On yer bikes!

Vodafone in the UK is paying its employees 85 pounds per month if they bike to work instead of taking the car. British pharma giant GSK does the same, but with a voucher system since they apparently don’t trust their employees with more real money. On the upside, GSK provides drying racks, ironing racks and shoe racks, so I reckon they’re okay.

A growing number of UK employers offer similar incentives to lessen their carbon footprint, save parking space and have healthier employees who can more reliably stay at their stations.

Now I’m hoping for a follow-up study that reveals how many of the cyclists didn’t ride their bikes when all they stood to gain was better health, but who were swayed by a few more bucks each day from The Man.

P.S: I think GSK should honor more of the test-tube entreprenuers who contributed to this enormous company by changing their name to Glaxo, Burroughs, Wellcome, Smith, Kline, French and Beecham.

I demand the right to work hard

After talking to yet another struggling peon caught in the corporate grinding wheel, I stumbled upon this great shortlist of things employees should have a right to. It’s from Mary Jo Asmus and her web site (www.aspiretolead.blogspot.com).
Here are what she considers the three most important employee rights, and the ones most lacking today (run through the keyboard of Edward Miller):

The right to do their best work with guidance but without interference. For decades industrial psychologists have been asking workers what they expect from bosses. The answers are remarkable consistent: autonomy and support.

The right to provide their opinions without consequences. Every leader pays lip service to the idea that subordinates have the right to express opinions without fear. It’s a myth. Leaders who can't protect candid conversation will fail to gather the information and insights required for leadership.

The right to contribute to the organization. This is especially true in journalism, where most of us came into the business to “make a difference.” This is another casualty of downsizing. For most people the focus has moved from “contributing” to “surviving.”

You see – it has nothing to do with more pay, longer holidays or more overtime. Most of all we want to be treated as grown-ups. Everybody else in society treats us that way, so why can’t you employers?

Shuffleboard

This is why women feel uncomfortable leaving their kids with their spouses.

”What are you doing next summer, Mr. Anka?”

If I were a concert promoter in Sweden right now, I would get on the horn and book Paul Anka.
He hasn’t been huge in Sweden in a long time. Now, though, thanks to his Swedish wife using her freedom of speech to say some outlandish things on Swedish TV, Paul is ripe for a second career over here.
I’m telling you, he would kill in Folkets Park in Östervåla.

Archer‘s bow

Apart from a spectacular goal, nothing in soccer gives me more pleasure than when a diving player gets a yellow card. Thanks to two researchers in non-verbal communication at Portsmouth University, there is reason to believe I will get to enjoy more of this.

The pair has namely worked out that a person who actually falls will instinctively move his hands downwards to either brake the fall or protect the body. No way will he fling his arms up over his shoulders, arch his back to expose his chest to harm and bend his legs backwards, as Mr Rooney demonstrates in the image.

So my hope is that referees, armed with this knowledge, will more easily spot divers and whip out the yellow card. Then all they need to do is score some more goals and soccer will be worth watching again.

Spranq Eco Font

In the spirit of yesterday’s environmental entry, here’s another great half-baked green idea: A Dutch company called Spranq has invented a new font that is littered with holes. It’s great because it uses less ink when printed; half-baked because it doesn’t run very smoothly on my computer (doesn’t always do Swedish å, ä and ö letters very well, and likes to change itself to Times New Roman).
Anyway, I love it. You can download it free of charge from their website. Try it and see if it works better for you.

My carbon footprint

I was just made aware of the existence of an organization called 10:1o. Their idea is that we should all reduce our carbon footprint by 10 percent during 2010. Great idea, simple to grasp and easy for raising awareness.

In the interest of full disclosure, here is where I am at in these four areas:
• Electricity: Hard to measure, but I have plenty of natural light in my apartment and so don’t need to keep that many lightbulbs burning. The computer runs all day, but I turn it off whenever I go into town.
• Fuel: I use the stove to heat lunch and an espresso. That’s it.
• Road transport: I don’t own a car, but have taken my motorcycle to a few interviews and business trips. The rest have been subway and bus trips.
• Air travel: During my first year, I took five individual flights for business.

Not that this system is in any way tailored to my circumstances as a work-at-home independent writer, but since I like this type of collective action, I will still try to do my part. That means taking the train instead of flying, insulating the windows ahead of winter. Must think of more.
How about you?

“Henrik, you’re rubbish!”

Gordon Ramsay is one of the meanest people I have ever seen and heard. Maybe that’s what makes his shows such good TV. Then again, maybe it’s because he scares me on a much deeper level.
You see, whenever somebody screws up in Hell’s Kitchen, for example, my first instinct is to be baffled by their incompetence. They’re supposed to be chefs, right? But then I start thinking; what if I were tested on my supposedly perfect skills at doing what I do? On television? Yikes.
“Henrik! Come here. Listen to me. I ordered an adverbial modifier; what the hell is this? And why on earth did you use a non-deponent verb form over there? Oh, dear lord. You’re rubbish!”
Honestly, I haven’t been tested on that stuff in 20 years. It sort of just works anyway, which is probably the way it is for the chefs. They’re not actually rubbish. They have just done a certain thing the same way for a long time, and nobody has asked them to explain exactly what they do, and why.
I for one thank my lucky star that my flaws aren’t exposed, to me and the world, on national TV. Those chefs are heroes. Pitiful, but heroes.

Why I hate Ernst & Young

Okay, “hate” is a strong word. I don’t actually hate Ernst & Young, but if I was ever in a position to pick an accounting firm for anything, I would pick anyone but E&Y.
Why the crappy attitude? Because I used to work for a company that was located next door to the Stockholm office of Ernst & Young. The pedestrian street was delightfully free of cars except for one kind: taxis that regularly came to pick up the lazy bastards from E&Y who couldn’t walk 20 meters to the street. They just stood there like spineless wonders while the poor cabbies had to snail their way through even poorer crowds of pedestrians just minding their own business.
Maybe it was a signal of power, but the only signal I got was that the wimps who worked for this company thought themselves too bloody important to walk to the end of the curb like the rest of us.
I wonder how many companies factor stuff like this into their “brand strategy”.

P.S. Yes, I know it’s 9/11 again, but the only thing I’m going to say about it is this: How is it possible you haven’t found Osama yet? It’s been eight years! That’s longer than World War II. You found Hitler; is this guy really such a better hider?

Michael, is that you?

Two weeks ago I made fun of how people have started to concoct alternative explanations to Michael Jackson’s death. Now it appears I am being upstaged by the Indians. I should have known. If reincarnation is one of your core beliefs, the door swings open to any number of cooky theories.
According to James Lamont in the Financial Times, there are those in India who believe that MJ has already been reborn as a tiger in a zoo in Malaysia. Others believe that he was an Egyptian princess in an earlier life, or maybe a musician at the courts of Louis XIII and Charles I of England.
Meanwhile, Indian teenagers discuss on his official web site which part of MJ’s clothing they themselves would want to be reincarnated as. Among the favorites – his white glove and gold pants.
So I admit defeat. I couldn’t make up crap like this if my life depended on it. Well done, India!

Got room for an extra ass?

There’s a Swedish saying about hospitality that goes “if there’s room in the heart, there’s room for an ass.”
Beautiful sentiment, and cool the way “heart” can be made to rhyme with “ass” in my native tongue.

Harrs in Vietnam

Went through some old notes yesterday and found a short list I made on a visit to Washington, D.C. in February 2005. I went to see the Vietnam War Memorial and checked in a big alphabetical book they have there if anybody named Harr died in that war.
I found two names:
• Gerry Arthur Harr (Oregon, killed 1971)
• Michael Edwin Harr (Tennessee, killed 1969)
Just odd to think that if my dad had been born in the US, his name could easily have been up there, too.

Smacking my son up

So I’m back. Big fat thanks to my guest bloggers Doug, Risto and Kerry for keeping the flame burning.
So what have I been up to? Spent a week in rain-drenched Sälen, where I have a rain-drenched time-share, summed up my first year as a freelancer and hit my four-year-old son for the first time. Yes, I know you’re not supposed to, but we were barrelling down highway some-number between Falun and Hofors, it was dark and raining and he kept reaching over to hit the windshield wiper stick. When he did it again about five seconds after my best “if-you-do-that-one-more-time” speech, just to see if I was serious, I flung out my arm and hit him in the chest.
He cried for two minutes, sulked for five more, then fell asleep and doesn’t seem to remember the whole thing. Scarred for life? I would have to say ... no.

Hunting high and low

I was just about to write something condescending about the cab driver in this ad for Hunt being an immigrant while the shooter is an upper-class Swede. Then I googled it and saw that it won the Silver Egg at this year’s Swedish ad awards.

Maybe it’s ironic and I’m too old to get it. Maybe it’s the vegetarian in me that reacts to the poor slain creature.

What do you say? Is it only me or is this ad just a little bit off?

Wednesday’s guest blogger: Kerry Le Clair

Keeping it fresh and funky

While I was hurtling through the north Toronto airspace at 124 km/hour on Thursday, strapped into the Behemoth, Canada’s tallest and fastest rollercoaster, I had a thought. Somewhere between the safety of the ground and 70 metres up, I decided that comfort zones are for douchebags. Not only should we stray freely and often from our comfort zones, we should just stop having them altogether. What is a full life if not, at least in some part, a series of uncomfortable experiences? How else do we figure out who we are, what we like, whom we’ll tolerate and how far we can be pushed? Drudgery and routine are anathema to the creative soul.

And so I vowed (to myself and the amusement park gods) that I will keep it fresh and funky and greet each day with a wide-open mind. New discoveries abound for the willing. To wit – somewhat – this quote from Walter Benjamin: “To walk out your front door as if you’ve just arrived from a foreign country; to discover the world in which you already live; to begin the day as if you’ve just gotten off the boat from Singapore and have never seen your own doormat or the people on the landing ... it is this that reveals the humanity before you, unknown until now.”

Tuesday’s guest blogger: Risto Pakarinen

Henrik's gone. Hiking, he said, but who knows. Maybe he’s run off with his kid, out to build their shoebox house somewhere. Or, maybe those are one and the same.

Either way, I’ll be your Henrik for the day. It’s a challenge.

Wearing somebody else’s hat may look easy at the outset but there are so many things you don’t know until you actually do it. For example, the size. Will the hat fit? What if it doesn’t? Is it a one size fit all model, or can you adjust it? If you can’t adjust it, can you still wear it, even if it's uncomfortable. Maybe the hat’s too small and that gives you a headache. Maybe it’s too big and you can't see anything.

Let’s suppose that the hat fits my head, which by the way, is probably just a regular sized head, in accordance with all relevant EU regulations, as I am sure is Henrik’s. Henrik’s might be a bit smaller than mine, he is, after all, out there building a house out of a shoebox.

Unless – unless – he wears really big shoes. Note to self: check out Henrik’s shoe size the next time you see him.

But I digress.

Even if the hat fits, it may be the opposite of my style. That’s fine, because I am after all, simply filling in for him, but what if Henrik's hat looks ugly on me? (Of course, for me, personally, the question is, “do I look ugly underneath his hat?” but not now). What if people look at the guy wearing a cool hat, and walk away thinking, “now, that was a weird dude ... what’s up with the hat?” Then, the next time they see Henrik, with his good old hat, they’d think, “hey, is that the same weirdo we saw last week? It must be, I never forget a hat.”

But you know, sometimes you just have to take the plunge, and jump off the deep end. You have to just get in there, and grab the hat, and try it on for size (and style, like I mentioned) and see where it gets you.

Be bold.

I will now remove Henrik’s hat from my head.