FROM THE editors January 10, 2005 Issue

Toward a complaint-free life

Businesses don't get to zero-defect production by starting with a defects-happen attitude. Similarly, the human family won't get to complaint-liberated living by dismissing it as mission impossible. Getting there involves both mental discipline and spiritual growth, which begin with accepting the idea that human life is perfectible—always capable of betterment.

To those who spend their working lives in offices, at retail businesses, or on production lines, the whole notion of the workday as a complaint-free zone still could sound ridiculous. It's easy to find plenty to complain about, starting with the work of getting to work, static pay, adverse working conditions, soaring workloads, relationship issues, and workspace concerns. Clerical personnel in the United States actually lost about 5 percent of their office space from 1994 to 2002, due to office downsizing. And did we mention the weather, outside and inside?

According to the International Facility Management Association, first on the list of employee complaints is a workplace that's too cold. And second? It's too hot.

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