Fun at work.
Slashdot had a link an article on "optimizing for fun". On the other side of the river....
Somehow, project managers and managers around me seem to think that when the engineers complain about not having fun, it means we need to have team nights out, or that we need to schedule a weekly LAN party. Hello! Fun means working on stuff you enjoy working on. Fun means seeing the positive impact your contributions make. Fun means not having to spend cycles in bureaucratic holding patterns. Fun means having a concrete goal you are working toward, with a sense of how your piece contributes, and at least some enthusiasm for that goal. Fun in the workplace is not going out for beers with my team on some schedule. If I want to hang out with these people after hours, I don't need a project manager to arrange it for me.