By now you’ve heard the news – everyone is quitting every job everywhere. Nobody is actually employed anymore, and the great engine that runs our global society is grinding to a shuddering halt. In fact, it’s probably a good time to start stocking up again on toilet paper. Chances are the people who make it…
By now you’re undoubtedly aware of the latest pandemic paradox: at the same time millions of people are out of work, millions of employers can’t find workers. The explanations for our current labor shortage have been chalked up to a variety of causes from health concerns to unemployment benefits to remote schooling. I’m not going…
The pandemic has brought a grand reckoning to almost every element of our lives, but the one I’d like to focus on here is how it has forced us to figure out what to do when we might feel there is nothing to do. In fact, if you can ignore for a moment the various…
I’ve been thinking a lot about risk lately. In all fairness, as I near the end of my second month in quarantine I have been thinking a lot about all kinds of things – poetry, weasels, gymnastics, pancakes, mulch, and you get the idea. But as far as business goes, my brain keeps circling back…
Hey everybody! So, this month has been different, hasn’t it? I was supposed to be in seven cities and two different countries this April, and instead I’m doing….well, not that. Also, my daughter’s 1st birthday is in about two weeks, and we have all the decorations you’d need for three birthdays – but since nobody…
In honor of this being the month of Halloween, we are going to discuss how to handle ghosts. Not the spooky, incorporeal kind – the best way to handle that kind is by screaming and running away, unless of course you have a plasma cannon calibrated for the proper ectoplasmic frequency, and I’m guessing you…
Hello, and welcome to one of the most difficult jobs you might ever be unfortunate enough to face – telling somebody they smell bad. I’ll be honest, I’m amazed and saddened by how often someone has asked me how to do this. Apparently there are millions of people blindingly unaware of their own foulness. Why…
There are hundreds of arguments that divide us. Soda vs. pop, potato vs. potato – that one makes more sense when you can hear it – red state vs. blue state, and I could go on. I myself have been involved in endless arguments with people about exactly which animal is the cutest one alive…
Recently a friend of mine – and by that I mean ‘way too many people I know, but this article will flow better if I pretend I’m talking about a single person’ – told me that he’s miserable in his job. He’s working far too many hours with no relief in sight, sees no opportunity…
So, today is Administrative Professionals Day, and bosses the world over are asking their administrative assistants to pick out presents for themselves that their bosses can then pretend to give them. If I were an administrative assistant, I would probably buy myself a helicopter and then write my boss the nicest thank-you note ever. Better to…