Dear Getting a Grip:  Our company has begun a “fitness initiative.”  We’re all supposed to record our 10,000 steps with pedometers, log progress towards our “fitness goals” - a.k.a. weight loss - using a “confidential” online tracking system, and play on the company’s softball team to “boost morale” and “foster teamwork.”  I understand a company needs to cut health insurance costs by having a more fit work force. But I didn’t appreciate “the talk” I've been given about not being a team player.  I simply have no interest in exercise.  At work, I want to work.  What am I supposed to do?

Dear No Interest:  The personal/professional divide is a tricky one.  Companies initiating programs asking for personal choices at work - from fitness programs, to direct deposit of charitable contributions, to team reading of the latest business book - risk crossing the line.  To a great extent at work, we’re already “told what to do.”  Being told at work what to do in our personal lives provokes resentment.

That said, the revenues/expenditures divide is a tricky one.  Your company’s ability to generate revenues and cut costs - including health care expenses - is why you have a job.

In spite of invocations by evangelists of its redemptive power, exercise has only one purpose and one outcome - quality of life. 

Getting a Grip:  Regardless of what company currently employs you, you’re always CEO of No Interest, Inc.  Schedule “the talk” with yourself and take a look at your resistance to exercise.  It’s an opportunity to examine your business model.  Then execute quality of life initiatives that work for you, whether they occur at work or not.  That takes care of your personal enterprise - and the one that employs you.

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Need to start “Getting a Grip” on a personal problem at work?  Need workplace advice?  E-mail your question to grip@handshake20.com.

Getting a Grip, a workplace advice column for Handshake 2.0, is written by Anne Giles Clelland.  Getting a Grip regrets that not all questions can be answered, personal replies are not possible, and questions may be edited for brevity and clarity.

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Getting a Grip appears monthly in Valley Business FRONT.  A version of this column appeared in the June 2009 issue.