marc.vic.max.elliot

My one and only free day in Tokyo today! I spent the day walking (damn my feet are sore!) and really only did two things. The first was to visit the Senso-ji temple and the second was to wander around Akihabara, the gadget centre of Tokyo (and I could have spent so much money!)

Here’s some pictures. They were scaled using the crap tools on my work laptop and I have my doubts about the job they did. At least you can tell what they are, hopefully.

I’m not really a night owl but damn body clock has me up at 03:00! Here’s the view from my hotel room and about all I’ve seen of Tokyo so far….

Here I am in Tokyo and not much to say 🙂 I’ve just checked into my hotel after an uneventful 11 hour flight and 2.5 hour bus ride…. Oh, and I discovered that my mobile phone doesn’t work over here – great!

Checking the vodafone website (now-sheesh) it says:

Japan operates a 3G network, so your NZ 3G mobile will work seamlessly. If you only have a 2G mobile, you can rent 3G mobiles on arrival in Japan in which you can place your NZ Sim.

Seeing as I don’t have a 3G phone it wouldn’t have made any difference but it would have been nice to know prior to coming here….

See ya!

Sitting in the longe at Auckland airport about to catch a flight to Tokyo.  God, these places or boring – or is it just that I spend too much time in them?

Another bummer is my upgrade request didn’t come through so I have an eleven and a half hour flight stuck in cattle class/economy/coach 🙁  At least it’s a day flight so I don’t need to worry about sleeping with my knees around my ears……..

Speak to you from Tokyo.  Sayonara baby!

I knew this was the case!

This is the kind of news that your HR folks don’t want to hear, but researchers today said letting workers swear at will in the workplace can benefit employees and employers.

The study found regular use of profanity to express and reinforce solidarity among staff, letting them express their feelings, such as frustration, and develop social relationships, according to researchers at the University of East Anglia (UEA). Researchers said their aim was to challenge leadership styles and suggest ideas for best practices.

“Employees use swearing on a continuous basis, but not necessarily in a negative, abusive manner. Swearing was as a social phenomenon to reflect solidarity and enhance group cohesiveness, or as a psychological phenomenon to release stress, ” the study stated. “Most of the cases were reported by employees at the lower levels of the organizational hierarchies and it was clear that executives use swearing language less frequently. ”

“The primary issue for management is whether or not to apply a tolerant leadership culture to the workplace and deliberately allow swearing,” said Yehuda Baruch, professor of management at the UEA-based Norwich Business School (NBS), and graduate Stuart Jenkins looked at the use of expletives and swearing in the work place from a management point of view.

Younger managers and professionals were more tolerant in what they accepted as ethical behavior, suggesting that age may be a moderator for the spreading of potty mouth language to the workplace. Women also swore more than might traditionally be expected, especially among themselves.

The study also found that swearing did not take place in front of or within close proximity to customers, but once they had gone or in staff areas. The research suggests that while a ban on swear words and reprimanding staff might represent strong leadership, it would remove the source of solidarity and in doing so could lead to decreased morale and work motivation.

The results of the study, “Swearing at work and permissive leadership culture: when anti-social becomes social and incivility is acceptable”, are published in the current issue of the Leadership and Organization Development Journal.

Story via networkworld.com

I try to take photo’s, honest I do, and this is what I get…..

Is it just me or does he look older than 4¾ in this photo?

I know I haven’t posted any photos for a while but here’s a couple of very crappy ones taken with my phone so that I had a couple on this trip. Haven’t they grown?