Pimp Your Work

An article from Scientific American got my attention today, especially since I found myself sick several times last month. The article, entitled “The Danger of Stress”, revealed studies showing how long-term stress can be harmful to the body.
It might seem counterintuitive, but… stress makes our immune systems less effective because it actually elicits an immune response itself. [It] causes the body to release pro-inflammatory cytokines, immune factors that initiate responses against infections. When the body produces these cytokines over long periods of time—for instance, as a result of chronic stress—all sorts of bad things can happen. Not only …read more

Pimp Your Work
Happy Friday, readers! Here’s our discussion for the week:
Would you do your job even if you weren’t paid to do it? If not, are there any aspects of your job that you would do without pay?

So, readers: share your feelings about whether you’d do your work even without compensation. Leave a note at the comments section.
Image by Celine Roque from Blue Rabbit Media

Photo Credit: Image from Devin Murphy from Wkipedia
PimpYourWork.com
I’ve recently read “The 4 Hour Workweek” by Tim Ferriss, and I thought it might be a good idea to review it for Pimp Your Work. The title itself, “The 4 Hour Workweek” seems like a bold claim.  If you’ve already read it, please share your own opinions of the book in the comments.  If you haven’t read the book, feel free to go over my review to see if it’s for you.
The introduction has 3 parts including an FAQ and Tim’s personal story.  In the FAQ you’ll learn if the book applies …read more

It’s April Fool’s Day once again and 90% of the employees of the world have fear in their hearts. Fear, of course, of the office clown. The other 10% are the pranksters and those who enjoy practical jokes.
Are April Fool pranks ideal for the office environment? According to statistics, they aren’t. Here are the results from a survey conducted by The Creative Group:
Seven out of 10 (71 percent) marketing executives polled by The Creative Group consider April
Fools’ jokes unsuitable for the office. The responses were more evenly split among advertising executives, with about half (51 percent) …read more

Stressed at work?  Release it all with this fun flash game called Cubicle Freakout.  It lets you tear apart your office, throw your computer off the window, and measures your stress levels based on your game play.  (I was told that I’m a bit tense and need some tea!)
Give it a try for your personal amusement.  It has some audio so either use headphones or turn your speakers off/down.  Make sure the boss doesn’t see you freaking out ;)

I attended a pretty significant boardroom meeting today and was appalled when I realized that no one was taking down the minutes!  So I  immediately took initiative to write things down.
Why? Because minutes are good for the following things:
As a legal document.  For the IRS and other government agencies, meeting minutes can be considered as legal documents.  This can come in handy whenever you want to sue someone or save your asses from being sued.  Actually, this should be reason enough.
To keep records.  Trust me, you’ll need to know who said what.  Whether it’s to trace the source of brilliant …read more

Dammit. I’m actually behind schedule on two client requests. Yes, yes, I should have known that was going to happen because I was moving around my Google Calendar items and postponing them a day or two late. And I did spend an entire day celebrating my first anniversary with my partner. If I could, I would send this post to Celine Of Two Weeks Ago to avoid the meltdown I’m currently having.
It may be too late for me, but as a result, I’ve come up with these serious rules that will help me stick to my …read more

Spiders, rats, vampires, seeing your grandmother naked – these are all valid phobias. However, there’s also such a thing as fear of productivity. Yes, it’s entirely possible that you have it even if you’re reading a blog like this. If you want to get your own diagnosis, here is a list of 5 symptoms of productivity fear:
1. You’re afraid to read this article. True, it may be because you’re afraid of what grammatical horrors I might commit, but maybe you’re also afraid that you’ll have some or all of the symptoms listed. The …read more

Doing a little testing here for the tech crew at b5. We’ve got some kick-ass coders and server admins at b5 who work to keep the lights on here. They’re using PYW here as a test bed for some upcoming code changes, and asked me to test ‘er out. Which then reminded me…
IT is not evil. Really IT has a hard job, when something goes wrong it’s all their fault, when something is working … you think someone even buys them a coffee? Nope. Having done tech support and been an IT Manager I …read more

A little humor for your Saturday:

YouTube – David Spade BlackBerry Intervention
I know I’m not that bad, but it is tempting to let a mobile information device to take over.  Hold on, I just got an e-mail.
Technorati Tags: Blackberry, humor, Blackberry addiction