How to be an Unhappy Employee

My wife and I were talking about long-term living options for our family. We recently took a trip back to the Chicago area in February, and we agreed that’s out.

We love our house and the church we go to. We love the weather in all but 2 months of the year, and the cost of living is right. There are two big problems: terrible public school system, and pollution. So I ask you, yes all 6 of you who actually read this, does anybody know of any efforts underway in AZ to clean up the pollution? If so what? I’ve looked at the usual suspects, but I can’t figure out what we are doing to clean up the air in this dust bowl.

Is it time for a green movement in AZ? Who’s with me?

Update: Here’s a movement by a previously successful clean-up advocate

A great question came up on my last post about ADD:

If a doctor/school psychologist/etc suggests that one of your kids might possibly have ADD, ADHD or something similar and would benefit from medication, how would you handle that?

First of all, as an ENTP I never say never, but I would try anything and everything to keep my children off of unnecessary medication. So what would I do? The first thing I would do is take a good hard look at what I am doing as a parent to contribute to the child’s issues. ADD is (arguably I admit) a learned behavior in most cases, either through modeling or rebellion. The best chance you have is to start with yourself. The primary care giver(s) have the most influence over the children. There is of course no exact science to raise the child you want. And truth be told, you shouldn’t try too hard to change the path of your children. But they do need to have balance, and you should attempt to teach your children self-awareness.

Secondly, look at their diet. Most children these days have diets that contain far too many unnatural chemicals, refined sugars, and hormones. These are altering our children’s physiology as well as psychology. I believe that you should eliminate refined sugars (white, brown, and worst of all high-fructose corn syrup), simple-flour carbs, and add more veggies at all costs. Moderation is important, don’t deny your kids a treat now and then that indulges them but by “now and then,” I mean as rarely as possible. If your kid doesn’t like veggies, get yourself a batch of Juice Plus + Children’s Gummies . Don’t let the smell of the veggie ones put you off. Most kids like them.

I encourage you to read the article Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, ADHD, has a simple cause: poor nutrition and food additives and do some research on your own. While sugar may have been proven to not have a cause/effect relationship with behavior, it does not disprove how our brains are affected by extended exposure.

I’ve recently found out some troubling news. It would seem that my inability to finish anything I start is ADD. More specifically Inattentive ADD. Well, at least according to those who believe in such things.

In retrospect, I’ve been easily distracted all my life really. I never got very good grades in anything that I didn’t have any interest in, and to my very forgiving (or forgeting) parents’ disappointment I never finished college. I couldn’t pay my bills on time (thank God for my wife) and I find reading anything longer than 50 words a chore.

Most of this sounds pretty standard of a lot of people, but the degree to which I suffer from this is greater than most. Although less than many.

Now, before you all RSVP to this pity party, I should tell you I don’t believe in ADD.

I realize that sounds crazy for someone who just admitted to suffering from it, and those “true” sufferers are probably mad at me for saying this. But in my opinion, ADD is the Valentine’s day of the psychological world, concocted by some conspiring industries to sell more drugs and/or increase patient loads.

Now I’m sure there are people who truly have problems. Problems that exhibit symptoms similar to the diagnosis of ADD, but the over-diagnosis of flakiness as mental illness is an epidemic that is lobotomizing our society.

A good friend of mine suffers from OCD, some level of bi-polar disease and Tourette’s syndrome. Oh yeah, and ADD. When I met him he was on medications for his condition(s). He stopped them a while back but his ticks have gotten worse recently as has his OCD. At the same time, his ADD has also seemed to worsen. Is this correlation or causation?

I would argue that it is correlation. There are many other contributing factors to one’s ability or inability to focus. A recent move to a new state, a surge of deadlines and responsibilities, financial pressures, and less physical activity have all contributed to his scattering his focus. Sometimes, some people are just more susceptible to succumb to the numbing nature of procrastination.

As an staunch advocate of the power of MBTI, I believe in the power of personality profiling. The key is to know yourself and be willing to take the good with the bad. Although that may not seem like the greatest advice ever given when you are working in a traditional work place. However, you have to find a way to make what you are work for you.

I ‘ll go out on a limb here and say that if you believe you have ADD, and you don’t know your MBTI, you are most likely an ENTP or an INTP. Look them up and read about them. One of those two descriptions will likely be eerily accurate.

From now on, I’m not going to refer to this condition as ADD. We’re going to start to call it more accurately, Attention Hyper-Focusing Tendency or AHFT. Because it is not an ability to give your undivided attention, it is a choice of where to give it. When I am engaged with something, I am 100% focused. I can think of little else. But I can stay focused on it to the detriment of other aspects of my life.

So, how do you live with being an ENTP/INTP with ADD AHFT? You have to know what you are good at. What interests you. What can you do that will compel you to perform at a high level. If you can know that, you will be happier, and so will your employer.

Sound easy? Unfortunately, it’s not. I struggle with it every day, but my new level of awareness has opened my eyes and helped me. I now know the benefits of my personality and AHFT make me a valuable asset and a unique addition to creative teams. And by knowing the pitfalls I can recognize them and implement some tricks to break the habits.

Some Highlights:

BestPartyEver.com – An online event planner
PrimeCondition.com – Cool workout tool to create custom “trainer” with voiceover and your own music (costs money to do your own music)
AmberAlert.com – No explanation necessary
Klawberry.com – Illustrated book
Viddler.com – Video site with timeline tagging and comments
DiggTaggr – Cool Digg suggested reading plug-in. Requires greasemonkey plug-in
Litepost.com – The Gmail killer – or so they say
Shoptivate.com – Cool Ajax search for online stores
Channelsurfr.com – Cable DVR for the web?

The web browsing experience was really taking a significant turn upwards on the usability scale as simplicity and focus became mainstays in the Web 2.0 (or whatever you like to call it) designer’s mantra. Sites like 37Signals.com’s suite of apps, Flickr, and WuFoo are good examples of a this. Sites that do one thing, very well, and without distraction. Even sites that are not so “form” heavy, and focused on function achieve a similar result (see del.icio.us, craigslist.com).

Gone are the days of blinking icons and wild flashy flash intros. And thanks to Browser developers, so are pop-up ads … or are they?

Snap, and more specifically their Snap Preview service might just be the blink tag and pop-up ad of today. There is nothing more frustrating than this involuntary interference. It’s like if every time you spoke someone screeched like a monkey over the top of you. And it would seem that site developers are flocking to institute this screeching monkey faster than ever. My question is … why? Why are people so interested in cluttering up their UE (user experience)?

Don’t get me wrong. I think Snap and their technology is fantastic. Only, like everything, it has it’s place. And I’ll give you a hint, it’s not every single link on your blog. The preview obscures content and in most cases links that may be the actual target of the user. A perfect example of this is Snap’s own site.

(Navigating from the top right of the window to click on the WordPress link, this is the result)

Notice how the preview completely gets in the way. Now you have to navigate off the link and around any other links to get to your destination.

Two pieces of advice (Free for all readers, no purchase necessary)

1. Do your users a favor and relegate this feature to thumbnails set off from the main content.
2. Never interfere with your users’ intent. They will post inane ramblings on their blogs that nobody will ever read. Or you might lose them as a reader.