Burnout

Following on my recent post about connection fatigue, I read a post by Jory Des Jardins regarding worker burnout.  Interesting stuff. 

I am sure that most people have worked in an environment where it takes everything they have to get out of bed and go to work in the morning.  Being in a position now where I have some control over the work environment I appreciate the fact that it is often the interaction of the people and the pressures put on those people rather than the work itself that causes burnout.  I just hope I can continue to remember that as the organization grows.

Now I just wish I could go back and help some of my previous employers understand that.  HA

Iraqi President "Insulted"

CNN is reporting that the Iraqi president finds the Baker report on the Iraq war insulting.  While I don’t necessarily agree with all of the findings in the report, I do believe that the Iraqi government needs to step up and get its act together.

Sooner or later the Iraqi people themselves need to understand that they must take responsibility for control of their own country.  I remember back to my early political science classes where one of my professors made the point that all political power comes from the people.  This is true even for the most brutal dictatorships in that the people are not willing to rise up and remove the dictator.

Come on Iraq - get your act together and take over!

Drilling in the Gulf of Mexico

Looks like Congress finally got its act together and expanded offshore drilling.  Finally the Republican Congress is getting together and pushing the legislation that should have been passed months ago.  Too bad it took the loss of both houses of congress to get something done!

Full Text Feeds

I just read Amit Agarwal’s post about whether to allow full text feeds or to only publish short summaries on the RSS feed. 

Interesting stuff - seems very counterintuitive.

Tax Breaks are Renewed

CNN Money reports that a package of tax breaks have been renewed.  It looks like Congress get’s things right every so often!

The only thing they could have done better would have been more cuts.

Connection Fatigue

I caught an article in the Wall Street Journal about how children are resenting the fact that their parents are constantly connected to their Blackberry devices.  That got me to thinking about the problems that this connected life is causing us all.

As a former Blackberry user and the current user of a Treo, I can certainly understand how these devices are becoming both prolific and addicting.  I can’t tell you the number of times my wife has scolded me about how rude it is to check my e-mail at dinner or when with other people.  It is simply impossible to put these things down. 

I have come to the conclusion that the more of these devises we have the more we have to use them.  It has almost become like a dog chasing its tail.  The more connections we have the more we rely on the connection and the more we use that connection.

Of course the promise of these devises is that they will relieve us from the binds of work.  I don’t think anyone that has one of these things would suggest that they have reduced their work load.  I think just the opposite is occurring.

Where do we go from here?  I have no idea but I can only imagine that in the not so distant future we will be working 24/7.  No wait maybe the future is already here!