Talk About Hating Your Job…

From the Seattle PI:

Woman accused of faking cancer to avoid work

ARLINGTON, Wash. — A former Washington state social worker has been accused of faking brain cancer to avoid work. Theft charges were filed Tuesday against Sandra Dee Martinez, 40, formerly of Mountlake Terrace, who was employed by the Department of Social and Health Services in Arlington.

According to investigators, Martinez presented fake letters that appeared to be from doctors saying she had malignant brain tumors. Prosecutors wrote that she received $21,000 worth of paid leave and took advantage of sick days donated by co-workers last year.

Success Is Relative (Especially When Relatives Determine Your Success)

In the past few years, there have been several high profile cases of cheating and plagiarism among young academics. In 2006, Kaavya Viswanathan, then a sophomore at Harvard University, was accused of including whole passages practically verbatim from another author in her first novel. Her book was eventually recalled by its publisher and her reputation as an author perhaps forever tarnished. This past April, Yale student Aliza Shvarts, admitted to faking the circumstances of her senior performance art project, a controversial first-hand account of her (faked) abortion.

What made these well-educated, high-achieving women desperate enough to risk their reputations for 15-minutes of fame?

Could it be a constant pressure to succeed from parents, professors, bosses and popular media?

A query into the Merriam-Webster dictionary shows the definition of success to be:

The attainment of wealth, favor, or eminence.

What troubles me about this definition is that it defines success through a third-party point of view. Gaining favor? Having superiority? These are all things subject to other people’s perceptions rather than a personal measure of fulfillment and meaning. This drive to succeed, to achieve based on someone else’s definition of success is wreaking havoc on our generation, a generation raised to believe that achievement is everything.

From a young age, most Millennials have been told they need to be “well-rounded.” College admission boards wants students who can “do-it-all,” so children are being pushed at younger and younger ages into soccer teams, ballet lessons, foreign-language classes and more with rarely a thought as to whether a child really enjoys the activity or not.

Could this pressure-cooker environment with its non-stop schedule of activities and constant competition be to blame for the rise in student cheating? Or the reason so many young people flunk out of college, go on wild drinking binges, and rack up mountains of debt before the age of 25?

Where did we all go so horribly wrong?

Brazen Careerist, Penelope Trunk, encourages readers to cut through the B.S. and think back to their happiest childhood memories to find their true passions:

Do you want to know what you should do right now? Do you want to know what your best bet is for your next career? Look at what you were doing when you were a kid. Nothing changes when you grow up except that you get clouded vision from thinking about what you SHOULD do — to be rich, or successful, or to please your parents or peers… the possibilities for should are endless.

By measuring your own personal success against the standards of others (not all of us can be Pulitzer-prize winning novelists or MVP athletes) you cloud your own path to true fulfillment and happiness. I recommend everyone read through Penelope’s post and take a few minutes to recall a favorite childhood memory and identify positive traits about your true self that you could be doing more to cultivate. You never know what you might be missing out on just because you never thought it important enough.

Finally! A Solution For Coffee-House Squatters Everywhere

A few months ago, the company I was working for decided to expand out of our cramped, smelly, rundown office in a quiet, but vibrant, north Seattle suburb, and moved its operations to a chic, upscale office space along Seattle’s downtown Waterfront.

While the new office brought about much needed space (I no longer sit crammed with 20 other people in a space roughly as large as my living room) and some nice perks (a nightly cleaning crew and floor-to-ceiling windows), it also doubled my commute time, introduced me to carpooling, and cost me about $80/month out-of-pocket for parking.

For months before the move-in I dreaded leaving behind our hip little neighborhood with its abundant restaurants, boutiques, and cheap bars. I also fretted about losing my free parking space and my 15-minute commute. I began to seriously consider proposing a work-from-home arrangement, just to avoid the hassle of becoming a downtown commuter. But even if I were able to get my boss to buy-off on telecommuting, I wasn’t sure I wanted to give up the camaraderie of an office.

Could I really trade water-cooler gossip, Friday afternoon happy hour, and company-sponsored lunches for quality time with my computer and two cats?

Right around this time I happened to stumble upon a feature about a new trend in office spaces called “Coworking.” Coworking refers to the relatively new practice of single workers or even very small companies with only a handful of employees renting shared office space with other individuals in similar situations.

Instead of enduring the isolation of a home office or guiltily sipping lattes while draining free Wi-Fi at a local coffee shop, freelancers or other telecommuters can rent inexpensive office space by the month (and sometimes the day) with full access not only to a range of office supplies and services, but also a community of other people just like themselves.

What I love about the coworking philosophy is that it (intentionally or not) values community. Businesses can offer a lot more than just productivity and profits. Good companies engage their employees as people and form a positive community for its workers.

The advent of telecommuting has provided benefit to both employees and employers alike, but even though computers and the Internet allow us to work anytime, from anywhere they cannot replicate the personal bonds formed with co-workers and clients or the sense of community and meaning derived from a sharing a physical space with other people.

I never did get my boss to agree to telecommuting, but I am still very excited about the whole coworking idea. I think it is a great way to maintain the freedom and flexibility of working from home, while still maintaining the comforts and companionship of an office environment. I would love to work for myself one day and when I do, I hope that there will be a coworking space out there for me.

For more information on coworking, check out the coworking blog, wiki, or visit the Coworking Institute, an organization dedicated to the movement.

Related Reading:

• We Shouldn’t Aspire To Work From Home