The Vanishing American Vacation
Wed 19 Sep 2007 – 11.52
Now that Summer is over, I can adequately reflect on the fact that I truly need a vacation. I didn’t get to go away this summer, save for that weekend in Toronto (which was mostly spend on the bus), and apparently I’m not the only.
Compared to people in other developed countries, Americans don’t ask for more vacation time, don’t take all the vacation time their employers give them and continue to work while they are on vacation.
Says Don Monkerud of AlterNet. Check out the article for more of the bad news.
So are you, the young professional, falling into this same trap that has already claimed out parents? I surely hope not. As for me, well, I plan on taking the entire month of December off.
posted by Scott in careers, life.
Wed 29 Aug 2007 – 19.46
lifetime appointee, bitch
With all the stress of finding and keeping a job these days, it’s good to know that there are in fact still some posts where you can pretty much decompose in the job and can’t be sacked save for the most intense of circumstances.
While it may benefit the individual who enjoys a lifetime of slacking off, it paints our society into a corner when all of our nurses, civil servants, judges, union labourers and university professors lose their sense of competition, and thereby lose their edge.
Forbes has the article and explains in greater detail about those and other jobs. Have a look.
posted by Scott in careers.
Office Workers Waste 2.1 Hours a Day
Thu 02 Aug 2007 – 14.46
Skipping the irony about how I’m currently blogging this at work, I found it interested that a new Inc.com article illustrates how twentysomethings squander 2.1 hours of their work day. Lucky for business owners, the trend seems to decay with time:
20- to 29-year-olds said they waste an average of 2.1 hours per day. The amount of idle time drops off as employees grow older, with the 30-39 age group reporting 1.9 hours of the day wasted and 40- to 49-year-olds reporting 1.4 hours.
I think the reason for this is now that we grow older and therefore more mature, but rather because as we advance in the business world, our job itselfs becomes more of a waste of time. Think about your office — everyone with gray hair counts “schmoozing” as a major part of their job. Talking, having dinners, going to presentations/meetings, etc. That’s a all a waste of time if you ask me. Twentysomethings are the ones with their nose to the grindstones, so maybe we need those 2.1 hours a day to fuck around on Facebook and read blogs (like this one).
Your thoughts? Are we wasting too much time, or just the right amount?
posted by Scott in careers.
American Workers Give Aussies Bleak View
Wed 01 Aug 2007 – 16.06
Three low-paid American workers have travelled to Australia to tell Aussies about the dangers of non-unionised working conditions, and to scare them into a better future by avoiding the whole poor-workers-in-a-rich-country thing that has many Americans by the bollocks.
The three Americans were an example of what Australians could expect in the future… Australia is becoming more and more like the United States and these workers are here to tell us how hard it is to be a low paid worker in a rich country … they provide a warning that life could get a lot tougher for Australian working families if the Liberals are re-elected and they make further unfair changes to the IR laws.
That’s funny because here in the States it’s the exact opposite where the conservatives, not the liberals, are the ones promoting the free-for-all economy (at the expense of workers). Ok, no politics on this site, just pointing this out as a commentary on American working life.
posted by Scott in careers, personal finance.
Tue 31 Jul 2007 – 11.55
Summer is supposed to be the time when people relax. We take days off, we go to the beach, we drink lemonade on people’s back porch and talk about nothing.
Um, yea. Not quite.
posted by Scott in careers, life.
– 10.09
Ugh, those annoying interview questions. While I personally have been hearing fewer and fewer of them over the years, they remain part of the absurd ritual that most most job-hunters have to undertake.
Here’s an article on what those questions actually mean, and what sort of answers employers are looking for. Take it with a grain of salt, of course, because every employer is looking for something different. Still, a good read.
posted by Scott in careers.
Wed 04 Jul 2007 – 19.30
That’s right, I said Gold Farmer. For those who haven’t heard of this absurd new practice, the New York Times has an in-depth article about the young men who work 12-hour days playing World of Warcraft, harvesting virtual gold to be sold for actual currency.
What a strange paradox that one should suffer so much playing a game. Makes one think twice about a cubicle job pushing paper. Strange days indeed.
posted by Scott in careers.
Tue 03 Jul 2007 – 19.42
I have always found a strange amusement in those obscure and often uber-specific tasks that are part of the scientific process. For example, you always hear statistics about how an elephant can go without sex for 40 years, but never think of the poor sap who had to follow around the same elephant for those 40 years and watch to make sure he wasn’t having it off somewhere on the African steppe.
From Popular Science comes a list of the top ten worst jobs in science. Some of these are in fact quite undesirable, but I think we could find some worse ones.
10. Orangutan-Pee Collector
Just to start things off…
posted by Scott in careers.
How to Deal with your Crazy Boss
Fri 22 Jun 2007 – 15.39
Got a crazy boss? For your sake, I hope not, but chances are, you do. (that fact is disturbing in and of itself). However, there is hope — and a plan. From Bing comes a pretty lengthy list of ways to deal with your crazy boss, depending on which type of crazy boss you have. Here’s an example:
The Bully: Be ostentatiously loyal. Rationale: Bullies demand a visible show of fealty, day in and day out. This means looking out for his interests and bringing matters that could cause him discomfort to his attention before anyone else does.
Check it out, defilly worth a read for the chuckle factor alone.
•• List Here »
posted by Scott in careers.
Mon 18 Jun 2007 – 11.45
Not Clay Aiken
I didn’t know you could make $100,000 doing that. The purpose of this Forbes.com slideshow list is to make us say hmm, and perhaps revise our own career choices. Then again, most of these I would never want to do, even for $100,000 a year.
posted by Scott in careers, personal finance.