A History of Beards in the Workplace – BBC
“In the legal profession too, Oldstone-Moore attests. “You can see, going centuries back, a strong disposition against facial hair,” he says, with the integrity of bearded lawyers being openly called into question.”
On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs – Strike Magazine
“It’s as if someone were out there making up pointless jobs just for the sake of keeping us all working. And here, precisely, lies the mystery. In capitalism, this is precisely what is not supposed to happen. Sure, in the old inefficient socialist states like the Soviet Union, where employment was considered both a right and a sacred duty, the system made up as many jobs as they had to (this is why in Soviet department stores it took three clerks to sell a piece of meat). But, of course, this is the sort of very problem market competition is supposed to fix. According to economic theory, at least, the last thing a profit-seeking firm is going to do is shell out money to workers they don’t really need to employ. Still, somehow, it happens.”
The God of SNL Will See You Now – The New York Times
“Though new cast members come from many different avenues, there’s ultimately only one way to get on this NBC late-night franchise: impress Lorne Michaels, the “SNL” creator and executive producer who has run the show for 33 of its 38 seasons and is known for his cryptic, sphinxlike presence over the show.”
From Counter-Culture to Mainstream: Why the Tattoo Boom is Bound to End – National Post
“Once a tribal rite of passage, a signifier of dangerous associations, or a mark of freakish deviance, the tattoo is now commercialized, ironic, often tacky or maudlin, rarely edgy, and widely available at low cost, all of which bodes ill for the future of ink.”
How to Catch a Liar on the Internet – The Atlantic
“If the director of the CIA can be caught in a lie, anyone can. More than ever before, our communications leave trails. Whether we imagine them to be “digital exhaust,” as many tech theorists do, or fodder for a bits-based Big Brother, as Orwell might have, our Facebook timelines and e‑mail chains and cellphone logs are leaving copious and minutely detailed records of our lives.”
In Praise of Laziness – The Economist
“Yet the biggest problem in the business world is not too little but too much—too many distractions and interruptions, too many things done for the sake of form, and altogether too much busy-ness. The Dutch seem to believe that an excess of meetings is the biggest devourer of time: they talk of vergaderziekte, “meeting sickness”. However, a study last year by the McKinsey Global Institute suggests that it is e-mails: it found that highly skilled office workers spend more than a quarter of each working day writing and responding to them.”
Taken: The Coldest Case Ever Solved – CNN
“By the time these events were recalled in a Sycamore courtroom 55 years later, memories had faded and many details noted in police and FBI reports were lost to time.”
