Fatigue continued

i!  Ghost Writer here.  Marti likes a few of my ideas from time to time and is letting me haunt her blog.  So here's the word for the week:  Fatigue."Webster's Dictionary" provides more than a few definitions, but I like these two.1. Weariness from bodily or mental exertion.2. The weakening or breakdown of material subjected to stress, esp. a repeated series of stresses.So let's have a show of hands?  How many of us feel this way?  Right now?  And we drag our fatigued selves into our lives each morning using coffee or sugar or something to convince our weary minds and bodies to not feel fatigue?What if we stopped?  What if, for a second, we considered stopping?  Marti posted three blogs this year on the topic - "The Value of Time", "The Point of Exhaustion", and "Willfulness".  All three great.  All making salient points on the scurrying world of work.  Marti wrote in the Exhaustion post, "The most important product we present is ourselves, yet we fail to get enough sleep, talk to our families at dinner (at the dinner table), and remind people why they are important."  This is sadly true, and the worst part is, we don't talk because of the fatigue, when talking with our loved ones is one of the best ways to cure it.  She then says in Willfulness that we in turn rebel against our jobs.  We call in sick to get a day off, when really we just needed the day off to combat the fourteen weeks of 60 hours a week before that.  And as she says, is it just "the small rebellion that allows most of us to continue to be something we really aren't to achieve things we think we want"?So why do I feel compelled to beat this drum again when she's done it so well it three times?  Because in a conversation with a friend, he used the word "fatigue" and in my mind, I could see my life as the bridge from the high school Physics film.  You know it -- the Tacoma Narrows bridge that in a normal wind for the area virtually disintegrated from fatigue.  If a bridge, a physical entity just like a human being, can fatigue to the point of crashing, what's to say we won't, too?  Humans, and based on my international travels I would speculate American humans in particular, are the only animals that knowingly, consciously, and with almost ridiculous focus, work well past the point of fatigue to failure.  And to what end?A former boss once said to me, "The difference between doing a good job and a great job is 3%.  Make your choices."  Really people.  Let's get honest with ourselves.  How do you manage you?  How do you manage others?  Do you manage them in a way that protects against fatigue?  Or do you drive to work, slurping coffee, reading the Blackberry, listening to talk radio, and somehow not managing to kill others while you tell an employee to do more?  In the world of "my job used to be three or four people, now it's me on a pay freeze", isn't it time for a different style of human resources leadership (notice, not management) in the workplace?So as I wind this down, I leave you with one last People Platform HR quote. "I recommend putting away the time saving devices and doing something that takes time and creates something you can hold in your hands. This will be time you cherish like a child rather than save like a dying house plant."  Quit reading this blog for the day and go take a nap or whatever restorative thing you do!  Marti and I will be here when you want a distraction... like when traffic is at a dead stop for 10 minutes when you're running late
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