On the job: July 2008 Archives

Interesting story today in the New York Times about how many companies are cutting worker hours rather than cutting workers with outright layoffs.

The reasons? Employers have to pay fewer health care costs for part-timers. And, computer skills of all things are a huge factor.

Stringing people along with a little bit of a job keeps them available to come back to work if/when times get better, and it works better for a company because then they don't have to train a brand new hire in advanced and/or company-specific computer skills.

You have to read kinda deep into the story to find that and other good "why" info.

The computer skills reason might sound like something for just the high-tech sector to consider at first, but I know even the cash register at the local diner would confuse me for awhile. (It's a computer, too, most likely).

A lot of people already complain about the lack of a "living" wage in America. Particularly in York County, it comes in the form of higher-paying manufacturing jobs leaving, with lower-paying retail jobs becoming an alternative.

Do you know anyone who has had hours slashed because of the economy? Is it better or worse for employees to get hour reductions as opposed to just getting let go?

Every time something new comes along, we "make" time for it. But unfortunately, "making" time is an illusion, and some real smart physicist out there should write it into every text book along side that Law of Conservation of Mass we had to memorize in high school.

"Matter is neither created nor destroyed in a chemical reaction." I remember that.

But where was the "Anything that gets put into your schedule or to-do list must have the equal and opposite result of kicking something out of said schedule or to-do list."

Stephen Hawking, I'm waiting.

My big pet peeve with the whole making time concept is that when you think you have "made" time for something, you have actually kicked something out of your schedule without knowing it. And often, it's something that will come back to haunt you later.

Just admit you can't "make" the time and cut something. It'll hurt a lot less later.

If you have a story to share about how you made time, and it turned out poorly, post a comment.

In the meantime, here is a lengthy-but-comprehensive look at how to prioritize your time. "Making" time might be an illusion, but this tells you how to fool people into thinking you know how to do it.

Let me know if you plan to try this, or if they forgot something.

My roommate from college e-mailed me in a panic a few days ago to tell me Facebook had changed...again.

But when I logged on, it looked the same to me.

This morning though, I noticed the switchover. More like the switchover smacked me in the face.

I don't know too many people who would object to the idea of a four day work week.

Are any of your companies considering offering it as an option? I'd love to hear about it if they were. Leave a comment and let me know!

I don't mean that I'm literally getting fatter over here, but I thought some of the information in this TreeHugger series is really interesting.

First the blog includes this map showing the obesity percentages in each state.

The answer: An extra 20 hours per week for two months. A standard 60-hour workweek for eight weeks, according to authorities in Japan.

The overworked nation's labor bureau made the ruling on the subject in the case of a Toyota engineer who was working on developing the hybrid version of the Toyota Camry. He died of a heart attack at age 45.

See the story here.

Nothing like a holiday weekend to make us itch to get out of the office and because of that you're week in biz is coming a little early this week.

Enjoy.

Starbucks is closing a bunch of store, but no one's sure about the local ones.

People love their fireworks on the Fourth.

Spectra addresses issues about pipeline.

Case closed. Children get trapped in toy chests.

I plan to check out this movie the minute it comes out. (Not at all biz related.)