"Workers were also told not to flirt with one another." After eight years of "fiasco", Wal-Mart bails on Germany.
posted by telstar on Jul 29, 2006 - 55 comments

BBC warns regarding dangers of being "dooced" Not long after making the Wired Jargon Watch, I finally got to see the term "dooced", in action as the BBC posts an article regarding the growing conflict between employers and employees when it comes to blogging.
posted by superchicken on Jan 4, 2005 - 18 comments

Fired from Friendster.com • Scott Sassa, CEO of Friendster, has canned a programmer named TroutGirl for blogging about her job in what appears to be a generally positive and non-specific manner. Some are suggesting we cancel our accounts in protest.
posted by dhoyt on Aug 31, 2004 - 52 comments

Add to this week's professional “secrets”, and scams to rube employers another idea of work: one person’s career can be your next hobby.
posted by xtian on Aug 27, 2004 - 22 comments

Sun Microsystems gives each employee a blog. Will other companies follow?
posted by PenDevil on Jun 8, 2004 - 16 comments

CIO Magazine reports estimates that by the end of 2004 one in 10 IT jobs at U.S. IT companies and one in 20 at non-IT companies will move offshore. And yet, as it turns out...the "savings" that these companies are touting are largely imaginary. (more inside)
posted by dejah420 on Sep 20, 2003 - 20 comments

Every worker is entitled to a pension.
Kerala elephants working for the local government will enjoy a number of work benefits according to the Indian state's decision on a set of rules for their upkeeping. West Bengal seems to have taken similar measures some years ago.
posted by talos on Jul 28, 2003 - 4 comments

Why does everyone have a tip jar now? And where do you draw the line when it comes to baiting the jar? Starbucks? Take-out counters? Drive-thrus? How about the girl that takes your money and stamps your hand at a nightclub? While tipping is the economy of an underpaid service industry, it seems the jar itself has gotten out of hand and onto every counter with a dollar already conveniently inside.

If it is appropriate for everyone who performs any kind of public service to be entitled to a tip, why aren't we tossing our coin to police officers, teachers, or flight attendants?
posted by FearTormento on May 12, 2003 - 68 comments

Get that MP3, and get the boot In a -IMHO- patetic effort to try to stop what can't be stopped, the RIAA and MPAA are urging companies to monitor their employee's downloading habits or face suing, damages, sanctions and what have you against them. In other words, inciting companies to treat their employees as potential criminals and dispose of them accordingly. While the risks of using P2P at work such as virii and leaking of private files do have a point, this is really about the RIAA/MPAA resorting to more desperate measures each time to try to stay afloat with their jaded business model, which will do nothing but accelerate their long-forecast demise in the "real" new economy.
posted by betobeto on Feb 15, 2003 - 16 comments

Polo Cited For Forcing Employees To Buy Polo "Polo Ralph Lauren Corp., in a court filing, has denied allegations that it requires store employees to buy and wear the company's clothing at work..." Probably many Mefi readers have had retail jobs, and count me as one of them. At the department store where my mother and I worked, we probably spent about 30% of our wages on the store's merchandise in order to keep up with the dress code. After reading this I see that it might be a widespread practice. Has this happened to you? Is this a trend in how retailers treat their employees? Do you have any other examples?
posted by Tystnaden on Nov 6, 2002 - 31 comments

Anti-union Yahoo!? A former janitor at the Yahoo! offices wrote to The Mercury News about his experience: $16K/yr, no benefits, no union. Reads like a page from Barbara Ehrenreich's "Nickel and Dimed." In the wake of the e-bubble and Enron economy, cleaning out the wastebaskets still gets no respect...or does it? Discuss. (Thanks to J. Romenesko)
posted by serafinapekkala on Nov 4, 2002 - 82 comments

Reply To All button considered harmful An employee (called a manager in the headline but a millwright in the article) was fired from Eastman Kodak in Rochester, NY when he replied to an email announcing "National Coming Out Day" (hint: he wasn't in favor). But in addition to the sender, his message went to about 1000 other employees. Kodak says he was terminated when he refused to admit that sending it to all those people was wrong, not for it's content. Is this Political Correctness run amok or justifiable?
posted by tommasz on Oct 31, 2002 - 53 comments

One in four employees has a serious Web habit, spending more than one entire workday each week surfing non-work-related Web sites while at their desks.
Is this you? This is me right now. Some days I'm not sure how I still have a job. Does your employer try to control frivolous internet time? Does your boss still peek over your shoulder and find you looking at "pr0n"?
C'mon, 'fess, up, tell us your stories...
posted by Shane on Aug 29, 2002 - 103 comments

Those family and pet photos relegated to office corkboards (and screensavers) "...make us feel that we are not separate from our kids; that we are still with them, and they with us, vivid, changeable, in the flesh. They are expressions of pride, yes, and love, yes, but also of guilt and longing....the office photo is an emblem not so much of achievement as of compromise, lurking worries, remembered joys...." I never realized I was so miserable at work.
posted by Voyageman on May 27, 2002 - 17 comments

THE CITY DOES NOT EMPLOY INDIVIDUALS WHO NOW USE OR HAVE USED TOBACCO PRODUCTS WITHIN THE LAST TWELVE MONTHS. - Is this legal? I myself do not smoke, but it seems dangerous that governments or corporations may be able to refuse to hire you based on something you may legally do on your free time. Is this common? More importantly, is this the start of a very slippery slope?
posted by eas98 on May 7, 2002 - 111 comments

You deserve a month off! The thirty hour workweek. The shorter workweek. The AFL-CIO on bargaining for alternative work schedules. Is it true that "Almost half of US workers (47%) are responsible for the care of children and/or elderly or disabled adults?" Part time work and women. "We aren't whining. We do work too much."
posted by sheauga on Apr 30, 2002 - 37 comments

More from the "Watch What You Say Online" Department This Wired story mentions a fellow who badmouthed a thin-skinned company on an online forum and found himself hit with a $450,000 default judgment against him because he didn't show up in court to defend himself (he claims he had no idea he had been sued). Even those among us who might not be guilty of stealing have probably said something bad about various companies here and elsewhere. Should we all go hire a lawyer RIGHT NOW?
posted by briank on Mar 1, 2002 - 17 comments

Since I recently suffered a back injury, I have a new appreciation of ergonomically correct workstations. Are these the workstations of the future?
posted by alball on Feb 11, 2002 - 16 comments

Detonate.net rants on freelancing with eLance “The problems on eLance can be divided roughly into two groups. Jackoff buyers, and lowball sellers.” All I see are projects to build complete e-commerce sites or full intranets for $1,000. Does anyone have a positive experience using eLance? Is there a better online resource for freelancers to find work?
posted by kirkaracha on Sep 10, 2001 - 10 comments

Monster.com parent buys HotJobs. TMP, the parent company of Monster.com, has acquired HotJobs for $460 million in stock. Although they plan to maintain HotJobs as a "stand-alone brand" the jobs and resume databases will be merged. I'm really skeptical -- virtually everyone I know searched both Monster and HotJobs, and posted resumes on both places, so what are they really getting but duplication? (HotJobs used to have a very distinctive approach -- no headhunters, in short -- but it had backed off of that recently.)
posted by MattD on Jul 1, 2001 - 5 comments

Update on FuckedCompany.com. A lesson for all those who pooh-pooh'ed Pud's move to start a subscriber service from his free site: he's now got 860 subscribers paying an average of $63/month, so he's making over $650K a year. Not bad in less than 2 months. Article is a couple of days old, but I missed it when it came out - sorry if it's old news =)
posted by JParker on May 10, 2001 - 20 comments

If you're reading this, then you're probably qualified. This is my job, but I've tendered my resignation so I can move out to Wyoming and become a carpenter. If you know a web-master/designer who's been 'down-sized' (and who doesn't?), hook a brother up.

It's actually a nice place to work. I don't dig the corporate thing at all, but the IS dept is very friendly and you do get a measure of creative freedom. (and i've broken them in, so they're used to off the wall ideas.)

posted by jcterminal on May 9, 2001 - 22 comments

What are you working on? Your office in an art gallery...
posted by owillis on Feb 9, 2001 - 0 comments

Miadora is no more, and in the source of its farewell is this:

<!-- My thanks to all of the great managers, merchandisers and technologists who made Miadora and exciting and challenging place to work. Ted A. McCarty, Web Producer, tmccarty@mindspring.com -->

It's touching, even if it can be parsed as: "I need a job!" Sort of like the caterer passing out business cards in the Titanic's last moments.
posted by luke on Sep 25, 2000 - 1 comment

The weezils at AllAdvantgae.com are up to no good. - First of all, who thought paying people to surf was a brilliant way to make money? AllAdvantage is now seeing the error or their ways and is switching all members over from the Pay to Surf plan to a new Sweepstakes plan regardless of whether their members want to switch or not. Apparently those who have bothered to read the email they sent out about the switch are getting pissed.
posted by Nyarlathotep on Aug 25, 2000 - 4 comments

Monster.com , careerpath, hotjobs.com etc, etc... While these sites offer tons of jobs, I wonder if I will actually be able to find work through them. Does anyone have experiences they'd like to share about finding internet jobs through the inernet? How about smaller, more focused sites, especially regional ones?
posted by chaz on Aug 2, 2000 - 15 comments

Forget about privacy on the net. If you thought that being tracked by Doubleclick was a grosse invasion of privacy, imagine what it would be like if your employer was given open access to your home computer.
posted by Ms Snit on Mar 22, 2000 - 0 comments