Wednesday is hump day — even when it comes at the end of the year. And “hump day”, of course, only exists because of our need to work work work. Today, let’s look at some stories about the world of employment…
The commas that cost companies millions. [BBC Worklife] — “How much can a misplaced comma cost you? If you’re texting a loved one or dashing off an email to a colleague, the cost of misplacing a piece of punctuation will be – at worst – a red face and a minor mix-up. But for some, contentious commas can be a path to the poor house. A dairy company in the US city of Portland, Maine settled a court case for $5m earlier this year because of a missing comma.”
Slack is the right tool for the wrong way to work. [The New Yorker] — “For teams straining under e-mail’s shortcomings, Slack arrived like a digital analgesic, curing multiple pain points all at once. This palliative effect propelled Slack toward its astronomical valuation just six years later. The problem with this trajectory is that no one stopped to ask if it made sense to optimize this style of work in the first place.”
The data-driven case for vacation. [Harvard Business Review] — “Over the past three years, we have partnered with the U.S. Travel Association to more clearly understand the relationship between well-being and taking time off from work. Our hypothesis has been that without recovery periods, our ability to continue performing at high levels diminishes significantly. This is in direct conflict with the common misconception that the longer you persevere at work, the more successful you will become.”
Sorry. No video today. I didn’t find anything worth sharing. That’s pretty rare! Maybe you all should send me something cool that you’ve watched recently.