The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Here, every day is a new day
Is PR the career for you? If you are outgoing, love challenges, meeting & chatting up people and can write, give it a shot. But there are several professional hazards involved, warns C.K. SARDANA
HAVING been in the profession of public relations for over four decades, I am looked upon by everyone as a man of public relations. Feel good, but there is another side, too. Even when I genuinely and spontaneously appreciate a person, I see a question mark in that person’s eyes, indicating — not in words but in body or eye language — that he thinks I am doing so because I am a PR man! A professional hazard of his profession, just as with a civil engineer, contractor, purchase officer or cashier.

Career Hotline
Pervin Malhotra
This column appears weekly. Please send in your queries, preferably on a postcard, along with your full name, complete address and academic qualifications to: Editor, Jobs and Careers, The Tribune, Sector 29, Chandigarh-160030, or at careers @tribunemail.com.

Careercature
Sandeep Joshi

Sir, with the induction of young faces in
our company, we
are saving fuel allowance too!

Why do you make that face?
If you think that our facial expressions of emotion are a product of cultural learning, you better think again, for a new study suggests that they are hardwired into our genes. Published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, this is the first study to suggest that facial expressions of emotion are innate rather than a product of cultural learning.

OFFICE Mantra
Way with words
Writing a business letter is no mean feat but clarity & force win the game, writes D.C. SHARMA
COMMANDING purposeful communication pays dividends in business. One who commands his words to serve his thoughts and feelings can write powerful business letters. The right word at the right place serves the right purpose while a vague, non-specific letter never conveys the intended sense. American instructor in business correspondence, Margaret Eaton cautions never to write ineffective letters. He advises not to pick up the pen till the problem to be posed in the letter is thoroughly thought of. Frank Gammon, a teacher in creative writing, says successful letter writers always know what to leave out. Effective letter writing is an efficient process of defining, sifting, pruning, and discarding till the purpose of writing becomes crystal clear.

The right choice
THE cat is out of the bag, somewhat. How does the human brain know when to use which word? A new study has identified parts of the human brain involved in the process of choosing the right words during speech. During speech, a person must select one word from a competing set. If the speaker swants to mention a specific animal, he has to single out “dog” from “cat”, “horse” and other possibilities. If he wants to describe someone’s temperament, he has to choose whether “happy”, “sad”, “ecstatic” or some other adjective is more appropriate.

Stepping stones
The ability to convert stumbling blocks to stepping-stones is what distinguishes the successful from the unsuccessful
IT is said that the difference between a stumbling block and a stepping-stone is how you use them. No one can escape failure and some get more than their share of struggle: A young man fails in an important examination or misses a prize. Another is passed over for an awaited promotion. Such things do happen every day, but those who use these stumbling blocks as stepping-stones are the ones who get what they want.

The obstacle course

AFTER series of failures, disappointments and unfavourable situations, Ralph Naldo Emerson concluded that ‘our greatest glory is not in failing, but in rising up every time we fail.’ Successful executives have some common ways of dealing with obstacles. Read on:

Robot to challenge Rubik cube record
A ROBOT, called RuBot 2, is all set to participate in a contest to break a Rubik’s cube world record. The RuBot 2 will go for the record at Royal Dublin Society, Ballsbridge, in Dublin on January 8. Its inventor, Pete Redmond, has claimed that RuBot 2 can solve the puzzle in not more than 35 seconds.