A new book says women have been marginalized in Obama's White House, according to an article in the Washington Post. Former communications director Anita Dunn is quoted as saying the White House "fit all of the classic legal requirements for a genuinely hostile workplace to women." The book also quotes an unnamed official saying that "the boys' club" was not "just Larry [Summers] and Rahm [Emanuel]," but that Obama himself was responsible: "The president has a real woman problem."
[more inside]
posted by John Cohen
on Sep 18, 2011 -
117 comments
OK News Sobering statistics in 2011 America:
One in three families with children relied solely on the mother's earnings in 2010, but women's earnings accounted for only about a third of married couples' income.
Women still earn less — about 77 cents for each male dollar. [more inside]
posted by zooropa
on Mar 28, 2011 -
75 comments
Don't Make Excuses - Make Good! Between World Wars I and II, the U.S. economy was booming - workers had choices and employers competed for their time. How to motivate and gain loyalty from a labor force that knew it could walk out the door and find more work soon?
Charles Mather, head of a family printing business in Chicago, offered employers a solution: the
first motivational posters for the private workplace market. Printed between 1923 and 1929, Mather's "
Work Incentive Posters" used strong imagery and short, clear messaging to encourage workplace values like
teamwork, punctuality, safety, and loyalty. Today, some of his 350 designs can be seen in
traveling exhibitions and
poster galleries, and
Antiques Road Show - or you can soak up some motivation from his modern-day successors at
Successories - or
generate your own.
[more inside]
posted by Miko
on Oct 12, 2010 -
25 comments
You may be active in social media on your own account. That’s good. But please remember that whether you are on your own time or company time, you’re still a member of our team. And the judgment you exercise on your own time reflects on the judgment you exercise at work.
There’s only one you – at play and at work.
posted by h0p3y
on Feb 7, 2010 -
75 comments
Sixteen workers are killed a day "Every eight hour workday, two people are killed on the job. Most companies are never prosecuted for negligence, even after repeated warnings that their workers were in danger. Meanwhile, workers who blow the whistle face threats and retaliation at the workplace." In a short video examining several cases of worker deaths, David Uhlmann suggests the sanction for an offense that results in a worker's death should be as great as the sanction for killing a deer out of season.
posted by shetterly
on Nov 16, 2009 -
104 comments
Sometimes, especially in winter, Kenneth Westhues can hear a flock of crows tormenting a great horned owl outside his study in Waterloo, Ontario. It is a fitting soundtrack for his work.
Mr. Westhues has made a career out of the study of
mobbing. Since the late 1990s, he has written or edited five volumes on the topic. However, the mobbers that most captivate him are not sparrows, fieldfares, or jackdaws. They are modern-day
college professors.
[more inside]
posted by parudox
on Nov 11, 2008 -
58 comments
The "Revolution" that isn't. The idea that well-educated women are leaving their careers behind and choosing to stay at home is a recurring story- notably in "
The Opt Out Revolution", Lisa Belkin's 2003 essay in the New York Times. A
closer examination [.pdf, long] challenges the idea that women are returning home as a matter of biological "pull" rather than a workplace "push", and argues that how the media portrays the personal decisions of a few obfuscates the real social needs of most American working families. In 2007, the United States is one of the
few countries in the world without paid maternity leave.
posted by ambrosia
on Mar 16, 2007 -
55 comments
Workplace health and safety dirty dozen (pdf) - profiles of companies that have demonstrated egregious disregard for worker safety. Today is
Worker Memorial Day, commemorating workers who die on the job - an average of 16 per day. Workplace deaths are trending up, not down, which, according to an extensive report by the AFL-CIO, is the inevitable
Toll of Neglect with this administration's rollback of worker protections.
Confined Space offers a daily view of work safety issues in the U.S. for those who would like to learn more.
posted by madamjujujive
on Apr 28, 2006 -
13 comments
Robert Oppenheimer agonized over building the A-bomb. Alfred Nobel got queasy about creating dynamite. Robert Propst invented nothing so destructive. Yet before he died in 2000, he lamented his unwitting contribution to what he called "
monolithic insanity."
posted by PenDevil
on Mar 9, 2006 -
47 comments
I've seen it happen where these types of managers have the nerve to hold this type of book up in front of a group of people and imply the problem is the workforce for not choosing to be happy about poor leadership. From an
Amazon review of
Fish!. I've been motivated with that twice. A friend of mine was encouraged to take
The Flight of the Buffalo and another is going to a sponsored
Dale Carnegie class. So, who's
moved your cheese?
posted by pieoverdone
on Jul 26, 2004 -
55 comments
Every gay and lesbian federal employee has just lost their protection from discrimination. Gay and lesbians in the entire federal workforce have had their job protections officially removed by the office of Special Counsel. The new Special Counsel, Scott Bloch, says his interpretation of a 1978 law intended to protect employees and job applicants from adverse personnel actions is that gay and lesbian workers are not covered.
Bloch said that the while a gay employee would have no recourse for being fired or demoted for being gay, that same worker could not be fired for attending a gay Pride event.
posted by amberglow
on Mar 17, 2004 -
21 comments
In a word, Google's goal is to do important stuff that matters to a lot of people. In pursuit of that goal, we've developed a set of values that drive our work, including one of our most cherished core values: "Don't be evil." We already know that Google can deliver the goods when it comes to services -- so what do you guys think? Is it possible that a company could actually be worthy of our trust?
posted by tweebiscuit
on Jul 23, 2002 -
29 comments
I have a bad feeling about this. The UK government has urged employers to be leniant to staff who want to watch the World Cup when they should be working. Isn't this instantly discriminating against people who happen to like football (Soccer) all that much? For example, I'm sure I know what would happen if I broached the idea of turning up for work late on May 16th after I've been to the first showing of
this thing.
posted by feelinglistless
on Apr 29, 2002 -
15 comments
"Bringing serenity to your busy workday". Bored with the view from your office? Kloudscape offers ten high-resolution images of clouds taken from 40,000 feet by photographer John Wang. These images are available in a variety of resolutions for use as desktop wallpaper.
posted by phatboy
on Mar 1, 2002 -
4 comments
Been to a USGS site today? What about your favorite
national park site? Probably not, since all are part of the
U.S. Department of the Interior, whose external network connections have been severed due to electronic security concerns raised by the court in the case
Cobell v. Norton (formerly Cobell v. Babbitt).
With no external email or access to the Internet could you do your job? How dependent is your workplace on electronic information access?
(Since all their websites are down, I have no direct link to post. A copy of the memo was sent to the members by the admin of a USGS email distribution list.)
posted by carobe
on Dec 7, 2001 -
16 comments
A Jacksonville aviation company and others are making daily prayer meetings, chaplains and burning frankincense a
permanent part of the workplace. Should we thank God, or pray this doesn't happen where we work?
posted by rcade
on May 9, 2001 -
29 comments
Privacy is an endangered species at work. Not that this is a surprise... but I'm wondering. Will we see a wave of MIS professionals who become conscientious objectors on this topic, similar to the responses engendered by 'defense' projects in the early days of computing?
posted by baylink
on Jan 3, 2001 -
4 comments
