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PLEASE NOTE
Please note for updated BLOG news and postings regarding MSM (Main Street Magazine) Please visit:
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Our website is www.mainstreetmagazine.net
A LITTLE INSPIRATION - About Love
© Copyright, 2011 Main Street Magazine/Tilly Rivers
As seen in the February Issue of Main Street Magazine
Printed in Canada, ISSN: 1920-4299 by Rain Enterprises
To find out how to receive your free copy of MSM check out www.mainstreetmagazine.net
February 2011/A little Inspiration/MSM
'About Love' Short Story
Anton Chekhov's Famous Work
At lunch next day there were very nice pies, crayfish, and mutton cutlets; and while we were eating, Nikanor, the cook, came up to ask what the visitors would like for dinner. He was a man of medium height, with a puffy face and little eyes; he was close-shaven, and it looked as though his moustaches had not been shaved, but had been pulled out by the roots. Alehin told us that the beautiful Pelagea was in love with this cook. As he drank and was of a violent character, she did not want to marry him, but was willing to live with him without. He was very devout, and his religious convictions would not allow him to “live in sin”; he insisted on her marrying him, and would consent to nothing else, and when he was drunk he used to abuse her and even beat her. Whenever he got drunk she used to hide upstairs and sob, and on such occasions Alehin and the servants stayed in the house to be ready to defend her in case of necessity.
We began talking about love.
“How love is born,” said Alehin, “why Pelagea does not love somebody more like herself in her spiritual and external qualities, and why she fell in love with Nikanor, that ugly snout—we all call him ‘The Snout’—how far questions of personal happiness are of consequence in love—all that is unknown; one can take what view ones likes of it. So far only one incontestable truth has been uttered about love: ‘This is a great mystery.’ Everything else that has been written or said about love is not a conclusion, but only a statement of questions which have remained unanswered. The explanation which would seem to fit one case does not apply in a dozen others, and the very best thing, to my mind, would be to explain every case individually without attempting to generalize. We ought, as the doctors say, to individualize each case.”
“Perfectly true,” Burkin assented.
“We Russians of the educated class have a partiality for these questions that remain unanswered. Love is usually poeticized, decorated with roses, nightingales; we Russians decorate our loves with these momentous questions, and select the most uninteresting of them, too. In Moscow, when I was a student, I had a friend who shared my life, a charming lady, and every time I took her in my arms she was thinking what I would allow her a month for housekeeping and what was the price of beef a pound. In the same way, when we are in love we are never tired of asking ourselves questions: whether it is honourable or dishonourable, sensible or stupid, what this love is leading up to, and so on. Whether it is a good thing or not I don’t know, but that it is in the way, unsatisfactory, and irritating, I do know.”
It looked as though he wanted to tell some story. People who lead a solitary existence always have something in their hearts which they are eager to talk about. In town bachelors visit the baths and the restaurants on purpose to talk, and sometimes tell the most interesting things to bath attendants and waiters; in the country, as a rule, they unbosom themselves to their guests. Now from the window we could see a grey sky, trees drenched in the rain; in such weather we could go nowhere, and there was nothing for us to do but to tell stories and to listen.
“I have lived at Sofino and been farming for a long time,” Alehin began, “ever since I left the University. I am an idle gentleman by education, a studious person by disposition; but there was a big debt owing on the estate when I came here, and as my father was in debt partly because he had spent so much on my education, I resolved not to go away, but to work till I paid off the debt. I made up my mind to this and set to work, not, I must confess, without some repugnance. The land here does not yield much, and if one is not to farm at a loss one must employ serf labour or hired labourers, which is almost the same thing, or put it on a peasant footing—that is, work the fields oneself and with one’s family. There is no middle path. But in those days I did not go into such subtleties. I did not leave a clod of earth unturned; I gathered together all the peasants, men and women, from the neighbouring villages; the work went on at a tremendous pace. I myself ploughed and sowed and reaped, and was bored doing it, and frowned with disgust, like a village cat driven by hunger to eat cucumbers in the kitchen-garden. My body ached, and I slept as I walked. At first it seemed to me that I could easily reconcile this life of toil with my cultured habits; to do so, I thought, all that is necessary is to maintain a certain external order in life. I established myself upstairs here in the best rooms, and ordered them to bring me there coffee and liquor after lunch and dinner, and when I went to bed I read every night the Vyestnik Evropi. But one day our priest, Father Ivan, came and drank up all my liquor at one sitting; and the Vyestnik Evropi went to the priest’s daughters; as in the summer, especially at the haymaking, I did not succeed in getting to my bed at all, and slept in the sledge in the barn, or somewhere in the forester’s lodge, what chance was there of reading? Little by little I moved downstairs, began dining in the servants’ kitchen, and of my former luxury nothing is left but the servants who were in my father’s service, and whom it would be painful to turn away.
“In the first years I was elected here an honourary justice of the peace. I used to have to go to the town and take part in the sessions of the congress and of the circuit court, and this was a pleasant change for me. When you live here for two or three months without a break, especially in the winter, you begin at last to pine for a black coat. And in the circuit court there were frock-coats, and uniforms, and dress- coats, too, all lawyers, men who have received a general education; I had some one to talk to. After sleeping in the sledge and dining in the kitchen, to sit in an arm-chair in clean linen, in thin boots, with a chain on one’s waistcoat, is such luxury!
“I received a warm welcome in the town. I made friends eagerly. And of all my acquaintanceships the most intimate and, to tell the truth, the most agreeable to me was my acquaintance with Luganovitch, the vice-president of the circuit court. You both know him: a most charming personality. It all happened just after a celebrated case of incendiarism; the preliminary investigation lasted two days; we were exhausted. Luganovitch looked at me and said:“ ‘Look here, come round to dinner with me.’
“This was unexpected, as I knew Luganovitch very little, only officially, and I had never been to his house. I only just went to my hotel room to change and went off to dinner. And here it was my lot to meet Anna Alexyevna, Luganovitch’s wife. At that time she was still very young, not more than twenty-two, and her first baby had been born just six months before. It is all a thing of the past; and now I should find it difficult to define what there was so exceptional in her, what it was in her attracted me so much; at the time, at dinner, it was all perfectly clear to me. I saw a lovely young, good, intelligent, fascinating woman, such as I had never met before; and I felt her at once some one close and already familiar, as though that face, those cordial, intelligent eyes, I had seen somewhere in my childhood, in the album which lay on my mother’s chest of drawers.“Four Jews were charged with being incendiaries, were regarded as a gang of robbers, and, to my mind, quite groundlessly. At dinner I was very much excited, I was uncomfortable, and I don’t know what I said, but Anna
Alexyevna kept shaking her head and saying to her husband: “ ‘Dmitry, how is this?’
“Luganovitch is a good-natured man, one of those simple-hearted people who firmly maintain the opinion that once a man is charged before a court he is guilty, and to express doubt of the correctness of a sentence cannot be done except in legal form on paper, and not at dinner and in private conversation.
“ ‘You and I did not set fire to the place,’ he said softly, ‘and you see we are not condemned, and not in prison.’
“And both husband and wife tried to make me eat and drink as much as possible. From some trifling details, from the way they made the coffee together, for instance, and from the way they understood each other at half a word, I could gather that they lived in harmony and comfort, and that they were glad of a visitor. After dinner they played a duet on the piano; then it got dark, and I went home. That was at the beginning of spring.
“After that I spent the whole summer at Sofino without a break, and I had no time to think of the town, either, but the memory of the graceful fair-haired woman remained in my mind all those days; I did not think of her, but it was as though her light shadow were lying on my heart.
“In the late autumn there was a theatrical performance for some charitable object in the town. I went into the governor’s box (I was invited to go there in the interval); I looked, and there was Anna Alexyevna sitting beside the governor’s wife; and again the same irresistible, thrilling impression of beauty and sweet, caressing eyes, and again the same feeling of nearness. We sat side by side, then went to the foyer.
“‘You’ve grown thinner,’ she said; ‘have you been ill?’
“‘Yes, I’ve had rheumatism in my shoulder, and in rainy weather I can’t sleep.’
“‘You look dispirited. In the spring, when you came to dinner, you were younger, more confident. You were full of eagerness, and talked a great deal then; you were very interesting, and I really must confess I was a little carried away by you. For some reason you often came back to my memory during the summer, and when I was getting ready for the theatre today I thought I should see you.’ And she laughed.
“‘But you look dispirited today,’ she repeated; ‘it makes you seem older.’
“The next day I lunched at the Luganovitchs’. After lunch they drove out to their summer villa, in order to make arrangements there for the winter, and I went with them. I returned with them to the town, and at midnight drank tea with them in quiet domestic surroundings, while the fire glowed, and the young mother kept going to see if her baby girl was asleep. And after that, every time I went to town I never failed to visit the Luganovitchs. They grew used to me, and I grew used to them. As a rule I went in unannounced, as though I were one of the family.
“‘Who is there?’ I would hear from a faraway room, in the drawling voice that seemed to me so lovely.
“‘It is Pavel Konstantinovitch,’ answered the maid or the nurse.
“Anna Alexyevna would come out to me with an anxious face, and would ask every time:“‘Why is it so long since you have been? Has anything happened?’
“Her eyes, the elegant refined hand she gave me, her indoor dress, the way she did her hair, her voice, her step, always produced the same impression on me something new and extraordinary in my life, and very important. We talked together for hours, were silent, thinking each our own thoughts, or she played for hours to me on the piano. If there were no one at home I stayed and waited, talked to the nurse, played with the child, or lay on the sofa in the study and read; and when Anna Alexyevna came back I met her in the hall, took all her parcels from her, and for some reason I carried those parcels every time with as much love, with as much solemnity, as a boy.
“There is a proverb that if a peasant woman has no troubles she will buy a pig. The Luganovitchs had no troubles, so they made friends with me. If I did not come to the town I must be ill or something must have happened to me, and both of them were extremely anxious. They were worried that I, an educated man with a knowledge of languages, should, instead of devoting myself to science or literary work, live in the country, rush round like a squirrel in a rage, work hard with never a penny to show for it. They fancied that I was unhappy, and that I only talked, laughed, and ate to conceal my sufferings, and even at cheerful moments when I felt happy I was aware of their searching eyes fixed upon me. They were particularly touching when I really was depressed, when I was being worried by some creditor or had not money enough to pay interest on the proper day. The two of them, husband and wife, would whisper together at the window; then he would come to me and say with a grave face: “‘If you really are in need of money at the moment, Pavel Konstantinovitch, my wife and I beg you not to hesitate to borrow from us.’
“And he would blush to his ears with emotion. And it would happen that, after whispering in the same way at the window, he would come up to me, with red ears, and say:
“‘My wife and I earnestly I beg you to accept this present.’
“And he would give me studs, a cigar-case, or a lamp, and I would send them game, butter, and flowers from the country. They both, by the way, had considerable means of their own. In early days I often borrowed money, and was not very particular about it—borrowed wherever I could—but nothing in the world have induced me to borrow from the Luganovitchs. But why talk of it?
“I was unhappy. At home, in the fields, in the barn, I thought of her; I tried to understand the mystery of a beautiful, intelligent young woman’s marrying some one so uninteresting, almost an old man (her husband was over forty), and having children by him; to understand the mystery of this uninteresting, good, simple-hearted man, who argued with such wearisome good sense, at balls and evening parties kept near the more solid people, looking listless and superfluous, with a submissive, uninterested expression, as though he had been brought there for sale, who yet believed in his right to be happy, to have children by her; and I kept trying to understand why she had met him first and not me, and why such a terrible mistake in our lives need have happened.
“And when I went to the town I saw every time from her eyes that she was expecting me, and she would confess to me herself that she had had a peculiar feeling all that day guessed that I should come. We talked a long time, and were silent, yet we did not confess our love to each other, but timidly and jealously concealed it. We were afraid of everything that might reveal our secret to ourselves. I loved her tenderly, deeply, but I reflected and kept asking myself what our love could lead to if we had not the strength to fight against it. It seemed to be incredible that my gentle, sad love could all at once coarsely break up the even tenor of the life of her husband, her children, and all the household in which I was so loved and trusted. Would it be honourable? She would go away with me, but where? Where could I take her? It would have been a different matter if I had had a beautiful, interesting life—if, for instance, I had been struggling for the emancipation of my country, or had been a celebrated man of science, an artist or a painter; but as it was it would mean taking her from one everyday humdrum life to another as humdrum or perhaps more so. And how long would our happiness last? What would happen to her in case I was ill, in case I died, or if we simply grew cold to one another?
“And she apparently reasoned in the same way. She thought of her husband, her children, and of her mother, who loved the husband like a son. If she abandoned herself to her feelings she would have to lie, or else to tell the truth, and in her position either would have been equally terrible and inconvenient. And she was tormented by the question whether her love would bring me happiness—would she not complicate my life, which, as it was, was hard enough and full of all sorts of trouble? She fancied she was not young enough for me, that she was not industrious nor energetic enough to begin a new life, and she often talked to her husband of the importance of my marrying a girl of intelligence and merit who would be a capable housewife and a help to me—and she would immediately add that it would be difficult to find such a girl in the whole town.
“Meanwhile the years were passing. Anna Alexyevna already had two children. When I arrived at the Luganovitchs’ the servants smiled cordially, the children shouted that Uncle Pavel Konstantinovitch had come, and hung on my neck; every one was overjoyed. They did not understand what was passing in my soul, and thought that I, too, was happy. Every one looked on me as a noble being. And grown-ups and children alike felt that a noble being was walking about their rooms, and that gave a peculiar charm to their manner towards me, as though in my presence their life, too, was purer and more beautiful. Anna Alexyevna and I used to go to the theatre together, always walking there; we used to sit side by side in the stalls, our shoulders touching. I would take the opera-glass from her hands without a word, and feel at that minute that she was near me, that she was mine, that we could not live without each other; but by some strange misunderstanding, when we came out of the theatre we always said good- bye and parted as though we were strangers. Goodness knows what people were saying about us in the town already, but there was not a word of truth in it all!
“In the latter years Anna Alexyevna took to going away for frequent visits to her mother or to her sister; she began to suffer from low spirits, she began to recognize that her life was spoilt and unsatisfied, and at times she did not care to see her husband nor her children. She was already being treated for neurasthenia.
“We were silent and still silent, and in the presence of outsiders she displayed a strange irritation in regard to me; whatever I talked about, she disagreed with me, and if I had an argument she sided with my opponent. If I dropped anything, she would say coldly: “‘I congratulate you “If I forgot to take the opera-glass when we were going to the theatre, she would say afterward “‘I knew you would forget it.’
“Luckily or unluckily, there is nothing in our lives that does not end sooner or later. The time of parting came, as Luganovitch was appointed president in one of the western provinces. They had to sell their furniture, their horses, their summer villa. When they drove out to the villa, and afterwards looked back as they were going away, to look for the last time at the garden, at the green roof, every one was sad, and I realized that I had to say good-bye not only to the villa. It was arranged that at the end of August we should see Anna Alexyevna off to the Crimea, where the doctors were sending her, and that a little later Luganovitch and the children would set off for the western province.
“We were a great crowd to see Anna Alexyevna off. When she had said good-bye to her husband and her children and there was only a minute left before the third bell, I ran into her compartment to put a basket, which she had almost forgotten, on the rack, and I had to say good-bye. When our eyes met in the compartment our spiritual fortitude deserted us both; I took her in my arms, she pressed her face to my breast, and tears flowed from her eyes. Kissing her face, her shoulders, her hands wet with tears—oh, how unhappy were!—I confessed my love for her, and with a burning pain in my heart I realized how unnecessary, how petty, and how deceptive all that had hindered us from loving was. I understood that when you love you must either, in your reasonings about that love, start from what is highest, from what is more important than happiness or unhappiness, sin or virtue in their accepted meaning, or you must not reason at all.
“I kissed her for the last time, pressed her hand, and parted for ever. The train had already started. I went into the next compartment—it was empty—and until I reached the next station I sat there crying. Then I walked home to Sofino….”
While Alehin was telling his story, the rain left off and the sun came out. Burkin and Ivan Ivanovitch went out on the balcony, from which there was a beautiful view over the garden and the mill-pond, which was shining now in the sunshine like a mirror. They admired it, and at the same time they were sorry that this man with the kind, clever eyes, who had told them this story with such genuine feeling, should be rushing round and round this huge estate like a squirrel on a wheel instead of devoting himself to science or something else which would have made his life more pleasant; and they thought what a sorrowful face Anna Alexyevna must have had when he said good-bye to her in the railway-carriage and kissed her face and shoulders. Both of them had met her in the town, and Burkin knew her and thought her beautiful.
Just a Moment
What's not to love about February in Ontario?
Oh, you mean the snow, cold and ice. Yes there is that LOL, but we also have a long week end, “Family Day” is Monday February 21st and of course there is Valentine's Day.
What 'sweet' comes to mind when you think of Valentine's Day? Chocolate right? Well can't get more 'chocolaty' than our “Featuring” article this month, interview with Zach Townsend of Pure Chocolate Desserts, and speaking of yummy sweets, you DO NOT want to miss Main Street Men this month!
Main Street Music Scene brings us the top earning musicians of 2010, and author Dan Chaon's “Await Your Reply” book review is this months “A Novel Idea” book of the month.
Just in case, you plan on staying in doors until the sun comes out, 'May We Suggest' has a list of movie suggestions, and if you're thinking of getting a little 'frisky' on Valentine's Day, “All about Sex” may be of interest.
We haven't forgotten the boys...no, no, no. In “For the Boys” there are some 'tips' for getting-it-on in a car, and this is only the beginning!
All our regular writers are here to razzle dazzle you, and of course, MSM always has a few surprises and guest writers. So, no matter how you spend your time this month, we are glad you are spending it with us.
Enjoy!
Chris Reynolds
Editor, MSM
editor@mainstreetmagazine.net
© Copyright, 2011 Main Street Magazine/Rain Enterprises
As seen in the February Issue of Main Street Magazine.
Printed in Canada, ISSN: 1920-4299 by Rain Enterprises
To find out how to receive your free copy of MSM check out
http://www.mainstreetmagazine.net/
Oh, you mean the snow, cold and ice. Yes there is that LOL, but we also have a long week end, “Family Day” is Monday February 21st and of course there is Valentine's Day.
What 'sweet' comes to mind when you think of Valentine's Day? Chocolate right? Well can't get more 'chocolaty' than our “Featuring” article this month, interview with Zach Townsend of Pure Chocolate Desserts, and speaking of yummy sweets, you DO NOT want to miss Main Street Men this month!
Main Street Music Scene brings us the top earning musicians of 2010, and author Dan Chaon's “Await Your Reply” book review is this months “A Novel Idea” book of the month.
Just in case, you plan on staying in doors until the sun comes out, 'May We Suggest' has a list of movie suggestions, and if you're thinking of getting a little 'frisky' on Valentine's Day, “All about Sex” may be of interest.
We haven't forgotten the boys...no, no, no. In “For the Boys” there are some 'tips' for getting-it-on in a car, and this is only the beginning!
All our regular writers are here to razzle dazzle you, and of course, MSM always has a few surprises and guest writers. So, no matter how you spend your time this month, we are glad you are spending it with us.
Enjoy!
Chris Reynolds
Editor, MSM
editor@mainstreetmagazine.net
© Copyright, 2011 Main Street Magazine/Rain Enterprises
As seen in the February Issue of Main Street Magazine.
Printed in Canada, ISSN: 1920-4299 by Rain Enterprises
To find out how to receive your free copy of MSM check out
http://www.mainstreetmagazine.net/
A LITTLE INSPIRATION
As seen in the February Issue of MSM
Proudly Canadian, ISSN: 1920-4299
'About Love'
We began talking about love.
Proudly Canadian, ISSN: 1920-4299
'About Love'
Anton Chekhov
At lunch next day there were very nice pies, crayfish, and mutton cutlets; and while we were eating, Nikanor, the cook, came up to ask what the visitors would like for dinner. He was a man of medium height, with a puffy face and little eyes; he was close-shaven, and it looked as though his moustaches had not been shaved, but had been pulled out by the roots. Alehin told us that the beautiful Pelagea was in love with this cook. As he drank and was of a violent character, she did not want to marry him, but was willing to live with him without. He was very devout, and his religious convictions would not allow him to “live in sin”; he insisted on her marrying him, and would consent to nothing else, and when he was drunk he used to abuse her and even beat her. Whenever he got drunk she used to hide upstairs and sob, and on such occasions Alehin and the servants stayed in the house to be ready to defend her in case of necessity.
We began talking about love.“How love is born,” said Alehin, “why Pelagea does not love somebody more like herself in her spiritual and external qualities, and why she fell in love with Nikanor, that ugly snout—we all call him ‘The Snout’—how far questions of personal happiness are of consequence in love—all that is unknown; one can take what view ones likes of it. So far only one incontestable truth has been uttered about love: ‘This is a great mystery.’ Everything else that has been written or said about love is not a conclusion, but only a statement of questions which have remained unanswered. The explanation which would seem to fit one case does not apply in a dozen others, and the very best thing, to my mind, would be to explain every case individually without attempting to generalize. We ought, as the doctors say, to individualize each case.”
“Perfectly true,” Burkin assented.
“We Russians of the educated class have a partiality for these questions that remain unanswered. Love is usually poeticized, decorated with roses, nightingales; we Russians decorate our loves with these momentous questions, and select the most uninteresting of them, too. In Moscow, when I was a student, I had a friend who shared my life, a charming lady, and every time I took her in my arms she was thinking what I would allow her a month for housekeeping and what was the price of beef a pound. In the same way, when we are in love we are never tired of asking ourselves questions: whether it is honourable or dishonourable, sensible or stupid, what this love is leading up to, and so on. Whether it is a good thing or not I don’t know, but that it is in the way, unsatisfactory, and irritating, I do know.”
It looked as though he wanted to tell some story. People who lead a solitary existence always have something in their hearts which they are eager to talk about. In town bachelors visit the baths and the restaurants on purpose to talk, and sometimes tell the most interesting things to bath attendants and waiters; in the country, as a rule, they unbosom themselves to their guests. Now from the window we could see a grey sky, trees drenched in the rain; in such weather we could go nowhere, and there was nothing for us to do but to tell stories and to listen.
“I have lived at Sofino and been farming for a long time,” Alehin began, “ever since I left the University. I am an idle gentleman by education, a studious person by disposition; but there was a big debt owing on the estate when I came here, and as my father was in debt partly because he had spent so much on my education, I resolved not to go away, but to work till I paid off the debt. I made up my mind to this and set to work, not, I must confess, without some repugnance. The land here does not yield much, and if one is not to farm at a loss one must employ serf labour or hired labourers, which is almost the same thing, or put it on a peasant footing—that is, work the fields oneself and with one’s family. There is no middle path. But in those days I did not go into such subtleties. I did not leave a clod of earth unturned; I gathered together all the peasants, men and women, from the neighbouring villages; the work went on at a tremendous pace. I myself ploughed and sowed and reaped, and was bored doing it, and frowned with disgust, like a village cat driven by hunger to eat cucumbers in the kitchen-garden. My body ached, and I slept as I walked. At first it seemed to me that I could easily reconcile this life of toil with my cultured habits; to do so, I thought, all that is necessary is to maintain a certain external order in life. I established myself upstairs here in the best rooms, and ordered them to bring me there coffee and liquor after lunch and dinner, and when I went to bed I read every night the Vyestnik Evropi. But one day our priest, Father Ivan, came and drank up all my liquor at one sitting; and the Vyestnik Evropi went to the priest’s daughters; as in the summer, especially at the haymaking, I did not succeed in getting to my bed at all, and slept in the sledge in the barn, or somewhere in the forester’s lodge, what chance was there of reading? Little by little I moved downstairs, began dining in the servants’ kitchen, and of my former luxury nothing is left but the servants who were in my father’s service, and whom it would be painful to turn away.
“In the first years I was elected here an honourary justice of the peace. I used to have to go to the town and take part in the sessions of the congress and of the circuit court, and this was a pleasant change for me. When you live here for two or three months without a break, especially in the winter, you begin at last to pine for a black coat. And in the circuit court there were frock-coats, and uniforms, and dress- coats, too, all lawyers, men who have received a general education; I had some one to talk to. After sleeping in the sledge and dining in the kitchen, to sit in an arm-chair in clean linen, in thin boots, with a chain on one’s waistcoat, is such luxury!
“I received a warm welcome in the town. I made friends eagerly. And of all my acquaintanceships the most intimate and, to tell the truth, the most agreeable to me was my acquaintance with Luganovitch, the vice-president of the circuit court. You both know him: a most charming personality. It all happened just after a celebrated case of incendiarism; the preliminary investigation lasted two days; we were exhausted. Luganovitch looked at me and said:
“ ‘Look here, come round to dinner with me.’
“This was unexpected, as I knew Luganovitch very little, only officially, and I had never been to his house. I only just went to my hotel room to change and went off to dinner. And here it was my lot to meet Anna Alexyevna, Luganovitch’s wife. At that time she was still very young, not more than twenty-two, and her first baby had been born just six months before. It is all a thing of the past; and now I should find it difficult to define what there was so exceptional in her, what it was in her attracted me so much; at the time, at dinner, it was all perfectly clear to me. I saw a lovely young, good, intelligent, fascinating woman, such as I had never met before; and I felt her at once some one close and already familiar, as though that face, those cordial, intelligent eyes, I had seen somewhere in my childhood, in the album which lay on my mother’s chest of drawers.
“Four Jews were charged with being incendiaries, were regarded as a gang of robbers, and, to my mind, quite groundlessly. At dinner I was very much excited, I was uncomfortable, and I don’t know what I said, but Anna Alexyevna kept shaking her head and saying to her husband:
“ ‘Dmitry, how is this?’
“Luganovitch is a good-natured man, one of those simple-hearted people who firmly maintain the opinion that once a man is charged before a court he is guilty, and to express doubt of the correctness of a sentence cannot be done except in legal form on paper, and not at dinner and in private conversation.
“ ‘You and I did not set fire to the place,’ he said softly, ‘and you see we are not condemned, and not in prison.’
“And both husband and wife tried to make me eat and drink as much as possible. From some trifling details, from the way they made the coffee together, for instance, and from the way they understood each other at half a word, I could gather that they lived in harmony and comfort, and that they were glad of a visitor. After dinner they played a duet on the piano; then it got dark, and I went home. That was at the beginning of spring.
“After that I spent the whole summer at Sofino without a break, and I had no time to think of the town, either, but the memory of the graceful fair-haired woman remained in my mind all those days; I did not think of her, but it was as though her light shadow were lying on my heart.
“In the late autumn there was a theatrical performance for some charitable object in the town. I went into the governor’s box (I was invited to go there in the interval); I looked, and there was Anna Alexyevna sitting beside the governor’s wife; and again the same irresistible, thrilling impression of beauty and sweet, caressing eyes, and again the same feeling of nearness. We sat side by side, then went to the foyer.
“‘You’ve grown thinner,’ she said; ‘have you been ill?’
“‘Yes, I’ve had rheumatism in my shoulder, and in rainy weather I can’t sleep.’
“‘You look dispirited. In the spring, when you came to dinner, you were younger, more confident. You were full of eagerness, and talked a great deal then; you were very interesting, and I really must confess I was a little carried away by you. For some reason you often came back to my memory during the summer, and when I was getting ready for the theatre today I thought I should see you.’
“And she laughed.
“‘But you look dispirited today,’ she repeated; ‘it makes you seem older.’
“The next day I lunched at the Luganovitchs’. After lunch they drove out to their summer villa, in order to make arrangements there for the winter, and I went with them. I returned with them to the town, and at midnight drank tea with them in quiet domestic surroundings, while the fire glowed, and the young mother kept going to see if her baby girl was asleep. And after that, every time I went to town I never failed to visit the Luganovitchs. They grew used to me, and I grew used to them. As a rule I went in unannounced, as though I were one of the family.
“‘Who is there?’ I would hear from a faraway room, in the drawling voice that seemed to me so lovely.
“‘It is Pavel Konstantinovitch,’ answered the maid or the nurse.
“Anna Alexyevna would come out to me with an anxious face, and would ask every time:
“‘Why is it so long since you have been? Has anything happened?’
“Her eyes, the elegant refined hand she gave me, her indoor dress, the way she did her hair, her voice, her step, always produced the same impression on me something new and extraordinary in my life, and very important. We talked together for hours, were silent, thinking each our own thoughts, or she played for hours to me on the piano. If there were no one at home I stayed and waited, talked to the nurse, played with the child, or lay on the sofa in the study and read; and when Anna Alexyevna came back I met her in the hall, took all her parcels from her, and for some reason I carried those parcels every time with as much love, with as much solemnity, as a boy.
“There is a proverb that if a peasant woman has no troubles she will buy a pig. The Luganovitchs had no troubles, so they made friends with me. If I did not come to the town I must be ill or something must have happened to me, and both of them were extremely anxious. They were worried that I, an educated man with a knowledge of languages, should, instead of devoting myself to science or literary work, live in the country, rush round like a squirrel in a rage, work hard with never a penny to show for it. They fancied that I was unhappy, and that I only talked, laughed, and ate to conceal my sufferings, and even at cheerful moments when I felt happy I was aware of their searching eyes fixed upon me. They were particularly touching when I really was depressed, when I was being worried by some creditor or had not money enough to pay interest on the proper day. The two of them, husband and wife, would whisper together at the window; then he would come to me and say with a grave face:
“‘If you really are in need of money at the moment, Pavel Konstantinovitch, my wife and I beg you not to hesitate to borrow from us.’
“And he would blush to his ears with emotion. And it would happen that, after whispering in the same way at the window, he would come up to me, with red ears, and say:
“‘My wife and I earnestly I beg you to accept this present.’
“And he would give me studs, a cigar-case, or a lamp, and I would send them game, butter, and flowers from the country. They both, by the way, had considerable means of their own. In early days I often borrowed money, and was not very particular about it—borrowed wherever I could—but nothing in the world have induced me to borrow from the Luganovitchs. But why talk of it?
“I was unhappy. At home, in the fields, in the barn, I thought of her; I tried to understand the mystery of a beautiful, intelligent young woman’s marrying some one so uninteresting, almost an old man (her husband was over forty), and having children by him; to understand the mystery of this uninteresting, good, simple-hearted man, who argued with such wearisome good sense, at balls and evening parties kept near the more solid people, looking listless and superfluous, with a submissive, uninterested expression, as though he had been brought there for sale, who yet believed in his right to be happy, to have children by her; and I kept trying to understand why she had met him first and not me, and why such a terrible mistake in our lives need have happened.
“And when I went to the town I saw every time from her eyes that she was expecting me, and she would confess to me herself that she had had a peculiar feeling all that day guessed that I should come. We talked a long time, and were silent, yet we did not confess our love to each other, but timidly and jealously concealed it. We were afraid of everything that might reveal our secret to ourselves. I loved her tenderly, deeply, but I reflected and kept asking myself what our love could lead to if we had not the strength to fight against it. It seemed to be incredible that my gentle, sad love could all at once coarsely break up the even tenor of the life of her husband, her children, and all the household in which I was so loved and trusted. Would it be honourable? She would go away with me, but where? Where could I take her? It would have been a different matter if I had had a beautiful, interesting life—if, for instance, I had been struggling for the emancipation of my country, or had been a celebrated man of science, an artist or a painter; but as it was it would mean taking her from one everyday humdrum life to another as humdrum or perhaps more so. And how long would our happiness last? What would happen to her in case I was ill, in case I died, or if we simply grew cold to one another?
“And she apparently reasoned in the same way. She thought of her husband, her children, and of her mother, who loved the husband like a son. If she abandoned herself to her feelings she would have to lie, or else to tell the truth, and in her position either would have been equally terrible and inconvenient. And she was tormented by the question whether her love would bring me happiness—would she not complicate my life, which, as it was, was hard enough and full of all sorts of trouble? She fancied she was not young enough for me, that she was not industrious nor energetic enough to begin a new life, and she often talked to her husband of the importance of my marrying a girl of intelligence and merit who would be a capable housewife and a help to me—and she would immediately add that it would be difficult to find such a girl in the whole town.
“Meanwhile the years were passing. Anna Alexyevna already had two children. When I arrived at the Luganovitchs’ the servants smiled cordially, the children shouted that Uncle Pavel Konstantinovitch had come, and hung on my neck; every one was overjoyed. They did not understand what was passing in my soul, and thought that I, too, was happy. Every one looked on me as a noble being. And grown-ups and children alike felt that a noble being was walking about their rooms, and that gave a peculiar charm to their manner towards me, as though in my presence their life, too, was purer and more beautiful. Anna Alexyevna and I used to go to the theatre together, always walking there; we used to sit side by side in the stalls, our shoulders touching. I would take the opera-glass from her hands without a word, and feel at that minute that she was near me, that she was mine, that we could not live without each other; but by some strange misunderstanding, when we came out of the theatre we always said good- bye and parted as though we were strangers. Goodness knows what people were saying about us in the town already, but there was not a word of truth in it all!
“In the latter years Anna Alexyevna took to going away for frequent visits to her mother or to her sister; she began to suffer from low spirits, she began to recognize that her life was spoilt and unsatisfied, and at times she did not care to see her husband nor her children. She was already being treated for neurasthenia.
“We were silent and still silent, and in the presence of outsiders she displayed a strange irritation in regard to me; whatever I talked about, she disagreed with me, and if I had an argument she sided with my opponent. If I dropped anything, she would say coldly:
“‘I congratulate you.’
“If I forgot to take the opera-glass when we were going to the theatre, she would say afterwards:
“‘I knew you would forget it.’
“Luckily or unluckily, there is nothing in our lives that does not end sooner or later. The time of parting came, as Luganovitch was appointed president in one of the western provinces. They had to sell their furniture, their horses, their summer villa. When they drove out to the villa, and afterwards looked back as they were going away, to look for the last time at the garden, at the green roof, every one was sad, and I realized that I had to say good-bye not only to the villa. It was arranged that at the end of August we should see Anna Alexyevna off to the Crimea, where the doctors were sending her, and that a little later Luganovitch and the children would set off for the western province.
“We were a great crowd to see Anna Alexyevna off. When she had said good-bye to her husband and her children and there was only a minute left before the third bell, I ran into her compartment to put a basket, which she had almost forgotten, on the rack, and I had to say good-bye. When our eyes met in the compartment our spiritual fortitude deserted us both; I took her in my arms, she pressed her face to my breast, and tears flowed from her eyes. Kissing her face, her shoulders, her hands wet with tears—oh, how unhappy were!—I confessed my love for her, and with a burning pain in my heart I realized how unnecessary, how petty, and how deceptive all that had hindered us from loving was. I understood that when you love you must either, in your reasonings about that love, start from what is highest, from what is more important than happiness or unhappiness, sin or virtue in their accepted meaning, or you must not reason at all.
“I kissed her for the last time, pressed her hand, and parted for ever. The train had already started. I went into the next compartment—it was empty—and until I reached the next station I sat there crying. Then I walked home to Sofino….”
While Alehin was telling his story, the rain left off and the sun came out. Burkin and Ivan Ivanovitch went out on the balcony, from which there was a beautiful view over the garden and the mill-pond, which was shining now in the sunshine like a mirror. They admired it, and at the same time they were sorry that this man with the kind, clever eyes, who had told them this story with such genuine feeling, should be rushing round and round this huge estate like a squirrel on a wheel instead of devoting himself to science or something else which would have made his life more pleasant; and they thought what a sorrowful face Anna Alexyevna must have had when he said good-bye to her in the railway-carriage and kissed her face and shoulders. Both of them had met her in the town, and Burkin knew her and thought her beautiful.
Games
Winter Fun & Games
Ice skating, snowman building contests, sledding. Is it any wonder that winter is a great time to be a kid? But you do not have to just be a kid to enjoy fun winter games; you only need to be a kid-at-heart.
I know, I know, you get cold to fast, and your bones creak, the idea of indoors and fire is much more appealing...but why not try it? Go forth with that kid-at-heart attitude and let the fun begin!
POWDER-PUFF FOOTBALL
Getting a group of buddies together could be great fun – after all what could be more fun then, snow, friends and football? All you need are two teams of three or more people to play, along with a spray bottle filled with a mix of water and food coloring to mark the playing field (a large rectangle with a centerline should suffice). The teams line up at opposite ends of the field (the North and South poles) for a kick-off. Once someone on the receiving team catches the ball, he tries to move it back across the defence’s goal line by running with it or passing it to a team-mate. Play stops if the person with the ball is tagged by an opponent or slides out of bounds. The teams then face off again on the spot. After four tries, or a touchdown, the ball goes to the other team. The game ends when either team gets cold.
ICE BOWLING
Okay come on, seriously ice bowling sounds like a ton of fun right? Do not forget the camera! I Ice's most fun forms--that of a gigantic bowling lane. On the night before the party, we fill ten (or more) plastic quart or litre bottles and several gallon jugs with water. We add a bit of food coloring to each, and then put them out to freeze. To play, we set out the quart containers as bowling pins, back up ten feet or so, and use the frozen gallon jugs to knock down the quart jugs.
CAPTURE THE FLAG
Agree on two items to serve as "flags." They should be brightly coloured to be seen easily in the snow. Gather your teams, two or three players each side will work.
Decide ahead of time what happens when captured. Either choose to make players "out" for the rest of the game, converted to the team that caught them, or put in a "jail" to be rescued by their team-mates.
The Game
Retreat by team into your territory to hide the flag. The flag must be hung at head height and be visible from 20 yards away on at least one side. Your mission is to capture the others flags while not getting hit by the enemy’s snow balls (try colouring the snowballs with paint or dye)
As seen in the January Issue of Main Street Magazine.
Printed in Canada
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Business Today
Fast Forward: 25 Trends That Will Change the Way You Do Business
From e-mail to health care, and from artificial intelligence to the end of HR as we know it, here are forecasts of how different the world of workforce management will be 10 years from now.
Workforce-management decisions aren’t made with crystal balls. What they do demand is a clear sense of the landscape on the far horizon. As a human resources executive, you probably know what health care will cost your company next year.
But you’re far less certain whether or not legions of workers will be full-time telecommuters five years from now, or if defined benefits will even exist in 2013. Fortunately, there are forward-thinkers and trend-spotters out there who make it their business to suss out the future for us.
Our visionaries don’t always agree with each other, as you’ll see. Still, their predictions of what factors will alter the world of workforce management are provocative, and may serve to inform and intrigue all of us who manage people.
1. E-Mail
It has taken less than a decade for electronic mail to emerge as the heart and soul of corporate communication. Yet while e-mail has made it faster and easier for people to swap words and data, it also has unleashed inbox overload and a seemingly endless stream of spam. Future e-mail systems will attempt to remedy today’s problems--but also adds new capabilities.
One possibility is that senders will have to match a predetermined list--either by name, company, or IP (Internet provider) address--or find themselves blocked. In addition, better anti-spam programs will help sift out the junk.
Powerful information-management and collaboration tools are also likely to emerge. They will link associated messages and track message streams more efficiently. Internet pioneer Vinton Cerf predicts that automatic language translation will take hold. Finally, unified messaging will allow workers to check e-mail, voice mail, mobile messaging, and fax machine from a single inbox.
2. Organized Labor
Despite declining membership and overwhelming odds, labor unions aren’t in danger of dying any time soon. They do, however, face the future with these grim facts: Membership dropped from 20.1 percent of the labor force in 1983 to 13.2 percent in 2002. The decline in U.S.
Still, more than 500,000 workers formed new unions last year. Union members make on average $150 a week more than non-union workers. Pharmacists and physicians, faced with alarming shifts in the medical marketplace, will join unions in growing numbers in the coming years.
But to retain their power, unions must reverse the shrinkage, experts say. "Unions have been doing a better job than ever," says Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of Labor Education Research at Cornell University
3. Business Goes to Kindergarten
All signs indicate that corporate involvement in public schools--already redefining kindergarten-through-high-school education--will continue to increase over the next decade. Alarmed by under performing public schools and students poorly equipped for the job market, business is getting directly involved. Corporate sponsors are popping up on campuses from Washington , D.C. Stockton , California
"We’re saying, ‘See, there is a reason to go to school,’" says Knute Momberg, director of Stockton
4. Going Euro
In Europe , snooping at employees’ e-mail isn’t only considered bad form. It’s often flat-out illegal. And as American companies increasingly enjoy their reputations as global trendsetters in business practices, they may have to reverse some key employee policies, says Andy Boling, a partner and employment-law expert in the Chicago-based law firm Baker & McKenzie.
One obvious area is workplace privacy, where U.S. Europe , another for Hong Kong and Australia United States Europe as the standard."
5. Companies Won't Sleep
In a quest to reach new customers in foreign time zones and to speed up production and services, more and more companies in the future will be open for business around the clock, seven days a week. Already about 24 million Americans work in the 24/7 culture, according to Circadian Technologies, a Massachusetts-based consulting firm. While the 24/7 worker used to be an assembly-line worker, today he or she may well be a college-educated computer-tech-support specialist working nights in San Francisco, providing Japanese-language advice to a customer who calls from Tokyo during his lunch hour.
The migration to a 24/7 workplace will make human resources managers’ jobs far more complex, says David Mitchell, Circadian’s director of publications. "You may have to offer nighttime child-care providers, who watch kids while they sleep," he says. "And you may have to be much more creative in terms of scheduling--for example, if you’re running a call center for a retailer, you may have to have more staff on hand right after the 2:30 a.m. infomercial." Employers also will have a trickier time dealing with disability claims, since some mental health conditions may be exacerbated by a shift to nighttime work.
6. Artificial Intelligence
Making computers think more like people is an idea that persists. In the workplace, software already predicts customer behavior and machine failures on the factory floor. These capabilities will continue to evolve. As the Web and data warehouses grow, artificial intelligence will solve problems that are beyond the reach of the human brain.
AI’s strength is that it can uncover patterns and spot problems amid a mountain of data. That might translate into detecting financial fraud by examining billions of transactions, says Pepperdine University
"AI will bring advances but also usher in ethical concerns," Hall says.
7. The Simmering Malaise
For several years, employees have had a very tough time. They’ve lived with the fear of downsizing. They’ve watched benefits and retirement savings shrink. And they’ve been forced to work harder and longer, with fewer opportunities for promotions or raises. Even when the economy eventually recovers, experts say, pervasive dissatisfaction and anger aren’t likely to evaporate.
Only 25 percent of workers feel a strong attachment to their employers, and 4 in 10 feel trapped in their jobs, according to Walker Information, an Indianapolis-based research firm. Walker
8. Office Design
In the coming years, most cubicle-dwelling employees probably won’t have a room--or a door--of their own. There is an office movement toward more shared work space coupled with private desk areas, especially in creative industries, says Gervais Tompkin, a lead designer with the San Francisco-based Workplace Practices Group at Gensler Architecture, Design and Planning Worldwide.
What’s more, workforce managers will play a key role in office design, serving as a critical link between the personal and professional needs of workers and the vision of architects, he says. "When we analyze what makes our best designs successful and keeps those clients coming back to us, it is the active involvement of human resources managers early on in the process," Tompkin says.
He isn’t prepared to predict the demise of door less cubicle kingdoms, but says that he is seeing changes. "I personally could never operate with a closed door because people need to interrupt me at will since our work is so collaborative. Lawyers, on the other hand, will always need a way to shut out the world because their work is by nature mostly one-on-one."
9. Defined Benefit Plans
Attracting the best and brightest employees in the future will become nearly impossible without a defined benefit plan. Stewart Lawrence, a senior vice president of The Segal Company in New York
Major employers such as Microsoft, Wal-Mart, and Cisco Systems currently don’t offer defined benefit plans because they have been able in recent years to recruit effectively without them. This will no longer be true. As the workforce ages and labor shortages increase, Lawrence
10. Telework Has a Part-Time Future
By the year 2010, more than half of American wage earners will spend more than two days a week working outside the office, reports the Sulzer Infrastructure Services firm in London
It will be rare even 10 years from now, however, to find people in any profession who telework five days a week. When teleworking took off in the 1990s, people talked about how the workforce would be dispersed and offices would shut down. That hasn’t happened, Kistner says. As the economy improves, companies may reduce their real estate, encouraging employees to share offices. That will create open work spaces that accommodate a flexible part-time telework environment. But there will always be a central location where people come to work, she says. "Some people need to come to the office to stay connected."
In professional jobs, teleworking is already common. With technological upgrades and guidance, the trend soon will take hold in fields such as nursing and call-center management. New kinds of work that combine technology and service also will be more feasible as technology improves, says Sirkka Heinonen, senior research scientist at VTT Communities, the biggest technological research center of the Finnish government. As the number of senior citizens in the industrial world rises, for example, many will want to live at home as long as they can. "Some kind of telework service providers to monitor these people at home will likely grow up around this need," she predicts. "These won’t be traditional nurses, who are always on-site, but they will be telepresent and will probably visit [patients] physically from time to time."
11. Consumer-Driven Health Care Reigns
Despite exploratory moves toward consumer-driven health care, most American companies aren’t exactly blasting into this new benefit area--not quite yet. Ten years from now, however, the notion of health-care dollars that employees can spend as they see fit will be routine, say benefits experts.
Consumer-driven plans take many forms. All are designed to make employees more aware of, and responsible for, the cost consequences of their health-care choices. Roger Vaughn, president of Aon Consulting U.S.
The other critical pieces for the success of consumer-driven programs are "education, advocacy, and assistance," says Richard A. Travers, CEO of Travers, O’keefe, a New York-based benefits consulting and brokerage firm. Those elements aren’t entirely present yet, but five years from now they will be, and "we’ll be well on our way," he says.
12. Child Care
Child care is and will continue to be a major, often heartrending subject for working parents. As the national workforce ages and the number of women of childbearing age levels off in the next five years, the demand for child care may lessen. But access to quality child care will continue to be a major issue for working moms and their employers.
Susan Seitel, president of Work & Family Connection, Inc., a Minnesota-based consulting firm, says one of the major problems for working parents is what to do when the babysitter is sick or doesn’t show up, or the regular preschool is closed for a holiday or vacation break. She expects that an increasing number of companies will offer backup-care arrangements that employees can use in the event of emergencies. "Employees often are willing to pay a fee for the care, so all the company may have to provide is the space," Seitel says. A related trend may be the rise of contractors that provide innovative activities for company-sponsored day care, such as theater classes for kids, she says.
13. Help Wanted: Ten Million Workers
The convergence of several trends--declining births, retiring baby boomers, and expected business growth--will create more jobs than there will be workers to fill them by 2010, experts predict. The math is relatively simple. The civilian labor force will increase by 17 million, reaching 158 million in 2010, reports the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But by then, the BLS says, the number of jobs will reach 168 million.
Roger Herman, a futurist specializing in workplace issues, says pressure on baby boomers wanting to retire will be so great that they will be pulled back into the labor market. Even so, he says, older workers won’t show up in large enough numbers to fill the millions of jobs available. Herman says the problem will be aggravated by the shortage of skilled, educated workers already occurring in manufacturing, health care, and various technical fields.
14. Outsourcing
Outsourcing is to in-house human resources what Pac-Man is to dots. Double-digit growth is expected in the multibillion-dollar outsourcing market, dramatically gobbling up traditional human resources tasks and significantly altering people management. Companies spent $61.2 billion worldwide in 2002 on human resources management outsourcing, an amount expected to jump 11 percent annually, to $103.3 billion by 2007.
Growing even faster will be in the one-stop shopping market, where companies bundle different human resources management services into one large contract rather than serving it up piecemeal. Industry analyst Marc Pramuk of IDC in Framingham , Massachusetts U.S.
Newer companies like Exult, a late-1990s start-up that is enjoying phenomenal growth, will battle it out for this business with older, established companies like Fidelity Investments, which has gone beyond its mutual fund and 401(k) business into human resources administration. A sample of things to come: Part of a broad deal with IBM called for the transfer of 700 IBM human resources employees into a Fidelity employer-services company.
15. Recruiting Older Workers
With the graying of the workforce, American business is going to have to pay attention to what older workers want and how to recruit them, says Deborah Russell, manager of Economic Security and Work at the American Association of Retired Persons. "Terms such as ‘fast-paced,’ ‘high-energy,’ ‘young,’ and ‘vital’ are often signals to older workers that they need not apply," she says. AARP encourages companies to use terminology that better reflects age diversity such as "experienced workers" and "age-diverse."
A recent AARP-sponsored study, using a nationally representative sample of 1,500 workers age 45 to 74, shows that 69 percent plan to work in some capacity during their retirement years. They work not only for money but also for intangible benefits such as enjoyment and a sense of purpose. Poll participants focused on "soft benefits" such as adequate time off and flexible schedules as well as "hard benefits," including health-care benefits and insurance and good pension benefits as "absolutely essential parts of their ideal jobs."
16. Mergers
Mergers and acquisitions are like courtships and marriages, says Ira Wolfe, a Leola, Pennsylvania
In the coming years, people management will play a far more pivotal role in corporate mergers. Wolfe estimates that company purchases conducted for the purpose of buying another company’s people could represent as many as half of all acquisitions. Now, he estimates, only about 15 to 20 percent of acquisitions are completed because one organization wants another company’s workforce.
One of the principal reasons why mergers and acquisitions have failed in the past is that workforce management isn’t brought into negotiations until the deal is consummated. No one studies the compatibility of the two cultures. Worse yet, the buyer often tries to change its partner, rather than adopting the ways of working that made the acquire attractive in the first place.
17. Freelancers and Consultants
Today, some 30 million Americans are self-employed, and with companies increasingly enamored of outsourcing as a way to control costs and increase flexibility, the use of freelance contractors and consultants is likely to grow. Dan Pink, author of the 2001 book Free Agent Nation, predicts that corporate workplaces will evolve into a continually shifting mix of employees and freelancers, "to the point where it will become difficult to distinguish one from the other."
That may lead to profound changes. Company health plans may begin to disappear, as workers on the move opt for their own portable health coverage, possibly subsidized by an employer. "Companies may not be hiring people for jobs," Pink says. "Instead, they may be saying, ‘We definitely want this person around for 10 years to accomplish these particular tasks, and after that, we’ll see.’" The concepts of retention and career development, he says, may be supplanted by an emphasis on maintaining long-term connections to workers who manage their own rise, moving in and out of corporate positions with increased freedom.
18. Pay for Wellness Performance
Instead of waiting to pay for the treatment of sick employees, some employers will soon turn to the concept of wellness management--with a twist. They’ll give employees a concrete financial incentive to participate, says Tom Lerche, senior vice president of Aon Consulting.
The process, which is handled through an outside organization to preserve privacy and HIPAA compliance, begins by having employees and their covered spouses take a voluntary health-risk appraisal each year. These questionnaires identify factors that lead to such chronic diseases as asthma, heart disease, and diabetes, which can account for 20 to 35 percent of a company’s medical expenses, Lerche says. If the appraisal identifies two or more risk factors that point to a potential health problem, the employee or spouse is a candidate for health coaching with a nurse, health educator, dietitian, or exercise physiologist. The coach sets up a plan for the health risk and keeps track of the employee’s progress via weekly phone calls. The incentive for the employee is a reduction in insurance premium payments--$55 instead of $75 per month, for instance, Lerche says. And if the employee stops participating, the insurance discount can be suspended until he gets back on track.
"Too much of what we do is a short-term approach," he says. "Fifty percent of disease is ultimately preventable," and this approach can head off many major health problems.
"It’s for the employer that has low turnover, wants to invest in employees, and wants to see to it that they’re productive and in good health" in the working years ahead, Lerche says.
19. Spirituality at Work
Americans eat too much. They spend too much money. They are obese and in debt and worried about personal safety and job security--especially since 9/11 and the economic downturn, says Harriet Hankin, president of CGI Consulting in Malvern, Pennsylvania. And those are some of the reasons they’re increasingly looking for spiritual comfort, she says. "The biggest change in the workplace is the interest in spirituality. It’s about doing the right thing. It’s not about religion. It’s about job satisfaction. Jobs in the future will have to be more meaningful. Pay won’t be as important as a good job."
Referring to the rising number of books on spirituality and business and in subjects such as work/life balance, Jeffrey Pfeffer, professor of organizational behavior at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University
20. Women at Work
With steeply mounting numbers of educated women, glass ceilings are going to shatter in the coming years, says John A. Challenger, CEO of international outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. Between 1979 and 1999, the number of women earning four-year college degrees jumped 44 percent, from 444,000 to 640,000, he says. At the same time, the number of men receiving four-year degrees is declining--from 532,000 in 1993 to about half a million in 1999.
As women earn more college degrees and ascend more corporate ladders, Challenger says, they "will make further inroads into management and exec ranks, and the workforce will have to create an environment where a balance between work and home life is more valued. Temporary and part-time work and job sharing will be more common." There also will be more re-entry opportunities for women who leave the workplace for a few years and then return.
At the same time, more men will be moving into "women’s jobs" like nursing and teaching, Challenger adds. The result won’t be that women are crowded out of the job market. "The major change will be this: The line between men’s and women’s work will blur and fade."
21. Skills Shortage
A job-skills shortage is already reality in the manufacturing industry, and is likely to spread to other industries over the next 10 to 15 years as baby boomers retire. Despite a recession that cost 2 million manufacturing jobs, a recent study by the National Association of Manufacturers warns that "manufacturing could experience a shift from merely having a talent shortage to facing a serious labor crisis."
That’s just manufacturing. Warnings also are forecast about the need for savvy, well-trained workers in job categories such as information technology and the global-energy and electrical-utility industries. Shortages are expected in the global competition for managers, engineers, technicians, skilled craftspeople, and front-line workers, mostly jobs requiring a college degree or technical education. Experts say changes must come on a broad front, from better technology and skills training in secondary schools to aggressive recruitment to a coordinated national workforce policy.
22. Security vs. Privacy
As technology becomes more sophisticated, the ability of those who administer company--and government--computer networks to monitor the comings and goings of workers will grow exponentially. While privacy experts shudder, cameras, keystroke logging, biometric devices, and network monitoring are becoming de rigueur within many organizations.
In the future, the cat-and-mouse war between businesses and crooks will lead to more sophisticated surveillance, the standard use of data encryption, and sophisticated data-mining techniques that spot potential problems and risks by analyzing patterns. "Increasingly, companies are realizing that security is not an option, it’s a basic requirement," says Alan Brill, senior managing director at security consulting firm Kroll Inc., New York
Not surprisingly, the threat of terrorism is raising the stakes. For example, the U.S.
23. Accounting for People
Let’s say you took up the hobby of collecting every annual report from public companies over the last 40 years. You’d be shocked at how little you’d learn about what organizations often say are their "most important assets"--their people.
A few--like the Atlanta Braves, EDS , and Deutsche Bank--have gone out of their way to tell people what their workforces are worth or how much value their training will bring in the long run. In the years to come, however, human resources executives will start to see many more statistics on turnover, absenteeism, and revenue per employee in corporate publications.
"What’s the basis for competition in the 21st century?" asks Thomas P. Flannery, the director of Ernst & Young’s human capital practice. "It’s your ability to think through complex problems, serve the customers better, and be more creative." All these qualities come down to the capabilities of human beings, he says. Wall Street analysts will want to see what corporations know about the people who are winning patents for the company and closing big deals. And when companies show what people are worth, it also reminds shareholders how vulnerable those "important assets" are. Machines stay put, but as Flannery says, "People can walk at any time."
24. Universal Health Care
As costs soar and the number of uninsured Americans--both employed and unemployed--rapidly expands, there are about as many predictions about where health care is headed as Carter’s little pills. Employers are paying an increasingly large share of the cost--and so are employees. And almost everyone acknowledges that some dramatic change in health care is likely, perhaps even inevitable, in the next decade.
The country is indeed moving toward some form of universal health care system, says Jeffrey Pfeffer, professor of organizational behavior in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University United States
25. The End of HR As We Know It
Conventional wisdom says that human resources finally has achieved its sought-after seat at the table. But the ability of human resources to add value at a strategic level "is currently more promise than reality." That’s the sobering finding of Creating a Strategic Human Resources Organization (Stanford Business Books, 2003), a long-term study of human resources by Edward E. Lawler III and Susan Albers Mohrman.
The authors found that today’s people managers still are most comfortable with traditional human resources activities. "If they want to be effective business partners, they need to change their skill set," Lawler and Mohrman say. Almost 30 percent of the companies in the study promote human resources executives who come from the business side, not human resources.
"In essence, some companies may have decided that the HR strategic-partner role is too important to leave to someone with an HR background." The study’s conclusion: Human resources must reinvent itself. "The old approaches and models simply are not good enough."
As seen in Work Force Management. For more articles like this one, visit: www.workforce.com
© Copyright, 2011 Main Street
As seen in the January Issue of Main Street Magazine.
Printed in Canada
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