There’s nothing even remotely official yet, but we thought you’d like to know that we’re talking to a number of producers about bringing the drama of the Results-Only Work Environment to TV viewers everywhere.

Did we say drama?

Yes, we did.

Life gets easier once a team has migrated from a traditional work environment to a Results-Only Work Environment. When you eradicate Sludge and start focusing on results, people have an easier time at work. The tasks can still be challenging, but the work culture helps you solve problems instead of compounding them with nonsense.

That said, getting from a traditional work environment to a ROWE would make for some great TV. Here’s why:

1. People will fight to the death defending their beliefs, even if those beliefs don’t serve their best interests

We see this a lot. Leaders, managers, and rank-and-file employees get all red and hot resisting ROWE. We can’t let our people just do whatever they want! It’ll be anarchy!

2. People get incredibly emotional

It’s not unusual for people to tear up or break down in a migration session. Managers realize they’ve been treating their employees like dirt. Employees realize they’ve been wasting their lives stuck in a cube, and for what?

3. People undergo intense personal transformations

That hardcore, drill-sergeant manager turns into the most supportive work partner you’ve ever seen. The meek employee stands up to her boss when he gives her unnecessary work. The kind of boring coworker . . . well, he’s still kind of boring, but he’s got hobbies now and he’s getting more interesting!

4. Work gets done like never before

Okay, this last one wouldn’t make for good TV, but it does make for good business.

Stay tuned . . . .

We previously wrote about the Toyota engineer who allegedly died from overwork. (In Japan, the phenomenon is called karoshi.) A Japanese labor bureau has recently ruled that excessive overtime was indeed the cause of his death and that his family is now eligible to collect benefits from his work insurance. This is still an incredibly sad story, but we’re heartened to learn that the engineer’s case was taken seriously.

We could easily see a case like his not being taken seriously, because in many cultures there is a core assumption about work:

WORK = SUFFERING

If work weren’t suffering . . .

why else would we praise people for their “dedication” and their “sacrifice”?

why else would we complain so loudly (and elaborately) about how many hours we put in?

why else would it be socially acceptable for (some of) our bosses to treat us as less than human?

In other words, we assume that part of our pay is compensation for the misery inflicted by work. Even that word “compensation” suggests loss. The loss of freedom. The loss of time. The loss of autonomy. We’re sorry you had to waste 50 hours of your life in this place this week. We know we can never truly pay you back for your time, but we hope this check provides some compensation for your loss.

We also assume that we’ll get credit for the pain. It’s not whoever does the best job wins, but whoever does a decent job while enduring the most pain.

Is this really the best we can do?

What happens if we didn’t assume that work is suffering? What if work wasn’t something to be endured but something to get done in exchange for money? Would people still die from overwork if there was no nobility in killing yourself over your job?

There’s a little buttony, widgety thingy over to the right that says “Tell us why work sucks.” (It’s right above the RSS buttony, widgety thingy.)

Many of you have been clicking on it and telling us your stories. Thank you! We can’t solve the problem of work unless we’re all talking about it as a problem. Please keep writing and venting and sharing.

Here are three stories that we hope inspire you to tell us yours.

Work sucks because . . .

I’m micromanaged, work for someone who is completely anal, controlling and swears at his employees on a weekly basis. Everyone of my co-workers, except the “boys club”, feels sick to their stomaches to come into the office everyday, unless our boss is gone. We are all afraid of making mistakes…and that right there leads to numerous mistakes being made. We over-analyze everything because we are always second guessing ourselves. I call it the 50/50 rule; you have a 50% chance of doing something right but chances are its going to wrong!

**

Work sucks because . . .

When clients need my help, I’m asked to search the internet for a book because someone else is too important to that for themselves.

***

Work sucks because . . .

I work for a large university with over 45,000 employees. You’d think there might be some open mindedness, right? I draft benefit plan documents, employee newsletters, respond to high level employee complaints. I spend over an hour driving 60 miles round trip to work. I have discussed the possibility of telecommuting with my manager. Oh no, no, no. He even has issues with requests to work from home when I need a repairman over or weather conditions are inclement.

Why? He cannot be assured my home “work space” is safe and there are liability issues. What if I fell and broke my arm at home while on “company” time? He is more comfortable when I am available on the spot if he needs me (I’ve seen him twice this week for a max of 3 minutes).

And, he really cannot monitor my productivity if I am not there.

I write for crying out loud! What is not measurable?

Work sucks.  Or at least the way we work sucks.  Sometimes the best solace is griping over it at happy hour.

It’s good to rant about this stuff every once in awhile - and we’d like to rant with you!  Can we tag along, Twin Cities?  Of course we can’t hit every happy hour, but maybe we can crash yours.  

Tell us when your next happy hour is happening - date/time/place - and tell us why your gathering is the best one for us to crash.

Can’t wait to hear from you at caliandjody@caliandjody.com.

P.S. For now, we’ll be crashing Twin Cities’ happy hours.  Watch for future posts for when we’ll be in your city and we’ll drop by…

British meat company Brown Brothers recently (and rightfully) caught flak for their “Dickensian” bathroom break policy. The company required that workers clock out, and then take off their boots, overalls and hairnets before going to the toilet.

Union leaders complained this amounted to having workers lose pay in order to use the loo. The company countered that they had an incentive plan where more money was awarded to people who could go to the bathroom at preferred times.

I don’t think you need us to give the Results-Only Work Environment take on why Brown Brothers’ policy is boneheaded. You don’t need to use the ROWE mindset to know that it’s unfair (not to mention unwise) to micromanage your employees’ bladders.

But we aren’t galled by the policy. (We’ve heard so many evil, controlling workplace policies that it takes a lot to shock us.) What amazes us is that Brown Brothers didn’t think anyone would find out.

One of the factors working in favor of people who care about work-life balance issues is the increasing transparency of the working world:

If you do something stupid, shortsighted and cruel, then the world is going to find out.

If you do something smart, forward-thinking and generous, then the world is going to find out.

We hope that every HR manager and business leader within the sound of this blog takes these simple ideas to heart. The next time you revisit the employee handbook, ask yourself if you want to be the kind of company that ends up in somebody’s blog for contributing to making work suck. Or if you’d rather be known for doing it right.

Our mouths pretty much dropped when a friend sent us a copy of a “Guide to Hiring Women” from a 1943 issue of Mass Transportation magazine. We thought it must be a hoax, but Snopes bore out that it’s oh so real. Here are some of our favorite moments:

“[P]ick young married women . . . they usually have more of a sense of responsibility; they’re less likely to be flirtatious.”

“[Husky] girls — those who are just a little on the heavy side — are more likely to be even-tempered and efficient than their underweight sisters.”

“Retain a physician to give each woman you hire a special physical examination — one covering female conditions.”

We offer this tidbit not out of a sense of superiority at how advanced and modern we are compared to the Neanderthals of yesterday, but out of a sense of hope. We offer this article because when we talk about a Results-Only Work Environment, there are people out there who immediately counter by saying, “Things will never change.”

Of course things change. What seemed like an impossibility in 1943 (women being treated like adult humans) is a given today.

(Before you write that “but things also stay the same” post in the comments, realize that we know that women still face discrimination and bias in the workplace. We’re not saying it’s a perfect world, just a better one.)

One of the reasons why ROWE works is because it is more in line with the business realities of the 24/7 global marketplace. ROWE is also more accommodating to employees’ “always on” lives. In forty years, the way we defend the traditional work environment is going to look as silly as that Mass Transportation article.

To all the doubters out there, we ask this:

Wouldn’t you rather have tomorrow today?

Oh - and we’ve picked a winner for the “Create Your Own ROWE Revolution” contest.  It’s Jeff with the following response to why he needs ROWE:

“Because please, for the love of God, I just want to do my damn job.”

‘Nuff said on that one - good enough reason for us.  Jeff’s boss will be receiving a copy of the book very soon…

We were joined on our virtual book tour yesterday by three amazing guests - Tim Ferriss, David Allen, and Melanie Benson Strick.

As always, there was passionate, engaging conversation about ROWE, the book, and the need to shift our paradigms about work.

The link to the streaming audio is here: http://www.snipurl.com/caliandjody3

The downloadable file can be found here: http://www.authorteleseminars.com/audio/whyworksucks3

And, for those of you that would like the audio from our previous calls (with the likes of Dan Pink, Michael Port, and Scott Stratten), click here: http://www.whyworksucksbooktour.com

Enjoy!

As gas hits $4/gallon in parts of the country, government officials, pundits and bloggers are talking about how to solve the problem of the increasingly expensive daily commute. So far we’ve seen:

Symbolic gestures

Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s decides to start biking to work

Robbing Peter to pay Paul

U.S Representative Steven LaTourette proposes bill to reimburse commuters

Taking it to the, er, street

How to talk to your boss about changing company policy to offset commuting costs

The last item sort of makes sense, provided people don’t fall into the same trap they fall into when talking about traditional flexible work arrangements.

When people change to four ten-hour days for family reasons, they feel anxious about their career, judged by their coworkers, and distrusted by their boss. As long as work is a place you go, rather than something you do, then even if a four-day week saves on commuting costs, it doesn’t solve the foundational problem.

What we’d rather see is people having the power to decide (versus having it be mandated or guidelined to death) when and where they work, as long as the work gets done. In a Results-Only Work Environment, the culture respects that you have a life outside of work that has an impact on your ability (or your desire) to be physically present. Some people might not want to come into the office every day because they’d rather spend time with their kids. Some people might decide not to come into the office every day because it’s freakin’ expensive.

As long as the work gets done, who are we to judge?

Final note: check out this nifty calculator that lets you figure out whether or not you should move closer to work in order to save money on commuting costs. You’re supposed to fiddle with the cost-of-the-new-house variable and the distance variable, but we played with the number of commuting days a week. Moving closer to work can make a difference…but only driving to an official physical office space two or three days a week saves you BIG.

We hope you enjoy the first in our series of YouTube videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BNoqlsov7M

It’s time for another installment of our virtual book tour!

Our third teleseminar is on Tuesday, July 8th, and we can’t wait for you to join us.  The banter with the participants on the last two calls has been full of energy and passion for changing the way we think about, and do, work.

For more information and to register for this [FREE!] call on 7/8, go to: www.caliandjodybooktour.com.

As always, we are thrilled to be joined on the call by three guests - this time, it will be:

• Tim Ferriss, NY Times bestselling author of The 4-Hour Workweek
• David Allen, bestselling author of Getting Things Done and the upcoming book Making It All Work: Winning at the Game of Work and Business of Life (Dec. ‘08)
• Melanie Benson Strick, Million Dollar Business Coach, creator of Virtual Team Building Secrets

Can’t make the live call?  Register anyway, and you’ll gain access to the recording.

See you on Tuesday!