May 2019 | Get outside
1
INDOOR AIR FAIL
Make those walking meetings a priority—conference room air might be making you dumber. And if you can, by all means, open a window. At the very least, crack a door.
2
LUNCH BREAK
When I worked on the Xbox.com team, I was there for just a few weeks before I felt totally connected to my team. Why? We ate lunch together every day. When I started at AT&T, I was so disappointed that there wasn’t a proper place to eat together—just a tiny table wedged in the corner of a kitchen in the interior of the building (read: fluorescent light galore). A coworker and I tried to recreate what I’d loved about the community lunches at Xbox, but we failed. Out of that grew a lunchtime running club that bonded me to my coworkers just as eating together had.
The Power BI design team eats together every day. And we are tight. New folks become our friends quickly over shared downtime around the lunch table. And strong friendships have been forged. We hang out with each other outside of work.
So get yourself up from your desk and away from your devices (I’ve been there, hunched over my lunch while working, totally zonked by 3 PM because I haven’t given my brain a break), take a walk, connect with people. I promise your work won’t suffer—you’ll enjoy it more, and you’ll do better, more collaborative work, as a result.
3
SMART BUS ROUTES
Bus ridership is down, so LA’s transit agency is using location data from local phones to ensure their buses are on the road when their passengers want to ride (spoilers: in addition to basic commute windows, people want to ride short distances, shortly after the evening commute).
As Game of Thrones charges towards its finale, McSweeney’s slays with an imaginary email thread between Jon Snow and Courtney, a customer care rep from 23andMe.
4
23ANDME + JON SNOW
5
CEREAL CON
I’ve been conned by cereal companies. Were you taught that breakfast was crucial, kick-starting your metabolism, setting you up for all-day success? Yeah, me too. Where did that storyline originate? Cereal companies—they funded all the breakfast-is-essential research that’s been spouted for decades. *slaps forehead* We should have known!
As a teen, I stuffed myself silly at 6:30 in the morning because I knew I wouldn’t get to eat again for nearly six hours. Thanks, weird high school schedule.
Turns out, I could have gifted myself a little more sleep by going to school on an empty stomach. (Alas, we were not allowed to each in class or in the halls or any other place except in the cafeteria during allotted lunch periods, and I couldn’t make it to 12:30 PM without a single bite of food without getting lightheaded.)