New work blog paper

Next week I'll be attending the 6th Critical Management Studies Conference at the University of Warwick presenting what will probably be my last paper on work blogging.

The paper is about employee cynicism and how such behaviour is a feature of most work blogs (in varying degrees of course).

However, the paper goes beyond equating work blogs with cynicism and suggests that, in contrast to most academic views of employee cynicism, being cynical through work blogs leads, in most cases, to positive outcomes for the employee.

In other words, the paper explores what cynicism becomes over time.

For more details of the conference click here.

For more details of the paper on the title of the paper: Re-visiting employee cynicism On decentrement of the subject via work blogging.

Promoting trade unionism through video sharing

The TUC recently launched an appeal for individuals to make a short video, to be aired via YouTube and to appeal to the YouTube generation, that promotes the role trade unions play in the world today.

Some brief details:

Welcome to the 60 Second Challenge

Your challenge is to make a short advert for the TUC for YouTube that helps to illustrate the positive role that trade unions play in the world of work/society.

It should be aimed at those who have little or no knowledge of trade unions.

The ad should display a positive message that encourages people to either join or to get involved with trade unions.

All the details are available by clicking here.

2030: A workplace odyssey

According to a BBC News article, office life will change dramatically by 2030.

Some details:

1) As workforces get more mobile, technology will ensure that everything an employee needs is available no matter where they are.

2) Head offices and individual desks are likely to disappear in favour of hot desks, collaborative spaces and decor that adapts to a worker's mood.

3) Walls could become screens showing diaries, documents or video conferences.

4) Homes and cars would measure mood and tune surroundings to, for instance, soothe a worker if they were feeling stressed.


For more details see Workplaces set to get 'smarter'.

I wonder where we'll be parking our jet packs in 21 years time or whether we'll be able to take a few years off to take that once in a lifetime trip to Mars!

Britain has "cyber warfare capabilities"

According to an article on the BBC News website: "The UK has the ability to launch cyber attacks but does not use it for industrial espionage like some other countries".

Presumably, Russia, China and the like have computers of mass destruction capabilities.

Watch the video to see what GB has to say on the matter.

The article can be accessed here.

Random acts on the radio

Last night, as per usual, I was listening to BBC Five Live in bed.

At around 11 p.m. it was announced that Tom Reynolds of Random Acts of Reality would be in the studio.

If you want to listen to what Tom had to say about the nature of his work blog (and promote his new book) then follow this ''listen again' link.

Click on Tuesday and he's on at about one hour and 15-30 minutes into the show

You should have until about 30 June to listen again.

The "dark side" of social networking

In the long tradition of scaremongering another report has emerged that looks at the "dark side" social networking.

There is a substantial section set aside to what this could mean in relation to employment.

Nothing new of course, but all there in a short space if all this is new to you (where have you been!!?).

See The dark side of social networking by David Gerwitz.

HRM magazine available as podcast

It would appear that the CIPD's People Management magazine - published every two weeks - is now available as a podcast.

Some details of the latest edition:

Highlights include an interview with Matthew Brearley, HR director of Vodafone UK; part two of our series on the future of pensions, focusing on the public sector; a legal guide to maternity rights and redundancy; and a 'how to' on HR intranets.

I have one criticism - it's just one big MP3 file and it's far from easy to skip from article to article.

Find details of People Management podcast here.

Work blogger "disciplined" by employer

Only just heard about this particular work blogger - Night Jack (police officer).

Apparently, The Times has named the police officer who keeps the blog - not the first time this paper has outed a high-profile blogger!

Some details...

A serving detective whose anonymous blog carried criticisms of government ministers and police bureaucracy has been disciplined by his force.

The action, by Lancashire Constabulary, follows the exposure of the blogger "Night Jack" by the Times newspaper.

He was unmasked after the High Court rejected his plea that his anonymity be preserved "in the public interest".

Lancashire Constabulary said the blogger, named as Det Con Richard Horton, had received a written warning.

For more details see Force disciplines police blogger (BBC News: UK).

More random acts

Skipping through the Observer today I came across a major article on who is almost certainly the number one work blogger in the UK - Tom Reynolds at Random Acts of Reality.

It coincides with the release of another book based on his blog - see image.

The article itself is lengthy and contains some brief extracts from the new book.

For more details see Throat cut. Heavy bleeding. Not breathing by Rachel Cooke.

All you need to know about Web 2.0!

Another doctor of work blogging

Late last year I blogged about Abigail Schoneboom who did a PhD on the subject of work blogging - see here.

Just today (via Google alerts) I heard of another PhD on the subject of work blogging.

It's by Lilia Efimova.

However, this PhD looks at work blogging in quite a different way than Abigail or myself, i.e. workers using blog to express passion, rather than frustration with employment.

Click here for a summary of Lilia's work.

To view a copy of the whole piece of work - Passion at work: Blogging practices of knowledge work - click here.

Creative unions

I've just received details of a new Internet venture from trade unionists.

It's called Creative Unions.

The site is an experiment in bringing together unionists to strengthen collective knowledge and skills in communication strategies and design.

One to watch about being watched!

There is a programme on BBC Two this evening about electronic surveillance in the workplace.

It's called Who's Watching You.

If you miss the programme you have until Monday 8th June to watch it on the BBC's iPlayer.

Some details:

Surveillance is an expanding market and for those wanting to watch and listen there is an extensive armoury.

Adrian Mudd sells spying equipment. Not to James Bond types, but to anyone who wants to listen.

Employers, along with suspicious partners and private detectives, make up the bulk of his customers.

The range of secret kit is extraordinary.

Pens that plug into computers and record every keystroke.

Plugs containing hidden phones that allow you to listen in on a room.

Adrian's business is worth half a million pounds a year.

For more details see When employers become watchers (by Richard Bilton).

Blogging survey

If you have a few spare minutes take part in a new blogging survey - if you blog yourself.

Details:

As a company, we are looking to find out more information about blogger profiles, why you blog, the stages of blogging, and the decision-making for your blogs.

We are conducting a survey to learn more about people that own and run blog sites to help us ensure that VideoJug is relevant to you and the needs of the blogging community, and would very much appreciate your feedback.

Click on this link to fill in the survey.

If you are not all surveyed out after that, fill in one of my questionnaires before the deadline ends - click here.

Are you perfectionist at work?

Chances are, according to some research quoted by the BBC News website, that you are female.

Women are said to be more likely than men to suffer feelings of inadequacy at home and at work.

Such conclusions are based on a study of 288 adults - where it was found that a higher proportion of women felt they did not meet their own (I would challenge the idea that we 'own') high standards with family and workplace commitments.

Further specific findings:

- At work, 38 per cent of women did not feel they met the high standards they set themselves, compared with 24 per cent of men.

- When it came to home and family life, 30 per cent of women felt they were failing to meet the standards they wanted to compared with 17 per cent of men.

It should not be forgotten that this is a comparative study between genders and that men are by no means satisfied with the goals they set themselves in life (or come via often quite different strong cultural messages).

For more details see Perfectionism hits working women.

You heard it first on...Twitter!

Just heard a story about Twitter via The Financial Times.

The story centres on an incident in Germany that has been dubbed "Twittergate" - no originality there!

What it concerns is a Twittering German MP who broke the news of the new German Prime Minister via, you guessed it - by "Tweeting".

Here's an extract from the article:

The news that Hörst Köhler had been elected again on Saturday was published on Twitter's micro-blogging service almost 15 minutes before the result was officially announced.

Julia Klöckner, of chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU, told her Twitter "followers" that afternoon: "People, you can watch the football in peace. The vote was a success."

Kelber, of the SPD party, was even more specific, prematurely uploading the result of the vote-count to his micro-blog: "The count is confirmed: 613 votes. Köhler is elected."

Klöckner has since resigned.

See Twitter furore in Berlin as MPs leak poll result (by Chris Bryant, Bertrand Benoit and Tim Bradshaw) for more details

Web 2.0: The debate goes on...

Yet another article appeared the other day on Management-Issues about the use and value of Web 2.0 communication technologies in the workplace.

A taster...

As latest research suggests managers are increasingly using Web 2.0 technology such as podcasts, Wikis and social networks to communicate internally with their workers, it has to be asked – are these tools, for now considered cutting edge, really going to change the world or will they just end up, much like email, as yet another way of avoiding face-to-face contact?

No definitive answer is given, but the article (based on a research report that doesn't appear to be online) certainly gives the impression that Web 2.0 is set to be a force in workplace, but perhaps far from being used in manner that suits senior managers.

See Hiding behind a wall of chat (Nic Paton) for more details.

Twittering and teaching

According to a report from the BBC News website, a Scottish teacher who posted messages discussing her pupils on a social networking website is being investigated by her employers.

More details...

The secondary teacher in Argyll and Bute is understood to have posted up to 38 updates a day on the Twitter site.

It is thought the language teacher, who has not been named, may have accessed the site via her mobile phone.

One Twitter said: "Had S3 period 6 for last two years...don't know who least wants to do anything, them or me."

Another Twitter said: "Have three Asperger's boys in S1 class - never a dull moment! Always offer an interesting take on things."

For more details see Probe into teacher Twitter posts.

Is Web 2.0 revolutionising our lives?

In my opinion I think it's a bit too soon to say.

However, an article in The Sunday Times the other days suggests Web 2.0 is not.

According to Bryan Appleyard, Web 2.0 is somewhere between sinister and dangerous.

Here's an extract that sums up this view:

The first objection to this is that it destroys institutions and structures that can do so much more than the individual.

A further objection to the cult’s radical individualism is that it doesn’t have the intended hyper-democratic consequences.

And, finally, the everything-free, massively deflationary effects of the web may be over.

I'm still not convinced, mainly because Appleyard assumes that people are looking to destroy existing institutions, change democratic structures, and, get it all for free, when using Web 2.0.

Make your own mind up by reading Break free of this world wide delusion.

Work blog turned into "comedy" show

In yesterday's Sunday Times was a story about a rather well known work blog - Blood Bus: A Driver's Blog of Night Bus Terror.

The story concerns the blog being turned into a radio show for BBC Scotland's Comedy Unit.

The show is on Friday, May 22nd at 6.10 p.m. - details here and how to listen if you are not based in Scotland.

A couple of snippets from the article...

Reasons for start blogging about work - a way of poking fun at the passengers whose antisocial behaviour can turn an eight-hour shift behind the wheel into an interminable ordeal.

The basis for the blog - a host of characters, based on real passengers, including drunks, neds, junkies and muppets.

Why keep blogging - I could never run out of stories...There’s always something going on.

The company's view of the blog - "First has no official association with the blog. We do not endorse any of the comments made and firmly believe that the views represented are certainly not indicative of the majority of our employees”.

See All aboard the Bloodbus route to terror and comedy by Gillian Harris for more details.

Heart of the Factory

A new film about work and employment worth having a look at - it's called the Heart of the Factory.



A quick synopsis...

"We didn't work for a living, we lived to work," sighs a woman in reference to her employment history. Luckily things are different now.

The employees of Zanon, a tile factory in the northwest of Argentina, have been in control ever since the director declared the company bankrupt in 2001.

For the time being, things are going well for the new Zanon; there's even been some new job creation.

The key idea is the word compañero, which stands for collegiality, solidarity and a fair distribution of work and income.

In the midst of the production process and in measured tone, the compañeros discuss the direction of the company their company.

It's no easy task keeping things on track in a political and economic climate that isn't crazy about the workers' control. With support from the local population, the employees have managed to withstand various attempts at eviction.

Nevertheless, the biggest threat would appear to come from within: the self-determination they have obtained has increased their personal responsibility.

But that demands a persistent and productive fundamental attitude.

The age-old tradition of heavy-handed repression and shameless corruption that Argentina is famous for can't be wiped away in just a few years.

But the fire of change is burning strong enough, just as the factory ovens have never stopped burning.

Overskill in the workplace

Feeling like all that time (and money) spent at uni or college is not paying off?

Stuck in a job that doesn't require much use of the broader skills you have acquired over the years?

Well, according to a government report, you're not alone and may actually be part of a growing body of labour who are overskilled and unlikely to move into appropriately taxing (and remunerated) employment in the near future.

For more details of this very modern problem see UK workers 'becoming overskilled' (BBC News: Education).

Is this the best job in the world?

Well, it's certainly been marketed as if it is!

The story, if you haven't heard already, is of Ben Southall who beat 35,000 fellow applicants to become caretaker of Hamilton Island in the Whitsundays, Australia.

See how he managed it (including a self-promotion video) and other details by following this link - Briton Ben Southall wins 'best job in the world' (by Chris Smyth and Sophie Tedmanson of The Times).

You can also find more details of the Best Job in the World competition (marketing/PR campaign here).

IT imposters and data theft

Have you ever wondered whether that unfamiliar face in the office is actually an intruder about to steal your data?

Probably not, but maybe it is time to think again...

Also see Office intruder 'steals' data by Jane Wakefield (BBC News: Technology).

Web 2.0 and innovation in the workplace

I probably should have mentioned a further (and more substantial) article from the same edition of People Management magazine yesterday.

This one looks at the capacity of social networking tools for fuelling innovation in the workplace.

Again, the article takes a strengths and problems approach.

Some more details first of all:

In this crisis, it is not immediately obvious what contribution Facebook, the social networking website, might make – except as a place for friends to share tales of woe.

But, as we argue in our report, Network citizens [available via link to download for free], networks are creating new opportunities for innovation, for business development and for maintaining relationships between the most talented people.

So, what is so important about such networks?

- an evolution in how we communicate and collaborate
- networks are to the way organisations and the economy work
- they map and extend formal human networks

For far more details (including a discussion of pros, cons, how to, etc.) see Mend the gap by Peter Bradwell and Richard Reeves (this article may not be available to non-subscriber two weeks after publication).

Organisational twittering

According to a recent article in the CIPD's People Management magazine, employer organisations are increasingly getting into the idea that recent Web 2.0 developments, such as Twitter, can bring benefits for organisations.

However, as usual, not without an examination of the potential and pitfalls of such mediums of communication.

A quick summary of the benefits:

- keep HR users up to date with practice points and legal developments
- reduces traffic on company email systems
- avoid long-distance calls

A quick summary of the 'challenges':

- inappropriate comments
- criticism
- monitoring use
- headaches with privacy and data protection laws
- compliance with confidentiality, electronic security and anti-harassment procedures
- interference with 'employee engagement'
- scope for bullying and harassment

Of further note in the article is the discussion of case law to emerge from employee 'misuse' of such methods of communication in relation to employment - details:

Cases involving social networking sites so far include Hays Specialist Recruitment (Holdings) Ltd v Ions (2008 EWCH 745 HC), where a former employee copied confidential business contacts to his LinkedIn account, and PennWell Publishing (UK) Ltd v Ornstein (2007 EWHC 1570 QB), which examined who had the right to contacts made during the course of employment.

For more details see Why only twits would ignore the potential (and pitfalls) of Twitter by Julie Gorham (this article may not be available to non-subscriber two weeks after publication).

Work blogger is front page news

In today's Guardian the front page contains direct reference to a well-known British work blogger - Dr John Crippen.

The story relates to the outbreak of Swine flu.

The story itself concerns how the media reports the country to be on high alert, yet no one appears to have communicated this to NHS doctors.

A sample extract:

I have not been "alerted".

None of my partners has been "alerted" either.

There is a general assumption that GPs will already have received definitive guidance from on high.

No such guidance has arrived.

My second patient this morning asked: "My wife and I are going on holiday to Mexico on Saturday. Should we cancel?"

I said that, on balance, I would still go, but I needed to take advice.

As doctors on the front line we need a consensus as to the most sensible advice to give out.

We scheduled an urgent partners' meeting for later in the morning...

See 'Apparently we're on high alert. Nobody alerted me' for more details.

The trouble with Twitter

The use of Twitter in relation to workplace has hit the headlines again.

This time it involves the resignation of a magistrate, who used Twitter to comment on court proceedings.

Mr Molyneux, a magistrate for 16 years, said he chose to resign after an individual within the court system lodged a complaint.

"I think things have escalated out of control," he said.

"I was using the technology after hearing a remand case just to inform local people and others that follow me in my role of magistrate and didn't think I'd done anything wrong.

"I didn't prejudice a case, I didn't do anything like that."

Ahead of the times??!!

See Magistrate resigns in Twitter row for more details (BBC News: England).

Don't use Facebook when you're off sick!

That seems to be the message on the basis of an article on the BBC News website yesterday.

The article in question involves a Swiss women who was 'caught' using Facebook when off work with a migraine.

The basis of the dismissal was: those who are well enough to use Facebook with a migraine are well enough to work with a migraine.

The company - National Suisse - said its discovery that an employee was using Facebook when off sick destroyed its trust in her and prompted her sacking.

Be warned or be careful!

See 'Ill' worker fired over Facebook for more details.

Work blogging research article finally out!

This is to announce that I've managed to get a second research article published based on my ongoing research into work blogging.

Details of previous output can be viewed here and version of this paper can be viewed in the right-hand tool bar.

The second piece of work is entitled Creating, Connecting and Correcting: Motivations and Meanings of Work-Blogging Amongst Public Service Workers? and written with the help of a friend and colleague of mine - Vaughan Ellis.

This piece of work is now a chapter in book entitled Work Matters by Sharon Bolton and Maeve Houlihan and published by Palgrave Macmillan (ISBN: 9780230576391) - more details here.

Due to copyright restrictions I cannot offer a copy via my blog, but this statement by the books editors should give you an idea if you wish to purchase a copy:

With technology as a continuing theme, our final chapter explores the emerging phenomenon of work blogging, what it means and what it does.

The interactive capacity of the internet has created a stunningly accessible medium for individuals to directly voice their realities, not least in relation to their work.

Vaughan Ellis and James Richards offer a compelling snapshot of just how dynamically this medium is used to make hidden worlds of work publicly visible and understood, in their exploration of the motivations and practices of work bloggers within the UK public sector.

Through their eyes, we learn the ways in which many workers are choosing to voice their experiences of work: at times to create, at times to connect, and indeed, at times to correct.

Vaughan and James, through indepth (and online) dialogue with nine active bloggers, get under the skin of this activity and push past easy assumptions about blogs as ‘mere’ forums for venting, complaining, exposing or resisting corporate ideology, under the canvas of anonymity.

The authors build a nuanced understanding of its uses, behind which, we get a telling glimpse of the degree to which, echoing one theme of this volume, work matters in peoples’ lives.

From a research methods perspective, Vaughan and James also usefully examine the opportunities and issues relating to work blogging as a means of accessing direct workplace accounts, and discuss online methods of research more generally.

In doing so, they signpost emergent dimensions of research practice as yet not well appreciated, and assuredly set to expand.

Reality redundancy show...coming soon!

I kid you not!

The Fox network is letting employees of some troubled small businesses decide which one of their colleagues will be laid off and turning the results into a reality show.

The 'show' is to be called "Someone's gotta go".

More details if you don't believe me...

Each episode will feature a company with about 15 or 20 employees that needs to cut costs because of the economy.

Instead of the boss deciding who is fired, the company will open its books to show everyone's salaries and let the employees make the call.

See Fox to make reality TV show out of company layoffs by David Dauder (Associated Press).

Blogging on the front line

Be wary of promotion!

According to a BBC News (Health) article earlier this week, getting promoted at work may be bad for a person's mental health.

More details:

- after promotion the quality of an individual's mental health deteriorated by 10 per cent on average.

- being given extra responsibility could lead to more stress, anxiety and depression.

- problems could be exacerbated by workers who were promoted having less time to access health services.

The research on which the article is based is said to contradict previous research in this area that suggests a person's job status directly results in better health.

See Promotion 'bad for mental health' for more details.

Ferryman blog

Scanning through today's Times I came a cross and article about a work blogger - Life at the end of the road: The trial and tribulations of an accidental crofter.

Details courtesy of Melanie Reid:

Anyone island-hopping from Skye to the island of Raasay this Easter - if they can drag their eyes from the scenery - should look out for one particular employee of Caledonian Macbrayne, the ferry operator, with a serious twinkle in his eye and a camera in his pocket.

Paul Camilli, the motor man on board the boat that shuttles between Sconser and Raasay, is no traditional Skye boatman.

For one thing, he comes from Accrington.

For another, he has become, quite unintentionally, an internet hit with his remarkable daily blog, Life At the End of the Road.

On it, he posts the illustrated tales and travails of the little ferry, along with the story of his remote croft on the northern tip of Raasay, where he and his family nurture pigs, hens and an elderly Land Rover.

Mr Camilli does, by almost every measure, have a rather wonderful job.

Sometimes the rain is like a power washer, but often he has the sun on his face and the mountains soaring above his head.

And that speck in the sky above him is usually an eagle...

See Boatman makes waves with his blog from Raasay.

Asperger syndrome and employment

My research in a short career so far has concentrated on workplace misbehaviour and employee uses for Web 2.0 communication technology.

More recently, however, I have also been working on a quite different area - adults who have Asperger syndrome and the many problems they have seeking and holding down jobs.

It's a very new area for employment researchers and I've only mentioned it once on my blog before.

The outcome is working paper I intend to present to a sociology conference next week.

My paper is entitled: A labour process analysis of the exclusion of adults with Asperger syndrome from the workplace.

It's really an attempt to look at what sociologists can contribute to helping with the problem.

A paper can be viewed here (please contact me with any comments).

The abstract is as follows:

By comparison with the general employment experiences of adults with a recognised disability, adults with Asperger syndrome – a ‘social’ disability – have been found to have extreme problems when seeking and holding down long-term employment opportunities.

The eclectic literature that explores this emergent problem suggests the widespread exclusion of individuals with Asperger syndrome from the workplace is a multi-dimensional and highly complex problem, and the ‘problem’ is unlikely to be resolved without input from many professional fields of practice.

However, a key dimension to the problem is that until now problems of exclusion have been examined without drawing on a mass of social science literature based on the critical examination of work organisations.

As such, this paper investigates the problem from a labour process perspective – that is, how a labour process based on prioritising profits and targets is likely to conflict with attempts to make necessary and ongoing adjustments for such individuals.

The main approach and method used in the paper involves analysis of secondary qualitative data.

Particular attention is given to the role that socially organised resistance to organisational control, associated with informal groups rather than trade unions, plays in the exclusion of individuals with Asperger syndrome from the workplace.

The key findings suggest the benefits of specialist intervention practices, usually provided by external consultants, is quickly neutralised where employers knowingly or unknowingly marginalise or undermine day-to-day socially organised attempts to support such employees.

Recommendations are made on the character and direction by which future research in this area should progress.

Help required for undergraduate dissertation project on blogging

If you are a blogger yourself, and you could could spare a few moments for the greater good of bloggers, then have a go at helping an undergraduate student at Napier University with her dissertation.

The dissertation is on the subject of gender differences in UK online blogging.

Follow this link to help out.

Web 2.0 and HRM

I think I've done a few posts with this title before.

It probably won't be the last by the recent level of attention given to Web 2.0 by HR practitioners - e.g. see recent post.

The latest article for me to come across is really entering into the debate about whether HR should 'embrace' Web 2.0 or not.

The result is a cautious thumbs up.

See Web 2.0 and HR: Ignorance is not bliss (HR Zone - may require registration) for more details.

Overstretched at work?

If that's you then join the 1.4 million who work for the NHS.

Indeed, according to a BBC News article just yesterday, nearly half of NHS staff feel so overstretched they fear they cannot do their jobs properly.

More edited highlights, as usual...

- 47 per cent of staff said they did not feel there were enough people to do the job, down from 51 per cent in 2007
- A third said they did not feel valued by bosses and just over a quarter had experienced work-related stress
- Half of ambulance staff had said the vehicles were not kept in a good state of repair.

For more details and a link to the actual survey the article is based on, see NHS workers 'feel overstretched'.

Facebook and employee misconduct

This is going to be one of my shorter postings today.

It's mainly because I'm going to refer to an article that is quite brief and succinct.

It involves an employee's inappropriate use of Facebook and employer sanctions that followed - which I support for a change!

It's the case of a prison officer dismissed for gross misconduct after being caught making friends with inmates on the social networking website Facebook - barking mad!

See Facebook prison officer is sacked (BBC News: England) for more details.

Twitter, Facebook and employers

It seems that the fear factor is beginning to slow down and employers are increasingly looking again at employee use of Twitter and Facebook.

The latest on this subject is provided by Personnel Today.

In a recent article a case is made for employers to look again at how such mediums of communication can create and develop work-related relationships.

See Employers should encourage use of Facebook and Twitter (by Kat Baker) for more details.

Target culture

There's a great article in The Guardian today that is highly critical of how public sector organisations are typically run - based on target setting.

The article is written in the wake of a Stafford hospital, where as many as 400 patients are believed to have died because of poor care.

The main direction of the article is to suggest that poor care is the result of a growing disconnect between a target-driven culture and the best interests of patients.

The article is based on an interview with a senior doctor who works for the NHS (name is anonymised).

This is just the sort of stuff that has been appearing in work blogs in the past 4-5 years.

For more details see 'A hospital is able to tick all the boxes, yet still utterly fail patients' (by Aida Edermariam).

Judging misbehaviour

I always like it when workplace misbehaviour makes it into the news, but especially so if it adds an angle not usually explored.

In The Guardian the other day (Monday, I think) there was such an article on 'misbehaving judges'!

I'm not sure whether such acts described in the article fit in with what I'd call workplace misbehaviour, but then again, even I'd have to admit, that it's such an ambiguous subject.

The main thing about the article is that disciplinary action taken against judges is not public information, hence the Guardian's freedom of information case.

See Names of misbehaving judges 'should be made public' (by Rob Evans and Afua Hirsch) for more details.

A very different kind of striking...!

For once this isn't reference to an article or story describing a new way for employees to protest against the actions of employers.

It's actually about a (so far, anyway) fictitious form of striking (a mass lockout would probably be a more appropriate term) written about by Ayn Rand, and commented on in yesterdays' Guardian.

The article details a surge of interest in Rand's (a key writer on radical individualism, extreme self-interest and laissez-faire capitalism) book called Atlas Shrugged.

The book itself is (according to the article as I've read one of her books before but not this one) about:

A vision of a world in which the "men of the mind" - inventors, entrepreneurs and industrialists - withdraw their labour from a society intent on bleeding them dry with taxes and regulations.

Furious at being exploited by the government on behalf of the masses, who are described as "parasites" and "moochers", the striking capitalists retreat to a camp in the mountains of Colorado, protected by a special holographic shield.

Starved of their genius, society collapses and wars break out until eventually bureaucrats are forced to beg the rebels' leader, John Galt, to take over the economy.

It's hinted in the article that this could become a reality given the dire state of the global economy.

For me it's just what big capitalists want everyone to believe - that they are indispensable and we owe them everything.

The truth is somewhat different and it'll be some time before anyone goes begging to the so-called captains of industry!

See Look out for number one - America turns to prophet of self-interest as crash hits (by Oliver Burkeman) if this one takes your fancy.

Work blogging a la Francais

In yesterday's Times (2 supplement) there was an article on a very popular French work blog - Les Tribulations D'une Caissere (also see left).

It tells the tale of how the witty observations of a French checkout girl have become an international bestseller.

Some details:

Her name is Anna Sam and she worked in a French supermarket for almost a decade, smiling at shoppers but receiving little besides insults and disdain in return.

She witnessed behaviour ranging from the loathsome to the lustful - queue-jumping, cheating, thieving, moaning and sometimes a quick fondle between the meat and the cheese counter.

She put up with self-important managers watching the staff from behind a one-way mirror, a salary of €680 (£605) a month and the orange polyester jacket that she had to wear.

She would often joke with other checkout girls that someone should write a book about their plight.

For more details see The checkout girl: abused, ignored and on a till near you (Adam Sage).

The blog is, as you would expect in French, but if you read the Time's article you'll see some translated examples.

Blacklisting

A company that allegedly sold workers' personal details, including union activities, to building firms is to be prosecuted by the information watchdog.

I am not at all surprised by such covert and clearly illegal activities.

However, I won't be holding my breath waiting for any level of justice.

See Firm 'sold workers' secret data' (BBC News: UK).

After the Miners' Strike...

Nearly every newspaper and television news programme seems to be reminding everyone that it's 25 years since the start of last great Miners' Strike.

If your under 35 years of age you might struggle to remember it happening - unless your family was caught up in it some way.

To get an idea of what it was all about see When miners took on the government (John Henry, BBC News: England).

You can also see the repeat of a programme dedicated to the Miners' Strike on BBC Four next Monday (9th March).

Details:

Documentary which captures the extraordinary passions unleashed by the 1984 miners' strike and examines how it changed Britain forever.

Mining villages were consumed by violence and hatred as pickets fought running battles with police and striking and working miners were locked in confrontation.

With powerful interviews, evocative archive and dramatic reconstructions, the film follows the lives of five young miners from one village through a torrid but exciting year.

Fired by podcast!

Perhaps the most misleading heading I've used since starting blogging many years ago!

If you are interested in managing redundancy in these difficult times then look no further than the following podcasts courtesy of the CIPD.

Managing redundancy - part one

Managing redundancy - part two

Anger and management

Quite an extensive article in The Guardian today (G2 to be precise) looks at the role of anger in the workplace.

It is based on new research that suggests it's okay, in a way, to be angry in the workplace.

Funny how most management academics never recommend the use of trade unions in such situations.

Anyway, if you want to see how being angry in the work setting could help your career then you might want to read the following article - Calm? Why should I be calm? (Julian Baggini).