Learn about the impact of keeping employees available 24/7; a theologian who made plans to go to the moon in the 1600s; and new research into how being hungover can be just as dangerous as being drunk. In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes: Keeping Employees Available 24/7 Harms Collaboration and Mental Health This Theologian Made Plans for a Moon Landing in the 1600s Hangovers Can Be Just as Dangerous as Being Drunk Please tell us about yourself and help us improve the show by taking our listener survey! https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/curiosity-listener-survey If you love our show and you're interested in hearing full-length interviews, then please consider supporting us on Patreon. You'll get exclusive episodes and access to our archives as soon as you become a Patron! Learn about these topics and more onCuriosity.com, and download our5-star app for Android and iOS. Then, join the conversation onFacebook,Twitter, andInstagram. Plus: Amazon smart speaker users, enable ourAlexa Flash Briefing to learn something new in just a few minutes every day!
Learn about the impact of keeping employees available 24/7; a theologian who made plans to go to the moon in the 1600s; and new research into how being hungover can be just as dangerous as being drunk.
In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes:
Please tell us about yourself and help us improve the show by taking our listener survey! https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/curiosity-listener-survey
If you love our show and you're interested in hearing full-length interviews, then please consider supporting us on Patreon. You'll get exclusive episodes and access to our archives as soon as you become a Patron!
Learn about these topics and more on Curiosity.com, and download our 5-star app for Android and iOS. Then, join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Plus: Amazon smart speaker users, enable our Alexa Flash Briefing to learn something new in just a few minutes every day!
Full episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/hangover-impairment-moon-landings-in-the-1600s-and-harmful-effects-of-24-7-workplaces
CODY GOUGH: Hi. We've got the latest and greatest from curiosity.com to help you get smarter in just a few minutes. I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: And I'm Ashley Hamer. Today you'll learn about the impact of keeping employees available 24/7, a theologian who made plans to go to the moon in the 1600s, and new research that says that being hung over can be just as dangerous as being drunk.
CODY GOUGH: Let's satisfy some curiosity. Are you available to your employer 24/7? A pair of recent studies says you really shouldn't be. We'll help you understand how to stay healthy, and collaborate at your best. And by the way, I get it. Long time listeners probably think I hate work.
ASHLEY HAMER: No, you don't hate work. It's just, you know, you can't be creative when you're just constantly working.
CODY GOUGH: I actually love work. But I know people who are significantly overworked, and I know the horrible health impact on that, and happiness and-- I just want everybody to be happy, and healthy, and wonderful, and joyous, and grateful.
ASHLEY HAMER: I wish that I could bake a cake made out of rainbows and smiles, and we'd all eat it and be happy. Hashtag mean girls.
CODY GOUGH: It's a good reference. Well, like I said, we're going to talk about two studies today. The first was led by Virginia Tech Management, Professor William Becker. It found that even just the expectation that employees be available 24/7, raises stress levels for both workers and their families. That was true even if bosses didn't even send late night emails or otherwise abuse the privilege. Just the worry that they might do that, was enough to produce negative effects. Becker said, quote, "The insidious impact of always on organizational culture, is often unaccounted for or disguised as a benefit. Increased convenience, for example, or higher autonomy and control over work-life boundaries." Unquote. OK, so you hear me and your boss, and you're thinking, well, business is business, and my employee is to be always on for business.
Well, the second study out of Harvard, looked at the performance of three-person teams who were assigned to complicated problems they had to solve. Some of those groups worked in isolation. Some talked intermittently, and a final bunch constantly chatted, thanks to always on technology. Like the kind you find in 24/7 work environments.
The groups that interacted often but still guarded some alone time for solitary reflection, actually came up with the best and most innovative solutions. Harvard's Ethan Bernstein said, quote, "As we replace those sorts of intermittent cycles with always on technologies, we may be diminishing our capacity to solve problems well." Unquote. These two studies together basically show you that your employees will be less happy and less collaborative in a 24/7 environment.
Now, if you're a boss, your best bet is to actively communicate your expectations for when and how your team should be reachable. That way they're not going to assume the worst, and stress about it all the time. We've got a couple of other ideas for how to strike a work-life balance for yourself and your employees in our full write up on curiosity.com, and on our free curiosity app for Android and iOS.
ASHLEY HAMER: I'm going to turn off Slack the minute I get home, Cody. Don't even try it.
CODY GOUGH: Yeah, because that's the thing I do.
ASHLEY HAMER: Earlier this week we talked about Elon Musk's plan to send the first private passengers to space. But that's not the only out of this world space plan from history. A theologian made plans for a moon landing all the way back in the 1600s. Cody, can you imagine what this guy thought he was going to do to get into space.
CODY GOUGH: Yeah, reminds me of the early videos of airplane flight. And they've got the weird wood flappy wings, and they're running around in fast motion with Benny Hill playing in the background.
ASHLEY HAMER: Totally. I'm sure the 1600s version of Benny Hill was playing all the time during this guy's plan.
CODY GOUGH: It's a great plan
ASHLEY HAMER: It's the Gregorian chant version of Benny Hill.
CODY GOUGH: Oh, yeah.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yes.
CODY GOUGH: Highly underrated, the Gregorian chant version of Benny Hill.
ASHLEY HAMER: It really is. So Dr. John Wilkins was a warden of Wadham College at Oxford, who lived from 1614 until 1672. He was an accomplished intellectual who had the freedom to pursue any number of scientific endeavors. But he was fixated on getting to the moon, and meeting the inhabitants who surely lived there. He believed that anything is roomy and earth-like as the moon, must have been created by God for living beings. And he was determined to meet them.
But science in the 1600s was a bit limited, to put it mildly. Like his contemporaries, Wilkins believed there was no difference between the atmosphere on Earth and in space. So he decided the best way to get to the moon was to take a winged chariot. If it was fast enough, it could break free of the Earth's magnetic pull-- because gravity wasn't really a thing-- and reached the moon. Launch plan, check.
With all of that out of the way Wilkins moved on to more pressing issues. There was some knowledge at that time, about the fact that air gets thinner and colder, the higher up you go. But he had a fix for that, too. Quote, "Moistened sponges might help us against its thinness." Unquote. So how did the trip go?
Well, apparently, Wilkins put his theories to the test with some help from a colleague. But neither of them record their attempts. They just said they performed experiments. Wilkins might have given up, in part, because of his colleague. Because he was Robert Hooke. Hooke was part of the team that discovered space wasn't breathable, but was instead a vacuum devoid of oxygen. So kind of a buzz kill. With friends like that, right?
But we give props to Wilkins and Hooke for dreaming big. And, hey, look where we are now. Looking for something else to do when this podcast is over? Explore history's surprising connections with a new podcast. The Thread, with OZY. It's like a cross between Revisionist History, and Six Degrees of Separation. The Thread unravels the stories behind some of the most important lives and events in history, to discover how one thing leads to another. This season The Thread charts a history of nonviolence. From the decks of a gun ship in the Revolutionary War, to Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights movement.
Witness how the spread of a powerful idea can hinge on the past, and influence the future. Get the thread with OZY. That's O-Z-Y, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.
CODY GOUGH: If you're old enough to legally drink, wherever you're listening, then Ashley and I not only encourage you to drink responsibly, we insist that you drink responsibly. If you don't, then you might feel the extremely uncomfortable effects of a hangover. Hangovers are just the worst. You feel nauseous, you've got a terrible headache. Not fun at all. And according to a new study, they're even more nefarious than that-- (SINGING) Dun, dun, dun.
ASHLEY HAMER: (SINGING) Dun, dun, dun.
CODY GOUGH: According to a systematic review published in the journal, Addiction, you are physically and mentally impaired if you're experiencing a hangover. According to the review, the day after a night of heavy drinking, people have impaired motor skills. So they're less coordinated, and they react less quickly than regular sober people. They also have an impaired memory, when it comes to both short term and long-term memory. They also have trouble paying sustained attention to, basically, anything.
When people say there are too hung over to get out of bed, they might be on to something. As in, medically. That's why this study is a big deal. Right now, people can drive legally if they can pass a breathalyzer test, right? You might need a designated driver when you're out at the bars. But once the alcohol leaves your bloodstream, you're seen as sober and ready to roll. From a cognitive point of view.
But. This study says, hey, maybe not. Maybe hung over people shouldn't be allowed to drive. And if that's the case, then maybe we need new regulations in the workplace. A lot of employee handbooks say, you shouldn't come to work drunk. But how many talk about coming in hung over? This might lead to taking a second look at rules and regulations for jobs, whether you're operating heavy machinery or working with children. But it'll be tricky, since you can't really measure a hangover, like you can measure alcohol with a breathalyzer.
And lots of factors cause hangovers, including mental state, age, potentially, and a certain X factor that no one really understands. For now it might be best to just play it safe and call in sick if you're too hung over to work. Or in a perfect world, if you do drink, then try to have a glass of water for every beer you knock down. I don't know if that's scientifically validated but that's what I do, and it works for me. And the best kind of hangover is the one that never happens.
ASHLEY HAMER: That's the truth.
CODY GOUGH: That's all for today but curiosity has big plans for the weekend.
ASHLEY HAMER: This weekend you'll learn about a competing theory to dark matter, historical sites revealed by climate change, Hawaiian stairs that are forbidden to tourists, the history of tipping, a military technique for falling asleep fast, and more.
CODY GOUGH: Join us again Sunday for our Sunday edition of the podcast. And if there's something you're curious about, then email your question to podcast@curiosity.com, and we might answer it on a future episode. You can also still enter to win a curiosity T-shirt by taking our listener survey. Which, of course, you can find a link to in today's show notes, or on the podcast page on our website, or on our Patreon page at patreon.com/curiositydotcom or in a chariot flying into the moon.
ASHLEY HAMER: Join us again Sunday to learn something new in just a few minutes. I'm Ashley Hamer.
CODY GOUGH: And I'm Cody Gough. Have a great weekend.
ASHLEY HAMER: And stay curious.
- On the Westwood One, Podcast Network.