work

On Commencement, and Moving Forward

In my work, it’s the time of year on campus when things are gearing up for graduation. I’ve sat through graduation ceremonies as a graduating student and as a faculty member, and I have some painful memories of very tedious, long-winded speakers who spouted cliche after cliche. But I’ve also been privileged to hear great speakers like author Antonine Maillet; at the ceremony where I received my MBA, she gave a beautiful address that was like being told an enchanting tale about the power and magic of books.

Stephen Colbert isn’t graduating from university this year, but, (more…)

Paternity Leave and the Flexibility Stigma

In 1989, sociologist Arlie Hochschild published  The Second Shift, a book about her long-term study of  how a group of employees balanced their work and their family commitments. The title of the book referred to the employees putting in a shift of work at their workplace, and then going home to undertake another round of work in managing their households and their families. The book was hugely influential in many ways, not least of which was Hochschild’s finding that even when the employees had access to flexible work arrangements, such as compressed work schedules or flextime, they were reluctant to use them. Even if flexible work arrangements would have helped the employees better manage the demands of their two “shifts”, the employees – especially the male ones – thought their careers would be hurt if they were perceived as being less than committed to their jobs or to their employer.

But that was 1989. Things are different now. Or are they?

Two weeks ago, sports radio talk show hosts Boomer Esiason and Mike Francesa took it upon themselves to criticize New York Mets baseball player Daniel Murphy. The reason for their criticism? (more…)

Getting Out Alive: Escaping Academia

This week, the Inside Higher Education website reported the results of a study showing that, increasingly, university faculty members work long hours struggling to meet intensifying demands on their time. This very insightful blog post is by someone who experienced this first-hand, and decided to leave academic work as a result. It’s a sobering and thought-provoking read.

finiteattention's avatarFinite Attention Span

No escape: decal of a struck-out person fleeing One Friday in May of 2011, I locked up my shared office, went to the pub with some colleagues and students, and said goodbye to my job as a senior lecturer in psychology.

On the following Tuesday (it was a bank holiday weekend) I started a three-month stint as an intern at a then-mid-sized software company. They were pretty clear that there wouldn’t be more work at the end of it; all I had going for me was that they were paying me — a lot less than my academic job paid, but hey, it was money. (Let’s not even start on the ridiculous exploitation of young people by companies looking for free labour, or how unpaid internships exclude those who can’t afford to work for free.)

Anyway, so … lunacy, right?

Maybe. But maybe it saved my life.

I cannot possibly supply a complete list of the things that drove…

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Some Thoughts on Orly Lobel’s “Talent Wants to Be Free”

I had the pleasure of meeting Orly Lobel this past September at the Employment and Labor Law Colloquium at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. As it happened, the colloquium was held just a few days before Orly’s book, Talent Wants to Be Free: Why We Should Learn to Love Leaks, Raids, and Free Riding, was officially published. At the colloquium, Orly gave a brief talk about the themes of the book , and I was so intrigued by what she discussed that I bought the book as soon as it was available here.

I was hoping to have posted something sooner about Talent Wants to be Free. But the book was so thought-provoking for me that I ended up reading a part of it, putting it aside to think about what I had read, and then reading some more. So it took me a while to get through the entire book – but that’s an indication of how much valuable information there is in it, and how smartly it’s written.

(more…)

Anita Hill, Two Decades Later

Last week, Anita Hill appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.  She was there to promote a new documentary about her experiences in 1991, when she testified to a US Senate committee that she had been sexually harassed at work by Clarence Thomas, at the time a nominee for the position of US Supreme Court Justice. (Stewart’s interview with Hill is here for American viewers; Canadian viewers can see it here.)

In her interview with Stewart, Hill explained that she got involved in the documentary to help educate younger workers about why sexual harassment is still (more…)

“What Not to Buy” Update

I’m very happy to report that the nearly year-long strike at Labatt Breweries in St. John’s, NL, which I wrote about a few weeks ago, has ended.

The company and the union returned to collective bargaining with the aid of a conciliation officer, and the resulting collective agreement (more…)

More on Public Sector Sick Days “Abuse”

A few months ago I wrote about the Canadian Taxpayers Federation’s completely unsupported allegations of rampant sick day “abuse” by British Columbia’s public sector workers. Sadly, similar accusations have also been flying around (more…)

Some Thoughts on Sutton and Rao’s “Scaling Up Excellence”

I’ve written before about my general cynicism toward most business books. But one business book that I greatly admire – not only for its eye-catching title, but also for its sensible and forthright attitude – is Bob Sutton’s The No-Asshole Rule, which should be required reading for anyone involved in any aspect of hiring. Recently Bob offered “active influencers” preview copies of Scaling Up Excellence, the new book he has co-authored with his colleague Huggy Rao. When I saw the offer on Twitter, I thought, (more…)

Stephen Colbert on Finding Joy in Your Work

The best five minutes of television in 2013 happened on August 7, when The Colbert Report aired a video of Stephen Colbert and “friends” dancing to Daft Punk’s song Get Lucky. Daft Punk had originally been scheduled to appear on the show in person – but they were also booked for the MTV Video Music Awards a few days later, and because of that MTV insisted that they not appear on Colbert’s show. So when Daft Punk cancelled, the video was quickly created to fill the sudden gap in the show’s schedule.

Because the video clearly involved considerable planning and effort, there was some skepticism after the broadcast about whether Colbert had actually made the video a few days earlier and then made up the cancellation story to get more attention for the video. In this podcast, hosted by comedian Paul Mecurio, Colbert gives a very thorough explanation of how the video came to be – which, as it turns out, is a rather complex story, involving what Daft Punk was and wasn’t willing to do, clashing corporate interests, and a lot of quick changes of strategy.

What struck me most about this interview (more…)

What Not to Buy

At a time of year when people are doing a LOT of buying, there’s a lot of messages about the “right” things to buy: sustainably manufactured, minimally packaged, locally made or sourced, fair-trade, and so on. But there’s another “right” way to buy that’s often overlooked – and that’s buying from companies that aren’t involved in lengthy labour disputes with their unionized employees.

Allow me to bring to your attention (more…)