I’m all aboard Team “Befriend Your Coworkers,” but I mean that you should go to lunch together or maybe plan a happy hour. One Atlanta employee, though, went far above and beyond – she gave her coworker a kidney.
Donor Ceri McCarron and recipient Betty Egwenike worked together as archivists at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library & Museum for more than two decades, but while they were chatty and friendly at work, neither knew much – if anything – about the other’s personal life. Egwenike had been diagnosed with a kidney disease several years ago and had been forced to go on dialysis and wait for a transplant. McCarron discovered by coincidence that she and her coworker shared the same blood type.
The disease produces cysts in the kidneys and eventually causes the organs to deteriorate and stop functioning. By the time she was diagnosed, Egwenike said 55 percent of her kidney function was gone. “I was surprised she was actually going to do it. I was skeptical because you can change your mind at any time. I kind of stayed in the background because I didn’t want to be harassing her. I didn’t ask, it was out of her heart.”
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Everywhere you go, there’s a story on TV or in a newspaper or online about how people are cutting back on luxuries during the difficult economy. More workers are bringing lunches to work instead of going out, carpooling or using public transit to save money on gas, and cutting back on entertainment like concerts and vacations. Now, a study from Rodale (which, coincidentally, publishes Men’s Health magazine) claims that health and wellness related expenses like gym memberships are among the last things to go when someone is trimming their budget. Reasons offered include:
- Working out helps relieve the stress of increased work demands, bad job interviews, and the like
- People want to get the most use they can out of their monthly dues
- Gyms are offering new programs like meditation and yoga classes or, for one gym, a “power nap” session
- It’s a great way to meet people when you can’t afford to go to bars
- If you’re in better shape you can improve your health and possibly cut down on health care costs
- If you’ve been laid off, you may find yourself with a lot of time on your hands
Has the recession made you a gym rat, or was your health club membership the first thing to go out the window?
Did you lose your health insurance coverage along with your job? Well, have no fear – pharmaceutical giant Pfizer wants you to keep taking their meds. They’re offering their 70 most prescribed meds for free if you have been laid off. To qualify, you have to have been laid off since January 1 and have been on the medicine for at least three months before that. You can get the free meds for up to a year. That way they can help out customers and make sure people remain loyal to the brand. Those drugs include:
- Viagra
- Lyrica (fibromyalgia)
- Lipitor (cholesterol)
- Celebrex (pain)
For more info or to figure out if you’re eligible, check out Pfizer’s website.
Man, interns always have to do the dirty work. They’re the ones who have to stand in crazy long Starbucks lines and then carry 20 coffees back to the office and clean up after parties they’re not invited to – and they don’t even get paid. And now NYC alt-weekly The Village Voice has an intern who has to go even more above and beyond the call of duty – while everyone in the media is freaking out about the swine flu, the Voice’s intern went down and caught it.
Good work, dutiful intern! I hope your perseverance pays off with a plum “How I Survived!” cover story, or at the very least a first-person expose.
If you were recently laid off, one of your biggest concerns is probably figuring out what to do about health insurance. Well, Walgreen’s has just announced a plan to provide some free services to their customers who no longer have health insurance. Their in-store Take Care clinics (check online to see if there’s a clinic in your area, as not every city has one) will offer free clinics for allergies, respiratory problems, skin conditions, and more.
Free services will be offered only from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday. Walgreens said it will not offer free checkups, vaccinations or other injections because it is focusing on providing services patients might otherwise get at an urgent-care center or even an emergency room.
Patients must present proof they are unemployed, including a federal or state unemployment determination letter and an unemployment check stub. They will have to sign a form at the clinic saying they have lost their jobs and health benefits. If they find a new job or get new health insurance, they will no longer be eligible for free care.
Spouses and children are also eligible for free services if they don’t have insurance of their own.
Points to Walgreen’s for recognizing a need in their community and trying to address it. While the program is currently just an “experiment,” let’s hope that they decide to keep it going for awhile. There’s no clinic in New York yet, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed. You can check out the store directory here.
How is it that you manage to get eight hours of shut eye and still be exhausted and groggy all day at work? It turns out it’s not enough to sleep–you need to get the right sleep. The term “junk sleep” means any kind of sleep that isn’t deep and blissful. It could be the half-asleep state you’re in when you read a book or think about your ongoing stresses. It could be sleep where you get interrupted or wake up to adjust temperature, steal the sheets back from your significant other, or go to the bathroom.
What to do? This article gives tips on how to create a sleep routine, which gets your body used to going to sleep at the same time every day.
And this one gives feng shui tips to make your bedroom more rest-friendly.
One of the best or worst things (depending who you ask, and if they’re on a diet) about working in an office is the abundance of free food. The overwhelming majority of the time, said free food is of the “junk” persuasion: cupcakes for someone’s birthday, the chick in accounting’s latest cookie recipe, etc. What’s an assistant to do when the call of office snacks is irresistible, but their health (and possibly their waistband) is telling them no?
The Our Lady of Weight Loss blog offers some interesting suggestions for how to handle office junk food. While some of them are a little extreme (printing out a manifesto/flyer proclaiming a junk-free zone), some are very useful. Witness:
- Drink more water
- If you do want to partake in snacks, make an effort to be more active (go to the gym during lunch, take a walk around the office, etc)
- Bring your own healthier snack alternatives
- Make friends with a fellow health-conscious coworker
- Take more breaks–the more productive you are, the less tired you feel, and the less tired you feel the less likely you are to crave sugar
Your job might kill your soul. If it’s boring enough, it might rot your brain. But you do have the ability to keep your body in good shape. Eating Well has some really useful tips for creating a healthier workplace. It’s not just the usual “bring in your own paper-bag lunch” type advice, either–it’s about making the whole company healthier. A few of the suggestions:
- Ditch the vending machine and replace it with a refrigerator to save energy and get rid of a tempting junk-food showcase. Stock the fridge with water, 100% fruit juices and other healthy beverages.
- Recruit a “moving” crew: Each week, invite employees to gather at lunchtime for a brisk 30- to 60-minute walk. Spend the second half of lunch hour back at the office, enjoying a healthy meal together.
- “Turn off” together: Make it a company policy to power down the switchboard for an hour at lunchtime so that hard-working staffers can take a peaceful yoga class or enjoy a mindful meal.
Another cool thing about this article is that they understand how workers joining together can push a company to make changes. After all, it’s one thing if a single employee brings in water or juice. But it’s another thing when a big, wealthy company agrees to cancel its contract with a soda-vending-machine provider.
