Brian Gongol
A place for everything and everything in its place
We started a new employee at our family business the other day, and the experience has brought several matters of "place" to my attention. First, we had to figure out where he would actually situate himself in the office -- a relatively easy choice in our case, but a matter of huge gravity in a lot of other workplaces. Get stuck with the wrong cubicle-mate, or too far from the boss's office, or in the middle of a bad office clique, and you could be facing a short career.
But in the course of training our new co-worker, we've had to answer some questions out loud that we've often taken for granted -- like, why are we located in Des Moines when our territory includes all of Iowa and all of Nebraska? The answer is actually pretty simple -- Des Moines is situated really close to the population center of the two states put together. But it's a worthwhile question.
No matter what you do, or where you work, you might want to spend this week asking yourself if everything's in the right place:
- Is your workspace laid out the right way? Could it be laid out in a smarter way?
- Are you in the right place within the workspace? Is there a better location? (A "corner office" may be coveted, but is it really the right destination for what you want to do?)
- Do you put yourself in the right place -- physically -- at meetings, lunches, break time, and elsewise?
- Is the company itself located wisely? Should you be somewhere else to better deal with clients and customers, vendors and suppliers?
Personal savings rate: 4.4%
Which means that many Americans pay more in sales taxes than they save for the future
One employee, 80 years at Goldman Sachs
Does raising the minimum wage really solve problems of poverty?
What's likely needed for many people is a better shot at climbing the economic ladder. That requires good educational and training opportunities (which is a community problem) and personal motivation (which is an individual one). Pandering on the minimum wage may be funny, but it eludes the sober reflection required to make sense of the issue.
Sale price for the Boston Globe: $70 million in cash
The principal owner of the Red Sox is buying the paper and its associated properties for a tiny fraction of what the New York Times Co. paid for it in 1993. Note that people paying high prices for Facebook stock need to take notice: Major media properties can plummet in value over time.
An economy growing at 1.7% a year isn't growing fast enough
It's growth, yes. But if we're not getting substantially better per-person at what we're doing, then we're doing something wrong.
Searching the wrong things could get you visited by police
It was initially reported that a Long Island couple got a visit from police because of what they'd been searching on the Internet from home. It was later clarified that suspicion was aroused because of what one of them had searched about from work, at a job from which he had been released. Either way, it has a dreary overtone to it. Is merely searching for a topic from a work computer enough to give the police probable cause for a visit to one's home? Can one be curious how, for instance, a nuclear weapon might be built, without arousing suspicion that one is thinking of building said weapon?
Did Chinese election observers really ensure the fairness of Zimbabwean elections?
That's a tough sell
US homeownership at 18-year-low
Hotel Pattee closes in Perry
What President Obama doesn't "get" about the economy
British spy agencies won't use Lenovo computers
Why it's better to endow prizes than foundations
Post-show follow-up: