Video your work area and win a makeover

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Contest Factory for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

You have no doubt heard by now about the Pimp My Cube Contest where you can win a Grand prize worth $1200 to makeover your work cubical or office. What the contest people are looking for is messy and I do mean MESSY work areas. They want people to send in a video of that mess but make it entertaining. After all how else is your work area going to compete against others that are just as messy or even worse.

So when filming that winning video think creative. Maybe make it into a flash mob style video and get all your co-workers to help out. You can tempt them into joining the fun by letting them know that prize could be an elaborate entertainment package with stereo equipment. Of course a new computer would be good as well. Below is one of their sample videos where they cover what they are looking for such as what your work area looks like and a mini tour of it.

  

You will increase your chances of winning by getting friends and family to vote for your video. if you have a few thousand friends on Twitter and you can talk them into voting for your video then you could win this thing.

So are you ready for a cubical makeover? Better hurry because the contest ends 1/31/12 at 12pm

The stores are pushing the holidays

No sooner is Christmas and New Years Day are over, out comes the Valentines Day stuff and Super Bowl party decorations in our local Walmart. I don't know about you but I am starting to feel a bit pushed along. The Valentines stuff takes up 4 isles and is a bit over the top this year. How many stuffed pink animals can one person own? I think I would go for personalized gifts for boyfriends, husband, wives and girlfriends rather than an off the shelf box of candy with a stuffed animal. It takes more thought and the person getting the gift knows it.

But back to the holiday pushing by stores. Have you noticed that nowadays many stores are now putting out items for 2-5 months in advance of the event? This morning I was buying kitty litter and looked over to another department of the store and they are putting out the bar-b-que stuff for the summer...........HELLO??!! We are still in winter with another 2 months to go before spring. This is in the Pacific Northwest where we have snow and heavy cold rains for the next 2 months. What are those stores thinking?

Note to house flippers - housing market still down

There is a house around the corner from me that was built in the 1880's. It was recently bought by a young couple who completely renovated it. The house needed extensive work. It needed floors and it is a 2 story house, new windows and doors as well as a balcony that was missing.

They did a wonderful job. It took several months for them to complete the work and they lived in a travel trailer next to the house while they were there. Then came the shock.

I was driving by the house and looked over to see the latest renovation and to my surprise I saw 2 lawn signs. One was advertising the painting company that did some of the painting and the other one was a "for sale" sign. All that work was done to flip the house. The for sale sign has now been up for nearly 2 months now and the couple have moved on. The house is empty and pretty but I wonder how long it will be on the market before it is bought. I have seen several houses with property just a few house down that have been on the market for over a year, one of them for 5 years now. They are not asking the moon for those properties, there is just no buyers right now for the area.

Looking for work, set your Facebook page to private

It is no secret that companies do some research on potential employees nowadays. One of the first places they often look is Facebook. If you are looking for work there are a few things you can do, first is to set your personal page to private so only your friends and relatives can view your posts and photos. Next you can create a page just for employers to visit. This would be strictly for you to promote yourself and your career. It should remain separate from your personal page. It is the page that if companies are trying to find you on Facebook, they will find. You can also change your name on your personal Facebook page to a nickname rather than your legal name.

Other steps to take if you are looking for work is to remove anything you don't want them to know about you online. Simply Google your name and see what comes up. If your Twitter account shows up then you should look at that to see if you need to remove some of the tweets you put on there, change your name on the account or remove it entirely. If your name shows up on old websites that you once had you can simply go and change them or remove them.

Looking for work is hard work to begin with. You don't need to be shooting yourself in the foot by having your name all over the internet that puts you in an unfair light.

Latest scam - American Airlines tickets

You know, I don't have to go looking for scams, they are delivered straight to my inbox almost everyday. Today I got one with a zip attachment that says I bought an airline ticket. Here is the email:


Hello
FLIGHT NUMBER AA633
ELECTRONIC 813785561
DATE/ TIME / JANUARY 20, 2012, 11:34 PM
ARRIVING / Modesto
TOTAL PRICE / 422.25 USD


Your bought ticket is attached to the letter as a scan document.
You can print your ticket.


Thank you
American Airlines.


Now there are only 2 problems with that email. First thing is that I did not buy a ticket and second is that American Airlines does not fly into Modesto. In fact I don't think that Modesto has an airport. I use to work in Modesto so I know the area.

Just out of curiosity I checked fight AA633 and found out that it is an international flight from Puerto Rico to Dallas.

No I did not click on the zip file. Email was reported as spam.