Joe Ahern, the general manager of a CBS O&O station in Chicago, threw himself a 63rd birthday bash, and then demanded his department heads pay for it. [CS-T]
If you want to see a movie that will make you ashamed to be an American, you should definitely check out Swing Vote. The new Kevin Costner feature asserts that the average American male takes 31 sick days a year, let's his 11 year old drive him home when he's too drunk, and doesn't know what the word "civic" means, let alone "responsibility." This movie could have been used for Al Qaeda training video.
But there was one reoccurring theme in the film: the blue-collar fear of job "insourcing," where the U.S. imports illegal Mexican immigrants to wash our dishes, pick our tomatoes, and torment Lou Dobbs. It's a play on another of America's fears: The outsourcing of American call-centers, and bloggers, to India.
But like the fly in your Chardonnay, the irony here is that "insourcing" is already happening — in India no less. There, English-speaking American journalists are flocking (by the dozens!) to escape the death of this nation's print journalism industry. CONTINUED »
If CNN had instituted a blog publishing policy for employees, say, a year ago, they might have never had to fire Chez Pazienza, the American Morning producer who was axed without severance in February when brass found the content of his writing objectionable, but not that he was writing online. (Things like "Pat O’Brien is the single most ridiculous human being currently sucking down oxygen" is, apparently, not kosher to CNN.) But now CNN does have a rulebook for any staffers who would like to stuff a LiveJournal with drivel! And Pazienza himself has a copy of it.
CNN wants staffers to avoid taking public positions on virtually everything, because the network is in the business of reporting the news without bias, and even those not part of the news gathering process could impact the public perception of CNN.
Generally, then, staffers should only be blogging, posting on Facebook, uploading to Youtube, or trolling in Second Life things that "CNN would not report on." What falls into this list? A quick scope of CNN.com means no blogging about gorillas, Mars, earthquakes or storms, food or coffee, celebrities, or robots.
So what can CNN staffers blog about? CONTINUED »
Did you know Fox News publishes an Internet magazine? WE DID NOT. It is called iMag, and it includes a lot of video content you'd expect to see from a women's magazine. We know this because we watched several of their video clips and started feeling bad about ourselves.
But that doesn't mean we understand what iMag is for. Or who it's for. But who cares when there's content like … this office makeover? It's part of Fox News' editorial mission to not only make crazy right-wingers feel normal, but bland people seem interesting.
Workers at Bloomberg News will soon be able to "request schedules better suited to their personal lives — including flexible hours, a shorter work week and working from home." [Reuters]
It's 1999 again! Back before the dot-com bust, with-it companies were all about Aeron chairs, free cafeterias, in-house masseurs, and on-the-clock drinking courtesy the office bar. Now, with multiple ad agencies gloating over their top shelf staff offerings, we've officially got a trend on our hands. And perhaps it's all thanks to AMC's Mad Men, a throwback to the good old days where 10am didn't role around without a single malt. CONTINUED »
Provigil, a prescription drug "approved to improve wakefulness in adults who experience excessive sleepiness," is the latest in a long line of FDA-approved aids that overachieving, workaholic, entrepreneurial types are getting hopped up on. [TechCrunch]
If you have not figured out how to annoy your coworkers using email, be sure to forward them this article — and then insist they forward it to 10 friends or their closest male relative will die.
Perhaps some well-wishing j-school professor told you that in order to get ahead in this business, you need to line up prestigious internships, and that toiling away every summer during your undergrad will open to the door to endless opportunities, or at least one? Well, that may be the case, but that whole mentality is RUINING JOURNALISM!!! CONTINUED »
"I think, if anything, the books like Devil Wears Prada and Because She Can have made things worse for assistants, because now bosses are less willing to let you work on important things, at least in New York. They’re paranoid. They think, ‘What could my assistant rat out about me?'" That's Save The Assistants founder and "industry help" godmother Lilit Marcus in today's Observer, bouncing off the newspeg of Jennifer Hudson starring as Carrie's assistant in the Sex and the City movie. These underpaid ladder climbers are rewarded not with cash or prestige, but with their boss' Rolodex and the chance to network their way into a better job every night. And while it's no secret this corps of hired help is so often abused, many, such as the twentysomethings holding these jobs, continue to wonder, "Why?" CONTINUED »
The fresh-faced, newly-minted JDs who graduated from law school this decade with a hankering for a career at the U.S. Justice Department might have proudly listed some of extracurricular activites — say Greenpeace, the Poverty and Race Research Action Council, or the American Constitution Society — on their resumes without knowing that they were actually screwing themselves out of a job interview. How, exactly?
A very damning report on the attorney-hiring practices at the Justice Department shows that aides used liberal “buzzwords” in applications and resumes to weed out lawyers with Democratic leanings. It’s been happening since 2002, but it apparently became markedly worse around 2006 (yay, Alberto Gonzales!).
Which has a better chance of flying with your boss when you call into work and explain that there's no way you'll be able to make it in today — because OMG IT'S NINE HUNDRED DEGREES OUTSIDE?: "I have transient amnesia and couldn't remember my job," or, "I was indicted for securities fraud this morning"? Neither, probably. But this handy listicle from jobber blogger Jobosity does include one possibility that everyman can relate to: "The line was too long at Starbucks."
As if you had any intention of getting to the gym in this heat this week, but if you're a New York member of Equinox, find something else to do this Friday between 12-4pm, because you won't be spending time at the gym. That's because the fitness club is shutting down during those hours so employees can partake in a company picnic.
Sure, it's nice to reward your hardworking staff with some cucumber sandwiches and unsweetened iced tea and all, but does this strike anyone else as the most dick move to members – who pay somewhere between $150-$200/month for membership – just so corporate can rally the troops? (Especially at locations with pools?)
If not, consider a couple of these other scenarios:
1) Staples shutting down in the middle of the day so headquarters can screen motivational training videos for employees, then sending them off with gift bags stocked with manila envelopes and not one, but two boxes of paperclips.
2) Another Starbucks "outage," with all employees in NYC required to report to Central Park, from 8am-12pm, for team building exercising, liking falling backward into a fellow barista's arms. Yes, this means NO COFFEE FOR YOU.
Couldn't Equinox, say, complete their corporate picnic in two shifts, with half the staffers attending one of two outings? Your other alternatives are welcome.
The Equinox notice to members, below. CONTINUED »
That will do nothing to boost productivity: CONTINUED »
The bed bug infestation that rocked Fox News back in March has resurfaced as a much less friendly beast: a lawsuit. FNC veteran Jane Clark is suing her employer because she "can no longer go to work after suffering emotional distress due to a continuous and ongoing bedbug problem at work." [TVN] As recently as April 30, she claims she was again attacked by the insects, even after her department was moved to a different floor. But FNC is pretty much off the hook (except for the worker's comp claim); she's named the building's manager Beacon Capital and the maintenance company, Triangle Services, as defendants.
Editorial Director
