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Youve probably heard the saying, If you need to get something done, give it to the busiest person you know. This statement often rings true. However, if you find yourself nodding along to this, you could be doing yourself a disservice. Yes, reliability and dependability are strengths, but they can quickly become your Achilles heel if youre everyones go-to person, all the time. Research shows that teams composed of people who are dependable perform better. In fact, Googles Project Aristotle found dependability to be the second most important factor in high-performing teams. And yet if this dependability extends beyond the sustainable (for example, if it turns into hyper-independence or people-pleasing), what starts as well-intentioned can result in a myriad of negative outcomes. The possibility of quiet cracking We get it. Being the go-to person feels good. It gives you a sense of purpose and contribution. But saying “yes” at all costs, even when youre overloaded, has a real impact on your professional performance, and on you personally. The unintended consequences of being everyones go-to person can result in workload imbalances, unspoken resentment towards your team, and even quiet cracking, which are precursors to burnout. Quiet cracking is a subtle, internal experience of emotional and mental depletion that happens when you feel stretched too far for too long. And it makes sense, being everyones go-to person without feeling appreciated or a sense of progress and advancement will likely leave you unhappy and unmotivated. It happens somewhere between burnout and quiet quitting, when you still show up and perform, but your engagement is silently eroding. So if youre a high performer who is quietly cracking beneath the surface, it might be time to take off that busy badge and honor how youre really feeling. This is a call to action for those quiet go-to people who are feeling resentful, tired, irritable, or have just had enough. The reality is that when youre spread too thin, you cant perform at your best. Here are four things you can do right now to help yourself. 1. Acknowledge how youre really feeling You cant fix what you wont face, and denial isnt a long-term strategy for success. The first step to breaking the cycle is admitting that the way youre working right now isnt sustainable. High performers are often the best at pushing through, even when they’re exhausted. However, resilience without reflection quickly becomes self-sacrifice. Start by allowing yourself to pause and be honest. Are you coping, or just going through the motions? Acknowledging the truth isnt weakness. Its the gateway to change. Is the way youre working today actually taking you to where you want to go? 2. Get clear on the priorities and set boundaries around whats not Get clear on the tasks that are most mission-critical in your role for both individual and team success. When everything becomes a priority, nothing is. Once you have clarity around key priorities, protect your time and energy to focus on those by setting better boundaries. Learn to communicate with your manager when work demands arent realistic. Set firmer boundaries with your colleagues and team members about what work youre accountable for, and whats within their remit. When youre always saying “yes,” you’re teaching others how to treat you and demonstrating that youre always available when people need you. Instead, be clear about what capacity you do have, and what you need to deprioritize if youre to take on extra responsibility. If you need to say no to your coworkers, say something along the lines of, I understand this project is important to you, lets bring it to the table with the team to see whos best placed to help. 3. Share the load so that you dont carry it alone You dont build thriving teams due to one hero. You build them on shared ownership, distributed responsibility, and collective accountability. If youre always the one stepping in, fixing things, or saving the day, you may unknowingly be holding the team back from developing capability, confidence, and resilience. When you take everything on, others dont get the chance to learn, experiment, or rise to the challenge. Start by getting curious: Where are the bottlenecks? Where does work pile up around you? What tasks could someone else take on with support? Instead of quietly carrying more, raise the issue with your manager from a solutions-focused perspective. Not only does this relieve pressure on you, but it also lifts the bar for everyone. 4. Redesign your role around your strengths Dependability is your strength, but every overplayed strength can become an Achilles heel. If the work that once energized you now leaves you depleted, its worth reflecting on where you can best use your skills. Consider which tasks light you up versus the ones that flatten your energy. Use this self-awareness as a starting point for a conversation with your manager about workload design, growth pathways, and skill development. Figure out where you can add the most value, and what you may be able to redesign so that you can thrive. You dont need to do everything to be valuable. Often, the work that drains you might be an opportunity for someone else to grow. When you realign your role with what you do best, your performance improves and so does your well-being. Being the go-to person doesnt make you indispensable; it makes you invisible when youre struggling. Boundaries, collaboration, and better role design arent signs of weakness; theyre leadership behaviors. When you protect your time, share responsibility, and play to your strengths, you create space for your best work, and for others to rise too.
Category:
E-Commerce
Working from home might be frowned upon at some companies these days, but the rising number of layoffs last year and the growing collection of workers who are launching their own businesses means the number of people working out of a home office is on the rise. If youre among them, youve no doubt learned that to make it a comfortable experience, you need a lot more than a laptop and a convenient table. At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas this year, plenty of items on display seemed well-suited to make work life easier for home-based employees. Heres a look at the most notable tools. Xebec Tri Screen 3 If you’re used to a multi-monitor setup, you know the pain of having to adjust to a single monitor when you’re on the road or find yourself confined to a smaller workspace. Xebec has been providing solutions for that for a while, but the Tri Screen 3 is the easiest fix yet. Simply clamp the base onto the back of your laptop’s screen, plug it in, and in seconds you’ll have three independent screens with which to spread out your browser windows, spreadsheets, and documents. The Tri Screen 3 works with both PCs and Macs (adapter needed) and runs $699. Libernovo Omni A good office chair is critical for home workers. Plopping yourself down in a chair stolen from the dining room for long periods will result in back pain and decreased productivity. Libernovo’s Omni ergonomic chair has been on the market for a bit, but at CES, the company showed off upgrades that make it even more appealing. Rather than adjusting the chair itself, the Omni, which starts at $803, uses what it calls a bionic backrest, featuring 16 joints and eight panels, mimicking the human spine and following the users movement in real time. It also will offer a temperature-adaptive cooling cushion that adjusts to your body heat. Jackery Explorer 1500 Ultra Over the past few years, more and more areas of the country have experienced climate-related power outages, whether due to extreme heat, tropical activity, or some other meteorological quirk. But for the home-based worker, reliable power is essential. Jackery’s Explorer 1500 Ultra is a portable power solution that will keep the power running. Prefer to work outside on nice days? Jackery has also introduced a solar-powered gazebo, which can generate up to 10 kilowatt-hours per day. The company did not announce pricing for either product. Ugreen NAS storage Cloud storage has the advantage of accessibility, but security is sometimes a concern (and some cloud operators can shut down with little or no warning). Ugreen’s network-attached storage devices let you keep your data backed up and secure. The NASync iDX Series offers increased speed and fully local AI to help you parse the information you have collected. Prices start at $999 and increase as you add more memory. Motorola Mesh Wi-Fi There are plenty of mesh Wi-Fi receivers on the market, but you’d be hard-pressed to find one cheaper than Motorola’s current offering. At $129, it’s an affordable way to bring Wi-Fi 7 into your home office, with a range of roughly 2,000 square feet. Technically called the MNQ1525, it can support up to 120 devices, letting home-based workers unshackle themselves from their desks.
Category:
E-Commerce
You hear the blurps and bloops after you pass the food court in the Mall of Georgia on a fall Sunday afternoon, the unmistakable sound of points being scored and players eliminated. Then you see him: Standing in an oversize vitrine is a 6-foot-tall animatronic rodent. Hes grinning and waving, but frozen in place, preserved like a museum piece. This isnt an outpost of Chuck E. Cheese, the 48-year-old family pizza chain with more than 460 restaurants in 45 states and another 88 abroad. Its Chucks Arcade, a fledgling new enterprise launched this past summer by parent company CEC Entertainment in an effort to expand the brands reach to Gen Xers, nostalgic millennials, and teens who have outgrown the flagship. These 13-and-counting old-school arcades are crammed with a dizzying mix of optionselaborate games like Drakons Realm Keepers (flying dragon battles); games tied to Marvel and Jurassic Park and the NBA; arcade classics like Tempest; and analog options like Skee-Ball and air hockey. This one, in Buford, Georgia, draws a steady afternoon crowd of couples, families, and packs of teenagers. A pair of giggly tweens take a furtive selfie with the animatronic Chuck near the door. Five years after the pandemic plunged Chuck E. Cheese into its second bankruptcy, the brand is showing surprising energy. In addition to launching the new arcades in exurbs and mid-tier cities around the country, it has redesigned most of its restaurants in the U.S. and expanded its menu; most recently, it announced another spin-off focused on physical active play. And its financial picture appears to be stabilizing. While the company reportedly struggled earlier this year to raise funds to meet debt payments, in September it closed a $625 million private credit term loan, and ratings agency S&P Global forecast that the companys 2025 same-store restaurant sales will grow between 2% and 2.5%. CEO David McKillips is not shy about his view of the brands potential. Since he took the helm, in 2020, the company has begun to leverage the intellectual property around Chuck E. Cheese, the character, inking several dozen licensing deals that have put the friendly rodents likeness on apparel, toys, frozen pizza, and more. A Chuck E. Cheese Christmasan animated holiday special featuring not just Chuck but also his sidekick charactersdebuted on Amazon Prime on Thanksgiving Day. All of this may seem like a long-shot vision for a brand thats been more associated recently with cheap punch lines (California governor Gavin Newsom told Vice President JD Vance on social media that ONLY SOMEONE WITH A LAW DEGREE FROM CHUCK E. CHEESE COULD BE AS DUMB AS YOU!!!) and squalid Florida Man cringe (last July, a video of an employee being arrested on fraud charges while wearing his Chuck E. costume went viral). But the CEC executives spin it differently. Its impactful when Chuck E. Cheese is in the news, good or bad, says Mark Kupferman, the companys chief insights and marketing officer. Chuck E. Cheeses Q scores are amazing. Shawn and Shelbie Moseley, a couple in their thirties who are making their second visit to Chucks Arcade today, share a fondness for Chuckand the animatronics that used to be the chains signature. Shawn has enjoyed several YouTube documentaries about them. Nostalgia, he says with a knowing grin. Its a sentiment that CEC is banking on. The company estimates that around 24 million kids, across four generations, have celebrated a birthday at Chuck E. Cheese. My IP dream is a global movie release, McKillips says, citing Shrek, Sonic the Hedgehog, and the cross-generational appeal of a Pixar property as reference points. I wont stop until we have a movie. There are theme park opportunities, gaming opportunities. . . . Im not done until every 5-year-old is going to sleep in their Chuck E. Cheese pajamas and waking up and having Chuck E. Cheese cereal. Nostalgia is an exercise in selective memory. And people remember things differently: One fans classic is another fans kitsch. Few brand mascots embody this tension better than Charles Entertainment Cheese. Born as a giant cigar-smoking rat with a bowler, buck teeth, and a Jersey accent, as Benj Edwards reported in Fast Company in 2017, Chuck first appeared alongside his animatronic bandmates co-vocalist Helen Henny, guitarist Jasper T. Jowls, keyboard player Mr. Munch, and Pasqually on drumsat a pizza-and-entertainment restaurant that opened in San Jose in 1977. In those days, arcades seemed vaguely shadyhangouts for directionless teenagers. Chuck E. Cheese, as the chain came to be called, offered a family-friendly alternative with games, pizza, and music, geared to delight 2-to-12-year-olds. Yet the concept always had deeper undercurrents. It was developed and tirelessly championed by founder Nolan Bushnell, the eccentric, visionary tech entrepreneur who also cofounded Atari (and was Steve Jobs’s first boss). He had sought to evoke the mix of technology and carnivalesque ritual that he saw at the heart of collective human culture. And Chuck was a rat only by accident. Turns out Bushnell had always wanted to start a pizza parlor and had the name Coyote Pizza in mind. In the mid-1970s, not long after cofounding Atari, Bushnell ordered what he thought was a coyote costumebut it turned out to be a rat costume. Trotted out as a regular gag at Atari company events, the character became known alternately as Rick Rat and Big Cheese. Bushnell floated the idea of calling his restaurant Rick Rats Pizza, but his marketing folks intervened, coming up with an alternative: Chuck E. Cheese. The first restaurant had a sign out front reading “Chuck E. Cheese’s Pizza Time Theatre,” and by the mid-1980s, it had become a chain, with more than 240 locations. Hampered by overexpansion and a slew of copycats, the company went into its first bankruptcy in 1984. Bushnell resigned, and ShowBiz Pizza, a rival, bought the company in 1985, returning it to a suburban fixture again throughout the 1990s and 2000s. By the time Apollo Global Management bought the 577-location chain for $1.3 billion in 2014, Chuck had morphed into a cheerful adolescent, and, in the iPhone age, the animatronics were feeling antiquated. McKillips, formerly a Six Flags executive, paid his first visit to a Chuck E. Cheese on a Saturday in Grapevine, Texas, in 2019, and says he found the brand environment tired and dated. But just as he was about to leave, there was a verbal countdown to the arrival of Chuck himself. It was like a Taylor Swift concert, he recalls. Kids were going bananas. And I was like, This is fricking awesome. He left a 13-plus-year career at Six Flags to become CE in January 2020just as COVID-19 hit. Unexpectedly presiding over the chains second bankruptcy (filed in the summer of 2020 as diners stayed home), McKillips and his board raised $650 million in bonds, and ultimately spent $350 million to revamp its locations. COVID was a little bit of a blessing in disguise, he says. The brand was crushed for a time, and obviously the human toll on laid-off workers was severe. But it allowed us to pause and really look at the business. Theres a choice that youth-focused brands grapple with: Do we grow up with our audienceor stay forever young? Chuck E. Cheese had always been in the forever-young business, but had, McKillips felt, lost touch with todays kids. Winking satires in Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia (the Risk E. Rats Pizza and Amusement Center) and the horror movie Five Nights at Freddys didnt help. Out went Munchs Make Believe Band, as Chuck E.s animatronic musical group was called. In came an interactive dance floor, with a jumbotron and Kidz Bop as an official music partner. Arcade games stayed, but the interiors got brighter and featured adventure zone areas with trampolines and superhero playgrounds. And the pizza got better. During COVID-19, the company converted its kitchens into ghost kitchens for its new delivery and takeout brand, Pasquallys Pizza & Wings. In the process, the company reformulated its pizza recipe and expanded its menu with more toppings and options than it had ever bothered with before, an experiment that resulted in a new adult menu when its dining rooms reopened and the ghost kitchen brand was retired in the spring of 2025. The business model changed too. Borrowing a tactic from the amusement park industry, the chain started to offer a variety of seasonal and annual passessuch as a $49 Summer Fun pass for unlimited visits for eight weeksproviding discounts in a belt-tightening era, guaranteeing steadier revenue, and cementing loyalty. Chuck E. Cheese sold 79,000 passes in 2023. The next year, it sold nearly 400,000. Since the beginning, Chuck E. Cheese has been, on some level, a tech company. Today, its main restaurant chain is the largest arcade in the world and the biggest buyer of games, McKillips says. We have 2 billion gameplays every single year. The company opened a handful of arcades in malls in 2024, called the Fun Spot Arcade, which flopped. But Kupferman, the companys chief insights and marketing officer (and another Six Flags veteran), began envisioning a new stand-alone arcade business that could carry Chuck E. Cheese branding. McKillips was resistant. Doesnt fit, he recalls thinking. We are about age 2 to 12, wholesome, safe family entertainment. They ended up leaving the modern version of the mouse with the childrens pizza chain but using traditional Chuck E., the retro version associated with the 1980s and 1990s, for the arcade. When the first Chucks Arcade launched in 2025, its logo featured the nostalgic version of Chuck, with the bowler hat and bow tie, and a salvaged animatronic rodent greeted people at the door. While the company wont share specific data, a spokesperson says the switch to Chucks Arcade from Fun Spot has had a very positive effect on the performance of each location. A typical visitor, whether a teen or a 50-year-old, buys a $50 game card and exhausts it over an hour or so. Now the company is making another play for its millennial and Gen Z fans, this time alongside their Gen Alpha kids, with Chuck E. Cheese Adventure World. The first location11,300 square feet, or 10 times the typical size of an active play zone in one of its restaurantsjust opened in Arlington, Texas, in November. Features include slides and tunnels, climbing zones, a dance floor, and exclusive character appearances (as well as snacks, but curiously, no pizza). The company says it will test a handful of locations before setting any full rollout goals. As for the flagship chain, the company is currently leveraging all those new screens for its CEC Media Network, announced in Maya de facto television network utilizing almost 4,000 screens across hundreds of Chuck E. Cheese locations. Appealing to todays screen-focused kids, this in-restaurant network plays selections from a library of original entertainment content, with more than 300 digital shorts featuring Chuck E. and the band, as well as partner content from Kidz Bop and others. We are using that as a promotional platform, selling advertising, creating a new revenue model, McKillips says. Its seen by 40 million visitors a year. The company is also working with streaming technology provider Future Today to expand the CEC Media Network beyond the restaurants. CEC-branded channels now exist on other platforms, such as Roku, Fire TV, Samsung, LG, and Future Todays own family-friendly platform, HappyKids. But for some, watching a screen isnt as entertaining as interacting with it, and thats what Chucks Arcade is for. Back at the Mall of Georgia, a young boy and his mom play a seated, two-player virtual reality game that involves fighting a frantic array of monsters, including Godzilla, from an armed helicopter. The kid is ecstatic, blasting away at monsters and feeling the effects supplied by the VR headset. Mommy, were flying so high! he squawks, but Mom doesnt answer. Shes blasting away, too, lost in the game.
Category:
E-Commerce
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