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South African Journal of Economic and Management Sciences
versão On-line ISSN 2222-3436
versão impressa ISSN 1015-8812
S. Afr. j. econ. manag. sci. vol.17 no.4 Pretoria Abr. 2014
Employee engagement: The effects of work-home/home-work interaction and psychological conditions
Sebastiaan RothmannI; Candice BaumannII
INorth-West University, Vanderbijlpark
IIUniversity of Namibia, Windhoek
The aim of this study was to investigate the relationships between work-home/home-work interaction, psychological conditions and employee engagement. A cross-sectional survey was used. The participants were 292 employees of a uranium mine in Namibia residing in towns distant from their workplace. The following measuring instruments were used: Survey Work-Home Interaction - Nijmegen, Psychological Conditions Scale and Work Engagement Scale. Positive work-home interaction and negative home-work interaction had direct positive and negative effects on psychological meaningfulness and psychological availability respectively. Psychological meaningfulness, psychological availability, positive work-home interaction and positive home-work interaction had direct effects on employee engagement. An analysis of the indirect effects showed that positive work-home interaction affected employee engagement via experiences of psychological meaningfulness and psychological availability. Negative home-work interaction affected employee engagement negatively via low psychological meaningfulness and low psychological availability. Implementing policies to promote meaningfulness and availability at work, to build positive work-home interaction and to protect employees against negative home-work interference, will contribute to personal engagement at work.
Key words: work-home interaction, home-work interaction, psychological meaningfulness, psychological availability, employee engagement
1 Introduction
Engaging employees is an important strategy for organisations, for various reasons: Engagement may contribute to the psychological well-being of individuals at work (Rothmann, 2013). Furthermore, engaged employees are less inclined to be absent from work (Harter, Schmidt, Killham & Asplund, 2006), present a better service to the clients, and contribute to organisations' productivity and profitability (Harter, Schmidt & Hayes, 2002). Various definitions of employee engagement are found in the literature. Maslach, Schaufeli and Leiter (2001) define employee engagement in terms of energy and involvement, while Schaufeli and Bakker (2004) regard vigour, absorption and dedication as central concepts in their definition of work engagement. Kahn and Heaphy (2014) define personal engagement as bringing in one's self to one's work-role performance. Whilst employee engagement research seems to be flourishing in the United States and Europe, Rothmann (2014) stresses the importance of conducting such research in other countries.
Personal engagement is defined by Simpson (2008) as physically, cognitively, and emotionally employing or articulating oneself during work role performances. When engaged, an employee is understood to be physically involved, cognitively alert, and emotionally attached (Kahn, 1990; Kahn & Heaphy, 2014; May, Gilson & Harter, 2004). The physical component of engagement refers to having high levels of energy and mental flexibility while working, being willing to put extra effort into one's work, and persisting in the face of difficulties. The emotional component entails a strong involvement with one's work and also when one experiences a sense of worth, interest, self-importance, and challenge. The cognitive component refers to being completely focused and contently immersed in one's work, but experiencing difficulty to disconnect from the work as time draws nearer to leave one's work until the next day.
In his model of engagement as an extension of the self, Kahn (1990) identified three psychological conditions (i.e. psychological meaningfulness, psychological availability and psychological safety) that shape personal engagement through contexts at work (Kahn & Heaphy, 2014; May et al., 2004). Psychological meaningfulness is defined as the feeling that one is receiving a return on investment of one's self in a currency of physical, cognitive, or emotional energy, while psychological availability refers to the readiness and confidence of an individual to engage in his/her work role (Kahn, 1990; May et al., 2004). Activities outside the workplace could draw away individuals' energies from their work and make them less psychologically available for their work roles. These activities - and the time demands associated with them -are likely to distract an individual's attention so that he/she is unable to focus on his/her role tasks. Psychological safety refers to the experience of being able to act in a way that is natural, and to be able to use and employ all skills and knowledge in a role without having to fear ridicule or negative consequences (Kahn, 1990). Little information is available on the effects of positive work-home and home-work interaction on employee engagement via psychological conditions.
The understanding of the effects of work-home and home-work interaction on employee well-being has grown (Geurts, Taris, Kompier, Dikkers, Van Hoof & Kinnunen, 2005). However, most studies focused on married working mothers who had to balance work and family (e.g. childcare) responsibilities (Munn, 2013). Although family responsibilities are often regarded by employees as one of the top demands leading to work stress (Bakker, Ten Brummelhuis, Prins & Van der Heijden, 2011), work can also energise people and contribute to experiences of psychological meaning-fulness, competence and availability to work, and personal engagement. Previous research showed that work-home and home-work interaction affect the engagement of employees (Bakker et al., 2011; Lingard, Brown, Bradley, Bailey & Townsend, 2007; Mostert, Cronjé & Pienaar, 2006; Mostert, Peeters & Rost, 2011). Two psychological conditions, namely psychological meaningfulness and psychological availability, seem relevant for transferring the effects of work-home/home-work interaction to employee engagement (Kahn, 1990; Kahn & Heapy, 2014; May et al., 2004). However, no studies focused on the psychological conditions which mediate between work-home/home-work interaction and employee engagement.
The organisation in this study, which is located in the Namib Desert in Namibia, started operations in 1976 and is the fifth-largest uranium mine in the world, with 8 per cent of the global output. The mine is located close to Arandis, a small town which is mostly occupied by mine workers. A total of 76 per cent of the employees live in two other towns, Swakopmund and Walvis Bay, which are respectively 70 and 100 kilometres from the mine. These towns have relatively good infrastructure (e.g. schools, housing, and shopping centres), while Arandis lacks the infrastructure to accommodate employees. In addition, transport facilities to the mine are limited to buses and own vehicles. People living in the two towns and working at the mine spend between two and three hours per day travelling to and from their work. Due to the distance from home to work and the required work schedule, there is clearly interaction in terms of personal hours lost due to travel time to and from the job. A large percentage of the employees have to leave their homes early in the morning and arrive home late in the afternoon. Parents might experience practical problems regarding care of their children during working days. For instance, mothers who work at the mine cannot leave their jobs to attend to the needs of their children. Another form of interaction is that some employees and their families live close to their work (in Arandis) in a small community which is relatively isolated from non-mining communities. On the positive side, the mine creates jobs and provides various benefits associated with corporate employers (e.g. competitive salaries, training and development opportunities, and good working conditions). These factors make it interesting to study both positive and negative interactions from work to home and from home to work.
No relevant literature regarding work-home and home-work interaction, psychological conditions and employee engagement was found pertaining to the mining sector specifically in the context of a developing country in Africa. People often seek employment at mines as they know that salaries, fringe benefits, human resource management and the nature of the work are attractive. But these are not the only factors that would keep them engaged. Work-home and home-work interaction might affect employees' engagement (May et al., 2004). Furthermore, employees want more from their jobs than salary and fringe benefits; they want to feel competent and experience their work as meaningful (Munn, 2013). In addition, both positive and negative work-home and home-work interaction might affect employee engagement specifically via experiences of psychological meaning-fulness and psychological availability. Therefore the research question for this study is as follows: Do work-home and home-work interaction affect employee engagement at a uranium mine and can specific psychological conditions (that precede engagement) explain such effects? The information gathered in this study is required to plan interventions to manage the work/life integration and engagement of employees.
2 Literature review
2.1 Psychological conditions and employee engagement
According to Lewis (2011), employee engagement is a state that resides within the person rather than the job. Understanding of the contribution of psychological conditions to personal engagement is important because employee engagement varies among individuals in the same job and from task to task. The experienced psychological conditions of meaningfulness, availability and safety lie at the heart of many engagement models (Crawford, Rich, Buckman & Bergeron, 2014). Research regarding the mediating effects of psychological conditions between work-home/ home-work interactions and employee engagement is necessary to understand how engagement can be managed and increased (Olivier & Rothmann, 2007).
At work, psychological meaningfulness refers to the value of a work goal or purpose, judged in relation to an individual's own ideals or standards (Renn & Vandenberg, 1995; Rothmann & Welsh, 2013) and the coherence that he/she experiences (Ryff, 1989). Experiences at work contribute to psychological meaning-fulness, not only because people spend a large part of their lives at work (Holbeche & Springett, 2004), but also because people expect more from their jobs than just a salary and benefits. Studies showed that psychological meaningfulness predicts large percentages of the variance in employee engagement (May et al., 2004; Rothmann & Rothmann, 2010; Rothmann & Welsh, 2013). Factors which are associated with psychological meaningfulness at work include using one's strengths, work role fit, a values-based culture, caring about employees, social support, opportunities to learn, the organisation's mission and employee socialisation (May et al., 2004; Munn, 2013).
Psychological availability (also referred to as competence by Spreitzer, 1995) refers to the ability to engage as a result of having the necessary cognitive, emotional and physical resources (May et al., 2004). Individuals who are psychologically available feel capable and prepared to invest their resources into role performances at work, while individuals who are not available lack resources or feel distracted from investing them into role performances (Crawford et al., 2014). As members of social systems, employees experience distractions (e.g. from non-work demands) to the point that they have less energy to invest in role performances. Employees feel less psychologically available when activities outside the workplace draw their energies away, resulting in disengagement from their roles. Based on social exchange theory, employees feel obliged to engage as repayment for the resources they receive from their organisation (Saks, 2006). Individuals protect themselves from exposure to emotional, cognitive and physical demands when they feel overwhelmed (Kahn & Heapy, 2014). They become distant towards their roles and other people, which imply that the authentic selves become unavailable for performance in a specific role.
2.2 Work-home and home-work interaction
Work-family conflict has been defined as a form of inter-role disagreement in which the work and family domains are incompatible, resulting in role strain (Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985). There are three forms of work-family conflict, namely time-based conflict, strain-based conflict, and behaviour-based conflict (Geurts & Demerouti, 2003). Time-based conflict refers to the demands from one domain, which are associated with the accomplishment of one role, that make it physically impossible to meet demands from the other domain - or being preoccupied with one role while attempting to fulfil the demands of another role (Bartolome & Evans, 1979). Strain-based conflict refers to strain (e.g. tension, anxiety, fatigue, depression, irritability) caused by the contribution in one domain (role) that makes it complicated to meet the terms of the other domain (another role). Behaviour-based conflict refers to particular forms of role behaviour that are in contrast with the prospects of behaviour in another role.
Geurts et al. (2005) distinguish between two concepts - role scarcity and role enhancement - which can be studied to unravel work-home and home-work interaction. Role scarcity refers to work-home interaction as a type of inter-role conflict in which role pressures from the work and family domains are mutually incompatible (Geurts et al., 2005). It is difficult to juggle multiple roles (partner, father and employee) with limited time and energy. Role enhancement implies that fulfilling multiple roles may produce resources (e.g. energy mobilisation, skill acquisition, greater self-esteem) that facilitate functioning in both life spheres (Geurts et al., 2005). This means that balancing one's home and work domains in an effective manner could save an individual a lot of energy, and could help one to acquire optimal skills in both domains and to feel more in charge of the situation. In short, work-life balance is seeking to obtain an optimal balance between one's work and one's life in general (Bratton & Gold, 2003).
Geurts et al. (2005) found a four-dimensional structure of work-home/homework interactions, consisting of positive work-home interaction (e.g. a good/fair working environment), negative work-home interaction (e.g. a poor salary and work overload), positive home-work interaction (e.g. emotional support from family), and negative home-work interaction (e.g. no support from family). This means that if a person loves his/her job and there is no support from his/her family, it may cause a negative home-work spillover, but if the family supports him/her, it could result in a positive home-work spillover. The same is true for work-home spillover. A negative work-home spillover could be caused by an unfavourable working environment and a positive work-home spillover could be due to good and fair relations at work. Contrary to the role strain hypothesis, it is possible that developing one's skills at work to optimally utilise one's energies might enhance one's productivity in the non-work domain. This process is referred to as positive spillover or role enhancement (Grzywacz & Marks, 2000). In maintaining a work-life balance, there may be some positive outcomes in terms of work circumstances that may benefit non-work circumstances, and the other way around.
Concerning positive work-home spillover, Crouter (1984) found that training in decision-making skills at work resulted in individuals employing the newly acquired tactics at home to deal with their children more efficiently. Studies also showed that when individuals get support from their spouses and have the platform at home to discuss work issues, they tend to manage the pressures at work better (Gattiker & Larwood, 1990). Employed married mothers generally enjoy a greater sense of happiness and better physical health than unemployed married mothers or employed single mothers without children (Geurts & Demerouti, 2003). The study by Grzywacz and Marks (2000) showed that both resources at work (e.g. decision latitude, support from co- workers and supervisors) and at home (e.g. support from a spouse) were associated with lower levels of negative spillover and higher levels of positive spillover between work and family. Barriers at work (e.g. a demanding job) and at home (e.g. disagreement with one's spouse) were associated with higher levels of negative spillover and lower levels of positive spillover between work and family (Geurts & Demerouti, 2003).
Spillover is one of the six recurring linking mechanisms between work and non-work roles depicted by Edwards and Rothbard (2000) in the work-life literature. Two other important mechanisms are compensation and segmentation (Demerouti & Geurts, 2004). Compensation refers to a non-work and work relationship where individuals over-involve themselves in one role to make up for deficiencies in another role; this in turn allows for a negative relationship between constructs in the two roles. An example or evidence of compensation is shown in a study done by Rothbard (2001) which showed that women who experienced negative affect from family were more engaged at work. Segmentation differs from spillover and compensation in that it suggests no logical relationship between work and non-work roles. The segmentation model describes the non-association of the two roles in that work and family do not influence one another (Edwards & Rothbard, 2000). According to Eckenrode and Gore (1990), segmentation is an active psychological process, which means that when it comes to work and family, people may choose to maintain a boundary between the two roles. Park, Fritz and Jex (2011) found that employees with a preference for segmenting the work from the home domain experienced greater psychological detachment from work during nonwork time.
The mediating effects of psychological conditions
The various types of inter-role conflict (time-based, strain-based and behaviour-based) and role enhancement could affect employee engagement indirectly via experiences of psychological meaningfulness and psychological availability.
Research on positive psychological functioning (Keyes, 2007; Ryff, 1989) has shown that basic psychological needs associated with living a meaningful life must be satisfied if optimal functioning of individuals is to be achieved. Matuska and Christiansen (2008) also linked meaningful lifestyles to psychological meaningfulness. Munn (2013) suggests that positive and negative work-home and home-work interaction affect employees' experiences of psychological meaningfulness of work. Delle Fave, Brdar, Freire, Vella-Brodrick and Wissing (2011) found that family life has a strong effect on experiences of psychological meaningfulness. Interaction between individuals' work and home roles affects their sense of a balanced life (Sirgy & Wu, 2009), which impacts their experiences of psychological meaningfulness at work. According to Munn (2013), positive work-home/ home-work interaction contributes moderately to psychological meaningfulness.
Work is an important context to engage individuals in goal-directed activities, and to provide meaning (Cameron, Dutton & Quinn, 2003). Therefore psychological meaningfulness is expected to be related to engagement (Fairlie, 2011). Furthermore, various studies confirmed that negative work-home and homework interaction is negatively related to employee engagement, while positive work-home and home-work interaction is positively related to employee engagement (Marais, Mostert, Geurts & Taris, 2009; Mostert et al., 2006). Research has shown that individuals are willing to engage in their work when they experience psychological meaningfulness (Kahn, 1990; May et al., 2004; Rothmann & Welsh, 2013). Employees who experience negative work-home/home-work interactions could therefore experience less meaningfulness in their work, which could result in reduced engagement at work. Conversely, employees who experience positive work-home/homework interactions could experience more meaningfulness in their work, which could result in increased engagement. Therefore psychological meaningfulness may mediate the relationships between work-home/home-work interaction and employee engagement.
Psychological availability (i.e. feeling competent as a result of having the necessary cognitive, emotional and physical resources) could mediate the relationship between work- home and home-work interactions and employee engagement (Kahn & Heaphy, 2014). When work-life conflict occurs, it means that there is more than one role that needs satisfying and that there is some form of imbalance between the roles. In both work and family there needs to be some measure of consistency between the roles with regard to the input of psychological availability for a proper balance to be achieved between the two roles. This can be related to Marks and MacDermid's (1996) finding that role balance will only occur when all the roles in the role system of an individual have been equally satisfied. According to Hall and Richter (1989), individuals' energies at work may be strained by outside activities, which will in turn make them less psychologically available in their work roles. Conversely, psychological availability and employee engagement can be influenced positively by family engagement (Rothbard, 2001).
3 Aim and hypotheses
The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between work-home and homework interaction, psychological conditions and employee engagement.
The following hypotheses are set based on the discussion above:
Hypothesis 1: Negative work-home and home-work interactions are inversely related to psychological availability.
Hypothesis 2: Positive work-home and home-work interactions are positively related to psychological availability.
Hypothesis 3: Negative work-home and home-work interactions are inversely related to psychological meaningfulness.
Hypothesis 4: Positive work-home and home-work interactions are positively related to psychological meaningfulness.
Hypothesis 5: Psychological meaningful-ness is positively related to employee engagement.
Hypothesis 6: Psychological availability is positively related to employee engagement.
Hypothesis 7: Work-home and home-work interaction indirectly affect employee engagement via psychological meaningfulness.
Hypothesis 8: Work-home and home-work interaction indirectly affect employee engagement via psychological availability.
4 Method
4.1 Research design
A cross-sectional survey design was utilised in this study (Huysamen, 2004). Within the cross-sectional design, latent variable modelling was used to investigate the fit of the hypothesised models as well as indirect effects (Muthen & Muthen, 2012).
4.2 Participants
The participants were employees of a uranium mine who are residents of Swakopmund, Walvis Bay and Arandis. The total population of the study at the end of April 2010 comprised 1468 employees. The sample was stratified based on rank and gender. A stratified random sample was taken (N = 300). All females in some ranks were targeted to ensure sufficient sizes of sub-samples. A total of 291 individuals completed the questionnaires. With regard to the respondents' fluency in English, a grade 12 certificate had to be presented. Table 1 illustrates the characteristics of the sample.
4.3 Measuring instruments
The Survey Work-Home Interaction -Nijmegen (SWING; Geurts et al., 2005) was used to measure the work-home interaction experienced by participants. The SWING is a 30-item work-home interaction measure which assesses four types of interactions, namely (1) negative work-home interaction (NWHI), which refers to the negative impact of the work situation on one's functioning at home (eight items; e.g. 'How often does it happen that you are irritable at home because your work is demanding?'); (2) negative home-work interaction (NHWI), which refers to the negative impact of the home situation on one's job performance (five items; e.g. 'How often does it happen that the situation at home makes you so irritable that you take your frustrations out on your colleagues?'); (3) positive work-home interaction (PWHI), which refers to the positive influence of the work situation on one's functioning at home (five items; e.g. 'How often does it happen that you come home cheerfully after a successful day at work, positively affecting the atmosphere at home?'); and (4) positive home-work interaction (PHWI), which refers to the positive impact of one's home situation on one's job performance (five items; e.g. 'How often does it happen that you manage your time at work more efficiently because at home you have to do that as well?'). All items are scored on a four-point frequency rating scale, ranging from 0 (never) to 3 (always). Baumann (2011) showed evidence for the construct validity of the SWING in a sample of mine employees in Namibia. Geurts et al. (2005) report Cronbach alpha coefficients of 0.84 for NWHI and 0.75 for PWHI, as well as 0.75 for NHWI and 0.81 for PHWI. In a South African police sample, Marais et al. (2009) provided evidence of the construct validity, construct equivalence and reliability of the scales. They reported the following Cronbach alpha coefficients for the SWING: NWHI = 0.90, PWHI = 0.84, NHWI = 0.87, and PHWI = 0.82.
The Psychological Conditions Scale (PCS; May et al., 2004) was used to measure psychological availability and psychological meaningfulness. For all the items, an agreement/disagreement Likert format ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (always) was used. An item that measures psychological availability is 'I am confident in my ability to deal with problems that come up at work'. An item on the questionnaire that measures psychological meaningfulness is 'My job activities are personally meaningful to me'. Psychological availability is measured by six items (α = 0.90) drawn from the research of May et al. (2004). These items measure the degree of availability (cognitive, emotional and physical) that individuals discovered in their work-related activities. Psychological meaningfulness is measured by six items (α = 0.90) drawn from the research of Spreitzer (1995) and May et al. (2004). These items measure the degree of meaning that individuals discovered in their work-related activities. Baumann (2011) showed evidence for the construct validity of the PCS in a sample of mine employees in Namibia.
The Work Engagement Scale (WES; May et al., 2004, as adapted by Diedericks & Rothmann, 2013) was used to measure employee engagement. For all items, a Likert scale ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (always) was used. The items reflect each of the three components of Kahn's (1990) conceptualisation of employee engagement, namely cognitive (2 items; e.g. 'I am very absorbed in my work'), emotional (3 items; e.g. 'I am passionate about my job') and physical engagement (3 items, e.g. 'I am full of energy in my work'). In their research, Olivier and Rothmann (2007) found evidence for a one-factor engagement model consisting of cognitive, emotional and physical engagement (α = 0.72), which is consistent with the findings of May et al. (2004).
4.4 Procedure
The researcher engaged the support of three human resource practitioners from different sections of the mine's Human Resources Department to assist with the administration of questionnaires. The researcher followed up with the selected employees to personally explain the purpose of the research and to request voluntary participation in the research. The objective of the study was explained to the human resource practitioners so that they could have more insight when giving the information to the potential participants, to ensure that they would be able to make informed decisions about their involvement in the study. The instruments used simple questions in English which study participants with a basic literacy rate should be able to understand. After obtaining informed consent, the human resource practitioners distributed the questionnaires, allowed time for the questionnaires to be returned, and finally returned the completed questionnaires to the researcher.
4.5 Statistical analysis
The analysis of the data was carried out by means of Mplus version 7.11 (Muthén & Muthén, 1998-2012). Items of the three questionnaires were defined as categorical and the weighted least squares with corrections to means and variances (WLSMV) were used as estimator. The following indices produced by Mplus were used in this study: a) absolute fit indices, including the chi-square statistic which is the test of absolute fit of the model, and the Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA), and b) incremental fit indices, including the Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) and the Comparative Fit Index (CFI) (Kline, 2010). TLI and CFI values higher than 0.90 are considered acceptable. RMSEA values lower than 0.08 indicate a close fit between the model and the data. Composite reliabilities (ρ) of scales were computed by means of a formula based on the sum of squares of standardised loadings and the sum of standardised variance of error terms (Raykov, 2009; Wang & Wang, 2012).
5 Results
First, the results of tests of competing measurement models are reported. Second, the results of tests of alternative structural models are reported.
5.1 Testing the measurement model
Using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), an eight-factor measurement model as well as alternative models were tested to assess whether items would load significantly onto the scales with which they were associated. Four measurement models were tested. Model 1 consisted of seven latent variables, namely a) NWHI (measured by 10 observed variables); b) PWHI (measured by five observed variables); c) NHWI (measured by 10 observed variables); d) PHWI (measured by five observed variables); e) psychological meaningfulness (measured by six observed variables); f) psychological availability (measured by eight observed variables), and g) employee engagement (measured by eight observed variables). All the latent variables in model 1 were allowed to correlate.
Models 2, 3, and 4 followed the same template: model 2 was specified with 14 observed variables measuring psychological conditions (without the two first-order latent variables, namely psychological meaning-fulness and psychological availability); model 3 was specified with 20 observed variables measuring NWHI and NHWI (without the two first-order latent variables, namely NWHI and NHWI) and 10 observed variables measuring PWHI and PHWI (without the two first-order latent variables, namely PWHI and PHWI); model 4 was specified with all items loading on a single factor (measured by 52 observed variables).
Two fit statistics, namely the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC; a comparative measure of fit, is meaningful when different models are estimated) and Bayes Information Criterion (BIC; an index of model parsimony) were used to compare alternative measurement models (Kline, 2010). Table 2 presents the fit statistics of the various models.
Comparison of the AIC and BIC values indicates that model 1 fitted the data best. The χ2 (1253, n = 292) = 1787.96 of the hypothesised model was statistically significant (p < 0.001), but the other fit indices indicated good fit of the model to the data: CFI = 0.96, TLI = 0.96, RMSEA = 0.04. Standardised coefficients from items to factors ranged from 0.61 to 0.91. The results also indicated that the relationship between each observed variable and its respective construct was statistically significant (p < 0.01).
5.2 Testing the structural model
Reliabilities and correlations among work-home/home-work interaction, psychological meaningfulness, psychological availability and employee engagement are reported in Table 3.
Table 3 shows that the reliabilities of the constructs were acceptable, compared to the guideline of 0.70 (Wang & Wang, 2012). Statistically significant (p < 0.01) relationships exist between all the variables, except NHWI and PWHI, as well as NHWI and PHWI.
The measurement model formed the basis of the structural model. The hypothesised relationships shown in the model were tested, using latent variable modelling as implemented by Mplus (Muthén & Muthén, 1998-2012). An acceptable fit of the model to the data was found: χ2= 1787.96, df=1253, TLI = 0.96, CFI = 0.96, and RMSEA = 0.04. Table 4 shows the standardised regression coefficients estimated by Mplus for the structural model.
Hypotheses 1 and 2
For the portion of the model predicting psychological availability, Table 4 indicates that the path coefficient of PWHI (β = 0.20, p < 0.01) was statistically significant and had the expected sign. Psychological availability had a positive relation with positive work-home interaction. Furthermore, the path coefficient of NHWI (β = -0.34, p < 0.01) was statistically significant and had the expected sign. Psychological availability had a negative relation with negative home-work interaction. The WLSMV- estimated equation accounted for a moderate proportion of the variance in psychological availability (R2 = 0.17). Hypotheses 1 and 2 are partially supported.
Hypothesis 3 and 4
For the portion of the model predicting psychological meaningfulness, Table 4 indicates that the path coefficient of PWHI (β = 0.18, p < 0.01) was statistically significant and had the expected sign. Psychological meaningfulness had a positive relation with positive work-home interaction. Furthermore, the path coefficient of NHWI (β = -0.19, p < 0.01) was statistically significant and had the expected sign. Psychological meaningfulness had a negative relation with negative home-work interaction. The WLSMV-estimated equation accounted for a moderate proportion of the variance in psychological meaning fulness (R2 = 0.14). Hypotheses 3 and 4 are partially supported.
Hypothesis 5 and 6
For the portion of the model predicting employee engagement, Table 4 reveals that the path coefficients of PWHI (β = 0.17, p > 0.01), PHWI (β = 0.17, p > 0.01), psychological meaningfulness (β = 0.35, p > 0.25) and psychological availability (β = 0.17, p > 0.01) were statistically significant and had the expected signs. The WLSMV-estimated equation accounted for a large proportion of the variance in employee engagement (R2 = 0.46). Hypothesis 5 and 6 are supported: Employee engagement was positively related to psychological meaningfulness and psychological availability.
Given the cross-sectional nature of the data, two other competing models were also tested: Model 1.2 included paths from psychological meaningfulness and availability to employee engagement and from NWHI, PWHI, NHWI and PHWI to psychological availability, but the paths from NWHI, PWHI, NHWI and PHWI to psychological meaningfulness were constrained to zero. Model 1.3 included paths from psychological meaningfulness and availability to employee engagement and from NWHI, PWHI, NHWI and PHWI to psychological meaningfulness, but the paths from NWHI, PWHI, NHWI and PHWI to psychological availability were constrained to zero.
Model 1.2 showed the following fit statistics: χ2 (1257, N = 292) = 2084.54; p < 0.001; CFI = 0.94, TLI = 0.94 and RMSEA = 0.04 (90% CI 0.04-0.05). Model 1.3 showed the following fit statistics: χ2 (1257, N = 292) = 2084.54; p < 0.001; CFI = 0.94, TLI = 0.94 and RMSEA = 0.05 (90% CI 0.04-0.025). The following changes in chi-square (Δχ2) were found: Models 1.1 and 1.2 (Δχ2 = 74.93, Δdf= 4, p < 0.0001), and models 1.1 and 1.3 (Δχ2 = 72.96, Δdf = 4,p < 0.0001).
5.3 Indirect effects
To determine whether any relationships in the model were indirectly affected by work-home/home-work interaction, the procedure explained by Hayes (2009) was used. Bootstrapping was used to construct two-sided bias-corrected 95 per cent confidence intervals (CIs) so as to evaluate indirect effects. Lower and upper CIs are reported (see Table 5).
Regarding the indirect effects of PHWI on employee engagement, the 95 per cent CIs for psychological meaningfulness did not include zero. Hypothesis 6 is partially supported: positive work-home interaction impacts employee engagement via psychological meaningfulness. Regarding the indirect effects of PWHI and NHWI on employee engagement, the 95 per cent CIs for psychological availability did not include zeros. Therefore positive work-home interaction and negative home-work interaction indirectly affect employee engagement via psychological availability. Hypotheses 7 and 8 are partially supported.
Taken together, the results suggest that the relationships posited in the model account for a substantial amount of the covariation in the data. The model accounts for 46 per cent of the variance in employee engagement, 14 per cent of the variance in psychological meaning-fulness and 17 per cent of the variance in psychological availability, lending more empirical support for the model's fit.
6 Discussion
The aim of this study was to investigate the relationships between work-home and homework interaction, psychological conditions and employee engagement. The results showed that psychological meaningfulness and availability as well as work-life balance accounted for a large proportion of the variance in employee engagement. Positive work-home interaction was positively associated with experiences of psychological meaningfulness and availability at work, while negative home-work interaction impacted psychological availability negatively. An analysis of the indirect effects showed that psychological meaningfulness partially mediated the relationship between positive work-home interaction and employee engagement. Psychological availability mediated the relationship between positive work-home interaction as well as negative home-work interaction and employee engagement.
Negative home-work interaction was negatively associated with psychological availability, while positive work-home interaction was positively associated with psychological availability. Psychological availability indicates whether employees feel ready or confident to engage in their work roles, given that they are also engaged in other life activities (Kahn, 1990; May et al., 2004). Low psychological availability associated with a lack of positive work-home interaction and negative homework interaction were associated with an inability to personally engage at work, presumably because employees lack cognitive, emotional and physical resources and they feel distracted from investing into role performances (Crawford et al., 2014; May et al., 2004; Spreitzer, 1995). Employees feel less psychologically available when activities outside the workplace draw their energies away. They become distant towards their roles and other people, which imply that their authentic selves become unavailable for performance in a specific role. Given the physical distance between the employees' work and homes, it is understandable that psychological availability is negatively associated with negative home-work interaction. When children are small, ill or experience difficulties, a guardian is not in town, and support is not available, then employees will not feel ready or confident to engage in their work.
Positive work-home interaction impacted psychological meaningfulness positively, while negative home-work interaction impacted meaningfulness negatively. Given that family life has an effect on psychological meaning-fulness (Delle Fave et al., 2011; Munn, 2013) it is understandable that low negative home- work interference contribute to employees' experiences of meaningfulness at work. Furthermore, based on the role enhancement principle, positive work-home interaction resulting from support and learning in the workplace seems to contribute to psychological meaningfulness. Employees who experience psychological meaningfulness feel that they are receiving a return on investment of themselves in a currency of physical, cognitive, or emotional energy (Kahn, 1990; Kahn & Heapy, 2014). Interaction between individuals' work and home roles affects their sense of a balanced life (Sirgy & Wu, 2009), which impacts their experiences of psychological meaningfulness at work.
Concerning work-home/home-work interaction, the results showed that positive work-home interaction (e.g. a good/fair working environment) and a negative home-work interaction (no support from family) play an important role in affecting the dependent variables in the structural model of employee engagement. Positive work-home spillover does not only affect psychological availability and psychological meaningfulness, but also employee engagement (Geurts et al., 2005; Grzywacz & Marks, 2000). Moreover, negative home-work spillover also affects experiences of psychological availability, psychological meaningfulness and engagement of employees. Because of distances between work and home, the lack of (family) support plays an important role in affecting employees' feelings of competence, their experiences of psychological meaningfulness and their engagement at work. If employees are not affected by negative home-work interaction and they experience positive work-home interaction, they tend to be more engaged in their work (Marais et al., 2009; Mostert et al., 2006).
The results regarding negative interactions from home to work may be related to the depletion argument (Edwards & Rothbard, 2000; Rothbard, 2001) and the resource drain perspective (Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985). Depletion is based on the notion that an individual has only a certain fixed amount of physiological and psychological resources to spend or utilise and that he/she makes exchanges or substitutions in order to accommodate those fixed resources (Rothbard, 2001). The results are also closely linked to the strain-based conflict perspective, which argues that strain in one role affects performance in another role (Edwards & Rothbard, 2000; Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985).
Regarding positive experiences, the results showed that positive work-home interaction impacted employee engagement directly as well as indirectly (via psychological meaning-fulness and psychological availability). Specific positive experiences that happen at work, spill over to the home domain, and promote both meaningfulness and employee engagement. Interestingly, positive home-work interaction did not have any direct effects on psychological meaningfulness and psychological availability. However, positive home-work interaction did affect employee engagement significantly. These results are related to the enrichment process by Rothbard (2001) on the concepts of role accumulation and multiple roles. The enrichment process suggests that engagement in one role may be related to another role. This is seen in the results of this study whereby positive spillover from one domain results in a positive outcome in the other domain. The enrichment argument implies that more role commitments can be beneficial to an individual, rather than putting strain on or draining him/her (Rothbard, 2001).
This study showed that psychological meaningfulness and availability are important psychological conditions to consider in promoting the engagement of employees (Matuska & Christiansen, 2008). The results also confirm that psychological conditions make an important contribution to explaining the effects of positive work-home and negative home-work interaction on employee engagement. Low negative home-work interaction and high positive work-home interaction contribute to employees feeling available and competent to engage in their work. Also, low negative work-home interference and high positive work-home interaction contribute to the experience of psychological meaningfulness at work, which in turn impacts employee engagement positively. Psychological meaningfulness, psychological availability, and work-home/homework interaction explained a large percentage of variance in personal engagement at work.
This study had various limitations. The study did not include the entire mining sector of Namibia, but focused on a particular mining company. Furthermore, a cross-sectional survey was used in this study; therefore, causality of relationships could not be proven. In this regard Halbesleben, Harvey and Bolino (2009) argued for a reversed causal ordering between engagement and work-life interference, i.e. that employees might create the interference with their family roles because they are too engaged in their work. Longitudinal studies are necessary to assess the indirect effects of work-home and homework interactions on employee engagement.
7 Recommendations
Managers and employees should become aware of the concepts of engagement and work-life balance, and the relation of the concepts. Implementation of programmes directed at the attainment of a work-life balance will prove vital to the organisations and their bottom line. Such training and development programmes are necessary to ensure that employees remain healthy and competent as well as engaged. The implementation of a performance management system based on task agreements between managers and employees should be investigated. If used properly, a performance management system could provide information regarding work-home/home-work interaction and engagement.
Future research needs to explore the work-life balance and employee engagement between the different gender roles, cultures, and hierarchies within a company. The relationship between work-life balance and employee engagement should be investigated in a wider variety of organisations, using larger samples. The results of this study suggest that further research is warranted at both the individual and the organisational level to better understand the pathways to work-life balance and employee engagement. Research is also necessary to identify other variables which affect psychological meaningfulness and availability.
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Oh, Eugene! We're talking O'Neill on Monday
The many faces of Eugene O'Neill?
He was neither great poet nor great intellectual. So why is Eugene O'Neill considered by many to be America's greatest dramatist?
Join us on Monday night (Feb. 22) to find out.
The Buntport and Paragon theaters, which are presenting separate but simultaneous Eugene projects (on purpose!) culminate their collaboration with "Born Broken," a panel discussion on all things O'Neill.
Local O'Neill enthusiasts, scholars and critics (which can be mutually exclusive) will gather along with members of both ensembles to discuss the man at the center of both Buntport's "The World is Mine" and Paragon's "Long Day's Journey Into Night."
It's happening from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at the Central Denver Public Library, B2 conference center. And it's free.
Here's your panel:
* Ed Baierlein, founder of Germinal Stage-Denver and O'Neill buff
* Brian Colonna, writer and performer in Buntport's The World is Mine"
* Kathryn Gray, Mary in Paragon's "Long Day's Journey into Night"
* Jarrad Holbrook, director, Paragon's "Long Day's Journey into Night"
* John Moore, Denver Post theater critic and fellow Irish-American
* Erin Rollman, writer and performer in Buntport's The World is Mine"
* Brad Weismann, theater critic and social media coordinator
for the Boulder International Film Festival.
*Our host is Buntport brainiac Evan Weissman.
Bring your friends. And your whiskey. This could get ugly.


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Hi all
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We have a show and tell session, Successes and failures. I learn more from failures than I do from successes.
We try to have a demo of a "new" feature or a feature we just discovered and has been there for years.
Open Help session you bring questions we usually have answers. Sometimes our answers are even right!!!
Very informal, I always learn something from every meeting.
Hope to see you there!


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Two years have passed since the SNP won its landslide election victory, leaving Alex Salmond master of all devolved territories. Two years notable for the absence of significant legislative achievement. Given the consequences of government legislation this is not necessarily something to be regretted. Nevertheless, Mr Salmond is no FDR or LBJ (again, a good thing too you may say).
The exception to this record of legislative lethargy is, of course, our old friend the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications Act. Readers may recall that I am no fan of this illiberal, pernicious, dismal piece of legislation (my most recent post on it is here). Nothing that has happened since it was pushed through Holyrood has persuaded me to grant it a second chance. Quite the contrary, in fact. With each fresh prosecution we are reminded of how rank this bill is. Everything the critics predicted has duly come to pass; none of the claims made on its behalf weather serious scrutiny.
The latest example comes, courtesy of Lallands Peat Worrier, from the High Court of Justiciary which today granted a Crown appeal against the dismissal of a case involving one Joseph Cairns. The Sheriff in Mr Cairns' case had ruled there was in fact no case to answer and thrown the prosecution out on its arse (to use the technical term).
Mr Cairns, attending a Celtic match against Ross County in Dingwall, had been filmed by police officers singing two Celtic songs, namely The Roll of Honour and the Boys of the Old Brigade. The former is a hymn to IRA hunger strikers; the latter a salute to the memory of the 1916 Easter Rising. In a better country these might be considered – and protected – expressions of political speech. But this is Scotland and no such speech protections apply. (For the time being anyway: I suspect, or rather predict, that this bill will fall when it is eventually challenged on human rights grounds. And rightly so.)
Anyway, at Mr Cairns' trial the Sheriff noted that the police officers filming Mr Cairns needed to consult the video tape to ascertain the precise – and therefore the actually "offensive" – wording of the songs in question. The Sheriff ruled, therefore that:
"Since there was no proper basis for inferring that any person who might be incited to disorder would have been able to tell that the respondent was singing about the hunger strikers or joining the IRA there was equally no proper basis for inferring that the respondent's behaviour was likely to incite public disorder."
That is: though a reasonable person might consider these songs offensive (though if this is the case then a reasonable person should get a grip), a reasonable person some way further distant from Mr Cairns than were the police officers could hardly be offended, far less incited to public disorder, by words they were, in this instance, unlikely to be able to make out.
The High Court – their ruling is here – was having none of this and, in fairness to their lordships, the High Court's ruling appears consistent with the law as it was written and intended to be applied. As we shall see, however, that merely means the law stands naked as an ass.
As the High Court reminded us, the parliament "created a criminal offence with an extremely long reach". (For example: a person may be "regarded" as having been on their way to or from a "regulated football match" even if they had no intention to attend that, or any other, football match.) The Court then demonstrated just how long the law's reach is.
In the first place, the three judges hearing the Crown's appeal, made the startling claim that though police testimony suggested the majority of Celtic supporters were singing these anthems these self-same Celtic supporters could have been "incited to public disorder" by their own songs. This, surely, suggests that Mr Cairns could be tried and convicted of an incitement to public disorder since the person liable to be so incited was, well, himself.
If that sounds ludicrous it is no more ludicrous than the actual provisions contained within the bill. You see:
[T]he sheriff does not appear to have considered the effect of section 1(5). That subsection provides that for the purposes of section 1(1)(b)(ii), behaviour "would be likely to incite public disorder" if public disorder would be likely to occur but for the fact that either measures are in place to prevent public disorder, or persons likely to be incited to public disorder are not present or are not present in sufficient numbers.
The law as it stands creates an imaginary person who might be incited to public disorder even if no such person exists or is present at the time or place of the alleged offence. Heads you lose; tails the state wins. As Paul McConville observes it takes only a modest dollop of imagination to construct a hypothetical scenario in which singing "offensive" songs in the privacy of your own home could, in certain circumstances, leave the singer liable to be prosecuted.
It does not end there, either. This is how it works:
[T]he Act distinguishes between, on the one hand, "a reasonable person" and, on the other, a person "likely to be incited to public disorder". It may be that a person likely to be incited to public disorder is of a more volatile temperament than a reasonable person or, to use the language of the sheriff, an uninitiated member of the public. The person likely to be incited to public disorder may have particular interests and particular knowledge. He may have particular views about the two songs in question or those who sing them. As section 1(5)(b) provides that such persons need not be present for the purposes of determining whether specific behaviour would be likely to incite public disorder, it cannot be relevant to the question as to whether there has been a contravention of section 1(1)(b) that particular persons in a football ground could not actually hear the words being sung. In other words the actual context within which the behaviour occurs is not determinative. Where behaviour falls within any of the categories specified in section 1(2) it is sufficient for conviction that persons likely to be incited to public disorder would be likely to be incited to public disorder by the particular behaviour, whether or not they were present in sufficient numbers and whether or not they were subject to measures put in place to prevent public disorder. As it does not matter whether persons likely to be incited to public disorder are there in sufficient numbers or are there at all it cannot matter whether or not the persons who are present (whether likely to be incited to public disorder or otherwise) actually became aware of the relevant behaviour.
Ye gods. The standard (sic) for determining whether a song is "offensive" is that of a reasonable person; the standard (ibid) for a person "likely to be incited to public disorder" may rest on whether that person has a "more volatile temperament" than a "reasonable person". Or, in the vernacular, if said person is a heid-banging, bampot. That, my friends, is how you lower the evidentiary bar.
Again, of course, the law as presently applied makes you responsible for the reactions of morons. Is that just? Pull the other one.
Mr Cairns' case would seem to be a splendid example of a victimless crime. Or, rather, "crime". No-one was offended by his singing. No-one was incited to public disorder. And none of that matters. The case will return to court and, given the manner in which the law is constructed and understood by the courts, is seems all but impossible to mount a legally persuasive defence against the charges. Since no disorder need take place and since the persons "liable" to be incited to disorder do not even need to exist, the deck is so stacked against the defendant you might think this law had been devised by Kafka or Gogol.
It is also worth mentioning, again, that OBFA is wholly capricious. As many as 2,000 Celtic supporters were singing "offensive" songs in Dingwall yet only Mr Cairns, I believe, has been prosecuted. He's the unlucky loser of a police lottery, being neither more innocent nor more guilty than thousands of his colleagues. And yet he is the poor sap picked upon and hauled before the bench. Equal justice? There's not even the pretence of that.
But that of course merely demonstrates that the law is unworkable as well as unjust.
Perversely the SNP – including the First Minister – remain proud of this monstrosity. It is a pernicious, illiberal bill that would remain a disgrace even if it could – as it cannot – be applied consistently and equitably. The criminalisation of speech, under threat too often in too many parts of this realm, continues.
The Scottish government has commissioned Stirling University to "study" the "impact" of the bill. They are paying the academics £155,000 for this. I could have saved them a lot of money: this bill still stinks and should still be repealed at the government's earliest convenience.
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California's political leaders criticized Texas Gov. Rick Perry's day-long prayer event, but even as it was underway, Gov. Jerry Brown was on CNN -- engaging in some magical thinking of his own.
Brown, expressing the consensus in California, argued that politics is too partisan and unreasonable, and that the only way to fix is for the parties to compromise.
To his mind, that means Republicans would have to abandon their anti-tax fervor and agree to stimulus.
U.S. & World
"I'm telling you, we are at a crossroads, that if the Republicans cannot give up some of their ideological baggage, and if the Democrats can't find a way to create common ground, the country is going to face some decline."
It certainly would be nice if Republicans and Democrats would do this.
But wishing for it -- or praying for it -- is not a strategy.
It seems unlikely that significant numbers of members of each party are going to abandon their principles in the name of compromise and common ground.
People such as Brown are old enough to remember a time when the parties weren't quite so ideological.
But that time -- the post-war era when some Republicans were liberals and many Democrats were conservatives -- is over.
Now the parties are aligned with ideologies.
So the way to fix governance is not to hope for a magical return of the past. The way to fix governance is to redesign how decisions are made to reflect the realities of this partisan, ideological age.
It means that rules that require broad consensus between the two parties -- such as California's various fiscal supermajorities -- should be eliminated.
In their place, we need a system in which the parties take turns controlling power. When one party is in power, it's in charge -- and thus must take responsibility for governing. If that party's decisions turn out poorly, a proper election system would make it relatively easy for the party out of power to get back into power.
But there's almost no conversation among California leaders about redesigning the governing system.
Heck, they dislike the idea. Since they won't act to fix things, they should take every opportunity for prayer they get.
Even if it's in Texas.
Photo illustration by Olsen Ebright


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Dolla Boy (Of Playaz Circle) (Feat. D-Hustla) - That's Us [Label Submitted]
"Dolla Boy of (Playaz Circle) - Whip Game Crazy
Follow Dolla Boy on Twitter : @Dolla_Boy_
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Download: Public Enemy #1 Mixtape Now! " [m]
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David Halberstam was not a sports writer but he wrote about sports often. He was rarely vicious which makes this Page 2 column on Patrick Ewing stand out:
Well, how great a player was Patrick Ewing?
First, let me stipulate one critical ground rule: I do not believe that you have to win a championship to be a great player. There are — especially from the days before free agency, when a player had less control over his career — great players who never had the right players around them, and therefore did not win rings. Jerry West was a great player, and near the end of his career he finally and deservedly won a championship. But if Wilt Chamberlain had not leveraged his muscle into forcing a trade to Los Angeles, West might easily have finished his career kingless.
Still, I most emphatically do not think Ewing was a great player. His statistics are awesome, he will surely make the Hall of Fame, and I know for a fact that he is listed among the league's 50 all-time best players included in the book published by the league itself on the occasion of its 50th anniversary. After all, I wrote the forward.
Is he a very good player? I guess so. The Knicks in the years of his prime were always going to be respectable, though they were never going to surprise anyone. In the end, I came to hate watching them play: It was all so heavy and slow and predictable. I find him the most puzzling of players, talented, hard-working and, in the end, limited.
Ewing was a great player in college and if he wasn't a great pro, he was damn close, flaws and all.


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VEISHEA is fast approaching – in fact, the fun and excitement of the largest student-run celebration in the country will begin next week on April 11. The Special Collections Department has VEISHEA records documenting former celebrations, in addition to a variety of other resources. For more information on VEISHEA records you can find here in our department on VEISHEA's history, visit last year's VEISHEA blog post.
However, if you are looking for the personal perspective of Iowa State students during VEISHEA, a good place to look are the papers donated by our alumni, and a listing of these collections (however – please note – not all of these necessarily mention VEISHEA!) can be found here under RS 21/7: Alumni and Former Students. The Special Collections Department recently took in a new collection documenting student life here at Iowa State in the middle of the twentieth century, and the letters in this collection mention VEISHEA. The Donald Elwood Larew Papers (RS 21/7/232) contain letters, theater programs, and Iowa State University memorabilia. A graduate of Iowa State University, Larew received his B.S. (1963) in applied art with an emphasis in interior design. For more on Larew's career in theater design, see the biographical note in the collection's finding aid.
Pictured above is the 1963 Stars Over VEISHEA production, The Music Man, performed during Larew's senior year at Iowa State. Larew helped design the set for this, along with other Iowa State theater productions.
The majority of the collection contains letters Larew wrote home to his parents, which includes descriptions of his involvement with the fraternity Delta Upsilon and as a cast member and set designer for a number of campus theatrical productions.
Before joining the fraternity Delta Upsilon, Larew was a member of the Bennett House in Friley Hall his freshman year. The description found here in the Bomb helps one figure out certain references Larew makes in his letters to the activities described above. Click on the image above to read the description.
Larew frequently mentions the theater in his letters home. He mentions plays he appeared in and the ones he helped design sets for. While at Iowa State, Larew was involved with both the Iowa State Players and Stars Over VEISHEA. In fact, the first Stars Over VEISHEA production with which Larew was involved was Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew (this year's Kiss Me Kate is in part based on this Shakespeare play).
In his letters, Larew mentions being a cast member of the Iowa State Player's "Stalag 17" production. Click on the image to read about the Iowa State Players.
To find out more about Donald Elwood Larew and the papers he donated to Iowa State, please take a look at the collection's finding aid.


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If you use public-key authentication to log on to a Windows domain user account on Tectia Server 5.1 or earlier, you must give your user name as
DOMAIN\user when attempting logon. On Unix command line, the backslash has to be escaped, for example:
$ sshg3 DOMAIN\\user@win-server
With Tectia Server 5.2 and later, this is not required. When logging on to a machine that runs Tectia Server 5.2 or later, and belongs to a Windows domain, the user account is by default assumed to be a domain account. If you want to log on to a local account instead, you have to specify the machine name as the "domain", for example on Windows command line:
> sshg3 MACHINE\user@machine


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I've been doing some thinking about tiny houses and my path to them. A little bit ago I realized that there were some key things I did that I realized may have actually taken the good of my tiny house and brought it to the next level: They acted as a force multiplier. What is a force multiplier?It's crazy to think that things could get even better while living in a tiny house! But when we look at tiny house force multipliers we can really take tiny houses to the next level with some tweaks. Here are five things I've come to realize will take your living in a tiny house – or even just those who are living tiny, but not yet in a tiny house – to the next level and change the trajectory of your life so profoundly it will amaze you.
1. Become Totally Debt Free
This seems obvious and its easier said than done, but living debt free does a lot to for you in terms of financial freedom, reducing stress, and opening up opportunities for yourself. What is more, when you're not paying off debt, not only do you not have that money sink, but you can then leverage those funds in better ways. The opportunity cost here is huge, check out this post.
I also feel the need to clarify that when I say debt free, I mean totally debt free; too often I hear people say "we're debt free" only to later her about a car payment or student loan. No! That's not debt free! All forms of debt are essentially shackles placed upon you and thus inhibit your ability to live life on your own terms. For those of you who do have debt, of any kind, make a plan and get rid of it; the only thing that's worse than debt is being convinced that there is "good debt" or doing nothing about it.
2. Shift To A Location Independent Career
Having a location independent career is essentially having a way to earn a living without having to be physically in one spot all the time. Basically you can earn a living working remotely, not having to be cooped up in a cubical 9-5 five days a week. This has been something that from day one I have always wanted to incorporate into my tiny life and since starting this journey have only recently (early 2013) been able to achieve.
I knew that not having to be in an office would make a huge difference, but now that I have been living this life (see this post), I am beginning to think that it actually has had a larger impact than even moving into a tiny house.
Earning a living in this manner has done two main things for me: 1) I can work from interesting places that best for me 2) Since I don't have to be in an office, my income is not tied to time spent in a chair, but to how productive I am. This means that I can travel and work from wherever and when I do work, I work as long as it takes to get my tasks done. This often means that I can buckle down, be efficient, then be done and since I can work from awesome places I can then get up and go explore the places I travel to for the rest of the time.
3. Built In Resiliency
Resiliency is the ability to respond to changes and shocks to your life and bounce back quickly. Today in America we are very reliant upon external systems to handle a lot of what we need to do; Things like our food system, our power grid, how most people weather tough times via credit cards, etc. I will try not to go too deep into this because how large of a topic it is, but read this post to learn more about it. Suffice to say, I feel like its important for us to plan to stand on our own two feet and to be able to weather the ups and downs in life. If we plan for those rainy days we extricate ourselves from putting out fires or living crisis to crisis and enter into a place of stability where we can be our best selves.
There is a good part of the world that lives crisis to crisis and for those who are well off, they typically live big purchase to big purchase. It is no wonder that things are like this because 75% of Americans live pay check to pay check. Try to understand what that must do on your health, your relationships, your quality of life, your well being when most people barley can come up for air.
Some examples of this for me have been having money set aside for a rainy day. Opting to have solar panels and a generator. Having a garden and extra seeds. Living in a tiny house that I can move to different locations easily.
4. Diversified Income
This is the next major step I'm trying to incorporate into my life. It's one that I think will help me boost my resiliency and bring a lot of positives into my life. Basically my goal is to develop a way to earn a living in addition to the one I already make. I want this income to be in a different sector, a different way of making money, and have its strong points be the weak points of my other income. The idea here is if I can earn an additional income unique from my first, they are less likely to both fail or slump at the same time. Basically when it comes to earning a living, I don't want all my eggs in one basket. I have some ideas on how I'm going to do this and am looking forward to pulling the trigger soon.
5. Building A Rainy Day Plan
Here's the truth, in life, there are going to be bad days and even a few horrible days. Some will be annoying, but a good night sleep will fix it, others will be catastrophic: illness, job loss, death of loved one, divorce, etc. In either case you really only need two things: the support of loved ones and time to work through it. So we know these things are going to happen, so why don't we plan for it?
For me a rainy day plan means: have money in the bank so I can live without working for at least a year, have food tucked away for 3 months, have health insurance and I am moving quickly to being debt free. What this means is if something really bad happens I can just take the time to work through it, do what is best for me at that moment. I don't have to worry about work, how I'm going to put food on the table, or pay my bills; I can just deal with that situation, with that grief, with that problem. In these times you're best hope is to minimize what you have to worry about and maintain or boost what is most comforting to you.
Your Turn!
- How can you take the good in your life and take it up a notch?
- What do you do to weather the bad times and not worry in the good times?


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I could almost say that I was oenophilically born again, in that last night, I opened my mouth, and accepted The Geyserville as my savior.
The Geyserville.
The 2010 Ridge Vineyards Geyserville, but we only ever said … The Geyserville.
Dinner was that kind of revelation — Thirteen Ways of Looking at The Geyserville.
Every dish delightful, every dish unique, and in the corner, Roland Micu and I, saying once again, The Geyserville.
And every guest delightful, every conversation bright, and at the table, Laurie Lindrup and I, saying once again, The Geyserville.
Roland Micu, Laurie Lindrup? So much talent, so much skill, so much gravitas!
And I, but a pagan in the fields, but a lunatic of zen, but a tale told by myself to simply no one, meaning nothing. Special Guest Christopher Watkins, who struts his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more.
Thirteen Ways of Looking at The Geyserville
Four wines-of-place: three of the mountain,
and the Geyserville;
not of the mountain, but placed there.
I was of five minds,
like a field blend
in which there are five grapes.
The Geyserville swirls in the crystal;
emotion without speech.
A lover and a lover
are one.
A lover and a lover and a Geyserville
are one.
I do not know which to prefer,
the beauty of appearance
or the beauty of aroma;
the Geyserville poured,
or just after.
Sunset filled the long windows
with fading rays.
The bottles of Geyserville,
crossing them to and fro,
turned white plates
into mood rings
signifying happy.
O thin men of the millennium,
why do you imagine golden lagers?
Do you not see how the Geyserville
wraps around the palates
of the people about you?
I know the juju
of The Jazz;
and I know, too
that the Geyserville is involved
in what I know.
When the Geyserville dripped down
the side of the bottle
it made one of many circles.
At the sight of the Geyserville
pouring in the candlelight,
even the sommeliers
would cry out softly.
I rode over California
on a motorcycle.
Once, a joy overtook me,
in that I mistook
the shadow of my saddle-bag
for a wineskin of Geyserville.
The decanter is moving.
The Geyserville must be drunk.
It was evening all afternoon.
It was sunset
and the sun was going to set.
The Geyserville sat
on the white linen.
Let me begin anew, or should I say, let this essay be born again! Let it open its mouth and accept lucidity as its savior!
What I'm trying to say is this, that dinner at The International Culinary Center last night was amazing! The food? Amazing! The service? Amazing! The rooms, the spaces, the places, the people; amazing! And let me say again, the food? Amazing! Matched in excellence only by my co-hosts (and I blush to so brazenly place myself amongst them) Roland Micu and Laurie Lindrup.
But what really got to me, what really moved me, what was revealed to me, was the divine versatility of the Geyserville. I swear it worked with every single dish!
Did we actually have thirteen courses? Of course not. But in thinking of the courses we did have, and the ways in which a new side of the Geyserville was revealed with each, I was reminded of the great Wallace Stevens poem "Thirteen Ways Of Looking At A Blackbird," which I reprint here below, as a gesture of apology for the borrowing I've done above:
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.
Are you cooking tonight?
Then allow me to suggest …
The Geyserville.
Categories: Food & Wine Pairing, Geyserville, History, Varietals & Blends, Viticultural Salmagundi, Wine & Food Pairing, Wine & Poetry, Wine Tales, Zinfandel


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So You Want A JK Wrangler Pickup Part 2
From Wrangler Carcass To Complete JK-8
One of the hottest discussions in the wheeling world these days is the possibility of Jeep bringing a true JK-based pickup truck to market. While that isn't something you can get from the factory right now, Mopar is selling a $5,499 kit that will convert any '07-'12 Wrangler Unlimited in to a two-seat, open-air cargo hauler.
Last month we tore in to a brand new '12 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited to bring you an overview of what it takes to transform the popular JK in to a Mopar JK-8. Don-A-Vee Chrysler Jeep in Placentia, California, commissioned this conversion and Hi-Tech Collision and Auto Glass in Anaheim Hills, California, handled the actual installation. This month, we'll wrap up our story by completing phase two, the reassembly of our donor vehicle, and finishing the JK-8 buildup.
Because of how involved the kit is, we highly recommend having the conversion handled by a professional installer. When all is said and done, expect to pay about $5,000 to $6,000 in labor and be without your JK for up to three weeks. The kit will take about 100 labor hours to complete. To see what you'll end up with after all that work, read on.
How It Works
Overall the JK-8 kit is comprehensive and well thought out, although at this price point, we would have liked to see the parts included to trim out the interior for a more complete OE feel. One of our surprises was the leaky windows, although we found an easy fix for the problem. If it were our personal rig, we'd ditch the supplied hardtop and its funky proportions and go with half-doors and a full soft top, maybe even keeping the rear bench for the ultimate modern CJ-8. For those of you who are curious, our JK-8 conversion weighed in at 4,240 pounds, a savings of about 300 pounds.


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The hypothalamus is a region of the brain that regulates sleep
cycles, body temperature, pituitary gland activity, and other autonomic nervous
system functions.
When the hypothalamus malfunctions, thyroid problems, cluster
headaches, and sleeping, eating, or reproductive problems may result.
Last Revised:
January 27, 2012
Healthwise Staff
Medical Review:
Anne C. Poinier, MD - Internal Medicine & Colin Chalk, MD, CM, FRCPC - Neurology
This information does not replace the advice of a doctor. Healthwise, Incorporated disclaims any warranty or liability for your use of this information. Your use of this information means that you agree to the Terms of Use. How this information was developed to help you make better health decisions.
To learn more visit Healthwise.org
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