work

Steven Heller talks with Stefan Sagmeister about taking year-long sabbaticals every 7 years [PDF]
Sounds like something designers with rich clients can do more feasibly than small company employees. Still, we need not reserve "retirement" for the retired.
Lighthearted guide for employees dealing with their managers
The manager's job is to make the employee's job easier and more productive.
Russell Davies reviews a dog-eared uncorrected proof copy of Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky
The book is subtitled The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. I think I'm largely already convinced of the book's apparent thesis, that large hierarchical organizations are stupider than small, flatter ones.
The mystery as to why there are so many people on the streeet during the daytime
Retired, on vacation, between jobs, sick day, not required at the office. Says one: "Face time isn't such a thing anymore. What people care about now is whether you get the work done."
In defense of waiting (and wasting time)
I don't mind waiting. That's why I bring a book wherever I go.
In Praise of Idleness
Bertrand Russell, writing on 1932, on the morality of work.

2008 New Year's Intentions

Three years ago, I posted my resolutions for New Years 2005, and updated two months in with my progress. This year, instead of resolving to do something, that is, committing to a change or continuation of something, I'll simply declare my intentions. That way I can be honest and won't feel bad about breaking a promise to myself. Regrettably, this isn't as clever as I thought it was before looking up the phrase 'new years intentions' in Google.

  • Start a savings and/or investment account and make regular deposits. Unexpected income used to go to debt. Now it will go to savings. I took a step towards this in December, and now with a real job, I can think more clearly about my retirement.
  • Fix Urban Vancouver.
  • Go on a real vacation where I don't check work email. At all. I even intend to write one of those very boring "I'm on vacation" autoresponder that everybody hates. I'm thinking a few days in Portland, then a few days on the Oregon Coast, with a day or two to document my adventure when I get back. I haven't decided when, but May or July look right.
  • Continue bookshelf sustainability. So far so good, though with Christmas came 4 books, meaning I must now give 4 away.
  • As a belated yet environmentally-friendly protest of TransLink's fare increase, I intend to bike to and from work each weekday for a month. I would buy a one zone pack of tickets and a two zone pack of tickets for trips elsewhere. How does buying fare tickets send a message to TransLink that fares are too high? It would save me—i.e. they would forgo—$50 (which would go straight to my savings account), and make me more fit. And I would save the tickets for later if I don't use them during the month. I'm thinking of doing this in March, and maybe make a meme out of it, that is, see how many people I can get joining me.
  • Take a full weekend and get rid of stuff in my closets. Spring cleaning, hoorah!
  • Write Christmas cards to my friends. I've set a reminder in November to do this.
  • Rediscover my sense of wonder.
  • More GlobalSat GPS logger tomfoolery. Richard Akerman reminded me in a comment to a photo of mine about his article GPS on a Plane and his subsequent article GPS on a Plane II. Transferring position data from the GlobalSat DG-100 unit is still more cumbersome than it needs to, involving a trip to Windows.
  • Dance again.
  • Learn to sing, mostly to harmonize with Radiohead songs. The only karaoke song I'll sing, however, is Eurythmics "Here Comes the Rain Again". Any others and you'll have to get me even more drunk.
  • "Accidentally" break the kit lens on my camera and replace it with something decent. Also: power through my frustration with this expensive hobby of mine, photography.

That's not an exhaustive list. Lists are rarely exhaustive. What do you intend to do in 2008?

Late risers lobbying for workplace recognition
Researchers have found that about one in four people carry the short version of the Period 3 gene, a physiological difference that delays their natural wake-up time by a couple of hours. By contrast, little more than one in 10 carry the early-bird form of the gene (the rest of the population falls somewhere in the middle).
Mobile Technology Use and Ubiquitous Availability: is agency work "professional"?
Sam Ladner on how mobile technology has blurred the line between work and private time, especially in interactive agencies. Almost everything she writes in the article applies to me.

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