Thursday, April 16, 2020

Workplace Bullying Interventions

At left, possible workplace bullying?
Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=393839

A paper on workplace bullying is found here, two sections from the abstract are reproduced below:

BACKGROUND: Bullying has been identified as one of the leading workplace stressors, with adverse consequences for the individual employee, groups of employees, and whole organisations. Employees who have been bullied have lower levels of job satisfaction, higher levels of anxiety and depression, and are more likely to leave their place of work. Organisations face increased risk of skill depletion and absenteeism, leading to loss of profit, potential legal fees, and tribunal cases. It is unclear to what extent these risks can be addressed through interventions to prevent bullying.
AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS: There is very low quality evidence that organisational and individual interventions may prevent bullying behaviours in the workplace. We need large well-designed controlled trials of bullying prevention interventions operating on the levels of society/policy, organisation/employer, job/task and individual/job interface. Future studies should employ validated and reliable outcome measures of bullying and a minimum of 6 months follow-up.

So, there is only “low quality evidence” that the interventions actually do any good to prevent workplace bullying. One possibility is that the organizational interventions are pushed by administrators who want to “cover themselves from potential liability (“see – we did something!”) or to burnish their resumes with their “impressive intervention sessions.” Or, we may have “experts” without actual data to back up their assertions, as well as (possibly well-meaning) individuals who do not know how to best approach the problem. As the authors state: “Future studies should employ validated and reliable outcome measures of bullying and a minimum of 6 months follow-up.”

Friday, April 3, 2020

Banana Bread Pudding


I have not baked bread pudding until now. Recently, got inspired by Kirsten Wick and her video.

So, I decided to make my own recipe. First, went through one of the cookbooks I had and then, the substitutions of ingredients started. No sugar, but bananas. No milk, but some unsweetened apple sauce and peaches in light syrup. I did not substitute the butter, however.

I also made a double batch, so that I could freeze a few delicious breakfasts.

Here is the recipe:

Banana bread pudding

Ingredients:
5 frozen ripe bananas
10 slices Oatnut bread (or any other bread you prefer), sliced in cubes
1 stick butter (melted in the microwave for the oiling of the pan and for the pudding mixture)
8 oz unsweetened apple sauce (I use two 4-oz cups)
14.5-oz sliced peaches in water (the peaches were cut into small pieces)
1 cup raisins
3 Tbsp vanilla extract
1 Tbsp cinnamon powder
7 eggs

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 400 F and butter a pan (mine is 10' x 13'). Combine the peaches with their syrup, the apple sauce, the raisins, vanilla, cinnamon and the bread cubes. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and mix with the mashed bananas and melted butter. Add to the bread cubes and mix well. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until set and slightly golden on top. Cut when the pudding cools down.