YOUR boss is kind, helpful and supportive, but you are bored with your job. Why not give him or her a copy of How to Increase Employee Stress, an academic paper by D. Schulman which appeared in a journal called Supervisory Management? It is based on the idea that stress is an ''effective incentive and can be a challenging influence in one's life''. Here is a slightly shortened list of Mr Schulman's recommendations: Delegate work at the last minute and say it must be done by tomorrow. Then don't look at it for several days. Give only negative feedback and don't tell how you would like something to be improved. Play favourites. Instead of building a team, assign projects according to how you feel personally about each employee. Play one person against the other. Be manipulative, even though you know the information that you have given is not true. Give a poor performance appraisal with the idea that an individual needs to improve in all areas of work because no one is perfect. Block transfers to other departments where employees would learn more skills, under the guise that they are needed in your department. Send out memos every three days that contradict previous memos. Transfer decision-making powers to your assistant and then state that you should have been consulted on three of the five decisions that have been rendered. Create rumours by telling the staff that the department will be moving. But don't say when. Although it's difficult to be sure, the paper appears to have been written with tongue in cheek. Perhaps some employers have not realised this. Insides story ON Saturday we started the mystery of the missing Diet Coke after Assad Hussein bought an eight-pack which had one can completely empty. The mystery is solved. The can had Coke inside when it left the factory but it dribbled out of a tiny pinhole. B.C. Lo of the Coca-Cola company says that sometimes, very rarely, empty cans knock together in the packaging plant and put a minute hole in their protective coating before they get filled. Without the protective coating the Coke can eat through the aluminium can. Enjoy your drink. Robocop THE Nikkei Weekly reports this week that Kandenco, Japan's largest electrical engineering company, is building a robot traffic control officer to stand at busy road junctions in response to Japan's labour shortage. It is costing about US$500,000 to develop, with the big challenge being to create very life-like arm movements. ''This was vital since drivers are less likely to slow down if it doesn't look like an actual person is guiding traffic,'' says the paper. However, the police are not so keen. Koji Arai of Tokyo Police's traffic department said he was worried that if a blind person asked for help across the road ''a robot would be incapable of taking the person by the hand and leading them across''. Chicken ribbing LEE Montgomery is owner of the Huli Huli chicken restaurant in Wellington Street which was given a ribbing for cutting wings into half and calling them ''pieces''. Lee has a sense of humour. He will need it if he opens in the Philippines, where Huli Huli is shouted at criminals who are trying to escape the police. Cash landing OUR problems are over. This week's Economist magazine carried this advert: Not only do we get an airport at 0.003 per cent of the cost of the one we're messing about with at the moment, but because it is suitable for immigration residency we can all live in America after buying it. Disney World here we come. Sleeping bulls HONG Kong's stockbrokers are a truly lazy bunch compared with their rivals. Perhaps their bosses should be given a copy of How to Increase Employee Stress. This week brokers over the big fence in Shenzhen are extending their dealing hours to four hours a day. Here, the stock market works for just 31/2 hours a day. Tokyo works for four hours a day. Singapore works for 41/2. Hong Kong's dealing hours also seem designed to encourage absenteeism. Trading is from 10 am until 12.30 pm, and from 2.30 pm to 3.30 pm. After a two-hour lunch break it hardly seems worthwhile going back to the office just for an hour of work. On your bike CROWN Motors staff had a cocktail party on Friday evening to say goodbye to their contact at the Toyota factory. They also said farewell to some confusion: his name is Mr Honda. Now they only have to cope with their contact at Hino Trucks, Japan's largest truck maker which is also part of Toyota. His name is Mr Suzuki. Their contact at Toyota Trading Corp, Toyota's trading arm, is Mr Toyota. This makes a lot of sense. Perhaps everyone at Crown Motors should change their name to Mr or Ms Crown-Motors. Incidentally, Nury Vittachlaisee will return to this column tomorrow.
