Tis the season to be lettin' off some steam (finally)

Hi y'all. In just one more month, we'll be saying bye to 2022... how on earth did that happen?

As mentioned on our socials, we have finalised our Salary Survey 2022 and our beloved Flat White readers get an exclusive first look! Check out the link in the "Under the Hood" segment below.

If you were forwarded this email, you can sign up to Flat White here:

💡 Brain’s Trust - conversations in Auscorp

Thursdays are the new Friday

Whilst some firms have had their end of year celebrations, others have canned firm-wide celebrations altogether (including Suncorp, NAB, BoFa, AMP, Optus, Coles, Blackrock etc, with some of them citing "economic uncertainty").

Leaving this disappointment aside, what we have noticed with these EOY celebrations is that firms are holding them earlier in the week (i.e. not on a Friday), reflecting a more general trend of Thursday nights becoming the new "Friday night".

Why is this interesting? We're going out on a limb here but we think that by making Fridays a "softer" day of work, this COULD be the start of a slow crawl towards a permanent 4-day work week (*hopeful*). A number of Australian firms (e.g. Unilever) are already piloting this model and firms in other countries like the UK are in the thick of this trial.

Don't ask us how this will work with the investment bankers, lawyers, consultants etc that would be happy to work 6 day weeks (let alone 4), but let us remind you that only 3 years ago, we were still rocking up to our offices religiously 5 days a week, without fail. Change can come fast.

If you want to learn more about the global 4-day work week movement, check this out. If you want the nitty gritty details, here is the whitepaper.

Make this right... period!

If you are Victorian, you will probably be aware that one of the Labor Party's election promises is to make free period products available to the general public.

Some firms in corporate Australia are already in front of the curve on this. One of the most prominent leaders in this is EY, who have made female sanitary products a mainstay in their bathrooms nationally. Other notable mentions include Amazon, Accenture, Uber, Atlassian, Hall & Wilcox, Salesforce, PEXA... and we are probably missing a few.

What can you do for this cause? For firms that are yet to get on board or Aussie Corporates who want to champion this cause, check out Pixii. These amazing humans offer corporate subscriptions for pads/tampons and donate 50% of their profits to charity. They also have free advocacy kits that make it easy for you to strike up a conversation in the workplace. Oh, and this ain't an ad - we just think it's a great initiative.

📮 Postbox - our best post

Sydney Guide to 5pm Drinks

In case you missed our collab with Bondi Lines, we put together a short list of the best 5pm hangout spots for a drink. Our favourite one being this cult Sydney favourite:

Amongst the ones we missed, quite a few of you chastised us for missing a whole tonne, so here they are:

• Opera Bar - good for a classy outdoor drink and you just got paid

• Bungalow 8 - if you want to get down on the dancefloor after a few

• The Sussex - full of auditors apparently

• The Flynn - bland, unoriginal but reliable

• The Occidental - decent choice if you want something casual and unpretentious

And we know, we know... why should Sydney have all the fun? Between you and me, we might be cooking something up similar for the Melbournians. So watch this space!

🙊 Community Bantz - best comments from Auscorp

We always have a chuckle when followers submit the most innocuous comment and feel the need to remind us to keep it "anon".

This makes sense if it involves the disclosure of confidential or sensitive information that might jeopardise their job, but some "anon" requests are borderline hilarious.

Here's one of our favourites from the past month:

As you can see, extremely controversial and leaves us wondering how he might get busted for asking such a dangerous question!

And just so we are all on the same page, we will never disclose your identity unless specifically asked to (and even then, we might not).

🩺 Health Check - monthly health tip/reminder

Bear, Lion, Wolf, Dolphin

What do these animals have in common? The 4 sleep chronotypes for humans are based on the sleep-wake patterns seen in these animals.

Whilst this is all a bit pseudo-sciency, understanding your sleep chronotype could help you understand how to structure your day so that you are most efficient and productive. Most of you might already be aware of whether you are an early bird or night owl, but these categories provide a deeper dive that might help optimise your days further.

Source: Emma Sleep

Want more?

Not sure what animal you are? Do this quiz.

If you want to do some further reading, check out some suggestions (link) on how you should plan your day based on your sleep chronotype.

👴🏻 Old is Cool - meme throwback (11 November 2021)

One year later and nothing much has changed, except your $50 gift card is probably worth about $40 now (thanks to inflation).

🏹 Missed Connection - social experiment

We received a fair few call outs last month from some hopeful AusCorps and thought the following were worth a good chase:

• "Call out for the blonde girl who works in the 20 Bond St building, always wears black and lace up louboutins, our entire floor wants to marry you. REVEAL YOURSELF!"

• "I saw a cute guy sitting at a at Ryan's Bar on Friday October 14 around midday. Might be early-mid thirties, and was eating a sandwich. He was sitting with two other guys, and they were all on their phones. I noticed him wearing a cool pair of black sunnies, and then his very blue eyes when he took them off" - Anon with long sleeved beige top, white jeans + sneakers, carrying black coat on an unusually warm day.

If you have any suspicions or know that you are or know the person that is being mentioned, please DM us on IG! We will then take the adventure from there.

Separately, we know finding a soul mate is hard. if you feel you have had a “missed opportunity”, send in a love letter or details of the encounter and we’ll work hard to connect y'all up - SUBMIT HERE.

👍 The Nook - what AusCorp recommends

⚽️ World Cup 2022 (event) - World Cup fever ramping up real quick - let's go Socceroos 🦘. Yes, we just got railed by 🇫🇷 but whatever, she'll be right.

🎵 Slugger - Flume (music) - Flume has digged out an old previously unreleased song from 2014, and its a banger 🔥.

📺 Severance (TV show) | IMDb 8.7/10 | 97% Rotten Tomatoes | - "it's a workplace sci-fi thriller about "severed" memories that starts off a bit slow but ended up being one of my favourite shows"

📺 One Dollar Lawyer (TV show) | IMDb 7.8/10 | - "Ex-prosecutor now working as a lawyer and charging clients $1. Takes on cases others have rejected / cant afford legal representation and uses unconventional thinking to solve cases. It's a Korean drama in case some are against reading subtitles"

🎙 FRIED. The Burnout Podcast (Podcast) - “Very helpful with shared stories and practical tips on working and living in this crazy world”

☕️ Kingswood Coffee (Cafe) (Sydney) - “Fast and efficient cafe in Australia Square. Good coffee made quickly, even with a seemingly long line up of people waiting.”

SEND THROUGH anything else interesting you're consuming (whether it be cool products, food, wine, cafe, restaurants, bars, videos, podcasts, tv shows, movies, books, newsletters, blogs) and we'll feature it in next edition's Flat White!

🚗 Under the Hood - what we're working on

Salary Survey 2022 - exclusive

We're excited to finally release our Salary Survey for 2022. It's come back bigger and better than last year. Click here to check it out!

If you pick up any typos or blatant errors, please do let us know. We will post this on our IG and website eventually, but first, y'all get dibs.

Grad Hub

Grad Season will be ramping up soon again so we expect our Grad Hub to be in full swing starting 2023. We have plenty of resources and services that will help you gain the edge you'll need to land those coveted grad roles.

If you know any young aspiring Aussie Corporates still at university, please send them our way!

✍️ Feedback Loop - share your thoughts

We are always open to feedback from our dear community.

Let us know if there's anything you would like to see (or don't want to see). We are also very open to any cool, funny or interesting segments that you want to see permanently in Flat White.

Send us feedback HERE.

🫶 Share the Love

We're a community at heart so PLEASE share this around if you found it fun. This helps us tremendously and also gives us the validation that we're doing a good job around here.