David Yamada's blog

Worthy of emulation

The next time you deal with a less-than-wonderful co-worker, think twice before you call him a “dirty rat.” You see, it turns out that rats can be pretty decent creatures.

Those empathetic rats

Gary Namie, Ph.D.

This year, I’m adding a new feature to the blog, “3 Questions for…,” a regular series of brief interviews with notable individuals whose work and activities overlap with major themes of this blog.

I have a feeling that there’s much more to this story than what the current news coverage is able to tell us, but the Chicago Tribune reports that the Thanksgiving Day suicide of Mary Thorson, a 32-year-old Ford Heights, Illinois school teacher, is being linked to workplace bullying.

Thank you, everyone, for your ongoing interest in Minding the Workplace, which has attracted over 200,000 hits and a bevy of insightful comments since its launch in December 2008. During the coming year, I’ll be making some modest changes to the blog. They will include:

1. Interviews and podcasts — I’ll be doing short interviews with a wide range of people connected with the world of employment relations, and I’ll be using the podcast format to introduce more multimedia content.

Memory was a key theme appearing on this blog several times during the year. In other words, what events and persons do organizations and institutions choose to remember, and which ones do they opt to forget?

I’m a big believer in continually re-examining history for the lessons it keeps yielding. When memories are sharp and true, we all can benefit, sometimes because they allow us to celebrate and commemorate, on other occasions so we can learn from mistakes or failings.