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Meditation in the Workplace?

prostoalex writes "Nortel, Texas Instruments, Raytheon, Google, Apple and many others are apparently finding meditation and yoga to be a very efficient way to motivate and energize the employees. BusinessWeek finds that the reasons companies are suddenly hiring the yoga experts and conducting regular classes are easily justified to the management: "increased brain-wave activity, enhanced intuition, better concentration, and the alleviation of the kinds of aches and pains that plague employees most"."

29 of 441 comments (clear)

  1. Medication by Anonymous+Cowturd · · Score: 5, Funny

    I misread 'Meditation' as 'Medication', which might be relaxing in the workplace.

    --


    if 'fruits de mer' = seafood
    does 'fruits de merde' = mushrooms?
  2. Save your money by barryfandango · · Score: 5, Funny

    You may as well just create a 1-2pm "Execute Powernap."

    --
    In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane. -Oscar Wilde
  3. this is cool! by RMH101 · · Score: 4, Funny

    ..along with the web, email, trips to the coffee machine, phone calls, scratching my bollocks and leaving early this means i might never need to do anything in the office ever again!

  4. Does that mean... by Advocadus+Diaboli · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... that now my firm approves it when I sleep off at my desk? Well, its a sort of meditation too, isn't it?

  5. Yoga: Foosball for a New Decade by RobotRunAmok · · Score: 4, Funny
    increased brain-wave activity, enhanced intuition, better concentration, and the alleviation of the kinds of aches and pains that plague employees most

    Personally, I derive the same benefits from my Scotch-and-Cigar breaks, without the added mystic baggage. Fortunately, I work from home.

    But, hey, whatever floats your boat. If sitting in the Lotus Position and intoning chants from the Vedas is what we have to do to keep jobs from going to India, I'm all for it.

    ...appreciating the irony it, but all for it, nonetheless.

  6. Electronic Component Makers Mantra' by G4from128k · · Score: 5, Funny

    News from the future -- 'ResistorCorp has Employees Chanting "Ohm" '

    --
    Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
  7. Next on internalmemo.com by palad1 · · Score: 5, Funny

    To: employees@company.com
    From: management@company.com
    Subject: Note Yoga team members

    Dear ${team_member},

    It has recently come to our attention that some corridors have a very strong smell of incense, patchouli and other unidentified substances.

    As much as we value the quality of your working environment, we would like to remind you that marijuana is not yet allowed within the united states.

    Sincerely,
    ${manager}

    ps: What's with all those Pink Floyds mp3 ?

  8. Ah crap! by anonymous+loser · · Score: 2, Funny

    As if I needed one more thing to worry about. Now I find out that my employer is monitoring my brainwave activiy?

    What the hell must they think when I fall asleep browsing porn sites?

  9. Motivation through fear. by grub · · Score: 3, Funny


    Here each week's lowest producer has to have the goatse.cx guy as his desktop wallpaper the following week.

    --
    Trolling is a art,
    1. Re:Motivation through fear. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Is your company public? I see great amounts of productivity in your future.

  10. Obligitory Simpsons quote by Trigun · · Score: 2, Funny

    "Shake out the jive....
    Bring in the Love ....." --C.M. Burns

  11. Re:Anything to get away for an hour by Lord_Slepnir · · Score: 2, Funny

    That's why there's slashdot....wait, you mean ONLY an hour a day?

  12. The benefits by Gothmolly · · Score: 2, Funny

    Yes, Mr. PHB, if you hire me as your Yoga Expert, I will provide "increased brain-wave activity, enhanced intuition, better concentration, and the alleviation of the kinds of aches and pains that plague employees most". Trust me.

    Dogbert

    --
    I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
  13. Re:Buddhism by zonix · · Score: 2, Funny
    no all powerful elephant-god floating in the sky somewhere...

    No, but then there's the gnu. :-)

    z
    --
    What would an EWOULDBLOCK block, if an EWOULDBLOCK could block would? -- me
  14. Yoda in the workplace? Sorry by AtariAmarok · · Score: 2, Funny

    I read this one and at first thought it was about Yoda in the workplace.

    Begin, this reading comprehension failure has.

    --
    Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
  15. all the same by AssFace · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'd rather have lapdances.

    --

    There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
  16. Re:What a lot of Nonsense by executebusiness.com · · Score: 1, Funny

    Do what I do: just about twenty minutes from yoga class, stand on a desk and reach for the ceiling and twist your body in a wierd manner (slight convulsions). Roll your eyes up in your head while you do this. I guarantee you'll get free psychotherapy and you won't have to go to yoga. Tell your boss it would disrupt your chi to have to do yoga. Then while everyone's out wasting time doing yoga, you can catch up at the office doing the important stuff - hijacking your boss' important clients for when you cut loose in a few months.

  17. "increased brain-wave activity" by BigGerman · · Score: 1, Funny

    How do they detect that - do network cards start blowing up with beeping,sparks and stuff?

  18. Yoga jobs going to India! by semanticgap · · Score: 4, Funny

    Those newly hired Yoga experts better not get too comfy - major us corporations are trying to outsource meditation to India where Yoga expertiese is higher and average Yoga expert salary is 5 loafs of bread per month.

  19. Interesting? Puhlease by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    If you enjoyed this diatribe then buy the greatest hits collection of comments by kruczowski including classics such as:

    * Nobody likes doing things that they don't enjoy

    * The trees in Russia are green, generally

    * Red is one of the primary colours

    Oh well, funny how the first non troll post never gets lower than a 4 no matter what shit the people say

  20. Re:What a lot of Nonsense by esm · · Score: 3, Funny
    Yoga in the workplace sounds like a stretch to me
    Yes, I think that's the idea.
  21. Re:What a lot of Nonsense by nolife · · Score: 3, Funny

    Meditation is *very* useful for clearing the mind and relieving stress. It's a useful tool for collecting your thoughts, visualizing the achievement of goals, and quieting the useless chatter in your mind that keeps you from being productive.

    Substitute "Mediation" with "six pack" and you have what the rest of us do. The effects are amazingly similar plus it has the added bonus of the beer goggle effect.

    --
    Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
  22. Logarithm Blocking - ROFL by Omni-Cognate · · Score: 1, Funny

    Spammers have ways to get around anti-spam filters, he said, but it's possible to collect patterns from their e-mails and block certain logarithms.

    Hand me my cluebat!

    --

    "The Milliard Gargantubrain? A mere abacus - mention it not."

    1. Re:Logarithm Blocking - ROFL by Omni-Cognate · · Score: 0, Funny

      Somehow posted to wrong article. How did that happen?

      (Scratches head, then vigorously pummels self with own cluebat)

      --

      "The Milliard Gargantubrain? A mere abacus - mention it not."

  23. Re:What a lot of Nonsense by alexkj · · Score: 5, Funny

    heh-heh, "enforced meditation". I kinda like the concept. Come on. Meditate! Now! Be calm. NO, CALM!

  24. Reminds me of the 90's by WeirdKid · · Score: 1, Funny

    I worked for a startup in the mid nineties that had an OSM (on-site masseuse), FLL (Friday Liquid Lunch), and LTWC (Lunch-time WarCraft). This reminds me a bit of the "keep your employees happy and they'll work 90 hours without complaining" movement, but all I really want these days is to be able to bring my dog to work with me again. You can keep your yoga.

  25. Meditation and Type "A" personalities... by Phoenix · · Score: 2, Funny

    ...is that really a good idea?

    I can imagine someone working on a deadline, the boss pipes up and says that it's meditation time.

    oooohhhmmmmmm....Ooooohhhmmmmmm....OOOOHHHHMMMMM DAMNIT OOOOHHHHMMMMMM!

    Or the yoga...would that be better? The annoying co-worker who whistles through his nose every time he breaths...I can imagine the stressed out "A" Type grabbing the guy and 'helping' him into several yoga positions that while are impossible, are amusing to contemplate

    --
    -- Wiccan Army, 13th Airborne Division "We will not fly silently into the night"
  26. Wait a minute... by dashing_cavalier · · Score: 2, Funny
    and the alleviation of the kinds of aches and pains that plague employees most

    So - they're firing all the PHBs then?

    --
    Meh.
  27. Re:What a lot of Nonsense by mcd7756 · · Score: 2, Funny
    I keep changing the bulbs in my lamps but wasn't getting any more satisfied.

    So then I put all the bulbs in a circle around me and meditated on them. Didn't help either, at least directly. Coworkers started avoiding me and that helped bring my stress levels down a lot.

    That didn't make me truly happy either, so I started breaking the light bulbs with my shoes. That was a lot of fun, but only lasts until you run out of light bulbs.

    Satisfaction still eludes me. Is there some other fad/religion/coding technique I can pay someone to tell me about?

    --
    Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them? --Abraham Lincoln