Employees whose humanity is valued will never feel like rats in a maze

The rat race. I’ve heard the phrase a hundred times, but never understood how it came to mean our tiresome work life. Turns out it is an analogy to lab rats racing through a maze, expending great effort running around, but ultimately achieving nothing. I am fortunate to have a career that I love, one […]

Olivia Wakeling sees the person, not the disease at Stewart’s Caring Place

Stewart’s Caring Place is a resource for cancer support services, providing hope and compassion to patients and caregivers. Olivia Wakeling, executive director, says too often nonprofit organizations are mired in program guidelines, eligibility and other restrictions that sometimes prevent a successful outcome. At Stewart’s, the aim is to set that aside and help people heal […]

AppDynamics finds a nontraditional atmosphere helps focus on customer success

Photo by Andrei Zmievski You won’t find AppDynamics founder and CEO Jyoti Bansal in his San Francisco office — because he doesn’t have one. You’ll find him sitting with all the other employees. Bansal says he wants his company, which specializes in application performance management, to take a nontraditional path. “I decided to not have […]

Whether it’s the candy or the toy, this is one product with ‘legs’

If you read the story of Gary Doss in this month’s Uniquely Northern California, it might resonate with the collector in you. In the mid-1990s, Doss turned his computer store into a PEZ dispenser museum. After all, more customers were coming in to look at his PEZ dispensers than computers. He has more than 1,000 […]