Utah’s 4-day Work Week

Posted by Miss Cellania in Everything Else on September 1, 2009 at 10:07 am

Last year, the state of Utah mandated a four-day work week for state employees. The salaries and number of hours each worker put in remained the same as the workday became longer, but offices were closed on Fridays.

After 12 months, Utah’s experiment has been deemed so successful that a new acronym could catch on: TGIT (thank God it’s Thursday). The state found that its compressed workweek resulted in a 13% reduction in energy use and estimated that employees saved as much as $6 million in gasoline costs. Altogether, the initiative will cut the state’s greenhouse-gas emissions by more than 12,000 metric tons a year. And perhaps not surprisingly, 82% of state workers say they want to keep the new schedule.

Even those who do not work for the state have benefitted since offices are open later Monday through Thursday. Other states and businesses are looking at the results and may possibly try the schedule out. Link -via Digg

 
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10 Business Lessons Learned from Dungeons & Dragons

Posted by John Farrier in Toy & Video Games on July 12, 2009 at 9:19 am

Esther Schindler played D&D for years, and has discerned principles from those experiences that can be used in her working life:

5.  The best quests require a mixture of skills in the party. Find new friends and cultivate ancillary skills. That pesky little hobbit thief may eat you out of house and home, yet sometimes he comes in pretty handy. This is the point of all those tedious “diversity training” exercises from your HR department; perhaps the message would get across better if they talked about the apparently-weak wizard and the bard with those amazing negotiation skills.

Link via Geek Dad, who notes that July is Dungeon Master Appreciation Month

 
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Google's Cafeteria Doesn't Suck

Posted by Stacy in Blog & Internet, Food & Drinks on February 24, 2009 at 10:28 pm


As if we needed another reason to be insanely jealous of people who work at Google, here’s one more: not only is the food there free, their cafeteria doesn’t suck. Not by a long shot. The Google people periodically bring in guest chefs to cook for a day – even Mario Batali has stopped by. The baker who blogged about her experience is Kelli Bernard, the owner of Amai Tea and Bake House in New York. She brought in several varieties of cookies, including chai almond, green tea and pumpkin chocolate chip. I’m so envious.

Link

 
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IKEA-Hacked Cubicle

Posted by Stacy in Blog & Internet, Home & Garden on February 10, 2009 at 7:24 pm

I work in the darkest, dingiest office building known to man. It’s like any light is sucked into the beige fabric-covered cube walls… not the best environment for creativity. Needless to say, I’m quite intrigued by this cube makeover – click the link to see the “before,” if you’re lucky enough to be unfamiliar with the confines of a cubicle.

Link via ikea hacker

 
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