Do You Act Different When the Boss is Around?

ChimpSimp

I have had many different types of jobs in many different fields, but there is one thing that remained consistent from job to job. The manager always acted all brand new when his boss showed up.

Suddenly, procedures we had been following at the managers request were “wrong” and the manager admonished us for doing things that way. Suddenly, the manager was deeply concerned about the fine details of the business. Suddenly, we weren’t moving fast enough, nothing was clean enough, we weren’t smiling hard enough or greeting customers enthusiastically enough.

Every time I see this, it makes me nauseous. A manager is supposed to be a leader. A leader who does things half-assed until the Boss comes around is no leader at all. They should be setting an example for their team to follow at all times. So much so, that their team follows their exemplary lead even when they aren’t around.

So, I ask you, do you act different when the boss is around, or do you uphold the same high standards and encourage your co-workers to do so even when the boss is away?

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15 Things You Can Do Right Now to Help Stop Climate Change

Stopping global climate change when it comes to the individual simply boils down to going green. Any actions you can take that help prevent greenhouse gas emissions, physical waste, and wasted energy will help. Going green is really not as annoying as you might think and you don’t have to take things overboard to make a difference. Here are 15 things you can do immediately to go a little green and help fight climate change:

1. Shave some points of your thermostat.

Set your thermostat a few degrees colder in winter and a few degrees warmer in summer. You probably won’t notice the difference, but you’ll save money and reduce energy consumption.

2. Unplug your appliances when not in use.

These days, off doesn’t really mean off. Standby mode wastes energy.

3. Switch your laptop from using Standby mode to just Hibernate.

Again, standby mode still wastes energy. Hibernate might take a few extra seconds to recover from, but it’s worth it.

4. Get a new monitor.

If you’re still using big hot and heavy CRT monitors, step into the new millennium and get yourself an LCD. How often do you get to buy new stuff and save mother earth at the same time?

5. Work from home.

Not only do people who work from home get more work done on average, but you’ll be saving energy and avoiding the stress of a commute. Plus, you’ll avoid needless interruptions from your co-workers.

6. Kill paper bills and junk mail.

There are very few instances where you can’t get your bill in electronic format and save paper. No, you don’t actually need a paper copy. They’re just taking up space and killing trees.

7. Stop drinking bottled water.

This is a pet peeve of mine. The entire bottled water industry is a scam in plain site. Get yourself a water filter for your home and buy a reusable aluminum bottle to carry around with you.

8. Maintain your computer.

If you keep your computer maintained, up-to-date, and purring like a kitten, it will last longer. The longer you can hold onto the same computer, the more you can help the environment.

9. Borrow stuff instead of buying it.

I know many that read this blog are book hoarders, but are you really going to ever read that new Stephen King again? Even if you are, why not just borrow it from your local library when the mood strikes? It’s great to own stuff, but it saves the environment if you just borrow stuff instead.

10. Turn off the coffee maker.

Nobody is going to drink that last sip of coffee left in the pot, so keeping the warmer on is just wasting energy. Not only that, but you could end up ruining a perfectly good carafe.

11. Turn off those lights.

Instead of relying on lamps and bulbs, open your blinds and curtains. Take advantage of natural lighting. It saves energy, reduces waste, and makes you a happier person (true story).

12. Park the car.

Avoid the drive-thru like the plague. The EPA estimates that if one million drivers turned off their cars, rather than idled unnecessarily, for just two minutes per week for an entire year, pollutants would be reduced by more than 750 tons.

13. Be a vegetarian.

Not all the time, but even having one meal per week where you don’t include any meat can have a positive effect. Meat consumption is responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. While this will not effect my love for steak, it might be nice to dig into some veggies every once in a while.

14. Shorten your shower.

Either that or take a cold one. Using hot water wastes a lot of energy, so take the opportunity to save it whenever you can. It doesn’t really take that long to wash yourself, does it?

15. Wash your clothes in cold water.

Not only will this prevent your colors from running, but it also helps save hot water and there are even detergents that work better specifically in cold water.

Microsoft Project 2010: Best Tool for the Job?

Microsoft project has come a long way since 1987. From primarily desktop-oriented scheduling software, to a more diverse set of PC and web-based tools for groups, teams, and companies. Microsoft Project 2010 is being touted as the biggest release of Project in a decade. There are 4 basic areas that have been enhanced to provide a better user experience and to make Microsoft Project 2010 a more useful solution.

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Simple and Intuitive User Experience

  • Project Professional and Project Server both use the Fluent User Interface (aka Ribbon), based on Microsoft Office. This helps users discover new tools relevant to what they’re doing at the moment.
  • Intuitive Excel-like behavior adds the ease-of-use of Excel to the power of Project’s scheduling engine.
  • Powerful new views like the Timeline View and Team Planner.
  • Web-based project editing brings the power of Project to the web.

Enhanced Collaboration and Reporting

  • Built on SharePoint Server 2010 to bring the power of SharePoint’s business collaboration platform with Project’s advanced portfolio management. It also shares the same interface as SharePoint.
  • Easily create reports and dashboards on the fly.
  • Better time and status reporting.
  • Connect teams with SharePoint Sync to allow two-way round-trip synchronization of tasks and schedules. This allows team members to update their status on SharePoint and stay more connected as a team.

Unified Project ad Portfolio Management

  • Common experience across full PPM lifecycle, including centralized administration.
  • Flexible project capture and initiation so that organizations can also capture work that may not be part of a project yet.
  • Enhance governance through workflow.
  • Powerful portfolio selection analytics.

Scalable and Connected Platform

    • Extended interoperability with other Microsoft products like Exchange Server so that team members can report status directly from Outlook, for example.
    • Simplified Administration.
    • Rich Platform Services make it easier to connect with 3rd-party products.
    • Enhanced Developer Productivity through integration with Visual Studio.

 

 

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Microsoft Project 2010 builds on the Microsoft Office Project 2007 foundation with flexible work management solutions and the right collaboration tools for occasional and professional project managers, and includes a pathway to more advanced project and portfolio management capabilities as business needs evolve.

The project management market is still growing despite the recession. Microsoft Project 2010 seems to be coming at the right time, many people will be able to download cheap Microsoft office. Project management software can help an organization become more profitable by giving them an idea of where they might be wasting resources. It’s also easier to see what areas are lagging and serves to increase individual productivity. With it’s enhanced user interface and tight integration with other Microsoft products, it will be interesting to see what effect this new release will have on existing web-based project management solutions.

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Antidisestablishmentarianism

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