This cracks me up. Does everyone have a spokeperson?
We just saw a big ship,” the pirates’ spokesman, Sugule Ali, told The New York Times. “So we stopped it.”
I guess so. You can read more about the Somali pirates here, but needless to say, they are real pirates, they are dangerous, and they may not look like Johnny Depp.
Ah, paperwork. Freelancers hate it. Actually, everyone may hate it.
The comments at the Freelance Folder have some good tips for dealing with it though.
Here’s an interesting interview about Bruce Weber about writing obits for the New York Times.
A while ago, Jim kept all of our trash for the week, and catalogued it. I think the point was to illustrate how little we actually threw away between reusing and recycling. We could have improved with more composting, but all in all, we don’t really generate much trash. I know, there’s no award for that. I’m just trying to introduce the story.
Dave has taken this process much further and is collecting his trash for 365 days in his basement. The good news? He also doesn’t make much trash. Also, he has a worm composter. That might be worth trying..
This sounds great:
WORK$MART: Pay Negotiation for Women, a two-part series, will be held on Wednesday, Oct. 1, at 1:00 p.m. Eastern, and Wednesday, Oct. 8, at 1:00 p.m. Eastern.
WORK$MART is a highly interactive online workshop for working women that emphasizes learning the essential nuts-and-bolts of effective salary negotiation. We strongly urge participants to take part in both sessions. The second session builds directly on the first session.
During these webinars you will learn:
How to benchmark the salary of your current job; How to determine whether or not you are paid fairly; and How to negotiate a raise or promotion. This workshop will be moderated by Jocelyn Samuels, Vice President for Education and Employment at the National Women’s Law Center. It was developed and will be led by Dr. Evelyn Murphy, President of The WAGE Project, Inc., a national grassroots activist organization dedicated to eliminating the gender wage gap. Dr. Murphy is a Ph. D. economist, former Lt. Governor of Massachusetts, and author of Getting Even: Why Women Don’t Get Paid Like Men and What to Do About It.
This two-part webinar series is free to participants, but registration is required. Register here.
I’m not a positive thinker. I’ve tried. I’ve read a lot of popular self-help books. I’ve genuinely tried to get behind the movement (it’s a big part of career planning—think positive! attract the positive!). But, man, when you read a lot of career planning stuff and a lot of economic stuff and talk to a lot of people in the United States about their jobs….it’s hard to be that positive overall. Realistic? Yes. Positive? Nope. Believe me when I say I’ve tried. So when Barbara Ehrenreich finds that the power of positive thinking is behind this Wall Street nonsense, I have to stop and listen:
GREED — and its crafty sibling, speculation — are the designated culprits for the financial crisis. But another, much admired, habit of mind should get its share of the blame: the delusional optimism of mainstream, all-American, positive thinking.
As promoted by Oprah Winfrey, scores of megachurch pastors and an endless flow of self-help best sellers, the idea is to firmly believe that you will get what you want, not only because it will make you feel better to do so, but because “visualizing” something — ardently and with concentration — actually makes it happen. You will be able to pay that adjustable-rate mortgage or, at the other end of the transaction, turn thousands of bad mortgages into giga-profits if only you believe that you can.
Positive thinking is endemic to American culture — from weight loss programs to cancer support groups — and in the last two decades it has put down deep roots in the corporate world as well. Everyone knows that you won’t get a job paying more than $15 an hour unless you’re a “positive person,” and no one becomes a chief executive by issuing warnings of possible disaster.
The tomes in airport bookstores’ business sections warn against “negativity” and advise the reader to be at all times upbeat, optimistic, brimming with confidence. It’s a message companies relentlessly reinforced — treating their white-collar employees to manic motivational speakers and revival-like motivational events, while sending the top guys off to exotic locales to get pumped by the likes of Tony Robbins and other success gurus. Those who failed to get with the program would be subjected to personal “coaching” or shown the door.
So years from now when I am discovered in a poor in my hovel, just tell yourself that I believed in negative thinking, and look where it got me.
Our midwest correspondent informs us that Milwaukee is holding a referendum for paid sick leave. The usual suspects object to this: business groups, including restaurant organizations. The implications, however, are a bit more national:
Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) has introduced federal legislation that would mandate paid sick leave nationwide, and 9to5 has said it wants to use the Milwaukee referendum to build support for the bill, after already successful referendums in San Francisco and Washington, D.C.
Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, has backed Kennedy’s bill, and Stear said she hopes his expected Republican opponent, Arizona Sen. John McCain, would do so as well.
If the referendum is approved, business groups are gearing up for the possibility of legal action, citing City Attorney Grant Langley’s opinion that the ordinance might not be enforceable, Sheehy and Baas said.
Steve at All Things Workplace has three lines that he thinks lessen the impact of any speaker in an opening:
“I just want to . . .” “Just”? (Oh, it isn’t really all that important).
“I know how busy everyone is. . .” (Right. But we put you on the agenda. Start talking).
“Thank you for taking your time. . .” (You’re welcome. You just took up even more of my time with that wimpy intro).
I definitely avoid those though I’m afraid I might have coined a few new ones along the way. Do you have any other suggestions for openings to avoid? I’m not keen on speakers who try to make me shout Good Morning at them in response to their own Good Morning, but other than that, I’m drawing a blank.
Have you been to the Berkeley Bowl? I went once in seventh grade, and I have no urge to go back. It’s like….lest I insult it unnecessarily, well, I’ll let the article describe it for you:
When one shopper was told she couldn’t return a bag of granola, she showily dumped its contents on the floor. Culyon Garrison, who works at the customer-service desk, recently had a loaf of bread thrown at him.
The produce emporium — one of the nation’s most renowned retailers of exotic fruits and vegetables — creates its own bad behavior. Kamikaze shoppers crash down crowded aisles without eye contact or apology for fender-benders. So many customers weren’t waiting to pay before digging in that management imposed the ultimate deterrent: Those caught sampling without buying will be banned for life — no reprieves, no excuses. (Not even “I forgot to take my medication.”)
A full description of the Berkeley Bowl and its rules and rule-breakers is here. I can barely survive Trader Joe’s at rush hour. The Bowl requires a whole different mindset to survive.
How to Avoid a Major Meltdown at Work summarizes some major meltdowns of others (oh, the schadenfreude), and give some tips for avoiding your own meltdown, and surviving those of others. All of that said, I enjoyed the stories of others’ meltdowns. Whenever there is the throwing of ballots in Florida, I pay attention.
Hmmm…the details of this survey are here. In short, men who expressed sexist views earned more than women. It’s a big survey (over 12,000 men and women interviewed), and spans almost 30 years, including several sets of interviews with the same set of participants (as far as I can tell). Most interesting to me is that sexist attitudes stated by participants seemed to have almost a predictive capacity in terms of earning more.
Dr Magdalena Zawisza, a psychologist from Winchester University, said that there were a number of theories which might explain the difference.
She said: “It could be that more traditionally-minded men are interested in power, both in terms of access to resources - money in this case - and also in terms of a woman who is submissive.
“Another theory suggests that employers are more likely to promote men who are the sole earner in preference to those who do not - they recognise that they need more support for their families, because they are the breadwinner.”
However, no big surprises here for me.
And just to be my own snarky self, Zawisza means “hypothesis” or “hypotheses” and not “theory” or “theories.”
Are there things that all workers who work at home have in common? I mean other than they occasionally find themselves working at 5 a.m. on Saturday morning….
Talking About Working From Home examines the common issues for workers who work at home in Q & A format.
Q. You cover a broad swath of the workplace in this book. Does it really make sense to lump entrepreneurs and hourly wage workers together, based solely on the fact they work from home?
A. Anyone who works from home — whether for a Fortune 100 company, as a customer service representative or running your own shop — has to possess certain qualities. You have to be disciplined enough to wake up every day and report to work, without a time clock to punch, a manager hovering over your shoulder or colleagues keeping tabs on whether you are producing anything.
It takes someone who is motivated and focused. You have to wear multiple hats and have an entrepreneurial streak, so even if you have a “job,” when your computer doesn’t work, you have to make the first attempt to troubleshoot. You are often your own mailroom, receptionist and tech support, which is a very similar spirit to starting a business.
And don’t forget to read the comments. There are some really good ones about “spec work”, and the problems with some of the freelancing sites.
I was just contemplating my Firefox tags and realizing it’s been a while since I’ve had a section for education-related news. So today, I bring you an Ejucashun Edishun of WWN:
Have a great weekend folks! And remember, if you’re going to show porn in the classroom, make sure you’re educated about it first.
If you’re a long-time reader, you may recall that sometime around March of last year, I tried to stop buying products from China. I’m still committed to this notion, mostly around issues of workers’ rights, but there are significant safety concerns when it comes to food (including dog food, as you’ll remember) as well.
Now part of the problem with products from China is that they have not been labeled as such in the market. Sure, clothes were. And consumer electronics were. And this made those products easy to avoid. But food was not necessarily labeled.
U.S. Food Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) falls short describes how labels on meat, poultry, produce, and peanuts will now be required. There are loads of exceptions, but this is a very big step in giving consumers information in the food marketplace.
Ivygate seems to be rejoicing at the parade of somber Wharton School graduates as they leave their jobs at Lehman Brothers. It’s odd that they’re all wearing some form of slides or flip-flops for essentially packing and moving stuff.
Fairly recently we had the displeasure of visiting a Babies R Us in Van Nuys, and I accidentally walked into the breastfeeding room, which smelled extremely poopy. I walked out quickly and found the women’s room. It also smelled extremely poopy. In any case, this is not an exceptional experience or an impressive one, as you can see in this story in which a woman attempts to avoid a poopy breastfeeding room in Babies R Us by breastfeeding in the actual store, and is told not to “do that.”
Unfortunately for Babies R Us, basically, according to California law, you can breastfeed in public or private, including businesses.
Cal. Civil Code § 43.3 (1997) allows a mother to breastfeed her child in any location, public or private, except the private home or residence of another, where the mother and the child are otherwise authorized to be present. (AB 157)
In fact, in California, there are all sorts of laws that support breastfeeding in public, during jury duty time (you don’t have to serve), and in the workplace in a separate space for pumping (and for all states laws on breastfeeding here).
So what’s fascinating about this post on Consumerist about that woman who tried to breastfeed in a glider chair at Babies R Us is not what happened (she was asked to stop), but all of the comments by people who clearly don’t understand the law. Yikes. I mean, it doesn’t matter if it makes you personally uncomfortable. It’s perfectly legal. End of story. And, yes, irony about the location of said incident.
Apparently Dear Prudie is now sort of a video thing. In this segment, she answers a question from a girlfriend who wants to know if she’s overreacting to her boyfriend who tells coworkers he loves them on a regular basis.
Also, I’m going to have to learn to use more double entendres as Ms. Theologian.
One of the recurrent surviving the workday issues for office workers seems to be All Things Kitchenette. Or at least related to a communal fridge. Now here’s an idea for keeping your lunch from being pilfered by a hungry coworker: an anti-theft plastic bag. Now I don’t really like all things plastic, but this actually seems like it might work. After all, it’s usually the good lunches that get eaten. Not the ones covered in mold. For purchase here.
This seems just slightly unreasonable to me: You’re Scheduled to Work and Expected to Be Here. Right now. In Houston post-Ike. At a Walgreens with no useful stock. I wonder what’s going on.
Now here’s a commuting problem I’ve never had: commuting by bicycle and colliding with a bear. Both man and bear are assumed to be all right. But, read the story and try not to think Ow. That must have hurt everyone involved.
Flying the Unfriendly Skies gives a glimpse into the lives of flight attendants (hint: It’s not a lot of fun) as a travel writer goes undercover:
WHAT’S it like to be a flight attendant these days? That’s what I’ve often found myself wondering as I sit in my seat, waiting impatiently as yet another flight is delayed and my connection threatened, while around me are passengers fighting with each other over the lack of space in the shared bin, or complaining about having been bumped from an earlier flight, or swearing “never again” to fly this specific airline because they have been stuck in a middle seat even though they booked their ticket six months ago.
Is there a less-enviable, more-stressful occupation these days than that of a flight attendant? Just the look on their faces as they walk down the aisle — telling passengers that no matter how many times they try to squeeze them in, their suitcases are not going to fit into the overhead bin, or explaining yet again that they will not get a single morsel of decent food on this three-hour flight — tells you all you need to know of their misery.