Category Archives: Wellness

It’s Okay to Tell Your Critics to Suck It!

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In the corporate world, everyone is a critic!  Everyone!  We’ve gotten really good at a learned behavior. No longer can we send out a final product the first time. Why?  Because everyone wants to trash it and change it so it can be this really nice piece of vanilla crap!  Welcome to Corporate America. But you know what, this isn’t new, critics have been around since Jesus and critics have been wrong since before Jesus!

I wanted to share with you some famous things that critics got wrong:

Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, by Ludwig van Beethoven (1824)

What the critics said in 1825: “We find Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony to be precisely one hour and five minutes long; a frightful period indeed, which puts the muscles and lungs of the band, and the patience of the audience to a severe trial…” –The Harmonicon, London, April 1825

Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville (1851)

And the critics’ response: When Melville died in 1891, Moby-Dickhad moved a grand total of 3,715 copies…in 40 years! The below was typical at the time of the book’s release:

“…an ill-compounded mixture of romance and matter-of-fact. The idea of a connected and collected story has obviously visited and abandoned its writer again and again in the course of composition…Our author must be henceforth numbered in the company of the incorrigibles who occasionally tantalize us with indications of genius, while they constantly summon us to endure monstrosities, carelessnesses, and other such harassing manifestations of bad taste as daring or disordered ingenuity can devise…” -Henry F. Chorley, London Athenaeum, October 25, 1851

 

Animal Farm, by George Orwell (1945)

What the critics said about the book we all had to read in high school: “It is impossible to sell animal stories in the USA.” –Publisher’s rejection

 

Here’s what I know, true creativity and innovation in what we do, does not come from running our ideas through everyone and their brother for approval.  If your organization wants your employees to be truly creative and innovative, stop pushing teams.

 

Teams don’t make masterpieces, they can do some pretty cool stuff, but pure creativity isn’t one of them.  We push “Team” so hard in HR and in most organizations it sometimes makes you think like this the only way everyone in the world must work, but it’s not.  An HR Pro that can determine the proper work structure throughout their organization is truly valuable and “team” isn’t always the answer. We should have other tools in our toolbox besides just ‘teams’.

 

You hear artist all the time say “I don’t listen to my critics”. This is valuable in that they know listening to a critic will hurt their art.  Unfortunately, in business, we don’t always have the ability/decision to not listen to our critics (since those critics could be bosses, peers, friends, etc.).

 

In business telling your critics to “Suck It” could be a big career derailer!

 

So, when do we go all “Suck It! It’s my project” in the workplace?   First, I wouldn’t suggest you approach it, beginning with “Suck It”. While you will get their attention, I think we all have the ability in our work environment to push back appropriately when you truly know you have something that will make a difference.  But, it’s about having the conviction to stand behind it and not let it get changed.  That’s your marker, “am I willing to put my career/credibility/bank of influence on the line for this idea/project/etc.?” If you are, it’s time to pull out the “Suck It” card and push forward.  For most of us, this might never happen in our work lives, maybe once, but it’s rare.

 

I think what we learn over time is that not all of our critics are bad and some actually might help truly make us better.  The key is to continue to have confidence in what you do, without it, your work critics will make your work life less than artistic.

Are you ‘Manager Shaming’? #WorkHuman

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Do you know what’s wrong with companies and organizations?

I know the answer because I go to a lot of conferences and listen to a lot of speakers. All of them will tell you exactly what’s wrong with your organization and every other organization. Turns out we all have the exact same thing wrong! Which is comforting in a way.

Our Managers Suck!!! 

Yay!! We figured it out!! We all agree!! Good for us!!

Can I tell you something? I hate Manager Shaming!! HATE IT!

Almost every speaker, at every conference, who speaks about the employee experience or employee engagement, or just about anything to deal with people blame managers. It’s lazy analysis for the most part. Let’s find someone or something everyone loves to hate and then we’ll blame them for everything, and then I’ll give them some great plan that you can’t possibly pull off, filled with funny little stories about my kids.

Look, I get that we have managers that are struggling, but the reality is we put them in a position to fail and now we just want to shame them and blame them for every single ill we have in an organization.

We have to be better than this. We were the idiots who put these folks in charge, didn’t teach them to properly lead people, or hold them accountable to properly lead people, or actually select them based on who had the right DNA to lead people, and not who is the best individual contributor but truly has no ability to lead people. It’s so stupid.

I want us all to start calling out Manager Shaming at conferences.

Cool tell me all my problems are my terrible managers, but you better be super quick to help figure out how to solve this or we get to throat punch you right on stage! If I hear about one more ‘study’ on how they found out managers suck and this is the ‘real’ problem with helping our organizations be successful I’m going to vomit.

So, how do we stop “Manager Shaming”:

1. Understand we are all part of this problem. It’s not ‘managers’, it’s all of us. We all suck because we all allowed this to happen. Also, most of us are managers.

2. Stop picking people to be managers based on they were the best at something, that has nothing to do with actually managing or leading people!

3. Build a leadership program that not only teaches and mentors employees on how to be effective leaders, but then hold them accountable to be that person.

4. Stop blaming and start fixing. It’s not a ‘manager’ issue. If it’s broke. If you are not successful. That’s an organizational issue. We all own that.

5. Move people out of management roles who are unable to lead people. You know who they are, just make the move.

6. Celebrate, publicly your great managers, and be very specific about the behaviors you are celebrating.

Select, educate, measure, reward, repeat. We aren’t trying to launch the space shuttle. We are trying to do something way, way harder. We are trying to lead people!

Stop Manager Shaming!

4 Ways to Enhance the Workplace for Generation Z

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The youngest talent populating the labour market belongs to a cohort called Generation Z; generally defined as anyone born after 1997. Now making up roughly 30% of the global population, the question has quite rightly been asked: how can we strategize to attract and retain these alien ‘digital natives’?

You will have already seen the researchers and think tanks throwing their scare-mongering claims at you, with each article making different assumptions for what an entire generation demands from their employers. Sounds ridiculous right? The reality is, being born in 1998 myself, even I can’t speak for the hundreds of millions of young people belonging to Gen Z. The irony is, as we explore what might enhance the workplace for Gen Z, in fact makes the workplace better for everyone.

  1. Training and development.

I think I’m safe in saying the concept of staying with the same organisation until retirement has long expired. A symptom of this change in labour market conditions is that job-hopping is a bigger concern than ever. Retention is an increasing challenge then, for a generation with the same lack of organisational loyalty as the millennials before them. Effective and frequent training & development is therefore a crucial factor in fostering a longer-term allegiance, by demonstrating your will to invest in their futures. Not only retaining an engaged Gen Z workforce, but an engaged workforce in its entirety.

  1. Student debt help.

For the Gen Z graduates of today, there is no doubt that student loan repayment will be a significant factor in their financial well-being, with the average cost of a 3-year degree sitting at £35,000. Solutions to address student debt makes employers immediately relevant, signalling empathy in a move that can really make an impact. Its not hard to see this offering a serious competitive advantage in attracting top graduate talent, and once again it’s not just Gen Z that benefits, anyone with a considerable amount of student debt will be more concerned with its repayment before making any meaningful retirement contributions.

  1. Mental and physical well-being.

Amid a generational mental health crisis amongst young adults, employers that can demonstrate what they are doing to promote cultures of openness and support will only surpass those who neglect the issue. The exact same goes for physical health and well-being, which is just as important and entirely interlinked. The common theme of empathy towards societal issues is clearly becoming a strategic tool in attracting and retaining Gen Z talent, and equally, ask yourself which generation doesn’t want their mental and physical well-being to be a priority?

  1. Exam help.

The importance of career-focused perks is again highlighted as we look at employers projecting empathy towards their current or prospective talent’s goals. Offering things like paid study leave, exam materials, or opportunities to take professional qualification exams in-house go a long way to achieving this. No question Gen Z’s are exam and development focused, but yet again we see desires that are not exclusive to one generation.

So perhaps my title was misleading, but hopefully we’ve stripped away the mystery surrounding what Gen Z wants. And at the same time highlighted that it’s very easy to look at Gen Z as making new demands, when really the uncomfortable truth lies in a historic lack of being strategically prepared incoming generations and emphatic around issues that are nothing new.

Josh Milton-Edwards is a fledgling HR professional mad about all things culture, engagement and wellbeing. I work for an award-winning best-practice culture department based in the UK. Soaking up every last bit of the experience before completing my HRM degree in 2019/20. Aiming high and can’t wait to see what more opportunities arise for the taking!

IN 2025, APPLICATIONS WILL BE accepted for the job of a lifetime—literally!

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Swedish artistic duo Simon Goldin and Jakob Senneby recently announced their next project which they are calling “Eternal Employment”. The project is fully funded and they have even started to write a job description for this ‘artistic’ endeavor.

What is “Eternal Employment“?

“A fair starting salary, with annual wage increases that match those for Swedish government workers, vacation time, even a pension, and the job is yours for as long as you do it. So what’s the job? Anything you want.

Each morning, the chosen employee will punch a clock in Korsvägen train station, currently under construction in Gothenburg, Sweden, which will turn on a bank of bright fluorescent lights. Other than that, “the position holds no duties or responsibilities besides the fact that the work should be carried out at Korsvägen. Whatever the employee chooses to do constitutes the work,” reads the job description. The employee can also choose how publicly visible or anonymous they would like to be while on the clock.”

So, how is this art?

“As Gothenburg’s working class finds itself marginalized, Goldin and Senneby see a job that gives total control to the worker as an act of economic imagination.”

It’s an interesting concept, even more so as we move into the world of A.I. knowing so many tactical jobs we do now will go away and many economists are already talking about these concepts of people being given a living wage to basically just live, but not work.

This is truly art potentially mimicking life. We can already foresee a time when we don’t need most of the workers we have today, yet we still have to provide for the population and understand a new kind of productivity when ‘work’ isn’t apart of the equation.

So, what would you do in this job?

It’s a great question to think about. If you didn’t have to worry, every, for the rest of your life, about finances, and you couldn’t be fired. What would you do in this train station each day on your shift?

I want to hope that I would find ways to brighten the day of others. To welcome them to the day, to wish them the best on their way home, and everything in between, but it’s such a far-out concept it’s really hard to even imagine.  It kind of reminds me of the movie with Tom Hanks, The Terminal. While he had to stay in the airport and couldn’t leave, he basically had to figure out how to spend his time in this pass-through public space.

I have a feeling this ‘job of a lifetime’ would probably get super boring for most people. Most of us would start out with the best intentions, but eventually, fall into the trap of not really doing anything productive. Maybe that’s part of the “art” to select someone who actually would take full advantage of this opportunity. I would love to be on the selection committee!

What would you do if you were given this job? Hit me in the comments.

 

Finally! A Plan for Employee Smoke Breaks that Works!

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I’ve long been very outspoken about how I hate employee smoke breaks. I don’t smoke and I don’t get a paid hour each day to just stand outside and slowly kill myself! I do love diet Mt. Dew! Can I stand outside, get paid, do zero work, and just drink my diet Mt. Dew? Of course not, I would be fired!

Finally, a company came up with a plan to solve the employee smoke break dilemma. A Japanese company (smoking is huge in Japan) decided to reward non-smokers with paid time off! From the article:

Piala, a marketing firm based out of Tokyo, begun offering its non-smoking employees extra paid days after an employee complained that colleagues who take breaks throughout the day to smoke often end up working less…Piala began offering the days-off incentive in September, at which point the company employed about 120 people, of which more than three dozen were smokers. Since then, four have quit smoking, Matsushima said.

I LOVE this!

This works because it’s not negative to those who smoke. Go ahead and keep smoking, good for you! But, if you don’t smoke, we’ll give you an extra 6 paid days off per year. It encourages some folks to quit, become more healthy, and get a benefit.

Plus, it solves the time away from work issue for those who don’t smoke. Non-smokers, because they don’t take smoke breaks, potentially have the ability to work more time and it’s easy to see how this is unfair to those workers who choose to not smoke.

Smokers cost employers more money, that’s a proven fact. The health insurance increase alone is giant, but also you have the issue of non-productive, paid breaks. Paying the extra six days to non-smoker employees is fair, and the hope is you’ll entice your smokers to give it up to get the extra time off.

This is great HR.

Thinking outside the box, doing something differently, to turn a negative into a positive, and allow your employees to still have a choice. It’s really hard to make that happen, but I love this forward-thinking plan.

So, what do you think? Would your organization be open to doing something similar? What stands in your way?

Dark Horses – Being Successful When You Shouldn’t!

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Just got done reading a really good book recently by Todd Rose and Ogi Ogas, titled, “Dark Horses: Achieving Success Through the Pursuit of Fulfillment“.

The main author, Todd Rose, had a unique journey to becoming a Harvard Professor and graduate. He was a high school drop out with a pregnant girlfriend and no real ambition in life, going down a complete path to failing at life.

He found out you could actually go to community college without having graduated high school and decided he was interested in psychology and just started taking classes while working full-time dead-end jobs. So, when he writes about ‘dark horses’ he’s writing from something he knows very well. He was the ultimate dark horse!

We all know people, or have met people, that when you hear their story there is no reason in the world they should be successful. They didn’t have the breaks they needed. They weren’t overly talented in any one thing. But somehow they made it go through and ended up on the other side to become successful.

Rose and Ogas did a bunch of research to find out why. Why do these dark horses become successful? What is it they do differently from others in similar positions to achieve success? They found four main behaviors and traits that set dark horses apart:

1. They know very specifically what motivates them. 

It might be some video game, or weed, or stars, or sneakers, etc. It doesn’t actually matter what the ‘thing’ is that motivates them, but the clearly understand they are motivated by this one thing and they are going to follow through on it until the end.

2. They know their choices and make choices that will allow them to do more of what motivates them. 

If you’re motivated by sleep and choose to sleep constantly, well, you’re just an idiot. If you’re motivated by getting a perfect night sleep and you start really researching what makes a perfect night sleep, and then you start a mattress company to build the perfect night’s sleep. Well, then, you’re a dark horse. We all have choices. Dark horses make the choice that keeps them chasing what motivates them, every time. They don’t get pulled off course.

3. Dark horses are great at trial and error as it relates to finding the strategy that will lead them to success. 

There are a million ways to skin a cat, as the saying goes. Turns out there isn’t one right way to do anything. Dark horses will keep trying to new strategies to achieve what motivates them, eventually finding the strategy that fits them perfectly. It might not fit you or I, but it does fit them. The key is to keep testing strategies until you find the one that fits you.

4. Ignore the destination. 

Dark horses don’t focus on an end. In fact, they probably don’t even realize there is an end. They love ‘something’ and they just want to keep doing that something. There isn’t this mythical end where they cash out and retire. In their mind, they are doing what they love and they are just making the next decision to keep doing what they love, or chasing after what they love, perfecting knowing perfection will never be met.

This is who I am. This is what matters to me. This is what I’m doing next. 

That’s a super powerful mantra to life!

We are told constantly to begin with the end in mind, but for many people that approach isn’t satisfying. If I love what I’m doing and it matters deeply to me, why would I focus on an end?

Well worth the read, go check it out.

Career Confessions of GenZ: Flexibility as a Benefit!

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Statistically, Generation Z makes up the largest population of any other age grouping in the United States of America. Most companies already realize this, and if not, they probably should be reading this post. Companies are almost obligated to structure their environments so that they are appealing and welcoming to our generation. If they choose not to conform, they will likely deteriorate as Baby Boomers simply cannot work forever. There is often much speculation about what is most important to us when it comes to choosing a company. Based on my peers and experience thus far, the best thing a company can offer a Generation Z individual is flexibility.

When I say flexibility, this can encompass a few things. For some of my peers, flexibility can mean the ability to work from home once or twice every other week. I’ve noticed that this is something that is engrained in most start-up cultures as they fully understand the impact Generation Z is going to have on the workforce. For other people, flexibility could present itself in a lenient dress code. Most of these companies have something written in their policy that tells employees to dress appropriately if you have meetings with clients or other third parties. I advise against wearing your normal t-shirt, jeans, and gym shoes combo if you are scheduled to meet with important stakeholders in the company. But, hey that’s just me!

Another area where a company can be flexible is with a food budget. There is nothing more appealing to people in my generation than free food. Granted, almost all generations would be happy with a free meal. However, people in Generation Z are transitioning from college campuses where Ramen Noodles and peanut butter jelly sandwiches could frequently be dinner for the night. At my workplace Rivian, free lunch is served every Monday and Thursday in addition to free dinner four days out the week. Probably one of the best perks that I’ve encountered so far.

While a couple of the topics that I just discussed are certainly great perks, flexibility for me is a company’s ability to adapt to the changing environment. What I mean is that even if a company has been doing something a certain way for 50 years, how resistant are they when a more efficient way is introduced. A company who is set in their ways can be very frustrating to a person in Generation Z because we often bring new and innovative ways to get things done.

In today’s day and age, businesses have to be dynamic in their ability to change because of how rapid society is changing. Technology is progressing at such a fast pace, companies who do not adapt will be left in the dust. I like to think that companies bring people of my age in for a new and fresh perspective. When a company doesn’t respect or appreciate your opinion, that’s almost a deal breaker in most situations. The business world is changing before our eyes and Generation Z has a lot to do with that. Companies like Google, Facebook, and LinkedIn have created environments that breathe flexibility and creativity. Generation Z is taking over the workforce whether you want to believe it or not, what is your company going to do to in response?

Jonathan Sutherlin is a human resource professional with experience in the engineering and automotive industry. Currently going for his Master’s in Organizational Change Leadership in a hybrid program at Western Michigan University. He is very passionate about reading, philanthropy, basketball, and fitness. You can connect with Jonathan on LinkedIn or through email at jonsutherlin@gmail.com. When Jonathan is not at work trying to impact lives, you can either catch him in the gym or nose deep in a good book!

What do you love to do?

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We have a hard time really telling others what we love to do. Many times it turns into this humble brag of stuff we don’t really love to do, but it sounds impressive and we know others won’t judge us based on the answer.

I tell people all the time I love fishing!

I do love fishing, but not as much as I probably tell people. Sometimes going fishing sucks. It’s cold. The fish don’t bite. You get sunburned. You have to get up super early.

What I really love is being on the lake by myself, fishing, when it’s a great mild temperature. It’s quite with a slight breeze. I can hear the water and the birds. And it helps if I’m also catching some fish, but the serenity is really what I love.

Too often I find people define themselves by what they hate versus what they love.

I don’t like recruiting, I just want to do my HR stuff! What stuff is that? You know doing the benefits and the employee relations things, and the… Oh, the stuff that has no accountable measures? Okay, I get it, having pressure on your sucks! But what is it that you really love to do?

It doesn’t really help us by defining what we want to do around what we hate, because in any thing we do we probably will have some hate and some love. If that’s the case, the best way to decide what you’ll do is by deciding what is it that you actually love to do because if you love some portion of it, the stuff you hate really doesn’t seem to bad.

The opposite would be that you decide you want to work at a job because you don’t hate anything about it. Well, okay, so you don’t hate it, but is there any part of it that you love? Because if you don’t love any of it, you probably won’t end up liking it either.

It’s not just work, this works in all aspects of our lives. If you are out in the world telling everyone what you hate, it will probably push most people away. If you are telling them what you love, it might not bring everyone to you, but it will definitely bring some folks to you that share that love.

Define yourself by what you love, not what you hate.

10 Things That Scare Me

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I listen to NPR in the mornings on my way to work. It helps me keep up on how my ultra-liberal friends are thinking, plus it’s my only access to news outside the U.S. on a regular basis. It’s important we make ourselves aware of all sides of the conversations taking place.

On a recent ride in I was introduced to an NPR produced podcast called “10 Things That Scare Me” which is a podcast about our biggest fears. The interview struck me with the idea that I’m not sure what my biggest fears are because my brain subconsciously helps me not think of them! 

I thought a good experiment would be to try and list ten things that scare me, with how I rationalize these fears. Here’s what I came up with in random order:

  1. Bees – My wife laughs at me about this. There’s an actual video of me she took of me freaking out about a bee chasing me. There’s no logical reason that I don’t like bees. Oh, wait, yeah there is, bee stings hurt!
  2. Heights – Let me preface this by saying I’ve jumped off the Stratosphere in Vegas and I’ve done many Zipline adventures. I love roller coasters. But have me climb a ladder and walk on the roof of my house and my legs are shaking like crazy! I think the difference is all about safety harnesses. I don’t mind heights if I’m safe, I mind heights when I could fall and die.
  3. Horror Movies – I don’t go to them, I don’t watch them, you can’t make me. Again, completely stupid I know, but yeah, I’m out!
  4. Something Bad Happening to my Wife, kids, or dog. I think I spend too much time thinking about this, but not half as much as my wife, but it’s still a fear. Probably will always be a fear.
  5. Not being able to pay my bills. This might seem irrational to many people. I’m a successful person. It comes from childhood and being raised by a single mom, who was trying to launch a business, and many times being at stores where they wouldn’t allow her to write a check because she had ‘bounced’ so many. And we definitely didn’t have any cash! Taking food back to the shelves of a store because you can’t afford it doesn’t leave you. That walk, with the employees staring at you feels pretty bad.
  6. Not knowing the right answer. For most of my life, in almost any situation, I’ve felt like I’ve had ‘the’ answer. School, work, life, love, okay, way less in love, but most things! So, I’m fearful of not having the right answer that will solve the problem. Turns out, some problems don’t have answers, or at least not a ‘right’ answer.
  7. Dying unexpectedly. I have this notion that I’ll die with some warning. I’m planning on it. There’s really only one time in life when you can truly tell people what you think, and I do not want to miss out on that time! We see random death every day, and it’s hard for me to understand it.
  8. Embarrassing people who are important to me. To know me is to know anything might come out of my mouth. Mostly that’s been a great trait over my life. Every once in a while, not so much. I truly care about my family and friends, and if I say or do something that embarrasses them, it truly impacts me deeply. Just not enough, apparently, to change my personality!
  9. Access to guns. Guns don’t scare me. I grew up around guns. I’ve shot guns. Hunted. Shot skeet. Etc. The access that mentally unstable people have to guns scares me because of fear #4 above. Guns are too readily available in our society and I can only pray and hope for the safety of those I care for.
  10. Failing my Mom’s company. For those who don’t know, I run the company my mother started and ran quite successfully for decades. 2nd generation family businesses have an extreme failure rate. I work and stress every day to not be a statistic. So, call me and do work with me! Help me conquer this fear!

So, what do you think? It feels pretty good to get your fears out there in the open. To look them in the eye. To introduce them to the world. They are definitely more scary when they are locked in my head!

What fears do you have that you have admitted? Hit me in the comments and let’s do this cleanse together!

The Non-Smoker Smoke Break!

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Let’s break down some math on the amount of time smokers take, paid, in smoke breaks daily: 

An average smoker smokes 15 cigarettes per day. I’m going to assume that when awake the smoker smokes about 1 cigarette per hour, so that’s 40 cigarettes per week smoked at work.  It takes about 5 minutes to smoke a cigarette. 

I’m going to assume that it takes probably 5 minutes round trip to get to your designated smoking area, 5 minutes to smoke your cigarette, so 10 minutes per break. I’ll say a good worker only smokes 6 cigarettes on the clock, so 60 minutes per day, one hour, paid to smoke. 5 hours per week paid, to smoke, 255 hours per year to smoke.

Is everyone following me? 

255 hours of paid smoke breaks – or basically taking an in-office vacation for roughly 6 1/2 week per year, on top of their actual away-from-office vacation time. 

So, what I’m trying to get to is how can we/HR build in non-smoker smoke breaks!? We know HR won’t do that! Can you imagine an official policy to take breaks not to smoke!? Does anyone have an official Smoke Break policy in today’s world? 

Here’s my idea: 

  1. If you don’t smoke and you have a co-worker that does smoke, just go out with them every single time they smoke. In fact, get a group of people to go with them and build and strengthen relationships, just don’t try to breath too much! 
  2. Petition to get paid 12.5% more than someone who smokes, because that’s basically how much more your working than the average smoker. 
  3. Take a two-hour lunch break and when HR tells you that you can’t do that, take them into a conference room and run them through the math on a white board! 

I don’t understand smoke breaks. It’s kind of like sexual harassment. For the longest time we thought it was completely normal for a boss to sleep with his secretary and now we know it’s very wrong! 

I’ll be honest. I feel the same way about how it became the norm to offer free coffee at work. No one has every offered me free diet Mt. Dew at work! (I take that back, my friend Jim D’Amico did at Celenese when I went to visit!) 

So, we let people go take smoke breaks, paid, and it’s somehow completely fine. 5 hours per week, paid. Completely fine, to actually for real not do work. Just stand outside and slowly kill yourself and you get paid for it! How great is work!? 

Let’s face it, I’m not actually mad at smokers, I’m super jealous! I can’t tell you how hard it is for me not to start smoking knowing all the great benefits you get! I’ve actually tried hanging outside with smokers, but because I was in HR, and didn’t smoke, I think they thought I was trying to get them in trouble or spying on them. I wasn’t, I just wanted all that free time off! 

I’ve been thinking about starting that meditation, mindfulness crap. That might work. I could just randomly stop working, sit down in the middle of the hall all criss-cross-applesauce and just put on some headphones and close my eyes. Make people walk around me and my mindfulness break! 

I wonder what HR would do? “Hey, Tim, we’re not paying you to relax, get your butt back to work! Now, if you want to get all jacked up on nicotine, that’s fine, get off the floor and go light one up!”