I freely admit to my addictions. It is, after all, the first step to overcoming them. Right now, I am addicted to “Little People, Big World.” It’s a show about a family headed up by two little people that airs on TLC. They have four kids, and own a farm in Oregon where they grow pumpkins. When October rolls around, when pumpkins are in high demand, they have a pumpkin festival where people can purchase the bulbous fruits, take tours of the farm and generally meet the family they watch week after week.

The popularity of the festival, like the popularity of the show, has grown from year to year. Last year, since the mother, Amy, has a birthday in early October, the father, Matt, decided to take her on a cruise. This was the first week of their pumpkin festival. He figured that since it was only the first week, and the year before crowds weren’t that bad, that he and Amy could take the cruise.

Oh, how wrong he was.

Crowds were huge, and the staff he left in charge was ill-equipped to handle it. He chose his vacation poorly.

Most businesses have a vacation approval process. Employees must request the time off, which may or may not be approved. The reason is simple, most people want to take off the same time around school holidays and that would leave the business woefully understaffed. Retail stores typically have vacation blackouts set around Christmas, when shoppers pack the stores looking for gifts.

What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. The boss should be just as choosy with his or her own vacation time as with the staff’s. Major events should be the first chunk of time blacked out on the calendar. Bookstores across the nation had an “all hands on deck” policy for the release weekend of the last Harry Potter book.

To be fair and equitable to the staff, the boss should also respect the order in which requests came in. If two other employees scheduled vacations for the week you just picked, then grin and bear it and choose another week. There are plenty of responsibilities that go along with being boss, as well as perks.

The ultimate goal is a smooth running and profitable business, just don’t take, or allow to be taken, any steps that will jeopardize that.

Career “Creature Feature” Writer

At home it is a lot easier to live a green life, but at the office we are paper cup squashing, copy machine wasting, and computer running waste makers of Mother Earth. With all of the talk and concern over global warming, we should make our long hours spent in the office as green and Earth friendly as possible. Here are some suggestions to improving your workplace.

1. Recycle! – This is one of the most important things that humans can do to help the environment. And with the consumption of all of those energy drinks, those cans need a nice home in a recycling bin and NOT a garbage can.
2. Carpool - According to the EPA, employers have a major incentive here: congestion created by people getting to and from work costs U.S. employers 3.7 billion hours of lost productivity a year, which adds up to $63.1 billion in wasted time and fuel every year. So find people who live near you and create a carpooling schedule with them.
3. Drink from a water bottle – Stop wasting those little triangle paper cups every time you need a sip of water. Take a reusable plastic water bottle to work everyday and save the paper cups and the time you spend going back and forth to get one sip.
4. Walk to lunch – Not only do you get exercise but you can walk with a group and save the CO2 from spilling out into the environment from the dozens of cars your company would have taken.

These are only a few steps on your way to becoming a green workplace. If you as an employer can make the first few steps to a more environmentally friendly workplace then your employees will most likely follow suit. Set the example and make your employees happier, healthier and more comfortable in the place where they spend the majority of their day.