I was writing an email this morning with the phrase “smart, motivated team players” but I misspelled it as “smart, moticated team players.” Outlook’s spell check suggested three possible corrections: motivated, medicated and masticated. We’re chewing ’em up and spitting ’em out! Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Work
Overheard
“I don’t understand what you’re saying but I believe that you have good intentions . . .” Read more →
Don’t Invite Me
If you invite me to a meeting, you’ll get my opinion. I’ll probably try to state it in a way that’s interesting and memorable — because I want you to remember it. Don’t confuse that with being frivolous though. I’m not pulling this stuff out of the air. It’s based on decades of knowledge and experience. If you’ve already decided what you want to do no matter what I say, don’t invite me to the meeting. If you want me to agree that something is a good idea when I don’t think it is, don’t invite me to the meeting. Thus spoke The Programmer. Read more →
The Work is Its Own Reward
To make this point to my team members, I rip my pay envelope in half in front of them. Thank god for direct deposit . . . Read more →
“. . . and Managers”
Rumor Has It
Hard Knocks
— And that concludes my presentation. — It all sounds a bit “academic” to me. — It would be if the School of Hard Knocks were a fully accredited institution of learning. Read more →
Conditions
What actions you take, you believe in. What commitments you make, you keep. What resources you have, you use. What words you say, you believe to be true. What you create, you intend to be great. — Jim and Michele McCarthy Read more →
The Value is in the Struggle
I think it is very definitely worth the struggle to try and do first-class work because the truth is, the value is in the struggle more than it is in the result. The struggle to make something of yourself seems to be worthwhile in itself. — Richard Hamming Read more →
The Important Problems of Your Field
Over on the other side of the dining hall was a chemistry table. I had worked with one of the fellows, Dave McCall . . . I went over and said, “Do you mind if I join you?” They can’t say no, so I started eating with them for a while. And I started asking, “What are the important problems of your field?” And after a week or so, “What important problems are you working on?” And after some more time I came in one day and said, “If what you are doing is not important, and if you don’t think it is going to lead to something important, why are you at Bell Labs working on it?” I wasn’t welcomed after that; I had to find somebody else to eat with! That was in the spring. In the fall, Dave McCall stopped me in the hall and said, “Hamming,… Read more →
You Have to Neglect Things
Given two people with exactly the same ability, the one person who manages day in and day out to get in one more hour of thinking will be tremendously more productive over a lifetime. . . . I spent a good deal more of my time for some years trying to work a bit harder and I found, in fact, I could get more work done. I don’t like to say it in front of my wife, but I did sort of neglect her sometimes; I needed to study. You have to neglect things if you intend to get what you want done. There’s no question about this. — Richard Hamming Related Articles Did Mozart Play Kickball (eppsnet.com) 10,000 Hours + Courage == Greatness (podly.tv) Read more →
I Would Like to Do First-Class Work
I have to get you to drop modesty and say to yourself, “Yes, I would like to do first-class work.” Our society frowns on people who set out to do really good work. You’re not supposed to; luck is supposed to descend on you and you do great things by chance. Well, that’s a kind of dumb thing to say. I say, why shouldn’t you set out to do something significant. You don’t have to tell other people, but shouldn’t you say to yourself, “Yes, I would like to do something significant.” — Richard Hamming Read more →
Overheard at the Office
Why People Don’t Succeed
In summary, I claim that some of the reasons why so many people who have greatness within their grasp don’t succeed are: they don’t work on important problems, they don’t become emotionally involved, they don’t try and change what is difficult to some other situation which is easily done but is still important, and they keep giving themselves alibis why they don’t. They keep saying that it is a matter of luck. — Richard Hamming Read more →
Regrets of the Dying
I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. I wish I didn’t work so hard. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. I wish that I had let myself be happier. — Top Five Regrets of the Dying Read more →
Stat of the Day
Nearly 60% of the teenage readers of an online men’s magazine say they would punch a coworker in the face if they could get away with it, and nearly 40% would do the same to their bosses. The magazine, AskMen.com, says the number of positive responses to those statements declines steadily with respondents’ age, dropping to about 20% for readers 50 and older. — Male Teens Ready to Punch Coworkers – The Daily Stat – August 6, 2010 – Harvard Business Review Read more →