Undercover Boss - Fact of Fiction?

Is anyone else watching this show?  I'm curious what people think about how this show is portraying CEOs.  I think it is fascinating to witness how out of touch they seem to be with their front line employees. 

I personally believe that every CEO of every major business should try this experiment.  I keep going back to the one episode with the CEO of Waste Management when he realized that his truck drivers had to pee in a can because there wasn't any time to stop and use the restroom during their routes.  He apparently went back to his office and added a new corporate policy that added restroom breaks (and a stop with a restroom) to all of their routes.  He said it made him realize how every decision he makes affects his people in the front line.

There was another CEO who learned that one of his General Managers of one of his stores was not following company guidelines for treatment of his employees.  He was behaving in some extremely distasteful ways.  I was hoping that he would be fired, but instead, a little "talking to" from the CEO seemed to do the trick and change his attitude and behavior.  Who knows if that will continue to be the case.  I wonder if all employees across his organization now feel like they are better able to complain about managers like these.  I wonder if everyone feels like they Matter.  I think that this is very important to anyone who works anywhere and has boss who has a boss who has a boss (or even if you just have one boss).

Do others that watch this show agree?  Or do you think that this is an uncharacteristic portrayal of CEOs in the U.S.?

Am I Expecting Too Much Part 2

Lisa posed an interesting question in response to my previous blog: Am I Expecting Too Much .  Her question was, "Will technology ever be able to keep up with our expectations again?"

To me this is a fascinating topic because I can remember even when I was 13 years old wondering why the paper map at Sea World couldn't tell me where I was located and how to get to the Dolphins.  I didn't know it at the time, but I wanted a GPS!  Then again just last night, when I couldn't fall asleep because my mind didn't seem to want to shut off, I thought of something else. 

Every night I make sure and have my BB right next to me, just in front of my large alarm clock with giant numbers.  However, I never use my alarm clock anymore because sometimes the sound is turned down, or the power has gone out and so the time is not set correctly, and then it doesn't go off!  I have come to rely on my Blackberry to be my alarm clock.  Interstingly, my husband has done the exact same thing with his phone.  So last night I wondered, why hasn't someone invented an application and a docking station where you can lay your phone on it's side (tilted up so you can see the screen) and have a huge clock lit up so that when you wake up in the middle of the night you can see what time it is without having to lift up your phone and hit a button?  I realized that the only reason I have an alarm clock, is to see the time!  What a waste of space on my night stand.

I think I want my mobile phone to do absolutely everything now.  One of these days our phones are going to project touch screen images onto tables or other flat surfaces and we won't even need tiny laptops to carry around anymore.  Think about how this would change the way people work and travel?  When our phones are our ipods, our alarm clocks, our GPS systems, and our computers.

Just for Fun

I got this link from a friend and couldn't resist reposting it on here for everyone.  It's just BRILLIANT!  Enjoy. 

Animator vs. Animation

Am I Expecting Too Much

Years ago, I decided that I needed to lose some weight, but for some reason it just wasn’t happening. We’ve all been there right? Well, I was having this conversation with my best friend, who decided (after I told her everything I was eating and drinking) that I could lose 15 pounds in record time if I followed her plan. Her plan was simple. Limit caloric intake, increase protein, track nutrients, exercise, and last but not least, no alcohol. Yikes. I was resistant at first, but decided I would do whatever she told me to do in order to achieve my goal weight by my deadline (I had a very important event that I wanted to look fabulous for).

She sent me her Food Log spreadsheet to track my food intake. This spreadsheet calculated the total amount of calories for each food item entered based on the amount of Fat, Protein, and Carbohydrates. Additional, for each day, it calculated what percentage of total calories eaten that day came from Fat, Protein, and Carbs. I also had a place to enter how much water I had drank that day, the type of exercise, and the number of calories burned. This is when I fell in love with my first favorite health tool, the heart rate monitor. I love how it tells me how much time I’ve spent in my “target zone” and how many calories I’ve burned in a particular workout. I need to see those tangible numbers so that I can compare workouts and see the progress I’m making. It motivates me to work harder when I look down and see that my heart rate isn’t quite as high as it has been in previous workouts. I also use it as a guide to know when to stop if I’m having a sluggish day. I say to myself, “just keep going until you’ve burned at least 300 calories and then you can stop.” I don’t know how people work out without one. But I digress (that’s for you John).

I followed the plan and sure enough, I looked better than ever for my event. Now, once again, I find myself in a similar position, needing to lose some weight. The only difference is that there is no special event or deadline. Just the need to fit into an entire closet full of clothes that are currently too small. This time, however, I decided I was going to try to use one of the many new mobile applications to track my food intake in order to make things easier on myself (I wouldn’t have to search for caloric information of foods online and then manually type them in, I could simply search large databases of foods). I got this idea as I saw my best friend (yes, the same best friend from before) type in her lunch into her nifty new iPhone app. I don’t own an iPhone, however, so I decided to do a little research into the Blackberry apps out there which claim to do the same thing. I downloaded several apps to my phone only to me extremely disappointed. Either they didn’t track protein (ahem…Mr. Armstrong), or they weren’t able to find simple foods in their database (in other words not making my life any easier), or they didn’t track exercise (I wanted it all in one application), or they were simply too complicated to use.

After several trials, I realized I would not be able to track my progress on my phone (at least not with all of the information that I wanted to track). I began to wonder if I was expecting too much from my mobile device! I even considered switching to an iPhone, but I just don’t think I could get past the service coverage issues and the onscreen keyboard. Plus, to be honest, I wasn’t certain (and still don’t really know) that the iPhone app would live up to my high expectations.

So, I dug up my trusty old spreadsheet and started tracking. That’s when I remembered my best friend mentioned an internet website that she had either used or was aware of that did a rather good job of tracking foods and exercise. Since I was already doing this on my computer anyway, I decided to go check it out. That’s when I fell in love with my new favorite health tool: www.sparkpeople.com. This application has it all. It is so easy to use and you can copy entries from one day to another. It has been able to find absolutely everything that I’ve thrown it’s way (including brown rice crackers and almond butter!), it tracks exercise and even automatically estimates calories burned based on exercise entered (or you can manually enter your own), and it has several different types of reports that you can see (which I absolutely love because I can see pie charts, tables, line graphs tracking my progress over time, and even net calories per day). I am absolutely addicted and I’ve already lost 6 pounds. I was so excited about my new discovery!

Then I saw that my husband was entering the meal we just ate into his new Android phone, and I began to ask questions about his app and watched him enter and search for foods. To my amazement, the app he was using was the one that I wanted to download to my BB originally but discovered it was not compatible with my BB. It seems to do most of what I want, but not quite everything. It is the closest thing out there, however, and if it were available on my phone I would definitely be using it (it is light years better than the other apps available for BB).

My only question now is…when will there be a mobile version of SparkPeople that I can use on my phone?  Am I really expecting too much from my mobile phone?

The Perfect Egg

Isn't it amazing how sometimes the simplest things in life can make you so happy?  I think that I have finally mastered the art of making hard boiled eggs that are easy to peel and taste great.  Sounds simple right?  Wrong!  If you google this simple task, you will see countless of websites and youtube videos on how to make the perfect eggs.  I've tried most of these things (including the "blow the egg through the hole" method to try to deshell the egg without all the mess).  Somehow, my very first batch of eggs a few weeks ago were perfect!  Then the next batch was absolutely horrible (and it included some of the eggs from the first carton so it wasn't the difference in the eggs themselves).  I must have peeled off half of the egg white when peeling the egg.  For the third batch, I did more research online and added baking soda to the water.  I did not do much better than the second batch.  "What is going on here?" I thought.

Then I decided to email a couple of friends of mine who I know have made several dozen batches of hard boiled eggs to see if they had any tricks up their sleeves.  One of them sent me the recipe from America's Test Kitchen and gave me the additional advice to continue to boil my eggs/water for an entire minute before removing from the heat to compensate for the altitude (I live in Denver, CO).  I had read on another forum to boil for an additional minute as well (although it had nothing to do with altitude) so I figured there was definitely something to this tip.  She also pointed out that older eggs are easier to peel than newer eggs (another tidbit that I had read in other forums as well).  Because of this second tip, I made a trip to the grocery store in search of eggs.  I stood in front of all the different organic, cage-free eggs and compared all the dates on the sides of the cartons.  The dates ranged from "Sell-by Jan 28" to "Sell-by Feb 7th."  I picked up 3-dozen eggs with the oldest date (Jan 28 - only three days later from the date of purchase).

I went home and to my surprise, the carton of eggs I had in my fridge had a sell-by date of Feb. 4th.  Hmmm.

I asked my friend if she added salt or baking soda (more tips and tricks I found online) to her water and she said that she did not.  No need, it's all gimmicks.  My other friend emailed me back and had a completely different method to his eggs, and he claims that he never had any problems peeling his eggs (I'll post his recipe at the end for those of you who want to try it - as for me, I'm not messing with my winning recipe).

So there I was, ready to begin making my next batch of hard boiled eggs, and hoping that America's Test Kitchen and my friend wouldn't steer me wrong.  I was striving for perfection!  But here's the thing...I couldn't let go of the fact that I had put salt in the water for my first batch that came out perfect.  So, even though the recipe didn't call for it, I had to add salt.  I just had to!  (I have since googled and learned that adding salt to water forces the solution to reach an increased temperature before the solution begins to boil; in other words, the water has to reach a higher temperature before it starts boiling.  Go here to read all about it: Salt and the Boiling Point of Water)

Here is my final and winning recipe:

1. Put a single layer of eggs in the bottom of the pan (check; I use a huge soup pot and boil approx 10-15 eggs at a time)
2. Fill the pan with cold water so that it covers the eggs by 1-inch (check; except I think I actually use closer to 1 1/2 inches or even 2 inches of water)
3. Add about 1/8 cup of salt (remember, I use a huge pot so adjust salt amount to size of your pot and amount of water)
4. Bring the water/solution to a full boil (not that wimpy initial boil) and then set the timer for 60 seconds
5. Cover the pot and remove from the stove
6. Let sit covered for 10 minutes (not 15!!  My cookbook said 15, The Joy of Cooking says 15 and it even says to add 2 minutes for eggs that are not room temperature which mine never are).
7. While the eggs are sitting in the pot, prepare a larg bowl full of cold water and lots of ice (an ice bath)
8. When the timer goes off (yes, I use a timer otherwise I lose track of time) remove the eggs from the hot water and place in the ice bath for 5 minutes (I used to let them sit in this ice bath for much longer, but now I remove them after exactly 5 minutes)
9. To peel it, crack the egg gently all around the entire egg, then find a good spot (it doesn't have to be the top or the bottom if this recipe works as it should) and start peeling from there
• My friend recommends peeling under cool running water (this does help but I worry about egg shells going down my drain so I just peel over the trash can - this recipe is so fabulous I don't even need the running water).

Voila!  There it is. 

I have no idea what, in particular, about my winning recipe makes it work. In fact, I've already made another batch, just to be certain that it wasn't a fluke and I noticed a minor difference but I actually slightly altered a few things.  First, my water wasn't cold, it was closer to warm (I think this may not be a good idea because you want the "time" factor of the water warming up while cooking the eggs in the process - i say this because the eggs were just BARELY undercooked in the center).  Second, I cooked 15 eggs instead of 11 (not sure if this makes a difference or not).  I was still able to peel the egg without tearing off any whites, but it was just a tad stickier (the shell in the batch above practically flaked off).  So, my next batch will consist of cold water and 15 eggs to see if the temperature of the water made a difference.  And then I'll go from there! 

Maybe when I have more time and nothing to do, I'll conduct a true experiment (with a couple of eggs at a time) only changing one thing at a time and seeing how it affects the final result. First I'll have a control group (2 eggs made the way described above).  My first experimental group (Exp A) will be a batch with no salt.  Next will be a batch with not letting the water boil for an extra minute (with and without salt, so this is technically 2 diff experimental groups: Exp B & Exp C), and finally one with leaving the eggs in the ice bath for longer than 5 minutes (done the tradional method: Exp C).  I promise to report back if I conduct my experiment (I can't help it, I'm a scientist).

Unfortunately I must add a disclaimer.  Just like I had to add a minute to my boil in order to compensate for the altitude, it's likely most of you reading this won't need to do that.  You might also need to adjust the boil or sit in pot time up or down by a minute or two depending on your stove and altitude. 

America's Test Kitchen - you guys are the BOMB.  This is not the first time a friend has referred me to them for the best recipe for something.  When I cracked my first egg from that winning recipe, I had a hard boiled egg in one hand, a massive grin on my face, and I swear the Hallelujah Chorus was blaring in the background. It was magical.

Introverts do not need to be cured

I recently read the following quote online from an ex-teacher, Carol Fertig, who wrote a blog on The Gifted Introvert:

"Many teachers (and parents) are extroverts. It is very difficult for an extrovert to understand an introvert. Therefore, an adult may see the introverted student as someone with a problem, not as simply someone with a different personality type. This may lead to attempts to get the young person to be “friendlier,” to work in large groups, to talk more often and more spontaneously, and to be more outgoing and interactive.
There is nothing wrong with being an introvert. It does not need to be cured. It simply needs to be understood and accepted."

It made me think, does this apply to organizations as well? The workplace is dominated by extroverts (according to her sources extroverts outweigh introverts 3 to 1) and research will tell you that extroverts are more successful and make more money. Could it be that we simply don't understand and accept introverts? Even for an extrovert like myself, a recurring "developmental area" for me has always been to walk around and talk to people more. Make conversation, build relationships. Seems I wasn't extroverted enough.

Maybe we can learn from this teacher. There is nothing wrong with being an introvert (or in my case not as much of an extrovert as they wanted me to be). It does not need to be cured. It simply needs to be understood and accepted. Anyone up for a team workshop on personality?

Brain Candy

So I went to a conference last week where the topic was Leading Edge of Selection and Assessment in a Global Setting.  I don't think I've ever gotten so much out of conference before in my entire life.  Not just in content and what was discussed, but in so many different respects.  I promise to write more about it but it is going to have to wait as other pressing matters are calling my name.  For now...the best way that I can describe those two days is "BRAIN CANDY."