Do WATCH THE WHOLE THING ... it just gets better and better and better!!
October 01, 2010
June 19, 2009
June 17, 2009
May 18, 2009
April 27, 2009
April 21, 2009
February 15, 2009
Be nice or leave - thank you
I've got a sign at work saying "BE NICE OR LEAVE THANK YOU". I've put it so it's visible when you enter my office, and even though it's just a "fun" sign ... I mean every word!!
In short, I absolutely HATE when people behave like assholes at work. At times, it seems as if an environment of competition, focus on individual performances and bottom lines almost encourages behavior that in "normal life" would be considered rude or even psychopathic. And that goes for behavior among colleagues as well as the way management treats employees.
Assholes comes in many shapes and sizes, and I think we've all met one or two during our work life. Nevertheless, here are some traits to keep an eye on at work (from Bob Sutton):
- Personal insults
- Invading one’s “personal territory”
- Uninvited physical contact
- Threats and intimidation, both verbal and nonverbal
- “Sarcastic jokes” and “teasing” used as insult delivery systems
- Withering e-mail flames
- Status slaps intended to humiliate their victims
- Public shaming or “status degradation” rituals
- Rude interruptions
- Two-faced attacks
- Dirty looks
- Treating people as if they are invisible
My point is, that this type of asshole behavior is not only unnecessary, rude and annoying - it is also downright dumb and expensive for the business! Sutton coined the term TCA (Total Cost of Assholes) to describe the financial consequences of not stopping assholes at work. It’s an economic analysis of what it costs to employ destructive
people, for example:
Time spent appeasing, calming, counseling or appeasing assholes Time spent “cooling out” employees who are vistimized Time spent reorganizing departments and teams so that assholes do less damage
Anger management and other training to reform assholes Legal costs for inside and outside counsel Settlement fees and successful litigation by victims Settlement fess and successful litigation by alleged assholes (especially wrongful-termination cases) Compensation for internal and external consultants, executive coaches, and therapists Health insurance costs
Therefore: BE NICE OR LEAVE - THANK YOU!!!
September 27, 2008
July 01, 2007
June 26, 2007
June 08, 2007
June 05, 2007
Wanted: Nirvana
I need peace. Not only peace from the ever hectic, turbulent Everyday, but peace from the ever present and perpetual buzzing of my over stimulated, over active brain. I need an occasional break from all this activity that is ... me. And, as mentioned earlier, I'm neither a religious nor "spiritually inclined" person. So ... no rest for the wicked?
I've attempted meditation. On several occasions. And failed miserably. My mind can't stay still, goddammit. Perpetuum mobile. I sit there, breathing deeply, trying to focus on my breathing, focus on my breathing, just focus on the breathing - and while I do that, my mind decides that it's terribly, terribly bored, and wanders off.
Because of this need to quiet my mind, messing around with dirt and plants in the garden at our dacha is a bliss. And a few weeks back, at the beach, I discovered another and fantastic method by which this wandermind of mine can be made to focus and relax - to meditate.
Stunt kites! Two line kites that you can steer!
I stood there at the beach for an hour, the wind on my back, and focused completely on that thing, making it do all sorts of cool moves in the air. You have to focus on the bloody thing, or it'll crash. And when I was done, I was ... high. High with relaxation, somehow.
A deep, deep calm and satisfaction within. I hadn't thought about anything, really. I had sensed the pull of the strings in my palms, moved slightly to control the kite, but I had been mind-resting in the most profound manner.
Meditation sans boredom. A win-win scenario devoid of self. Heureka! So now I'm hooked - and I want to replace my son's kite with this: The Nirvana Kite. What an absolutely appropriate name that is!
March 20, 2007
Dacha trivia
The word datja is pronounced 'datja' (as far as I recall from my fieldwork in Eastern Europe), but the correct spelling is dacha.
It is the Russian word for "a house in the countryside". In Danish sommerhus, in German sommerhaus, in English cottage, holiday cottage or country house.
Russia has a long history of dachas, from the summer estates of the elite during the reign of Peter the Great, to the Gosdacha, dachas leased by the state. Stalin presumably owned his huge dacha (below), in which he spent the last 20 years of his life.
February 27, 2007
Traffic Zen
I've noticed that certain situations in everyday life serves well as "stress probes". As ways of sensing whether or not work and life is getting to you in a bad way. The morning traffic usually provides many, many situations in which you can test yourself for stress and tension.
This morning, for instance. On my way to work, I ride my bicycle over a
bridge that connects central Copenhagen with Amager, an island on which
a large section of the city is located. This bridge sometimes opens to
let high masted ships pass. As it did this morning - just as I was
about to cross it.
I was late for work, and on bad days, I would have had this increasing sense of stress while waiting for that sloooooowwww ship to pass under the bridge. But not today. Today, I just enjoyed listening to a little music on my ipod while waiting patiently and calmly for the bridge to close. Very zen. No stress in sight. No aggression. Nice.
February 15, 2007
August 21, 2006
The Chief Happiness Officer
Okay, so it's been ages since I posted anything here. About time I revived this place a little. I'll begin by directing your attention on a nice blog/website I found recently.
It's called The Chief Happiness Officer, and it is a thought-provoking and fun experience. The author is Alexander Kjerulff, a fellow Dane, who writes about work from a slightly different perspective than what you usually see. It is all about how to be happy at work. Sometimes he writes what everybody thinks (but dare not say), sometimes he gives good advice about how to get and stay happy in your work life.
I've put a link in the Mind Candy menu in the side bar. Enjoy! :)
April 18, 2006
Faith
I'm not a religious person. In fact, I'm what you might call a devout atheist. At least when it comes to the institutionalized ways of worshipping major deities of this skimpy little planet. I'm not even a very spiritual person. I don't even quite know what is meant by that. "Spiritual".
I'm interested in psychology. I'm interested in science. I'm even interested in what could be called "the borderlands" of science. The grey zones. The science that challenges existing paradigms. I'm interested in anything that will help me understand. Technologies, astronomy, physics, anthropology, biochemistry, philosophy, sex, art, fiction. You name it.
But I do not believe in astrology. Or ghosts or spirits or "energies". Or the healing powers of rocks, crystals, feathers -- or ladies with bad perms reading the lines in your palm. I've discussed this with so many different people by now.
"But you can't prove it's not there!", they often say, triumphantly.
The spirits of the dead, they mean. Or the "energies". Or the angels, the past reincarnations, the clairvoyant moment of thinking of someone and then they call you on the phone!!! Wow!
No, I can't prove that it's not there. I can't prove that hobbits don't exist either. Or that we are all, in fact, not really ourselves -- but other people trapped inside someone else's body. I can't prove that G. W. Bush is NOT, in fact, a hand puppet with controlling alien hands stuck up his butt. I mean, I've only seen the guy on TV, so who knows?
However, there are methods that can help me prove, that GW is real. Forensic scientists, for instance. And this is important, people. Because I have faith in those methods. There are, in fact, so many, many things that CAN be proven and that HAVE been proven, that I simply don't understand the need to believe in all that can't.
I understand the psychological need for depth and meaning. But I don't quite understand why one has to search so far beyond the shores of reason?
When I read about the latest discoveries about how our brain works, I am awestruck. We don't know zip about the brain yet, it is like those old maps of Africa. White, empty, uncharted land, unknown territory. But every discovery brings new and profound insights into how and why we behave the way we do. Mysteries are solved, new and even more complex questions arise. It is breath-taking.
When I go to my mother's place in the countryside during the summer, I go outside when it has - finally - gotten dark. I lie down and stare up into the vast, endless night. I look at the stars. They are so bright out there, where there is no city lights to make their faint light flutter. So close, it seems. And so many. You can see the Milky Way quite clearly. And I just don't ... understand. I cannot, with my tiny, feeble little mind, quite grasp what I see. The scale, the beauty, the impossibility of it all.
No comprende, Amigos!
These mysteries, all the knowledge that we do not yet have ... about ourselves, our brains and bodies, and about the real, physical fact of the universe itself ... these mysteries are enough to keep my mind and soul fully equipped with the depth and "meaning" of a lifetime.
I don't need spiritualism. I don't need rocks or astrology to keep me thrilled by the presence of the unknown. It is right here. All the time. Within that part of our world which is provable! The physical world is no simple, dead machine. It is a complex, multifaceted, miraculous self-organizing chaos -- and it is beautiful.
Oh ... and by the way ... I bought myself a statue of Buddha this Saturday.
Yes. I did.
The skinny, peaceful version, mind you, not the fat, grinning one. To be honest, he reminds me of some clown Stephen King would make up. My new Buddha is made of wood, looks very serene, and it sits in our bedroom with a big candle on either side.
It is there to remind me that stress is bad for mind and body alike and that I need to meditate a bit now and then. On the universe and our general insignificance. On all the love that thrives in my family. And on the very relative importance of the next deadline at work.
And that I am not entirely an atheist. I do have faith. I have faith in our curiosity, in our capacity to love, in the proven concept of scientific method (yes, Newton, that apple does fall to the ground each and every time I try!) and in our will to pursue true knowledge and true insight.
Amen!
June 04, 2005
When being A Good Parent equals pushing your child through the Gates of Hell
Yesterday my son didn't want to go to school. Still in bed, he wept and argued, refusing to get out from under the covers and get dressed. He wanted a day off. Desperately! After about 30-45 minutes, he was finally dressed and sat in the kitchen eating his corn flakes. Sourly, and still with tears in his eyes, he agreed to tell me why he didn't want to go.
"We have to dance on Fridays", he mumbled, "and I hate it. It's Hell!"
He stared into his bowl of corn flakes and milk - as if it was his last meal. He looked very serious, and he did his best to explain to me, that dancing about while balancing balloons on his head, on bare, half-frozen feet, wasn't his idea of a good time. It was, in fact, the exact opposite. He'll rather do math. Learn to write and read. Draw his beautiful, complex sketches inspired by The Narnia Chronicles, Harry Potter and computer games. Pages filled with intricate figures, creatures and paths only he understands. After some additional talk back and forth, I agreed that he could ask his teacher if he could be excused, just this once. However, if she said no, he'd have to go and dance with the rest of the class.
We left for the school, about 30 minutes late. The class was already at the gym, so we went there and stood outside the door, when his teacher passed by - carrying a huge sack stuffed with colorful balloons. He asked her if he could, please, be excused from the dancing. She said "No, when you're in school, you have to do what you have to do!" She went into the gym, and I was left outside the door with a boy facing the ultimate defeat. No escape. Dancing it was! He looked at me, his lower lip trembling and his eyes brimming with tears. And in a voice carrying an existential pathos completely unfit for his 7 years, he pointed at the door to the gym and said:
"Dancing is made in Hell. No ... dancing is Hell. And you are my mother! Will you push your son through the gates of Hell?"
What could I say? Yes, my love, you have to go dancing! We opened the door and he went inside. After a minute, the teacher came out, whispering that all was well, and that he was dancing. Not exactly smiling while doing so ... but he was dancing and participating in the thing, just like the rest of the class.
I left for work, 45 minutes late, and it struck me that this is one of the things I hate most about parenting: the obligation to make this completely new, fresh, creative, essentially free human being fit into the molds and structures of society. There's no way I can allow him not to do as he is told. These lessons are essential if society is to work. If he is to get an education - now and later on. If he is to learn and accept that there are rules and structures outside himself which are more important than his individual needs. If I don't teach him this, I will essentially let him down. This is my duty.
At the same time, I keep pondering over how to simultaneously create a childhood for him which will encourage his individuality. His uniqueness. His ability to swim upstream if he feels he has to. To go against the current. To stand on his own two feet and never doubt that he can be who he is or wants to be. No matter if everybody else thinks he's wrong, provocative or weird.
I wish I could have pushed him through those gates of Hell, whispering that he may have to dance ... but that he should go in there and dance in whichever way he pleased (he loves dancing at home ... his own way). But I'm not sure his teacher would have appreciated that, and he would just have ended up being told off for being rude.
So ... I guess I have to create that balance on the long run. On the one hand making sure he understands and follows the basic rules, structures and systems of which society is made. And on the other make sure that he doesn't end up a faceless "follower" in the process. A faceless child in an endless row of faceless children. Well adjusted to the point of losing all individuality.
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