A good article: Ten jobs with the best work-life balance

Back in 2011, I wrote a post about the work-life balance in Norway  (https://paulamdeangelis.blogspot.no/2011/06/work-life-balance-in-norway.html). I made the point that the work-life balance in Norway, and in Scandinavia generally, is better than in the States, for so many reasons, and that is documented in numerous research articles that have studied the topic in depth. I grew up thinking that hard work got you to your goal, and I still think it does. But hard work is not the same as working overtime or working yourself to death. I see that I did not make that point completely clear in my original post. Hard work is not the same as being available to your employer at all hours, on weekends, and on holidays. My point is that it is possible to give what you need to give to your employer and still have a life outside of work. It is possible to work in a focused way for the seven to eight hours you work each day, and then to go home and close the door behind work. It should not make you feel important when your employer contacts you routinely late in the evening with questions and requests for meetings and such things. There may be periods in life when you need to work overtime or on weekends, but this should not be the norm, nor should employers expect this of their employees. Why Americans continue to believe that giving their all to employers is an admirable thing is confounding. Because when the time comes for companies to get rid of employees due to budget cuts, they don't discriminate nor do they waste time, and will do what they need to do regardless of how loyal employees have been or how much time employees have given to their employers. We've seen it time and again.

In that context, I found the following article quite interesting, and wanted to share it with you. It is a list of the ten jobs (US employers) with the best work-life balance. For young people looking to have a balance between work and life outside of work, I urge you to check it out.

https://www.clicktime.com/blog/10-jobs-with-the-best-work-life-balance/

Garden update May 2018

We are enjoying an unseasonably warm spring, with temperatures the past two weeks hovering around 80 degrees Fahrenheit. And it's been sunny as well. Perfect conditions for the garden. It just amazes me how fast a garden comes to life when all the conditions are right, especially after a long hard winter with a lot of snow. It's hard to believe that there was still snow on the ground on April 11th; most of the snow had melted in the garden by that point, but there were patches here and there.

The greenhouse has been invaluable in helping me get started this year. I started most of my seeds in mid-April, and all of them grew and did well in the greenhouse. I learned a lot about what the seedlings needed in terms of light and air. If I was there during the afternoon, I opened the window to let them have some air, but I kept the window closed at night when temperatures hovered around 40 degrees Fahrenheit. But as the sun has grown stronger and the days longer and warmer, I have kept the window open. All of the seedlings have done well, and I planted most of them this week. I will be growing tomatoes and gherkins in the greenhouse the entire summer, but I have also planted gherkins outdoors so that I can get an idea of what works for this part of the world and this part of the country.

I planted two different types of string beans this year, as well as two different types of pumpkins. One of my work colleagues is from Italy, and she is trying to get a hold of some seeds from pumpkins that are native to Italy. According to her, they are sweet pumpkins; I hope she will manage to get some seeds for me. Otherwise, I have planted different kinds of flowers this year--grape hyacinths, a peony plant, sweet rocket, sunflowers, hollyhocks, and plants that resemble hollyhocks. Last fall, I also planted two different types of tulips, and they have now bloomed and look lovely.

Here are some photos of the garden as of yesterday. Enjoy!

Two good songs--Hotline Bling and Why Can't We Live Together

I like a lot of Drake's music; Hotline Bling, from 2015 is another favorite. Ok, maybe the video isn't quite my style, but the song is. When I first heard the music, it reminded me of an old song from the 1970s called 'Why Can't We Live Together' by Timmy Thomas. When I explored this further, I found out that Drake sampled Timmy Thomas' song; I also found out that composers Drake and Nineteen85 acknowledged Thomas (who owns the music he wrote) in the credits on Hotline Bling.

Systemic organizational dishonesty

Modern workplaces are often characterized by their runaway bureaucracy and obsessive need for control and micromanagement of employees by the bureaucrats who have been given an immense amount of power. I don’t think it’s ever been as bad as it is now. We work for the bureaucrats, not the other way around. They were once there to serve us in capacities ranging from secretary to administrative assistant to middle-manager to accountant. They were once there to support their organization's important professional activities. Now it is the regular employees who serve the bureaucrats and who use massive amounts of time and effort trying to coddle them and their whims. Another reorganization for the umpteenth time during the past five years? No problem, we’re on it. We’re adjusting, changing, and evolving—all the time, 24/7. We’re flexible and adaptable. Our budgets are non-existent but hey, we’re smiling. We try our best to accommodate the administrative gurus over us in the system—the ones you never get to know until they decide to get to know you. And usually when they notice you, it won’t be a pleasant experience.

The more nameless and faceless bureaucrats there are, the more systemic dishonesty permeates a workplace. It's that nameless and faceless aspect that allows for it and even encourages it. When you know that you can never be taken for your bad behavior, procedures and routines, you help to construct and defend systemic dishonesty. It goes something like this--take a research institute as a typical example. A scientist receives funding from an external foundation for a project that he has designed, written and applied for. He receives said funding from this foundation. He is informed by email and letter that he has received this funding, and he contacts the accounting department to inform them that it needs to set up an account for him so that the money can be transferred from the foundation to this account so that he can use it to buy consumables for his research project. The money from the foundation is transferred into this newly-created account in mid-November. He looks forward to being able to use it once the new fiscal year starts. January arrives, and he starts to buy needed items for his research project. The orders are processed and he receives the items. April arrives and he suddenly receives a rude and aggressive email from the accounting department saying that his account is in the red and that he needs to cover the deficit with other funds (of which there are none because this is one of those scientists that modern workplaces consider to be non-existent and unimportant because they don’t drag in tons of funding). In other words, he owes his institute money. He checks this new account to make sure that he hasn’t overspent, and he hasn’t. He calls the accounting department, and finds out the following. The accounting department did set up an account for this money; but it was an account that couldn't be transferred into 2018, so as of January 1st, the money just 'disappeared'. The account was in other words zeroed out, and there was no way to find out what happened to the money (no possibility to track it). His institute used it for something else and will not inform the scientist what became of the money. Neither the foundation that granted the money nor the scientist whose money was taken from him understands this accounting practice. It is explained to the scientist in glowing terms—that this is something the accounting department must do to balance the budget. Of course the institute hasn’t stolen the money—it just got placed in another account, one that cannot be accessed by the scientist in question. The scientist continues to insist that this is an unethical practice—that this is stealing money from scientists. But the accounting department does not listen, nor does it care. These types of practices are built into an organization, and they facilitate the systemic dishonesty that I am talking about.

Every time a department or departments within an organization explain away bad behavior, unethical routines and processes, mobbing, harassment, and abuse of employees, they further systemic dishonesty. It grows like a vine, insinuating itself into all aspects of an organization. It is defended by the nameless and faceless bureaucrats who are unable to stand up to an unethical system, to call a spade a spade, and to fight to abolish this system. Such a system will destroy those who try to destroy it. That is almost a given.

But this scientist did not back down. He continued to call what the accounting department did, stealing. He told other scientists in his organization about what had happened. They called it stealing too. He threatened to report the entire incident to the foundation that had granted him the money. And then the accounting department woke up. They became alarmed. A rebel in their system. A resister. A potential destroyer of their carefully-built systemic dishonesty. A rabble-rouser who was going to force them to take responsibility, to be accountable for their behavior. That couldn’t be allowed. So they told this scientist that he couldn’t and shouldn’t contact this foundation, that it would have an unfortunate signal effect. They’re true diplomats when they need to be. The scientist replied that unless they gave him back his money, that he would make the report. And within a few hours, the accounting department caved. And suddenly they were pleasant and accommodating to this scientist. Willing to help him in whatever way they could when he needed to order items for his research. The scientist won this round, and systemic dishonesty lost one round. But the latter continues in the form of banal corruption, unethical practices, cushy seminars for administrative leaders, useless leadership courses, and a host of other useless and non-science related activities that don’t benefit ordinary employees in the least.

Systemically dishonest organizations are full of sycophants, liars, cheats, and unethical individuals. Their boardrooms contain cowards, blowhards, aggressors, harassers, and morally-relative individuals. These systemically-dishonest people envy others who are intellectually inspired by their work (because they themselves are not). They envy scientists who believe in putting their research first and themselves second, who believe in something good in this world. Systemically-dishonest people must destroy that which they cannot embrace or understand. They are the moral nihilists of this world.

Those immortal egotists

There are people in society generally who think they’re going to live forever. They don’t acknowledge that they’ve gotten older, or if they do, it’s always got to be at the expense of someone in their vicinity. As in, ‘yes, I know I’m 75 years old, but you’re getting old/older too’. It’s as though they can never accept that they are old and that the world is no longer their oyster. They also cannot accept that the younger generation is replacing them at work, nor do they want to facilitate this process in the slightest. They will be lying on their deathbeds protesting that they still have so much to do, that their work is so important, and that no one can take their place. Never have I heard one of them say that they are satisfied with their long careers and that it’s time to hand the torch to the younger generation. They grudgingly give up their cushy leadership positions, they resent that they cannot get funding past a certain age, and when they are hospitalized for a serious illness (true story for one person I knew, now deceased), they are already making travel plans to hold their next lecture in one or another foreign country. They refuse to acknowledge old age or infirmity. Mortality does not exist.

I am no age discriminator. I am happy for the past-retirement age people I know who are still happily working in my workplace. Most of them have made their peace with their age and their retirement, and work part-time helping out on different research projects where they can contribute with their expertise. Win-win for all involved. The people I’m talking about are the few retirees who think they still rule the roost and that everything revolves around them, their wishes, and their projects and ideas. The egotists, the great immortal scientists, who cannot accept defeat or the fact that the younger scientists are taking their places. If you are one of these people, you will get zero sympathy from me. Why? Because everything is about you, your career (mostly on ice), your 'promising' future, your next research project that’s going to make you a star. You are pissed that the rest of the world doesn’t see how great you are or how much you have to offer. It doesn’t matter that you don’t care about the rules and regulations that have grown up around the practice of science; no, you want to do science, and you want your students to do science, the ‘way you always did it. It worked for me. I don’t care about the rules and regulations, and neither should my students, because I said so.’

I have no problem with a lifelong intellectual interest in science; I see that I will also have it when I am old. But I have a big problem when your unlimited ego interferes with the lives and careers of students who depend on you to be a mature person, to let go of your ego and to put their lives and careers first. But no, the great almighty immortal egotistical scientists cannot do this. They cannot let go, because that would be tantamount to admitting they were old and mortal. They cannot see reason, they cannot be mature, they must throw tantrums when their wishes are hindered, and they must get their way. All in the name of what? What is it they are going to achieve now in their mid-70s? I don’t doubt that their contributions are still worthwhile. I do doubt that their contributions are going to lead to abundant funding for their immortal research projects. I think that the really good scientists in the world are those who can pass the torch to their students and to the younger generation, who are generous with help and praise, and who do not set up roadblocks every step of the way for the students they mentor. These are the non-egotists, and these are the scientists who will be immortalized by history.

Another good song, this time by Drake

Love this song by Drake......God's Plan.

Day 7 Favorite novel FB challenge

I remember how much I enjoyed reading Rebecca as a teenager. Daphne du Maurier wrote a classic novel of deception and suspense. As I reflect on some of my favorite novels, I realize that the theme of deception runs through many of them. It's how the main characters deal with being deceived that interested me as a teenager, and still interests me as an adult. I too have experienced deception; I was deceived early in my life by a man who professed to love me. Suffice it to say that I was not the only one he deceived, and that is often the case. Walter Scott said "Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive"; how correct he was. Rebecca is a story of misplaced loyalty, of jealousy, of envy, of evil. It may not be the darkest kind of evil, rather a more banal evil, but  nevertheless, it is evil, and the more you learn about Rebecca and her world, the more you understand that she thought nothing of manipulating and controlling those around her, including her husband, Maxim de Winter. I won't spoil the novel for you if you are planning on reading it; I will say that it is absolutely worth reading.

Day 6 Favorite novel FB challenge

Stanislaw Lem's book Solaris blew me away when I first read it. I remember thinking that the author could not have been of this world. He managed something so few other sci-fi writers manage; to write about another world as though he had been there to witness and experience it. It gives you a strange feeling when you read it; you understand in some uncanny way that the author had first-hand knowledge of this other planet. But how could he have? The story gets under your skin and doesn't leave you. I recommend the book, and also the 2002 film Solaris, directed by Steven Soderbergh, and starring George Clooney and Natascha McElhone. Like the book, the film also got under my skin. I've read the book twice and seen the film several times.

Day 5 Favorite novel FB challenge

What has always amazed me about this book is that a man who never married, wrote it. Henry James wrote a masterpiece about a young independent American woman, Isabel Archer, shackled by marriage to an egotistical and spiteful expat American man (Osmond) who did not love her, and who was involved with another woman (Madame Merle). Both of them conspire to defraud her of her large inheritance. She discovers this, but by the time she can do something about it, she has become attached to Osmond's daughter Pansy, and decides to stay in her dead marriage. James' description of a lifeless marriage, defined by deception, cynicism and infidelity, is spot on, surprisingly, since he himself never married. But he had lifelong friends of both sexes, in Europe and America. I would guess that he spent hours talking to them about many things, among them love and marriage. If you have not read this book, I recommend it highly.