Posts Tagged ‘Work Stress’

Stressed at work? Let the foolery begin

March 30th, 2011
By: Vicki Bell

April 1 is celebrated in the Western world as April Fools' Day, a day in which practical jokes and foolishness are generally tolerated — albeit more so by some than others — and most of us tend to view whatever we are told on this day with more than a modicum of skepticism, particularly that which is uttered by the usual pranksters. You know who they are. They don't need a day set aside to pull pranks.

As long as the pranks are relatively harmless, I say bring them on … the more the merrier. Might be just the thing to alleviate some workplace stress, and if the 2011 Work Stress Survey is correct, most of us could use some stress relief. (more...)

Retirement? Maybe, maybe not

October 14th, 2009
By: Vicki Bell

I love online polls, especially those that allow takers to comment. There's a certain feeling of anonymity when you are sitting all alone in front of your computer screen that tends to make many of us more open when voicing our opinions through our keyboards. (Of course that same feeling of privacy also can lead to misuse of Internet resources at work, as IT departments everywhere can attest.)

Yesterday, MSNBC.com's Newsvine featured a poll that asked, When do you plan to retire? As I write this, 50 percent of the 14,652 voters have indicated that they will retire by the age of 65—18 percent at 60 or before, and 32 percent by 65. Almost 22 percent said they planned to retire by the age of 70; 24 percent chose the answer: You"ve got to be kidding. Can people still afford to retire? The remaining four percent chose: Does being unemployed count as being retired?

The March 2009 issue of "Tube Talk" asked subscribers about their retirement plans. A quarter of respondents, like Tom from Tennessee, had retirement well within their sights. Tom said, "Last year the wife and I targeted May 30, 2009 for my retirement; she is already retired four years.

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Bad news/good news in the in-box

January 7th, 2009
By: Vicki Bell

In my e-mail in-box this morning was bad news from a friend who said that her company initiated a "major layoff" yesterday. The good news? She survived—at least this round. Two of her friends/co-workers were among those laid off. She's concerned about them and is doing what she can to help them find other jobs—no easy task. These days, finding a job is even tougher than finding that needle in a haystack. And it likely will get worse before it gets better.

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Turbulent times call for extraordinary leadership

November 12th, 2008
By: Vicki Bell

Whether it's nervous energy, a pre-holiday cleaning bug, this week's full moon—whatever the reason—for the past few days, I've been on a mission to clean my office. Three full trash bags now are waiting outside my door, and my paper shredder needs to be emptied.

It's amazing what you find when you go through old paperwork. If you let papers pile up long enough, you can relive an entire year as you sort and discard items that are months' old! If things go the way they usually do for me, I'll be scrambling in a day or so to find something I threw out, thinking I no longer needed it. However, I ran across and hung on to a couple of articles I printed out last spring. Their topic is even timelier now than when I first printed them—leading during turbulent times.

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Desk rage on the rise

August 13th, 2008
By: Vicki Bell

One of my co-workers always ends her e-mails with a profound one-liner. Her current gem is: Events are less important than our response to them.

My immediate reaction to these words of wisdom was also a one-liner: Truer words were never spoken.

Life is a continual learning process. A lesson that we can't learn too early is that while we can't control everything that happens to us—in our personal lives or at work—we can control how we react. I think it's high time people begin to accept responsibility for their reactions and temper them as necessary—especially now that desk rage is on the rise.

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Traci"s story: A good reason to get lean

May 20th, 2008
By: Tim Heston

By 1994, Traci Tapani knew things had to change.

As co-president of a Stacy, Minn.-based job shop, she just had a baby and was about to go on maternity leavethat is until a certain customer, who provided more than half of the company"s revenue, found out.

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