An August half moon

A recent half moon that I took a photo of with my camera/telescope arrangement. I was particularly happy with this photo, because the resolution is very good. You can really see the craters on the moon's surface. And that's not so easy to achieve each time I set out to photograph the moon. It is both a challenge and a pleasure to photograph the night sky.

Bullying in the workplace

If you have never observed or personally experienced bullying in the workplace, you can count yourself among the lucky people here in this life. I have known several people (men and women) who have been the recipients of behavior from their bosses that was suggestive of bullying. It was more subtle than aggressive, perhaps in keeping with the Scandinavian mindset as opposed to the more aggressive American one, but I would call it bullying nonetheless.

The reason I was reminded of this topic is because I read about it recently in the coursework for an online mini-MBA program that I am currently enrolled in. This particular mini-MBA program, offered by Probana Business School, has six modules, all of which focus on different aspects of leadership. The current one, Module 4, has Value-based Leadership as its focus. The chapters in this module deal with cultural leadership, the ethics of leadership, Corporate Social Responsibility, stress management, and the workplace environment, among others.

I found the chapter on the workplace environment (physical and psychosocial) to be excellent from all standpoints. Not only is it well-written, but it is timely and important. The topic of bullying in the workplace was introduced and discussed extensively; it is apparently a large problem in many modern workplaces. Bullying can result from conflicts that become exacerbated, where it is difficult to identify a bully or a victim; the other type of bullying is termed predatory bullying—in this case there is no difficulty in identifying the bully and the victim. Predatory bullying seems to be most prevalent in workplaces. Bosses can bully their employees, and employees can bully each other. It does not have to be physical bullying; it can also be psychological bullying, which is often far more subtle and insidious. This type of bullying has only one goal, and that is to reduce the victim to a pile of rubble. You might wonder why some bosses go to the trouble of targeting certain employees for destruction. The answer is that they can; some evil-minded bosses can exploit the weaknesses they see in their employees. They exploit the imbalance of power because they can. They might bully those employees who are perceived to be more intelligent than they are, or who are not easy to control. Creative intelligent people tend to prefer to think for themselves; you’d think that would be attractive for most bosses, but sometimes it’s not. Many bosses prefer employees they can control, and it is often those employees who get promoted at the expense of the ones who are much less ‘manageable’.

I have mostly been witness to psychological bullying in the workplace—the type of bullying that can be subtle and insidious. It can take the form of joking about an employee in a meeting in front of others; the intent is to humiliate that person, while the boss comes off smelling like roses—how can you fault him or her for having a sense of humor? Surely employees can take a joke. Sometimes the information that is given to employees about the job at hand is incorrect or incomplete, such that they cannot do their job correctly. Some employees are routinely overlooked when it comes time for promotions or raises; this can be due to gender discrimination, age discrimination, or personal dislike on the part of management. Some employees are ‘frozen out’ by management--ignored or bypassed when it comes to new projects, denied specific opportunities for advancement, denied project leadership, etc. Still others are the recipients of vague, unclear communication on a continual basis, such that they are never really sure where they stand. Others are the victims of backbiting and gossip, which can often be quite cruel. All of it is designed to weaken and eventually annihilate the victim.

Regardless of who is doing the bullying, the cost to the workplace can be substantial, due to reduced productivity, loss of morale, and a negative and destructive workplace environment. Bullied employees experience fear, shock, hopelessness, serious psychological problems, stress disorders, and eventually go out on sick leave or quit. Management can simply not afford to ignore this problem, and if management is the problem, if some members of management are doing the bullying, then the bullies involved should be forced to resign, and then replaced by leaders with more emotional intelligence. 

A gallery of photos from Rjukan, Gaustatoppen, Lake Tinnsjø, Heddal, and Notodden

 As promised, some photos from our recent trip to Rjukan, Gaustatoppen, Heddal and Notodden......Enjoy!

the lovely town of Rjukan

a nice house in Rjukan

Rjukan, early evening

Rjukan

Rjukan town square under renovation, statue of Sam Eyde to the left, Såheim power plant in background

three reflecting mirrors at the top of the mountainside 

fog rolling into Rjukan

Vemork museum

bridge leading to Vemork museum

Gaustatoppen mountain overlooking the town of Rjukan

Gaustatoppen mountain

Fv651 mountain road winding through the landscape

No visibility at Gaustatoppen summit on the day we climbed the mountain

fog rolling in during our climb to the top of Gaustatoppen mountain

view of surrounding landscape as we ascended Gaustatoppen

Lake Tinnsjø

MS Storegut

onboard the MS Storegut railroad ferry

sunny weather on Lake Tinnsjø

raining on Lake Tinnsjø

stave church in Heddal

Notodden

Notodden

Oslo-Rjukan-Heddal-Notodden-Oslo

We recently returned from a one-week vacation in Norway. Like last summer, we decided to explore the country we live in, and decided upon a stay in the town of Rjukan, followed by a visit to the Blues Festival in Notodden, where Robert Plant and his band The Sensational Space Shifters were playing. On the way to Notodden, we stopped in Heddal to see the beautiful stave church (stavkirke) that has become a major tourist attraction.

   

Rjukan is a small town located in the Tinn municipality in Telemark county. It is mainly famous for its Vemork hydroelectric power plant, built by Norsk Hydro under the leadership of Sam Eyde who was the founder and first CEO of Norsk Hydro from 1905 until 1917. Vemork opened in 1911. Sam Eyde decided to build Vemork in Rjukan because the Rjukan waterfall (Rjukanfossen), a 104-metre waterfall, facilitated the generation of large quantities of electricity (info from Wikipedia). Vemork was mainly involved in fertilizer produciton, but also produced heavy water (deuterium oxide, D₂O). During WWII, this interested the Germans who were occupying Norway at the time (the Nazis invaded Norway in April 1940), since Germany was on a mission to produce an atomic bomb, and heavy water is useful as a coolant and moderator in a nuclear power reactor. Vemork was the target of heavy water sabotage operations by the Norwegian resistance during WWII; this exciting piece of history was recently the subject of a very well-made Norwegian TV series, Kampen om Tungtvannet (The Saboteurs in English) that was shown on Norwegian television this past January. It has since been sold to many other countries, and I recommend it highly if you get a chance to see it. You can read more about it here on IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3280150/?ref_=nv_sr_1

The Vemork power plant is now the site of the Norwegian Industrial Workers’ Museum and a museum documenting the history of Vemork and Rjukan during WWII and the well-documented sabotage operations (see Wikipedia for more information about Rjukan, Vemork and WWII history).

Besides Vemork, Rjukan is famous for having placed large reflecting mirrors on the surrounding mountainside in order to illuminate the town square with reflected sunlight (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/06/rjukan-sun-norway-town-mirrors). This was actually an old idea (from the early 1900s) resurrected and realized in 2013; the reason for it was that between September and March, Rjukan does not get sunlight since the surrounding mountains block it, and this was a way of providing light for Rjukan’s inhabitants. The Krossobanen (an aerial tramway) was built in 1928 with the same idea in mind, to be able to give Rjukan’s inhabitants a view of the sun during the long winter months.

In July 2015, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee approved the inscription of the Rjukan-Notodden Industrial Heritage Site on its World Heritage List, something the town of Rjukan is understandably quite proud of. You can read more about the background for the decision here: http://whc.unesco.org/en/news/1316/

Sam Eyde’s strong influence on Rjukan is apparent to this day. You cannot help but notice that it is an extremely well-planned and -designed town, with lovely homes (all with different architectural styles), parks, and official buildings. A statue of Eyde stands prominently in the town square, which was undergoing extensive renovations when we were there in late July. We did a lot of walking around the town and got to know it quite well; it is very charming and lovely during the summer months. I can imagine though that it is less charming during the winter months.

We also climbed the Gaustatoppen mountain (1883 metres/6178 feet high) that overlooks the town of Rjukan; the summit offers incredible views of about one-sixth of Norway on days with excellent visibility. Unfortunately, the day we decided to climb it was a foggy and overcast day; it started out as a gray day and evolved into a foggy one after a few hours. When we reached the summit, you could really only see a few feet in front of you. But the climb itself was worth it; it is advertised as family-friendly, but in reality is for adults in reasonably good shape. Most young children (I’d say under 10-years old), no matter how sporty, will not enjoy this climb very much, as it is quite strenuous. We met a family with young children on our way up; they ended up turning back. You can read more about it here: http://www.visitrjukan.com/en/best-travel-tips/opplevelser-paa-rjukan-til-inforboks/gaustatoppen-summer  We did not walk down the mountain, but rather opted to take the Gaustabanen back down; this is a cable railway built inside the Gaustatoppen mountain that was built by NATO during the Cold War era. For more information, check out this link: http://en.hardangervidda.com/Top-5/The-Top-5-Attractions2/Gaustatoppen-and-Gaustabanen-cable-car

We also took an afternoon boat ride on the railroad ferry MS Storegut, which operates as a tourist attraction these days between Tinnoset and Mæl on Lake Tinnsjø. It was in operation as a railway ferry from 1956 until 1991; while we were onboard, the last captain of the ferry gave us a short talk about his experiences as captain of the MS Storegut and about how he was sorry to see it taken out of service. It was a beautiful boat trip, as you will see from the photos in my next post. We were lucky to have good weather that day in order to really appreciate the surrounding landscapes.

Once we left Rjukan, we drove on the mountain road Fv651 and passed through Tuddal, where we stopped to have coffee, and then on to Heddal where we ate elk burgers for lunch and visited the stave church there. Eventually we merged onto route E134 that took us to Notodden and the Blues Festival (http://bluesfest.no/). We rounded out a great week with a terrific concert by Robert Plant and his band; there were also some other really good bands that we enjoyed listening to. We ended up camping at the festival site for one night; the weather was sunny and warm during the day, and only a bit chilly during the evening. The following day we headed for home, after a great week away. I would like to return to Gaustatoppen at some point to climb it on a day with better visibility, as well as to hike/bike over the Hardangervidda plateau.   

More songs I like

Songs that I really like these days! Listed here in no particular order......

A beautiful full moon over Oslo

During the past week, there were some evenings with a beautiful full moon--exceptionally large and luminous. On Sunday evening, I managed to get a few photos with my digital camera attached to my telescope. This one in particular was one of the ones I was satisfied with. Enjoy!

Sometimes it takes a lifetime to find your voice

The first thought I had after finishing Sue Monk Kidd’s latest novel, The Invention of Wings, was that it can often take a lifetime to find your voice and the courage to use it. Sarah Grimké would no doubt agree; Kidd’s fictionalized account of the lives of the first American women abolitionists Sarah Grimké and her sister Angelina (Nina) is by turns touching, disturbing, and enlightening, pointing out the almost insurmountable difficulties and painful consequences involved in taking a stand in life and fighting for what you believe in. It is impossible not to be moved by this novel; the writing evokes both questions and the desire to make (some) sense of what must have been a horrific existence for the slaves in Charleston South Carolina in the 19^th century (1803-1838). Despite being ‘protected’ by the wealthy families who owned them, the slaves’ lives and daily treatment depended upon the whims and moods of their owners. Their psychological well-being and physical comfort did not matter at all. Punishment was meted out rather arbitrarily for minor infractions, e.g. the Missus was having a bad day and one of her slaves ’disobeyed’ her orders, wasn’t listening properly, or was too slow in responding. The actual punishments were little more than exercises in the public torture of other human beings, and inflicted permanent damage on many of the slaves who suffered these tortures. It is established very early on in the novel that Sarah wishes to have no part in the ownership of another human being—in her case, 10-year old Handful (Hetty) who becomes Sarah’s slave against her wishes, forced upon her by her family on her 11^th birthday. Sarah does not want to be like her family at all, but she is trapped within it. One might think that the desire to treat another human being the way one would wish to be treated, would be simple enough to achieve within one’s own family. One might expect that one’s family (churchgoers and law-abiding citizens) would support you in your quest to treat other human beings, who happen to be non-white, fairly and kindly. But that is not the case in Sarah’s family (or in society at large). Their cruelty knows no bounds, toward slaves who endure the physical cruelties, and toward their enlightened daughters Sarah and Nina who must endure the psychological abuses meted out to them for wishing to abolish slavery. In Sarah’s case, her independent and outspoken voice becomes muffled after she is dressed down by her father in front of the family—told that her dreams and aspirations of becoming a lawyer are simply out of the question. She is then forbidden to use her father’s library to read her beloved books in an attempt to educate herself. She suffers ridicule in front of her family for her aspirations to make something of herself; her father and brothers essentially tell her, rather cruelly, that she is a fool to have had such aspirations, even though her father appeared to encourage them only when he assumed that she did not take his words seriously. It is after this humiliation, and really the only time in the novel, that her mother shows her any compassion whatsoever and lets down her guard as far as describing to Sarah what women can and cannot aspire to within the framework of their society. You get the sense that her mother does not like that women’s lives had limitations put upon them, but she retreats again behind her mask of upholding the society she finds herself in, for all it is worth, because it is that society of wealth and political correctness that gives her status and keeps her materially-comfortable. Her mother’s role in life was to bear her husband many children, which she did. Sarah’s dressing-down by her father and brothers is followed by the societal humiliation she has to endure when her fiancé is exposed as a serial user of young women for sexual gains; he proposes to them and then tells them that they can now become intimate because they are engaged. After these incidents, Sarah is completely browbeaten and unable to find the voice she once had. She struggles along, as does Handful, each of them trying to find the wings they need to escape their stifling existences. When her sister Nina is born, Sarah becomes almost like a mother to her, and Nina grows quite close to her. Eventually she comes to share her sister’s abolitionist (and feminist) views, which puts both of them at odds with their family and with Charleston society. Sarah moves to the North and becomes a Quaker; Nina eventually follows her and the two of them embark on their mission to abolish slavery. Sarah finds her voice again after many years, but struggles with self-confidence, in contrast to Nina who is a born orator and who does not seem to lack confidence at all. The bulk of the novel is really Sarah and Handful’s stories, and how Sarah steps up to the plate to keep her promise to Handful’s mother Charlotte to free Handful.

Sometimes a person is born with a voice that he or she has no problems using as he or she grows up. One takes a vocal stand against injustice and bullying, against the immoral ideas and situations in society. And then something happens to stifle that voice, at least for a while. Bullying, cruel slander, psychological abuse, physical abuse, a bad marriage, divorce, loss of a job, financial ruin—all of these can destroy a woman’s voice as well as a man’s. Self-confidence wanes; self-doubt rules. No matter what others say to you, the fact remains that regaining confidence and finding your voice again are your own roads, and you must walk them alone. The novel makes it clear that heroes and heroines are never superhuman; they are ordinary human beings like you and me, with the familiar everyday problems with which we all must deal and tackle. They struggle with self-doubt and misery, with depression, with anxiety, with confusion. They struggle with finding their voices and using them to rail against the injustices in the world. They hold onto their beliefs in the hope that better days will come along; and better days do come along, but at quite a cost, for Sarah, Nina, and Handful. Along the way, you will come to really like these characters and to want to understand them. You will come to appreciate how difficult their lives were because they lived according to their principles, as well as how difficult it was to change the obstinate and unenlightened world around them, at that time, and at any time. Our own civilized society still has much to learn about how to treat the poor, immigrants, the mentally ill, the elderly, or those who just do not fit in no matter how hard they try. Those who support them and fight for them deserve our help and praise, not our criticism and ridicule.