Green Living
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Dealing with a non-green co-worker
I have a co-worker who prints every single email she receives or sends. No joke - even super short emails that say "Thanks, see you tomorrow" she will print out and put in a file on her desk.
She works in fundraising (major gifts officer), so I'm not sure if there's some kind of policy about needing to keep a paper trail of communication with her constituents. Of course, she's also of the older generation (in her 60s) that doesn't really "do" email, so maybe paper copies are more comfortable for her too.
Is there a polite way to bring this up without sounding like a total biatch? I'm just cringing at the amount of unnecessary paper being wasted by her alone...
Re: Dealing with a non-green co-worker
Ugh. How absolutely annoying. I am lucky that my office is nearly the opposite.
Could you ween her off slowly? Have her print on already printed paper? Like scrap paper?
This is difficult, and I understand! I work with older women who are not very computer literate or green, and one especially tends to print a lot of emails.
Are you in any position to oversee the finances of the company? That's something within my job duties, so its easy for me (and I'm a real pennypincher at work anyway, I nag my boss about printing things unnecessarily in color, yelling 7 cents! 7 cents! yeah, I'm a scrooge. That money could be my raise! lol) to say something like we've been spending a lot more on paper lately so let's all do our best to conserve.
Similar, but are you in a position to address the environmentalism of the company? Or to bring this up (overall environmental policies in the company, not so and so uses too much paper!)?
Do you have recycling?
Nope
Unfortunately not
We do have recycling, but the paper that she's printing on is fresh, brand new paper coming out of the printer.
Lots of good ideas and suggestions here. I reposted on MM to get some more opinions and was very surprised that many people told me to keep my mouth shut and that it's none of my business! So much for trying to be green and save a little money, too.
I was surprised MM felt that way too, and disappointed! If no one tries to change things, nothing changes. And its MY trees too that's she's printing on, and my air that is suffering for it, and so on and on.
Okay, so not in charge of her.. is she printing at her desk where it would be easy for her to print stuff like that on paper that has had one side printed on? You could save a bunch of paper like that and then offer it around, 'I've been saving some paper that's just printed one sided for printing off things like emails and stuff that's not going out to clients! I thought it would be an easy way to be more environmental and save money."
Otherwise I'd say just be a good example. When its appropriate and relevant its okay to mention how you try to keep your printing down to save money and the environment.
What is your relationship with her? I have coworkers that I could just openly say "the amount of paper you use is driving me crazy! is there anything I can do to help you reduce that, like show you how to archive them on the computer?"
Thanks for chiming in with your .02 over on MM.
Unfortunately, we don't have the kind of working relationship where I could even make a lighthearted joke out of this situation - it's already quite strained and uncomfortable, with both of us being polite just out of necessity. I think it's really the age gap that makes it hard for us to work together - she grew up before computers and I grew up with computers. Heck, I barely have any paper on my desk because I try to keep everything filed electronically.
I have coworkers that literally print 70+ page reports DAILY.Another coworker said something in a jokinly rude way about it. They still persist. I have no idea how to approach someone on this subject without sounding preachy. I figure a belief is a belief, and just like people don't want me walking up to thier cube with my bible, no one really wants to hear me bother them about paper wasting.
I would try to lead by example, and as I went to the bin with my paper, I would ask if she had anything that she would like for me to take for her. That's a good way to open up the subject, then maybe you can start to sneak in little ideas here and there. Good luck!
Ermm...
You aren't her boss...where do you get off saying anything to her? You don't actually, and since you have NO idea why she's doing it--she actually may have a valid reason for printing out the emails for record keeping or something. I get that it bothers you. Mention something to your boss--but don't be a nark..just say something along the lines of, "I was wondering if we could all maybe learn more about how to use all the functions of email to our advantage--because that saves paper and increases productivity--and I have noticed that we all might not know how to do that..."
She isn't of the older, pre-computer generation. That was her mom's generation. Computers were becoming mainstream in the 1980's. That puts her, at the oldest, in her 40's when she started using one regularly, though most likely she started regular use in her 30's. This isn't like great-grandma is seeing a new-fangle device for the first time. She knows exactly what is going on and has had decades of experience.
Nothing to do with your situation, I know, but just tossing out there that the "older" generations aren't really all technologically behind. The only thing I can think of that would be a legitimate reason for printing every email is she never stopped the habit of "copy the fax" from the old thermal paper days. In which case, once she sees the silliness of what she is doing, she will probably have a minute of embarrassment followed by an "OMG you will never guess what I have been doing at work.... LOL" moment in the forums she frequents.
Something like this might work if you have a good relationship w/your boss.
Our computers track our printing (we have to enter our employee id) because we charge our clients for things like big reports. Small things are fine, but it makes you think twice before you print because if you go printing a hundred pages a day, someone is going to be asking who that is being charged to. Understood that we are in the consulting business and you aren't, but the tracking function could help to reduce waste.
We also have our settings on double sided and black&white as defaults.
There is definitely no reason to be printing all these emails when she could be archiving/saving.
Maybe you could send an email to the group/your office about the archive folders/how to make folders for each project or something?
It is definitely a touchy subject. And that would really drive me nuts too.