Winter is the time of year that a lot of us look forward to but it can be a dangerous time to work if we don’t take precautions. In the winter our bodies are working hard already just to keep us warm so any activity added to that increases the stress on our system.

We have all heard the stories of the guy who goes out to shovel his walk and has a heart attack. We want to give you some tips to help prevent an event like this.

First let’s look at just a little basic physiology as temperatures drop your blood will be a little thicker as well, just like oil gets thicker almost like syrup. To counteract this make sure you stay plenty hydrated and consult your doctor to see if it would be appropriate to take an aspirin a day. That is what I do; the aspirin helps to thin your blood.

Make sure to layer your clothes. We want to be warm, but you need to be able to shed clothes as you warm up and as the day warms up. You must have enough warm clothes to protect you from the cold but you need to be able to make adjustments. Also remember that your extremities and your head are particularly vulnerable to the cold. Make sure that you have good insulated gloves and be sure to have thick insulated socks. Sometimes I have found when it is really cold that wearing two pairs of socks with a layer of saran wrap between them helps to keep my feet warm.

Now, when you begin to work take it slow. It is crucial that you not push yourself hard since your body is already stressed from the cold. Take the time to warm up and do some stretching as well. Pulled muscles and ligaments and back injuries are far more common in the winter due to the muscles and supporting tissues being stiff from the cold.

Don’t let yourself become a statistic, take time to stretch and warm up properly and monitor your heart. If your heart is beating rapidly, you are overworking and you need to take a break and slow down.

It’s not a secret any more that our century is a very rapid and changing era. People own huge amounts of data, which sometimes have to be transported. And here some difficulties emerge.

First of all, there is a problem of large files that cannot be saved on a removable flash drive because of their size. Another complication comes when you need to share a large amount of information that cannot be sent by e-mail.

Who can encounter such difficulties?

First of all, people who need to carry a lot of data with them. For example, travelers, who cannot do without their favorite movies and music and don’t want to carry a lot of discs. Businessmen who spend a lot of time in business trips need to have a lot of information close at a hand to succeed in negotiations or presentations. People, who make a lot of video, want much place to keep their records. The simplest way out is to upload all your files to some file-hosting site and just put down your link.

Sometimes you have to make urgent changes in a huge report or presentation and send it to your boss immediately. Or, being a member or a fan of some sports team, which played some out match, you want the video from the game to appear in the video section of you home University news as soon as possible. The only appropriate decision is to upload your file and send a link. It saves a lot of time. People don’t have to wait till your arrival. And you don’t waste precious days, hours or even minutes and seconds.

So now it is obvious that working with information requires data storage, transportation and sharing. And the easiest, safest and most reliable way out is using file-hosting resources.

Since Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990, people who previously had limited or no access to public places now move about with a degree of ease in the workplace. While these people have their challenges with sight, hearing or movement, those who work with them are often confused about how to interact them with sensitivity and understanding.

Here are some of the issues to keep in mind.

When it is necessary to mention the disability, language should emphasize the person first, the disability second. Rather than referring to someone as an epileptic, say “person with epilepsy” or “John, who has epilepsy….”

Avoid words that have a negative tone. People who use wheelchairs are not “bound” or “confined” to their chairs. A person may have spastic muscles but should not be described as spastic.

Preferred language is simple. Instead of saying that a person is “crippled with arthritis,” “suffering from MS,” “afflicted with ALS,” say, “John has epilepsy” or “Mary has MS.”

Use the following terms:

“Congenital disability” rather than “birth defect.”

“Non-disabled” rather than “normal,” “healthy” or “able-bodied.”

“Condition” rather than “disease” or “defect.”

“Visually impaired” rather than “blind” unless a person is totally sightless.

“Deaf” or “hard of hearing” rather than “hearing impaired.”

“Little person” or “dwarf” rather than “midget.”

Words or phrases like “victim,” “cripple,” “unfortunate,” “dumb,” “deaf mute,” “deformed” and “pitiful” are offensive.

Ask people with disabilities if they need or want help before trying to assist them. If they want assistance, ask for specific instructions on how you can be helpful.

Look directly at any person with a disability when talking even if the person has an interpreter or companion present.

Don’t assume a speech impairment indicates that a person also has a hearing impairment or intellectual limitations.

Allow people with speech impairments to finish their own sentences. Don’t talk for them or interrupt. Ask questions that permit short answers or a nod of the head. The other person always has the option of giving a longer response.

Speak calmly, slowly, and distinctly to a person who has a hearing problem or other difficulty understanding. Stand in front of the person and use gestures to aid communication.

When walking with a person who is visually impaired, allow that person to set the pace. If the person asks for or accepts your offer of help, don’t grab his arm. It is easier for him to hold onto you.

Never start to push someone’s wheelchair without first asking the occupant’s permission.

Leaning on a wheelchair when talking to the person is inconsiderate.

If you will be having a long conversation with someone using a wheelchair, get a chair and sit at eye level with the person. You will both feel more comfortable.

Keep in mind that people with disabilities are just like everyone else with the exception of certain physical conditions. Treat them as the capable competent co-workers or colleagues they are.

(c) 2005, Lydia Ramsey. All rights in all media reserved.

I’ve heard them called by many names as of late: Generation Y, Gen Y, The Plug-and-Play Generation, The Gotta-Feel-Good Generation. What they’re all referring to is the new young generation - our current 20-somethings. Every generation “deals” with the generation who comes after them. Their different views, their different ways of doing things, and so on; this generation is no exception.

Why is everyone talking about this new generation now though? They’ve been coming along for years. They’re in their 20’s now, after all! Because now they’re starting to impact the workforce and because we couldn’t predict their group characteristics until we saw them in action. In some ways they’re changing the landscape for the better, in some ways we oldies would say for the worse.

Regardless of the nostalgia we feel for the “old days” this generation is plunging headlong into the workforce and will impact you and your business at some point. There’s really no sense fighting it. No generation has ever changed the generation which came after it; not once that generation reached its 20’s anyway. These are the kids we raised and we did raise them this way, so let’s figure out how to work with them. To work with them we first need to understand them.

What makes this generation tick (or turn off) and what is the impact on businesses looking to hire them?

Problem: They’re not called The Plug-and-Play Generation for nothing. This generation grew up on video games and television while their parents were out working and making (what they viewed as) better lives for their families. This led to a whole generation of children, now entering the workforce, who need instant gratification in whatever it is they do. Whether its work or play, the satisfaction must be immediate.

Solution: What this means to the business owner looking to hire qualified workers is that you need to be diligent in assigning tasks to (or rather asking the worker if they’d be happy to do the tasks) that they enjoy doing. You must challenge this generation to the capacity in which they want to be challenged.

Problem: This generation waits for nothing and no one. If they don’t like the game, they find a new game to play and new people to play it with - now - not tomorrow or next week. Simple as that. Think pulling the PS2 game out of the player and inserting one they think they may like better.

Solution: This goes back to speed again. They’re used to moving at the speed of the internet, not the speed of the horseless carriage. You’re going to have to give this generation what it’s looking for or prepare to lose them. Regular check-ins individually to gauge their interest and excitement is critical to keeping this generation happy and working for you.

Problem: The Generation Y’s demand that they feel good about what they’re doing. If they don’t feel good about it, they’re not going to do it. Again, simple as that and no amount of money will convince them otherwise. Remember: they watched their parents work and work and work to earn a few extra bucks and what did it get them? Absentee parents who were rich. This generation wants quality, not necessarily quantity.

Solution: Sometimes the work just isn’t all that gratifying. However, you can combat that by showing your gratitude in the work being done. Often the sheer pleasure of helping someone else and that person being grateful is enough for the worker to receive the gratification they need.

Problem: The generation of ADD. Oh yes, this is where ADD became popular. The Gen Y’s are not going to pay attention for long. They want their information fast and to the point.

Solution: Don’t waste time with long drawn out memos and information. Just shoot it straight and fast!

Problem: A recent study suggested that the average tenure in a job for Generation Y’s is 18 months. Wow, what happened to life, or even a few years? Unfortunately those days are but a memory. As older workers retire and leave the workforce, we’re left with the generation we raised and we need to count on them to fill the open positions within our companies. Remember again that this generation watched their parents stick in jobs for life, only to be spat out by the very corporations and unions who claimed they’d protect them - when they were juuuuuusssst about to collect that pension. The Generation Y’s aren’t going to hang around to let that happen to them.

Solution: There’s no changing this generation’s stick ability. So as a business owner you have two options: 1) Make the work enjoyable or 2) Prepare in advance for every single worker’s eventual departure. If you opt with number 1, you need to figure out what it is that makes each and every one of your workers happy. They must be regarded as the individuals they are and with their own set of needs and instructions. Prepare to meet those needs or move on to number 2: The most crucial thing any business owner can do is to have instructions written for every task that is performed within their company. Put all those instructions in a safe place and hang on to them so you can pass them on to the worker’s successor. In staffing, one of the biggest complaints we hear from clients is the need to retrain the next person. I’m sorry - that’s the way it is nowadays. We train and we retrain and we need to be ready for it.

Problem: Lack of office etiquette. Check out this recent article on Yahoo! News about modern office etiquette (and lack of it) finance.yahoo.com/expert/article/careerist/40342. Unfortunately, as the article suggests, the new generation may not even know they’re breaking the rules! Etiquette in their world is far different than that of other generations.

Solution: As my husband and business partner says, “But wrong is still wrong and right is still right”. However, with the internet and a new generation, is this perhaps the new “right”. Maybe, maybe not. If most families are dysfunctional, doesn’t dysfunction become the new “normal”? Unfortunately I think the new generation has us beat in sheer numbers folks. In this writer’s opinion there’s not much we can do but learn to deal.

Problem: As another article finance.yahoo.com/expert/article/careerist/38889 on Gen Y’s by Penelope Trunk suggests: “They won’t play the face-time game.” That means they’re not going to sit in the office just to make you happy. They know that work can be done from home (or from the beach) just as well as it can be done sitting in the office.

Solution: Let ‘em work from home! Why not!? Working from home offers the ultimate in flexibility (something this generation demands) and helps keep this generation of workers happy and working for you.

As a virtual staffing agency, we deal with the same things as you do day in and day out. We’re not immune to the caveats of Generation Y. We deal with the unique issues of this generation through increased back end staff which checks in with and coaches our virtual assistants regularly. We also take great pains to make good matches between clients and virtual assistants and quickly offer to change assignments if it doesn’t “feel right” for the virtual assistant.

Yes, this (generation’s issues) results in a higher turnover of virtual assistants but no higher than what you’d experience in the bricks and mortar world. In many respects we shield our clients from the impacts of turnover by quickly locating new help, interviewing and screening for the right skills and attitude. But even as a virtual staffing agency, we still can’t change a generation or their attitudes so we can’t stop the turnover - we can help our clients get through the turnover.

Even with a high-turnover generation, companies can still benefit from all of the pluses of virtual assistance and virtual staffing. The cost savings over hourly in-office staff still exist; office politics is still absent; the speed of bringing in additional help is still present; the benefits of not having someone sitting in your office holds ground; start up capitol needed (desks, computers, phone lines) of hiring help is not a concern; and ultimate flexibility still exists.

In many ways, hiring virtually is a great way to deal with the issues businesses must face with this generation. This generation wants flexibility. Working virtually offers the ultimate in flexibility, which helps keep the generation happy. Virtual staffing fits this generation like a glove and is one of the best ways to put them to work for you.

If you’d like more information on how to set up a virtual office, please check our article at teamdoubleclick.com/news/free_articles/SetupYourVirtOffice.html.

It is estimated that over 40 million workers in the United States had to receive emergency medical treatment for workplace-related injuries in the year 2003. This is a staggering number when one considers the efforts most companies have put into maintaining a safe workplace. In modern times, a number of companies have been found liable for injuries sustained in their places of business. There is a relationship that exists between workplace safety and profitability.

Every company, especially those involved in industrial manufacturing, is constantly looking at ways to continuously improve their products and processes. They realize that their profits are directly related to the ways and means by which they produce their products. Unfortunately, too many companies get caught up in drive for higher profits and tend to allow workplace safety to become an afterthought.

The costs associated with operating a large manufacturing facility in America are astounding. Workplace injuries place a massive burden of expense and weakened productivity on a company. These injuries can be reduced with proper planning and careful attention to detail. Most workplace injuries are preventable. There are a number of factors to consider, but maintaining a safe and tidy work area is one of the best ways to prevent injury. Workers, too, have a responsibility in keeping themselves safe from harm.

Workplace injuries place a significant burden on health care providers and insurance companies. As companies continue to pay higher premiums for employee health care, one of the only means available for cost recovery is to increase the prices of the goods they produce. This places the burden of expense on the consumer, and allows companies to ignore the root cause of their workplace injuries. The focus here seems to be on maintaining a healthy relationship with shareholders, and not necessarily on maintaining a healthy workforce.

It is interesting to note that there are record numbers of jobs, especially in the industrial sector, being sent overseas. There are a number of reasons to account for this. One of the most significant reasons is that American companies are able to shave their operating costs down to a fraction of their domestic costs, by capitalizing on cheaper labor in foreign markets. Foreign governments, eager for investment, are all too willing to accommodate the interests of big western business. Far too often, this comes at the expense of workplace safety.

If companies want to be profitable in the long term, they need to reexamine their approach to workplace safety and the health of their workers. Many companies are sending jobs overseas, in order to take advantage of cheap labor and relaxed labor laws. American companies can be both profitable and safety conscious. Through directed education campaigns and preemptive planning, workplace injuries can be reduced in a significant way. Remember: a safe worker is a happy worker, and a happy worker is a productive worker.

Lynas, Mark Contemporary Issues Companion: Global Warming Shasta Gaughen Greenhaven Press

Viewpoint

Hardly anyone realizes it, but the debate about climate change is over. Scientists around the world have now amassed an unassailable body of evidence to support the conclusion that a warming of our planet-caused principally by greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuel-is under way.

The dwindling band of climate “sceptics”, a rag-tag bunch of oil and coal industry frontmen, retired professors and semi-deranged obsessives, is now on the defensive. Although names such as Fred Singer, Philip Stott and Bjorn Lomborg still appear from time to time in the popular press [in England] and in the United States, their views are notable by their absence from the expert literature.

Meanwhile the world as we once knew it is beginning to unravel. The signs are everywhere, even in Britain. Horse chestnut, oak and ash trees are coming into leaf more than a week earlier than two decades ago. The growing season now lasts almost all year round: in 2000 there were just 39 official days of winter.

Destructive winter floods are part of this warming trend, while in lowland England snow has become a thing of the past. Where I live in Oxford, six out of the past ten winters have been completely snowless-something that happened only twice during the whole 30-year period between 1960 and 1990. The rate of warming has now become so rapid that it is equivalent to your garden moving south by 20 metres every single day.

Change Across Five Continents

In other parts of the world, the signs of global warming are more dramatic. … Researching a book on the subject, I have witnessed major climate-driven changes across five continents, changes that are leaving millions homeless, destitute and in danger.

In Alaska I spent a week in the Eskimo village of Shishmaref, on the state’s remote western coast, just 70 miles from the eastern coast of Russia. While the midnight sun shone outside, I listened as the village elder, Clifford Weyiouanna, told me how the sea, which used to freeze in October, was now ice-free until Christmas. And even when the sea ice does eventually form, he explained, it is so thin that it is dangerous to walk and hunt on. The changing seasons are also affecting the animals: seals and walruses-still crucial elements of the Eskimo diet-are migrating earlier and are almost impossible to catch. The whole village caught only one walrus [in 2002] after covering thousands of miles by boat.

Shishmaref lives in perpetual fear. The cliffs on which the 600-strong community sits are thawing, and during the last big storm 50 feet of ground was lost overnight. People battled 90 mph winds to save their houses from the crashing waves.

I stood on the shoreline [in 2002] with Robert Iyatunguk, the co-ordinator of the Shishmaref Erosion Coalition, looking up at a house left hanging over the clifftop. “The wind is getting stronger, the water is getting higher, and it’s noticeable to everybody in town,” he told me. “It just kind of scares you inside your body and makes you wonder exactly when the big one is going to hit.” In July 2002 the residents voted to abandon the site altogether-a narrow barrier island that has been continuously occupied by Eskimos for centuries-and move elsewhere.

In Fairbanks, Alaska’s main town in the interior, everyone talks about warming. The manager of the hostel where I stayed, a keen hunter, told me how ducks had been swimming on the river in December (it’s supposed to freeze over in autumn), how bears had become so confused they didn’t know whether to hibernate or stay awake, and that winter temperatures, which used to plummet to 40 degrees below zero, now barely touched 25 below.

All around the town, roads are buckling and houses sagging as the permafrost underneath them thaws. In one house, the occupants, a cleaning lady and her daughter, showed me that to walk across the kitchen meant going uphill (the house was tilting sideways) and how shelves had to be rebalanced with bits of wood to stop everything from falling off. Other dwellings have been abandoned. New ones are built on adjustable stilts.

Droughts in China

Scientists have long predicted that global warming will lead in some places to intense flooding and drought. When I visited China in April [2002], the country’s northern provinces were in the grip of the worst drought in more than a century. Entire lakes had dried up, and in many places sand dunes were advancing across the farmers’ fields.

One lakeside village in Gansu Province, just off the old Silk Road, was abandoned after the waters dried up-apart from one woman, who lives amid the ruins with a few chickens and a cow for company. “Of course I’m lonely!” she cried in answer to my rather insensitive question. “Can you imagine how boring this life is? I can’t move; I can do nothing. I have no relatives, no friends and no money.” She was tormented by memories of how it had once been, when neighbours had chatted and swapped stories late into the evenings, before the place became a ghost town.

Minutes after I had left, a dust storm blew in. These storms are getting more frequent, and even Beijing is now hit repeatedly every spring. During an earlier visit to a remote village in eastern Inner Mongolia, not far from the ruins of Kubla Khan’s fabled Xanadu, I experienced an even stronger storm. Day was turned into night as a blizzard of sand and dust scoured the mud-brick buildings. I cowered inside one house with a Mongolian peasant family, sharing rice wine and listening to tales of how the grass had once grown waist-high on the surrounding plains. Now the land is little more than arid desert, thanks to persistent drought and overgrazing. The storm raged for hours. When it eased in the late afternoon and the sun appeared again, the village cockerels crowed, thinking that morning had come early.

Threatened Water Supplies

The drought in north-west China is partly caused by shrinking run-off from nearby mountains, which because of the rising temperatures are now capped with less snow and ice than before. Glacier shrinkage is a phenomenon repeated across the world’s mountain ranges, and I also saw it at first hand in Peru, standing dizzy with altitude sickness in the high Andes 5,200 metres above the capital, Lima, where one of the main water-supplying glaciers has shrunk by more than a kilometre during the past century.

A senior manager of Lima’s water authority told me later how melting ice is now a critical threat to future freshwater supplies: this city of seven million is the world’s second-largest desert metropolis after Cairo, and the mountains supply all its water through coastal rivers that pour down from the ice fields far above. It is the snows that keep the rivers running all year round-once the glaciers are gone, the rivers will flow only in the wet season. The same problem afflicts the Indian subcontinent: overwhelmingly dependent on the mighty Ganges, Indus and Brahmaputra rivers that flow from the Himalayas, hundreds of millions of people will suffer water shortages as their source glaciers

decline over the coming century.

Unless alternative water supplies can be secured, Lima will be left depopulated, its people scattered as

environmental refugees. This is a category already familiar to the residents of Tuvalu, a group of nine coral atolls in the middle of the Pacific. Tuvalu, together with Kiribati, the Maldives and many other island nations, has made its plight well known to the world community, and an evacuation plan-shifting 75 people each year to New Zealand-is already under way.

I saw at first hand how the islands are already affected by the rising sea level, paddling in knee-deep floodwaters during [2002's] spring tides, which submerged much of Funafuti and almost surrounded the airstrip. Later that same evening the country’s first post-independence prime minister, Toaripi Lauti, told me of his shock at finding his own crop of pulaka (a root vegetable like taro, grown in sunken pits) dying from saltwater intrusion. He recalled how everyone had awoken one morning a few years previously to find that one of the islets on the atoll’s rim had disappeared from the horizon, washed over by the waves, its coconut trees smashed and destroyed by the rising sea.

Stopping Climate Catastrophe

However severe these unfolding climate-change impacts seem, they are-like the canary in the coal mine-just the first whispers of the holocaust that lies ahead if nothing is done to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Scientists meeting under the banner of the UN-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have predicted a warming during [the twenty-first] century alone of up to six degrees Celsius, which would take the earth into dangerous uncharted waters. [In June 2003], scientists at the UK’s Hadley Centre reported that the warming might be even greater because of the complexities of the carbon cycle.

The IPCC’s worst-case forecast of six degrees could prove almost unimaginably catastrophic. It took only six degrees of warming to spark the end-Permian mass extinction 251 million years ago, the worst crisis ever to hit life on earth, which led to the deaths of 95 per cent of all species alive at the time.

If humanity is to avoid a similar fate, global greenhouse gas emissions need to be brought down to between 60 and 80 per cent below current levels-precisely the reverse of emissions forecasts recently produced by the International Energy Agency. A good start would be the ratification and speedy implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, which should be superseded after the following decade by the “contraction and convergence” model proposed by the Global Commons Institute in London, allocating equal per-person emissions rights among all the world’s nations.

In the meantime, a network of campaigning groups is currently mobilising under the banner of “No new oil”, demanding an end to the exploration and development of new fossil fuel reserves, on the basis that current reserves alone include enough oil, coal and gas utterly to destabilise the world’s climate. Searching for more is just as illogical as it is wasteful.

Avoiding dangerous climate change and other large-scale environmental crises will need to become the key organising principle around which societies evolve. All the signs are that few in power realise this-least of all the current US administration, which has committed itself to a policy of wanton destructiveness, with control and exploitation of oil supplies a central theme.

We must abandon the old mindset that demands an oil-based economy, not just because it sparks wars and terrorism, but because the future of life on earth depends on leaving it behind.

Introduction - We are a Panama Law Firm not a real estate business. Our clients are frequently relocating to Panama and we assist in the real estate acquisition for them. We are often asked if the real estate bubble is going to bust in Panama or if the boom has just begun. Well we are not sure. We have done a few articles on the Panama real estate bubble breaking but now we are going to present objective data in support of the Panama real estate boom just starting. It could be true and prices may continue to escalate.

Worldwide Residential Real Estate Prices by the Square Meter - These are current prices for some major cities in Europe. This will give you a perspective as to how the Panama market fits into the greater scheme of things. These prices are for serious executive homes in prime locations. A discussion will follow after the prices:

* London ? $10,000 Sq. Meter to $20,000 Sq. Meter

* Paris - $9,000 Sq. Meter

* Amsterdam - $9,000 Sq. Meter

* Lichtenstein - $8,000 Sq. Meter

* Moscow - $7,500 Sq. Meter

* Rome - $7,200 Sq. Meter

* Zurich - $7,000 Sq. Meter

* Oslo - $6,900 Sq. Meter

* Dublin - $6,800 Sq. Meter

* Lithuania - $5,150 Sq. Meter

* Latvia (Riga) - $4,100 Sq. Meter

* Berlin - $4,300 Sq. Meter

* Warsaw - $1,600 Sq. Meter

* Slovakia - $1,750 Sq. Meter

* Seoul - $11,825 Sq. Meter

* Sydney - $7750 Sq. meter

* San Diego - $2650 Sq. Meter to $15,000 Sq. Meter

* San Francisco - $5,000 Sq. Meter to $20,000 Sq. Meter

* New York - $15,000 to $43,000 Sq. Meter

* Miami Beach - $9500 Sq. Meter to $32,000 Sq. Meter

* Toronto - $3,000 Sq. Meter

* Montreal - $3,200 Sq. Meter

* Vancouver - $3,700 Sq. Meter

Panama Real Estate Comparison - In Panama City one can get an executive condo in a new high rise building for $1,800 to $3,500 per Sq. Meter and pay less in an older building. We are talking about Condos with a swimming pool and recreation area, balcony, enclosed parking, round the clock security guards, multiple elevators, modern kitchens, city and or water views, beautiful lobbies with marble floors, walls and furniture, and so forth. In the outlaying areas single family homes and town homes can be bought for a bit less with $2,000 to $3000 a Sq. Meter generally bringing in a home in a gated community with all the features of an executive home.

Discussion of Panama Relative Housing Prices - Panama is priced very low compared to the other markets around the world. The question is can Panama rate with the major cities like Paris, New York, San Francisco, Miami Beach, and London etc. This would be an indicator of the attractiveness of Panama relative to the real estate market prices. Below are some categories where we unilaterally decided to indicate how Panama stands, so this is just our opinion, nothing more.

* Entertainment - DEFICIENT. Panama lacks any serious theatre, opera, orchestra, ballet, museums, foreign film houses, major league baseball, football, basketball, and hockey. There is some soccer and boxing. Panama does have gambling and horse racing. The outlaying areas have no entertainment to speak of.

* Crime - EXCELLENT. Most of these major cities have more violent crime in one day than Panama has in one year. Panama has crime but is very safe compared to these cities.

* Traffic - DEFICIENT. Lots of congestion. Wild drivers who disobey traffic laws, stop signs and even red lights. No vehicle safety inspections. Taxi and bus drivers have decided they are the only ones on the road who matter. Outlaying areas have far less problems with the traffic than Panama City. As the new housing projects complete and the Canal expansion begins the traffic is expected to get worse. On Fridays closet to pay day the traffic barely moves from about 3PM until 8 PM. Most of the stores and restaurants have parking. Lately it is almost impossible to get parking at the Allbrook Mall on weekends.

* Restaurants - SUPERIOR. Panama is loaded with excellent restaurants at very low prices. Steak dinners for $10.00 or less are abundant. Food is great.

* Shopping - VERY GOOD. You can get whatever you want in Panama City if you know where to find it. Lots of high-end stores are opening up in the malls. Lots of discounters popping up.

* Cost of Living - EXCELLENT. Your biggest expense will be real estate.

* Domestic Help - EXCELLENT. A live in Maid in Panama City is about $275 a month with benefits, plus room and board. Most of the condos and houses are built with a maid?s room and full bath. A driver runs about $325 a month.

* Airport - GOOD. Lots of airlines going to many cities in Central America, South America and USA. For Europe, India or Asia not so convenient.

* Medical - VERY GOOD. There are major hospitals including a full John Hopkins Hospital. Most prescriptions can be obtained in the drug stores. There is an abundance of competent doctors in all specialties. You can even have a doctor make a house call. Health care costs about 40% of what it does in USA.

* Weather - VERY GOOD. Panama is a tropical climate. No shoveling snow. It does get hot and humid. Some locations have more moderate weather but they usually have high humidity. No hurricanes, not tornadoes, no earthquakes in Panama City, no volcanoes, no tsunamis.

* Boating and Fishing - EXCELLENT. World-class sport fishing with 1200-pound Marlin and 400-pound Grouper. Abundant marinas.

* Stable Government - VERY GOOD. Things are most stable.

* Banking, Stock Market - EXCELLENT. Great banks and stockbrokers.

Conclusion - It appears likely that Panama could escalate in real estate prices to the $5,000 a Sq. Meter market price. They are going to have to work on the culture and entertainment to draw in people accustomed to that housing price market. The traffic will need to be addressed and projects to improve congestion are already in the works. The downside of this theory is that there is not enough to draw people to Panama. Culture and entertainment is lacking and it may take many years for this to improve. There are no major industries here such as: banking, insurance, advertising, stock market, general manufacturing, software, high tech manufacturing, entertainment, tourism and so forth. This eliminates large groups of highly paid executives who need to pay high prices for housing to be close to their workplace. Retirees have needs that are fairly simple and can be met in any many different places around the world and it remains to be seen how much the retiree will pay for real estate. Quite possibly Panama Real Estate Prices have not yet even come close to peaking. Time will tell.

If you’ve been in business very long, you’ve likely heard it all! You know, the irate customer who is going to sue you over the nineteen dollar product that they claim is bogus; the one that’s going to “shut your business down” because they conjure up in their minds that you might have breeched your privacy policy, or the one that takes complete advantage of your money-back guaranty. My favorite has to be the one that calls and screams vulgarities into the phone for apparently no reason.

It doesn’t happen often, but if you’re going to be in business, you will run across some nut cases from time to time. Some can be diffused, some can’t. That’s just the way things go in business.

There are some simple techniques for dealing with irate customers without burning yourself an ulcer over them and without telling them you hope they get cancer and die!

Here are some tips you may find useful…

1. Don’t take it personal

There is one thing that almost all nasty customers have in common. They try to attack you on a personal level. Name calling is not unusual. When you take it personal, you are likely to get into a yelling match with the customer which resolves nothing and only stands to make things worse. Try to diffuse the situation &ndash kill the anger with kindness so to speak. If that doesn’t work, ask them to contact you again once they have calmed down and are willing to speak reasonably. Refuse to speak with a customer in an irate state. You don’t have to put up with abuse ever.

2. Don’t overdo the “customer is always right” concept

In customer service training you will always hear that the customer is always right. While that is true to some extent, sometimes they are just flat wrong. You should always try to accommodate a customer within reason, but do not allow that concept to go too far.

3. Realize it isn’t always your problem

Sometimes people just have a bad day and are looking for someone to take it out on. A hateful, ugly customer is often one of these people. If you listen to their ranting and raving, then respond kindly telling them you understand their frustration and you want to work with them to come to a resolution, you will often diffuse the anger and uncover the rational human being beneath it.

4. Don’t fall for fear invoking bluffs

In customer service some business people tend to do anything to avoid the potential harm of a threat even if it means losing money or giving in to irrational demands. When you are threatened, consider the validity of the threat. Do you really think someone is going to pay thousands of dollars in attorney fees to sue you over a low dollar transaction? Likely not. Again, do what you can to accommodate within reason but don’t give in to unsubstantiated threats.

5. Be prepared to decide whether or not a customer relationship is worth salvaging

You’ve heard it said that one happy customer tells one person about your business while an unhappy customer will tell 10 or more. Undoubtedly, word of mouth can be the best or the worst exposure for your business. This is the very basis of the “the customer is always right” concept. Of course it is best to salvage a customer relationship if you can, but again, do so within reason.

A couple of months ago I had a small kitchen fire in my home. All is well now, but for a few days my family and I camped out in a hotel room and once we returned home we had no oven (it was destroyed in the fire) so we were forced to eat every meal out for several days.

On the day of the fire two representatives from the insurance company told me to “Hold on to your meal receipts, send them to us and we’ll cover your meals plus sales tax.” After the contractors restored my home and we settled back in, I was preparing to mail in my meal receipts for reimbursement and I gave my adjuster a quick call before dropping the envelope of receipts in the mail. He explained that reimbursement was actually for 50% of meals and not 100%. While a partial adjustment made sense to me, I clearly recalled two company representatives promising to “cover meals plus sales tax.”

My adjuster became sarcastic and defensive in both his words and tone and said, “No one in this entire company would have told you we cover 100% of meals. Our policy is to cover 50% because you would have been eating even if the fire had not occurred.”

I was livid. Now it’s no longer about the issue, it’s about the principle. So what did I do? I assembled all the facts that supported my case, presented an opening argument to the company’s corporate office calmly and methodically, and finally delivered a fervent and succinct summation of my evidence and closed the deal—walking away with 100% of my meal charges.

Here’s the lesson here: Had the claims adjuster done and said the right things during my initial phone call, the company would have been able to resolve this problem with a simple explanation and apology. Instead, they paid out nearly $200 more than they had to and had to spend 10 minutes listening to my case.

This costly scenario is played out countless times every day throughout the service sector because employees don’t know how to communicate with upset customers with diplomacy and tact and in such a way that creates calm and goodwill.

In my case, had the claims adjuster responded with, “What we were trying to explain is that your policy covers 50% of your meals plus sales tax. You would have been out of expenses for meals even if you had not experienced the regretful fire. We try to minimize your inconvenience during your loss by covering expenses above and beyond your normal meal expenses. Does this make sense? I’m so sorry for any inconvenience this misunderstanding has caused you.”

This approach certainly made sense and I would have very likely accepted the 50% policy. But instead, the claim adjuster’s attitude incited me and I was determined to accept nothing but full reimbursement. The wrong approach to an already upset customer only makes them more forceful and often results in a much higher payout from the company. I don’t want you to have to pay one dollar more than you absolutely have to and to help you manage costs better I’ll give you 5 things not to do with upset customers.

1. Don’t tell a customer they are wrong. Telling your customer he is wrong arouses opposition and will make the customer want to battle with you. It’s difficult, under even the most benign situations to change people’s minds. So why make your job harder by starting out on the wrong foot.

2. Don’t argue with a customer. You can never win an argument with your customers. Certainly, you can prove your point and even have the last word, you may even be right, but as far as changing your customer’s mind is concerned, you will probably be just as futile as if you were wrong.

3. Don’t speak with authoritative tone as if you have to prove the customer wrong. Even when the customer is wrong, this is not an appropriate response, as it will put the customer on the defense.

4. Don’t say, “We would never do that.” Instead try, “Tell me about that.”

5. Don’t be afraid to apologize. Offer an apology even when the customer is at fault. An apology is not admission of fault. It can be offered to express regret. For example, “I’m so sorry for any inconvenience this misunderstanding has caused you.”

Never forget in problem situations the issue is not the issue. The way the issue is handled becomes the issue.

1. Be assertive - not aggressive or passive. My definition of assertion is simple: “Say what you mean, mean what you say, and don’t be mean when you say it.” Let this rule guide your conversations with all customers and you will always be confident, cool, and in control AND you’ll always be professional.

2. Speak more slowly. You’ll be amazed at how much more clearly you can think and how much control and confidence you experience when you consciously slow down your rate of speech. Speak slowly and methodically when your emotional triggers are launched and you’ll maintain poise during difficult conversations.

3. Wait 1-2 seconds before responding. Responding immediately to difficult or tactical customers could result in you saying something you’ll later regret. Before you respond, take a deep breath, wait at least 2 seconds, and think about the best response and the best approach.

4. Take a time-out. When you sense that your buttons have been pushed, take a break. You can tell the customer you need to put him on hold while you review a file, or whatever excuse sounds good at the time. The point is to get away from the customer for a few seconds so you can re-group.

5. Use positive self-talk. I’m going to sound like Dr. Phil on this one, but I’m quite serious. Instead of saying to yourself, “I don’t get paid enough to put up with this ____.” Say something more positive like “This guy really needs my help.” Thinking more positively helps you respond more positively and professionally. Negative thoughts lead to negative words, and it spirals into a very negative situation.

6. Show your power before you use it. Often, a subtle suggestion of your “power” is far more effective than the outright use of your power. As a customer service professional you may have the power to terminate a phone call. You could say to your customer: “If you don’t stop yelling, I will terminate this call.” But, believe it or not, you are far more “powerful” if you say, “I want to help you, but when you yell and cut me off, you make it difficult for me to work with you.” The latter statement demonstrates your power and your message most definitely gets across. The former statement uses up all of your ammunition and won’t usually diffuse an irate customer.

These incredibly simple tips will position you to keep your cool when customers get hot!