Smaller companies typically pay a NED on a board-meeting basis, so about €1,000 per month to prepare for and attend a meeting. If their involvement becomes more time- intensive, they would then get paid accordingly, McArdle says.

For Android phones, DroidStats displays usage graphs for minutes, text messages and data, all on a single screen. It does what the carriers’ apps should have done all along: shows you, instantly, your current data usage and minutes-used tallies. No username, password or red tape.

For iPhone, there’s DataMan and VoiceMan. The Pro versions, 50 percent off until Sunday (now $1 and $2), are well worth the money. They show you which apps are eating up how much data, and they give you real-time automated alerts when you hit certain warning thresholds that you set up. Voice Man is even smart enough not to include evening and weekend calls if those calls are free, as they are on most plans.

I wish DataMan and VoiceMan would track your text messages, too; that’s coming, says the developer. (A rival app, Cell Minute Tracker, is free and shows all three stats — minutes, texts and data — but it’s for AT&T only.)

If managers or bosses know this, then they should be acutely aware of the impact they have when they fail to recognize the importance to workers of making progress on meaningful work, criticize, take credit for their employees’ work, pass on negative information from on top without filtering and don’t listen when employees try to express grievances.