This summer, I’m going to embark on an experiment: I’m going to be my own wife. I’m going to stay home from the office. I’m going to puree baby food, walk my older kid to summer camp, maybe even plant a lame vegetable garden. I’m going to sort through our finances, make sense of our cable/Internet/phone plan, fill out all those migrainey …
Work In Progress
E-mail vs. text: a question for young workers
I recently e-mailed our babysitter about some upcoming dates. I waited and waited for her response, but it never came—by e-mail, anyway. When I finally thought to check, there was a prompt answer waiting on my cell phone. “ive gt dance rhsl so i cant,” she’d texted. Oh. Thx anywy.
It’ll come as no particular shock to you that my …
Why the Obamas’ hearts must be breaking today
This weekend, Obama supporters cheered quietly as their presidential candidate officially broke up with his church. As Steven Gray reports from Chicago on Time.com, the senator and his family resigned from Trinity United Church there after months of roiling conflict surrounding its controversial former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright …
Enough with the flip-flops at the office
“Mommy,” said my daughter as she inspected my bare feet the other day. “Why are your feet cracked?”
They’re more than cracked. The appendages at the bottoms of my legs are—how to put it delicately?—hideous. My toes are spidery. My pinkies are misshapen from a misguided youth spent jamming them into stupid stilts. Currently my …
Survey: gas prices change the commute
These past two weeks, I’ve been saving a boatload of money. How? I’m working from home. True, the primary reason is to better accommodate my acute hugeness of gut as I hover like a freak-show bumblebee near my due date. But my telecommuting stint coincides very nicely with the startling spike in gas prices.
I speculated in an earlier …
So many ways to screw up a job interview
Here are a bunch, from OfficeTeam‘s survey of 150 senior executives at the 1,000 largest U.S. companies and 100 senior executives in Canada:
* “The candidate sent his sister to interview in his place.”
* “The person was dancing during the interview. He kept saying things like, ‘I love life!’ and ‘Oh yeah!’”
* “A job
…
Google-stalking your interviewer is smart
A colleague writes:
I’m wondering if the landscape is changing regarding new graduates seeking jobs. Was talking with a friend from college who does a lot of interviewing, runs her own ad agency, and recently she’s been asked by kids to show them HER Facebook and job website, a complete reversal. It was as if they were interviewing
…
Best cities for telecommuting
I don’t know. The idea behind a list like this puzzles me. Isn’t the point of telecommuting that you could do it from anywhere? Why would Silver Spring, Md., be a better telecommuting hub than Naples, Fla.? Maybe it’s a little more pleasant to hang with a laptop on the beaches of Malibu, but if your cozy home office is located in a split …
Top reasons why we change jobs
A new online survey from Right Management, which says it’s “the world’s leading provider of integrated human capital consulting services and solutions across the employment lifecycle”:
1. Downsizing or restructuring (54%)
2. Sought new challenges or opportunities (30%)
3. Due to ineffective leadership (25%)
4. Poor relationship with
…
When leaders are really, really, really old
Since I posted about John McCain being too old—if not to work, then to lead—I feel it’s only sporting for me to add what I think about the upcoming Senate elections in my home state of New Jersey.
Frank Lautenberg is a Senator up for reelection. After serving for 18 years, he retired in 2000…only to run again in 2002. At age …
Is flex time a load of hooey?
I just read Why Work Sucks—and How to Fix It, a book due out June 2 by Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson. They’re the duo behind ROWE, the Results-Only Work Environment program created at Best Buy, the electronics retail giant. (My colleague Jyoti Thottam wrote about it in 2005 in TIME.)
A few things I’d like to point out: I read the …
10 best cities for recent college graduates
I recently did a little piece on the Today Show on this topic. In the 120 seconds allotted me, I managed to squeeze in one source citation for the survey—and not the other. A very nice lady from Apartments.com contacted me to let me know I’d forgotten to mention its equal participation in the “10 Best Cities for Recent College …