Category Archive

In the last Untypical Thought, I called out what I think is a growing trend of people being asked / expected / pressured into working on their weekends and after hours. Whilst it may not be necessarily written into their job descriptions, it seems that many, many people are heading home after a day’s work and getting their laptop out. … Read More

It was Loverboy who, in 1982, had a hit with the song “Working For The Weekend” but, 38 years later, it seems that their sentiment has been replaced for many people. It seems that for many, there is an expectation that “everybody’s working ON the weekend” … and in many cases, after hours during the week as well. Why have … Read More

A long time ago, I trained as a Physics teacher and, in doing so, came to appreciate that, to be a good physicist, I believe you must also be a good philosopher. In fact, much of what used to be called natural philosophy is now regarded as physics. One physicist who is regularly quoted as a philosopher is Albert Einstein … Read More

Consider a log cabin with three solid walls and a fourth wall with a single window. That window is perfectly square – from top to bottom, the window measures exactly 1 metre. From left to right, the window measures exactly 1 metre. Can you picture it? So now I get my power saw and make the window exactly twice as … Read More

One the great catchphrases of the management consulting movement of the 80’s and 90’s was “think outside of the box”. Most agree that this slogan had its genesis in the “nine dots puzzle” where you are asked to connect nine dots, arranged in a 3 x 3 configuration, with four straight lines … but without lifting the pencil off the … Read More

How many emails do you get each day? For most people, the answer is “too many”. And, of the emails you get, what proportion are written in black 11pt Calibri font? 80%? 90%? Of the emails that you receive, what proportion of them do you read, digest and act upon? 10%? 20%? It seems to me that email is becoming … Read More

Last week, I posted about the equality of importance within an organisation or team and I was surprised by the level of feedback I received. It seems that there are many businesses where the implied (if not, stated) importance seems to be directly proportional to how close someone is to the top of a organisational diagram. Sure, the level of … Read More

A client was telling me about a conversation he overheard in his workplace the other day which brought back a memory of the first day of my second year of teaching – in February 1985. Firstly, the recent conversation as told by my client … “A new employee was being introduced to some of the people she was going to … Read More

There’s a phrase that gets me fired up. Closely related to “same s**t, different day” (tidied up for family viewing), no one ever uses either phrase to inspire themselves or anyone around them, do they? You ask someone how they are and there it is … same old, same old. Ask them how their day is going … same s**t, … Read More

Last week, I posted about lazy recruiters and given the response I have received, I felt that a follow-up post was warranted. I have noticed that many organisations have started using an even more automated process for their acceptance of resumes and cover letters using application systems (e.g. Taleo) . Typically, these are used by the big corporates in the … Read More