Books

So I read a couple of books lately that I wanted to comment on because I think they are great and more people should read them.

Checklist Manifesto
Great book about checklists in Healthcare. And really, their usefulness in anything complex. The premise is that you can save yourself a WHOLE lot of complications by having a checklist so that your brain can focus on things that require specialized knowledge or creativity and not spend too many cycles thinking about mundane/routine (but Important) things. Fascinating to see the uses for checklists in Construction, Healthcare, and Aviation and how startling the statistics are for reduction of problems. I for one am HOOKED on to-do lists as a memory aid.  This had been on my reading list forever, so it was a nice re-connection to Human Factors.

Elsewhere USA
This book feels like a more accessible and up to date "Bowling Alone" (which, I never got through) - read at Bechtel's suggestion (after he suggested Diamond Age, which was ALSO fantastic and though it was a fiction novel seemed somewhat connected, based on "when food is no longer a limiting factor" and a few other things). 
A couple of major thoughts here: You hang out with people within a certain percentage above and below your wealth. As you make more money, the long tail effect comes in and those at the higher end of your "income hangouts" make substantially more money and you feel like you're falling behind. That, and you're only happy if you're in transit between two places (if you're at home, feel like you should be a work, and the flip of that... but in transit you're right where you should be). Definitely an interesting read!

Musings
How many times do my conversations end up as "Overheard" somewhere?

Having coworkers you can have fun with is pretty important. Feeling like you're part of a team is BIG.

I should have started an IT bracket pool for basketball. I didn't realize it until we were out for Happy Hour with the extended team and realized people are pretty into it. (Including me, because Kentucky is good this year).

I also find that it's good to be working with people that are spazzy like me. (Different supervisors throught my career have been people that dig holes in fruit on the bottom yogurt to get a "volcano" of sugar, or are willing to do a Napolean Dynamite run down the sidewalk in Chicago). Lovely.