White Collar Warrior

The End Has Come

2007-09-10T07:11:00.001-04:00

This blog has come to an end - certainly at least for the time being. Writing about the world of the cubicle and the heedless rich bastards who push its inhabitants around has become too demoralizing to continue. Nor, to be honest, do I really feel a sense of solidarity with my fellow white collar workers. My peer group, such as it is, is so widely caricatured as the epitome of mediocrity that it is impossible for anyone with any pride or ambition to identify with it. My natural impulse is to step away from the crowd, turn my back on the injustices and indignities imposed on us by our wealthy overlords - for indeed these appear to be inevitable - and simply cultivate my own garden.

Vacation In Ireland

2007-08-17T08:31:00.001-04:00

Tomorrow I leave for a fortnight of fun (or at least what I hope will be fun) in Ireland - one week in Dublin, and another in Donegal. Posts to The White Collar Warrior will cease until after Labor Day, but I can't even think about my trip without having my imagination sullied by thoughts of lost business opportunities and corporate annoyances. The pilots of Aer Lingus intend to strike on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week, and I sure hope the strike does not extend much beyond that. Otherwise I'll be trapped on the Emerald Isle. Aer Lingus, like all other airlines, is no doubt raking in the cash by underpaying and overworking its employees, and cutting costs at their customers' inconvenience. I also think back to when my father's last remaining paternal uncle passed away in Donegal 35 years ago. This elderly gentleman was a bachelor, and my father inherited his farm as the sole surviving heir. My father, an academic, was nonplussed by this legacy and immediately fumbled it like a hot potato into the mitts of the next relative in line. Me, I'm a wily if embittered veteran of the business world, and I know that if I had inherited a piece of property in a prime resort area, I would have turned it into a B&B or at the very least sold it to the developers of a golf course. Alas, I will never have such a chance. Such are the breaks for the perennial white collar drone...

A Rustic Ode To Cube Farms (Or A Rant, Take Your Pick)

2007-08-16T14:40:00.001-04:00

Here is a well-written "op ed" piece in The Korea Times by a white collar worker of Indian descent. That should give you an indication of the subject's international nature - which is cube farms, a phenomenon we have worldwide. The author laments how, in the old days in India when office floors were open spaces, colleagues would gather to discuss "football and cricket matches" - but all that started to change in the late 80's, as it did elsewhere, to the familiar expanse of cubicles known by its inventor, Robert Propst, as the Action Office. He believes that cubicles, intended to boost productivity, have atomized office workers, converting the bantering communities of old to a sea of isolates sitting in their cubes with earphones clapped to their heads. Our world has shrunk to the scale of our cubicles, he says, over which we imagine we have complete dominion. There's nothing new here, but I thought it was a good read - and it certainly underscores the universality of what one might call "the white collar condition".

"Cube Farms" from The Korea Times

Would You Fire This Man?

2007-08-15T10:19:00.001-04:00

Here are a couple of articles about the value of eccentric (or even obnoxious) but highly capable "employees" whose implications are somewhat ambiguous. The Boston Globe presents us with the following scenario, in which an "employee" who while "having made major contributions to the team in the past, and while brilliant and witty, he's moody to the point that he misses work and might be manic-depressive. He's also fat, speaks with a bit of a lisp, is a heavy drinker and something of a loose canon, expressing with gusto radical views, some offensive to minorities." The article asks what you would do with such an individual, then concludes that most managers would consider him a liability and give me the heave-ho. It turns out they would end up firing Winston Churchill.

Interestingly, the Wall Street Journal article which inspired the Globe article discusses the crackdown on executive behavior - which is not really employee behavior. It critiques the recent move to cashier those high-level managers who are delinquent in sexual, financial or criminal ways. The fact is, a lot of these executives are bosses, and dismissing them for bad behavior would be in the same spirit as the monitoring of executive compensation. The point is that you should want to out the abuses of the big boys at the top, and to let them know they won't be tolerated - not to let them get away with hijinks that betray their employees, their shareholders or the reputations of the companies they represent. Some folks, of course, think otherwise. Winston Churchill himself was a boss, and what's good enough for him should be good enough for Dennis Kozlowski and Donald Trump. Right? It is part of the libertarian mindset that the peccadillos of "geniuses" should be not only tolerated but indulged, and this attitude has wrought havoc with the American economy and the morale of the average worker. The overweening greed of top executives is one eccentricity they share more than any other.

The sobriquet of "genius" is generally applied by inference. If you are on top, you got there because you were a "genius". Although the recent indulgence of corporate kingpins has been very generous, it runs side by side with an entirely different trend. Mere "employees", because they are "employees", cannot be "geniuses" by virtue of their humble status, and their quirks need not be tolerated in any way, shape or form. In fact, the more we forgive the wayward behavior of boardroom "geniuses", the more we worship rank for its own sake, and the less likely we are to indulge mere workers no matter how brilliant they might be. Perhaps even the act of allowing yourself to be bossed around by someone else forever robs you of "genius" potential despite your IQ. If you happen to think you've got what it takes, you might just be better off working for yourself.

"Eccentric geniuses worth the trouble they cause" from The Boston Globe
"Personal boundaries shrink as companies punish bad behavior" originally from The Wall Street Journal

Email Fatigue

2007-08-14T09:03:00.000-04:00

A Scottish survey found that "some" workers check their email inboxes up to 40 times an hour, leaving them "tired and frustrated - as well as unproductive." Women are more prone to this practice than men, and it is apparently driven by a sense of obligation to answer emails promptly. Psychologists urge victims of this malaise to, in essence, "lighten up" and not take the onslaught of emails too seriously. They ask, "How many of those e-mails that you send need to go exactly right now? Probably very, very few indeed." Only 38 percent of the 200 respondents to the survey "felt relaxed enough" to wait a day before answering emails, causing one expert to opine, "E-mail is the thing that now causes the most problems in our working lives... It's an amazing tool but it's got out of hand." The simplest solution is not to check your email so often - but that advice may be lost on those of us who have become email addicts. For us, reading and answering email is not just an obligation - it's a drug.

(As a sidenote, one wonders whether the survey responses were solicited by email - in which case those most compelled to answer promptly would have been vastly overrepresented among the respondents.)

"Workers 'stressed out' by e-mails" from BBC News

40 Hour Work Week Reconsidered

2007-08-13T13:28:00.001-04:00

According to an online survey of 10,000 American workers, the average white collar worker wastes 2.09 hours a day. Surfing the Internet was their top time-wasting activity - as in, for instance, answering that survey. Other time wasters included "socializing, conducting personal business, spacing out, running errands, making phone calls, applying for jobs, and arriving late or leaving early." The survey concluded that all this dawdling costs American companies $759 billion a year.

However, as the article at the link below admits, the weekly demands of most salaried jobs can be completed in considerably less than 40 hours a week. Although it seems to me that employees may need to be at work, or at least available to their employers, on a daily basis - even seven days a week and around the clock in many cases - they may not need to spend all that much time actually working. It is possible that corporations, using flex-time and rotating schedules, could save a considerable amount of money by allowing their employees to work 30 hour weeks. This might put less strain on corporate resources and infrastructure, and a far higher percentage of employees' time at work could be committed to their jobs. Just as improved technology has allowed corporations as a whole have become more productive, it has allowed their employees to become more productive as individuals. If they are not allowed to reap the rewards of expanded responsibility and a commensurate increase in income, they should at least be allowed to cash in the profit of a few extra hours a day which they could then devote to family, friends, personal fulfillment and - yes - even earning a little money elsewhere on their own time.

"Is it time to reinvent the 40-hour workweek?" from HeraldNet (Everett, Washington)

Bad Bosses Ascend

2007-08-10T11:00:00.000-04:00

According to a recent survey, one way to get ahead in business is to make your subordinates miserable. Reuters reports that "almost two-thirds of the 240 participants in an online survey said the local workplace tyrant was either never censured or was promoted for [his or her] domineering ways." This result, which may not be surprising to many of us, nonetheless unsettled the survey's authors, who said "The fact that 64.2 percent of the respondents indicated that either nothing at all or something positive happened to the bad leader is rather remarkable -- remarkably disturbing". The authors blamed senior managers for condoning such "bad leaders", and "advocated immediate intervention by industry chiefs to stop fledgling office authoritarians from rising up the ranks."

Yeah, methinks, when pigs fly... Oh, wait, they do!

"Bad bosses get promoted, not punished?" from Reuters

The Internet Is The "Water Cooler" Of The 21st Century

2007-08-09T11:34:00.001-04:00

The article at the link below addresses the place of the Internet in the lives of contemporary office workers, particularly those of the "web generation". Here are some stats from a study conducted by a San Diego company:

1) 61 percent of office workers surf the net for an average of three hours a week (or 19 days a year).

2) 81 percent of men and 70 percent of women consult web sites on the weather.

3) 42 percent of men and 18 percent of women visit sports sites.

4) 15 percent of men and 6 percent of women read blogs at work.

5) 16 percent of men and 8 percent of women look at pornography online in the "privacy" of their cubicles.

Although many companies will block access to pornography and gambling web sites, most are reluctant to eliminate web access altogether. According to one source, "Balancing the personal and the productive when it comes to employees using the Internet is one of the biggest problems business is facing right now." Cutting off Internet access altogether will cause many disgruntled employees to seek jobs elsewhere, but allowing them to spend too much time on the net would obviously affect productivity. A laissez-faire attitude tends to prevail, with most companies tolerating at least some web surfing if those who indulge in it complete their assignments in a timely fashion. Experts prefer careful monitoring over outright restriction, and suggest defining which types of web sites are okay to visit from the workplace, and which are not. Above all else, employees should be informed that their web behavior may be monitored, as well as why some web sites must be blocked.

The Internet is an essential work tool for millions of workers, and its presence is virtually irresistible. Besides, if employees really want to visit the Internet, they can do so from their iPods, iPhones and cellphones even if they are blocked from using on their office PCs. Corporations can no more prevent web surfing than they can eliminate small talk or sexual attraction, but some control is better than none, and the illusion of even more control is better than either.

"Workplace bends to theWeb generation" from Financial Post

IT Folks Among UK's Unhappiest Workers

2007-08-08T14:44:00.001-04:00

According to a survey of 22,500 British workers in 81 different occupations, IT professionals - who make a substantial share of white collar workers in any nation - ranked a mere 66th in worker satisfaction. This is despite the (supposedly) higher compensation for those in the field. The researchers attributed IT worker blues to a number of factors. For instance, "because IT moves so fast, [IT workers] live in constant fear that the skills they have at a given moment will suddenly go out of date, and they'll become much less valuable." They are also required to work a little too much, making themselves available via email and pagers around the clock.

In contrast to IT folks, hairdressers - who work with people, not flowcharts and source code - came in second, just behind "fat-cat corporate managers". Teachers, once ranked at 54, are now ranked at 11, due in part to improved pay as well as to the traditional satisfactions of mentoring the young.

Here is yet more evidence that corporate white collar life - with its focus on the abstract and the trivial, its arbitrary bureaucracy and its lack of opportunity for either self-expression or authentic human contact - is dispiriting to millions, despite its occasional economic rewards.

"Hairdressers have jobs to dye for, study says: They're a lot happier than IT professionals, U.K. researchers find" from Times Colonist(Canada)

Toxic Office

2007-08-07T09:51:00.001-04:00

A Canadian office worker, said to suffer from "environmental hypersensitivity", was once given a "chemical filter mask" by her boss as an aid to surviving in their office. Research now shows that such individuals are "the office equivalent of the canary in the coal mine" and can cue in managers to the dangers of a toxic workplace.

Did you know that "laser printer emissions are as bad for the lungs as a lit cigarette", that ventilation systems circulate "noxious gases", that mold can infest cubicle walls, that office copiers can give you headaches, or that too many hours in office chairs can transform your body into a "distinct pear shape"? Apparently they can, and the article at the link below will inform you of these and other environmental hazards that besiege the office. It notes that office workers are a captive population, hundreds of "living, breathing and sweating bodies in a sealed room eight hours a day" who are "as dependent on good air circulation as airline passengers."

"Breathe easy? Not when the office may be toxic" from Globe And Mail

Poorly Regulated H-1B Program Hastens Outsourcing

2007-08-06T14:46:00.000-04:00

The H-1B program and its even less restrictive sister program the L-1 are widely abused by American corporations to fill low level IT jobs with temporary foreign workers with minimal qualifications. Its effect is less to "drain the brains" of India and other developing nations than to facilitate sweat shops that, in turn, ease the transition to full-blown outsourcing. Although Bill Gates, for instance, has claimed that H-1B visas bring into the U.S. uniquely skilled professionals worthy of making $100,000 a year, the average such worker makes only a quarter of that, and the "salary" of an H-1Bs at the 75th percentile is only $60,000. This reliance on not only a cheap, but a rudimentarily skilled and fearfully compliant, labor force precludes Americans from being hired for entry level IT jobs and is used to justify the elimination of "older workers" - which, in the IT business, can mean everyone over the age of 35.

According to The American Prospect, here are three reasons why H-1Bs accelerate outsourcing:

1) H-1Bs allow outsourcing firms to bring foreign workers to the U.S. to learn their jobs - often from the same American workers they are intended to replace.
2) H-1Bs provide outsourcing firms with an "on-site" base of operations from which they can more easily coordinate activities both in the U.S. and abroad.

3) The training H-1Bs receive in the United States allows them to do their jobs back home better than they could have without American training.

Here are three loopholes in the existing legislation that allows H-1Bs to flourish.

1) Although H-1Bs are supposed to be hired only when a shortage in IT workers arises, American employers can skip over abundant U.S. labor resources to hire H-1Bs without formally demonstrating that any such shortage even exists.

2) Although H-1Bs are supposed to be paid the "prevailing wage" for their resources - which, in theory, would allow American workers to remain competitive - corporations justify paying below par salaries to H-1Bs by claiming that these are the wages the H-1Bs would "accept".

3) Requirements for documentation - the process of "labor certification" to which H-1Bs applications should be submitted, as a "safeguard" on the labor market - are rarely applied. This is a failing that "permeates nearly all aspects of the H-1B program [and] leads to a program with pages of regulations that are essentially ineffective and toothless."

Check out the excellent article at the link below to learn the rest.

"How 'Guestworkers' Promote Outsourcing" from The American Prospect

Job Stress Causes Depression In Younger Workers

2007-08-03T07:59:00.000-04:00

A New Zealand study called "the first of its kind" psychologically assessed a group of 1,000 people and found that 1 in 20 ran the risk of depression or severe anxiety every year during the early stages of their careers. The authors consider this study supplemental to previous European and American studies that have shown "cases of depression" to have risen in the last twenty years as the result of work stress. Bosses should perhaps reconsider the next time they crack the whip, as depression and anxiety cost 12 billion pounds (or 24 billion dollars) of lost revenue every year in Britain alone.

All of the subjects were 32 and participants in a longitudinal study of mental health. According to the link below, the "study revealed a marked increase in cases of major depressive disorder and generalised anxiety disorder among people in highly demanding jobs, with 14% of women affected and 10% of men." Nearly half of these cases were attributed to workplace stress. Study director Dr. Maria Melchior said that "work stress appears to bring on diagnosable forms of depression and anxiety in previously healthy young workers; in fact the occurrence is two times higher than among workers whose jobs are less demanding."

Not all of these "highly demanding" jobs were in the white collar world. Apparently, head chefs suffered most, "probably because they had to cope with constant inflexible deadlines, and very public failure for any mistakes they made." Shades of Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares!

"Stressful jobs double risk of depression for young workers" from The Guardian

Killer Boss

2007-08-02T11:47:00.001-04:00

A car dealer in Georgia shot to death two employees because they asked him for raises, according to MSNBC.com. Apparently, he was having financial problems and just "snapped". All three were Lithuanian immigrants. One wonders if the boss's behavior was unconsciously influenced by an exaggerated foreign notion of what American businessmen are supposed to be like. If so, this absurd murder is a mirror to how we are seen overseas.

"Boss allegedly killed workers who wanted raises" from MSNBC.com

Newspapers: Ready For The Trash Heap In The Land Of Profit?

2007-08-01T07:51:00.001-04:00

In a review of two books about newspapers and the "new media", Russell Baker touches on the recent move of Rupert Murdoch to acquire The Wall Street Journal and focuses on the remarks of former LA Times editor John S. Carroll. According to Baker, Carroll "was especially alarmed about the breakdown of understanding between owners and working journalists and about the loss of common purpose that once united them. This has come about, he said, because the functions that were once the realm of strong publishers have been taken over by Wall Street money managers." Sound familiar? This is precisely what has happened in every corner of American commercial life where MBAs have replaced pride in what one produces with an obsession with the bottom line. "The breakdown at the top began some forty years ago when local owners began selling their papers to corporations. As the nature of markets changed, power shifted from the corporations to investment funds, which make money by investing other people's money in ways that make it multiply." Again I ask - does that sound familiar?

Baker further recounts Carroll's experiences as yet another editor in a series of editors who had been pressured to cut back - to cut back on staff, to cut back on reporting resources, and to cut back even on quality - to boost his employer's profits. He eventually ended up quitting, and his successor - also, inevitably, an editor - would also quit for the same reasons. "Journalism was being whittled away by a Wall Street theory that profits can be maximized by minimizing the product," Baker tells us. "Papers everywhere felt relentless demands for improved stock performance." The familiarity of these laments are so reverberant they are like an echo across the Grand Canyon.

Extreme cost-cutting in journalism hamstrings its practitioners and destroys the quality of the product - but that is equally true of every enterprise in which something needs to be made by other human beings before it can be sold. Carroll, and Baker himself, tend to take an exceptionalist viewpoint on what's happening to the newspaper industry. They should not. What is destroying newspapers is destroying everything else. While the modern image of a journalist has been transformed from a reporter seeking the truth to a millionaire bigshot angling for ratings, so too has the image of every other occupation been eclipsed by the spectacle of ruthless stars exploiting their businesses for material gain. If nothing else, this should remind journalists to pay a little more respect to the non-millionaires everywhere around them who are just trying to do a good job, and a little less to the mercenary titans who are thwarting their lives as much as anyone else's.

"Goodbye To Newspapers?" from The New York Review of Books

Cubicle Life, Fact And Fantasy

2007-07-31T09:04:00.001-04:00

I've blogged about James Thompson's The Cubicle Survival Guide before, but here is a piece that nicely samples some of Mr. Thompson's more amusing or outre suggestions. It also describes the technical innovations of an even more hands-on cubicle life improver, David Vaughan, combining Vaughan's inventions with Thompson's notions in a synergistic approach to cubicle life that is at once facetious and practical.

Considering the recent weather, I had wanted to find something sufficiently informative about "personal cooling gadgets" to help keep one's cubicle cool during the dog days of summer. I didn't find much - your office is probably air-conditioned anyway - but I include the link to what I did find below.

The full title of Thompson's book, by the way, is The Cubicle Survival Guide: Keeping Your Cool In The Least Hospitable Environment On Earth, so perhaps these next tidbits will inject a breath of fresh air in the comical sense. Thompson focuses on issues of etiquette. For instance, do you or do you not say, "Bless you" when someone in a nearby cubicle sneezes? Tackling this quandary, Thompson draws the line. Say "Bless you" when the occupant of an adjacent cubicle sneezes, but don't bother if he or she is two or more cubicles away. On the more serious issue of theft, which thrives in cubicle farms, Thompson suggests placing simulated "security cameras" to discourage office chair rustlers and such, or leaving about crumpled tissues and spent medicine containers to frighten thieves away with the threat of contagion. Bosses have to be monitored as well as thieves, of course, and Thompson suggests using mirrors or even "video baby monitors" which, when strategically placed, will warn the cubicle occupant of approaching managers.

David Vaughan founded a company called CubeSmart to actually create the sort of things that Thompson imagines. Having noticed makeshift barriers that fellow cubicle dwellers had fabricated from "shower curtains and duct tape", Vaughan introduced a whole suite of products that offer differing levels of privacy to cubicle dwellers. "The CubeBanner is a 1 1/2-foot-tall translucent banner with an American flag logo and a script that reads 'I'm busy'. The CubeDoor Classic is a polymer mesh device with no logo that allows someone approaching the cube to see through it, but increases the illusion of privacy. Finally, they offer the CubeDoor, an opaque barrier that offers the most privacy." Where Thompson has complained of cubicle occupants chattering loudly on cellphones, Vaughan contemplates devising something like "an all-enclosed stormtrooper type helmet" which would allow the wearer to engage in phone conversations in total privacy. Thompson deplores the tendency of some cubicle dwellers to gorge themselves on odoriferous lunches, but Vaughan is yet to either invent or imagine any workable "anti-odor devices".

"Guide helps make cubicle life more bearable" from Greatreporter.com
Cubicle Survival Guide blog
"Gadgets To Beat The Summer Heat" from eMediawire.com

White Collar Workers' Day! (in China)

2007-07-30T09:05:00.001-04:00

On July 28th, a radio station in Shanghai - Love Radio 103.7 - held a special "White Collar Workers' Day", in conjunction with a local website and the cast of a new Chinese TV office comedy entitled From Nine To None. That title - From Nine To None - refers to the schedules of Chinese white collar workers, which notoriously stretch from nine in the morning to some uncertain hour well after a reasonable quitting time. The "white collar" radio show appears to have been a publicity stunt for the TV show, which is currently in production and will air later in the year. The all-day show addressed "exhaustion from over-work, too much gossip, too much ambition, love affairs at work, when the boss makes a move, who can you trust? How can I get noticed? Neglecting my spouse, and dozens of other topics." There were "workshops" and "surveys", and issues "such as 'annoying meetings,' 'office politics' and 'fun after work'" were discussed by audience members via both the Internet and the live broadcast. Last but not least, the stars of From Nine To None presented "their singing and performing skills during the evening gala at Daning International Commercial Plaza in the city's northern Zhabei District."

It is perhaps comforting to note that even in the People's Republic comical critiques of office life provide opportunities for commercial enterprise.

"White Collars: Let Out Steam!" from ShanghaiDaily.com

More On Democracy Skeptic Bryan Caplan

2007-07-27T12:54:00.000-04:00

The article at the link below takes a fly-on-the-wall view of democracy-basher Bryan Caplan as he preaches to the choir - i.e., the Cato Institute and its fellow travelers. Despite the sympathetic sponsorship, a few sages at the event offered their critiques. Moderator Will Wilkinson, himself a Cato editor, asked Caplan if low voter turnout was a bad thing. Caplan retorted that it wasn't because it kept the dummies out of the polls, and better educated folks voted more often than the dumb folks anyway. He also urged passivity on the part of uneducated citizens, "If you can either encourage people who don't know what they're doing to not vote or at least not encourage them to vote, or you could have massive public education to raise the level of awareness in everyone up to the level of a Ph.D. -- if there are even such resources in the universe -- I think it's better to just encourage people to be lazy. Say, 'You know, if you don't really know what's going on, it would actually be the more responsible thing not to participate.'"

Caplan railed against the "irrationality" of voters worldwide, even venturing to rank countries by their level of irrationality. The French - the people who brought us Pascal, Descartes and Poincare - were particularly "irrational", according to him. Caplan trumpeted his notion that citizens of all countries should abdicate their will to the consensus of economists.

Pew Research Director Scott Keeter critiqued Caplan's assumption that his profession even had a consensus, citing a 1996 survey of economists that found "wildly different views of whether new jobs are lower-paying, whether income is keeping up with the cost of living, and whether tax cuts and regulation are good."

Others questioned why the opinions of economists, even when they were coherently expressed as a consensus, should be more important than those of other experts. For instance, wasn't "the consensus of healthcare experts advocating universal healthcare" possibly more valid than the opinions of others? No, claimed Caplan, because healthcare experts know nothing about economics. Ditto also for lawyers. One suspects that Caplan would dismiss even the framers and amenders of the Constitution for giving U.S. citizens universal suffrage because they, too, were not "economists".

The article concludes by reflecting on the source of Caplan's success - the misguided notion among professionals in a given field that they have all the solutions to the world's problems. "It's easy to think economists have all the right answers when you're an economist in a room full of people that agree with you. But it probably strikes most average people as absurd. These people aren't irrational. They just have different values. Unfortunately, the people in the auditorium nodding in agreement didn't share them, and they happen to come from some pretty powerful places. Some of them even get to make policy."

"The Myth Of Bryan Caplan's Seriousness" from The American Prospect

Cubicle Culture Column At WSJ

2007-07-26T07:25:00.001-04:00

Here is a regular column in The Wall Street Journal that I (pathetically) only just discovered. It's called "Cubicle Culture", and is written on an apparently weekly basis by a journalist named Jared Sandberg. I include a link to column's electronic archive. I've already read several of the entries. One's about what to tell your kids when they ask what you do, and you seem only to talk and to type on a computer keyboard - just like them in their own spare time. Others are about the annoyance of shared electronic office calendars, where you cannot hide from a colleague who wants to include you in a meeting - or how to play dumb to avoid office tasks like changing a toner cartridge or making coffee - or the blessings of not having a speaking relationship with your boss. This column is right in line with some of the lighter aims of the White Collar Warrior blog, so I'll be visiting it frequently in the future.

"Cubicle Culture" archive at The Wall Street Journal

Don't Be A Wimp At Work!

2007-07-25T12:47:00.000-04:00

Careerbuilder, the job-hunting website that I - and perhaps you - occasionally utllize, often contributes articles to MSN.com on work-related matters. At the link below, you will find a piece that warns you not to be too much of a nice guy (or "altruist") at work - especially if you're an American. According to one researcher, "Nice gets you in trouble. Nice gets you exploited."

Here are common modes of being too nice - with my own annotations:

1) You Let Others' Mistakes Inconvenience You - Actually, even not-so-nice people (like me) use this tactic to their advantage. The mistakes of others can give you the opportunity to outshine them by retrieving their fumbles and completing the play. It can also give you the satisfaction of feeling smarter than the idiots around you.

2) You Let Others Take Credit For Your Ideas - I agree here. This is never a good thing, but it's generally inevitable in a hierarchical situation. Make the best of it however. If you let someone take credit for what you did - particularly if the culprit is a colleague or a manager just a notch above you - play the emotional blackmail card to the hilt and make sure they know they owe you.

3) You Apologize Unnecessarily - It's always better when the other guy makes the mistakes. If you make them, never affix blame to yourself if you can. Be clever enough to identify extenuating circumstances that nobody else would have thought of, and your gaffe will appear like the inevitable setback of a pioneer - not the pratfall of a clueless doofus. Only apologize when you obviously don't need to, imbuing your apology with a barely detectable tinge of sarcasm that implies that the one you're apologizing to is more to blame. This will help you amass emotional blackmail capital for the future.

4) You Work Without Breaks - If you're inclined to do this, make sure you're paid on an hourly basis. Long hours with no vacations can be a fool's gambit for a salaried employee, but it can be gravy train for a contractor. Establish a reputation as (relatively) indispensable first - perhaps by doing a lot of Number 1 above or Number 5 below - and you'll be able to milk the sow of the corporate consulting budget for all it's worth.

5) You Do Others' Work For Them - Do this only if you know you can do at least as good a job as the person you're doing it for. Like correcting others' mistakes, taking on others' assignments is conquest by territorial annexation. The more that your employers depend you to get done, the more "indispensable" you will appear.

"Stop Being So Nice to Your Co-workers" from MSN.com

Handling Job Interviewers Who Ask Illegal Questions

2007-07-24T09:32:00.001-04:00

Although it's been illegal for forty years now for a prospective employer to discriminate against job applicants "on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, age, or national origin", you still have interviewers who will ask you how old you are or what your religion is. They're not supposed to, but they do. The offenders are rarely human resource professionals. They're more likely to be the people you're going to work for - your immediate boss, to wit - and they should know better. This suggests that smaller, more informal companies may be more guilty of such lapses than larger ones, but non-HR types can certainly interview you at big firms as well.

The practice is as much a problem for the interviewers as for their, shall we say, "victims". According to employment lawyer John Petrella, "It's a very easy area for employers to get in trouble. It's really easy to run afoul of the antidiscrimination laws. You have to be vigilant and diligent about training." Female interviewees can typically be asked about whether or not they have children, are married or engaged, or even whether or not they support themselves - all under the guise of "harmless" chit-chat meant (or so you'd think) to break the ice. Both sexes can be indirectly obliged to reveal their ages, which is often the real agenda behind pre-hiring "background checks" that require the submission of passports, drivers' licenses and other documents.

Interviewees who are faced with such illegal inquiries face a dilemma. If they give their interviewers what they want, but are not legally entitled to, they may become complicit in an act of discrimination against them - but if they protest, they may not get the job anyway. The best approach is to respond with cheerful indirectness, not quite answering the question but using it as a springboard to another topic which you can spin to your own advantage. In other words, fight slyness with slyness - if you're so inclined. A capacity for cunning might actually be what they're looking for a new hire anyway. On the other hand, you may want to consider whether or not you would want to work for such an insidious employer to begin with.

"What you need to know about what they can ask" from The Christian Science Monitor

Send The Plutocrats Back To Pluto

2007-07-23T09:13:00.001-04:00

New York media personality and sardonic futurist Kurt Andersen weighs in on the Blackstone group and its residing exhibitionist, Steve Schwarzman, at the link below. He cites the usual reasons why people should be mad at Schwarzman - his hyper-ostentatious birthday bash, his notorious Gilded Age behavior, the fact that private equity gains are taxed at only 15 percent - and adds some of his own. He points out that the whole raison d'etre of private equity firms is that they thrive on taking public companies private, and restructuring them beyond the scrutiny of either shareholders or the SEC to make them more profitable. It is easy to see how private equity firms would boom in these times of increased accountability and disclosure among public firms. In light of this fact, Andersen further notes that Schwarzman is hypocritical in the extreme to bring his own firm public, and cynically reflects that Blackstone is sensing the end of the private equity era and is attempting to cash in on "dumb IPO money" while it can. That may be.

Andersen is no friend of the common man. He had his own "subscribers only" Internet info startup Inside.com and made merciless fun of the little people in his novel Turn Of The Century. Hence, it is surprising to hear him sound the populist alarm against the barons of Wall Street. What is even more striking, however, is how other rich dudes view people like Schwarzman. According to Andersen, "The new head of the National Venture Capital Association went on the record last month about Schwarzmania: 'We’re where we are right now because of the unbelievable egos of guys running the private-equity firms like Blackstone. They put big targets on their backs by what I consider stupid actions like throwing these big parties.'" Andersen adds, "some of the more thoughtful members of the high-finance fraternity also worry that the suddenly enormous scale of private-equity control of the global economy is a little scary. In 2001, all the private-equity takeovers totaled $71 billion; in just the first half of this year, the deals amount to more than $600 billion. The handful of largest firms now control a trillion dollars’ worth of companies."

Andersen concludes his essay with an appeal to, of all things, conscience. He urges that we step up taxes on private equity moguls like Schwarzman not just because their gains are currently undertaxed, but because their mode of investing is relatively risk-free and, as such, more parasitical than dynamic. In his words, "The new brouhaha is not about igniting a 'class war,' but about avoiding one by constraining the most grotesque unfairness. It’s a question of grace—noblesse oblige, if you will. Yes, we want to encourage businesspeople to take risks—but private-equity and hedge-fund managers have invented businesses from which real, personal financial risk has been practically eliminated. 'They’re not risking anything,' says my private-equity friend. In fact, don’t we owe it to these postmodern heroes of global business to threaten to tax them fairly... in order to inject some real, invigorating risk into their world?"

"Greed Is Good And Ugly" from New York Magazine

Indecent Disclosure

2007-07-20T14:59:00.001-04:00

Many naive idealists believed that, once the SEC's new executive-pay disclosure rules went into effect, CEOs would either tone down their greed out of "modesty" (that's a laugh) or, at the very least, shareholders would rise up in anger at the unambiguous evidence of excessive pay and do something about it. Now those long-awaited reports have appeared, and nobody's doing anything. The new rules have done little beyond empowering the latent exhibitionism of corporate leadership, and they are unabashedly exposing their ill-gotten family jewels.

The average S&P CEO took home $8.3 million last year, and ten made more than $30 million. CEOs as a class earn 400 times more than the average worker - as opposed to only 20 times as in "all other advanced nations".

Barney Frank has proposed an "advisory vote on executive compensation", but that will remain merely "advisory" and may literally fall on deaf ears. CEOs will still pay themselves what they wish, let the world know about it without shame, and go on with their lives of monomaniacal acquisition as before. Congress is far too timid to impose "hard-knuckles political solutions", such as "restoring the upper-bracket tax rate to 70 percent (which was what JFK and Congress lowered it to in 1961, down from 90 percent)".

The article at the link below warns that "wealth polarization in America is now at levels not seen since the late 1920s, and with each subsequent episode of 'CEO pay gone wild', the sense that something is not right in our economy grows a little bit more." The article goes on. "With each passing year," it warns, "as those greedy CEOs keep rewarding themselves for cutting costs, moving jobs overseas, and other cunning ways to further distinguish themselves financially from the great unwashed rabble, they tug a little harder on the rubber band that binds society together."

The emperor has no clothes on anymore, and it will soon become time for us to either ridicule him or throw him in jail.

"COMMENTARY: The Endlessly Amazing Greed of American CEOs" from HuntingonNew.net

The Empire Strikes Back

2007-07-19T12:41:00.000-04:00

The article at the link below summarizes efforts CEOs and their supporters have been making to roll back legislation intended to curb abuses.

Corporate leaders claim that Sarbanes-Oxley - nicknamed SOX here - drives "financial business away from the United States" and that efforts to comply with its accounting disclosure rules "cost too much". Worst of all, "last month the House passed an amendment delaying 404 reporting for smaller companies - the very ones most likely to issue false financial statements." The SEC chairman calls this "a terrible precedent", and it may well presage further rollbacks.

While some shareholder activists have proposed class-action lawsuits as a means of checking abuse in corporate boardrooms, the conservative judicial system is cracking down on such suits as "frivolous", and the number of new lawsuits "plunged to a record low of 110 last year."

The article concludes by reminding readers that, as the result of "a 1994 Supreme Court decision, shareholders cannot sue any corporate advisers - lawyers, accountants, investment banks - that 'aid and abet' a fraud." For instance, the courts recently killed a lawsuit against various banks and investment firms complicit in the Enron scandal.

The article appeared in Newsweek under the byline of popular investment journalist Jane Bryant Quinn.

"Little Guy Has Little Recourse" from Newsweek

More On WARN Act Reform

2007-07-18T10:03:00.001-04:00

Here is an update on WARN Act reform from The Toledo Blade. Toledo is in the middle of the Rust Belt, so local concern about blue collar layoffs might enhance The Blade's interest in this issue. However, although "Congress designed the WARN Act largely to assist blue-collar workers who were losing their factory jobs", it's a different world now, and "with major changes in the U.S. economy over the last two decades, the victims of sudden company closings and major layoffs have spread from blue-collar workers to white-collar employees." Marcus Courtney, head of the IT workers' union WashTech, recently testified in Congress about the need to "beef up" the WARN Act to help workers. He said, "One of the shocks for the service workers is they call me and say, 'I lost my job and everybody lost their job without notice. Isn’t this against the law?' It’s a huge shock to white-collar workers."

Corporations use many tactics to justify violating the law. "Employers often claim that the WARN Act shouldn’t apply to their business because their layoffs were caused by a business circumstance they couldn’t predict or they were in the process of negotiating with lenders," The Blade reports. "These common defenses often slow the litigation process and delay any damages that would be received by workers." Another tactic is to deliberately spread layoffs out over time to avoid hitting the trigger minimum that necessitates giving 60 days notice to employees. Such legal experts claim that a "bad faith" penalty should be applied to employers like these who knowingly violate the law, as opposed to those who might be construed to have a valid excuse.

Barack Obama is among those supporting WARN Act reform. "As we work to restore America’s competitiveness and revive our manufacturing sector, we must also ensure that workers have the skills and training they need to perform their jobs in today’s economy,” he said. “We must give the WARN Act teeth, to ensure that workers are not left in the lurch without a job or a paycheck."

Here's a list of some of the key reform proposals (as quoted by The Blade):

1) Lowering employee thresholds so more employers would be covered by the law and requiring businesses to provide notice if they lay off a large number of employees or shut down.

2) Increasing the notice time from 60 days to 90 days or even six months to give workers more time to adjust and to provide additional time for the business to examine options to save jobs.

3) Giving the Department of Labor the responsibility to enforce the law, while preserving the right of workers to hire attorneys if the government does not act.

4) Boosting the penalties to provide a steeper consequence for employers that violate the law and punish employers that purposefully break it.

"Reform overdue, WARN Act critics say; worker advocates look to eliminate flaws, loopholes in federal law" from The Toledo Blade

Take A Break From The Hamster Wheel Of Life

2007-07-17T16:05:00.001-04:00

The dog days of summer will be with us in a few weeks, vacation time is ahead (for those of us lucky enough to be able to take vacations), so we might as well as try to relax. Here is a link that I picked up from Web Worker Daily about relaxation techniques for harried workers. Three among these might appeal to the office-bound as realistic alternatives to relentless work focus - "Meditation Nap" (most of us can afford to at least close our eyes for 5 minutes), "The Bathroom Break" (as the post says, "it isn't called the restroom for nothing"), and my own personal favorite, making an "Appointment with Yourself". I think I will try to fit myself into my own calendar somewhere... "Play Hooky for the Day" is another life-altering possibility. It is very doable for an IT contractor, and tempting too - but I lose money every day I take off from work. So nix on that one for me...

The Attleboro Sun, in erstwhile Puritan cum Dotcom Massachusetts, claims that playing hooky from work is a growing problem. It notes that, in 2006, "the rate of unscheduled absences reached its highest level since 1999, costing some large employers an estimated $850,000 per year in direct payroll expenses." Nonetheless, this sounds like a good trend to me - and one from which, according to the article, many workers may be implicitly shielded by the tight job market. Tight job markets, like summer days themselves, are as evanescent as mayflies, so we might as well take advantage of them while they last.

Web Worker Daily meanwhile adds its own techniques for varying the enviable "grind" of working from home - or, as the author calls them, "a few ideas for breaking up the routine of having less routine." These include acting as if you're going to work, which involves dressing up, getting in the car, and driving around the block or making some other perfunctory and meaningless circuit about the neighborhood. That's too weird for me, reminiscent of Lifetime TV potboilers about sociopathic slacker husbands who pretend to have jobs that don't exist. The other alternative is actually going to work in a regular office! A real refresher that would be for the average pajama-clad telecommuter. Our culture may indeed come full circle to the point where visiting a business office for a spot of drudgery becomes a welcome break from Real Life.

"Getting Off The Treadmill Of Life" from Lifehack.org
"It's Summertime...Let's Play Hooky" from The Attleboro Sun (Massachusetts)
"Getting On the Treadmill of Life" from Web Worker Daily

Layoffs Without Notice Turn Workers Into Lemmings

2007-07-16T17:34:00.001-04:00

The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, passed in 1988, was intended to protect workers - both blue collar and white collar - from being laid off without sufficient advance warning for them to prepare for the change and start looking for a new job. The law currently covers all companies with 100 or more employees, requiring them to give at least 60 days notice if they anticipate laying off 50 employees or more. What happened then in the case of Meridian Rail of Illinois, which laid off 129 workers after only 8 days notice? Or at Mortgage Lenders Network of Middletown, Connecticut, which laid off 1,200 white collar workers after assuring many of them that their jobs were safe just a week before they were dismissed?

The WARN Act is riddled with loopholes that allow it to be violated on a regular basis. The Toledo Blade analyzed 226 lawsuits filed against corporations for WARN Act violations since 1989. Half of them were thrown out of court. According to The Blade, "In the majority of those decisions, judges cited loopholes in the law, ranging from companies that said they tried their best to give notice to employees to firms that claimed they couldn’t predict bad financial times. In 108 cases, WARN Act lawsuits resulted in settlements or with the courts siding with the displaced workers. But in dozens of those cases, workers received only pennies on the dollar of what they felt they were owed." Corporations use many tactics to get around the rules, such as laying off 45 employees per quarter to take advantage of the 50 employee minimum rule, or by extracting severance waivers from employees, allowing them to be fired without notice in exchange for a few weeks' severance pay.

Presidential candidates Clinton, Edwards and Obama would like to reform the law, and Senator Sherrod Brown is actively working towards that end in Congress. Howard Metzenbaum tried to reform the law in 1994, and Tom Daschle tried again in 2004. Metzenbaum's proposal included raising the 60 days notice requirement to 90 days, lowering the minimum number of layoffs covered by the law, and "allowing the Department of Labor to bring lawsuits on behalf of displaced workers." Maybe the Democratic Congress - while it lasts - can finally achieve this much needed reform.

"Without warning: Flaws, loopholes deny employees protection mandated by WARN Act" from The Toledo Blade

Using Debt To Trap Young Workers Into Obedience

2007-07-13T07:37:00.001-04:00

Here is a review of a book by Daniel Brook entitled The Trap: Selling Out To Stay Afloat In Winner-Take-All America. Its thesis is that economic constraints on recent college graduates in the United States have conspired to prevent young people from making a difference in their society outside of just working for a living. These constraints include the high cost of health care, mounting debt from student loans, and the "obscene" differences in salary between entry level jobs in law or finance and those in teaching, social work and other professions undertaken for what used to be called "the public good". Brook compares the economic scene of today with that of decades past. "In 1970, when starting teachers in New York City made just $2,000 less than starting Wall Street lawyers, people who wanted to teach taught.. Today, when starting teachers make $100,000 less than starting corporate lawyers and have been priced out of the region's homeownership market, the considerations are very different." The mountain of economic constraints has even inhibited entrepreneurship among young people. According to Salon magazine, "Surveys show that almost twice as many Americans as Europeans have considered starting their own business, yet only 7.3 percent of our workforce takes the leap, compared with 14.7 percent across the pond." If I'm reading these figures correctly, that means that Europeans who consider becoming entrepreneurs are 4 times more likely to actually realize their dreams than in the United States. Whatever happened to the "land of opportunity"?

He atributes part of the blame to the right-wing emphasis on the concentration of wealth that has dominated American economic life since the Reagan era and which, Brook claims, had a dual agenda from the very beginning. "Conservatives saw what America looked like in the 1960s, with the most equal distribution of wealth in its history and liberals sitting-in and marching for even more, and they didn't like what they saw. The wealthy were being taxed to open up their elite colleges to bring middle- and working-class students. The students were questioning authority, not cozying up to it in hopes of landing a job." The conservatives turned the tables as soon as they could, starving young Americans into slavish compliance while enriching themselves even further in the process.

"The Trap" from Salon

The Work-Life Dilemma

2007-07-12T10:40:00.001-04:00

Here is a meditation on the "work-life balance" from an Australian newspaper. Apparently, even down-under work is consuming more and more of a person's time. The article notes that "globalisation and technology have created the syndrome of 24/7 availability" in which, implicitly, young married couples go to bed with their Blackberrys as much as with each other. And most young people in Australia aren't even married. 75 percent of Australian women work, the same proportion of Australians under 35 have never been married, and 23 percent of all households have only one person. Is it because they are so busy or because young Australians, like so many young American college graduates, have huge loans to pay off and can't afford to get married? The article doesn't say.

The article cites, as an example of what to expect among elite earners in Australia, the "extreme workers" of the United States. Two million "high-income earners" in America are "required" to put in more than 70 hours a week at their jobs and two thirds said "their jobs required them to be available to deal with emergencies at any time." 58 percent said their work interfered with their lives as parents, 46 percent said "it hurt their relationships", and half said their jobs had destroyed their sex lives. Yet, according to the article, "strangely, they claim to be happy." According to the study, two thirds loved their jobs - including three quarters of those who worked for "global companies".

These people feel "exalted" by their work. "Many people love the intellectual challenge and the thrill of achieving something big. Others are turned on by the oversize compensation packages, brilliant colleagues, and recognition and respect that come with the territory." Obviously, these people are a kind of new priesthood - and nearly as celibate as priests and nuns to boot, it seems. This week - in Australia - "a group of academics at the Work and Family Policy Roundtable recommended that all fathers receive two weeks' paternity leave," but the Workplace Minister (what a title!) warned not to legislate this, and to leave it up to companies themselves to institute it. But of course they won't. "Studies and anecdotal evidence suggest choosing flexi-time and part-time work can damage career prospects, even more so for men because the perception is there is something wrong with them."

The current generation worldwide is one of corporate warriors, of templars at prayer in the churches of finance. Apparently, even family will be sacrificed at the altar of this crusade.

"Work-life balance rides the see-saw" from The Age (Australia)

Political Correctness At The Workplace

2007-07-11T08:39:00.001-04:00

Here is a first person account of a white collar worker's jaunt to a "sexual harassment conference" in California. He has reservations about "political correctness" training - one of which is his objection to the corporate assimilation of academic buzzwords like "political correctness" when corporations already bandy about enough buzzwords as it is. When not having his intelligence insulted "with common sense advice like, 'Don't joke about spanking'", he reflects on the real place of such training on the corporate agenda. He remarks that it serves more to deflect legal culpability than to actually make workers more sincere and sensitive - "that the stick waved in front of us was the threat of lawsuit and company liability, rather than the carrot of realizing an office-place paradise, where employees are hard-working and passionate, and managers are forward-thinking and supportive." He adds that "plausible deniability is the key, and so long as you can show proper protocol was followed, it's less about justice or fairness and more about the $65 million word corporations fear most: liability."

He also believes that a focus on mere political correctness keeps corporate attitudes towards social reality on a superficial level. "So long as the superficial is policed," he says, "there's little pressure to instigate progressive change." Moreover, he suspects that the emphasis on surface politeness is a stealth strategy for suppressing legitimate dissent. In his words, "political correctness often seems best at neutering the forthright and critical, if not always tactful, than fanning any inclination for mutual acceptance and societal well being. As a result, the rest of us must acquiesce to a somewhat silly pageant, in which we nod sympathetically at very polite speakers telling us things we should have learned in kindergarten. It's difficult not to feel stupid, but then maybe that's not a wholly unintended consequence. Infantilizing the modern workforce with mandatory sensitivity training seems like an effective way to indoctrinate 21st century office culture to not rock the boat."

"Sexual healing vs. societal change - the office is a battlefield" Ledger-Dispatch (Sacramento)

Some Of Globalization's Dangers

2007-07-10T14:06:00.000-04:00

Ready for some more irony? Here's some in regard to globalization. One objection that supporters of our price-gouging domestic pharmaceutical industry raise against our buying Canadian drugs is that they are not subjected to the rigorous FDA inspections conducted (supposedly) on red-white-and-blue drugs. The article below reminds us that, due to globablization, "about 20 percent of generic and over-the-counter drugs and 40 percent of the active ingredients for pills sold here by the major pharmaceutical companies -- all proclaimed safe by the FDA, all sold at usual American prices -- come from factories in India and China that are more likely to be struck by lightning than inspected by the FDA. Yet the FDA's record shows concern over the safety of drugs not from India and China but from our underdeveloped neighbor to the north." Last year, the FDA conducted only 32 inspections of drug factories in India and just 15 in China. Meanwhile they conducted 1,222 in the United States. Moreover, "the U.S. inspections were surprise visits; in China and India, the FDA phoned ahead in every case." Loath as we are to ruffle the feathers of our free trade partners overseas, we do them the courtesy of warning them before checking out their facilities, giving them plenty of time to clean up whatever lethal mess is on the premises on a daily basis.

Here's something else. Free market enthusiasts are dead set against the U.S. government investing any money in American industry. They fear the horrors of nationalization. They also believe that the U.S. government should not be arbitrarily favoring some industries, or companies, and not others, thereby hand-cuffing the invisible hand of the economic process. Yet at the same time - again as a direct result of globalization - "foreign governments [that] control a cool $5.4 trillion in foreign currency reserves... have begun to invest a chunk of that in American companies." For instance, China - and we mean the government of the People's Republic, not some Chinese corporation - has invested $3 billion in Blackstone, the well-known private equity firm that just went public. Globalization means that foreign governments - including totalitarian states that violate human rights and would constitute "bosses from hell" by any rational definition - have the right to own large portions of the American economy, even as our own government is warned "hands off".

Are you scared yet? I am.

"Globalization's Stir-Fry" from The American Prospect

Office Workout Machine Revisited

2007-07-09T14:34:00.000-04:00

Here we revisit the "vertical work station" developed by researchers at Mayo Clinic. Although the intentions of the device are good, it is most amusing to see such a potent symbol of mindless and incessant wage slavery revived as a cure for the ills of the wage slave. The image of a treadmill with a hapless serf trapped inside, huffing and puffing to keep up, has been with us since the dawn of the industrial age. As it happens, most wage slaves these days are sedentary. Indeed, according to researchers, "more than half of the workforce will sit at computers by 2010." Concerned scientists, devoid of a sense of irony for all their benevolence, have returned the treadmill to the workplace as an exercise device. Workers typing on the run, so to speak, might burn as many as 100 to 150 calories an hour and possibly drop as many as 50 pounds a year. The Mayo Clinic model is only one of many designed along the same idea. A spokesman for the project "estimates that 1,000 U.S. workers have built their own treadmill desks since the 'vertical work station' idea appeared on Good Morning America two years ago." Perhaps those folks didn't have a sense of irony either.

Skeptics claim that workers can get as much exercise by taking 20 minutes hikes at lunch. Nonetheless, workstation designer Dr. James Levine says that "in today's workplace, many employees never get to leave their cubicles. [My] thought: If they can't get to exercise, bring the exercise to them." The author of the CNN piece below apparently conducted his interview while treading alongside the inventor, and claims he developed a "Zen-like" sense of calm after 10 minutes of being lashed to the machine. Who'd a thunk it? A symbol of the rat race yielding Buddhistic bliss.

The online science magazine Discover lambasted the original BBC article about the work station as the "worst science article of the week", and numerous bloggers have found the device ridiculous. I was pleased to learn that there is still a sense of irony out there somewhere.

"Connecting treadmills to your computer" from The Arizona Republic
"Worst Science Article of the Week" from Discover
"A workout for your mind... and body!" from CNN.com
"Doc Creates Walking Desk To Stay Fit" from WBALTV (Baltimore)

Are U.S. Programmers An Endangered Species?

2007-07-06T14:36:00.001-04:00

The Programmers Guild, "a nonprofit group with 1,500 members, most of them older than 40... many of whom can't find jobs in their areas of expertise," has put on YouTube a video it has pirated from the website of Cohen & Grigsby, a Pittsburgh law firm specializing in high tech immigration. The video shows a lawyer stating that the firm's goal is not to find qualified US workers for its corporate clients. The Programmers Guild is using the clip in its fight against legislators who allow U.S. corporations to openly discriminate against American workers to hire foreign workers on H-1B visas. The foreign workers themselves arguably don't benefit from these hiring policies, as their U.S. employers routinely pay them $12,000 less on average than American programmers. This outrageous YouTube spot shows that you can't screw over American techies with impunity. As The Christian Science Monitor says, "the Internet has changed the balance of power in a dispute between employees and employers and thus, perhaps, changed the balance of power in Washington's political arena. That's particularly true when a group of sophisticated computer experts use their expertise in a public policy fight."

H-1B supporters contend that the low 2.4 employment rate for computer programmers reflects the "shortage" of such workers in the United States, and justifies a "no holds barred" approach to granting H-1B visas. In fact, wages for computer programmers are currently "stagnant", and many highly qualified programmers have left the field after searching fruitlessly for new jobs and are now attempting to pursue other occupations. Even more blatantly, "several computer companies have laid off thousands of workers, while at the same time complaining of shortages."

Even though, as some believe, the United States has been the traditional world leader in software development, the number of "computer-science students has fallen by 50 percent since its peak in the 1990s", paving the way all the more for the H-1B juggernaut. The progressive and deliberate replacement of American workers with H-1B hires may not only be bad for our domestic workforce, it may completely destroy the maverick and innovative culture of American software development, replacing it with one of slavish subservience, in which the expedience of the short term wins out over the visionary future.

"The vanishing American computer programmer" from The Christian Science Monitor

More On "The Myth Of The Rational Voter"

2007-07-05T08:55:00.001-04:00

Here, from The New Yorker, is a thoughtful review of Bryan Caplan's elitist excrescence, The Myth of The Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies. It cites Caplan's main thesis, which is that most voters are ignorant of politics - and, especially, of economics - and obliviously vote into office candidates who vow to implement their pig-headed and ignorant views. Caplan suggests two possible solutions. One, that better educated citizens - particularly, one suspects, the holders of MBAs and bachelor's degrees in economics - should be given votes that carry more weight than, say, those of high school dropouts or former English majors. Two, that democracy should be disbanded altogether and all government policy should be mandated by an oligarchy of economists.

According to the article, Caplan is aware of, but discounts, the "Miracle of Aggregation" through which "a large number of people with partial information and varying degrees of intelligence and expertise will collectively reach better or more accurate results than a small number of like-minded, highly intelligent experts." Markets work this way, for example, as do - as The New Yorker notes - stock prices. Curiously, and somewhat hypocritically, Caplan believes that the "wisdom of crowds" is fine for the maintenance of "free markets", but will not do for politics - especially if the practice of democracy threatens the operation of those same "free markets". This is an interesting paradox. His explanation is that voters are not like consumers because they rarely vote out of self-interest, but out of a peculiar muddled altruism that inspires them to vote for what they think is right - but which, because it may not serve their interests directly, is not soundly rational. The article cites as an example the phenomenon of "the [conservative] auto worker who supports the elimination of the inheritance tax and the [liberal] Hollywood producer who votes [to keep it]..." Hence, it is not the reflexive selfishness of voters that renders democracy unworkable, but a pretension to high-mindedness that betrays their best instincts.

Caplan triumphantly asserts, with the heedless zeal of the emotionally tone-deaf wonk that he undoubtedly is, that free market competition lowers prices, ramps up productivity and rewards the public with an ever growing cornucopia of affordable products. Downsizing thousands of workers out of jobs they depended on for decades, closing down mom-and-pop shops across the land to make way for mega-stores and their red-smocked serfs, and paying CEOs hundreds of millions of dollars more a year than any human being could possibly need are, like greed, all good - because they support the free market's inexorable march towards the apotheosis of materialism. If material goods were all that mattered, maybe "econocracy" would be fine. But, as The New Yorker points out, democracy serves complex human needs that transcend rationality and materialism. "Negotiating the tension between 'rational' policy choices and 'irrational' preferences and anxieties - between the desirability of more productivity and the desire to preserve a way of life - is what democratic politics is all about. It is a messy negotiation. Having the franchise be universal makes it even messier. If all policy decisions were straightforward economic calculations, it might be simpler and better for everyone if only people who had a grasp of economics participated in the political process. But many policy decisions don't have an optimal answer. They involve values that are deeply contested: when life begins, whether liberty is more important than equality, how racial integration is best achieved..." and much else. Democracy is a human enterprise, not an economic one.

"Fractured Franchise" from The New Yorker

No Free Speech At Work

2007-07-04T09:37:00.001-04:00

According to a recent AFL-CIO study, 80 percent of American workers believe they retain the right of free speech in the workplace. The plain fact is that they are wrong. The first amendment was intended to shield the right of free speech from the actions of the government, not from the actions of private employers. The article at the link below is an interview with Bruce Barry, a management and sociology professor at Vanderbilt and the author of Speechless: The Erosion of Free Expression in the American Workplace. He criticizes the political consequences of the American tradition of "employment at will" which, he says, is "a legal and economic system under which employers don't just buy a person's labor, they also reserve the right to rent an employer's conscience, ideology and social identity." In contrast to the United States, "most western-style industrial democracies have built into their system of employment law some sort of just-cause protection and due process reights. There is a convention of the International Labor Organization on discrimination in employment that has, in addition to protection against employment discrimination for race, religion, sex, and national origin, [protection of] political opinion. 160 countries have ratified that convention. The United States is not one of them."

The bottom line is that the one nation that most fulsomely boasts of how it has brought "the untamed flame of freedom" to the world is also the one that most stubbornly resists extending political freedom to the workplace. This is a serious omission in a society in which work consumes more of its citizens' waking hours than ever before, and where many of what used to be government or community functions have been privatized. In fact, as civil community has progressively declined in the United States, the workplace has come to replace it. The workplace may be the only context in which Americans from different walks of life may communicate and cooperate with one another, and yet they are barred at the risk of dismissal from expressing themselves above the most dronelike level of superficiality.

There are two parallel trends at work in corporate society that will inevitably collide. American workers have less job security than ever. Instead of working for one company for a lifetime, they are forced to move from one job to another - if they can. They are denied benefits they once took for granted, and are treated less as partners in an enterprise than as human overhead to be trimmed away at a moment's notice. This not only destroys their sense of security, it utterly obliterates any loyalty they might feel for their employers. Yet at the same time corporations are investing more and more in their public image, and in influencing legislative bodies to support their interests. They have become exponentially more sensitive to dissent among the rank and file, at the same time that their lack of consideration for the welfare of their employees engenders ever more dissent.

In the interview, Barry provides recent examples of employees who have been dismised for their political beliefs. In Alabama, a Republican boss fired a worker who refused to remove a John Kerry bumper sticker from her car. In Tennessee, another boss fired a worker who wrote a letter to the editor of a local paper about welfare policy. In Texas, a community activist was "forced out of his job" for supporting affirmative action. Any employee who blogs (at least under his or her own name) is also fair game for dismissal. Even though internet technology has given workers a greater chance of getting their voices heard, it has also given employers a greater ability to find that voice and destroy its livelihood.

"Speechless At Work" from The American Prospect

The Effects Of Outsourcing Are Truly A Global Affair

2007-07-03T09:26:00.000-04:00

The United States is not the only nation affected by outsourcing. According to the article at the link below, high wage-earning countries like Singapore, Australia and Japan are being forced to outsource to remain competitive in the global market, and their white collar labor forces have suffered as a result. Singapore, once "a showcase example of a rapidly growing newly industrialized country," has recently had to farm out electronics manufacturing to countries like China, Thailand, Vietnam and the Phillipines. "Now the global outsourcing trend is putting pressure on white-collar jobs, including [those] in the crucial finance and engineering industries," the article says. "While the Singaporean economy is still growing outwardly at a healthy rate, the office employment figures mask a mounting loss of white-collar jobs. That includes scores of highly trained engineers, many of whom now drive taxicabs to make ends meet while they look for new employment." Sound familiar? It certainly does.

If outsourcing is an innovation, America leads the pack. It is pushing forward the frontiers of middle-class disenfranchisement. The average American worker has a "one-in-six chance of seeing his or her income drop by 50% or more from one year to the next" and 90 percent saw their real wages decline in 2005. With figures so progressive, we certainly are a shining example of something or other, don't you agree?

Outsourcing has spread to Australia, too. The Australian parliament nonetheless supports outsourcing, claiming it is instrumental to the nation's global competitiveness. "We have to be careful we're not protecting current Australian jobs to the detriment of future Australian jobs," harrumphs alpha banker David Murray. "Everyone knows the value of free and open trade!" he declaims - and you can almost hear the cries of "Hear! Hear!" echoing through the Anglophone boardrooms of the world. In the meantime, Australian unions are organizing a desperate campaign to save white-collar IT jobs from offshoring, using as their rationale "the bogey that outsourcing frequently compromises data security."

Although Japan has traditionally kept the design of its products secret through a tactic known as "technology blackboxing", other Asian nations - particularly China - have been able to reverse engineer those products and replicate them far more cheaply in their own lands, thus destroying any advantages Japanese manufacturers might have enjoyed. It is only a matter of time before the notoriously insular Japanese must resort to outsourcing as well, ultimately adding to the woes of their already overworked and insanely repressed white-collar classes.

One wonders where it will all end. It is one thing, as an American, to gloat with schadenfreude at the rise and fall of Asian techies. It is quite another to know what will happen next - and to whom. What happens when Indian and Chinese workers become too prosperous, forcing their production costs to rise, and causing even those nations to outsource labor to somewhere else? Maybe by that time the children and grandchildren of laid-off American white-collar workers will have sunk low enough to represent an affordable labor option once again, and the rest of the world will start outsourcing to us!

"White-collar Asia feels outsourcing pinch" from Asia Times

White Collar Layoffs Are The New "Normal"

2007-07-02T09:40:00.001-04:00

Here are a couple of recent articles from the Chicago Tribune about the prevalence and effects of white collar layoffs. One article focuses on an affluent community in the suburbs of Chicago named Barrington. Although the median household income is $110,000, "below the surface of a strong economy is an unsettling trend that may be contributing to worrying changes in the school lunch program and elsewhere. Residents seem to be losing jobs at a faster clip. They land back on their feet but not necessarily at the kind of salaries to which they had become accustomed." Fear of losing their jobs has shifted the priorities of Barrington's residents considerably. When surveyed in 1996, they listed "difficulty finding child care" as their prime concern. In contrast, "By 2005, 'involuntary job loss due to downsizing or other reason' topped the list, followed closely by 'difficulty paying bills' and 'put off health care' because of cost or lack of insurance. By comparison, child care had become a minor issue." When the 2005 survey was done, 16 percent of the respondents reported that either they or a loved one had lost their jobs within the last year.

Income loss is more permanent, but less visible, than job loss. Although a glance at unemployment figures suggests that the nation is doing well, many of those employed make far less than they once did. According to Princeton job-loss analyst Henry Farber, "The average earnings decline including lost raises was 21 percent for workers forced to find new full-time jobs between 2001 and 2003, four times the mid-1990s rate." The earnings decline after a layoff is particularly acute for white collar professionals, especially for those in middle age. The psychological impact is also more profound, and that in turn jeopardizes the health of many whose health care benefits have vanished. Richard Price, a leading researcher in the psychological effects of job loss, says the "increased rates of illness, depression, anxiety and marital conflict that [have been] documented among displaced U.S. workers stem mainly from the economic fallout -- the 'cascade of stressors' flowing from reduced income and loss of benefits like health care."

Nearly 10 percent of white collar workers lost their jobs between 2001 and 2003 - as opposed to only 7 percent during the recession of the early eighties. According to Price, "Globalization is a small piece of it. Businesses have gone from making things to buying each other, and that has produced these large-scale changes in the predictability of jobs at all levels."

When complacent economic pundits review the statistics with their rosy-colored bifocals, they cite the low unemployment rate, but not the dramatic losses of income in the recent history of those employed, praise the rise in "average income" when they really should be looking at "median income", and declare the land virtually inflation-free simply because wages remain flat while gas prices, health care premiums, tuitions and countless other key expenses are skyrocketing. It is time we looked beyond the disingenuous optimism of the so-called "experts" at the reality of what's really going on.

"Layoff fears part of 'new normal'" from Chicago Tribune
"Tough Climb To Reclaim Career" from Chicago Tribune

Ethics And The Telecommuter

2007-06-29T07:33:00.000-04:00

Telecommuting can increase productivity by up to 30 percent, it is convenient for workers with children as well as for those who might otherwise need to make long and expensive commutes, and it is easier on the environment than pumping car exhaust into the atmosphere for an hour or two everyday. Why then are managers reluctant to adopt it as the norm? Many appear to distrust telecommuters, and are suspicious of the freedoms they might be given. Social scientists at the University of Redlands surveyed M.B.A. and M.I.S. (Master in Informations Systems) students and faculty to learn which aspects of telecommuter behavior might be regarded as less "ethical" than others. They were also asked to pass judgment on potential managerial responses to - or exploitation of - telecommuters.

The survey participants were presented with numerous scenarios, and were asked to decided which were ethical or unethical. The scenarios that received the highest percentage of "unethical" classifications are shown below:

1) A manager monitors the phone records of telecommuters to ensure that they were on-line for all the hours they were supposed to be working. 48.8 percent saw this as unethical.

2) A manager gives better raises and opportunities to "in-house" staff than to telecommuters. 48.4 percent saw this as unethical.

3) A telecommuter develops Carpal Tunnel Syndrome working at home, but his employer refuses to compensate him for his injuries. 48.4 percent saw this as unethical.

4) A telecommuter works two full-time jobs simultaneously. 46.8 percent saw this as unethical.

5) A manager drives by the homes of employees to see if they are working when they say they are. 41.3 percent saw this as unethical.

As for me, I would judge only 1 and 5 as unethical - and, actually, as far more stupid than actually unethical.

Consider scenario number 1. Many telecommuters may have only one phone line to dial in on, and consequently may not want to be on-line all day. They probably wouldn't need to anyway. If telecommuters have the appropriate software on their home commuter, they can easily produce documents, spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations and the like - even computer code - while they are offline. There is no reason whatsoever why a telecommuter would need to be on-line continuously. Consequently, phone records would be a totally inaccurate measure of work done, and this scenario is just plain foolish.

Scenario number 5 is also equally stupid. How could managers swing by the homes of their subordinates on a daily basis and still get their own work done - unless they, too, telecommuted from their automobiles? That is especially the case if they have numerous subordinates who commute and at least some of them live some distance from work.

I do not see scenarios 2, 3 or 4 as unethical. Unfortunately, it's a given that working on-site will keep you in the mind of your boss and make you more visible to the organization. This is why I believe telecommuting is best for free-lance or contract employees who don't care if they rise within the hierarchy of any company for which they are working only temporarily. Besides, this scenario might well become a non-issue for companies in which the majority of workers telecommute at least part-time - including the managers. I also don't believe that employers have any responsibility for injuries their employees sustain at home - especially if they are working at home by choice. So scratch scenarios 2 and 3.

As for scenario number 4, I think telecommuters - especially contract workers - should be allowed to hold down as many jobs as they can handle. So long as they get their work done and violate no "non-compete" clauses in their work contracts, all power to them. As for the possible issue of fraudulent hourly billing, employers must realize that telecommuters have the option of working many more hours than they would have at the office, as they do not need to physically commute and can remain at their chosen workplace around the clock. This means that they literally could work, say, 6 or 7 hours a day for each of two employers. Besides, in a world in which multi-tasking is the norm, a telecommuter can just as easily work concurrently for different employers as on different assignments and could thus conceivably bill both for the same hour spent working. Moreover, those hours might be filled with a higher proportion of actual work - especially for single workers without children. There is no pointless chit-chat with fellow workers, for instance, and far fewer superfluous meetings.

"The Ethics of Web Work" from Web Worker Daily
"Teleworking Ethics"

Nintendo Office

2007-06-28T07:48:00.000-04:00

A young filmmaker named Christopher Preksta has produced a short film entitled Nintendo Office, in which familiar Nintendo characters play the roles of cubicle dwellers. He wrote the script on a plane trip, and produced it with some friends over a weekend. It placed third in a contest sponsored by the Tribeca Film Festival, and will be shown "in a continuous loop from 8:30 p.m.-midnight each night of the festival." I've never played Nintendo, so the names of its characters are lost on me. Nonetheless, according to the story, "Link, from 'Zelda' does temp work, Donkey Kong gets his potato salad pilfered from the lunchroom fridge, Bob-Omb (a talking bomb) proclaims his appreciation for the company's benefits, and a office worker making copies is besieged by a constantly disappearing Big Boo." Me, I'm waiting for an office comedy in which the role of the tyrannical boss is played by Pacman.

"Making a game of it" from Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Microsoft Urges Brits To Work In Tree-Houses

2007-06-27T15:59:00.001-04:00

In an effort to sell the concept of a wireless office, a Microsoft division in the UK recently exhorted Britons to work outdoors "by erecting a 'tree-office' in Pimlico Gardens on the banks of the River Thames in London." Microsoft spokesman James McCarthy said, "We're trying to illustrate the fact that there are more creative ways for people to work these days. A tree house is one, slightly wacky example."

Microsoft says there's no need to work in an office nowadays, and many workers would concur. London research firm Future Laboratory found that 73 percent of workers "considered the ability to work flexibly a deciding factor when choosing a new job" - and that 91 percent wanted out from the "traditional work environment". Most would prefer to work at home, 14 percent would opt for punching the time-clock at the beach, and 10 percent would love to work in a park or (this being Britain, remember) their garden. Telecommuting is fun, green and convenient. What's not to love?

"Britons urged to shun office and work outdoors" from Reuters

Time For A New "New Deal"

2007-06-26T13:14:00.001-04:00

The article below is less important for the conclusions it reaches than for the context in which it reaches them. Tuck School economist Matthew Slaughter and Yale political scientist Kenneth Scheve admit, in the pages of Foreign Affairs, that the majority of American workers are not benefiting from globalization. They assert that globalization has increased the aggregate gains of the American economy - and of the world's economy - and they want it to continue, but those gains have been distributed disproportionately. As they say, "of workers in seven educational categories - high school dropout, high school graduate, some college, college graduate, nonprofessional master's, Ph.D., and M.B.A./J.D./M.D. - only those in the last two categories, with doctorates or professional degrees..." e.g., doctors, lawyers, financiers and business executives, "...experienced any growth in mean real money earnings between 2000 and 2005." If you do not belong to that group, which constitutes no more than 4 percent of the American workforce, you are simply out of luck.

Scheve and Slaughter, as supporters of globalization, desperately want to redress this growing income inequality because they fear that, if left unchecked, it will provoke a backlash from American voters that will force Congress to cripple globalization with protectionist legislation. What is the solution? Some suggest that increased higher education will solve the problem of income inequality, but Scheve and Slaughter point out that it will require decades to remedy the plight of American workers through education alone. Others suggest training workers laid-off from one industry for employment in another, but the authors claim that this won't work either because the effects of globalization are felt horizontally across industries. Hence, a laid-off auto worker may train to become an accountant, only to have his new career pulled out from under him by an Internet tax preparation cartel based in India.

Scheve and Slaughter believe that the only viable solution is a redistribution of income, but unfortunately the mechanism they suggest for effecting this redistribution is, at best, a tentative and highly restricted solution. They propose eliminating payroll tax - the part taken out of your paycheck for Social Security and Medicare - on persons earning less than the national median income, and/or raising payroll tax for those earning over $94,200. As the payroll tax is now effectively a flat tax that favors the affluent and disproportionately gouges the rest of us, any effort to shift it upwards would be more than welcome. However, considering the wind-up Scheve and Slaughter put into their article, the final pitch falls short. Out of tact or timidity, or a combination of the two, they avoid approaching the 800 pound gorilla in the room - excessive executive compensation. As bloated CEO pay affects not only the fate of the average worker but shareholder returns as well, perhaps we should tax corporations who pay their CEOs too much. Or even tax the CEOs themselves - at least more than we do today.

Although payroll tax reform alone will not be enough, we should nonetheless be grateful that at least some "expert" supporters of globalization acknowledge its destructive effects and understand the importance of offsetting them.

"A New Deal For Globalization" from Foreign Affairs

The Annoyances Of Cubicle Life

2007-06-25T15:36:00.001-04:00

"With the advent of cubicles versus offices with walls and doors, distractions increased," laments a cubicle life veteran at one of the links below. He and other office workers contend that "common courtesy, teamwork and respect are fading away." Among the annoyances that plague them most are Slackers, Gossip, Technology, Rudeness and Bureaucracy. Slackers are characterized as lazy nine-to-fivers who come in late - a phenomenon that may be subtly increased by the prevalence of flex-time, which opens the floodgates to funky business hours and makes it difficult to know how much time anybody's really putting in. Rudeness has increased as an occupational hazard simply because of the shift towards the service industry, whose bread and butter is "human interaction", for better or worse. Bureaucracy is a function of company size - the bigger they are, the more bureaucratic. The problems of Gossip and Technology, in the form of Blackberries and cellphones that facilitate what might be called "remote gossip", are a direct result of open floor plans which allow workers to hear everything their neighbors are saying. The bottom line is that all of these annoyances are intrinsic to modern business, and won't be fading away anytime soon.

What to do? An article at MSN.com identifies its own list of cubicle annoyances, and suggests ways to, ahem, "solve" them. Unfortunately, you can tell the list was compiled by some HR hack, because the solution almost invariably involves communicating with one's "co-worker" about the problem and - if that fails - bringing the issue to one's "supervisor". If people steal things off your desk, go to the boss. If you can't concentrate with all the Gossip and Technology buzzing around you, go to the boss and get reassigned to another cube. If your cubicle neighbor favors "odoriferous" lunches or if he or she festoons their work area with "Baywatch posters and troll dolls", broach the subject ever so diplomatically with the offender. The article neglects to mention that a major part of such annoyances is the nuisance of having to talk to someone about them to begin with - i.e., the "solution" is essentially part of the problem. Here again Bureaucracy (see above) raises its ugly head.

Interestingly, of the six examples given by MSN.com, at least three - "I can't concentrate with the constant buzz around me", "I respect my co-worker's obsession with Il Divo... but unfortunately I'm not a fan" and "My workspace has become the office water cooler" - epitomize the sound pollution that is endemic to cubicle farms, and which can prevent you from doing anything mentally challenging. One almost wonders if that other pet peeve, Slackers, become Slackers simply because they haven't been able to concentrate for so long that they have either long since given up the effort while they are at work or avoid the office altogether.

"List of irritants in the workplace is getting longer." from Daily Record (New Jersey)
"Your Six Biggest Cubicle Complaints ... Solved" from MSN.com

Economist Calls American Voters Idiots (Part II)

2007-06-24T23:21:00.001-04:00

Leave it to Tech Central Station to insult the majority of the American people in their mad rush to curry favor with billionaires. Endowed with surprisingly vulgar taste for such shameless "elitists", the editors of Tech Central Station once published an article that compared the practice of offering corporate medical benefits to employees to "prostitute insurance". I.e., you may not need gratuitous medical benefits any more than you would need a discount card for a brothel. Ah, well. Such lapses only make me sigh...

Tech Central Station's latest insult to the public is to label American democracy "Dumbocracy" in deference to a book published by economist Bryan Caplan entitled The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies. I've mentioned this enemy of democracy before. His thesis is that American voters are motivated by irrational biases that endanger "rational economic policy". What are these biases? Hostility to free markets and foreigners, a prejudice in favor of something as silly as full employment, and a general pessimistic attitude that the world is going to hell in a handbasket. Curiously, these are the same biases reviled by right-wing policy wonks as the anti-globalization sentiments that voted in a Democratic majority last fall. Yet this change comes after nearly a decade of Republican control in the Congress and elsewhere - most notoriously in the White House. American voters elected Bush and his supporters repeatedly in the past. Were they motivated by equally irrational biases then? If Dr. Caplan's thesis is consistently valid and not merely a partisan expression of sour grapes, American voters must always be motivated by irrational biases that are not in their best interests. I certainly believe they are. Isn't voting against taxation an irrational bias, for instance? Taxes can do great things - support our infrastructure, strengthen the military, improve our schools, help alleviate poverty and disease. Why vote against them so unconditionally? Yet that's exactly what the American people do every time they vote Republican. The big surprise - and the part that makes voting against taxes so irrational - is that it's invariably not the average American's taxes that are reduced so much as the taxes on corporations and the wealthy. Even when we vote for the party of free markets and globalization, we vote against our own interests for irrational reasons. But I'll just bet you Caplan's book doesn't even touch on that.

Which brings me to another point. Voters themselves elect candidates on the basis of vague campaign promises, not specific points of economic policy. Those who establish policy are the economists, not the people - so if it screws up, then they screwed up, not us. Voters don't vote for economic policy anyway, even vague ones - they vote against the failures of the current regime. Their attitude is reactive, not prescriptive. They are saying, "Maybe we don't understand what you did, but it isn't working for us. We want to bring in a new person who will try something else." If the American people have started voting Democratic again, it's because whatever the Republicans did just isn't working for them.

Economists can, like Caplan, assert that employment is less important than "production", and that globalization, free trade and market forces should remain untrammeled. But they must realize that what has made corporations so much more "productive" is how well they've been able to cut their labor overhead. They have succeeded, in short, by reducing the number of human beings with whom they must share their revenue. The "trickle-down" economic theories of the Reagan years seem almost quaint in comparison. Now we have a "water-tight" corporate system that is not only unburdened by taxes, tariffs or regulations, but is run so efficiently that it need not share its profits with anyone. The economists may extol a world in which the stock market soars, the GNP expands, and American markets are flooded with goods most of us may need to go into debt to afford - but if the majority of the people have not benefited from this world, it will always be voted down in a democracy - because democracy may be the only place left in America where the interests of the majority still rule.

"Dumbocracy in America" from Tech Central Station

This Peacock Should Go The Way Of The Dodo

2007-06-22T11:34:00.000-04:00

Here is an amusing article from Slate about the new "King of Wall Street", private equity magnate Stephen Schwarzman. Schwarzman just brought his company, The Blackstone Group, public and expects to make $7.5 billion from the IPO. Here are a couple of things about private equity partnerships that you should know. One, the word "private" in private equity says it all. According to Slate, "private-equity moguls have been publicity shy, and wisely so. The fees and returns earned by [such] outfits... are closely guarded secrets. Holding cards close to the vest has been a key to avoiding regulation and scrutiny by legislators." In other words, such companies have the wherewithal to circumvent disclosure rules mandated by Sarbanes-Oxley and the SEC. Two, according to "an absurd wrinkle in the tax code," the earnings of private equity partnerships are "taxed not at the 35 percent corporate income-tax rate, but at the 15 percent long-term capital-gains rate, allowing Blackstone to save tens of millions of dollars annually on its tax bill." You would think Schwarzman would thank his lucky stars, but no. Like all these guys, he wants to be a star instead. A supernova, in fact.

Schwarzman recently celebrated his 60th birthday at a cost of millions. For entertainment, he hired "Martin Short, Rod Stewart, Marvin Hamlisch, and Patti LaBelle leading the Abyssinian Baptist Church choir singing... 'a tune about Mr. Schwarzman'." To celebrate himself even more directly, he carted in a "huge portrait" of himself for the occasion. Even when he's not celebrating the sacred event of his birthday, he lives like a king, often spending $3,000 each weekend on food at his 11,000 square foot Palm Beach mansion, "including stone crabs that cost $400, or $40 per claw." What strikes Slate as most expressive of his hubris is not that he lives like this, but that he lets everyone know that he lives like this. Nor, at the pinnacle of his success, does he feel any need to embrace philanthropy as a way of "giving back" - instead he wants to, ahem, "serve" by aggrandizing himself still further, as the Treasury Secretary perhaps, or as something else equally grand.

The Slate article compares this ungracious winner to "an NBA player who, having gone the length of a court for a slam-dunk with the game already put away, starts trash-talking, jumps atop the scorers' table, gestures obscenely at opposing fans, pinches a cheerleader, chest-bumps the referee, sticks his tongue out at the camera, all while grabbing his crotch and yelling loudly that he's the man."

Schwarzman's days of impunity may be coming to an end. Legislation has recently been introduced in Congress to ensure that publicly held private equity companies will be taxed at the corporate rate of 35 percent, rather than at the capital gains rate of 15 percent. In Congress, they've already taken to calling it "Blackstone's law".

"The Golden Ass" from Slate

The Improbable Stardom Of Business TV

2007-06-21T08:50:00.001-04:00

At the link below is a thoughtful and comprehensive article about business as a subject, or as a setting, for TV shows. The focus is primarily on British TV, but there is much discussion of American shows as well - especially The Apprentice. The attitude toward business appears to differ primarily across genres. Fictional presentations of the business world are generally negative or at least satirical. Dramas often present executives as villains, or at least as generators of a conflict the protagonist must surmount, while comedies make fun of "the dreariness and incompetence of office life." Daily business news shows that deal with the stock market are more upbeat and enthusiastic than ever, typified on the extreme end by Jim Cramer of CNBC. In contrast, stock market shows in the past tended to be more sedate and dignified - but still upbeat - like Louis Rukeyser in Wall $treet Week. At the same time, many documentaries and extended news segments take a serious and critical, if sometimes superficial, approach to business and the problems it creates, such as rising health care costs and credit card debt.

The biggest friends of the business world among TV genres are the "reality" shows. One sub-genre in particular, in which ambitious young people get the chance to prove themselves to established business superstars. The article calls these shows "aspirational", and describes several, including The Apprentice, Dragons' Den and Tycoon. These shows take what many would call the negative characteristics of the business world - such as impossible deadlines and the cult of ruthlessnes - and converts them into challenges designed to make the show more exciting. In this sense, the reality shows are not unlike those TV movies whose protagonists must kill the dragons embodied by tyrannical bosses and back-stabbing co-workers - although in the dramas the back-stabbing may be literal. The widest divergence in attitude occurs in the news shows, which can range from scathing exposes of corporate scandals to mindless cheerleading for rising stock prices.

"How to get ahead in business television" from The Financial Times

Telecommuting Is The Greener Alternative

2007-06-20T14:02:00.000-04:00

Here is a brief item about the value of telecommuting as a weapon against global warming. As the author says, "The bottom line is that either the environment is, or isn't, a problem. If it is, and if governments are serious about reducing greenhouse gas emissions and smog-causing pollutants, they will ban all but essential travel." Global warming is real, and it's about time we overruled the objections of corporate management to working by email, modem and cellphone. When you come to think of it, most reluctance to telecommuting is based on an outmoded approach to management that may have been appropriate to overseeing unskilled day laborers, but is downright insulting in a workaday world populated by self-starting professionals who can do their jobs with little supervision. The vain and unnecessary tyranny of on-site management and the internal combustion engine are both anachronisms we must leave behind if we expect our civilization to survive.

"IT'S TIME TO GET SERIOUS ABOUT TELECOMMUTING" from Globe And Mail

Technology Activists Fight Discrimination Against Americans

2007-06-19T09:41:00.001-04:00

A group of technology activists called Brightfuturejobs.org believes that corporate reliance on H-1B employees is discriminatory and destructive, and is lobbying Congress to pass the H-1B reform bill. According to Brightfuturejobs director Donna Conroy, a study entitled "'Low Salaries for Low Skills: Wages and Skill Levels for H-1B Computer Workers, 2005" found that 87 percent of H-1B technology positions filled are entry-level jobs that require minimal skills and, in some cases, merely "a good understanding of the [programming] occupation." This disproves the myth that foreign H-1B workers are "the best and the brightest" and that they are "smarter and more qualified than their domestic counterparts."

Nonetheless, American corporations maintain the "self-loathing" fiction that American workers lack sufficient technological skills so that they can continue to hire H-1B workers at lower salaries, often bypassing the domestic job market altogether. But Americans are not the only people who suffer. Once hired, many H-1B workers are compelled to work long hours for sub-standard compensation under the implied threat that they will be deported if they don't deliver.

Hundreds of American corporations will hire only H-1B IT workers, pitching advertisements specifically to this group, often promising free training - which American IT workers rarely get. As Conroy says, "20 years ago, when there was a labor shortage in the technology industry, technology firms routinely hired unqualified Americans and trained the hell out of them. Music and sociology majors were transformed into top-notch programmers. Now the only people who benefit from extensive training are H-1Bs."

Senators Richard Durbin of Illinois and Charles Grassley of Iowa introduced the H-1B reform bill, which will outlaw the practice of advertising only for H-1Bs, requring instead that all IT jobs - including those that offer free training - are advertised for 30 days on the Department of Labor web site.

"Technology Activist Pans the Myth that Americans Can't Cut-it in Technology" from PR Web
Brightfuturejobs.org

Fancy Offices As A Marketing Tool

2007-06-18T09:31:00.001-04:00

Designing office space is a pricey proposition. The "industry average" runs about $250 a square foot. You might as well tile the floor with twenty dollar bills. According to the article below however, office design is a key aspect of corporate marketing. The desired result should perform as "a marketing tool as well as [a] workable office environment." Some firms elect to decorate their office space with "marble, granite and heavy wood, accented with snazzy looking technology." Nonetheless, office designers "must know the difference between upscale and opulent... They don't want to look irresponsible, financially." The bottom line is that you want to impress the client with something other than a hole-in-the-wall yet not come off as a deluded spendthrift.

Office design "can also boost productivity and health in workers." It can accomplish this through "ergonomic desk chairs that promote comfort and alertness" and the "quality of lighting." Nicer chairs, bigger cubicles and "private telephone areas" (through which one might set up interviews with competitors) also appear to enhance comfort and productivity. Well, duh...

White collar workers might as well have nice offices these days, considering how much time they are obligated to spend in them. My favorite remark in the article refers to how the cozy proximity of "a lot of dark wood and marble" can induce employees to, ahem, "whisper" - conspiratorially perhaps, as if they are planning a take-over coup or a spot of insider-trading.

"Reworking Office Space" from Jacksonville.com

The H1-B Wars

2007-06-17T22:33:00.000-04:00

No one seems to like the new immigration bill pending in Congress. It is an open secret that H1-B visas are used by corporations to substitute American-born workers - particularly in the IT industry - with foreign-born workers who will accept lower wages. According to an anonymous HR professional reported to the Charlotte Conservative News, corporations often pretend to interview American-born workers with no intention of hiring them - and then resort to H1-B labor instead. The immigration bill implicitly favors high tech workers by using a points system to qualify the desirability of immigrants on the basis of education and professional skills, and will likely increase the number of such workers allowed into the United States. As experienced professionals working at or below entry level salaries, these immigrants may crowd out recent American college graduates with technical degrees. While supporters of the H1-B program claim that immigrant workers will remedy "shortages" of IT workers, many experts claim that those shortages are artificial, often generated by age discrimination that pushes still able-minded IT workers out of the market as early as thirty-five. H1-B supporters also claim that the 2.4 unemployment rate for IT workers is "healthy", while in reality it is worse than the 1.8 unemployment rate for American college graduates as a whole.

At the same time, the Indian press is in a furor over an amendment to the bill to charge corporate sponsors $5,000 fees for H1-B applicants. Some even assert that the points system is a sham, claiming that you can get more points as an agricultural worker than as an MD or an MBA. Other critics complain that the new "guest worker" program will deny them professional mobility. While waiting for green cards, they say, "we have to stick to the same jobs, same job description, the same employer until we reach the final stage of green card - until we are just inches away from a green card. Until then, for 10 years, we have to stick to the same job. That is totally unfair." Many believe the new system will not work, and that American corporations will have to rely on increased outsourcing to meet their IT needs.

A news item posted on the web this morning suggested that the bill may not pass. Small wonder if it doesn't.

"Of Course H1-B Visas are About Lowering Wages" from The American Prospect
"Immigration Bill Bad News for College Grads" from PR Newswire
"U.S. Businesses Wary of Immigration Bill" from Forbes
"Immigration Bill is Unfair to Skilled Migrants, Group Says" from Cybercast News Service
"Senate Votes to Hike H1-B Visa Fees" from InternetNews.com
"White Collar Jobs Threatened" from Charlotte Conservative News

Office Culture Is Telecommuting's Biggest Obstacle

2007-06-15T08:35:00.001-04:00

According to a survey conducted in the UK, "employees blame office culture for slow adoption of remote working" - despite the fact that it is a "a major weapon in the environmental battle because of reduced transportation needs." (Remote working is the British term for telecommuting.) 30 percent of the survey respondents "mentioned corporate culture (as) a barrier to employee adoption of remote working practices", and 25 percent suggested that office culture impeded other environmentally friendly practices. Corporations were reluctant to adopt remote working for the following reasons:

1) Lack of the technology to enable the practice.

2) The absence of face-to-face contact and its associated social benefits.

3) Distrust of remote workers.

50 percent of those workers surveyed believed they already had sufficient technology to telecommute, and asserted that half of all meetings do not require face-to-face contact in any case.

Experts warn that corporations that resist remote working risk marginalizing themselves in the future, depriving their organization of the necessary flexibility and driving away prospective employees who are able to telecommute at other firms. They also say that office culture is the "the most difficult of all barriers to overcome, beyond technology or cost" in converting office workers into remote workers.

"Web 2.0, Remote Working are Good for Business and Environment" from Marketing VOX

Taxing The Globalizers

2007-06-14T10:20:00.000-04:00

According to The Wall Street Journal, some prominent globalization supporters have finally recognized the damage globalization has done to middle class wage earners and propose a solution. Instead of instituting protectionist policies that will inhibit free trade, the administration should raise taxes on "globalization's winners" - e.g., those professionals and business executives with annual household incomes of $200,000 or more - and lower taxes on less affluent wage earners. The new proposal, championed by such figures as former Bush economist Matthew Slaughter, political scientist Kenneth Scheve and ex-Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, would include such measures as eliminating Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes for those making $33,000 or less (half of all workers) and raising these taxes for the top earners. Although "taxing winners isn't without risk", as globalization enables individuals and, certainly, corporations to simply relocate to other countries, "using the tax code to slice the apple more evenly is far more palatable than trying to hold back globalization with policies that risk shrinking the economic apple."

"The Case for Taxing Globalization's Big Winners" from The Wall Street Journal

Are Voters Really Imbeciles?

2007-06-13T08:53:00.001-04:00

Here is an essentially critical review of a book called The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies, by conservative economist Bryan Caplan. Caplan contends that the majority of voters are economic ignoramuses who invariably vote for candidates who support foolish policies. Are we sometimes guided by something other than reason when it comes to economic policy? Maybe. A recent psychological experiment showed that the majority of subjects would pay a price to reduce the income of the rich even if their excess wealth was not redistributed elsewhere. The review interprets these results as evidence of an innate sense of fairness - but Caplan deplores any attack on wealth as "irrational". In fact, he sees any policy that taxes corporations, raises the minimum wage, or does anything to restrict globalization as similarly "irrational". Nonetheless, even among voters there are relative levels of irrationality. Better educated voters and those with higher incomes tend to be more rational, so we should welcome their participation at the polls. He all but suggests that the votes of business people and college graduates should be weighted more heavily than those of the masses, who think like children and have no idea what's good for them. If democracies obstruct, say, the dominance of free markets, then we would do well to suppress democracy and let the "invisible hand" guide us. To quote the review, "Given a choice between democracy without free markets or free markets without democracy, many conservatives would gladly choose the latter."

Caplan's position is hobbled by paradoxes. For one thing, if the masses are inherently irrational, how can we allow economists to dictate policy from above if the science of economics itself is founded on the notion that most people behave "rationally" within the marketplace? Are we really supposed to believe that the majority is consistently rational in venue, but not in another? The review also points out that Caplan's objection to having economic policy decided by the electorate "wouldn’t have made much sense 40 years ago." As the reviewer says, "The kinds of social democratic market interventions that Caplan holds in such low regard were prominent features of the post-war economies of the United States, Canada and Western Europe, which were some of the most productive and equitable in human history. Not only were the policies relatively effective, they were also largely popular with both the public and economists."

The most ridiculous paradox of all is that, for most of the last decade, voters have repeatedly elected candidates who actually have supported free markets, globalization, corporate tax breaks and the unbridled enrichment of business executives. None of this has benefited the masses who brought them into power - so perhaps Caplan is right. Voters are imbeciles - not because they don't know what's good for them, but because they have been hoodwinked into voting against their own interests by the very elite that Caplan applauds.

"Who’s Afraid of Democracy?" from In These Times

A Discussion Of Income Inequality

2007-06-12T11:17:00.001-04:00

Here are links to an article in The New York Times about income inequality and to a rejoinder to that same article from Barbara Ehrenreich in The Nation. To be fair, the Times article is ambivalent at best. It cites the familiar figures. Real income has increased only 2 percent for those in the lowest fifth in income, 11 percent for the next lowest fifth, 15 percent for the middle fifth, 23 percent for the second fifth from the top - and 63 percent for the top fifth. In 1979 the top percentile earned 9 percent of all income - now it earns 16 percent. These are numbers that no one can afford to ignore.

The author acknowledges that income inequality between the rich and the non-rich has widened dramatically since the 1970's. Indeed, it is greater than at any time since the 1920's. However, he implies that what we consider a historical norm - the relative economic equality among the classes - was, in fact, caused by a confluence of historical forces that occurred by chance. The Great Depression, World War Two and the strong unions of the postwar period had the combined effect of wiping out many existing fortunes, creating a trade imbalance in America's favor, thus "floating all boats" economically, and safeguarding the welfare of American workers, many of whom had helped create the new world order by winning the war. Executive salaries remained reasonable during this period, due to old notions of propriety as well as to the influence of unions, tax codes and other institutional checks on excessive compensation.

Despite the relative income equality of the 1970's, the author contends that the economy was far from healthy. He likens the economic stagnation of America in the 1970's to the welfare states of Western Europe, like that of Belgium, in which the poor have far more of a safety net than they do in the United States, but where the average net income is 72 percent of what it is here. The 1970's were a period of high unemployment and stock market depression. Corporate boards began to offer stock options and other incentives to executives to help enhance performance. Downsizing and restructuring were also applied to rejuvenate corporate bottom lines at the expense of workers. The corporations and the stock market both became more profitable. Even unemployment was reduced. But wages stagnated and the economic security of ordinary people suffered nonetheless. Although the author admits that corporations have gone too far in providing incentives to its executives, he still concludes that excessive compensation for those at the top is irrelevant if at least some of the overall prosperity reaches the masses, however disproportionately. He ignores the fact that surplus wealth has to come from somewhere, usually from the pockets of others.

He closes the article by suggesting that Americans return their focus to getting a college education, as the highest increases in income have gone to graduates of colleges and professional schools. Ironically, this brings us back to the beginning of the article, where the author cited the devaluation of a college education in the job market of the 1970's, during which the real income of white collar workers began to drop and many college graduates went unemployed. Some economists of that period had hoped that the economic value of white collar workers would rebound over time, when in fact it has continued to plummet. The spectre of this trend undermines his closing argument. True enough, those with more degress earn more, but even their share of the pie is getting smaller and smaller. The plight of most Americans is like that of movie characters trapped in a tower that is quickly filling with water. You may not be able to escape, but at least you can put off your demise for a while by climbing higher up the ladder. Unfortunately, life is not a movie and rescue is not assured.

Read the Times article, then read Barbara Ehrenreich's response, and decide for yourself whose insights are the most urgent.

"The Inequality Conundrum" from The New York Times Magazine
"The Trouble With The Super-Rich" from The Nation

"Maxed Out" Now Available In DVD

2007-06-11T11:50:00.000-04:00

James Scurlock's muckraking 2005 documentary on the credit industry - Maxed Out - is now available on DVD. The links below include several interviews with the auteur and a few brief reviews of the DVD. According to Mr. Scurlock, the modern American credit industry did not begin to achieve its current unscrupulous glory until 1978. "On the regulatory side, in 1978, you have the U.S. Supreme Court deciding that banks could export their interest rates. They used to have very effective usury laws, caps on what you could charge for interest, and in 1978 that was effectively obliterated. So, suddenly, credit card companies like Citibank in South Dakota could base themselves with no usury laws, no rates, no caps, and they could charge whatever interest rate in any state in the country that they wanted to. So that's when credit card lending became very profitable."

You, like me and the rest of the American people, are no doubt bombarded daily by credit card companies offering unheard lines of credit and telemarketers trying to sell you second mortgages at dinnertime. In a more ethical past, banks didn't loan money to just anybody - not because they were stingy, but because they believed it would be irresponsible to loan money to someone who could not pay them back. Hence, the loan approval process was far more stringent and resulted in fewer bankruptcies. Nowadays, all of us are offered Riches For Rent with a great big smile - and whopping interest rates to match. No one is immune. Not so long ago, I acquired a free credit report which gave me a score of 830 - 99.97th percentile - but just the month before last I sent in my credit card payment late and got socked with 18.75 percent interest on what I owed the next time around. I told my wife to keep my credit card bill in plain sight so I will be constantly reminded to pay the damn thing on time. The very envelope it comes in now has acquired the aura of a death warrant.

Scurlock's documentary recounts credit card nightmares infinitely worse than mine. A college student seduced into owning multiple credit cards who eventually killed himself when debt overwhelmed him, a woman whose $12,000 debt ballooned to $50,000 within a year without the accrual of a single additional charge. You may be next - and you won't be alone. 35 percent of all Americans, 54 percent of those earning $40,000 a year or less, and 70 percent of minorities admit to feeling financially insecure. Credit card fees have increased 1000 percent in the last decade, from $1.7 billion in 1996 to $18 billion last year. We are a nation with a negative savings rate, and only debt keeps us afloat. According to Scurlock, "Two out of three people can't pay their credit cards off each month. At the same time, last year we cashed $800 billion dollars out of home equity. Trillions of dollars in the last few years have been cashed out of people's homes and much of that went to paying off credit card bills. And the cycle continues." Debt has become such a large portion of the GNP that politicians - already besieged and manipulated by credit industry lobbyists - are unwilling to crack down on predatory lenders for fear that the entire economy will come crashing down. Meanwhile, churches that exalt Bush as a secular saint promise salvation to debtors - so long as they contribute to the collection plate.

"A Nation Running On Empty" from The American Prospect
"Maxed out, spent down and busted" from The Houston Chronicle
"DVD Select: Truth is scarier than fiction in 'Maxed Out'" from Bend Weekly (Oregon)
"Credit Cruncher" from MSNBC.com
"From the Mirage of a Middle-Class Life to the Slavery of Debt" from AlterNet
"Maxed Out (DVD)" from Amazon.com

Harassment Training Does Not Increase Lawsuits

2007-06-10T23:34:00.001-04:00

According to a survey of 243 white collar employees, sexual harassment awareness courses will not cause workers to file lawsuits with greater frequency. The survey participants were queried on how they would respond to sexual harassment. The four possible responses included confronting the employer verbally, filing a formal report, seeking legal counsel or quitting. After the survey participants provided their responses, an experimental group was enrolled in sexual harassment training, while a control group was not. When both groups were asked the same questions three months later, there was no difference in the proportion that said they would seek legal counsel. This should reassure corporations that they will not expose themselves to frivolous legal action if they provide their employees with sexual harassment training.

"Does Harassment Training Increase the Likelihood of Lawsuits?" from HR.BLR.com

Baby Boom Among The Cubicle Dwellers

2007-06-08T11:17:00.000-04:00

Here is a quasi-humorous article about a phenomenon that almost anyone who works in an office these days has observed - the ubiquity of pregnant woman in the workplace. The article has little to provide other than wry observation, but it does make the point that a preponderance of pregnancies can result in bonding among employees who might not otherwise interact. To me, the phenomenon underscores the fact that the white collar workplace is among the most diverse in human history, and that diversity alone ought to shield us against the dismissal and derision of those who see us as oppressors (e.g., Ward Churchill calling the office workers of the Twin Towers "little Eichmanns") as well as of those who see us as their inferiors (any number of journalists, academics, artists, high-level executives and professionals with advanced degrees). Once we acknowledge that the office has become a microcosm of humanity, and stop caricaturizing it as a narrow community of hopeless drones, the more respect we will have both in our own eyes and in the eyes of others.

"The Office: What to Expect When They’re Expecting" from Inc.com

The Technology Of Disrespect Advances To New Heights

2007-06-07T15:51:00.001-04:00

Instant messaging has given white collar workers a whole new way to dis the boss behind his back during business meetings and the like. Just send your buddy a "When will he ever shut up?" message on your Blackberry. It beats whispering. You can also do it remotely during vast phone conferences when the intended recipient of your sardonic observation is not even in the same room. Or even in the same state. If someone sees you clicking away, they'll assume you're just attempting to multi-task, and you'll come away looking like a workaholic do-bee when you're really an irreverent slacker. Ain't technology grand?

"TEXTING MAKES TALKING BEHIND BACKS AS EASY AS HITTING ‘SEND’" from The New York Post

Why Don't U.S. Workers Take Vacations?

2007-06-06T07:46:00.001-04:00

51 million American workers do not use all their vacation time. According to The Christian Science Monitor, "they're too busy, and they can't afford to travel." The average American worker gets only 15 days off - 9 paid vacation days and 6 paid holidays per year. In contrast, "by law, Europeans have the right to at least 20 days of paid time off per year. Some countries guarantee 25 or 30 days." It gets worse. 31 percent of workers earning less that $15 per hour, 12 percent of workers earning $15 per hour or more, and 25 percent of all workers get no paid time off at all.

Of those who do get paid vacation time, 45 percent did not use all their days in 2006. Nonetheless, 43 percent workers claim they want more paid vacation. And who can blame them? But would we take our vacation days even if we had more of them? Are we all workaholics - or is it something else? Experts claim workers forfeit vacation time to show their loyalty to the company - behavior that is frequently conditioned by peer pressure. "A lot of people give up vacation days because they see their boss or co-workers giving up their days," one expert claims. "This creates a vicious cycle in which no one wants to be the first to take all their days." Despite all this, "everyone wants the culture to change."

Some workers simply can't afford to travel, due to increased debt and the rising cost of gasoline. They take shorter vacations, or "simply stay home, taking what is called a 'staycation'." Some speculate that married couples who both work may have trouble synchronizing vacation time and often forego taking vacations altogether. Conversely, unmarried workers unburdened by the pressure to schedule family vacations - not to mention young workers still paying off their student loans - may choose to work instead. The percentage of all these groups is increasing in the workplace, driving down the number of American workers who are willing and able to take time off. Even 20 percent of those who actually plan vacations eventually have to cancel or postpone them.

Yet many consultants and academics see the advantages of taking a break. Families can benefit enormously from more time spent together. Vacations can even be good for business. According to labor economist Wallace Huffman, "Productivity could increase by up to 60 percent for employees in the month or two following a good vacation..."

"For US workers, a vacation deprivation" from The Christian Science Monitor

Foreign Film Comedy About Office Deception

2007-06-05T08:46:00.000-04:00

Here is a movie from Danish director Lars von Trier about a boss who disguises the fact that he is the boss to avoid the wrath of his colleagues, then hires an actor to play himself during a business crisis. It is called The Boss Of It All. For those of you who like foreign cinema, this might be fun. According to The Boston Globe, the movie "finds the common ground between business and acting -- panicky improvisation -- and wonders whether applause or an executive comp package is the greater reward." Methinks this is more a theatrical meditation about acting as imposture than about corporate dynamics. On second thought, the Globe may be right. CEOs often "pretend" to be CEOs, just the way politicians "pretend" to be presidential timber. In our post-modern world, we are often more concerned about the image we inhabit rather than what we actually do.

Why not hire an actor to play you better than you can play yourself? You would think, if money is the only object, that real-life CEO types would prefer anonymity and just take the money and run. The curious thing is that many bosses seek fame, even while indulging in behavior that brings them nothing but public disgrace. The trick is, I guess, to become famous among your own - those who "matter" - while remaining obscure to the masses. That's the way rich dudes use to do it, but that no longer suffices for most of them. It's not enough to be Conrad Hilton, they want to be Paris, too.

"For cubicle dwellers, a piercing comedy" from The Boston Globe
"Von Trier Goes To Work" from The New York Sun

The Monster Dragging The Middle Class Into Stagnation

2007-06-04T08:45:00.001-04:00

Two polemics from The Huffington Post assault the complacency of The Bushenomics Boys and the agenda behind middle class economic stagnation. They cite the credit economy for manufacturing money by putting the American middle class in debt, and show how inflation is controlled by suppressing wages while allowing prices to rise. The costs of living are "much higher" now than when Bush took office. Gas prices have doubled, education costs have risen 44 percent, health care premiums are skyrocketing and housing remains expensive and scarce. The rise in the "average income" of Americans is an illusion created by the vast expansion in the incomes of the wealthy. As the joke goes, the "average income" of everyone in the room rises 10,000 percent once Bill Gates walks into it. The median income has actually fallen. As wages fall, and prices rise, American consumers borrow more and more to make ends meet. This borrowing creates the mountain of IOU's - the "paper money" - that keeps the credit economy afloat, and the Bush administration controls inflation primarily because it benefits creditors to keep it low. It is not "the people" that our leaders care about, but the institutions to which "the people" owe money.

"The Mysteries of Bushenomics" from The Huffington Post
"Beware of Economists Defending Inequality" from The Huffington Post

Corporate Gypsies

2007-06-03T23:09:00.001-04:00

Here are the confessions of a "professional gypsy" who lost her contract at Northwest Airline just day before its CEO, the egregious Gary Wilson, rode out in triumph with a $2 million "gratitude gift for mishandling the airline's business so thoroughly." She reflects on the fact that when workers change their careers up to five times in their working lives, they often do so out of necessity rather than choice. She writes, "We have become a nation of professional gypsies. Reinventing ourselves twice and thrice, we are wastage to corporations that must answer to hungry stockholders. Boomers especially are being downsized constantly while trying hard to stay in their chosen professions. Even in high-demand fields - accounting, engineering, physical therapy - the agencies and institutions that hire them change shape in a flash. Entire departments disappear overnight."

The number of bad and overcompensated CEOs is "finite", she says, but the number of "professional gypsies is so high that we cannot count them, and they are commonplace enough to cause scarcely a ripple." These people, who in many cases gave "their hearts and minds to the system", no longer care about the rules. They have slipped away into a twilit world where traditional measures of prosperity and achievement have become unattainable. For all the sacrifice and scrupulous obedience of their previous lives, they "never knew that the rule book had been taken out behind the shiny new corporate headquarters - now empty and untenanted - and burned."

"The plight of the professional gypsy" from The Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune

Measuring Work Stress At The Office

2007-06-01T09:31:00.001-04:00

In a scenario reminiscent of Rick Moranis frantically checking his own blood pressure in Head Office, white collar workers now have the option of monitoring their stress levels in their cubicles. HeartMath LLC, based in Boulder Creek, California, has developed emWave PC Stress Relief System software, which "uses a finger or ear pulse monitor that plugs into the USB slot of a personal computer, and a corresponding software application that rates heart rhythms (biofeedback tools) to chart how stressed users are." At least 10,000 individuals in all walks of life, from executives to athletes, are currently using HeartMath software. Considering that employee stress costs corporations $300 billion in year in lost revenue, and that $310 million was spent in 2005 on "stress-related programs", there is clearly a market for any product that can chill out the corporate multitudes.

HeartMatch VP Howard Martin thinks its products will liberate American workers. "We developed a consumer-oriented heart rhythm feedback tool that took something powerful out of the hands of medicine and put it into the hands of people," he asserts. There is even a pocket version of HeartMath's feedback device "that users can carry around to periodically check their heart rate."

Another company, Logisense of Fort Collins, Colorado, has developed software that can monitor workers' stress levels without even requiring their cooperation. It obtains body temperature and sweat secretion levels from a sensor embedded in the subject's computer mouse, gathering data in a way that doesn't "interrupt people's workflow."

One expert suggests that such gadgetry naturally appeals to members of our "very detail-oriented society" in which "people are looking at numbers about themselves all the time," while another dismisses it as mere "faddishness."

Speaking for myself, this software has Orwellian overtones. I cannot help thinking that someday it might be used to control workers' moods, or to identify workers with, say, hypertension so that they can be culled out for the corporate equivalent of a medical discharge. Your employers should be allowed to learn only just so much about you. Go beyond that, and you put yourself at their mercy. There's something to be said for the adage, "Never let them see you sweat."

"Software ID's stress: Work pressure is big business" from The Berkshire Eagle

Office Mentoring More Valuable Than Ever

2007-05-31T07:04:00.001-04:00

The article at the link below was electronically "reprinted" from a Wharton Business School website, and offers a different perspective on how the world of rampant downsizing has affected the white collar zeitgeist. It - quite predictably - exalts the value of having a mentor and, also, of being a mentor. In passing, it laments the ruthless business changes of the last quarter century, which initially discouraged mentoring. After all, what good is it to nurture a protege if your employer will shortly let him or her go? Conversely, if you're a youngster on the make, why befriend an old hand who could be forced into early retirement at a moment's notice?

This article promotes mentoring precisely because downsizing has become so pervasive. It focuses on the networking value that derives from having - or being - a mentor. As a mentee, you will acquaint yourself with a person of influence - and, better yet, a person with connections - who may help you out when it's time to hunt for that new job. As a mentor, you will make friends with one or two of the young Turks who may remember you fondly enough to keep you employed when all else fails. I remember a case at Hewlett-Packard where a young IT division manager kept a man in his sixties who once mentored him employed as a contractor for years. Buddy up across generational lines. If it doesn't turn out that you have groomed a successor or an assistant, you might still have provided yourself with a lifeline to economic survival.

"Establishing relationship of mentor-mentee more important now than ever" from Delaware Online

Managers And Their Families

2007-05-30T09:40:00.000-04:00

Some managers attempt to bring the skills that keep them on top at the office into their homes, but that generally doesn't work. Family life is not the office, according to one CEO, who says, "the whole economic system shifts, from capitalism at work to communism at home." At home, everybody's happiness is at issue, not just the boss's. Although managers who succeed at the office might fail at home, the opposite is rarely true. Managers who know how to handle their own family often do better at the office than those who don't. At least one survey indicates that "employees rate their bosses with dependents more highly than they rate their bosses with none."

Although some sociologists believe that family members are fearful of "borrowed authority from the workplace" and may consciously resist it, others believe that running a family just takes an entirely different set of tactics - like empathy, charm, cooperation and, above all, love.

"How can you lead a staff but not a family?" from AZ Central (Arizona)

The Curse Of Cubicle Culture

2007-05-29T09:28:00.001-04:00

"Call it the curse of the cubicle culture," says the article at the link below. "The repetitive nature of typing, the constant pressure on the back from sitting, and the often awkward use of telephones are causing painful and debilitating injuries in today's higher-tech offices." Office workers are three to five times as likely to develop carpal tunnel syndrome, for instance, than others. The article describes a test cubicle dwellers can perform on themselves to see if they may be "candidates for surgery." The test involves pinching your nose with your index finger and your pinkie. Both fingers should have the same level of feeling as your nose. If your index finger is a tad numb, it's time to see a doctor. Otherwise you might lose pay - or your job. Workers with severe repetitive motion injuries can "miss 34 to 72 days of work" a year.

Headaches and back pain are also major workplace complaints. The article describes how to position your monitor and keyboard correctly, and advises taking breaks now and then to rest your back, your shoulders, your eyes and other essential body parts. See the link below for more detail, including concise ergonomic recipes for survival inside those ever perilous cubicles...

"Computer Injuries" from Proud.com (Central Illinois)

Book Review Of "The Disposable American"

2007-05-27T23:40:00.001-04:00

The New York Review of Books has published an excellent article about three books that shed grave doubts on the benefits of unbridled "managers' capitalism." These books include The Disposable American: Layoffs And Their Consequences, by Louis Uchitelle, The Great American Job Scam, by Greg LeRoy, and The Battle For The Soul Of Capitalism, by John C. Bogle. These books chart the development of the modern "'rootless corporation,' which defines success by financial measures alone, making it possible to 'save' a company by destroying much of what it was."

We learn that Louis Uchitelle's earlier book on the subject, The Downsizing Of America, a compilation of New York Times articles published in 1996 during the dot-com boom, was derided even by Uchitelle's fellow business reporters for its "downbeat" focus on the supposed past. The collapse of the dot-com boom and the arrival of another, even more withering round of layoffs makes his subject even more relevant than ever. Downsizing is now a standard operating procedure undertaken for short-term gains rather than as a last resort, and its popularity heralds a permanent change. Moreover, "the modern layoff is a hidden layoff", often disguised as early retirement or the switching of vendors from one "contractor" (i.e., temporary laborer) to another who costs less. Jack Welch was a major innovator in the brave new world of the "flexible workforce", a concept which has boosted corporate profits enormously but done almost nothing for ordinary Americans. According to Uchitelle, "Permanent disequilibrium... would be a more accurate picture of where we're headed."

Retraining programs, as such, provide little practical preparation for getting a new job - much less starting a new career. Many of these programs are intended simply to "defuse anger and lower expectations" and give the victims of layoffs propagandistic nonsense instead of practical advice. "What they receive, mostly, is airy wisdom about attitude, interpersonal relations, and the inner self; at least one classful gets free copies of the global best seller Who Moved My Cheese?, which warns those in economic distress not to be led into indignation or dismay by the overly complex human brain. Far better, the book suggests, to adopt the existential pragmatism of mice: No cheese in that corner? Check out this corner."

Corporate reliance on propaganda extends far beyond its human resources departments. Advertising fosters a pervasive culture of consumerism, and business-friendly academics and journalists extol the virtues of the "free market" economy - which, as the authors note, is simply "a euphemism for letting the private sector set its own rules." Lobbyists have always attempted to influence Congress on behalf of corporate interests, and continue to do so. But corporate agents also hoodwink state, county and local governments into giving their clients tax breaks ruinous to the local revenue base, often receiving in return a monolithic multinational presence that - as in the case of Wal-Mart - causes local businesses to fail or atrophy.

Read all this and more about these books and their message at the link below.

"The Spectre Haunting Your Office" from The New York Review Of Books

Corporate Hall Of Shame

2007-05-25T09:20:00.000-04:00

Here is a website where you can vote for "the most abusive, manipulative and harmful" corporations in America. The top nominees include the following, among whom you will no doubt recognize some of the usual suspects.

1) Coca Cola - for stealing water from thirsty people in India and harassing union activists in Colombia.

2) Exxon Mobil - for helping stall actions to save the planet from global warming.

3) Ford - for impeding improvements on auto emissions, and awarding its CEO $28 million (for four months work) while planning to downsize 30,000.

4) Halliburton - for under-delivering on its government contracts and attempting to evade U.S. taxes by setting up headquarters in Dubai.

5) Kimberly-Clark - for turning the oldest forests of America into toilet paper.

6) Merck - for keeping Vioxx on the market when they knew it caused heart attacks, and for trying to prevent Thailand from using generic AIDS drugs.

7) Nestle - for exploiting child labor in foreign lands, and for making Americans fatter than ever.

8) Wal-Mart - for underpaying its workers while destroying local businesses and condoning sexual discrimination.

"Corporate Hall of Shame 2007"

More On Desk Rage

2007-05-24T09:04:00.000-04:00

Here is a different perspective on desk rage. Whereas some journalists have characterized desk rage as a form of worker behavior that is unacceptable to management and must be suppressed, the article at the link below suggests that desk rage is tacitly condoned as a tool to intimidate employees. According to Gary Namie of the Workplace Bullying Institute, "Employers love desk rage... Most of these bullies have cultivated an executive sponsor ... they get to do this with impunity. The message is, 'Be aggressive. It will get you ahead.'" Corporate managers use desk rage as a terror tactic to increase productivity. Cracking the whip literally is illegal, but cracking it figuratively is not. Not surprisingly, this approach can backfire, producing "hostile work environments [that] lead to turnover, absenteeism and, in extreme cases, lawsuits."

Victims of abusive managers should stand up for themselves, at least to prove that they are not "weak" - but they need to be careful. The bully's own managers may be on his side, not yours. "We are a bullying nation. We not only tolerate that kind of aggression, we reward it with promotion and protection." Abuse can range from sarcastic remarks and teasing to threats of physical violence. In a survey of more than 500 workers, 55 percent said they have witnessed managers raising their voices in anger with an employee, while 17 percent have observed bosses behave in a physically threatening manner. Like desk rage among employees, desk rage among bosses can be attributed to "stress and the pressure to succeed."

The key fact about desk rage is that it occurs along a continuum in the corporate hierarchy - but is often praised as "toughness" at the top, while condemned as "immaturity" or "unprofessionalism" at the bottom.

"Angry at the office" from The Chicago Tribune

Satisfied Employees Aren't Necessarily Good Ones

2007-05-23T15:36:00.001-04:00

Some months ago, I reported on scientific research indicating that creative (and therefore productive) employees will tend to be moodier, and perhaps a tad more rebellious, than the placid worker bees that surround them. Here is another link that restates this finding from a different perspective. According to organizational behavior expert Nathan Bowling, "although job satisfaction and job performance do correlate", satisfaction does not enhance performance, nor does performance necessarily produce satisfaction. Both are outgrowths of the underlying personality of an employee, but one does not cause the other. Individuals affected by depression, anxiety, neurosis or pessimism are unlikely to be satisfied regardless how well they do their jobs. Conversely, an outgoing personality, high self-esteem and a positive outlook may generate satisfaction in individuals, but won't necessarily make them better workers.

The best workers are distinguished primarily by intelligence and conscientiousness. Since the level of worker satisfaction is grounded in one's innate personality, Bowling suggests that "workplace interventions designed to improve performance by exclusively targeting employee satisfaction are unlikely to be effective." In other words, employers should avoid blatantly manipulative propaganda and not-so-subtle coercion in the hope of turning the rank-and-file into smiling drones. Such exercises are utterly pointless. Besides, like anything that insults one's intelligence, these efforts would antagonize the smartest - and therefore the most effective - workers most of all.

Unforturnately, the flip side of these findings is that employers would feel no qualms about dissatisfying their employees in their efforts to get them to work harder. If dissatisfaction doesn't necessarily affect work performance, then who cares how your workers feel?

"Job satisfaction doesn't guarantee performance" from Seattle Post-Intelligencer

A Treasure Trove Of Anti-Corporate Screeds From The Nation

2007-05-22T14:31:00.000-04:00

Here is a veritable treasure trove of articles from The Nation that fall under the rubric "Corporate Accountability and Responsibility" - most of which I've not yet read myself actually, although I hope to soon. The topics covered include legislative control of executive compensation, corporate collusion with national surveillance programs, airline monopolies, public accountability for corporate crimes, the "fencing off" of the Internet, and much else. If you're not by nature a slavish and deluded sycophant of corporate leadership, and have an old-fashioned "pinko" (e.g., liberal) sensibility like yours truly, you will enjoy these articles. Read them even if all your heroes (thus far) are billionaires - they might enlighten you.

"Corporate Responsibility & Accountability" from The Nation

Office Meetings Increasingly Interrupted By Personal Electronics

2007-05-21T10:42:00.001-04:00

Here's the scoop from The New York Post - "The BlackBerry revolution has created a civil war in the nation's boardrooms - as a deep divide has opened up between those who want to chat away on their PDAs and those who want no distractions during meetings." And, unfortunately, they don't mean just boardrooms, if you get my drift, but hundreds of thousands of ordinary little conference rooms as well. According to Robert Half, 90 percent of professionals report that business meetings are commonly interrupted by someone whipping out his or her cellphone, pager, PDA, Blackberry, whatever you want to call 'em. 46 percent of those surveyed say emailing or text-messaging during a meeting is okay, while 31 percent decry it as a "breach of etiquette."

Here's some food for thought. They say that yammering away on a cellphone while driving (like that dude who tailgated me on I-95 this morning) degrades the highway skills of the average motorist. Is it possible that meetings regularly interrupted by personal electronics produce less effective results than those that are not? And, if so, what does that bode for the future of corporate decision-making?

"Office Workers' Berry Jam" from The New York Post

Mixed Signals About Older Workers

2007-05-20T23:21:00.000-04:00

Here is a study in ambivalence. One of the links below is an article from The Christian Science Monitor that asserts that, even though older workers may cost more - due primarily to the increased cost in medical benefits - they are worth more, too. They have a "work ethic", and many years of valuable experience. Plus, around 70 percent of older workers - defined as those over 50 - will either want or need to stay working after retirement age. The fact that the proportion of individuals of prime working age is expected to decline in coming years might, you think, make experienced and motivated older workers more attractive to employers. Unfortunately, that is not the case. According to a survey conducted by Manpower, only 18 percent of U.S. corporations have a "strategy for recruiting older workers."
The Monitor article nonetheless cites cases in which employers initially reluctant to take on "over 50" workers extol their talents in retrospect - as well as other cases, sadder ones no doubt, of experienced workers searching for work and getting the old "you're overqualified" excuse. Some of those quoted cast the aspirations of older workers in impossibly roseate terms. "We're right in the middle of an enormous transformation from an ethic that was focused on leisure to one that is focused on work," one author chimes in. "The old dream was the freedom from work – the liberation from labor. The new dream is freedom to work, on new terms." Well, maybe - but I think most retirees hankering for a position as a greeter at Walmart need the money more than the, ahem, "fulfillment." The tone of the article, although oh, so well-meaning, is actually rather fulsome - reminiscent, in its way, of the way "nice people" were thinking of certain minority group members in the very early days of the Civil Rights Era. This resemblance merely underscores how far we have to go to see value of any kind in anyone with graying hair.

The other link is to a no-nonsense report from a human resources rag, and it is all facts and figures. None of which look good. Although 18 percent of U.S. corporations have recruitment strategies for older workers, there are regional variations. The figure is highest in the South, at 22 percent, and lowest in the Northeast, at 15 percent. This difference is especially sobering when you consider how much more expensive it is to live in the Northeast than in the South, and also when you realize that the pay scale is lower in the South. The implication here is that, if you live in New York or Boston, you will need to retire to Florida to remain gainfully employed. Only 28 percent of American corporations have a "formal retention strategy" for older workers, while the comparable figures in Japan and Singapore are 83 percent and 53 percent, respectively. And, again, there are regional variations - with the West leading the way at 34 percent.

The factors that drive the demand - such as it is - for older workers include size of the labor pool, the demographic profile of the labor pool, the perception of labor shortages, and - tellingly - government programs to support and promote the employment of older workers. America's workforce is aging even as the demand for labor is expected to increase, but a survey of 400 U.S. employers indicates that most corporations remain "lukewarm" about hiring older workers. This reluctance is deeply ingrained. According to one analyst, "It appears that most employers worldwide are ignoring the demographic forecasts and evidence of growing talent shortages, and instead, still waiting to see it in their headlights before they begin to think differently about the older workforce." He adds, "By then, it could be too late to avoid the impact of large-scale retirements on the productivity and knowledge base of their company."

"'Age friendly' workplaces on the rise" from The Christian Science Monitor
"Employers Not Feeling the Love Toward Older Workers" from SHRMOnline (Society for Human Resource Management)

Pop Songs About White Collar Workers

2007-05-18T12:00:00.001-04:00

The article at the link below states that "the white-collar office may be the best friend the entertainment industry has," citing how cubicle workers tuned into their iPods and the Internet have boosted the consumption of popular music. And yet pop songs about us white collar folks are few and far between. In recent years, there have been "office sitcoms, office novels and office movies", but the office is yet to come up on the radar of popular music. According to Time magazine, "Rock music has never lacked for zillionaires to romanticize farmhands and factory workers. But what of the John Henrys plowing sweatily through PowerPoint presentations? White-collar employees, who make up 60% of the workforce, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, are largely absent from pop lyrics, except for novelty songs and minor works."

There are some exceptions, such as the New Jersey group, the Fountains of Wayne, "who are to accountants what Bruce Springsteen is to refinery workers," and Jonathan Coulton, whose "Code Monkey" celebrates (or bemoans) the misadventures of a computer programmer in love with a receptionist. With office jobs displacing the blue collar toil that once served as the backdrop for many classic songs, songs in office settings are bound to become more common in the future. For those of us who do such work, the office is just a part of life, not something that necessarily defines us or limits our humanity. Musicians and lyricists who sets songs in our world often inhabit it themselves, so they are, in effect, "writing about what they know." Some believe that songs "lashing out at the corporate world [don't] work as well in American pop culture because the corporate world co-opts rebellion so well," but songs about the perennial pursuit of love, respect and identity would surely strike a chord with millions. There's always a demand out there for songs with such universal themes. As Time says, "The most rebellious thing of all may be to suggest that white-collar workers can be complex, sympathetic, even noble. If this idea hasn't broken through in mainstream pop, there's a market for it on the Internet..."

"Officeworkers Need a Springsteen Too" from Time

It Can Happen Here

2007-05-17T10:23:00.000-04:00

Huey Long once said, "When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the American flag." Those words ring truer now than they ever did, what with the snooping and illegal incarceration activities of Homeland Security - indeed, the very name "Homeland Security" - and much else that is happening now in our troubled republic. According to the item at the link below, the American masses not might, but will rebel against the systematic destruction of their economic security by clamoring for a quasi-socialist government. Their efforts may either cause the current government to impose a fascist regime to protect itself from the rebels - or the rebels themselves will unwittingly bring into power a government with socialist pretensions that rapidly mutates into fascism. The author of the item invokes the economic chaos of post-World War One Germany as an analogue for modern America with its polarized society and its collapsing middle class. He claims that our nation has reached the end of the first phase on the road to fascism, and that we will reach that horrific destination soon, if not in our lifetime, then in the lifetimes of our children.

I've heard this sort of argument before - something like it has played out in my own mind many times - and I can't help but agree with it. Read it - not so much for itself, but for what it causes you to think about - and then tell me you aren't worried. It's not that it's even a particularly good editorial, it simply voices what all of us fear despite ourselves.

"Outsourcing Could Lead To Fascism In America" from OpEdNews

Absurd New Device Turns Office Treadmill Into Fitness Tool

2007-05-16T09:06:00.000-04:00

The Mayo Clinic, of all people, has developed a bizarre but innovative work station - or should we say "workout station" - that combines a computer, a keyboard and a treadmill. It can also be customized, providing "storage for personal items such as flower vase, cup holder, pen holder or paper tray" - in short, all the comforts of home! The thought is that workers who are able to walk along on the treadmill while doing their work at the computer could burn an extra 100 calories an hour. It is targeted towards obese American white collar workers whose numbers, as we know, are expanding. The machine's developers claim that "if obese individuals were to replace time spent sitting at the computer with walking computer time by two to three hours a day, and if other components of energy balance were constant, a weight loss of 20-30 kilograms per year could occur." The device could be installed in private homes as well to, say, allow video-gaming teenagers to slim down their butts while engaged in their favorite activities. The combination of computer and treadmill is intended to relieve the tedium of exercise. Unfortunately, installing such a device at the workplace might result only in compounding the tedium of exercise with that of ordinary workaday drudgery. The devices apparently cost nearly 2,000 U.S. dollars apiece. At those prices, it's not likely we'll be seeing cubicle workers on treadmills anytime soon.

"Get Slim On The Office Treadmill" from BBC News

Worst Times Of Day For Multi-Tasking

2007-05-15T08:03:00.000-04:00

Here is some bad news for early birds and/or for go-getters who like to pull all-nighters. Researchers in Germany tested measures of brain function among subjects subjected to 28 hours of "constant wakefulness". These functions included perception, motor ability, and cognitive decision making - all of which performed most poorly in the early hours of the morning. Slowed reaction time affected both perception - especially one's capacity to respond quickly to visual stimuli - and motor ability, including strength, dexterity and reflex speed. The researchers determined that the slower reaction time was ultimately caused by a decline in central processing speed, as indicated by tests of cognitive performance administered at various points during the experiment. These tests focused specifically on the ability of subjects to successfully complete multiple tasks at the same time.

Although cynics might conclude that your mental powers will naturally decline the longer you go without sleep, the researchers linked the declines to the circadian rhythm of the subjects, as measured by "salivary melatonin concentration and body temperature." Circadian rhythms affect human physiology depending on the time of day, whether or not the subject is asleep.

This research suggests that white collar workers who get up at, say, 5:00 AM to go to work should exercise caution during their commute and remain realistic about the limitations of their work performance until later in the day. Ditto for anyone burning the midnight oil. Such findings, if publicized, have the potential to put a damper on the overuse of "flextime" - not to mention on the hopes of those who like to start their workday at the crack of dawn. The benefits of beating the traffic by driving to work early might actually be offset by sleepiness and diminished reflexes.

"Multitasking Is Hardest In The Early Morning" from BrightSurf.com

Exercises For Cubicle Slaves

2007-05-14T11:08:00.001-04:00

Here is some, ahem, lame advice on how to exercise if all you do all day is sit around in your cubicle.

1) Take the long way on entering the building from the parking lot.

2) Take the stairs instead of the elevator.

3) Tighten your stomach for 10 seconds while at your desk, then repeat this exercise 15 times.

4) Raise a lightweight object toward the ceiling - like "the Statue of Liberty holding the torch", says the article at the link below, but a stapler or a "hefty paperweight" may suffice. Give the exercise 15 repetitions per arm, three times a day.

Hoooo-ahhh! Me, I remain skeptical of such paltry efforts, sadly recalling a line from William Gaddis' The Recognitions, in which he casts aspersions on the under-muscled bodies of the white collar middle class, as they are deprived of both the brawny labor of the working man and the active sporting life of the rich. I say, lift weights and hike mountains. We have been subjected to the disdain of other classes on this issue for countless generations, and it is certainly time for us to get buff.

"Get In Shape At The Office" from The Wall Street Journal

70% Of Chinese White Collars Overworked

2007-05-13T22:45:00.000-04:00

Globalization extends the benefits - and the disadvantages - of unbridled capitalism even to "communist" nations. According to a survey conducted by Beijing Normal University, 70 percent of Chinese white collar workers put in more than 10 hours a day. This has raised concerns that excess overtime will damage the health of these workers and shorten their lives. Although job stress was apparently a rare phenomenon among Chinese white collar workers just three years ago, millions are now complaining of overwork and lack of sleep. One female office worker at a "foreign-funded company" reported that she had not come home before 10:00 PM in the last three months. In a development that will strike a chord with millions of Americans as well, "most white-collar workers are stressed at the thought of losing their jobs or being able to 'survive' in the fierce employment market."

"Seven in ten Chinese white collar workers overworked, stressed: survey" from People's Daily Online
"Too much toil deprives us of health, humanity" from Shanghai Daily

Cracking Down On Desk Rage

2007-05-11T09:30:00.001-04:00

One of the links below defines desk rage as "when a cubicle-confined employee gets so frustrated, so stressed, that he or she (usually he) lets fly a few expletives aimed at a customer, colleague, boss or potted plant." Workplace issues reporter Anita Bruzzese claims that the workplace has become such a "pressure cooker" that the incidence of desk rage is increasing. So have the efforts of employers to crack down on desk rage, which they see as a dangerous harbinger of workplace violence. While employees were occasionally allowed to blow their stack in the past, nowadays "if you have an eruption at work, someone will go to human resources and you're going to be written up for it. You'll be labeled a ‘hothead,' and that will follow you throughout your career." It is most ironic, although entirely predictable, that corporations are cracking down more than ever on responses to the same stress that they are trying so hard to increase.

A survey conducted by a New York consulting firm found that 29 percent of workers admitted yelling at a co-worker. According to another survey conducted this March, 14 percent of workers report incidents of desk rage, 22 percent have been "driven to tears by stress", 16 percent report property damage caused by desk rage, 9 percent report physical violence at the workplace, and 10 percent believe their workplace may not be safe. However, this survey indicated that the incidence of desk rage has remained flat since 2000, although the incidence of "verbal abuse" at the workplace has actually decreased 45 percent. This decrease may be due to the increased willingness of workers to report instances of desk rage to management, although unfortunately this metric - call it "the fink factor" - was not quantified by either survey.

How can business reduce the incidence of desk rage itself? According to The Hartford Courant, "The solution is obvious. Cut back on the workload. Managers need to get off of their employees' backs." The tone of the rest of that particular article is semi-facetious, but that remark at least rings true.

"Workplace Stress Causes Desk Rage in 14% of American Workplaces, Says New Study" from PRWeb
"Hissy fits of old days now warn podmates of violence" from The Ithaca Journal
"It's All The Rage, And It Might Be Wise To Clue In Your Boss" from The Hartford Courant

Beware Of Messy Desks

2007-05-10T13:43:00.001-04:00

A British human resources magazine reports on a survey of "messy desks" among white collar workers at the link below. Here are some statistics:

1) 36 percent of UK workers are doobies with "organized, clutter-free desks" which they clean off several times a day to enable their rise "up the career ladder."

2) 34 percent are "casual" about their desks. They apparently don't mind keeping them clean, but don't put much of an effort into it either.

3) 21 percent see their desks as a "personal messy space" which serves as an expression of themselves. (One is reminded here of how animals urinate on trees to mark their territory.)

4) 7 percent allow themselves to amass those stereotypical piles of paper and other "stuff" that one sees in cartoons and cinematic depictions of messy desks. 61 percent of this subgroup also have "mouldy food" in their drawers, 38 percent have "faulty stationery" (whatever that is) lying about, and 14 percent "admit to having at least 20 documents on their desk that could be thrown away."

Messy desks can apparently hold you back in some cases, as 15 percent of managers said they would be reluctant to promote a worker who has one, while 50 percent say messy desks don't matter.

"Office Recruitment" from Recruiter Magazine (UK)

Scott Adams, Creator of Dilbert

2007-05-09T17:01:00.001-04:00

Scott Adams has been bringing us Dilbert since 1989 and is a major luminary of the cubicle world. The article at the link below caught up with Mr. Adams a month before turning the preeminently downsizable age of 50. At the time, he was in Orlando to address a human resources convention. When asked how he thought cubicle dwellers were feeling 15 years after the first corporate decimations of the early nineties, he said he thought "workers are happier than they were in the early '90s, but less happy than they were in their cubicles during the dot-com heyday." Then he added, "There's a limit to how happy you can be when you're working in a fabric-covered box."

Adams has suffered lately from an obscure condition called spasmodic dysphonia, which made him literally mute during much of 2005 and 2006. The condition has not prevented him from listening to others, and especially to the inanities of business people. He remarked on "the conversations he overhears between strangers trying to impress each other at business conventions and the like." "'Everywhere you go," he said, "somebody's trying to be official." Although Dilbert has freed him from office toil, Adams - who holds an M.B.A. from Berkeley - still endeavors to enlighten managers on the ways of cubicle dwellers, maintaining a busy schedule on the lecture circuit.

Adams revealed that Dilbert has a real life model who, he believes, remains unaware of his role as a source of inspiration. He also cited the worst management idea he ever encountered - a proposal to offer hefty severance pay, "a pile of cash" as it were, to the worst 10 percent in the company's workforce, thus giving everyone the incentive to underperform enough to make, ahem, the "cut"...

"The Force of Dilbert" from St. Petersburg Times

Big Bad Blue

2007-05-08T16:43:00.000-04:00

Here is a brief but scathingly comprehensive article criticizing IBM's latest downsizing push - dubbed "Project Lean". The article came from a website run by American residents and citizens of Indian descent whom you might hastily imagine are sympathetic to outsourcing. But think again. Indians, whether they work in America or in India, are workers too - and as such are as vulnerable to layoffs and downsizing as the rest of us.

IBM has laid off 13,000 workers so far this month, and may soon be laying off at the very least another 100,000 - including around half of its U.S.-based Global Services division, or about 150,000 employees. Many of those earmarked to become "dumpies" - the latest argot for "downwardly mobile professionals" - are experienced middle managers and technical professionals, the sort who do a lot of the actual work at places like IBM. IBM also intends to shoot itself in the other foot by cutting off customers who are not sufficiently profitable, eschewing long contracts for short ones with quick payoffs. In other words, IBM will apparently be downsizing customers as well as employees. Moreover, in their impatience to make a profit, IBM executives are "losing touch with reality, bidding contracts too low to make a profit then mismanaging them in an attempt to make a profit anyway, often to the detriment of IBM customers."

It is not that IBM is suffering. Not yet at least. It is financially healthy, with revenue exceeding $91 billion in 2006. It wants only to be more so, at the expense of almost everything else. The author of the article reminds us of a study showing that executive compensation at corporations that had engaged in layoffs within the previous year was 22.8 percent higher than that at corporations of comparable size that had not. That says volumes about where the money saved from downsizing is actually going.

In the meantime, IBM may "eliminate much of [its] traditional wisdom and corporate memory" and expose itself to logistical malfunction due to the loss of skilled personnel. That, predicts the article, could even further alienate its customer base and send this "fat and mean" corporation into a death spiral.

"Fat And Mean - IBM's Layoff Plans and the New Downsizing" from Desicritics.org

More On Email Addiction

2007-05-07T14:28:00.001-04:00

I've linked to articles about email issues before - including email addiction - and here is another one. It's worth chuckling about and shaking one's head over, as it does contain some inarguable truths. Email makes us feel important. Yes, indeed - it certainly does. It also makes you look important. My wife, who shared my email account for a while, used to boast to friends about the volume of emails I was receiving - until I admitted sheepishly that I was on the mailing lists of a couple of message boards, and got CC'ed on everything anyone said to anyone else. Much as we may dislike email for dragging us into "work mode" while we're on vacation, we may still check our email when we're out of town anyway - just to stay in touch with our social network. When my wife and I were in Scotland three years ago, I ran down to the hotel lobby every night and chucked pound after pound into a coin-operated web connection just to see what the news was from home - or, rather, from my cyber-home, as many of my correspondents were actually in the UK. (Not that I would ever visit them in person, of course...)

One writer calls email a "silent corporate cancer" that eats away time. According to behavioral scientists, it takes the human mind about 4 minutes to recover from an interruption. If you're at work, and you check (let alone respond to) emails 30 times a day, that's 120 minutes lost to the limbo of interrupted focus. The same author suggests cleaning out your inbox every time you're in there. Um-hmm. As Slate says, emptying your inbox is "like hacking off a limb." Some indulge in the perfunctory effort of deleting a few choice emails out of their inboxes every now and then, an ineffectual sort of pruning referred to as "e-noodling." I plead guilty here.

How else to get rid of email? Having a secretary handle the email is one way - if you have a secretary. But we're not bosses here, are we, folks? Another way is to declare "e-mail bankrupcy", which is when you email all your correspondents, telling them not to expect responses from any previous emails, and to start fresh, as if you've never corresponded with them before. Now bankruptcy is a concept American workers are familiar with...

"The Email Addict" from Slate

Bad Commutes Stall American Workers

2007-05-04T10:10:00.001-04:00

Neocons love the population explosion because it provides a ready supply of both eager consumers and cheap labor. The huge number of consumers keeps the demand for goods high, and the equally huge number of workers keeps the demand for jobs high as well. This enables the world's mega-corporations to keep wages low and raise the prices on their products as they see fit, thus generating a form of "stealth inflation" which never gets labeled as "inflation" by the Fed, but looks and smells like inflation to the little guy anyway. Swarming masses are a tycoon's ticket to billions.

Unfortunately, the population explosion also worsens our daily commute, so the tycoons ought to telecommute if they know what's good for them. According to US News & World Report, "The issue [of commuting] mainly boils down to population growth outpacing road building. America has about 70 million more people than it did a quarter century ago, but highway miles have increased by a little more than 5 percent..." By 2050, demand for daily ground transportation will increase 150 percent while "highway capacity is projected to increase by only 10 percent..."

Not only is congestion heavier even if you commute the same distance you did ten years ago. More people than ever have longer commutes. The number of people who travel 90 minutes to work every day - a group called "extreme commuters" - has increased 95 percent since 1990. That only compounds the problem.

Longer and more congested commutes worsen the health of commuters. Traffic jams induce stress "comparable to that felt by first-time parachutists" and double the risk of a heart attack. Incessant heavy traffic discourages people from doing anything but going to work, diminishing their access to cultural events and community activities. It makes them creatures too exhausted to do anything but hump it for the boss. This Treadmill Redux sets the pace for the 21st century.

Some proposals for improvement either favor the affluent or provide yet more opportunities for tycoons to make billions. Variable fee lanes - often called "Lexus lanes" - in which the benefits of a sparser traffic are available for a price, attract the patronage of the wealthy. The spectre of private toll roads providing similar services is also looms in our future. However, as the AAA notes, private toll roads often impede the expansion of the infrastructure by extracting non-competition agreements from the government. In other words, the existence of a private toll road from A to Z may legally inhibit the creation of a toll-free road along a parallel route.

For this and more info about America's growing traffic problem, go to the link below.

"Road Warriors" from US News & World Report

Going Their Separate Ways...

2007-05-03T14:37:00.001-04:00

Here is something short and sweet (or sour, as the case may be) from Robert Reich. He quite succinctly identifies the reasons why the stock market is booming at the same time that the American economy is growing "at its weakest pace in four years." One, the world economy is no longer dependent on our economy, allowing China, India, Japan and Europe to go gang-busters while we languish. Two, the fortunes of American corporations have been similarly decoupled from the fortunes of the majority of the American people. Even when the performance of American companies falters domestically, they are sufficiently capitalized overseas to participate in the foreign economic boom. Corporate tax cuts feed this foreign capitalization, and the people of other countries benefit rather than our own.

"Double Decoupling" from The American Prospect

Will The Internet Be The Great Leveler?

2007-05-02T15:30:00.000-04:00

Here is a review of a book called Inequality.com: Power, Poverty and The Digital Divide. The book addresses the question of whether the mass presence of millions of people on the Internet will eventually create a more democratic society. It doesn't just look at the Internet either, but at the greatly expanded use of other devices, such as cellphones, iPods, etc. It also considers the negative and superficial effects of this technology. For instance, it suggests that our dependence on it as a medium for much of our behavior may enable a dystopian version of Marshall McLuhan's "global village", in which everyone knows what everyone else is doing - or at least the government and the corporations do, through the agency of digital surveillance. (Anyone familiar with the Bush administration knows this is already happening.) It levels other critiques at the supposed freedom of the Internet, citing the control that corporations like Google have over which websites are seen, and which are not. It also suggests that there is a "bread and circuses" element to the Internet, in which frivolous and superficial content crowd out the worthy and the profound.

Nonetheless, it does see the potential of the Internet to give citizens not only a greater say in the political process, but fuller and more expedient access to information and government services. However, even in the realms of the Internet devoted to politics and social change, a kind of Gresham's Law can apply, where divisiveness and anger overwhelm worthier attitudes and emotions, and consensus is sacrificed for the spectacle of pigheaded opponents haranguing each other in the vast arena of cyberspace. (That is already the norm in, say, talk radio.)

The review is not especially easy to read, but the book itself sounds provocatively ambivalent and could be worth a look.

"Will the digital age bring equality?" from the Time Literary Supplement

Idol Chatter At The Office

2007-05-01T09:32:00.001-04:00

37 percent of American workers say American Idol is the most popular TV show at the office, according to a recent survey of 2,792 "employed adults". 21 percent admit to chattering about the show on company time, and 10 percent fess up to "debating about the contestants." Women are more likely to discuss TV shows at work - or at least to admit it - 27 percent versus a figure of 15 percent among men. (Unless the species has changed dramatically in recent years, most men still prefer to discuss sports more than anything else.)

Some workers appear to think that prattling about TV shows is "good for business". Around 44 percent believe the discussions promote "camaraderie" at the workplace, with the percentage rising to 54 percent among the cohorts aged 18-24 and 30-39. Only 6 percent of workers admit to discussing "The Office" at the office, which may suit their managers just as well. Who wants to hear about a show that mirrors the sad reality of one's life, as opposed to one - like American Idol - that provides the fantasy of deliverance from obscurity.

"Is 'American Idol' Good for Business?" from Inc.com

America's Funniest CEO Perks

2007-04-30T13:40:00.001-04:00

Inflated salaries that make the hot air balloons of billionaire hobbyists look like pimples are scarcely the only compensation CEOs get these days. One must consider their perks as well. And, my goodness, how they percolate up through the ground of their misbegotten corporations like gushers of oil.

The article at the link below considers several categories of perks:

1) Booze - Wine and tobacco giant UST Inc. awards $200,000 pay packages and $5,000 wine allowances to its "independent" (read "part-time") directors. $5,000 is enough to pay my way through two bottles of Talisker a week. The CEO himself gets a $6,500 booze package, in addition to $6 million in salary. Anheuser-Busch offers "unlimited free beer" to its top execs, who already earn between $2.5 and $10 million in salary. Change enough to finance more than the occasional foray to the local packie, don't you think? I wouldn't be surprised if these glorified moonshiners offered their top drunks free liver transplants as well, the organs extracted on demand from downsized employees.

2) Air Travel - In these days of global warming, during which Eco-puritans are shaking their fingers at Mom and Pop Vacationer for taking that once-in-a-quarter-century jaunt to Europe, some CEOs spend enough time on company jets to cover the earth with their golden contrails. The CEO of i2 Technologies racked up $942,000 in private travel costs, in addition to $5.7 million in other compensation. The CEO of United Technologies spent $612,000 of the company's money "for his personal use of the company jet", in addition to $27 million in overall pay. The finance czar of Time Warner commutes from Atlanta to New York City via the company jet at a cost of $512,000, even though he makes $9 million a year and could well afford his own pied-a-terre in The Big Apple. The CEO of American Express never gets a chance to use his bonus points to fly, as the company foots the bill at $405,000 a year, in addition to a whopping $29.1 million in "regular" pay. He's flying first class at your expense, on the back of your credit card finance charges.

3) Living Expenses - Corporations who grant "housing allowances" to massively well-paid personnel include Carnival (of Carnival Cruises), which pays $142,000 a year to shack up a chairman who's already raking in $3.1 million, and Bluefly, which forks over $4,000 a month to help put up an indigent CEO who only makes $6.1 million a year. Why should your company pay for your housing expenses when you're already rich enough to afford a castle on every continent?

Check out all these perks and more at MSN.com.

"The Worst CEO Perks" from MSN.com

More On The "Say On Pay" Bill

2007-04-29T23:27:00.001-04:00

The CEO makes more money on January 1st than most of us make the entire year, asserts The Christian Science Monitor. Here is another article about the recent move by Rep. Barney Frank and the House Financial Services Committee to impose restrictions on executive pay. Rep. Frank hopes the new measures will retard [the] rate of growth... substantially" for executive pay. Rep. Frank also claims that there is no correlation between CEO pay and CEO performance. According to Harvard Law School professor Lucian Bebchuk, who testified before the committee, excessive executive pay is not merely unjust - it can have severe "macroeconomic consequences" and the revolt against it is "not merely symbolic but rather of practical significance."

Skeptics of the effectiveness of these measures may note that, since the United Kingdom passed a "say on pay" bill in 2003, it has had "a real impact on executive compensation in the island nation."

“Congress pecks away at CEO pay” from The Christian Science Monitor

White Collar Pratfalls

2007-04-27T15:22:00.000-04:00

Here is our offering for Casual Friday - which is based on some amusingly lame advice on how to handle embarrassing mistakes at the workplace. The various scenarios appear below, with my comments and annotations:

1) You're making a presentation and you find out you misspelled something. MSN.com suggests that you confess your mistake. That's if they notice. I see ludicrous misspellings on the TV news all the time. Somehow they made it through the editors and ended up on the screen anyway. If CNN can screw up, so can you. In fact, if you are caught in a misspelling, just shrug and tell the assembled that you were a copy editor for Ted Turner in a former life.

2) You're in some hoity-toity meeting with a lot of super-self-serious executives, and your stomach grumbles. MSN.com suggests you make a remark about going for lunch after the meeting. I say you ought to announce, "What can I say? I have fire in my belly." Who knows? It might net you a promotion. If the sounds you make with your digestive organs fall into an even more embarrassing category (e.g., the whining of one's bowels), you won't need to say anything, because there will always be some boss somewhere crass and cruel enough to say something for you. Allow them to do so. Even blush. It will mark you temporarily as a victim and may earn you a flicker of empathy from your colleagues, unconsiously or not. You shouldn't have to apologize just for being an animal anyway, even in a corporate boardroom.

3) You email a friend or colleague a "raunchy email", and it accidentally gets forwarded to some unintended recipients. MSN.com at first suggests "Assign blame" - then inexplicably back-pedals from that and says you should apologize. I don't send raunchy emails to people, but I could conceivably be caught with anti-corporate propaganda. In that case, I would lie (see yesterday's post) - not grovel.

4) You dis the boss and he hears your remarks. MSN.com says, "Start a dialogue." If you have that much chutzpah, you should be the boss. I say pretend it never happened. Many bosses are just this side of clinical paranoia to begin with, so if you make like the poor doofus has been hearing things, he might think so, too.

5) You dis some grand poobah just after you've been on a phone conference with him, and you assumed - incorrectly, as it turns out - that he'd hung up. MSN.com essentially suggests, once again, that you should start a dialogue. I say you should immediately edit your remark in midstream to make it seem that you meant it in reference to somebody else - like, say, Jack or Michelle.

The five scenarios above fall into two categories. First, there is the crime of Human Imperfection, as represented by numbers 1 and 2. Second, there is the crime of Honesty, as represented by numbers 3, 4 and 5. Our humanity and our honesty are the two traits most likely to alienate the corporate system, so the message here is that you should suppress them whenever possible - or cravenly excuse them away once they raise their ugly heads.

"Five Embarrassing Work Gaffes" from MSN.com

The Corporate Value Of Untruthiness

2007-04-26T09:42:00.001-04:00

The focus of the article below is not only on how much you have to lie to get ahead, but also on how much you may need to schmooze. David Shulman, author of From Hire To Liar: The Role of Deception in The Workplace, tells us "Everyone lies on the job. From the secretary on up to the highest executive, lying and deceiving is absolutely necessary to get your work done." He contends that deception is not "automatically counter-productive" and that it may even enhance productivity. The main point of lying is to put an upbeat face on everything you connected with. Shulman advises new hires to pretend that they learn more quickly than they really do, and never to ask a question even when the boss says, "Does anyone have any questions?" The pretense of having grasped the issue at hand will not only make you look good - it'll make your boss feel like a Master Explainer. Always present the status of any ongoing project in an optimistic light, and eschew the details.

If you need to ask questions of somebody - and you will - ask them of a colleague, but make sure to butter up that colleague so that he or she won't dis you to the boss. Or get defensive. "Blatantly kiss his ass," Shulman urges. Manipulate more experienced colleagues into doing the actual project for you (more or less) under the guise of simply teaching you the ropes. If anything goes wrong, pin the blame on the office scapegoat.

Shulman, a sociology professor at Lafayette College, apparently wrote this book to, ahem, "shine a light" on the value of untruthiness in any corporate career. As he says, "Everyday stuff like kissing up, taking too much credit, inventing problems just to create the impression that you're indispensable - these aren't big white-collar crimes. These are how people get ahead."

"LYING IS AN ESSENTIAL WORKPLACE SKILL, SAYS PROF" from The New York Post

Cutting Off Your Nose To Spite Your Face

2007-04-25T10:23:00.000-04:00

Not so long ago, there was a truism among corporate leaders that the stock price of a company rises seven percent after a major layoff. Without fail. They may now be starting to learn that this truism is, after all, only a truism. Both Circuit City and Citigroup tried to rally their falling stock prices with recent layoffs, but without success. Circuit City's stock price fell four percent after it downsized "thirty-four hundred of its most experienced sales associates" and Citigroup's stock price remained stagnant after a decimation that cost 17,000 jobs.

According to The New Yorker, "This may have surprised the executives who had planned the cutbacks, but it shouldn’t have. Over the past decade, many academics have looked at how layoffs affect stock prices, and they’ve found that the seven-per-cent rule is bunk. Instead of rising sharply, the stock of companies that trim their workforces is likely to fall. A recent meta-study that surveyed research from several countries, covering thousands of layoff announcements, concluded that, on average, markets had 'a significantly negative' reaction to job cuts. Individual companies, of course, sometimes see stock prices jump after layoff news, but there’s no evidence that downsizing is a guaranteed hit with investors."

Sometimes CEOs forget that the people who work for them are anything but overhead. These people manufacture and distribute their products, deal with customers and vendors - they even crunch the numbers their bosses use to justify their own dismissal. The stock market has gotten wise to the fact that downsizing can just as easily damage the infrastructure of a corporation as save costs. Layoffs typically render short term gains at the expense of long term organizational health, often destroying worker morale and the capital of human experience required to keep the corporate machine running smoothly. The real benefits of owning stocks come from owning them for the long haul, over which they will tend to rise, slowly but surely - but that won't happen if short term gains compromise their future viability.

One study "looked at more than three hundred firms that downsized in the nineteen-eighties and found that three years after the layoffs the companies’ returns on assets, costs, and profit margins had not improved." Why do CEOs still fall back on downsizing? The New Yorker suggests that they do it for the same reason that folks play Powerball, or flock to Hollywood to become movie stars. They are swayed by the publicity surrounding exceptional cases where downsizing has worked wonders, ignoring the hundreds of cases where layoffs had no positive effect at all. Every CEO believes deep down that he can be the next Jack Welch as deludedly as any tone-deaf wannabe imagines he will be discovered on American Idol. Even if they know that the gains layoffs provide are strictly temporary, the average tenure of a CEO is just six years - so they are compelled to get results fast, and the bad effects of their rash decisions won't materialize until long after they have made their bundle and walked out the door. Finally, the reliance of downsizing boils down to simple conformity - a craven and unimaginative tactic to keep up with the Joneses in the office tower across the street.

If a CEO does wish to leave a long term legacy he can be proud of, downsizing is like cutting off his nose to spite his face. He will end up like Ozymandias, boasting, "Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!" - when all he ever presided over has been reduced to dust.

"It's The Workforce, Stupid!" from The New Yorker

How To Build A Better Email

2007-04-24T13:10:00.000-04:00

Professionals editors Will Schwalbe and David Shipley have published an email etiquette book entitled Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home. This is a much needed resource, long in coming.

Here are some typical do's and don'ts:

1) Never send a message in all caps. Email naifs (such as myself, once upon a time) may assume capital letters make a message more readable, but to others all caps is the email equivalent of screaming.

2) Mimic the style and tone of your boss's emails when you send your reply. If anything, make them more formal (and, of course, better written). Avoid vernacular phrases and familiar forms of address (such as "Old Buddy" or "How's It Hangin'?").

3) Use precision. Vagueness will perplex your colleagues, annoy your superiors, and terrify your subordinates.

4) Remember that emails are not an impermanent form of communication. We have the technology to store them forever, so behave accordingly.

5) Remember also that emails are devoid of the context of tone of voice, body language or face-to-face contact. Here is another reason for being clear and precise. Good writing can make up for the lack of affect that plagues email communication.

6) Don't be afraid to use emoticons - especially friendly or smiley-face emoticons that may prevent your emails from inadvertently appearing antagonistic. (That's their suggestion, not mine. Emoticons strike me as way too cutesy for use on a regular basis.)

7) Watch your diction. Try to be merely cordial. According to the authors, using the word "please" may seem very proper, but ultimately it conveys petulance and sarcasm.

8) Don't try to canvass the opinions of your team or attempt to reach a consensus using email, as this may inaugurate a voluminous exchange that goes on forever. Call a meeting instead.

9) Use increasingly brief replies - such as "Great" or "Agreed" - to signal the natural end of an email exchange that otherwise might needlessly drag on.

10) If you don't need a reply from the recipients of your email, let them know explicitly.

11) To quote Eliot Spitzer, governor of New York, "Never talk when you can nod. And never write when you can talk. Never put it in an email."

"WRITING THE BOOK ON HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR E-MAILING" from The New York Post
"Does your e-mail make you sad?" from Canada.com

Guidelines For The Laid-Off

2007-04-23T07:40:00.000-04:00

The Bureau of Labor Statistics says mass layoffs - defined as "the elimination of 50 or more jobs in one move" - are increasing. The number of people filing for unemployment in the wake of mass layoffs went up 14 percent in February. The brutal rat-a-tat-tat of Bushonomic life-destruction continues apace, as ever.

Here are a few guidelines about what you should do when the ax falls.

1) Ask for severance pay - but don't expect it. Only a third of American corporations, in a survey of about one thousand firms conducted in 2005, offer severance pay. The general level of such, ahem, "exit compensation" is about a week's pay for each year of service. CEOs, no matter how spankingly new or stunningly inept, get golden parachutes. You're lucky if you get a wet hankie.

2) Apply for unemployment benefits. Temp workers and contractors, this means you too if you work on a W2. Always inquire to see if you are eligible.

3) "Pare back discretionary spending" - i.e., give up shopping for sport and forego that Starbucks mochaccino if you can. Don't cut back on necessities. Not yet at least. Come to think of it, unemployment may give you time to figure out just what your necessities are.

4) Take a few days off. This seems like redundant advice to me, as you have already taken a few days off if you just got laid off. Few of us find a new job that quickly after all.

5) Spruce up the resume. You will at least be adding an end date to your latest assignment.

6) Extend your tentacles to your contacts and start squeezing leads out of them.

"A working strategy for the laid-off" from The Sante Fe New Mexican

White Collar Workers More Likely To Be Depressed

2007-04-22T14:43:00.001-04:00

A survey of 17,000 Australians found that nearly 10 percent of white collar professionals "reported moderate to severe depressive symptoms" - as opposed to 6.3 percent of the general population. Lawyers were the most depressed, with a rate of 16 percent. Accountants and insurance underwriters had a rate of 10 percent, and IT workers, engineers and architects also had high rates. So did students. Those who were both depressed and under 30 were the most likely to "'self-medicate' with drugs and alcohol."

It is perhaps telling that both students and white collar professionals have high rates of depression, as both groups are compelled to place high expectations on themselves which they cannot always meet. The effect of high expectations is compounded by work pressures imposed by employers. The legal profession is particularly bad in that respect, and the authors of the survey construe the average age of pregnancy among female lawyers in Australia - 39 - as evidence of the "all-or-nothing pressure" placed on those in the field.

"White collar workers 'more depressed'" from Nine MSN (Australia)

Some Tips For Cubicle Decoration

2007-04-20T14:45:00.001-04:00

According to the little item at the link below, "The office cubicle can be a window to an employee's personality." But, with cubicle decoration, as with, say, the consumption of alcohol, moderation is the key. Here are some of the rules from the article, paraphrased and annotated by yours truly.

1) Postcards are okay as they suggest that you have "a life outside of work." Not too many though. After all, you don't want people to think you have too much of "a life outside of work." They should also be sent to you from someone else. (In other words, it is okay, perhaps even better, if you just know someone who has "a life outside of work" - it doesn't have to be you.) The postcards themselves should not reveal too much "personal detail", and you would be prudent to restrict them to the visual muzak of landscape photography.

2) Photos of friends, family and pets are super-okay! The cuter the better. However, if the dweeb in the next cube has photos of relatives and pets that strike you as so, ahem, "cute" that they look like something that fell off The Ugly Tree, please keep that opinion to yourself.

3) Your cubicle is not the bedroom you had as a teenager. No pictures or posters of rock stars, action heroes, sex goddesses or the like. No famous people... (However, what if you want to put up a big brother-like head shot of your billionaire boss? Should that be restricted as well? Please advise.)

4) The rule of thumb for screensavers appears to combine elements for the rules on postcards and those banning pictures of celebrities. Screensavers should ideally fall in the same category as the bland "landscape photography" visual muzak that you will find in the "My Pictures" folder on your desktop. You know the images I mean - the ones that come with the machine. There should be no images of anything that would evoke an extreme (or even a mildly visceral) response - nothing sexual or violent or otherwise depraved. If you don't like landscapes, upload some family photos, and that should do the trick just as well. You want to emphasize that you are first and foremost a "people person" of the most innocently tasteful and non-confrontational variety. It must seem as if you made the leap from child to parent without ever experiencing the upheaval of adolescence or the scuzzy experimentation of early adulthood.

5) Plants are all right, so long as they neatly circumscribed, like a bonsai tree - the perfect decorative analogue of a cubicle dweller's stunted life.

"casual friday the cubicle MAKE STATEMENT(THE RIGHT KIND)" from The Free Lance-Star (Fredericksburg, MD)

Corporate Insider Slams Globalization

2007-04-19T10:17:00.000-04:00

A former Senior VP at IBM, Ralph Gomory, has been tentatively hailed as a possible Martin Luther in The Church of Free Trade. During his tenure at IBM, he watched formerly backward nations like Singapore vault their way to international prominence by doing low-level factory work for U.S. companies first, then gradually invading and taking over more high tech domains. The experience caused him to doubt whether or not unrestrained free trade was in the best interest of his homeland. With economist William Baumol, he published a book in 2000 entitled Global Trade And Conflicting National Interests. After receiving little attention for years, this book and its ideas have become a topic of discussion among politicians and executives.

Gomory contends that to outsource manufacturing to developing nations to take advantage of cheap labor will ultimately provide a springboard from which such nations can rapidly evolve more sophisticated economies that will compete directly with the most advanced industries in the United States. So long as labor remains relatively less expensive in those nations, U.S. corporations will continue to outsource the development of products that require increasingly more complex skill sets. In the beginning, the influx of goods manufactured more cheaply overseas will generate wealth for American corporations, and provide more diverse and affordable products for American consumers. But eventually, when all products and services can be provided more cheaply - and of comparable quality - overseas, the commercial power of the United States will decline both domestically and internationally. What is worse is that the price of imported goods and services will inevitably increase at a time when both the earning power of Americans and the level of their own skills are falling, putting the nation in a double bind. According to Gomory, the end stages of this process are happening now.

Gomory emphasizes not only that action needs to be taken promptly, but that such action must be orchestrated on multiple fronts. Imposing changes to the tax code that penalize corporations for outsourcing will only force corporations to transfer their headquarters overseas. Tax penalties on outsourcing must be combined with restrictions on imports that will, in effect, penalize American corporations if they attempt to shield the profits of outsourcing from higher taxes by hiding themselves behind the cloak of foreign ownership.

These ideas may be as hard for some to take as the concept of global warming was, say, five years ago. They also fly in the face of both global ethics and corporate expedience. Many might say that for poor nations to grow richer while the United States grows poorer is cosmic justice. Maybe so, but it is not in the best interest of the United States, and that means you and me. Corporations will say that they have a mandate to earn the highest profit possible at any cost. And that, as it turns out, is not in the best interest of either the United States or cosmic justice.

"The Establishment Rethinks Globalization" from The Nation

Wage Insurance Is Just A Bandaid

2007-04-18T12:36:00.000-04:00

The American Prospect offers some pertinent criticism of the $3.5 billion wage insurance bill that the Democrats are trying to push through Congress. Trade unions and unemployment activists don't like the bill, and the article at the link below explains why. One big complaint is that wage insurance will do nothing for the unemployed, only for those 15 or 20 percent of the 2.5 to 4 million Americans who lose their jobs every year, but find new ones earning at least 20 percent less than what they used to make. These individuals are suffering for sure, but so are the unemployed.

Wage insurance is itself little more than a bandaid. It is intended to supplement half of the lost income for these underemployed workers up to $10,000 dollars (a year?) for up to two years. That's five thousand for each of two years for a worker who used to make $50,000 a year, but has been kicked down to $40,000. If he's lucky, that might be enough to pay for his family's health insurance - which he might have had at his old job, but probably doesn't have at his new one. He is still exposed to other increased expenses, such as trying to recoup for the period during which he was unemployed and earned much less - if anything at all. He might also have a longer commute than he used to have - which is a fairly typical situation for an unemployed worker grasping at any job that comes his way - and correspondingly higher gasoline and car maintenance costs. If, like many white collar workers, he earned more than $50,000 a year - and/or lost much more than 20 percent of his previous income - the coverage of the wage insurance bandaid grows smaller and smaller.

The American Prospect contends that throwing a little money at people for taking jobs that pay less than their old ones is dangerous. It is tantamount to "subsidizing downward mobility", a way to habituate American workers to their reduced circumstances. The author of the article also suggests that wage insurance is meant to appease critics of globalization without attacking globalization itself, and as such is more valuable as a political expedient to a Congress addicted to compromise than as a social policy.

A better approach would be to fund training programs for both the underemployed and the unemployed that would allow both to acquire new skills that would increase their income, not ease them more gently into the sad routine of being paid less for out-of-date or underappreciated skills. These training programs would cost about $10,000 per person per year - in addition to financial aid that would help support workers and their families with daily expenses and health care during their training. This would require "tens of billions of dollars", but it would most likely have a far more positive effect for both displaced workers and the future of the nation. As it is, Congress has tightened its belt on training programs, committing to them only $220 million - enough to retrain only 38,000 workers. $3.5 million could retrain more than 600,000.

"Subsidizing Downward Mobility" from The American Prospect

Landmark Ruling Nets Worker Back Pay

2007-04-17T14:10:00.000-04:00

A San Francisco clothing store manager was awarded two years back pay by the California Supreme Court in a landmark ruling that will affect "hundreds of thousands of white-collar workers in industries such as retail, food service, insurance and banking who are called managers or assistant managers but who spend much of their day ringing up sales, stocking shelves or sweeping the floor alongside the workers they oversee." Since the manager spent most of his ten hour days performing non-supervisory duties such as "covering the sales floor, processing markdowns and emptying the garbage," the court agreed that he had been "misclassified" by overly restrictive rules intended to disqualify managers from overtime pay. He was also denied the 30 minute unpaid meal break per each five hours of work, and the 10 minute paid rest break per each four hours of work, that are mandated by California law - and he was compensated for these as well. Like many of us, he was compelled to gobble down his midday sustenance while answering office email and voicemail. On at least one occasion, he was denied a break even to go to the bathroom.

According to The Los Angeles Times, "class-action lawsuits by employees seeking back pay for overtime and missed breaks have risen dramatically over the last decade, and lawyers predicted that Monday's ruling would encourage more suits and possibly lead another attempt to change labor laws and regulations." Many of these lawsuits have resulted in settlements. Last year, IBM paid $65 million to settle a lawsuit claiming that 32,000 computer technicians had been denied overtime pay by the corporation. RadioShack, Bank of America, Rite-Aid and AllState have all paid settlements in similar lawsuits to compensate employees for lost overtime pay due to misclassification as "managers."

"Employees win major ruling on pay regulations" from The Los Angeles Times

The Knights Who Say, "Gimme, Gimme..."

2007-04-16T07:34:00.000-04:00

This item from The Huffington Post aptly contrasts the "knights" of the Business Roundtable with their Arthurian counterparts and finds them sorely wanting. They lack two of "seven knightly virtues" in particular - Justice and Generosity. They are pusillanimous poltroons if they dare to gainsay that truth. These pencil-jousters make the crew from Monty Python And The Holy Grail look like Richard The Lionhearted in comparison.

When Sir John Castellani - a knightly name if ever there was one, conjuring images of machicolated ramparts overlooking the medieval Mediterranean - objected to Barney Frank's bill to give shareholders an advisory vote on executive pay, he remained true to his cavalier roots, braying "Corporations were never designed to be democracies." Verily, sirrah, but methinks that shareholders ought to have a say. Shareholders aren't your employees, you velvet-butted dumbass. They actually invest your companies with the princely lucre to do your dastardly deeds. In fact, according to Robert Reich, "nonbinding advisory votes" on executive pay will have only a "modest effect" on the belching dragon of executive greed. Changes to tax codes and procurement policies are required to sink the lance deeper. But, as assuredly as in the reign of King John, the tax man nestles in the very codpiece of the monarch.

The Business Roundtable has been instrumental in pushing "an empty suit of armor" into the top position at the SEC, a certain Commissioner Cox who's leaning Tower-of-Pisa-like in the direction of the rascals most of us expect him to control. The CEOs continue to feel entitled to their inflated pay, but why should they? "By now the objection is usually made that top earners deserve what they get, so long as the rest of us reap the benefits of the broad prosperity that results from their leadership. That might be true if we were, but that's just it -- we aren't. CEO raises last year were much bigger than those received by average American workers -- 10.6 percent versus 3.7 percent for typical white collar workers." The Huffington Post cites the CEO of Merck who, true to the alchemical roots of the drug business, has been able to convert the corpses of 7,000 jobs into a 167 percent pay hike for himself. His name is Richard Clark, and he is a member of the Business Roundtable. Below are some other knightly knaves blissfully massaging piles of unearned gold at their places at the table:

1) Baron of Anadarko Petroleum, James Hackett, increased his ducats 78 percent in the last year, during which his company's stock tumbled at least 20 percent.

2) Michael Cannon, Marquess of Solectron, netted a 173.9 percent increase in salary even while his company's stock "lost a quarter of its value."

3) Douglas Sotlar, Duke of Con-Way, nearly doubled his tributes while his stock performance remained as flat as a bog at Agincourt.

It is one thing to increase one's gains proportional to those of the kingdom, if not of its subjects, but what sense does it make to increase them at the expense of both one's subjects and the realm? It it time for new Cromwell to decapitate these errant kings.

"Knights of the Business Roundtable: A Circle With Few Virtues" from The Huffington Post

A Zoological Perspective On The Rich

2007-04-15T23:09:00.000-04:00

I have been reading a book recently that I would like to recommend. It is entitled The Natural History of The Rich, and was written by Richard Conniff, who has published nature and wildlife articles in magazines such as National Geographic and Smithsonian. The rich are indeed a rara avis, and Mr. Conniff describes their habits and habitats with humor and erudition. In an interview with the online literary journal Identity Theory, he said that the rich weren't smarter than the rest of us - but they are "bolder", at least those who made their own millions. They can also be more reckless.

Lots of us are bold though, and courageous, but few of us have either the wherewithal or the inclination to direct their courage and energy towards amassing fortunes. If that were so, then how come so many decorated combat veterans of, say, the Vietnam War ended up on the streets or in homeless shelters. The truth is, I think, that the self-made rich have a specific talent that is no more intrinsically worthy than any other talent a human being might have. The only difference is that this talent is more vastly remunerated than all the rest merely because it consists in acquiring the one commodity that capitalistic society uses to reward all talents - money. Their talent, in essence, rewards itself, and seems all the greater because of it.

Conniff also harps on the "dominance" of the rich, which is at once amusing and depressing. I can't remember the last time I had the occasion to square off with a tycoon, and was forced to slink away in submission. I never encounter such people, and for that I thank God. Their effect on my life is more like that of the weather than like that of an alpha male baboon. They generate the storms that drive the vicissitudes of economic life, the demand for my skills bobbing up and down in the wind. As a matter of fact, considering that global warming is a direct result of modern industry heedless pursued, the storms generated by the superrich are as much real as figurative. And on this windy, rainy day I feel buffeted by them both. Tycoons could just as well be typhoons to me.

"A Natural History of The Rich: A Field Guide" by Richard Conniff (at Amazon.com)