Work Value

In 1965, U.S. CEOs at major companies made 24 times a worker's pay -- by 2004, CEOs earned 431 times the pay of an average worker. From 1995 to 2005, average CEO pay increased five times faster than that of average workers. While CEO pay continues to increase at rates far exceeding inflation, wages for the vast majority of American workers have failed to keep up with rising prices. In fact, real wages for the 90% of Americans who earn under $92,000 a year have actually fallen since 2001.

A Changing World

Food for thought:

Clergy work satisfaction

This study concludes that clergy are the happiest and most satisfied workers in the USA. I'm not sure how this tallies with statistics on clergy burnout, and with the number of ex-clergy now in other professions. Christian ministry can be the most difficult and frustrating of all callings... at the end of the day, how does one measure or evaluate one's work? At the same time, it can also be the most fulfilling of all callings.

Education and the Future of Technology

Shift happens... what does this do to the world we know?

Eco-friendly paper planes

Build your own prototype here.
And they don't hit your neighbour... although that might be half the fun!

Need a Day Off?

Some unusual and little known holidays can be found!

A stress-free career?

New Scientist offers six steps to a stress-free career - a wonderful ideal at first glance, but hardly achievable, or even desireable as a goal. First let me give you the six steps:

1. Create a good space
2. Raise your status
3. Be social
4. Don't be too social
5. Learn to switch off
6. Modern stress-busting (activities to dissipate stress and its effects)
   

The ideal of a stress-free utopia is an empty myth - it is stress which is at the heart of growth. The problem is not stress itself, but unmanaged stress and ignored stress. It goes to the heart of suffering and its place in our personal growth. Meeting new challenges, finding ourselves testing new resources, building stronger networks and relationships... all emerge from response to stress as we learn and adopt new coping mechanisms.

It is part of our nature to hold to goals and ideals which are beyond us, which call us forward into a better future. This is the nature of hope - to keep us dissatisfied with what is so that we work to create what can be.

Certainly the advice in the article is helpful, but its premise needs to be questioned.