text: To reduce job stress, keep the workplace in its place, psychologist urges - tribunedigital-baltimoresun
  You know who you are, and you are not alone. You stay mentally Velcro-ed to the office long after you leave. You obsess and stew on the trip home and then replay the day minutia-by-minutia to your spouse or partner.
  "Sometimes, I put too many details in. I can see my husband's eyes glaze over," said Gretchen Park, the director of compensation and benefits at Residential Services Corp., the holding company for Prudential Home Mortgage. "I know he doesn't want to hear about the office for two hours."
  Caught up in downsizing, streamlining and, in the case of Residential Services, the crush of work brought on by an expanding business, millions of Americans are working more, enjoying it less and experiencing firsthand the stern conclusion that Harvard economist Juliet Schor comes to in her recent book, "The Overworked American." She wrote: "Excessive hours are unhealthy and antisocial, and ultimately erode the quality of life."
  Because companies know that, stress reduction on the job has become a cottage industry with proliferating numbers of gurus du jour. But when Residential Services wanted advice, it chose Barbara Mackoff, a Seattle-based management psychologist who holds the contrarian view that employees suffer most not from stress at work but from an inability to detach themselves from work long enough to become refreshed and recharged.
  When she takes the stage in front of an audience of clients, she preaches a doctrine of renewal as a bottom-line, strategic skill.
  "Companies are struggling to define what makes people productive," Ms. Mackoff said. "Some take the 'boiled-frog approach,' " in which managers turn up the productivity heat. "People get used to hotter and hotter water."
  But employees can only keep up for so long. One way or another, they will take time off, and it will cost the company as well as the employee. "Through mistakes, lack of creativity, illness, lack of follow-through with clients," Ms. Mackoff said. "You'll take time off, but not in a productive way."
  Ms. Mackoff makes this observation on the basis of a decade of experience in organizations. A psychologist with training in anthropology, she does a cultural study of the company before she actually arrives for workshops or lectures.
  Once on site, her first job usually is to convince her audience that they will survive if they briefly turn off the treadmill. She may start with a simple story: Told that he is working with a dull saw, a workman replies that he is too busy to stop and sharpen the blade. "I get a lot of 'I'm too busy sawing to sharpen the saw,' " she said.
  When she begins to spin out her list of symptoms, she can see the looks of recognition -- and, often, relief -- on the faces in front of her.
  * It's literally impossible to leave work. "You take your briefcase home and work," she said. "Or you take your briefcase home and don't touch it -- and feel guilty. You can't resist calling the office while you're on vacation."
  * It's impossible to protect private time from work-related worries. "You can't fall asleep. You spend the whole night talking about work."
  * Time away from work becomes an excuse for more work. "Every social occasion becomes a business-card occasion."
  Managers may notice that employees come in on Monday looking more tired than they did on Friday. And they will surely notice a productivity decline.
  One useful diagnostic is the first post-work encounter at home. "It takes about 40 seconds to ruin an entire evening," Ms. Mackoff said, just by continuing in the mode of the woes of the day. "Standing back from pressures of the day really is an accomplishment."
  Like a good anthropologist, she advises developing some exit rituals to manage the work-to-home transition. One of her clients locks her appointment book in a drawer and backs out of her office shaking her finger, saying, "stay, stay."
  Another compliments a subordinate as he leaves each evening. Once home, she says, it is crucial to greet everyone before launching into a recitation of the day's horrors.
  The trick over the long term is to use time away from work to get experience the job doesn't provide. Gretchen Park, who heard Ms. Mackoff's talk during a January sales meeting in Florida, said much of the message has stayed with her.
  Probably, she said a little ruefully, she should take up a hobby, but at least she tries to sit down and listen to music once a week. She really appreciated, she says, the message Residential Services delivered by bringing in Ms. Mackoff: "It was a recognition that this is a hard life we live."
  In her seminars and in a recent book, "The Art of Self-Renewal" (Lowell House), Barbara Mackoff suggests pursuing leisure activities that offer a sense of purpose, of self and of time completely different than anything available at work.
  * Purpose: Stop thinking about having something to show for every activity. At the movies, don't think about how much the film grossed or how the popcorn stand is doing. Don't apply high strategic demands of jobs to the home -- i.e. lower your housework standards. Leave lists, and the inclination to make lists, at the office. Do non-professional reading. Don't think about any bottom line.
  PTC * Self: Participate in activities that express a dimension of personality or ability that doesn't come out on the job. It could be playing music, seeing friends or getting active in the community. Stop using a work vocabulary to describe non-work experience.
  * Time: Resist the urge to overschedule, and stop rushing. "One chief executive would take off his watch on Friday and put it back on Monday," Ms. Mackoff said. Do projects with a beginning, middle and end.
  'Goat Lady' Rosalind Russell inspires teen to start club at high school to raise money for goats for Nepalese villages.
  A goat might not seem like an important asset. Most don't own one and never will. However, in Nepalese villages, the introduction of a goat can completely change their economy.
  Lagunan Rosalind Russell, founder of the R Star Foundation and the "Women Helping Women and Children ... Therefore the World" campaign, learned this when she first brought a goat to Nepal as a gift and watched the village transform. Russell buys goats in the mountains of Nepal and gives them to village women through a lottery system.
  Most commonly referred to as the "Goat Lady" in town, Russell has now inspired a younger soul to champion her cause.
  Alia Manetta, 16, first learned about Russell when she was trying to find a community service project. She began by helping Russell with social media over the summer. When the school year started, she wanted to do more to contribute to the R Star Foundation's cause and decided to start the Goat Club at Laguna Beach High School.
  About $200 will buy a goat, so Alia can have the pleasure of knowing that two more families will get a gift they might not have otherwise.
  The club held its first fundraiser on Dec. 17, selling dozens of handmade goat-shaped cookies in creative packaging. With more than 40 dozen sold, Alia called the first event a success.
  She also designed whimsical T-shirts featuring a goat and a bright illustration for her members. The Facebook group has 74 members and counting.
  "I am so fortunate to have what I have living in Laguna," the high school junior said. "To know that I could help someone else that wasn't born with these opportunities ... it's just great."
  The goats offer Nepalese families more opportunities, she said. They not only provide milk and cheese, but also a chance for families to breed or sell them.
  "I was so surprised," she said. "It's the wonderful thing about working with young people — they have ideas."
  Russell pointed out that Alia took time out of her busy schedule — which includes sports, jazz ensemble and maintaining a 4.6 GPA — to start this club.
  "They're compassionate about people so far away that they haven't met," she said. "Who would think that these young kids would think that way? I'm impressed."
  GREENCASTLE, Pa. - A tire fire last Thursday in Montgomery Township, Pa., did not pollute a nearby stream, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.
  "We just got our results back today and there wasn't anything in the runoff that would have affected the stream," spokeswoman Sandy Roderick said Tuesday.
  The fire last week at 4886 Rice Hollow Road involved several hundred of an estimated 2,000 discarded tires on property owned by Jon Jackson and his sons Jerry and Richard. It took about 10 hours for firefighters from three counties to put out the fire.
  "We don't have results on soil contamination," Roderick said. That would have to be done after the tires are removed.
  Roderick said storing tires does not usually result in soil pollution, although the fire could have caused petroleum-based chemicals to leach into the soil.
  Still under consideration are possible enforcement actions against the property owners. A department official said last week the pile of tires, shingles and other debris was an illegal dump site.
  Roderick said enforcement actions could include a notice of violation, in which the owners of a property are cited for violating the state's Solid Waste Management Act. That could result in an order for the owners to remove the materials, or present a plan to remedy the situation.
  Other actions include a consent agreement where the owners acknowledge a violation, or a cease and desist order, giving them a set period of time to clean up the site, she said.
  The department could make a decision on what action to take by the end of the week, according to Roderick.
  LEITERSBURG - At their February meeting, the members of the Leitersburg Ruritan accepted a national award, installed a new member, and had two speakers on home rule for Washington County presenting opposing views.
  Larry Blount, a Ruritan national director, presented the bronze special community service award to the club for outstanding environmental work in the community.
  As part of their mission, club members constructed and maintain the playground in Leitersburg and provide general maintenance and lawn upkeep in common areas.
  George Kline of Leitersburg was welcomed as the newest member and will serve as a member of the programs and entertainment committee.
  David Hamlin and Tom Berry each gave a 15-minute talk on home rule. There was lively discussion following their presentation.
  Ruritan is a civic organization with the purpose of creating a better understanding between people and through volunteer community service, making America's communities a better place to live and work.
  The slogan of Ruritan is fellowship, goodwill and community service. The club surveys the needs of the community and then works to meet those needs.
  The Leitersburg club was chartered in 1955 and continues to hold educational and informative monthly meetings that give members an opportunity to share ideas about community improvements and service projects.
  The club's involvement in the community includes but is not limited to paying for street lights, sponsoring Boy Scout Troop 108 and supporting other youth programs.
  In addition, the club conducts decorating contests for Christmas lighting and gives Christmas baskets as needed.
  The club is also responsible for the annual Leitersburg Peach Festival which includes getting 60 to 70 crafters and setting up the entire grounds, coordinating with food vendors and displays.
  Recently, nine independent and assisted living residents from Ravenwood Lutheran Village and the Village at Robinwood traveled to the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum Udvar-Hazy Center in Dulles, Va.
  Harold "Butch" Butcher, a retired Navy pilot, was one of the residents who went on the trip. During World War II, Butcher became an enlisted pilot, he said. Throughout the day, he recounted many stories of his 37 years in naval aviation.
  Shirley Young also enjoyed the experience of seeing in person several of the aircraft and spacecraft. She said during her career as a legal assistant working with the vice president of IBM, she had a hand in supplying the technology that would make modern aircraft fly. She recounted that she did some of the behind-the-scenes work in providing the space shuttle project with state-of-the-art computer systems.
  With the front-runner absent and his lead shrinking, his main rivals for the presidency seize the opportunity to attack each other.
  MEXICO CITY — In the hours before the first presidential debate Tuesday, people wondered who the winner would be -- one of the four politicians on the stage, or the empty lectern.
  Political analysts agreed that the empty lectern would prove a formidable opponent. It was the space reserved for the man who until recently was the undisputed front-runner, former Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the Democratic Revolution Party, known in Spanish as the PRD.
  "The candidate of the PRD didn't come to this debate because he doesn't have any viable proposals," center-right candidate Felipe Calderon of the National Action Party, or PAN, said as the debate opened. "He preferred to turn his back on you."
  That statement was one of the few to directly address the absence of Lopez Obrador, the only candidate on the ballot who chose to skip the debate, the first of two before the July 2 election.
  Instead, Lopez Obrador's two top opponents in the campaign, Calderon and Roberto Madrazo of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, spent much of the debate attacking each other.
  "Calderon, you're a good little boy when it comes to oratory ... but reality is something different," Madrazo said. Among other things, he accused Calderon of enriching himself with a loan from a government bank that he was running.
  It remained unclear Tuesday whether the absence of the leftist candidate in the debate would hurt his chances with voters.
  Lopez Obrador's decision to skip the debate seemed like a smart one a few weeks ago, when polls showed he enjoyed a lead at or near double digits in percentage points.
  "Now, with the polls so close, it could be a serious mistake," said Jesus Silva-Herzog Marquez, a political analyst here.
  The PRD candidate built his lead with large doses of charisma and by retelling the legend of his record as this city's mayor, a post he held until last year.
  Lopez Obrador built a double-decker freeway and established pensions for seniors. An opposition attempt to have him impeached on obscure corruption charges backfired, and no country embraces an underdog victor quite like Mexico.
  But this month, the modern multimedia campaigning that has taken root in Mexico chipped away at the image of Lopez Obrador. A poll released Tuesday by the firm Parametria showed Lopez Obrador with a 2-point lead. Another by the Mexico City newspaper Reforma showed Calderon, with President Vicente Fox's PAN, leading for the first time, by 3 percentage points.
  The debate was seen as a golden opportunity for Calderon, a 43-year-old technocrat with limited experience in elected office.
  "Felipe Calderon is the candidate with the most modest political career," said Silva-Herzog. "His campaign has been built on a decidedly negative strategy. People still don't know who he really is."
  For weeks, Calderon's campaign has hammered the front-runner with a series of ads that suggest a Lopez Obrador presidency could bring economic collapse. One talks of his extensive public spending as mayor, and ends with a collapsing brick wall.
  Another Calderon ad likened Lopez Obrador to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and suggested that the PRD candidate could become a populist demagogue. "Lopez Obrador is a danger to Mexico," one ad intoned. Election officials found that the language in some of the ads violated campaign laws and they were withdrawn.
  Still, observers here say Calderon's ads have succeeded in turning attention away from Lopez Obrador's central campaign theme: that a decade of economic reform, including a free trade accord with the United States and Canada, has failed to improve the lives of millions of Mexicans.
  And Calderon has managed to insert doubt about whether Lopez Obrador is too radical to be president.
  Gerardo Fernandez Norona, a spokesman for Lopez Obrador, said Calderon's campaign was attempting to "vilify" the leftist candidate.
  Lopez Obrador has said he will participate in the second and final debate, on June 6. He agreed to a single debate because his opponents were originally proposing half a dozen.
  "The idea was to drown out our campaign with debates, but we stuck to our position," Fernandez Norona said.
  The Lopez Obrador campaign unsuccessfully petitioned Mexico's election authorities to remove the empty lectern from Tuesday's debate.
  Two other candidates participated in the debate Tuesday: Patricia Mercado of the Alternative Social-Democratic and Farmers Party, and Roberto Campa of the New Alliance Party.
  Calderon, rather than abusing the absent candidate, tried to present himself as the only politician who could guarantee Mexico's economic stability. But when Madrazo attacked his ethics, Calderon responded by producing a black-and-white picture of a Miami apartment Madrazo allegedly had purchased with bribes received as a senator and governor.
  Irving Penn applied a highly personalized style to many subjects, and he expected the same from others.
  When, as a teen, I showed Penn my modest portfolio, I was only hoping for a pat on the back. I got a challenge instead. "You're talented," he said, "but I see a lot of other photographers here, not you. Until you have your own vision, you're not going to go far in this business."
  I left the studio confused but determined to ignore the parents, teachers and classmates who were telling me to "forget that stupid photography." I had a mission.
  Only years later did I realize Penn was simply telling me to grow up and be myself. But his faith in my talent launched a lifelong career.
  A Comfortable Fit : Music: Guitarist Martin Simpson is at home performing at a tiny Laguna Niguel venue reminiscent of the English folk club where his career began.
  SAN FRANCISCO — Sometimes the only exciting thing going on in the house is the sound of the refrigerator as the motor clicks on or off. Even that might be eliminated soon.
  General Electric Co. announced ''smart power'' last week at WESCON, the annual electronics trade show. With GE-SMART, the company's version of electricity controlled by silicon chips, motors can be kept running at the precise rate needed for the job, increasing the flow of juice when the motor needs it and decreasing the input when the need goes down.
  In the case of a refrigerator, according to the company's announcement, ''the motor can turn constantly at the precise, slow speed necessary to achieve a programmed level of cooling.''
  Besides eliminating the ''on'' and ''off'' noises, the motor will not need to be nearly as big as it is now. Thus, the cost of the refrigerator would be reduced as well as the amount of electricity being used, GE said.
  The company said it has been testing smart power in some of its own machinery for the past five years and is ready to put the technology on the market for any manufacturer who wants it.
  Other household devices besides refrigerators could be improved with smart power, GE said. For example, a washing machine could use it to shift cycles by varying the amount of electricity going to the motor rather than by the clutches and gears that now vary cycles.
  In automobiles and airplanes, miles of wiring could be eliminated, GE said. Instead of wires from the control panel to each device, a single cable could carry the electricity for all.
  LADY LAKE — It began with dirt being swept into his swimming pool. Now, he wants to make sure nothing is swept under the carpet.
  Ken Gould began his stint as a self-proclaimed Town Hall muckraker when a paving contractor for the town did $125 worth of damage to his swimming pool several months ago. Town Manager John Lynch promised he would be compensated, but it took too long, Gould complained.
  Lynch is gone, but Gould is now a regular at Town Hall meetings, which officials complain have gotten out of hand, especially with Gould's comments.
  A retired pharmaceutical salesman and motorcycle enthusiast, Gould carries a card that says he's a deputy sheriff from Massachusetts, and sometimes packs a gun, which he has a permit to carry.
  ing over whether the town spent 52 cents on postage for the public-private economic development program called Vision 2000.
  Beyond the 52 cents, however, Gould's concerns have raised questions about accounting procedures. Town officials have investigated and haven't found any wrongdoing so far.
  ''If they want to run the town, let them run for office,'' resident Earl Rowlette said at Monday night's commission meeting.
  NEW YORK — The head of the New York City teachers union, Sandra Feldman, could become the next president of the American Federation of Teachers, the New York Times reported Tuesday. The union's board is to vote next week on a replacement for Albert Shanker, who died Feb. 22. The Times quoted union executives as saying Feldman was the obvious replacement for Shanker because she was his protege, she runs the union's largest local, and she has strong views on improving schools.
  School board calls off out-of-town retreat because of legal questions By Ryan Bentley News-Review staff writer