August 31, 2004

The suit is back
Posted by at 4:47 PM

Sitting here in my jeans, sports shirt and sneakers (I'm supposed to an artsy-fartsy type though I'm definitely not but nevertheless I sort of get a bye) I am either a retro throw-back to the dotbomb era (true), a bad dresser (possibly) or just can't relate (probably), but apparently wearing your suit to work is back in vogue.
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The science of beauty
Posted by Diane Danielson at 9:56 AM

The other day my son announced that he no longer wanted to be a fire-fighting, doggie-doctoring, super-hero who lives in outer space. Worried that he might have taken on the American Dream of becoming a reality TV star, I was absolutely thrilled when instead he claimed that he wanted to be a scientist. I don't know when scientists got to be cool but, hey, I'm all for it.

Now, if we can just get the girls to sign on, we'd be all set. However, there is at least one major cosmetics conglomerate that's doing its part: L'Oreal just announced the application process for their 2005 Women in Science Fellows contest. Each year, L'Oreal/USA awards five women Ph.D candidates $20,000 fellowships each to pursue their research. Of local interest is the fact that last year three of the five winners were from Harvard and MIT. (Of course, there's a bit of self-interest for the company here; because it's the scientists, not the supermodels - thankfully! - who determine the ultimate success of a beauty product.)

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August 27, 2004

Who came first -The Dilbert or The Cubicle?
Posted by at 3:03 PM

Although Dilbert might protest, Bob Propst knows because after all, he is the creator of the cubicle.

Propst has created a monster. The modern American office he envisioned as a place where productivity, if not happiness, would thrive has become exactly the kind of environment loathed by those who wear suits and collect regular paychecks. But Propst wants to make one thing perfectly clear: He does not accept the blame for the nightmare that his grand idea has evolved into. "I don't even feel faintly guilty about Dilbert," Propst says from his suburban home near Redmond, Washington. "The things expressed in that comic are the very things we were trying to relieve and move beyond. It was a Dilbert world even back then. Everything we worked toward tries to express something more interesting."

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The Great American Novelist in you
Posted by at 12:24 PM

Being out of work can be tough. After sleeping till noon, scanning the classifieds, checking your job alerts, and taking the dog for a long walk, you're going to get back to writing that book, that novella (okay, maybe a little too ambitious)...that short story in you, right? But where do you begin?

Stephen King, that Maine-iac among Mainers, has Everything You Need to Know About Writing Successfully - in Ten Minutes excerpted from The Writers Handbook (Via Kottke).
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August 25, 2004

Of rotaries, cow paths and bangin' u-eys
Posted by at 10:48 AM

Boston can be a great city -- except to drive in that is. Bert Sperling, who has been compiling data for about 20 years about the best places in the country, has given our fair City Upon a Hill the honor of being the #1 most challenging city to try to navigate.
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August 24, 2004

Job outsourced? Don't get mad, get even
Posted by at 12:26 PM

Here's a new twist to the outsourcing trend: Don't nervously wait around for your job to go overseas, instead outsource your own job and become your own micro, corporate entity.

Says a programmer on Slashdot.org who outsourced his job: "About a year ago I hired a developer in India to do my job. I pay him $12,000 out of the $67,000 I get. He's happy to have the work. I'm happy that I have to work only 90 minutes a day just supervising the code. My employer thinks I'm telecommuting. Now I'm considering getting a second job and doing the same thing."

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Tricks of the trade
Posted by at 12:12 PM

Matthew Baldwin a.k.a. Defective Yeti gets his readers to reveal the secrets of their profession.

For every occupation, there is a catalog of secrets only its employees are aware of—such as how waiters with heavy platters know to look straight ahead, and never down. Armed with a bag of reader mail, Matthew Baldwin unfurls a whole lot more true insider knowledge.

Here's a pick...Waitress: When you realize you have forgotten to submit an order to the kitchen, go to the table and mournfully say, "Did you just hear that crash?" Nine times out of 10, the customers not only will say "yes," but actually will believe they just heard a noise of some sort. You can then sigh sadly, and say, "Unfortunately, that was the chef dropping your food," and then scurry back to the kitchen to hand in the neglected order.

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Damned if you do and damned if you don't
Posted by at 10:38 AM

A report by the Kaiser Family Foundation is showing that the number of self-employed people going without the safety net of health insurance is on the rise, up from 24.6 percent in 2001 to 27 percent in 2002.

If you're recently unemployed or self-employed it's indeed a difficult choice whether to pay out for benefits, make the car AND mortgage payments, and oh yeah, eat. But insurance is what it is: A huge pain in the wallet, but usually worth every red cent when it counts the most. In fact, many financial planners will advise you to try to keep insurances up in such situations as one major catastrophe could easily make a strained financial situation, worse.

While most recently unemployed may initially go for COBRA coverage, there are some potential less-costly alternatives in healthcare if your stint is a long one, or if you're resigned to be an indefinite 1099'er:

• Shop around: Contact local chambers of commerce, professional groups, and small business associations in your area and try to get on as part of a group plan that can help lower your monthly costs.



• Contact individual providers directly and try to set up your own group, even if you're the only employee in it. Depending on the coverage you elect you may find you're not losing many benefits or paying significantly more than when you were a full-time employee.



• Get work through a temp agency that offers benefits to its contract employees. While the agency will take a bite out of your take-home pay, it may balance out.



• Try contacting small business insurance brokers. They too may be able to get you on a group plan with lower monthly premiums.



• Check in with your state office of unemployment. If you qualify under certain conditions you may be eligible for benefits from the state.

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Unions not happy with new overtime guidelines
Posted by at 10:20 AM

With the new overtime regulations taking effect yesterday, many fear they will hurt the middle class as opposed to helping it. Unions protest as overtime rules take effect

Hundreds of workers rallied on the steps of the Labor Department yesterday to protest the implementation of new rules they say will cause as many as 6 million Americans to lose their overtime pay. But the Bush administration officials who crafted the complex regulations insisted more workers will actually qualify for extra pay under the plan, which almost triples the salary cap to enable more employees to qualify.

Nurses, daycare workers, and hotel and restaurant employees were among the workers who joined Senator Tom Harkin and AFL-CIO president John Sweeney in calling the law, which redefines the type of worker eligible for overtime, a "cruel blow" to the middle class.

For more info., visit Boston.com's overtime rules section. Also, check out this "Do the overtime laws affect you?" Q&A session.
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August 23, 2004

Ask questions about culture
Posted by at 11:34 AM

In Understanding the culture factor, Alan Earls suggests that candidates ask questions about culture. His suggestions are good, and I would add these during the interviewing process:

• Is there a policy on books or periodical subscriptions? (Assume the best. If the manager doesn't know, is that a problem for you?)
  
• How do you encourage collaboration?
  
• Are there company-wide events? When do they occur? (Does this company have mandatory fun?)
  
• Are there policies I should know about?
  

For me, corporate-wide initiatives can be the most problematic. I'm not fond of spending my weekends doing mandatory fun -- or mandatory charity for that matter. But it might be just the right thing for you.

Reflect on what matters to you. Ask questions in a way that assumes the company is a good fit and that you are looking for confirmation.
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Stereotypes as a straitjacket
Posted by at 10:31 AM

I'm often the first to say that stereotypes exist because there really are people who fit them, but nonetheless, OnPoint radio widens the ongoing discussion on how gender stereotypes affect our relationships and jobs and takes on that question of whether Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus.
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Even more tales from the "boom-boom" room
Posted by Diane Danielson at 9:33 AM

Sunday's New York Times reported on the latest chapter of men behaving badly on Wall Street. Mom and daughter brokerage team of Valary and Janine Craane filed complaints last week against Merrill Lynch. Look for more stories to unfold this fall about lewd behavior and missed opportunities.

The Craanes are among about 30 holdouts in a group of more than 900 women who filed discrimination and harassment claims against Merrill in 1999. The firm has already paid more than $100 million to settle those claims, but the cases coming to a head this year could be the costliest.

Valery Craane's claim states that she "lost tens of millions of dollars in compensation as a result of her treatment at Merrill Lynch" and that the team of brokers and assistants she leads, known as the Craane Group, "lost hundreds of millions of dollars in client assets, and therefore will continue to lose income."

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It's August 23. Do you know where your overtime pay is?
Posted by at 9:11 AM

Like so many conditions in today's complex employment game, the rules have changed. USA Today's Steve Strauss does a nice job of boiling down the impact the new overtime rules have on employees when they take effect this week.

For more complete coverage, take a peek at Boston.com's new overtime laws section.
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August 20, 2004

Round peg, square hole
Posted by Colin Moor at 4:12 PM

I've had several people this week ask me, "How do you know if a company is the right place to work for you?" It's a very good question and one every job seeker should be asking. So how do you sniff that kind of information out of your research and interviewing experience? FastCompany had some very thoughtful and practical suggestions for those trying to divine the answer to the riddles of the company culture question.

Of course, everyone wants something different from their employer. But the Great Place to Work Institute maintains that there are common denominators of being happy at work. These are trust, pride, and enjoyment -- trust that management and co-workers are reliably, fairly, and openly informed; pride in one's work and colleagues; enjoyment of both the process and the place. Great places to work are not about skyscrapers, plate glass windows, paneled offices, and corporate jets; they are about great cultures.

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More power to her
Posted by Diane Danielson at 1:51 PM

Forbes just released their list of the 100 most powerful women in the world. If you're looking to make next year's list, you might want to bone up on your politics (politicians/world leaders dominate the list), or if you can't get elected yourself, marry someone who is (how else to explain Laura Bush and Lynne Cheney?). You also might want to do your best Anne Hathaway (Princess Diaries) imitation and discover a long lost link to the throne (or marry your way in like Queen Rania Al-Abdullah). Other than that, you need to inherit a global conglomerate (Abigail Johnson); although three cheers for the few women who fought their own way to the top of the ladder (Carly Fiorina, Sallie Krawcheck). Finally, if you can't make the news, report it (Barbara Walters, Diane Sawyer, Katie Couric).

Now before you start panicking that you're not already well on your way to making next year's list, note that only 5 of the women were in their 30's, and the majority of the women (43 of them) were in their 50's and there were even 9 on the list in the 70+ category - so you've got some time. Here's the top 10:

1. Condoleeza Rice
2. Wu Yi
3. Sonia Gandhi
4. Laura Bush
5. Hillary Rodham Clinton
6. Sandra Day O'Connor
7. Ruth Bader Ginsburgh
8. MEgawati Sukarnoputri
9. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo
10. Carleton "Carly" S. Fiorina

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It's not so much what you do, but where you live
Posted by at 11:11 AM

You've had it with Beantown, you're blowing this clambake, there's no jobs for you, you've decided to move it on up and move it on out. In short, you are outta here.

But with no job and with short cash on hand, where do you go to live again and escape the frozen, gray, tundra that can be Boston 6/12ths of the year? Forbes may have the answer with their 60 Cheap Places To Live, a special report adapted from Life 2.0: How People Across America Are Transforming Their Lives by Finding the Where of Their Happiness (Crown Business, $24.95), a new book by Rich Karlgaard, the Forbes publisher and Digital Rules columnist.

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August 19, 2004

Overtime laws changing on August 23
Posted by at 1:58 PM

On August 23, the overtime laws will be changing. Find out how they may affect you in this Boston.com special section: New Overtime Laws
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Update on the Fleet layoffs
Posted by at 1:15 PM

Here's an update on yesterday's FleetBoston layoffs via The Boston Globe: Hundreds laid off at Fleet offices

Bank of America Corp. yesterday laid off hundreds of workers at Fleet bank branches across the Northeast as the North Carolina bank began to implement its brand of customer service on the institution it purchased for $48 billion in April. The changes signal a shift toward a heavier reliance on part-time tellers, which would improve customer service during peak hours but also could allow the company to save on costs, Fleet employees said.

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Big Dig? Big job loss
Posted by at 8:48 AM

The Boston Globe's Diane Lewis writes today on the fact that more than a decade after thousands of construction workers began flocking to the Big Dig, Boston's $14.6 billion roadway project is winding down -- and so are the jobs.

Employment at the Central Artery Tunnel project peaked in July 2000, when an estimated 5,200 workers in the construction trades logged a total of 832,440 hours that month alone, according to Joseph Nigro, secretary treasurer and general agent at the Metropolitan Boston Building Trades, a council of construction unions. By May 2004, the most recent month for which figures are available, the number of workers had dropped to about 1,000 and their hours had dipped to 129,996.

Here's Boston.com's Big Dig news and resource page.
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August 18, 2004

A different kind of job loss in Florida
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 5:51 PM

Hurricane Charley has left a ton of devastation in its wake, including leaving many out of jobs:

Still smarting over the loss of their homes, Hurricane Charley's victims turned out by the hundreds in 90-degree heat yesterday to cope with the storm's latest blow to their lives -- the mass shutdown of businesses that has left them without jobs.

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Hundreds of Fleet layoffs expected today
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 5:44 PM

Well, here's the sound of the other shoe dropping:

Bank of America Corp. plans to lay off hundreds of tellers and other branch employees at Fleet banks today, asking them to leave the building immediately as part of the process, according to documents obtained by the Globe and Fleet branch managers told of the decision.

The layoffs will affect nearly every city and town in which Fleet does business, as the North Carolina bank continues to absorb the Boston-based FleetBoston Financial Corp. Bank of America plans to convert Fleet's 1,500 branches to its own model, which for the most part uses fewer full-time staff members per branch, the Fleet workers said.

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Fleet employees feeling the merger pinch
Posted by at 4:07 PM

The large scale merger between FleetBoston and Bank of America has hit today. Area jobs are being clipped. Here are some links following the evolving story:

• Bank of America lays off Fleet workers as merger impact kicks in


• Hundreds of Fleet layoffs expected


• Report: Bank of America laying off workers

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August 17, 2004

Jobs debate shift from quantity to quality
Posted by at 1:29 PM

MSNBC's Martin Wolk, chief economics correspondent, points out that although the economy is creating jobs at a decent clip, they are but a shadow of the jobs we lost -- in terms of wages and quality -- in recent years.

[Merrill Lynch] published a study last month showing that 89 percent of private-sector jobs added to the economy over the past 10 months have been in the service sector, where average hourly wages are lower than in manufacturing and construction. Fully one-quarter of the 1.5 million jobs created in the period were in the retailing and leisure and hospitality industries, which includes restaurants, hotels and entertainment venues. In retailing, the average wage is $12.04 an hour, well below the national average of $15.65. Leisure and hospitality is the nation’s lowest-paying sector at an average $8.86 an hour...Not everyone gets paid by the hour, of course, and overall wages and salaries are up 5 percent over last year’s levels, while hourly pay is up only 2 percent. This suggests that "high-salaried workers with quarterly or annual bonus payments are doing well," said the report authored by Merrill Lynch economist Jose Rasco. Hourly workers, by contrast, are having trouble keeping up with inflation, he concluded.

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Finally some good news from the women's work front
Posted by Diane Danielson at 9:33 AM

Having felt much like a doomsayer all summer, I'm pleased to report on a study that says something good about women in the workplace for a change. It turns out that barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen is not the healthiest combination for women (based on my skills, or lack thereof, with stoves, knives, etc., I could've told them that). But check out Healthcenter.com which reports on a new study that shows women who work are healthier than women who don't work.

Women who work are healthier than women who don't have jobs, suggests a study presented Aug. 16 at the American Sociological Association annual meeting in San Francisco.

The University of Pennsylvania study concluded the health benefits that women derive from working aren't diminished by longer work hours or combining longer work hours with those of a spouse.

"Women who are employed, regardless of the number of hours they work or how they combine work with family obligations, report better health than do those who are unemployed," researcher and sociologist Jason Schnittker said in a prepared statement.

Of course, the article later points out that women's health could be even better save for the gender gap in pay which also influences gender health differences.

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What's lurking around the watercooler
Posted by at 8:10 AM

Yes it is indeed boring old Phil from down in accounting waiting to tell you every excruciating and painful detail of his weekend, but there's also the real possibility that you're also exposing yourself to a bubbling brew of contaminants, pathogens and parasites in the water you drink, according to a study on the safety of bottled drinking water funded by the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

In 1999, for example, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) tested more than 1,000 bottles of 103 brands of bottled water, and found that while "most bottled water apparently is of good quality," "about one-third of the waters tested contained levels of contamination -- including synthetic organic chemicals, bacteria, and arsenic -- in at least one sample that exceeded allowable limits under either state or bottled water industry standards or guidelines." The report called the existing system of state and federal regulation of bottled water "underfunded and haphazard."

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August 16, 2004

Hands-on work
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 5:26 PM

While the socio-economic trend in advanced societies such as ours is toward white collar, service-oriented work, working with one's hands to make something tangible still provides a fundamental satisfaction - homo faber and all that. Here are two pieces about the pleasure of such work. First, an item on an unusual teenager who is already clear on his career choice:

Just 18, an age when most kids are still wondering what to study in college or how to find a job, [Chris] Lockwood knows exactly what he wants to be: a master glassblower. He immersed himself in the craft while still in high school and trained with experts along the East Coast. He wants to open his own studio eventually and make a name for himself.

The second is the story of another craftsman, working with a different material:

[Nick] O'Hara, 50, is one of a distinctive group of New England stonemasons who specialize in constructing free-standing "dry" fieldstone walls -- built with round boulders indigenous to Massachusetts and stacked without aid of mortar. The building process can take months to learn and years to master, and requires both artistic sensibility and brute strength.

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From hobby to career
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 2:42 PM

In "Two Tramps in Mud Time," Robert Frost states "My object in living is to unite my avocation and my vocation." Here's someone who fulfilled this dream:

For more than 20 years, Franky Hagan of Ashland bustled around her general store where she sold antiques, gifts, baked goods, newspapers, and what-have-you. Then she went home to tend her herb farm.

''That was my catharsis, to go out to the herb farm and work at the end of the day," she said

Hagan has since sold the store and now runs the Cutler Herb Farm full time. She is as busy as she ever was, but her work is her escape.

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It's a crying shame
Posted by at 11:33 AM

As heard and seen before in many war conflicts past, some troops are returning home to find they no longer have a job and sometimes no benefits, following tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the Labor Department reports receiving greater numbers of complaints under a 1994 law designed to give Guard and Reserve troops their old jobs back, or provide them with equivalent positions. Benefits and raises must be protected, as if the serviceman or servicewoman had never left. But some soldiers are finding the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act can't protect them.

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August 13, 2004

Brown is blue, UPS employees are red...
Posted by at 12:59 PM

Some United Parcel Service employees aren't asking what brown can do for them, but are asking what the company did to them. The AP is reporting that at least a few UPS employees are sueing the company on grounds of discrimination.
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Ah ... the 80s!
Posted by Diane Danielson at 12:18 PM

Since Dean brought up classic office movies, I'll stick with the 80's because you gotta love a decade that gives us such "workplace" classics as: Working Girl (I still get chills when I hear the Carly Simon song, Let the River Run, at the end); Gung-Ho (a Ron Howard-directed take on the auto industry complete with Long Duck Dong and a happy ending); Trading Places (Eddie Murphy before he opened a Daddy Day Care); Secret of my Success (Michael J. Fox in his Alex P. Keaton days); and that cult classic, Repo Man (Well, not all of us our cut out for "office jobs"). For more info about these and other 80's flicks, visit www.Fast-Rewind.com.

And I'll leave you with my favorite bit of advice from the 80's (courtesy of The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai): "Wherever you go, there you are."

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Uh yeah. Gonna need those TPS reports...
Posted by at 11:03 AM

Since Diane has been kind enough to take us back to those simpler times (ah, the 80s), Lumino Magazine did some "where are they now?" style recent interviews with cast members from the cult classic, Office Space. Everyone appears to be there save Jennifer Aniston, whose fame is apparently too stellar for Lumino. And by way of our job blog friend, Chris, here are some sound clips from Office Space to bring you back...
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Let's do the "Time Warp" again
Posted by Diane Danielson at 10:33 AM

In 1987, we were introduced to Wall Street's Gordon Gekko; and by 1996, when Whoopie Goldberg impersonated a white male to get ahead on Wall Street in The Associate, it seemed that not much had changed. Well, fast forward eight more years and I'm ready to start dancing the "Time Warp" again. Because, according to the latest Securities Industry Association study on diversity, affirmative action plans on Wall Street have been met with tepid results:

[T]he percentage of women and minorities working at the surveyed firms hasn't improved much. Minorities accounted for 18.3 percent of employees at participating firms in 2003 ... Meanwhile, gender is becoming even more imbalanced: Men represented 63 percent of staffing at participating companies in 2003, compared with 59 percent in 2001 and 57 percent in 1999 (when the SIA studied gender but not minorities).

However, women and minorities have increased their presence in investment banking and management positions. The percentage of women investment bankers went from 15 in 2001 to 17 in 2003; the percentage of minorities in this occupation went from 10 in 2001 to 16 in 2003.

In a similar vein, the percentage of female managing directors was 19 in 2003, compared with 14 in 2001; the percentage of minorities in these capacities was seven in 2003 and six in 2001.

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Mahna Mahna: When brainstorming at corporate off-site meetings go bad
Posted by at 10:17 AM

Taking an errant queue from the BBC comedy, The Office, the management at a new Scottish B&Q company has apparently struck a nerve with its employees by suggesting employees change the "Good Morning" greeting to "Mahna Mahna".

...Managers at a new B&Q warehouse due to open told the bemused staff that morale at the DIY store in East Kilbride would improve if they greeted each other in the morning with lines from the whimsical Mahna Mahna song [ a 1976 song from The Muppet Show]. On hearing the first line, the staff would be encouraged to continue with the baffling, if catchy, chorus, which continues: "Do doo be-do-do". However, the motivational stunt, dreamed up at a management brain-storming session, has backfired, with some staff now threatening to quit work.

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Mr. Mom......2.5 million strong
Posted by Colin Moor at 8:49 AM

Our evolving world of work offers many models and challenges. As more women pursue full-time careers, many men are rethinking their priorities and making adjustments that would have been uncomfortable in the past. The Mr. Mom choice, however, is a very mixed bag.

Who are these modern marvels? According to Dr. Robert Frank, author of Equal Balanced Parenting and The Involved Father, the average stay-at-home dad is 38-years-old, married and lives in the suburbs. The most common reasons for assuming this role: His wife made more money and the couple didn't want to put their children in daycare.

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August 12, 2004

Wal-Mart to institute criminal background checks
Posted by Jason Butler at 6:32 AM

The Wall Street Journal reports that Wal-Mart, the nation's largest private employer, will begin conducting criminal background checks on all job candidates.

Currently, Wal-Mart routinely conducts criminal background checks on select personnel, including loss-prevention and pharmacy employees. Criminal background checks are increasingly becoming part of companies' hiring practices, as a result of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, more awareness of child abductions and abuse, and a rise in negligent-hiring lawsuits.

For more on your rights regarding background checks, check out the last item from Linda Lerner's BostonWorks Job Doc column.

[T]he employer has the right to do a range of inquiries and reference checks within the law. Depending on the job that you are applying for and the policy of the company, these usually include one or more of the following: employment history, personal and professional references, criminal, education, and credit checks. These background checks are treated in a routine manner and are often conducted by an outside vendor who specializes in employment related inquiries.

The employer has the right not to hire you if you do not give permission for these checks.

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August 11, 2004

An educated youth is a terrible thing to waste
Posted by at 2:32 PM

Reuters is reporting today that the global youth jobless rate has hit an all-time high.

In absolute terms, there were 88 million jobless youths in 2003 compared to 70 million in 1993, according to the Geneva-based International Labour Office. That translated into a global youth unemployment rate of 14.4 percent now, a historic high, compared to 11.7 percent a decade ago.

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Nursing gold rush still on
Posted by at 2:24 PM

The healthcare field, and Nursing in particular, have been steady bastions of job growth and security for some time now despite the state of the job market. A story in today's Globe confirms the fact that careers in nursing are still hot.
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Who would you rather have in the corner office?
Posted by Diane Danielson at 11:04 AM

Hmmmmmmm. According to a new survey reported on by MSNBC, "men in management are self-focused, while women are most concerned about their co-workers and customers."

Among senior executives, the job commitment of women climbing that ladder is most influenced by what ISR called "communal" aspects of their positions: They place value on their working relationships and want to please their customers.

The male execs were primarily concerned with their own careers and personal rewards. When men were interviewed, nearly 20 percent of what ISR calls "key drivers" of an employee's motivation to remain at his or her job were based on career development: moving up the ladder, or into a better position.

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Internships and the class divide
Posted by Jason Butler at 6:30 AM

In order to get a good job, one must have internship experience; in order to get unpaid internship experience (and still eat), one must have rich parents.

The unfortunate result: rich kids get ahead and working-class kids are left behind.

But as internships rise in importance as critical milestones along the path to success, questions are emerging about whether they are creating a class system that discriminates against students from less affluent families who have to turn down unpaid internships to earn money for college expenses.

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[S]ince Washington internships serve as a pipeline that brings policy makers into the nation's capital, some people fear that over the long term, internships will be another means, like the rising costs of college tuition, of squeezing voices from the working class and even the middle class out of high-level policy debates.

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August 10, 2004

Too little, too late?
Posted by Diane Danielson at 10:24 PM

According to the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal, women's business centers really do help women entrepreneurs.

Services offered by the women's business centers program of the Small Business Administration strengthened the business skills of women starting new ventures, according to a three-year study released Tuesday by the Center for Women's Business Research.

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Overall, the women entrepreneurs reported a substantial increase in their key business skills. The ability to describe business competition showed statistically significant improvement (increasing from 3.9 to 4.2, with 5 as the highest possible rating), the report says.

Too bad Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, didn't get that research when he killed the funding for women's business centers last week.

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Feeling brain dead at work? You just might be preventing Alzheimers
Posted by at 3:17 PM

A new study by researchers at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in the journal, Neurology, is suggesting that mentally challenging work may help ward off Alzheimers.
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UK pregnancy policy: Don't ask, don't tell
Posted by Diane Danielson at 11:32 AM

But what do you do after the fifth month? England's Sky News reports on a new study revealing that a "quarter of employers are discriminating against pregnant women by not offering them the training other employees receive." If that's not depressing enough, hop on over to BBC Online and get two first-hand stories of women who lost their jobs after telling their employers they were pregnant.

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August 9, 2004

Now you see it, now you don't
Posted by Diane Danielson at 1:27 PM

More than 50 women's business centers around the company were surprised to be stripped of their federal funding when Congress failed to reauthorize their 5-year grants, reports bizjournals.com.

...on the last day Congress met before taking a six-week break, Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, objected to legislation extending several SBA programs, including grants for established women's business centers. Because the bill was brought up under a procedure that required unanimous consent, the legislation died.

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"Hellfighter" legend passes on
Posted by at 10:13 AM

Houston oil-well firefighting legend Paul N. "Red" Adair, the man oil companies turned to to cap their oil-well fires when few in the world could do it, died Saturday of natural causes. He was 89.

Adair spent more than 50 years traveling the world fighting more than 2,000 fires. He and his team at the Red Adair Co. are probably best known for extinguishing 119 well fires in Kuwait during the Gulf War, and his work inspired a 1968 movie called Hellfighters, starring John Wayne.
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Polar Penny fired for bloggin'
Posted by at 9:27 AM

It's probably punishment enough to be fired for blogging, but it must be dually painful being fired for blogging from the remote auspices of the Canandian Artic.

That's what has apparently happened to Penny Cholmondeley, a (former) Nunavut Tourism marketing officer, known on the Internet as "Polar Penny," who was surprised to learn July 18 that she was being fired because of the blog, she had kept since her arrival in Iqaluit in January.

Cholmondeley says she never intended to associate Nunavut Tourism with a web site she perceived as strictly personal. "I'm kind of stunned." But the problem was that the web site, all about Cholmondeley, clearly states the reason that Chomondeley came to the North - to work for Nunavut Tourism.

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So much easier when it's not your store
Posted by Jason Butler at 8:02 AM

Michelle writes in her blog about her moment of retail-worker triumph.

Loudmouth takes this as her cue to do that thing that self-important people do when they feel they are not being coddled enough - she starts complaining loudly, apparently to thin air, about the service. She tries to share significant looks with us, tries to drag us into her bitter, nasty world as allies.
...
"Ma'am..."

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August 5, 2004

Anything you can do, I can do better
Posted by Diane Danielson at 10:51 AM

From Annie Oakley taking on Frank Butler on Broadway, to Billie Jean King beating Bobby Riggs on the tennis court, the Mia Hamm v. Michael Jordan Gatorade commercial, and Annika Sorenson teeing off with the boys, women have been determined to compete head to head with the men. Fortune Small Business continues the battle of the sexes, but this time in the entrepreneurial arena in their article entitled "Why Women Rule."

By almost any measure, businesses owned by women are doing way better than okay. A new study by the Center for Women's Business Research, a nonprofit research group in Washington, D.C., says that women now own a 50% or greater stake in 48% of privately held U.S. companies, up from 44% in 1997. Women start 424 new enterprises every day, more than twice as many as men do. And those businesses are taking off:

• The study says that employment at woman-owned firms has risen 24% over the past seven years, twice the 12% rate for private companies overall.
• Revenues in the same period climbed at an average annual rate of 5.6%, vs. 4.8% for all firms.

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Help on how to be creative
Posted by Jason Butler at 8:50 AM

Life can be a slog. Days dawn, days end, days bleed into each other. It's all the same, it's all a blur; we all lead lives of quiet desperation. We're kept down by the man, stomped by the corporate boot. Yadda yadda yadda.

Anyway, we have our dreams of creativity, about what we can accomplish if only given but a sliver of a chance. We revel in our creative outlets: I write prose, and software; my sister scrapbooks; my brother chisels art out of granite leftover from his construction job. But, we're stymied: how do we bring our gifts to the next level? Right now, we do these works strictly for our own amusement; is there a way to actually make a living from it?

Hugh MacLeod shares insights on how to be creative, turning a jaded eye to some of our more beloved fantasies.

2. Creativity is its own reward.

You never really reach your goals. By the time you get near to fulfilling them your criteria has already changed. Which is why by the time the world recognizes your genius, it won't seem very real.

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August 3, 2004

Never too old..................?
Posted by Colin Moor at 2:18 PM

There are many over 50 professionals in transition these days, but not everyone is experiencing the same levels of success in pursuing their next career opportunity.

However, there is research being done to better understand the dynamics of what many "baby boomers" can expect in the job market and how to best navigate the challenges.

..... numerous job hunters say that landing a new position becomes harder after they turn 50. Many older candidates believe their difficulty in the job market is due to age discrimination. If age discrimination hits at 50 -- or even younger -- why are some 50-plus candidates avidly recruited to new roles? In an effort to understand why some mature candidates are more attractive to employers than others, CareerJournal.com interviewed older job hunters, recruiters and hiring managers.

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The horror of trade shows
Posted by Jason Butler at 8:22 AM

As part of our jobs, many of us have to travel to conferences, conventions and tradeshows. Contrary to popular belief, these events are not glorious PR-driven, tchotchke-gobbling, bar-closing adventures.

Long days, sore feet, meaningless prattle: these are the realities of the trade show slog.

Aside from stale air and fluorescent glare, they cite ghastly food, the long lines they must wait in to be served it, throbbing feet from walking the show floor, exhausting marathons of schmoozing and wheeling-and-dealing, the tedium of listening to long-winded lectures in windowless rooms that are either too warm or too cold and bathrooms that always seem to be a long walk away.

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August 2, 2004

Isn't it ironic that a woman holds the Scales of Justice?
Posted by Diane Danielson at 2:40 PM

The Scales of Justice are a recognizable symbol of the legal industry. Early depictions of the Lady of Justice included scales to represent impartiality and a sword to symbolize power. Unfortunately, according to a recent article in the Boston Business Journal, it seems that women at law firms have neither balance nor power.

The figures seem respectable -- some of them, anyway. Women make up about half of all law school graduates these days. And at the top 10 law firms in the state, women account for about 45 percent of associates. But the higher up you go, the wider the gap gets.

Only about 17 percent of the equity partners at the top 10 law firms in Massachusetts are women, according to local studies. Nationally, just 13 percent of partners are women, according to a study last year by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.... Much of the research suggests law firms are not environments that are accommodating to women -- or men, for that matter -- trying to balance work and family obligations.

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One mistaken email torpedoes freelance career
Posted by Jason Butler at 12:22 PM

Once upon a time at the beginning of the new economy, when hope was everywhere and I was a third younger than I am now, I sent an email to my big boss telling him what I thought of his blowing off a meeting *he* called on a Sunday afternoon. I was lucky; that boss was even younger than me, and he let me slide.

This freelance writer was not so lucky. She lost business and reputation because of one misbegotten email.

When you're a freelancer, burning a bridge is like pouring Perrier on your laptop. The droplets trickle into the circuits, washing away every word, every document, every important email. Our professional contacts, we like to believe, are just like our computers: mainlines for financial survival.

But there's a difference. A dead computer can be replaced, sometimes even fixed. A ruined relationship with an editor— someone with the superhuman power to hire and fire, assign and reject—is permanent.

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How far we've fallen
Posted by at 8:40 AM

Late last week, Waltham-based Lycos was sold to Daum Communications Corp., South Korea's largest Internet portal for $95.2m -- a mere fraction of the $12.5b Spain's Terra Networks paid for it in 2000. An earlier report had stated that the number of employees had dwindled to around 200, down from around 1,500 or so at the height of the dotcom boom.
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A big bat in a windy city
Posted by at 8:25 AM

Unless you happened to have been abducted by aliens this past weekend, you probably know by now that the Sox traded Nomar to the Cubs. Sure he hasn't been himself these past couple of seasons, but I hope the trade, as one local sportscaster put it, "a big bat for two good-glove, no-hit guys" was worth it. So how's our boy doing on his first day on the job with Cubbies?

He stepped onto the field at 10:45 a.m., a perfect day in Chicago with plenty of sunshine and no clouds. Wrigley was a sea of empty seats, except for a small group of lucky fans who were admitted early. They all stood near the corner of the Cubs' dugout and began cheering for Garciaparra.

He smiled and waved.

"It was kind of like a surreal feeling for me," Garciaparra said.

You said it Nomar. You and us both...

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