everyone loves a good cuppa, a nice cup of char, a brew up - a traditional cup of tea. Guru can think of nothing better than putting his feet up while watching Hollyoaks with a decent brew (two sugars, easy on the milk, thankyou).

It's well known that Brits are a nation of tea lovers, but a new survey has shown which profession loves a cuppa more than anyone else.

Builders, Guru hears you cry. Not so - hairdressers have now overtaken builders for taking the most tea breaks.

With the CBI reporting today that the UK is entering a recession, Guru understands that times are tough. But have things got so bad that even the queen is looking for a job?

Apparently Ma'am is to visit Google's headquarters to meet staff at the internet search giant that recently won the title of best place to work in the UK. Has Google's employer brand become so strong it is fit for a queen?

Harrogate - Guru loves it! A long-term patron of the annual Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development conference, he has of course found time in his busy diary to make the pilgrimage for the final time before it moves to Manchester next year.

And while Guru is happy to report that his visit hit all the right spots - haunted hotel room, tick; boozy night at Carringtons, tick; falling asleep at the back of a seminar, tick - Yours Truly was rather disturbed by constant talk of the bedroom.

Suspicions were, ahem, aroused when a number of attractive young HR things told Guru they had spent the previous evening in bed - together. They got there early, ordered a few drinks and passed a wonderful few hours before retiring satisfied, they said. Guru almost choked on his parma ham and berry canape when they invited him to join them that night, only to be sorely disappointed when he relaised bed was actually B.E.D and stood for Burnsey Eat Drink, a restaurant near the conference centre.

Guru had just about got that out of his system - that's what that box of tissues in hotel rooms is for, right? - when he attended the first seminar of the next morning and was told by the speaker to discuss with other delegates how he was viewed in the bedroom.

Yes, Mind Gym co-founder Octavius Black made HR professionals tell each other what their partners thought of them in bed, their friends thought of them in the front room and their work colleagues wanted from them in the kitchen - or something like that. It was all apparently a bizarre attempt to explain how HR professionals could help their organisations through the credit crunch, but Guru's mind had drifted irreversibly back to those images from the night before. 

So a fond farewell to Harrogate. Guru wonders how on earth Manchester can replace it.

The first stage of recovery from a problem, Guru has it on good authority, is acceptance. The second is turning the problem into a second-rate kareoke tune.

So all those City bankers crying into their Bollinger and considering the ultimate indignities of downsizing to an 18-bedroom Surrey mansion or even worse selling one of the eight Ferraris to keep Little Lucy's three ponies thankfully have a lifeline.

In these multimedia, user-generated, interactive times, Guru was delighted to discover that the BBC have finally begun to listen to him.

Check out this blog posting on the BBC News editor's blog, responding directly to Guru's text message.

David Cameron is not on Guru's Christmas card list - or even his urinate-at-if-on-fire list - but Yours Truly was still shocked at an attack on him at the Labour Party conference last week.

Yep, women's minister Harriet Harman really went to town on poor old Dave up in Manchester - although maybe her bitterness reflected incidents earlier in her own life rather than on the Tory leader.

Guru has uncovered the last bastion of workplace discrimination - again. This time, it's birthday discrimination.

Yep, it seems that employers have been choosing job candidates based on the day of the year they were born on.