I don’t know about you, but it seems as though Microsoft’s attempt at monopolizing the market is succeeding, and they’re getting greedier every minute that passes by. First it was Windows, then the Microsoft Office package with programs such as Access, Excel, Groove, InfoPath, OneNote, Outlook, PowerPoint, Publisher and Word. After that, it was Hotmail, a SQL database server and Visual Studio applications for creating and designing programs and games.

But being a billion-dollar company wasn’t good enough for Microsoft. They wanted more money, more power and more control. Which is exactly why they found their way into the video gaming market. Nintendo and Sony had the market in their hands - Nintendo having casual games suited towards younger audiences, and Sony having hard-core games suited towards older audiences who prefer better graphics and hardware, hence why the PlayStation 3 is full of features such as Blu-Ray, DVD and 1080p screen resolution. But Microsoft got their foot in the door nonetheless, and now competes more on an equal level with Sony than it does with Nintendo, because of the age of audience that the majority of their games target.

Overall though, my biggest concern is how large of a company Microsoft is becoming. Don’t you think this monopoly is getting just a bit too greedy? It seems like they’re always looking for yet another market to get into. What’ll they start producing next? Televisions? A new video service like YouTube? Perhaps a new portable video gaming system to compete with the Nintendo DSi and the Sony PSP Lite?

In my opinion, Microsoft already has enough money, and shouldn’t try to control every aspect of the market. In fact, as it is, their products are becoming far too pricey for the average consumer. Take their new Vista operating system. Sure, its visual appearance is stunning, but $500? Give me a break. Try lowering it to about $30 and then I might consider buying it. Or what about Microsoft Office 2007? Nice layout, lots of features and an attractive appearance, but it’s definitely not worth that $399 price tag. I’m lucky though. I have friends in high places, and I got my copy of Office 2007 for free.

What are your thoughts? Don’t you think Microsoft already has enough money to last them the next several centuries, to say the least?

Very few workplaces haven't yet been contaiminated by his plague. Falling in the trap of office gossip is all too easy, even for people who are not the direct perpetrator, but just naïve enough to listen.

Not all gossip is malicious and some is in fact relatively benign: anyone enjoys a good banter and innocent gossip can usually strenghten co-workers bond by creating a certain sense of comradeship.

Unfortunately the typical gossip is purely destructive, can easily go out of control and its effects can be devasting, not only on the victim but on the entire work environment. Telltale can hugely affect worker's morale and turn unexpected risks on complaisant management.

Samuel Greenhard in his article “Gossip Poisons Business: HR Can Stop It”, writes some lucid words: “When the gossip mill begins to grind people up and ruin their reputations, there is both cause for concern and a real need for the human resources professional to step in. When left to fester, gossip can not only cause deep personal pain but also lead to turnover, conflict, and lawsuits”.

GOSSIP AND ITS CAUSES

Office gossip is generally about alleged dating between management and employees, or who's is going to get fired, promoted or moved down the corporate ladder.

No matter what the excuse is (romance, illness, promotion, cheating?), gossip is always designed to slander or defame an individual, often for personal or political gratification.

Susan Dunn, expert author on management and marketing coach writes: “Particularly malicious gossip is used for personal or political gain within the organization. Any form can open management up to significant liability because employees who perceive themselves in a hostile environment can go on to assume they're being discriminated against”.

Gossip often thrives on rivalry and boredom - “an idle mind is the devil's workshop”- or it can be encouraged by a frustrating lack of information about company events.

Annette Simmons, president of Group Process Consulting and author of “A Safe Place for Dangerous Truths: Using Dialogue to Overcome Fear and Distrust at Work(Amacom,1999)” writes that “when people aren't fully engaged in work, it creates a vacuum. And when they don't know what's going on, especially regarding promotions and layoffs, they begin to speculate”. She also notes that men often use gossip as a form of political control, while women employ it to make themselves look and feel important.

THE ADVENT OF E-GOSSIP

Gossip is nothing new. It's wired into the human nature. It has always existed and always will. But the internet has opened up a completely new dimension to gossip. A new world of (disastrous) possibilities.

We witnessed the passage from the traditional one-to-one exchange (be it face-to-face, by phone or letter) to the potential one-to-hundred instant email sent to a list of recipients in one single click. What in the old days was a rumour taking weeks to develop, can now be spreaded exponentially in minutes with often tragic results.

But it's not all bad. Lynn Hamilton, who teaches management communication at the MeIntire School of Commerce, University of Virginia, explains how the emails can provide a real insight into the nature of relationships between coworkers. Moreover, unlike the spoken word, email correspondence represents a far more “trackable” mean of communication; it's easily documented and in this sense it allows human resources and IT management to study and implement policies to counteract the e-gossiping.

WHAT ORGANISATIONS CAN DO

1) Building the foundations of a respectful community of workers. If an organization knows that ignorance, boredom and cut-throats competition are indisputable feeding of all gossip, it can put the wild cat on a diet. It can create a culture which is supportive and fair rather than overtly competitive. It should keep employees well informed on company's directives, potential promotions and all essential actions instead of acting like a secret agent. It should encourage hard work through promotions and incentives with an eye to building team work's spirit and prolific cooperation between colleagues.

2) Putting in place a written policy against gossip. The policy should describe appropriate behavior and actions at work, promoting relation based on ethics, professionalism and respect between employees. Rules and punitive measures should be clearly outlined and the document should be displayed where workers can see it.

3) Running regular workshops to educate workers and raise awareness. Dan Bobinski - the President and CEO of Leader Development Inc., an organization providing human resource training and development to businesses - explains that “how an organization deals with gossip can often mean the difference between growing and thriving, or disintegrating from within”.He also adds that “by openly bringing the issue to the attention of everyone in the office, gossipers are more likely to feel the peer pressure and think twice before opening their mouth”.

4) Counseling should be available for both victim and instigator. The victim needs obvious emotional support, but the gossiper needs advice too.As Bobinski points out “It is vitally important that we don't just tell people what not to do. We must give them positive, constructive alternatives to choose instead of the gossip”.

5) Rumors must be dealt with immediately and with a firm hand. More often than not the management is responsible as much as the gossiper by no dealing with the issue, by looking the other way or worse still by engaging in the gossip themselves.

Rebecca Gushue, HR generalist and compensation specialist at GENEX Services, Inc., has dealed with hundreds of cases and she notes that “management often opens itself up to significant liability by not dealing with the problem”. An investigator should inspect the matter if necessary and the gossiper should be confronted directly.

There is no point in having a written policy of “respect and dignity for every employee” if nothing or little is done in case of transgression. A lack of action or a simple delay would hinder all benefits of the process and irreversibly damage the policy's credibility.

Google

At Google, the employees and their families live and work on what reasonable might well be described as a college campus.  They play Frisbee next to their laptops and do laundry at Google-provided launder-mats.  They go listen to the noted historian Simon Schama give a lecture (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8115967384352517078 ) or to other, similar, events.  The Google-plex is, in short, a college campus—except that you get paid to go to class. 

Microsoft

Microsoft is headquartered in Redmond, Washington while Google is based in Silicon Valley, California but other than that life at the two campuses is pretty similar.  Dress is casual, everyone hangs out together, socializes together, and works together.  At Microsoft, they can even go view a Microsoft’s art collection (http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/artcollection/default.mspx ) and after they’re done looking at the art, Microsoft employees can go listen to the artists talk about their work (http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/ArtCollection/LectureSeries.mspx ).  Just like at Google, there is little hierarchy.  Everything looks and feels like a typical college campus.  Jeff Barr posted some maps of the Microsoft corporate campus on his blog (http://www.jeff-barr.com/?p=210 ).  If I had not been told these were maps of a corporation, I’d think these are college campus maps.

The Morale

The corporate campus approach makes sense.  Especially for corporations whose primary focus is sales and engineering—both highly stressful and highly creative fields.  And especially in these tough times.  For, survey after survey has found that “most employees crave communication, involvement and autonomy” (http://www.forbes.com/2008/08/28/small-business-morale-ent-hr-cx_ja_0828boostmorale.html ).  If they get those, their morale will go up and so will their creativity.  And a college campus-like atmosphere is certainly optimized to provide just such an environment.

But is it for everyone?

Corporation for the Y Generation?

Maybe not.  Sixty four percent of Microsoft’s employees at are under thirty nine (http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/inside_ms.mspx ).  And of the thirty six percent who are over thirty nine, I have to wonder how many of them live, work and play at the Microsoft campus.  Google is even younger. The average age of Google employees is about twenty-six (http://www.gibs.co.za/home.asp?pid=14231&toolid=74&itemid=16239 ). 

There may be a reason for this.  Perhaps as we age, we begin to value our space more; we may want to be able to come home and close the door on the world now and then.  And we may begin to value the balance between work and life a bit more too.

Think about it.  If you live—say twenty minutes away from work, you will think hard about dropping in at the office on a Sunday.  But if the office just happens to be the really neat Google-plexy building right across from where you are doing your laundry anyway, it may be a whole different story.  And if there are no grey and miserable cubicles in your office, the idea of coming in on a weekend while the laundry is going looks even more promising.

But not everyone wants to work all the time.  Because even if work is mixed in with liberal doses of play, it’s still work.  Perhaps as we get older we begin to look for more traditional office environments—where there is a balance between work and life.  It may not be as much fun as Google or Microsoft but maybe fun isn’t what everyone wants out of the office.

Or at least not after they start a family.

The calamity in the use of buzzwords is that they lack universal meaning (definition) and are seldom defined when first used. A manager uses them so that he will sound like his director who used them. A supervisor feels obligated to follow the example. Everyone may eventually be saying the same words but with different buzzword definitions. Hence, communication is greatly hampered.

Here are the second twenty-five of at least 200 contemporary buzzwords. Each is used in a sentence or followed by descriptive dialogue.

1. Blue sky thinking - Blue sky thinking is to pretend there are no potholes in our path
2. Boiled-in - Too many out-dated practices have been boiled-in to our operating procedures
3. Brain surgery - The science to upgrade that system is not brain surgery
4. Brick and mortar business - Virtual business is beginning to replace brick and mortar business (brick and mortar refers to real estate, buildings and machinery to do work rather than just a computer)
5. Brief me - I have a meeting with the director in ten minutes. Brief me on all you have learned about that subject during your last 15 years of working on it.
6. Bubble-up the deliverables - Bubble-up the deliverables to the 10,000 foot level and generate an action item list for the director's meeting
7. Business acumen - Your performance evaluation will include an analysis of your business acumen (quick and accurate judgment, keen insight)
8. Business solution - It may not matter if engineering says the change will work. What we need is a business solution (not a technical solution).
9. But, again … - Repeating “but, again” is to ignore what you just told me in favor of my original opinion
10. Buy-in - Do you have buy-in from the entire user body? “Acceptance” or “agreement” might be better terms to use than “buy-in”, especially when there is no financial exchange involved
11. Can we consense? - The work “consense” is not a real word but a business office abbreviation of the term “reach a consensus.”
12. Can we have a dialogue? - To have a “dialogue” now mean a conversation with common understanding or agreed-upon action items or a pre-defined outcome to a conversation
13. Can't rest on our laurels - You've done well with that product but we can't rest on our laurels. The next product must be even better.
14. Cascade to direct reports - When you return to the office, take this information and cascade it to your direct reports
15. Change agent - He may not know what your work includes, but because he is a change agent, things are going to be different around here
16. Check the box - Check the box by completing the exceptions report and giving it to the change agent
17. Chime-in - You had an opinion and did not bother to chime-in
18. Clearly, at the end of the day - Clearly, at the end of the day, what this business needs is satisfied customers who generate sales and profit
19. Coaching is needed? - I must assume that coaching is needed because you made an error in your project status presentation
20. Collective conscience - One or two of us may feel that our position on that topic is not the same as our collective conscience
21. Confront reality - When we confront reality we will realize that most of us are losing our jobs
22. Consultant working position - He is the brain trust on this topic and, with no authority; he has a consultant working position
23. Continuous improvement - We will achieve continuous improvement every time we approach that challenge
24. Cook book solution - Have your team develop a cook book solution to that complex problem
25. Cook the books - I think he had an accountant cook the books to create the appearance of productivity

The Met office was founded by the Vice Admiral Fitzroy in 1854. Fitzroy was inspired to build a company, which could predict and transfer weather information to prepare ships for the worst, or to tell them it was going to be smooth sailing. He was inspired by the death of a ship and its crew to a ravage storm out at sea.

The first headquarters was established in London in 1869 to 1910, Fitzroy sadly committed suicide in 1863 and did not get to see his idea expand to such lifesaving points.

The second headquarters was at Dunstable in Bedfordshire operating under the Board of Trade until1962 when they moved to Bracknell operating under the (MOD)RAF.

Their latest move was to Exeter in 2001 operating as a Government Agency, the move had to be spread over 3 years due to the size of the organisation.

How it operates.

The Secretary of State for defence owns the Met office. He is accountable to Parliament for the agency and decides the policy within which the agency operates by setting its objectives and targets. The Met offices main customers are the armed forces, and other core customers are the Civil Aviation Authority and DEFRA. Under government rules these organisations buy their data from the MET office and the MET office has to supply them at an agreed market rate.

Areas of work

The Met office has many sectors of work and these cover the following areas:

• Science (physics & chemistry)
• Geography
• Electronics
• Software engineering
• Trading
• Development
• Communications

The main sectors of engineering in the Met office are Software, telecommunications, and Electronic engineering.

For example the Met office needs different sensors for each type of weather reading, (wind, air pressure, humidity, temperature or rainfall). Because this is a very specialised market area there are not many company’s which could supply the different types of sensors needed, therefore the Met office produces some of its own to the appropriate accuracy. Software is also produced within the Met office. Software is one of the main engineering sectors because it is created to control the electronics through to the sensors; it can receive the information and produce graphs automatically.

Finance and business

The Met office has its own income so that it can prosper but is always under the control of the government who are its owner.

The Met office must finance itself and to do this it uses one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world to generate forecasts to customer’s exact requirements. Some examples of its customers are large supermarket chains, airlines, shipping companies and the general public where the service is paid for through the TV license. These are apart from the main core customers mentioned earlier.

A great advantage of the type of business the Met office runs is that it is a specialised area and there is very little competition, but this does not mean it can charge what it wants because it is governed by parliament.

The disadvantage of this type of business is that there has to be a lot of investment in land and equipment to gather the raw data but because the Met office began a long time ago there was a lot of land owned when it was directly under MOD control and the Met office kept it from back when it changed to an agency, so land is not a major problem. The equipment is a bigger problem because of time dating the technology and the Met office has to keep updating to satisfy the accuracy of their readings, but much of the equipment has been kept and is still used today such as in the weather radars, which have hardware from the 1970’s.

Since an office is a room(s) used as a place of business and clerical work, it therefore should project the image of the business in a more effective, professional and audible language of excellence.

Anybody entering an organized and well arranged office will find it quite homely than a disorganized one. Strictly speaking, expensive furniture and office machineries does not denote an organized and efficient office, no thanks to vain glory and show of opulence.

The general purpose of an office can be broadly spread across two main reasons:-

1. To enhance the efficient management, controlling, directing of communications, information and records, i.e. receiving, recording, controlling, and managing efficiently information.
   
2. To safeguard assets and control loss

In order to achieve maximum office efficiency irrespective of the type, size and location of such an office, it is paramount that every entrepreneur, businessman or persons running an office should maintain a high degree and consistent office routine.

Office routine has been defined as, the systematic method of carrying out office administration to ensure the efficient execution of day to day office duties. This will enhance the efficient directing and controlling of an office, in order to achieve its specific purpose in the most economical way.

Every office should have a systematic work-frame for achieving its set objective efficiently, continually and progressively. Generally speaking, to enhance an efficient office operation certain rules most be employed. For example, it is extremely important that in any type of office, a good relationship MUST exist between employer and employee. This is important, if the feature of a happy, pleasant office atmosphere is to be a reality. Since an office is like a home to the public or office user, it should project the comeliness of such. Absence of such has the tendency of making prospective clients, and other user's to easily loose confidence in the office thereby reducing the effectiveness of the office.

Although, certain guiding principles are responsible for the efficient running of any type of office yet not so many adhere to this principles. This has caused so many a businesses to loose patronage and clientele recommendations!

Where I work there are only a handful of employees. We have to work side by side and get along fairly well in order for the day to be productive. For the most part it is one of the better places where I have ever worked because we would all rather get along than fight, however some issues, and differences of opinions, come to the front at social events such as the "Staff Christmas Party".

For a few days following these events some feathers remain ruffled but we go back to getting along very shortly. I am well aware, however that in some work places the staff are not so tolerant of each others beliefs. In fact in some places they form up into sides based on political opinion or religion.

If people work together, they will be more productive if they want to help each other, rather than harbor any feeling of hatred or wanting the other person to look bad.

image source

What are your employees talking about or fighting over when they gather at the water cooler?

Not everyone is passionate about politics or has strong political views, but for those that do, their opinions are more than just political ones. If you support a party that is high on supporting environmental causes, chances are you are too. Therefore you are not going to want to be working with a bunch of people who drive Hummers two blocks to work, and who are generally wasteful people. If you support a political party that believes wealth should be shared equally among the people, you are not going to want to work with people who think that rich people deserve more or are more important than everyone else. You get the picture.

People cannot help the way they believe, or how they feel on certain issues pertaining to everyday life. Those issues are then put forth into our political views. This goes hand in hand with how we think in our daily lives. Most of us have friends with similar views.

Again, having co-workers who get along is very important to the running of any business, particularly a small business where people are often working along side of one another in, what should be, a co-operative manner.

While maybe it is illegal to ask a person what there political views are, and illegal to hire based on this, it might be something we should be aware of when staffing. Similar minded people will get along better. People of opposing views might just try to sabotage each other, and thereby hurt the company in the long run.

What this means is that you have the legal right to stop others from stealing your property in a court of law. By understanding the benefits of copyright protection, you can fully utilize the control you have of your work.

One benefit of registering your work includes being able to sell your copyright under your own terms. For example, if you write a song then you can sell that song to a band or record company while ensuring that all credit goes to you. This includes licensing your work while still holding ownership. You also have the right to object your work's use if it becomes distorted in the hands of those you licensed it to.

The last thing that anyone wants is to bring a dispute to court. It does become necessary, however, and there is no better tool than a good lawyer and a registered copyright. What judge can argue with hard evidence such as a legally registered date? A registered copyright will give its owner the ability to declare damages and a ensure a favorable decision nine times out of ten.

Of course, registering your work with the US Copyright Office is not legally required. You own the rights to your work the moment you begin to create it. Obtaining a registered copyright, however, is the only way to legally protect yourself should a dispute arise. Therefore, it is highly recommended that you protect yourself in any and every way possible.

The need for an elegant solution is clear to anyone who has dropped an unbound report on a windy day. The paperclip, for all its naïve charm just isn't reliable enough under stress, so the stapler was a necessity waiting to be invented. It has largely been taken for granted in a world not given to appreciating the beauty of humble things. The stapler's moment of fame have been a film, "Office Space" (1999) and the American version of the British TV series "The Office", in which a stapler is set in jelly (Jell-O in the US) as a practical joke. Also, Rexel's "Staplers of the Stars" charity auction saw staplers signed by celebrities sold for thousands of dollars. There are numerous websites devoted to collecting vintage staplers (no, really…) and a Bambi Stapler Appreciation Society on the social networking utility Facebook.

This is a personal history arising from a long-term appreciation of a small and neglected design classic which will soon have its 50th anniversary. Other classics like the Zippo lighter, Swiss Army knife and US Army can opener have attracted a lot of comment over the years and have featured in style magazines and design manuals. This article attempts to record some aspects of the Bambi in a similar spirit.

I have owned one or more Bambis all my working like. I had one at College and throughout my teaching career, and now use one every day in my freelance work promoting the game of Go in the UK.

The original appeal of the Bambi was threefold. It is small, pleasant to look at, and well-made. You can buy a small stapler much cheaper, but these are usually badly made, jam easily, and are fond of dispensing two staples at once. They lack visual appeal, and are inclined to use odd sizes of staple. The small size, as well as making the Bambi extremely handy, also results in a small, almost invisible staple. I have always found the desk size staples a bit too big on an A4 page for my liking. (The most extensive commercial use for this size of staple seems to be joining teabag to string and string to label in most brands of quality tea)

The Bambi has very high build and design quality. The chrome-plated mild steel is comparatively heavy-gauge for its small size and the light loads needed to operate it, resulting in a very rigid chassis which will not deflect or bend, which is the main cause of jamming. The compression spring feed is very reliable and has been the standard except for a short lapse a few years ago when a top-loading tension spring feed, which tended to stretch, was experimented with.

The first Bambi patent seems to have been taken out in 1959 (I have not yet had any access to company archives, but the patent info is on the BSAS facebook group page. The earliest one in my collection is white, with a narrow, shouldered body and is marked with British patent number 756534 and "Foreign Patents Pending. This stamping on the underside is the bambi equivalent to the hallmark, and is sadly absent on modern models. Though the metal parts are similar to one you can buy today, the plastic body is much more petite, a bit like the difference between a classic Mini car and the modern one, which looks as if it has had too many steroids. The white one appears to date from the late 1960"s, (TBC later)

I have two other models with the narrow profile, both with anodized aluminum bodies. One is a strong gold colour, the other a light gold or bronze finish. It could be that these metal-bodied models were intended for the corporate market, as one came in a very stylish transparent Bambi-shaped case, and the other, lighter toned one bears a Norwegian company logo as a separate strip clipped onto the top. These were I think the flagship models. I used to have a black plastic Bambi with engraved initials "BFNS" or something like that, so they obviously had a time of being used as promotional items.

The 1970s saw a new, more angular body design, while retaining the metal parts. There was a range of colours- black, a duck shell green and turquoise and others. There was at least one commemorative Bambi, produced for the Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977. This was presented in a transparent pouch with a silver stamped logo on the top of the body. By this time the underside is marked "British Patent" and "Foreign Patents". The pouch also contained a gold colored box of staples.

Some time in the 1990s there was a brief retrograde step when the compression spring feed was replaced by a torsion spring, to allow for a top-loading design. This is in line with the system used on many desk staplers. Whilst these may be fitted with torsion springs strong enough to stretch as the top is opened, and not distort, the same could not be said of the Bambi, where the tiny spring quickly stretched making the staple feed unreliable. These unfortunate models can be identified by the words "Auto top feed" on the reverse of the pack, and a dead straight bottom edge of the staple magazine, visible without opening the bubble pack. This model did not appear to last long, so presumably the company listened to feedback.

The most modern Bambis are sleek and ergonomic, with soft-touch areas, and a staple-remover built into the back. With plastic encasing the metal top and bottom the classic underside stamping has had to go, which is a shame. The soft touch material on the top takes up half the length available for a corporate logo, so this is something future designers might like to consider changing. The body is also available in transparent plastic, ('Tranz') blue or purple, which does look quite funky.

The design seems to have been subject to surprisingly few rip-offs over the years. The only one I have seen which tries to copy the Bambi shape is stamped "MADE IN JAPAN" and carries what might be a company logo "Sanho 10m" on the top. It does not use the No 25 staple, and is made of thinner gauge steel.

How many Bambis have been produced so far? My guess is a few million, each of which came with a pack of 1500 staples, so there must have been at least one staple produced for everyone on earth.

I don't have any details yet on worldwide distribution. I hear from correspondents in the USA that the Bambi is not much seen there as they don't use the No. 25 staple, but this has not been confirmed. The Bambi doesn't seem to have made its way to Finland either. A Google search shows that it is alive and well in Australia however.

If the 50th anniversary of the Bambi falls in 2009, it would be nice if Rexel/Acco could produce a Special Edition, maybe in a box, or a book about the history with a free modern Bambi included. The design is robust enough for at least another 50 years of loyal service!

Get your Employer to Buy What you Want

Nearly everyone is on a budget these days. That includes your organization. Whether there is a decrease or an increase in sales volume or dollars, sticking to a budget is a necessary part of conducting business. A budget keeps an organization from spending too much in one area and not spending appropriately in other areas. How is an individual, like you, supposed to get what you want to make your 40-plus-hour-a-week work life as endurable as possible?

Ultimately, you want to Save the Organization Money

Simply put, the purpose of any for-profit business is to make money, and a goal of a non-profit is to use its resources frugally. Anything that will cut costs is a good thing. Prove that what you want could reasonably eliminate or reduce expenditures in other areas, and you will present a win-win situation for you and your employer.

Let us examine what could happen if you, someone who works on the computer all day long, wanted a seventy-dollar, ergonomic, computer mouse. A positive discussion about the research you have collected reveals that the mouse you want will naturally coordinate hand and wrist movements in a less physically stressful manner. Less stress will result in fewer complaints about your aching wrists, complaints which will result in unscheduled visits to the doctor during working hours.

On the one hand, your employer is faced with finding coverage for you and your unscheduled hours, duly paying you under the time-off policy (assuming you have time remaining to use as paid time off), and possible restrictions on your productivity after your visit to the doctor for an undetermined amount of time. On the other hand, there is a seventy-dollar mouse with your name on it.

Ultimately, you Want to Save the Organization Time

Remember the adage: time is money. Therefore, any positive discussion about saving time will enhance a discussion for saving money. Prove that what you want could reasonably make a process more efficient or less time consuming, and you will present another win-win situation.

Continuing with the ergonomic mouse example, your studies may reveal that design features were proven to extend average time used. For you, it could mean the possibility of producing more work for your employer.

Yes, you can Research

Research is less scary than it sounds. In the case of the ergonomic mouse, the research could be as simple as reading the back of the mouse's packaging or asking questions at your local computer retailer. Research could entail entering a few key words on your internet's search engine. You could even ask questions of your physician to see what he or she may recommend for wrist problems. Research is merely used for gaining back up for your position.

There are plenty of things that we will request and not get this fiscal year. However, if you can show how what you want will save your organization time or money (or both), you will be more successful than you can imagine at getting what you want.