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If youve been in the workplace for a while, youve probably had your share of bad bosses. Maybe youve worked for someone who frequently went MIA, ignoring your emails or requests for information. Or perhaps youve had to report to someone who changed their mind on a dime and expected you to drop everything and follow along. If these scenarios sound familiar, its because bad management styles often fall into one of several archetypes, says Eric Charran, author of Have You Ever Had a Boss That . . .: Succeeding in a Dysfunctional Workplace. Sometimes the tools in a managers leadership toolbox make it difficultand almost impossibleto want to work for them, he says. The first thing to do is to try to overcome an overwhelming urge to say Why are they doing this to me? It must be that I’m deficient in some way. It’s not necessarily that individual’s personality is a mismatch [for yours] or that they don’t like you. It’s just that they’re using a hammer when they really need a screwdriver. Whether you have a difficult boss right now or one lurking in your future, its possible to thrive under their leadership by understanding their motivations. Here are four of the common boss archetypes that Charran identifies in his book, and how you can deal with their behavior. The Attack Sub An Attack Sub manager is someone who operates stealthily for an extended period with minimal interaction or feedback. Suddenly, they surface with a flood of information and demands, launching figurative bombs and missiles. They catch employees off guard, shifting priorities and directives and leaving everyone wondering what just happened as they return beneath the water The Attack Sub Manager can be extremely difficult to deal with, Charran says. They run silent and deep. You’re trying to send them Slacks, or emails, or texts, and it just bounces off them. On the surface, they appear to have a poor capability to manage communication and to give guidance. If you are comfortable with putting out fires, you may work well with this type of boss. But if youre someone who is detail-oriented, a manager who shoots from the hip will be frustrating. To best work with an Attack Sub manager, Charran recommends reaching out to them first thing in the morning, before they become distracted. Keep messages concise and focused on short, tactical items. It can also help to switch your channels of communication; breaking everyday patterns can draw their attention. The Order Taker The Order Taker boss values harmony, hierarchy, and compliance. Their goal is to prove their value to the organization, and the best way to do that is to get you to do what they ask. While this sounds reasonable, demands can quickly turn into commands that put current workloads at jeopardy. If youre constantly switching from one thing to the other, you’re never going to finish anything, says Charran. Your results at the end of the year from a performance perspective will look abysmal. You will have failed the organization because you are not working on important thingsyou keep stopping them to follow new commands. The way to work with the Order Taker boss is by managing up, says Charran. Their expectation is that youll say yes to everything, adding, Do you want fries with that? he says. They need to be educated and not saluted. They’re looking for somebody to say, Hey, if we do this, here’s what we could jeopardize. They’re looking for more of a partner, rather than somebody that says, Got it, boss. The Raw Nerve The Raw Nerve boss is highly emotional, often reacting in the moment. This archetype often develops in an environment where quick decision-making is valued, says Charran. They equate immediate action with effectiveness. However, it can come at the expense of thoroughness or the well-being of team members if they ignore or dont explore possible consequences. Their decisions are not entirely relationship based and not entirely data based, Charran says. Theyre a confluence of all those things. They utilize their cred for quick decision making unilaterally, which can be harmful in many situations. The best way to thrive with this type of boss is to turn to your support networks that extend beyond your team before any final decisions are made. Leverage the power of a group by talking to customers, higher management, and peers. The key, though, is that you dont do it behind your bosss back. It has to be done completely above board, Charran says. If done correctly, you can make the communication innocuous enough that it will seen by your manager as stakeholder management. The Complainer As the name implies, the Complainer is the boss who is constantly complaining. For example, their team isnt big enough, they dont have the correct resources, or theyve been giving unrealistic goals by their superiors. What they don’t realize is that their venting is bringing down the team and poisoning the well. Off-the-cuff remarks have a cognitive impact on team morale, Charran says. The things may be true, but it ends up coming off negative. What the team sees is a person in a downward spiral of jadedness. This archetype usually results from a deep-seated insecurity. The human brain is wired to look for threats, and, whether theyre a danger or not, the brain will find them. To work for a Complainer, Charran says you need the intellect and drive to make positive mental choices instead of getting dragged into their storm. Coexisting with the Complainer begins with empathy, he says. This doesnt mean condoning endless negativity but rather recognizing it as a cry for help or a sign of deeper issues. Empathy must be balanced with the establishment of positive boundaries to protect your own mental and emotional well-being. While it can be frustrating to work for someone with an outlook and behavior that clashes with your own, Charran says youre ultimately responsible for your own happiness and have tools within your own reach. A fundmental principle in maintaining a positive mental attitude is understanding the emotions of others and how they express them, Charran says. Their attitudes and reactions are not contagious and do not have to be internalized. Empathize with others and understand their emotions, but dont be sucked into a collective negative spiral. Knowing your worth is important and so is choice.
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E-Commerce
Over the past several years, electric vehicles have garnered something of a reputation for their unusual sounds on the road. Otherworldly EV warning sounds have been compared to a celestial choir, a flying saucer hum, and, in one TikTok with 23.5 million views, the song that might play just before ascending to heaven. But the angelic warble thats come to characterize EV acoustics might have a few drawbacks for pedestrians. A new study conducted by researchers at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden and published in March examined how well the average person could locate three common types of warning sounds from hybrid and electric vehicles at low speeds. It found that all three of the sounds were significantly harder for pedestrians to locate than the sound of a standard internal combustion engine. Given that they have no combustion engine, EVs are naturally almost silent. That can be a benefit when it comes to urban noise pollution, but its not ideal for pedestrian safety. For the past six years, all EVs in the U.S. have been legally required to emit some kind of low-level noisea prompt that automakers have chosen to interpret in a range of creative ways. But it might be time for some automakers to take another crack at their proprietary EV acoustics. What do Hanz Zimmer, a didgeridoo, and fighter jets have in common? Starting in 2019, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ruled that all hybrid and electric cars have to be fitted with an external speaker that must make audible noise when traveling in reverse or forward at speeds up to 30 kilometers per hour (about 19 miles per hour). While the law sets expectations for when these noises need to play, it largely leaves the contents of the noise itself up to automakers. Thats resulted in a variety of EV sounds on the road, from a Cadillac alert made using a didgeridoo to the Hyundai Ioniq 5 Ns fighter-jet-inspired sound and BMWs portfolio of i4 electric sedan noises by composer Hans Zimmer. This unusual symphony hitting the roads has inspired quippy commentary on social media. Under a TikTok sharing the BMX iX 50s reverse sound, one user wrote, is this ribs by lorde? And in a video poking fun at Teslas reverse audio, another commenter joked, Every time our neighbour pulls onto the drive with their electric car my husband says the spaceship has landed. Beyond sounding a bit silly, though, there are a few key shortcomings to the sounds that many automakers are selecting for their EVs. Why are EVs so hard (and annoying) to hear? Chalmers researchers examined three of the main categories of EV sounds, also known as acoustic vehicle alerting systems (AVAS): two-tone, multitone, and narrowband noise (a noise concentrated within a small band of audible frequencies, often perceived as a hissing sound). To compare these sounds to that of an internal combustion engine, researchers studied the reactions of 52 test subjects inside a soundproof chamber. Each subject was surrounded by 24 loudspeakers and given a laser pointer fashioned out of a toy gun. When one of the speakers played a simulated vehicle sound designed to mimic the noise of an EV at a low speed, the subjects were to point the laser toward the sound as quickly as possible. The tests demonstrated that all the AVAS categories were harder for subjects to locate than the sound of an internal combustion engine. And, according to Leon Müller, a PhD student at Chalmers and one of the papers authors, one of the sounds was more problematic than the others. [The two-tone AVAS] is significantly harder to localize than other types of warning sounds, as well as combustion noise, Müller says, noting that in a situation with just one vehicle present, these localization errors are relatively small and not particularly concerning for traffic safety. When there are two or three EVs present, though, the situation can get a bit stickier. In that case, the participants had much more [difficulty] localizing the cars, up to a point where most participants failed to even detect all presented EVs within an appropriate time, Müller says. There are a few reasons why pedestrians might have trouble locating EV sounds. First, Müller explains, combustion noise is a very broadband signalmeaning it contains a lot of frequencies, and hence more information for our hearing system to work with. Second, humans have had substantially more time to acclimate to combustion sounds than artificial EV sounds. We humans have learned over the last 100 years or so that cars sound in a particular way and how driving behavior, such as acceleration, is reflected in this combustion noise, Müller says. This potential learning effect might also contribute to differences in localization, especially when we need to decode multiple sounds at the same time. One could expect that we would then also get used to EV sounds within a few years. The only problem is that they currently all sound different. A new sound In the meantime, Müller believes there are two potential avenues to make EV sounds safer. Currently, U.S. and EU regulations are limited to minimum sound levels in a specified number of frequency bands, which he argues allows the warning signals to be anything between a futuristic spaceship sound or a racing car engine. In the U.S., he adds, regulations dont require a velocity pitch shift, meaning that a car might sound the same going 60 mph as it does at 25 mph. To address these problems, Müller says the regulations should make more clear demands on the sound characteristics. On the automaker side of the equation, the Chalmers study indicates that a more broadband AVAS signal, similar to the noise radiated by tires when driving faster, is preferable to a two-tone or multitone AVAS. [This sound] is potentially less annoying than tonal sounds and has the advantage that we already have learned to interpret this noise since we hear it every day, Müller says. In the long term, he adds that adaptive AVAS solutionslike pedestrian detection technologycould help EVs radiate a more advanced warning sound directly in the direction of the pedestrian, thus improving safety and reducing noise pollution. One important bottom line here is that we are no saying EVs are bad or dangerous. With the right type of warning signal, they are not, Müller says. On the contrary, they have the potential of reduced noise pollution since the warning sound can be controlled, while the combustion noise in [internal combustion engine vehicles] is always there.
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E-Commerce
Picture this: On your way out of the office, you notice a manager berating an employee. You assume the worker made some sort of mistake, but the managers behavior seems unprofessional. Later, as youre preparing dinner, is the scene still weighing on youor is it out of sight, out of mind? If you think youd still be bothered, youre not alone. It turns out that simply observing mistreatment at work can have a surprisingly strong impact on people, even for those not directly involved. Thats according to new research led by Edwyna Hill, coauthored by Rachel Burgess, Manuela Priesemuth, Jefferson McClain, and me, published in the Journal of Applied Psychology. Using a method called meta-analysiswhich takes results from many different studies and combines them to produce an overall set of findingswe reviewed the growing body of research on what management professors like me call third-party perceptions of mistreatment. In this context, third parties are people who observe mistreatment between a perpetrator and the victim, who are the first and second parties. We looked at 158 studies published in 105 journal articles involving thousands of participants. Those studies explored a number of different forms of workplace mistreatment ranging from incivility to abusive supervision and sexual harassment. Some of those studies took part in actual workplaces, while others examined mistreatment in tightly controlled laboratory settings. The results were striking: We found that observing a coworker being mistreated on the job has significant effects on the observers emotions. In fact, we found that observers of mistreatment may be as affected by what happened as the people actually involved in the event. These reactions fall along a spectrumsome helpful, others less so. On the encouraging side, we found that observers tend to judge perpetrators and feel empathy for victims. These reactions discourage mistreatment by creating a climate that favors the victim. On the other hand, we found that observers may also enjoy seeing their coworkers sufferan emotion called schadenfreudeor blame the victim. These sorts of reactions damage team dynamics and discourage people from reporting mistreatment. Why it matters These findings matter because mistreatment in the workplace is disturbingly common, and even more frequently observed than experienced. One recent study found that 34% of employees have experienced workplace mistreatment firsthand, but 44% have observed it happening to someone else. In other words, nearly half of workers have likely seen a scenario like the one described at the start of this article. Unfortunately, the human resources playbook on workplace mistreatment rarely takes third parties into account. Some investigation occurs, potentially resulting in some punishment for the perpetrator and some support for the victim. A more effective response to workplace mistreatment would recognize that the harm often extends beyond the victim, and that observers may need support too. What still isnt known Whats needed now is a better understanding of the nuances involved in observing mistreatment. Why do some observers react with empathy, while others derive pleasure from the suffering of others? And why might observers feel empathy for the victim but still respond by judging or blaming them? Answering these questions is a crucial next step for researchers and leaders seeking to design more effective workplace policies. The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work. Jason Colquitt is a professor of management at the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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From fantastical worlds to personalized Ghibli-esque portraits, social media is flooded with AI-generated images that were created by merely a prompt. But what may be a fun tool for the average user has become an existential threat for graphic design. And yet, surprisingly, graphic design jobs dont seem to be getting eliminatedyet. By analyzing job posting data between fall/winter 2023-2024 and fall/winter 2024-2025, Fast Company found that the number of job listings for graphic designers stayed flat, despite worries about AI platforms eliminating these particular jobs. There just haven’t been very many graphic-design based AI generators yet, says Daniel Lefcourt, visual artist and professor of art and computation at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";r.style.height=d}}}))}(); Since 2018, Lefcourt has used AI models in various courses, and for the past four years he has taught Generative Systems, a course that explores how to use generative technology in the design process. The class uses Invoke, a 2-year-old generative AI platform, and Runway. Only now are we seeing Figma and Adobe Illustrator starting to generate designs, and that’s pretty recent, he added. Before that, the tech wasn’t there yet to shift the design field in the same way. The element of trust While AI platforms such as DALL-E and Midjourney can generate overly produced fantasy-like images, it struggles with basic graphic design concepts like typography and uniformity. If you’re using a tool that can’t give you consistent results, that makes it challenging to embrace like a standard tool, says Elliott Romano, who is pursuing an MFA in graphic design at RISD. Romano spent 10 years as a digital product designer at cultural institutions, hardware startups, and enterprise software companies before deciding to be more of a generalist than a specialist when it comes to visual communication. He now explores the creative application of generative tools. I’ll be shocked if, as these things get better, they dont become a replacement of sorts, he says. I see the graphic designer becoming more of a creative director, and being able to come in and move things around. AI is “designed to hit the lowest common denominator” Jody Poole, a digital graphic designer who has spent the past 25 years working on campaigns for brands such as Coca-Cola, Comcast, and Kelloggs, recently shared on Reddit an experience hed had involving AI. He was completing a timed test that had been part of the application for a senior position at a marketing company. The design section of the test, he recalled, included questions like: The client wants you to design this promotional poster, but instead of coffee they want raspberry lemonade. What AI prompts would you use to design this? I was stunned, he said on Reddit. No thought to typography or colour theory or visual hierarchy. Just give us the prompts and let AI do the rest. Still, Poole recognizes that AI might be valuable for the design industry one day, particularly when it comes to translating and adapting a human-made design to reach wider and diverse audiences. There is a tidal wave of change that is happening within technology, and you either have to get out the surfboard and ride the wave, or you’re going to drown, he tells Fast Company. The change might even come with an upside, he explains, likening AI-design with fast fashion, which had the effect of making bespoke designs highly prized. AI is designed to hit the lowest common denominator, Poole says If you can rise above that, even a little bit, you become a unique, valuable talent out there. Lefcourt, for his part, isnt too worried for graphic designers, either. What these tools are doing is shifting us into an entirely new realm of visual culture, he says. To be a trained artist, to understand how images work, and how images are created, from the Renaissance to now, actually positions you pretty well for this new world that we’re entering into. This article is part of Fast Company’s continuing coverage of where the design jobs are, including this year’s comprehensive analysis of 170,000 job listings
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Every year, I tell my students in my business analytics class the same thing: Dont just apply for a job. Audition for it. This advice seems particularly relevant this year. In todays turbulent economy, companies are still hiring, but theyre doing it a bit more carefully. More places are offering candidates short-term work experiences like internships and co-op programs in order to evaluate them before making them full-time offers. This is just one of the findings of the 2025 College Hiring Outlook Report. This annual report tracks trends in the job market and offers valuable insights for both job seekers and employers. It is based on a national survey conducted in September 2024, with responses from 1,322 employers spanning all major industries and company sizes, from small firms to large enterprises. The survey looks at employer perspectives on entry-level hiring trends, skills demand, and talent development strategies. I am a professor of information systems at Drexel Universitys LeBow College of Business in Philadelphia, and I coauthored this report along with a team of colleagues at the Center for Career Readiness. Heres what we found: Employers are rethinking talent pipelines Only 21% of the 1,322 employers we surveyed rated the current college hiring market as excellent or very good, which is a dramatic drop from 61% in 2023. This indicates that companies are becoming increasingly cautious about how they recruit and select new talent. While confidence in full-time hiring has declined, employers are not stepping away from hiring altogether. Instead, theyre shifting to paid and unpaid internships, co-ops, and contract-to-hire roles as a less risky route to identify talent and de-risk full-time hiring. Employers we surveyed described internships as a cost-effective talent pipeline, and 70% told us they plan to maintain or increase their co-op and intern hiring in 2025. At a time when many companies are tightening their belts, hiring someone whos already proved themselves saves on onboarding reduces turnover and minimizes potentially costly mishires. For job seekers, this makes every internship or short-term role more than a foot in the door. Its an extended audition. Even with the general market looking unstable, interest in co-op and internship programs appears steady, especially among recent graduates facing fewer full-time opportunities. These programs arent just about trying out a job. They let employers see if a candidate shows initiative, good judgment, and the ability to work well on a team, which we found are traits employers value even more than technical skills. What employers want We found that employers increasingly prioritize self-management skills like adaptability, ethical reasoning, and communication over technical skills such as digital literacy and cybersecurity. Employers are paying attention to how candidates behave during internships, how they take feedback, and whether they bring the mindset needed to grow with the company. This reflects what I have observed in classrooms and in conversations with hiring managers: Credentials matter, but what truly sets candidates apart is how they present themselves and what they contribute to a company. Based on co-op and internship data weve collected at Drexel, however, many students continue to believe that technical proficiency is the key to getting a job. In my opinion, this disconnect reveals a critical gap in expectations: While students focus on hard skills to differentiate themselves, employers are looking for the human skills that indicate long-term potential, resilience, and professionalism. This is especially true in the face of economic uncertainty and the ambiguous, fast-changing nature of todays workplace. Technology is changing how hiring happens Employers also told us that artificial intelligence is now central to how both applicants and employers navigate the hiring process. Some companies are increasingly using AI-powered platforms to transform their hiring processes. For example, Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia uses platforms like HireVue to conduct asynchronous video interviews. HR-focused firms like Phenom and JJ Staffing Services also leverage technologies such as AI-based resume ranking, automated interview scheduling, and one-way video assessments. Not only do these tools speed up the hiring process, but they also reshape how employers and candidates interact. In our survey, large employers said they are increasingly relying on AI tools like resume screeners and one-way video interviews to manage large numbers of job applicants. As a result, the candidates presence, clarity in communication, and authenticity are being evaluated even before a human recruiter becomes involved. At the same time, job seekers are using generative AI tools to write cover letters, practice interviews, or reformat résumés. These tools can help with preparation, but overreliance on them can backfire. Employers want authenticity, and many employers we surveyed mentioned they notice when applications seem overly robotic. In my experience as a professor, the key is teaching students to use AI to enhance their effort, not to replace it. I encourage them to leverage AI tools but always emphasize that the final output and the impression it makes should reflect their own thinking and professionalism. The bottom line is that hiring is still a human decision, and the personal impression you make matters. This isnt just about new grads While our research focuses on early-career hiring, these findings apply to other audiences as well, such as career changers, returning professionals, and even mid-career workers. These workers are increasingly being evaluated on their adaptability, behavior, and collaborative abilitynot just their experience. Many companies now offer project-based assignments and trial roles that let them evaluate performance before making a permanent hire. At the same time, employers are investing in internal reskilling and upskilling programs. Reskilling refers to training workers for entirely new oles, often in response to job changes or automation, while upskilling means helping employees deepen their current skills to stay effective and advance in their existing roles. Our report indicates that approximately 88% of large companies now offer structured upskilling and reskilling programs. For job seekers and workers alike, staying competitive means taking the initiative and demonstrating a commitment to learning and growth. Show up early, and show up well So what can students, or anyone entering or reentering the workforce, do to prepare? Start early. Dont wait until senior year. First- and second-year internships are growing in importance. Sharpen soft skills. Communication, time management, problem-solving, and ethical behavior are top priorities for employers. Understand where work is happening. More than 50% of entry-level jobs are fully in person. Only 4% are fully remote. Show up ready to engage. Use AI strategically. Its a useful tool for research and practice, not a shortcut to connection or clarity. Stay curious. Most large employers now offer reskilling or upskilling opportunities, and they expect employees to take initiative. One of the clearest takeaways from this years report is that hiring is no longer a onetime decision. Its a performance process that often begins before an interview is even scheduled. Whether youre still in school, transitioning in your career, or returning to the workforce after a break, the same principle applies: Every opportunity is an audition. Treat it like one. Murugan Anandarajan is a professor of decision sciences and management information systems at Drexel University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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