Surviving the Workday

So Ms T suggested that we select an area of expertise for this blog. It was obvious to me in looking at my collection of links that my specialty should be weird workplace news. Ms T also suggested a regular column. Genius! This will force me to do that writing I’ve been neglecting.

Just look for the red stapler when you want your fix of wacky workplace hijinks. I’m going to aim for every Friday.

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In Alabama, father bikes to work and picks his daughter up from school. Apparently this is unusual as only 1,656 out of 1,611,160 residents bike to work.

From a conference this weekend on Islamophobia: 

Marquette University Professor Louise Cainkar presented a paper about hate crimes against those of Arab origin, a category that includes Christians but is often conflated with Muslims in post-Sept. 11 pop culture. In analyzing patterns in the Chicago area, she found that hate crimes were fewest in African American neighborhoods in the South Side, despite the high prevalence of Arab shopkeepers. But anti-Arab hate crimes were highest in “white flight” suburbs. A mosque in a southwestern suburb of Chicago came under a “three-day siege” by neighbors after the Sept. 11 attacks and had to be protected by more than 100 police officers in riot gear, Cainkar said.

Cainkar believes the results showed, in part, that Islamophobia is a cultural phenomenon. The black neighborhoods had a history of community organizing around concepts of race and did not buy into treating Arabs as “the other.”

“Islamophobia can be defeated through work at the local level,” she said.

When you hear that government-funded research involved covering backyards of low-income black families in Baltimore with sludge to check how it interacted with lead, you just have to wonder who wasn’t paying attention to Tuskegee.

“Our hearing will include an investigation of the risks associated with application of sludge in neighborhoods as reportedly took place in Baltimore,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., the committee’s chairman.

The head of the Maryland chapter of the NAACP asked Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler to investigate the circumstances of the research and whether participants in the Baltimore study gave informed consent.

“These experiments harken back to the infamous Tuskegee experiments” in which syphilis treatment was denied to black men in order to study the illness, Gerald Stansbury, president of the Maryland Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said in letter to Gansler.

Researchers said the families were assured the sludge was safe, but were not told that there have been some health concerns over the use of sludge.

These families were told that the sludge was safe. It is not. It is made from sewage and industrial waste and contains heavy minerals. That doesn’t sound like the families gave informed consent to me.  More disgusting (and I don’t mean the sludge) details here.

If you’re anywhere near Academia, you’ve probably seen a shift away from creating tenure-track positions toward hiring tons and tons of part-time faculty as adjuncts. This is a parallel trend to what goes on in my businesses (and we do know that universities are increasing using a corporate model for management) of hiring “temporary workers” who essentially aren’t that temporary. They could be employed in the same position or even promoted within the company for years.

Looking the other way? Accreditation practices and part-time faculty explores the issue of accrediting institutions ignoring the adjunct phenomenon when they could essentially step up, condemn the practice, and flex a little muscle as most universities do answer in some fashion to accrediting institutions:

As used by some college and university administrations today, the term “part-time faculty” is a misnomer. A large percentage of those designated part-time are actually full-time faculty with part-time pay and few or no benefits. In its glossary definitions of “faculty,” however, the Western senior commission adds an instructive caveat: “Part-time or adjunct faculty [are those] whose major responsibility is not related to the institution in question. These faculty are customarily assigned one or two classes with class-related responsibilities only.” The definition used by the Northwest commission is nearly as limiting and also includes the phrase “one or two classes.”⁵ While we have no evidence that accreditors tally the number of courses taught by individual adjuncts, institutions that regularly employ part-time faculty to teach three or more courses clearly practice outside accepted standards for the Western senior and Northwest commissions.

My neighbor is considered part-time faculty at a local college. She teaches six classes plus labs. That pretty much sums up that part-time misnomer. 

Via Inside Higher Ed

How many times have you had to deal with a customer “service” rep only to find yourself getting the hard-sell on a host of products you don’t want? Sadly, this is not merely becoming common practice, it is now the status quo.

Look, I don’t mind a company trying to make money. If they don’t make money, they go out of business and I lose my internet, and that would seriously piss me off.

But in these days of behemoth companies, it seems that they have learned that they can take advantage of our dependence on them to the point where they ignore a customer’s needs  and instead force their reps to try to sell all sorts of worthless crap, enforcing this policy with everything from Walmart gift cards to threats and Office Space-like forms.

All of this can be very debilitating to the customer service reps as well. It is very difficult to take pride in your work when it is systematically stripped of all that is noble and just–namely, helping someone in need and making them happy.

I can’t help but think that the time is getting ripe for a large, powerful company to finally say “Screw the money. All we need is love.” I think they’d be surprised at how much more profitable they become.

Airline Passenger Complaints Soaring. In fact there are 60% more complaints than last year. US Airways had the most, and Southwest had the least.

I love stories like this perhaps a bit too much for my own good.

David Sneath has worked at a Ford Motor Co. parts warehouse for 34 years, but it didn’t take him any time at all to walk out once he discovered he had won a $136 million Mega Millions jackpot.

“I yelled to the boss, ‘I’m out of here,’” Sneath said Thursday after going to state lottery headquarters in downtown Lansing to pick up his first $1 million check.

He plans to buy a cottage on the lake and a new fishing boat. Possibly get laser surgery for his vision. Maybe go back to school and finish his degree. He’s 60 years old.

Or not. It’s hard to tell in the article.

Kelly Services case goes to jury describes an interesting case in terms of workplace rights and religious affiliation. An employee at Kelly Services claims she was not promoted because she was not part of a religious group to which other Kelly Services employees belonged.

Some summary from attorneys:

“We live in a culture of blame, don’t we?” asked Kelly Services attorney E. Joseph Connaughton. “The coffee’s too hot, there’s a lawsuit. Our kid doesn’t make the sports team, there’s a lawsuit.”

“We have juries who can say, ‘Enough is enough,’” Connaughton continued, asking jurors during his closing argument Thursday in the federal court case in Sacramento to find that Nevada City resident Noyes, 59, was dealt with fairly at work by her office manager, then a member of the Yuba County-based Fellowship.

Attorney M. Catherine Jones, representing Noyes, said her client should have been promoted to software development manager and that Kelly Services “needs to be punished” for its indifference to Noyes workplace rights. Jones said Fellowship members were favored in hiring, promotion and pay at the Nevada City office where Noyes worked.

Finding Health Insurance if You Are Self-Employed is an article with a number of resources for the self-employed. You know the problem, right? For self-employed people, health insurance costs more and covers a lot less.

Notes from an Intergenerational Conversation is a brief chat between a Gen X author and Gen Y author, and covers any number of workplace issues including, What’s up with Gen Y’s sense of entitlement? and Why won’t Gen X mentor Gen Y?

A Marked Increase in the Number of Pregnancy Discrimination claims analyzes the situation from a legal and historical point of view.

This article, Air NZ passengers fumigated, brought back some childhood memories. I’ve flown to New Zealand twice, and was fumigated twice, which means someone came on the plane once it landed in Auckland, sprayed us with some unknown chemical, and locked the doors while the chemical settled over us. It was very freaky. This is supposedly unusual (fumigation) nowadays because of biosecurity clearances. Remind me of the fumigation incidents when I get cancer.

Cats sell books on-line

A couple of on-line retailers will rent you a textbook for your college class. This post on Treehugger Renting College books: Greenwash or Choice? argues that renting on-line is sort of like buying your books used and selling them back. A discussion ensues that is more interesting than my summary here.

At one point, I bought all of the books that professors required and suggested. Then I just bought the required books. Then, just the main book. Then I checked out the books in the library and used the copies on reserve. Much cheaper. What is funny in the particular Treehugger discussion is the Blame the Publisher attitude for the problem as if the bookstore wasn’t making a huge profit in their buy back program. But then I work for publishers.

Apparently the summer 2008 job market for teens is not so great:

Not a great summer option for teensNearly half of hiring managers say they have no plans to hire any seasonal workers this year, according to a study of 1,100 companies released today by SnagAJob.com, a job site for hourly positions. When asked why they wouldn’t be hiring, 31 percent of those polled said they didn’t have the budget. And a report put out this month by the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University states that “the summer 2008 job outlook for teens looks particularly bleak.”

A new study by the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity at Yale University suggests that weight discrimination in the workplace is as prevalent as racial discrimination. Some additional details:

The study also revealed that women are twice as likely as men to report weight discrimination and that weight discrimination in the workplace and interpersonal mistreatment due to obesity is common.

The researchers found that men are not at serious risk for weight bias until their body mass index (BMI) reaches 35 or higher, while women begin experiencing a notable increase in weight discrimination risk at a BMI level of 27. BMI is the measure of body fat based on height and weight.

Co-author Tatiana Andreyava of Yale said weight discrimination is more prevalent than discrimination based on sexual orientation, nationality/ethnicity, physical disability, and religious beliefs. “However, despite its high prevalence, it continues to remain socially acceptable,” she said.

Recession-Proof Your Job in Forbes gives advice for keeping your job during a recession. I’m pretty sure you could follow this advice and still be laid-off as the first comment points out.

When the bully sits in the next cubicle is an overview of workplace bullying. Interesting tidbits:

In a survey released last fall, 37 percent of American workers said they had experienced bullying on the job.

• This month, researchers at the University of Manitoba reported that the emotional toll of workplace bullying is more severe than that of sexual harassment.
• Surveys also suggest that victims of office bullies call in sick more often — although it’s not clear whether they really are sick or just avoiding the abusive environment at work.
• A large share of the problem involves women victimizing women.

Here’s a full list of bullying behaviors (and read the comments on that post. Wow.) Although it may be possible to attempt some behavior modification with a bully, I think it is far more prudent to look for a new position immediately.

A worker pursued federal charges against the Hilton Garden Inn in Ithaca when she was fired for talking to other employees about their rights, conditions at work, and unionization. The National Labor Relations Board dismissed her charge because coworkers weren’t willing to testify in her favor about the conditions at the Hilton, but they also uncovered evidence that employees were not informed of (aware of?) their rights to talk about workplace conditions. So apparently all the investigating in the world will not make up for the fact that you need corroborating witnesses in front of the National Labor Relations Board.

Check the schedule for receiving your stimulus tax rebate. I’ll be using mine for dental work. If you file your taxes early and electronically, you’ll get it sooner. How soon? Check here.

Car washes are ubiquitous in Southern California because of The Car Obsession, but look at the conditions that the workers deal with:

A Times investigation has found that hand carwashes, automotive beauty shops patronized by tens of thousands of Southern California motorists every day, often brazenly violate basic labor and immigration laws, with little risk of penalty.

Half or more of carwash owners flout the minimum-wage law, estimated David Dorame, the longtime lead investigator for low-wage industries at California’s Division of Labor Standards Enforcement.

Despite many undocumented workers’ reluctance to complain to authorities, employees at a fifth of Southern California’s carwashes in the last five years have formally accused owners of illegally underpaying them, The Times found.

From Santa Monica to Westwood to Koreatown, many workers said they received only tips for some or all of their shifts. Labor division inspectors estimated that about 10% to 20% of car dryers are not paid by owners.

This is the most general graph I’ve seen in a while (go ahead, check out), but I think it actually illustrates a key point of work in the United States, namely, that productivity on a national scale isn’t necessarily related to wage growth on a national scale. 

Now, I’ve written before that I have some big issues with granting rights to people based on their productivity at work, and I have big issues with measuring individual productivity. But there are decent ways of measuring national productivity in terms of money and overall units generated and there are decent ways of measuring wages.

So note how the myth of meritocracy seems relevant as you look at this graph that shows national productivity increasing while wages remain relatively stagnant. Many of us are under the impression that if we work harder, faster, longer, more productive in some way, that we will demonstrate our merit to our boss and be justly rewarded with a wage increase. Certainly on a national level, generally speaking, this is not happening.

Letters  Ms. Theologian gives advice about rude coworkers.

News  David Byrne (yes, that David Byrne) finds out that free wireless at Denver’s airport comes with a price. Workers accuse their Gulf Coast employer of slavery. Certainly, it’s indentured servitude. A cop kills two bicyclists and blames day light savings time and his extreme shifts. We have more sympathy than we should. The state of California prepares to lay off 10,000 teachers because we can’t manage a budget in California and simply prefer to layoff and rehire. That reminds me of some of my favorite corporations.

Notes  It was the week following daylight savings time. Some of us had a lot of trouble functioning (other than the cop above). Juana Rivas had to work, and she starts her day around 2:30 a.m. scavenging in dumpsters for recyclables. And Vilma Serralta appears to have worked six days a week 14 hours a day as maid/servant/nanny for a really awful San Mateo family who she is now suing.

Religion  We made some notes from a local church’s marketing brochure and respond to some questions about not attending church.