I was reading the Washington Post Express this morning and happened upon the most fabulous photograph:

This urban cowboy is competing in the third annual German office chair race championship in Bad Koenig-Zell, Germany. HOW DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS FABULOUS EVENT?! 
Apparently this annual event brings Europeans together to celebrate work and speed (some racers get up to 35 km/hr..that’s about 22 mph for those of you Imperial unit users).  This year’s race was won by Luxembourger Pierre Feller.
Rules:

200 meter dash downhill
Propelled by hands and feet
No motorized chairs
Adaptations to chairs permitted

I wonder if HOK would like to sponsor one of us to race next year??  I have an Herman Miller Aeron that’s a bit too big – perhaps I could strip it down and make it into an aerodynamic racing machine. Or maybe the JDRF Real Estate Games could change up their events?
More great photos of the race here , here, here, and here, or watch on YouTube here.

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Have you ever seen a sign such as the one above and thought, “Hrm, someone must have done this in order for management to feel the need to post signage.”  I have had this conversation several times recently – so many rules and laws are in place because someone failed to be considerate of others. 
For me, the one that really gets me is the parks that do not allow dogs.  If only people with well behaved, healthy dogs and good doggie manners (i.e., poop scooping) went to the park, maybe there wouldn’t be a need to have a no dog rule. But some jerks didn’t pick up their dog’s poop, so now I can’t take my dog to the park.
Today I was cruising through CNN’s homepage and ran across a great article that applies this concept to the workplace and human resources: Why I fled the office cubicle.
This post suggests that there are two basic types of employees: people and human resources.  People are assumed to have a brain. Human resources are treated as though they are robots that must have every action explicitly programmed (through rules). 
He argues that offices have policies, procedures, and rules because staff is assumed to be “human resources” and not actual “people.” 
I have to say, if all employees acted like “people” and respected their colleagues and surroundings, maybe we wouldn’t need the rules.  But we don’t…so we need the guidelines for good behavior.  Even if we sometimes ignore them.
Please don’t pee in the sink!
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A recent post on Mashable – Is Working From Home Becoming the Norm? –  has statistics from a  March 2011 survey on the growing trend toward working from home and on how people in workplaces scattered across the globe and in different time zones are communicating.  Shown here is one of  their graphics showing the effect of remote work on in-office time.  The survey, The Future of Workplaces, was conducted by CigaOM Pro and underwritten by Skype.  Read more about it here.  Learned about it on a friend’s Twitter feed – thanks, Mike!

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