Latest news with #workLifeBalance
The Independent
17 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Comedian and TV star Romesh Ranganathan makes career admission
Comedian Romesh Ranganathan, 47, revealed on BBC Radio 4 's Desert Island Discs that he is 'taking a step back' from his career to spend more time at home, though he clarified this is not a retirement announcement. Ranganathan emphasised that he has no specific career strategy or 'end game,' and is currently 'just doing whatever feels good.' He mentioned he intends to be more measured in his work going forward, potentially taking longer breaks between projects to experience life outside of comedy. Reflecting on his previous career as a maths teacher, Ranganathan stated that it was more stressful than his current work in comedy, despite feeling fulfilled in the role. Besides his stand-up career, Ranganathan is known for presenting The Weakest Link, starring in the sitcom Avoidance, and hosting shows on BBC Radio 2, including Romesh Ranganathan: For The Love Of Hip Hop.
Independent Singapore
21 hours ago
- Health
- Independent Singapore
Former teacher takes pay cut for career change and falls in love with her new ‘eight-to-five' admin job, ‘glued to the chair typing away'
SINGAPORE: A former teacher has taken to Reddit to reflect on her bold career switch, revealing that despite a significant pay cut, walking away from teaching turned out to be one of the best choices she has ever made. In a candid post on the r/askSingapore forum, the woman shared that while she didn't hate teaching, she dreaded going to work every day during her four years in the profession. She explained that her daily routine began as early as 6:45 a.m. and often stretched well beyond 6 p.m. due to lesson preparations and extracurricular activities. She also worked close to five and a half days a week, leaving her with virtually no time or energy for herself. 'I dreaded it so badly. Waking up and going to work was a chore and had zero work-life balance,' she wrote. 'When I reach home, I'm so exhausted I can barely do anything else. Parents also love to contact us after working hours, and back then, my principal was adamant about us replying to them, or it would seem like we did not care about the kids' well-being. My health was on a decline, mentally and physically.' Feeling worn out and increasingly disconnected from the joy of teaching, she made the tough decision to leave the profession. 'I finally decided to leave the role and went to do a low-paying office administration job. Struggled a little at first, but I learned quickly and went on to switch to HR Team at an MNC,' she wrote. Crazy enough, I love it so much, I love coming to the office, I love working eight to five, I love my job, and I love sitting at a desk, glued to the chair typing away,' she expressed. 'Every time I tell my coworkers or friends who have been working office jobs since graduation, they all tell me I'm crazy, but this is truly an upgrade from my teacher role.' Ending her post, she asked her fellow users, 'Has anyone been in the same boat as me? Want to know your story too!' 'Find a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life…' Many Reddit users resonated with her story, responding with their own experiences or observations about the teaching profession in Singapore. Several pointed out that her struggles were far from unique, saying they had friends or family members in education who also felt overwhelmed and underappreciated. One shared, 'Friends in teaching all tell me that they are exhausted. It's often the connect plan that keeps them going.' Another commented, 'I've been a teacher for more than 10 years, and the recent few years have been especially bad for me mentally. I still love the job and teaching, but somehow, there has been more stress from non-teaching-related things. This year has been especially bad. I have been waking up at 3 a.m. and basically staying awake until my alarm goes off at 5 a.m. plus. Thinking of calling it quits before I lose my mind.' Others also commended the woman for having the courage to step away from a career she was once passionate about to prioritise her mental well-being. One added, 'Fantastic to hear. Find a job you love, and you'll never work a day in your life. I've seen so much general negativity on this Reddit, and it's great to see someone like you.' Another added, 'Thank you for sharing about your wonderful career transition. It gives me hope.' Nearly one in four teachers in Singapore say they experience high work stress In 2022, the Ministry of Education shared on its website that fewer than one in 20 teachers who resigned over the past five years cited workload or job-related stress as the main reason for leaving the profession. However, this statistic may not fully capture the day-to-day challenges faced by many educators. In fact, surveys reveal that nearly a quarter of teachers in Singapore (approximately 23%) report experiencing a high level of work-related stress. This figure is notably higher than the average among Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, where around 18% of teachers report feeling this level of pressure. Read also: 'Even dogs get treated better': Singaporean man says his home felt more like a prison than a place to grow up Featured image by freepik (for illustration purposes only)
CNA
3 days ago
- Health
- CNA
Why your brain can't let go of unfinished tasks, even something as minor as a half-written email
Sometimes when I'm not working, I find that I still am – in my head. I could be at home, chilling on the sofa while watching an episode of The White Lotus, a TV series on HBO Max. But somewhere in the background of my brain, some quiet thoughts are gnawing at me: I haven't finished the legwork for my upcoming article. There are emails I need to reply to, and ideas I should jot down lest I forget about them before my next meeting. And it's not just work. The undone chores around my home sometimes whisper, too: the laundry that hasn't been folded, the dishes still in the sink, the text messages from friends I meant to reply to this morning. None of these tasks would be categorised as extremely urgent. Some aren't even that important. But in those pockets of rest, they surface again and again, making it hard to truly disengage from brain from my responsibilities and enjoy my leisure activity. It's as if my brain doesn't fully trust the idea of doing nothing or getting a complete rest. It seems that many of us carry the weight of unfinished tasks like invisible backpacks, even in our downtime. So why can't we let go of undone things, no matter how small they are? Why do work tasks cling to our minds long after we've logged off? Curious about whether something like this has been explored in psychology, I did some research and found that psychologists have a name for this – the Zeigarnik effect. It is our brain's tendency to keep reminding us about unfinished tasks more than those we've completed. That's why some things stay 'rent-free' in your mind, because they're not done yet. HOW DOES THE ZEIGARNIK EFFECT WORK? Elaborating on the Zeigarnik effect, psychologists I spoke to said that the human brain is like a tab-hoarding browser, so the moment something is unfinished, it keeps that tab open and blinking until something is done about it. This was first observed by Russian psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik in the 1920s, after she noticed that waiters could remember complex orders only while they were in progress, but forgot them after the bills were paid. Dr Geraldine Tan, director and principal psychologist of The Therapy Room, said the effect itself is not a huge issue, and it manifests even in everyday situations. 'Let's say you have a pot of water on the stove and you need to wait for it to boil before adding in the pasta. If you forget the water is boiling, it could be disastrous,' she said. 'So sometimes, these thoughts linger because there's an element of risk or consequence involved.' Even if it's not dangerous, Dr Tan said the brain 'parks' the thought, keeps it there until it is done, though some mental effort is required. "Like when you go to the supermarket, and you hear an aunty saying, 'Oh I haven't done this, I need to go home. I need to do this, I need to do that'. Often times, this sounds like a complaint, but it's just something she's repeating to herself so she can complete her unfinished tasks." However, with how fast-paced urban life is, these 'parked' thoughts sometimes get pushed aside by other priorities. Dr Tan explained that they do not disappear – they are just displaced, until something might trigger the memory again, forcing you to get back to the task eventually. Dr Ong Mian Li, founder and principal clinical psychologist of Lightfull Psychology and Consulting Practice, said one theory behind the Zeigarnik effect is that our brains evolved from prehistoric times to prioritise potential threats or risks, also known as loss aversion. Back then, unfinished business could mean danger, such as forgetting where a predator was, he added. 'So even today, your brain throws a mental tantrum when something's unresolved, even if it's just a half-written email ... it throws up a yellow or red light.' WHILE HELPFUL FOR LEARNING, IT CAN BE DRAINING With that lingering mental itch nudging you towards completing tasks, the psychologists said that the effect has upsides in learning and working, as it functions like a built-in reminder system to help us finish what we started. Dr Tan said this is especially helpful in learning, such as how young children learning to tell time often get stuck on how the minute and hour hands relate, so the information feels incomplete. "That sense of 'I still don't get this' drives you to revise, and that's productive. If the task feels incomplete, the brain pushes you to go back to it and complete the learning." In the workplace, Dr Tan said the same effect can drive preparation, like mentally rehearsing what to say in a meeting or revisiting a task list before work. 'It's useful, but only as long as you act on it. If you don't, the weight compounds. The effect lingers in the background, draining your energy.' Ms Eunice Lim, clinical psychologist at Heartscape Psychology, said that when this happens, it could contribute to fatigue, burnout, and negative self-beliefs around competence, especially in individuals with perfectionistic tendencies. People juggling multiple roles – work, caregiving, financial stress – often feel the Zeigarnik effect more intensely, she added. Tasks start to bleed into rest time and even joyful moments can feel muted because the mind is still stuck in 'unfinished' mode, Ms Lim explained. 'The mental strain of chronic incompletion can mimic hypervigilance, where the body stays on alert because it doesn't feel safe to rest. 'For some, this shows up as difficulty falling asleep, as their minds replay what they haven't completed, what they should've done, or what still hasn't been started,' she said, adding that in some cases, it may even lead to depersonalisation, where one feels numb or emotionally disconnected as a way to cope. Dr Tan added that this effect extends beyond short-term tasks, as long-term unmet goals, such as a dream or a goal you haven't moved on from for years, can also be problematic when they loop in your head. "This can go in a few directions: You resign yourself to thinking, 'I'll never do it', or you feel like you've failed, which can cause you to spiral downward. "Or, you finally decide, 'Okay, when am I going to do this?' Then you make a plan, even if it's for later," she said, adding that the bigger the goal, the more mental space it takes up. COPING MECHANISMS AND HOW TO USE IT TO YOUR ADVANTAGE The good news is, there are simple tips and strategies you can adopt to mentally close the loop on tasks you are unable to finish right away. The psychologists advised getting things out of your head and onto a list, which will help declutter the mind, even if you're not acting on it yet. But lists alone aren't enough. Dr Tan of The Therapy Room said that you also need to convert thoughts into behaviour, which means acting on at least one item on your list. 'Start by reprioritising. Do the things you can do. Put a clear timeline to them – once they're done, they're done,' she said. 'After that, you'll realise that things aren't so bad. And for the rest, you can throw it out if it's unnecessary, resource yourself by getting help from others, or just get started on the task.' Heartscape Psychology's Ms Lim mentioned the 'one-minute rule': if a task takes under a minute to complete, do it immediately, as this helps close small loops and prevents build-up. She also said breaking big goals into small, actionable steps goes a long way, as a single goal can sometimes feel massive and overwhelming, thus leading to avoidance. 'For example, if you have a goal of switching out of a career you are unhappy in, try 'Listing three companies I am curious about on LinkedIn' or 'Speak to a friend in that industry I am interested in'.' Dr Ong from Lightfull Psychology also noted that the Zeigarnik effect can be used to our advantage – one simple way is to start a task and intentionally leave it midway before taking a break. 'That little tension pull? It'll motivate you to come back and finish it. Writers and creatives do this all the time,' he said, adding that this is the same psychological trick behind TV cliffhangers.' Another mindhack: Just tell yourself you're going to begin a task to gently nudge yourself into action, said Dr Ong. "Chances are, your brain won't let you rest until you come back to it. This is really helpful for procrastinators." Dr Ong noted that the Zeigarnik effect is more pronounced today than it was 10 to 15 years ago. Back then, most people had just one email inbox to manage. Now, he said: 'We have six inboxes, three messaging apps, and a smartwatch reminding you that you've only done 5,000 steps.' "It's not just about how many inboxes we have, it's the sense that we're never quite done. There's always one more notification, one more ping, one more thing we could be optimising. "The modern challenge isn't just about finishing things. It's about deciding what's worth finishing. And sometimes, the healthiest thing you can do is close a mental tab with a shrug and say, 'Not today, and that's okay'."
Wall Street Journal
3 days ago
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
Remote Work Is Convenient for Employees…and North Korean Scammers - Tech News Briefing
Jobs that allow employees to work from home have allowed for more flexibility. But in the quest to achieve a better work-life balance, we've helped open the door for hackers looking to capitalize on America's workforce. Bob McMillan covers computer security, hackers, and privacy for the Wall Street Journal. He joins host Victoria Craig to discuss how laptop farms have allowed North Korean scammers to rake in hundreds of millions of dollars to the sanctioned country. Full Transcript This transcript was prepared by a transcription service. This version may not be in its final form and may be updated. Victoria Craig: Hey, TNB listeners, before we get started, heads up, we're going to be asking you a question at the top of each show for the next few weeks. Our goal here at Tech News Briefing is to keep you updated with the latest headlines and trends on all things tech. Now, we want to know more about you, what you like about the show, and what more you'd like to hear from us. So our question this week is how often do you want new episodes and how long do you want them to be? Do you want shorter shows more often or longer shows less frequently? If you're listening on Spotify, look for our poll under the episode description, or you can send us an email to tnb@ Now onto the show. Welcome to Tech News Briefing. It's Friday, May 30th. I'm Victoria Craig for the Wall Street Journal. Remote jobs have become common for workers in industries across America. They make the work-life balance easier for employees, but they've also allowed countries like North Korea to infiltrate US companies with the help of everyday Americans. Today we're taking a deep dive into an intricate scam involving illegal paychecks and stolen data. A scam that the FBI says involves thousands of North Korean workers, has brought hundreds of millions of dollars a year into the country. It's a place where international sanctions have frozen the flow of funds, so the country has gotten creative in its quest for cash. And it's capitalized on some of America's remote work opportunities to start laptop farms in states across the US. Bob McMillan covers computer security hackers and privacy for the Wall Street Journal. Bob, I'm going to guess that the phrase "laptop farm" is not a familiar one for most of our listeners. So what is it and what kind of person typically runs one? Bob McMillan: Yeah, it's a new gig economy job that's popped up since the COVID epidemic and the advent of massive remote work. That's not something you'll find advertised, but basically you get a request, maybe via LinkedIn or some kind of gig work site that asks if you want to help a foreign company with a US representation. And the next thing you know, you're getting laptops shipped to your house and you're turning them on and you're operating them, but they're shipped to fake workers who have got jobs at these companies and who need a US address to pretend to be working out of. So laptop farmer receives the computers for the fake workers, turns them on, connects them, and then adds remote software so these people offshore can connect to these laptops. And then doing things like tech jobs, Python development and stuff like that. Here's the kicker though. The remote workers are actually North Koreans and they're trying to, in a very illegal way, make money for the heavily sanctioned regime there. Victoria Craig: Tell us about Christina Chapman because she was one of the people in America who participated in this scheme. Bob McMillan: Christina Chapman's case was interesting because you had the court record that had all these allegations of what she was doing. And then she left a very long TikTok trail of just all kinds of political TikToks, personal TikToks, TikToks about Japanese boy bands. But embedded in that were a few comments on her work and her situation in life. Christina Chapman: And I did not make my own breakfast this morning. My clients are going crazy, so I just got a smoothie bowl. It's an acai smoothie bowl and it has bananas, strawberries. Bob McMillan: But coincidentally in the background, you can see I counted at least 10 laptops there. They've got Post-it notes on them that apparently say the name of the worker and the company they're supposed to be working for. And you hear them just whirring away in her apartment. Victoria Craig: And what made Chapman a target for this kind of scam? Bob McMillan: Her story is probably, in many ways, very typical of these people. They are gig workers who reach a point in their life where they're desperate. And that's what happened with Christina Chapman. She was basically living in a trailer in Minnesota. She didn't have any heat. She was showering at her local gym. She really was at a dead end in her life. And this offer came in through LinkedIn saying, "Hey, do you want to be our US representative?" It became clear pretty quickly that some of the stuff she was doing was illegal. It's at least fraudulent, right? But she was desperate, and it really did turn her life around. I mean, she ended up having a much better quality of life as a result of this job. The problem is it's completely illegal. Victoria Craig: So the question about whether these people who are acting on behalf essentially of the North Koreans, whether they know what they're doing is illegal. Christina Chapman may not have known the nationality of the people she was working with, but you're right that she did acknowledge that she could "go to federal prison for falsifying federal documents." Bob McMillan: Yeah, it's pretty hard to do this gig without realizing you're doing something illegal, right? Because quite often you have to forge signatures. You have to facilitate the presentation of fake credentials. But if you look at the court records, she's basically saying, "Hey, what you're asking me to do is illegal," all the time. And the thing is that if you do fraud, that's one thing, but if you do fraud in support of the North Koreans, that's way worse. Victoria Craig: Coming up, a look at the corporate side of this scheme, who the scammers are targeting and what they want after the break. To make a laptop farming scam successful tech specialists usually trained in North Korea's technical education programs need to first find a back door into corporate America. We're back with WSJ reporter, Bob McMillan, who's been reporting on this. Bob, you write that. Christina Chapman, the so-called laptop farmer, who we about earlier helped North Koreans who got jobs at big companies like at a top five national television network here, a premier Silicon Valley tech company, an aerospace and defense manufacturer. And the list goes on. How exactly does this process work? How do they effectively trick the companies into hiring people who are really based in North Korea, China, or even Russia as you report? Bob McMillan: They basically operate a complete shadow economy. They have LinkedIn profiles, they have GitHub repositories where they store source code. They even have fake companies that they can use as references. So they build this sort of simulation of a legitimate, usually a tech worker profile. And then they just are so good at bombarding people with job requests. Companies have different levels of diligence they do around making sure the people they're hiring for remote work are real. A lot of them require that you come in, but some don't. And so with the people who can just straight up be hired by a staffing agency, for example, and never even have to show up, that's an easy one for them. But even if a company requires a face-to-face meeting, the North Koreans have a way around that. For a while, they were doing virtual face-to-face meetings with AI-driven avatars. So there're these fake faces that they would show up on Zoom meetings. And when people started figuring out how to get around that, if you ask the AI avatar to wave their hand in front of them, then the software doesn't work. And so you can tell it's a fake person. So they got around that though. They started hiring people who legitimately had tech skills to pass these interviews. Victoria Craig: And what do the North Koreans ultimately want from these workers? Bob McMillan: There are three things they want. First and foremost, they want money. Their regime is sanctioned. They have a hard time trading with anyone in the West, and they need cash. They need cash for their weapons program, for example. And the FBI estimates that they are making hundreds of millions of dollars a year just from paychecks, from companies hiring these North Koreans, who by all accounts, some are terrible workers and some are not bad, some last months or even years at these companies. And so they found sort of a hack of our remote work situation right now. So that's the first thing they want is money. The second thing, they want more money. So quite often they'll exfiltrate data, they'll steal your corporate secrets, your source code, customer information, and then they will threaten to dump it once you fire them. And so they'll extort you. So that's number two. And then the third case is murky, but the FBI suspects that they're also conducting espionage. So they've hit aerospace companies. There are certain types of companies that might have secrets that the North Korean regime would be interested in. So those are the three things they're doing. Victoria Craig: And how widespread is this? Bob McMillan: The FBI thinks there are thousands of these workers out there. And what's fascinating to me is I heard about this scam a couple of years ago. And where it started was in the cryptocurrency world. The crypto companies were getting with these fake workers all the time. And I didn't realize until I wrote this story how incredibly widespread it is. It feels like anybody who is hiring a remote worker has to worry about this. Victoria Craig: And is there anything the companies can do once they find out that this has happened to them? Bob McMillan: Since the story published, there's been a lot of debate over this. I actually asked Amazon's CSO about this problem, and he was aware of it. And I said, "What can you do about it?" And he said, "Well, you could have your employees come in five days a week." Victoria Craig: So just to close the loop on Christina for us, what ended up happening to her once she was found out, essentially? Bob McMillan: The FBI raided her house in October of 2023. She was charged the next year, and she struck a plea deal. So she's pled guilty, and she's due to be sentenced on July 16. According to the terms of her plea deal, she could be facing just a little bit more than nine years in prison for this. Victoria Craig: Wow. Wow. But her financial situation didn't turn out any better. She essentially wound up almost back where she was before. Isn't that right? Bob McMillan: It was worse, really. I mean, she's living in a homeless shelter now. She attempted to do a variety of things after the raid. The North Koreans didn't pay her for her final month of services. And she tried to do a GoFundMe. She tried to sell coloring books on Amazon. She did DoorDash one night and made $7.25 doing it. She struggled when this gig went away, and she eventually lost her home. And she's, yeah, living in a homeless shelter now. Victoria Craig: That was WSJ reporter, Bob McMillan there. And that's it for Tech News Briefing. Today's show is produced by Julie Chang. I'm your host, Victoria Craig. Jessica Fenton, and Michael LaValle wrote our theme music. Our supervising producer is Melony Roy. Our development producer is Aisha Al-Muslim. Scott Saloway and Chris Zinsli are the deputy editors. And Philana Patterson is the Wall Street Journal's head of news audio. We'll be back this afternoon with TNB Tech Minute. Thanks for listening.
Wall Street Journal
4 days ago
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
Of Course Workers Want a Four-Day Week. Companies Should Too.
In 2022, I signed on as lead researcher at 4DWG, an international NGO that aims to make a four-day workweek the new standard. Since then, we have studied 245 businesses and nonprofits as they adopted four-day-week pilot programs for more than 8,700 workers, in countries including the U.S., U.K., Brazil, Portugal, Germany and South Africa. For those employees, the results of working one day less every week, with no reduction in pay, have been outstanding: 69% experience reduced burnout, 42% have better mental health, and 37% see improvements in physical health. Thirteen percent of participants say they wouldn't go back to a five-day schedule for any amount of money.
