Should it be Short, or Long?

1900-50_skirt_lengths-742737

There is a question that has been frustrating both women and men for years, that being, what is the perfect length? Should it be short, or long? After extensive academic research, it appears that the simple answer is, it depends entirely on how you feel at a particular point in time.

In 1926, the economist George Taylor at the Wharton School of Business developed the Hemline Index after he noticed a connection between economic prosperity and short skirts. The shorter the skirt, the higher the Index.

A soon to be world renowned Director of Thought Creation developed The Suit Trouser Length Creativity Index that purported a direct correlation with an individual’s innovation tendencies, that being, the greater the distance between the trouser cuff and their shoes, the higher the creativity.

Following years of Gaelic research, a lesser-known historian from Glasgow University found a similar link between kilt length and the courage exhibited by a Scotsman in battle. Apparently, the shorter the kilt, the greater number of thistle scratches which stimulated the wearer’s shouting and running ability.

Utilising all this extensive research, including many additional and worthy obscure publications, The House of Cloth is pleased to announce the AppCloth.

Yes, the AppCloth is now available for those discerning fashion wearers that want to match their daily creativity mood with their personal designer clothing selections. Through the use of a patented, and very clever biometric length analyser linked to the wearer’s iPhone, the AppCloth calculates how the individual is feeling. If the feedback signal received is a tad sluggish, well, this immediately indicates that the user may be experiencing a potentially low ideation day. To overcome this negativity, AppCloth would suggest that clothing be worn to stimulate the wearer’s innovation, that being a short skirt, short length trousers, or a mini-kilt.

Alternatively, if the AppCloth receives a signal that indicates an extreme state of hyperactivity, then a full-length clothing attire would be suggested to counteract potential severe embarrassment, just in case something a little too short be worn.

As with all new fashion disruptive innovative inventions, the individual does have the option to completely ignore any clothing recommendations, but please carefully read AppCloth’s short, twenty page, font 6, disclaimer, so you fully understand your rights as a consumer.

For more information on AppCloth, please go to the App Store, or your favourite and well trusted clothing department’s website.

Measuring Employee Happiness

The black color didn’t make the homecoming dress lose the sense of cute. Do you agree with me?

There is a question that has been puzzling me for a while now (well, at least a few minutes), and that is; “How should we measure real success in the corporate office?”

No, I’m not talking the traditional financial measurements such as profit, sales or share price, just to name a few. I’m referring to the more important measures of whether an organisation has a successful culture that promotes innovation and an employee mood of happiness.

There have been many a study which has tried to chart an individual’s mood, one of the more creative ones being the “Hemline Index”. “This theory suggests that hemlines on women’s dresses rise along with stock prices. In good economies, we get such results as miniskirts (as seen in the 1960s), or in poor economic times, as shown by the 1929 Wall Street Crash, hems can drop almost overnight.”
(Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemline_index#cite_ref-1)

Other such notable indexes also include items such as laxatives and deodorants! “During a recession, laxatives go up, because people are under tremendous stress, and holding themselves back,” said Shapiro, now chief executive of SAGE, a Chicago-based consulting firm. “During a boom, deodorant sales go up, because people are out dancing around.”
(Ref: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/19/business/worldbusiness/19iht-19lewin.17068071.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)

Now as a corporate employee that understands the protocols of “acceptable behaviour in the workplace”, I would not even consider the application of the “Hemline Index”, the “Deodorant Index”, and I’m not even going near the “Laxative Index”, but there must be some other “acceptable” measures that can be used by the organisation to highlight their success in this area? This conundrum got me thinking!

What about the following potential mood measurements in the office:

1. The Wall Bounce Chart
A line could be painted on all office walls at a constant height position of say 5 feet. Theory (according to “someone”) suggests that when a person is happy, they tend to have a bounce in their walking step. Therefore the logical next step is to measure an employee’s “walk bounce” as they sojourn around the office corridors. The higher the bounce deviation from the 5 feet benchmark reference line, the happier the employees working in that office.

2. The Coloured Attire
According to the “someone” that discovered the walking bounce indicator, another indicator of employee happiness is the colour of their clothes. Those who habitually dress in sombre black or grey clothes (besides being residents of Melbourne) are typified as being quite conservative and less known to whoop it up in the corporate office. Whereas, those adorned with colour, well, they are exhibiting all the classic signs of success and a want to let the world know of their personal satisfaction and excitement.

3. The Organic Tea Bag
When an employee is stressed, the common drink of choice is coffee or tea. However, according again to that “someone”, another important measurement of happiness is the clutter observed around the organic tea bag jar located in the office communal kitchen. Happy employees are reported to drink more organic tea and they like to woft their tea bags around in the air with a gleeful flick prior to placing them in the bin. The result is a mixture of tea bag tags randomly tossed around the kitchen and the strange odour of combined chamomile, lemon, chai and green tea fumes.

I’m sure that you can think of many more mood measurement indexes that would complement the above three ideas.

So why don’t corporate organisations list these important indexes in their annual reports, or in the monthly newsletters? May I suggest that you lobby your GM of HR to get these indexes incorporated into your company’s cultural measures of employee success? Yes, it’s just a thought to make you think that little bit differently!

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