Workaholics aren't good for business

I saw a job ad today titled "Workaholic wanted." I am seeing more of these types of ads where the demands of the job are rudely spelled out. I guess in a depressed job market employers don't feel they have to sugarcoat anything. The ads have a take-it-or-leave-it tone that border on threatening. And most of the employers who take this macho approach won't even bother to respond to your application if you don't sound willing to take a blood oath to work until you drop.

When the economy turns around, I wonder whether anyone will ever want to work for these places that treated people so badly during the tough times of this recession?

I think certain employers, who are sounding more like Southern plantation owners than modern-day business leaders, are shooting themselves in the foot with their total disrespect for the majority of people seeking employment. Advertising for a "workaholic" is like placing a help-wanted ad seeking emotionally unstable people. Anything with "aholic" tacked on to the end of the word is a sign of a potentially unbalanced human being who should not be in the workplace, let alone put at the top of the list of prized job candidates.

The person who placed this ad that I saw today should be removed from his or her job. It's that stupid, trite and shortsighted. There are plenty of better ways to state work-ethic requirements. If using the word workaholic is the best this ad-placer could come up, they shouldn't be involved in recruiting or any form of strategic thinking.

Employers who believe it's cute or effective to demand such traits in applicants will most likely end up with burned out employees in a very short period of time, or ones who move to the next job rather quickly. Ultimately, it does the bottom line little good to have a workforce filled with workaholics and high turnover. It doesn't spark innovation. It douses creativity. It causes illnesses (and lots of sick days) and eventually will eat away at the core of businesses. Look no further than the failing newspaper industry to see where buildings filled with underpaid workaholics lead.

There is a better way.

Instead of seeking workaholics, businesses (including newspapers) should hire smart, responsible folks with relatively healthy minds and grounded lives. People who can keep life, including work, in perspective. Spending 16 hours a day in a cubicle isn't a sign of a good employee. In fact, it's often a sign of someone who is either inefficient with their time or doesn't have the talent to work at a reasonable pace. It could also mean that that person is not functioning well in other areas of life, which can really come back to haunt an employer or colleagues of the workaholic.

Of course, there are times when long days are necessary. Emergency workers often have to push themselves to the brink for a greater good. But that shouldn't be the norm. I don't want a surgeon operating on me who has been working 18 hours straight. I don't want my pilot pulling a double shift.

Any business owner who thinks he or she has found gold in a workaholic is living in an antiquated world. They will create a business environment that produces results contrary to what they thought workaholics would bring to the table. Workaholics are often broken people with limited range and identity issues. It might look good to have a room filled with folks burning the midnight oil, but does it really produce positive results over the long run? Do these overworked employees have time to think, plan or form strategies that will improve business? I am a huge proponent of solid work ethics and living up to one's responsibilities, but I don't support the concept of a proving worth and character via the overtime sheets.

Google does it right. They don't advertise for workaholics. They are more enlightened than your average plantation owner from the 1800s and are a good model for the next decade. They don't go to the whip or find honor in burning out employees. They hire people based on the correct criteria and give them breathing room. That space and life-work balance helps inspire some pretty neat products. Those ideas and products keep the profits flowing and put certain companies, that keep trying to find workaholics, out of business.

Cheap thrills or getting stung?

A video clip accompanies the following caption on a web site called Asylum.com:

"We feel a bit guilty for laughing at this veteran reporter's unfortunate bee sting incident. Honestly though, is there anything quite as funny as seeing an old guy reel off a string of f-bombs?"

OK, so now a short clip of a TV reporter swatting a bee is news? It's funny, eh?

I stumbled upon this web site, caption and video because it was one of the "news" items being promoted on my AOL home page this morning as I sipped my coffee. Apparently, the video originates from another web site called LiveLeak.com, I think. It's often hard to tell where or how video clips are being obtained.

A few things rubbed me the wrong way with this:

1. Watching a guy get stung by a bee isn't compelling video, nor does it have any journalistic merit whatsoever. It's not even amusing in the least, in my opinion, and continues to contribute to the dumbing down of society that flocks to Olive Garden franchise restaurants while authentic, healthier mom-and-pop Italian eateries are driven out of business. At best, video clips like this provide a sense of mundane voyeurism, a cheap giggle, and put a few nickels in the pockets of those who are only concerned with making money and going viral.

2. There is so much crap on the Internet just as there is in music, dining and theater. Makes one wonder how something that is such a technological marvel and provides so much good, so much useful information, connectivity and entertainment, can also be used in trivial and mindless ways. When the most ordinary mishaps become highly visible and promoted on sites that consider themselves mainstream, general information providers, I have to question the judgment of the people running the show at AOL.

3. Asylum.com sells itself as a "weird news" provider for men (assuming they actually mean adolescent boys and college geeks), like the real news isn't weird enough these days. OK, at least it's not trying to compare itself with The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. However, what is so weird about a bee sting or how someone reacts to it? I and millions of others would probably react the same way. And why the snotty comment about the "old guy?" Who wrote the caption, a 15-year-old intern with authority issues?

4. This should not be on AOL's home page carousel of top news. It's not so much offensive as it is insulting to my intelligence, like many other trite items and the trickery used to get us to interact with some sites. I don't need to be directed by AOL to go check out this video for idiots. I would not otherwise seek out a site like that or spend 10 seconds watching this kind of clip. I know that AOL, like many online entities, is trying to get people to click on things for financial reasons, but c'mon, there has to be some sort of judgment applied to a mainstream site that is attempting to appeal to a larger general audience since it became a free service recently.

Is it now considered bad business to maintain reasonable standards on the Web? Is the NewYorkTimes.com going to begin promoting videos of "old guys" cutting themselves while shaving because that's what attracts traffic to the site?

AOL, like Google and Yahoo and many others, wants to be many things to many people. And that's part of the problem. One of those things is to be a news provider. When AOL or others promote stuff like this as news or as being worthy of our attention, they lose all credibility and I feel compelled to use another e-mail provider or search engine for my home page.

In the quest to make money and have a presence online, too many mainstream companies, like Time Warner, are losing sight of the fact that there is an audience that still prefers quality entertainment, smarter humor and satire (see theOnion.com) relevant news and information that sets the bar a little higher than bee-sting videos.

I think Google is a decent service and doesn't force stupidity down your throat. The silliness and raunchy material is there if you want to seek it out, but it doesn't greet you with your morning coffee. I am generally opposed to any kind of censorship, so I do believe the Internet should remain open to all forms of expression no matter how stupid I might think it is. I am simply asking those who make certain content decisions on the mainstream sites, particularly any that even hint of being a serious news provider, to be a bit more thoughtful in their choices.