Marios-Nicolaos Charalambous

Consulting made simple

Something’s Gotta Give #52: Filling in

I get really puzzled whenever I am on vacation with someone and their work phone rings more often than I get sunburned (which is fairly often!) I tend to take it as a sign of lack of management skills in the upper echelons of the organization. Here is a recent example from my experience: I Read more about Something’s Gotta Give #52: Filling in[…]

Something’s Gotta Give #51: Taking sides

You will very often hear complaints in conversations among colleagues in any modern office environment. Most of the time the complaints are directed towards the leadership. Some other times, toward colleagues. Irrespective of who is targeted (employee, or executive) one of the most common complaints that one comes across, is that “[…] he/she is useless.” Read more about Something’s Gotta Give #51: Taking sides[…]

Something’s Gotta Give #50: Adjustment period

There were complaints from representatives of employees on a TV show that I was watching last week. The claim was that although our country exited the financial crisis a couple of years ago and property prices (which plunged during the 2013 recession) have been steadily rising, this is not the case with salaries. (The reference Read more about Something’s Gotta Give #50: Adjustment period[…]

Something’s Gotta Give #49: Simplicity

I recently had to replace my faithful Logitech wireless keyboard / mouse combo, due to the receiver having stopped working properly after… receiving quite a few blows during a rather bumpy trip that I had, not too long ago. Although very happy with the overall performance of my equipment throughout the years, when I had Read more about Something’s Gotta Give #49: Simplicity[…]

Something’s Gotta Give #48: Pressure

I was at a construction site the other day and noticed something quite peculiar: One of the workers there, was trying to insert a square wooden peg, into a round metal hole. Setting aside the lunacy of the act, I kept observing the said worker with the corner of my eye while I was talking Read more about Something’s Gotta Give #48: Pressure[…]

Something’s Gotta Give #47: If you don’t know…

I hope you all had a very relaxing holiday break for Christmas and New Year. Above all, I hope you had ample time to spend with your loved ones – I have happened to spend a couple of holiday seasons away from my loved ones in the past, and I know how much it hurts Read more about Something’s Gotta Give #47: If you don’t know…[…]

Something’s Gotta Give #46: Who to blame?

They say that all criminals have one thing in common: They all claim they are innocent. As I am getting older, I am beginning to think that in many cases, they might as well have valid reasons to feel this way. For the first time in our history here in Cyprus, traffic accidents caused by Read more about Something’s Gotta Give #46: Who to blame?[…]

Something’s Gotta Give #45: Quality of life

People in the IT industry use this term all the time. Almost always when there’s an update of a software, you can see in the changelog the line “Various quality of life improvements.” But what do they mean by that? “Quality of life improvements” in the field of the IT industry, are software improvements meant Read more about Something’s Gotta Give #45: Quality of life[…]

Something’s Gotta Give #44: Measuring education results

Last Thursday morning, I had the misfortune of listening on the radio to the views of the President of the teachers’ union here in Cyprus (“OELMEK”). It was a real extravaganza of molded views, the foulness of which almost permeated my car through the radio, making concentration difficult and driving, near impossible. But I think Read more about Something’s Gotta Give #44: Measuring education results[…]

Something’s Gotta Give #43: Apoptosis

Apoptosis (from Ancient Greek ἀπόπτωσις “falling off”) is a form of programmed cell death that occurs in multicellular organisms. Biochemical events lead to characteristic cell changes (morphology) and death. These changes include blebbing, cell shrinkage, nuclear fragmentation, chromatin condensation, chromosomal DNA fragmentation, and global mRNA decay. The average adult human loses between 50 and 70 Read more about Something’s Gotta Give #43: Apoptosis[…]