3 Day Weekend Every Week? Yes, Please
As a long time work from home guy, the thought of commuting to an office everyday doesn’t excite me. Certainly with rising gas prices tele-commuting looks better and better all the time. As good as tele-commuting is however, the state of Utah has officially one-upped it in the great idea category. Utah, it seems is adopting a 4 day work week. That’s right, every week is a 3 day weekend!
In a move to offset increasing energy costs, all governent employees will work 4 ten hour days and have every Friday off. Turning off the lights, the heat and the air conditioning on Fridays in 1,000 of 3,000 government buildings will save about $3 million a year out of a state budget of $11 billion. I’d call that significant. Of course no great idea is without it’s naysayers, and already there are those lining up to complain about the new policy. On one side there are those who are upset as they will not have access to certain government offices on Fridays. Valid, but I’m sure they’ll adjust. Another issue some have raised is that managing day care as well as commuter services such as train and bus schedules may be difficult for some. Then there are the issues of missing certain family activities due to the longer work hours.
The governor has said that the program will operate on a 1 year evaluation period after which the state will decide if the program is working or not. Could this be a trend? Time will tell. What do you think?
Until next time…
Top Workplace Stressors or What’s Buggin’ Us
Feeling stressed and/or irritated at work? Join the club. Ever wonder if everyone else feels as stressed or gets irritated by the same types of things? Worried you have the only boss that’s a complete jerk? Fear not. David Butcher wrote a nice piece on this very topic along with his list of top ten workplace stresses and irritations. Based on a recent survey of 3000 working stiffs like us, here they are. To read the entire article click here.
Top 10 Work Stresses
1) Workload
2) Feeling undervalued
3) Deadlines
4) Type of work people have to do
5) Having to take on other people’s work**
6) Lack of job satisfaction
7) Lack of control over the working day
Having to work long hours
9) Frustration with the working environment
10) Targets
Top 10 Colleague Irritations
1) Seeing others not pulling their weight
2) Managers changing their minds about what they want to be done
3) Lack of support from managers
4) Pressure from managers
5) Feeling put-upon by managers
6) Interruptions by colleagues
7) Interruptions by managers
Bullying behavior by managers
9) Lack of support from colleagues
10) Bullying behavior by colleague
Nice to know we’re not alone.
Until next time…
Stop Saying ‘if only…’
One of the biggest traps many of us fall into professionally (and personally) is the ‘if only’ trap. As in ‘if only I got that promotion, then I’d really be on my way’ or ‘if only I got that raise, then I’d be happy’. It starts with the best of intentions, as we graduate college and enter the workforce we’re young, motivated, and ready to take on the world. Naturally, we set goals for ourselves, but sometimes we allow those goals to run our lives.
The biggest risk with living in the ‘if only’ world is that it takes our focus off what’s really important. For a great example of ‘if only’ gone horribly wrong we need look no further that the Christie Brinkley/Peter Cook disaster. By all accounts here’s a couple that quite literally had it all, but in the end I don’t think any of us would trade places with them. Peter Cook clearly seemed to have it all, but I’m guessing his life looked something like this:
- If only I were rich, then I’d be happy -Peter Cook is richer than I will ever be. He allegedly spent more on porn every year than some people earn in salaries. And yet, he wasn’t happy. Happy people don’t do things that require $300,000 in hush money.
- If only I could find someone really attractive, then I would be faithful -Cook married one of the top ten supermodels of all time. She was and is gorgeous. And yet he was addicted to Internet porn. Brinkley’s beauty was not enough to fill whatever was empty inside of Cook.
- If only I was good looking, then people would love me -Peter Cook is good looking. He is tall and handsome, he’s basically that pretty boy we all love to hate. Sadly, he just didn’t know it. People that are content in the love they have don’t desperately try to find it from 18 year olds. They don’t trawl the Internet for attention.
While the rich and famous seem to have their fair share of ‘if only’ moments, the rest of us are certainly not immune. Whether it be wealth, status, or the right significant other ‘if only’ robs us of the things we should value most. It takes our focus off of the amazing things we already have; our friends, families, children, etc. It doesn’t allow us to appreciate how good most of us already have it and in the end too many of us miss some of life’s greatest blessings.
One upside to our current economic situation is that the job market has slowed dramatically. I’ve mentioned previously that now is a good time to sit tight, develop your network, and hold on. It’s also a great time to stop and smell the roses. Appreciate all that you already have. There’s nothing wrong with working hard and aspiring to the next rung on the corporate ladder, just don’t be consumed by it. Remember no one ever said from their death bed ‘I wish I would have spent more time at the office’.
Until next time…
