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Study claims people with these 10 first names are most successful in business. Only 1 is female.

Can we please speak to the manager about this study?

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A boss puts his feet on his desk.

Are you a Travis, a Taylor, or a Michael Scott? How important is a name, anyway? According to a recent study conducted by Resume.io, the answer is — very. They looked at thousands of LinkedIn profiles to find the most common names of people listing themselves in top business positions.

michael scott, boss, popular names, leadershipSteve Carell winks as Michael Scott.Giphy NBC, Peacock

They claim, "For this study, we collected and analyzed 3,046 LinkedIn profiles from the U.S., specifically focusing on individuals in leadership roles. By examining the data in detail, we identified patterns in names commonly associated with executive and presidential positions within companies."

What do high positions mean to them? "Our methodology involved reviewing profiles with titles such as “CEO,” “COO,” “CTO,” “CFO,” “President,” “Vice President,” “Director,” and “Manager.” We also categorized the results by gender to evaluate disparities in leadership representation."

Taking the number one spot on the list? John. In fact, John dominates on many of the "leadership" positions, including CEO, COO, and CTO, technology leadership. (Somewhere John Stamos is doing a happy dance.) But hold on, Michaels are most commonly named as presidents, with Davids, our trusty managers.

John Stamos, popular names, celebrities, successJohn Stamos in Full House creditsGiphy

And the only female name on this particular list is Kimberly, who is commonly listed as a director. In fact, the study notes, "Our research revealed that overall, only one-third (36%) of the profiles analyzed are women. Therefore, a staggering 64% of those in positions of power in America are men. This once again underlines the gender representation imbalance of corporate leadership."

According to Entrepreneur.com, they analyzed the study further and found that overall, the top most successful names in the business sector are: John, Michael, David (as mentioned). Followed by: Robert, Mark, Jennifer, Brian, Steve, Joseph, and Scott.

Again, worth noting that only one female name (Jennifer) makes the overall list. If one were to just list the women in the top spots, Jennifer is followed by: Lisa, Mary, Julie, Karen, Michelle, Kimberly, Emily, Kelly, and Diana.

woman, boss, leadership, popular names, businessFemale boss at the workplace .free-vectors.net

What seems to be clear is the names on these lists are the most common among the age group that would most likely be in a "boss-spot" currently. Right? In fact, let's take a look at the most popular (American) names in the 1970s, according to the SSA government website. Look at that! John, Michael, and David are all in the top 5. (Though so are Christopher and James, so what are THEY doing with their lives?)

For women, same thing. Jennifer, Kimberly, and Michelle are among the most popular.

Obviously, Reddit has some opinions. On the subreddit r/Leadership,Entrepreneur Magazine themselves posted the link to the study and many pointed out that correlation does not imply causation, as the saying goes. One snarks, "Go figure that the most common names for those over 40 match most common leader names. Did you also know that 100% of people who drink water end up dying??? True for breathing air too."

One top commenter added this interesting insight: "Freakonomics did a study on income and names — higher income households tend to follow certain naming trends while lower income households tend to follow different naming trends. The majority of those with major professional success tend to come from higher income households." They add, "Your name doesn't determine where you end up, but it usually is an indicator of where you begin."

Someone named Jeff points out how sad it is for all the Jeffs out there. "My name is Jeff. So I’m disqualified immediately."

Karen, popular names, successful, leadershipA Karen peaks out from behind a tree. Giphy

And this Redditor nails it with: "So when Karen demands to see a manager, she’s asking to see herself most of the time?"

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Country duo gives Dolly Parton's famous '9 to 5' song a twist to reflect modern day work life

"There ain't no time when your job is 9 to 6."

@thedoohickeys/Instagram

You're STILL just a rung on the boss man's ladder.

Have working conditions really gotten better?

On the one hand, with more work-from-home opportunities, more allowances regarding parental leave, more awareness around the importance of taking days off for mental health reasons, and more businesses adopting four day work weeks…you'd think yes, definitely, things are getting better!

And yet, it definitely can feel like a one step forward, two steps back situation a lot of the time. Many people still woefully lament unlivable wages, having to take on extra work just to make ends meet, and somehow having most of their lives revolve around working. In many ways, all the progress we’ve made toward productivity hasn’t made the common person any freer. Rather, it only moved the goalpost further. Which, needless to say, is exhausting.

It’s this phenomenon that inspired a “cheeky country music duo” named The Doohickeys to make a modern day revamp of everybody's favorite twangy anti-work anthem: “9 to 5.”

The tune was made famous by Dolly Parton whose character in a movie by the same title bemoaned the common working man/woman’s curse of toiling day in, day out just to essentially be a cog in the corporate greed machine. Serious subject matter…but a very catchy song!

The Doohickeys’ parody cover shows that things have changed a bit…the most notable change of all being that, as the new title suggests, “9 to 5” is out, and “9 to 6” is in.

“Like everyone, we love Dolly’s song ‘9 to 5,’ but we realized that neither of us have ever actually worked those hours — 9 to 6 would be more accurate…Turns out that additional hour struck a chord with viewers ‘cause people started sharing their insane work schedules in the comments, and boy, some of those hours suck!” Doohickey vocalist Haley Brown told Upworthy.

In this version, our singing hero still stumbles outta bed and tumbles to the kitchen. But instead of pouring herself a cup of ambition, she “checks her phone while she eats to see what she’s missin.’”

There’s no time to yawn and stretch, or even take a shower, you see. This working gal has to rush out the door because “there aint no time when your job is 9 to 6.”

Take a listen below. Holy cow, did Brown really nailed Parton’s signature airy twang.

That’s Part 1. In Part 2, The Doohickeys hilariously sing about the foibles of racking up student debt in college. Surely nothing any Gen Xers and Millennials can relate to. Plus, again, the need to work an additional job…which is 8 to 1.

All in all, the Doohickeys seemingly did the impossible by making their own unique version of a beloved, almost untouchable classic song, while still holding onto the original’s essence. It’s unfortunate that we still are having these issues, to be sure. But that’s another conversation.

And while we might not see sweeping improvements to the workplace quite as fast, the Doohickeys did immediately fulfill the people’s request to make a full version of the song, which you can listen to on Spotify.

But wait, there’s even more awesome ditties where that came from. Follow the Doohickeys on Instagram here

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In a thermostat war? The ideal room temperature for work is warmer than you might think.

And it's not just a stereotype that men and women tend to differ on this front.

Photo (left) by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash, Photo (right) by Sean D on Unsplash

How warm should an office be for optimal productivity?

For a species that evolved in a wide range of climates and conditions and had little ability to choose the temperature around us until recently, humans are awfully persnickety about our thermostat settings. Some of us are so sensitive to temperature fluctuations we can tell if someone has raised or lowered it by a degree or two—a reality that set the stage for many a workplace thermostat war.

If you think 68 degrees is the optimal room temperature in the office and start sweating at your desk when it hits 72, you're not alone. And if 68 degrees has you putting on your parka and begging the office manager for a nice, balmy 77, you're also not alone.

Obviously, there's a huge range of preferences, but is there an optimal room temperature for work productivity? And if so, what is it?

According to a study at University of Southern California, the answer to that question depends on whether you're a man or a woman.

“It’s been documented that women like warmer indoor temperatures than men, but the idea until now has been that it’s a matter of personal preference,” study author and associate professor of finance and business economics Tommy Chang said. “What we found is it’s not just whether you feel comfortable or not, but that your performance on things that matter — in math and verbal dimensions, and how hard you try — is affected by temperature.”

In the study, women performed best when temperatures were between 70 and 80 degrees, while men's productivity increased as the temperature went down. However, men were not as negatively impacted by warmer temperatures as women were at cooler temperatures, which led Chang to pinpoint a number that seems ideal.

“I’m cringing a little bit to say this,” Chang told the Los Angeles Times. “75 degrees to me is boiling. That’s hot. I’m very warm at 75. But in a gender-balanced office environment, our results suggest that something like 75 degrees might be the optimal temperature to have for optimal productivity.”

Of course, there are men who run cold and women who run hot, but a clear difference in gender preference and performance overall was observed in the 543 people involved in the study, which tested productivity at temperatures ranging from about 61 degrees Fahrenheit to about 91 degrees Fahrenheit. This was especially apparent on verbal and math tasks.

“One of the most surprising things we learned is this isn’t about the extremes of temperature,” Chang said. “It’s not like we’re getting to freezing or boiling hot. Even if you go from 60 to 75 degrees, which is a relatively normal temperature range, you still see a meaningful variation in performance.”

For many of us, 60 and 75 do feel like extreme temperatures, but that's neither here nor there. If all else fails, take a poll to see what people's temperature preferences are and find the median to come the closest to making everyone happy. But considering the entirety of a workplace, assuming an even number of men and women, the thermostat should be set somewhere around 75 if you want people to have the greatest productivity overall.

But maybe provide a desk fan for the under-70-degrees folks, because 75 will likely feel like the surface of the sun for them.

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Ernst & Young's advice to female employees is an archaic throwback to the 1950s

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In today's episode of WTH, professional accounting services firm Ernst & Young has taken gender dynamics in the workplace to a whole new level. And by whole new level, I mean totally batsh*t backwards.

An anonymous former employee sent a 55-page Power-Presence-Purpose (PPP) presentation to HuffPost, detailing a self-improvement training offered to employees last year. According to "Jane," who has since left the company, the presentation was demeaning to women and left her feeling like a piece of meat.

For example, a section focused on appearances said that women need to "signal fitness and wellness" (is there any way to read that other than "don't be fat"?), and that women should have a "good haircut" and "manicured nails." They should also wear "well-cut attire that complements your body type," but also "don't flaunt your body" and "don't show skin" because "sexuality scrambles the mind."

So be hot, but not too hot. Wear clothes that flatter your body, but make sure no one notices your body. Be sure that your idea of not-too-much-skin conforms to every other person's subjective sexy threshold. And get your nails done, lady.

RELATED: Forbes' 100 Most Innovative Leaders list includes 99 men. Here's how their methodology was flawed

Now how about we tack on a list of arbitrary "masculine" and "feminine" traits that make men look like natural leaders (ambitious, assertive, dominant, makes decisions easily, strong personality) and women look like pushovers (childlike, flatterable, gullible, soft-spoken, yielding).

Attendees were given a "Masculine/Feminine Score Sheet" before the seminar and asked to rate how they ranked on each trait in and out of the workplace. Jane said the message was that you had to keep these stereotypical traits in mind and adhere to them if you want to be successful at work.

She also said that women at the training were coached in how to interact with men, with advice such as:

  • Don't directly confront men in meetings, because men perceive this as threatening. (Women do not.) Meet before (or after) the meeting instead.
  • If you're having a conversation with a man, cross your legs and sit at an angle to him. Don't talk to a man face-to-face. Men see that as threatening.
  • Don't be too aggressive or outspoken.

Jane said that attendees were told that women's brains are 6% to 11% smaller than men's brains, with no further explanation for why that would even be relevant. It was also explained to them that women have a hard time focusing because their brains absorb information like pancakes soak up syrup. Men's brains are more like waffles, and they are better able to focus because they compartmentalize information in each little square.

So...Men are from Waffle House, Women are from IHOP? What actual fresh hell did we just fall into?

And wait one hot minute. If men are so good at focusing because waffles, what's with the bit about skin and sex scrambling their brain? Can they not just put sex into one waffle square and professionalism into another? If their brains are so good at separating out all the information they take in, how are they not capable of seeing a colleague without her legs crossed as just a colleague and not a sexy threat to their male ego? Could it be because the entire premise of this idea is bullpucky?

RELATED: Men share times when they've stood up to misogynistic behavior.

Interestingly, the presentation was actually created by a woman—Marsha Clark, an outside consultant. The HuffPost article, in which Clark declined to comment, explains a bit of her background and why perhaps her approach to gender in the workplace appears so out-of-date:

"Clark touts her own business experience as critical to her consulting expertise. According to her website bio, she served as an executive at Electronic Data Systems, the Texas technology company founded by Ross Perot, for 21 years before striking out on her own as a consultant in 2000.

Working as one of the few women in the C-suites of the Texas tech industry in the 1980s and 1990s would have been a sexist minefield. That experience may be why Clark's advice still follows an older approach of telling women how to navigate within stereotypes rather than confronting them more directly."

Yeah, maybe. But it's baffling that anyone in 2018 could possibly find the above advice not completely abhorrent. Internalized misogyny, anyone?

Ernst & Young told HuffPost that the version of the training described here is no longer being used and that they disagreed with Jane's characterization of it. "Any isolated aspects are taken wholly out of context," they wrote. Mmmkay. I'm not sure how any of the above would be considered favorable in any context. And that's great that they aren't using this version any more, but it's only been a little over a year since they did—as if we didn't know in July of 2018 that giving women conflicting advice about how they should look and telling them to be more demure and less assertive in the workplace was not archaic, 1950's thinking.

It's crap like this that makes me want to buy allll the Crush the Patriarchy t-shirts. But maybe that's just my syrupy pancake brain talking.

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