Work

Timothy Haroutunian reports he was laid off from his job at a Web startup yesterday:

... The past few months have been very hard with losing my father to cancer, having to sell my childhood house and now losing my job to the economy, but there is a plan. Even though I am still having trouble believing it, I know that everything will work out. Not to be super religious, but God wouldn't give me anything that I couldn't handle. I will figure out my job situation and who knows, this job might even be better for my career in web development. ...

Alicia, a librarian, reports why she made a point this morning of putting the Herald back cover face up on the shelf in serials.

Kitty, a natural brunette gone blonde to research a book, reports she makes more in tips waitressing as a blonde - but that the money comes with a price.

Philip Greenspun reports that for the first time in at least 10 years, the HVAC guys who maintain his apartment's air conditioning were able to schedule an appointment for the very next day, rather than the three-week wait they used to insist on:

... People aren't installing new systems and are deferring maintenance. ...

Dr. T recounts the night she failed a friend by not speaking up:

... This same woman, Nurse X, yelled at my friend on the housekeeping staff, let's call her Z, to get her cleaning supplies cart out of the way while a patient was being wheeled out of the O.R. I saw the incident. The cart was not in the way to begin with. Nurse X took Z by the shoulders and shoved her to the wall, crashing her into the cart in the process, causing the cleaning water to spill into the corridor and Z to nick her shin. Nurse X roughly manhandled Z, who is small, in a way she would never dream of doing to a man "of rank" in the hospital. ...

CC Chapman shows off his photo in Rolling Stone.

The Boston Business Journal reports the Boston area gained 18,900 jobs between July, 2007 and July, 2008 - a gain of 0.8 percent. Nationally, employment figures dropped during that period. Health care and education were responsible for more than half those new positions.

Boston Media Makers September 7, 2008 by stevegarfield, on Flickr CC BY-NC-SA

Boton Media Makers met at Doyle's Cafe in Jamaica Plain to talk about new media. They meet on the first Sunday of every month at 10:00. Meetings are open to all.

Go to Boston Media Makers for more info.

Sarah reports her office park has a busybody who's made it her job to enforce the designated parking spaces. And she reports on how she got the woman back today. It's the little things in life that count.

Painter Girl reports there is no easy way to paint a decorative ceiling:

... I will say, on the days that I know I will be doing ceiling work, I also know I will be able to do very little when I get home from work. I am totally beat. I do have a neck brace that I sometimes wear when stenciling on a ceiling. When plastering, I feel I am working at a comfortable angle and moving quickly, so usually don't need the brace, but when stenciling, it's closer, tighter work, and I feel my neck stiffening up almost immediately. ... I know some decorative painters who build in the price of a massage with every ceiling job. ...

After her three-hole punch goes missing, again ("It's not uncommon for one of these guys to take my three hole punch back to their desk where they ALREADY HAVE ONE because theirs is full and they don't feel like emptying it. Seriously."), Sarah and a co-worker come up with the perfect protection.

Communications Workers of America say enough progress has been made in contract talks to keep working, Rand Wilson reports.

Greg MacKay photographed Verizon workers in Post Office Square as they got ready for a rally this evening in front of Verizon's New England headquarters. At issue: Their contract, which expires this weekend.

Or share an elevator with.

Bijan Sabet is impressed by a new search engine called Cuil for a couple of reasons. One is its technology (although David at Blue Mass. Group is completely non-impressed). But the other is the way the new site came about: It was built by some former Google engineers - and they could do that because they live in California, where non-compete agreements in contracts are against the law, unlike in Massachusetts:

... So CA entrepreneurs have more rights & flexability compared to entrepreuneurs in NYC or MA or WA etc.

California has it right. We need to give startups & entrepreneurs the ability to innovate without breaking any NDAs or trade secrets. But they should be able to compete fairly and openly. That is how innovation happens. ...

Interesting job posting.

Two headlines from today:

Boston Business Journal: Mass. unemployment rises, defying trend.
Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce: State Adds 2,900 Jobs in June.

Kirsten is informed that's what she is; in turn, she critiques the film professor's performance in telling her that.

Man, the weather's got everybody cranky.

Unless "Web 2.0" and "concept" are verbs now and I just missed another memo. Knowing what really happens to people who drink the Kool-Aid is also not a requirement.

Lyss posts photos of striking concession workers outside the Hynes; reports they were difficult to understand and that their fliers didn't much help to make their issues any clearer.

Jade Sylvan is working as an artist's model and reports it's interesting walking around seeing how differently each student in the class draws her:

...But no matter how beautiful or ugly they may be, none of them ever really looks how I know I look. When finished, they always end up saying more about the artist than the model.

Robert David Sullivan peruses a new report by the National Endowment for the Arts and reports that, on a per-capita basis, Massachusetts is first in the nation in the number of architects and designers and third in artists and writers.

The Herald kicks off Monday with a nice depressing story:

A child porn possession charge lodged against a Department of Industrial Accidents investigator fired for having smut on his state-issued laptop has been dismissed because experts concluded he was unwittingly spammed.

Goes without saying that the department is refusing to give him his job back, and that he now intends to sue the department for "destroying our lives."

Angela gets fired by one boss, unfired by the other, then comes back to work to watch the firing guy fire another worker:

... I now have no co-workers which is horribly depressing. Mean Boss is still mean and I don't know how I'm going to handle it all alone, taking on the full brunt of his bitter wrath. Pray for me, and my monster.com account.