Due to a combination of being sick most of last week and supposedly being busy with an important “project,” I don’t have a column in this week’s Time. I did have a last-minute opportunity to write something about the XM-Sirius merger, but decided I didn’t have much of anything more to say than what I posted here on Tuesday. So it was …
The gift economy implications of Bill Clinton’s belated payday
When I saw the front page of today’s Washington Post, with its big story on Bill Clinton’s speaking-fee riches, it made me think of a sneaking suspicion I harbored while writing my working-for-free column last week.
The Post article says Clinton has gotten almost $40 million in speaking fees over the last six years:
His paid speeches
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Here’s a Great Video Resume (Not Mine)
I interview well. On paper I may not look like your tippy-top candidate, what with my unpronounceable name and gutter grades and long list of short jobs. But get me in the room with you, and (in most cases) I’ll have you from hello.
That’s why a video résumé is for me. Or so I thought.
As research for this article I just wrote on the …
My Gym Is Like the Office: It’s a Jungle
My company has this program that pays 50% of our gym memberships. Sometimes I think it’s the only reason I joined–because I’m cheap and I can’t resist a bargain. Also because my really fit friend at the office goes, and I delusionally thought I too could someday have a waist.
We’re starting to hear a lot about corporate wellness …
Reading the Times for the (JetBlue and Chodorow) ads
There are those who say the New York Times‘ website has gotten so good you don’t need to read the newspaper anymore. But Website-only readers are missing two of the most interesting things in today’s paper: The full-page ads taken out by formerly beloved airline JetBlue and crotchety restaurateur Jeffrey Chodorow.
The JetBlue ad, an …
The ‘stop us before we spend again’ merger
I can’t really tell you whether the proposed Sirius-XM satellite radio merger will be good for consumers or investors. I do know who it’s got to be bad for: the talent. Nobody else will be getting deals like the five-year, $500 million contract Howard Stern landed with Sirius in 2005, that’s for sure.
Working Women, Don’t Rely on the Chinese Zodiac
Happy new year. It’s the start of the Chinese new year, or, as they say, the year of the pig (we Japanese prefer to call it the year of the boar). I consulted a few Chinese astrology web sites to see what the year held for us on the workplace front. Here’s one forecast:
A year of goodwill to all. An excellent climate for business, and
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Don’t Measure My Productivity By Looking Over My Shoulder
Your boss is obsessed about how you spend your time.
We workers squander hour after work hour gabbing on the phone to mates, surfing the web for hot new outfits, playing Sudoku on our Crackberries–that is, according to HR surveys, books and product promos meant to teach employers how to crack the whip. Time-wasting is apparently at an …
Free labor, Peter Kropotkin, and Yochai Benkler
My latest Time column is now online (and on actual paper in the issue dated Feb. 26, with the little fetuses on the cover). It begins:
It might seem very odd to look to a long-dead Russian anarchist for business advice. But Peter Kropotkin’s big idea–that there are important human motivations beyond what he called “reckless
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I Wasn’t Laid Off (Yet). So Why Am I Depressed?
It’s been one of those weeks. It started out crazy, then got insane, and finally spun out of control. The work load is driving us mad, and when I walk the corridors I see my colleagues look pooped.
That is, except for the ones who are leaving. They look refreshed, rejuvenated and positively sparkly. Like someone spiked their decafs with …
Building the first draft of Mumbai in northern Virginia
A reader (and old friend) comments on my hopeful post about the northern Virginia boom region that is Fairfax County:
I don’t really buy the assessment that Fairfax is another Paris in the making. I actually think there is something fundamentally different about the way sprawl works today and about the way places like Fairfax have
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