Fred Sandsmark's Blog

When I tell people that I work at home, a common reaction is a sort of swooning: Oh, that must be nice, they say. Yes and no; I like setting my own hours and not having a commute, but I sometimes miss having colleagues whom I see regularly.

But perhaps I shouldn't long for coworkers after all. A survey (sponsored, almost inexplicably, by some mysterious Hormel lunch product), showed that 51 percent of surveyed workers identified their coworkers, and not the work itself, as the number one source of on-the-job stress.

Other findings:

Your Desk Is The New Water Cooler. A majority of office workers in America can’t get away from office gossip because most of it takes place right at their desk or a co-worker’s desk (53 percent), rather thansomewhere outside their workspace such as the water cooler (just 2 percent) or the kitchen or lunch room (22 percent).

Catchphrases That Drive You Crazy. The top three clichés that drive office workers nuts? “Think outside the box” (22 percent), “Team Player” (20 percent), and “Shoot me an email” (19 percent).

Flattery Doesn’t Get You Everywhere. Brownnosers are a major office offender. Among office workers familiar with NBC’s “The Office,” the character they’d least like to get stuck in an elevator with is irritating brownnoser Dwight Schrute, played by actor Rainn Wilson (27 percent).

A Lack of Long-Lasting Lunches. Unfortunately, many office workers just aren’t satisfied by their desktop dining: nearly half (46 percent) say they feel hungry again within just three hours of their midday meal.

Ah ha! That last point shows why a lunch-meat company sponsored the study. Another lunch-related data point from the survey: Nearly half of Americans who work in an office eat lunch at their desk at least three times a week.

The results don't strike me as all that surprising. What does surprise me is the casual use of the word "brownnoser" in the press release. Did the Hormel PR folks think at all about its origin? Then again, Houghton Mifflin on dictionary.com (linked above) says "Despite its scatological origin, today this slangy term is not considered particularly vulgar."

Labels: marketing, surveys, words, work, writing

I've looked at my fair share of brain MRIs and even played with OsiriX. Turns out I'm not the only person who finds neuroscience and brain imaging compelling.

A study, blogged about at Cognitive Daily, says that brain images make science articles more compelling to readers.

Not long ago we discussed work led by Deena Skolnick Weisberg showing that most people are more impressed by neuroscience explanations of psychological phenomena than plain-old psychology explanations. Talking about brains, it seems, is more convincing than simply talking about behavior, even when the neuroscience explanation doesn't actually add any substantive details.

The article's interesting and compelling. The comments are also worth reading; get ready for the advent of neuromarketing.

Labels: language, marketing, neuroscience, psychology, science

The San Francisco Chronicle has an article today by Charles Burress about one of Seyed Alavi's public art installations -- specifically, the traffic-signal boxes in Emeryville. The photos are worth checking out, too. As commenters on the article have pointed out, the work isn't new, but nevertheless I'm pleased to see it get some attention.

I'm very happy to own one of Alavi's "Aquamano" prints, called "Loon Song."

Labels: art, friends, people

The Washington Post has an informative article on Senator Kennedy's surgery. My thoughts:

First, I'm not surprised that the Senator went to Duke, and Dr. Allan Friedman, for his surgery. I predicted to a friend that he would either see Dr. Friedman, Keith Black at Cedars Sinai, or Mitchel Berger at UCSF (Jane's surgeon). These three are probably the top guns in deep brain tumor surgery in the US.

Second, I'm not surprised that the Senator was talking and feeling good after the surgery. Done well, brain surgery is surprisingly easy on a patient. There aren't any nerves in the brain -- just in the scalp -- so there's not a lot of pain associated. The biggest worry is swelling, and this will likely be approached with fluid restriction for a day or two and Dexamethasone (the hated Decadron).

Third, it's interesting to note that the Senator is planning to do both chemotherapy and radiation therapy. This is an aggressive path, and good for him. The latest treatment mode seems to be to take Temodar (an oral chemotherapy) concurrently with 3D Conformal radiation therapy. They'll likely radiate a 1-centimeter buffer area around the tumor resection cavity (the hole where the tumor was) to try to zap as many stray tumor cells as possible. That is, if it was a good resection. If there were parts of the tumor that couldn't be safely removed surgically, they may try to extend the radiation therapy into those areas.

Last, the Post article makes the point that the Senator's tumor type is not yet known. As I noted in the earlier post, "malignant glioma" is a generic term. I'm curious whether the specific tumor type will be released to the public.

One postscript: is disheartening to see the vitriol spilled in the comments section on the Post's article about Senator Kennedy's affliction. It's one thing to disagree with a person's political point of view; it's quite another to wish a person ill in such an awful, vicious way. I wonder how people who write such things can look themselves in the mirror. I hope they never get ill and have to face such hatred on top of their health challenges.

Labels: brain tumor, health, Jane, media, medicine, politics, science