Tag Archives: labor

The Qualities of a Good Manager

In years gone by, it was assumed that if someone rose through the ranks to the position of manager, he was smart. Although that was many decades ago, and things have changed greatly, there is still a substantial division between labor and management. For a very short while I worked for a company that, although large, hired only women to work for them. My manager was a bully. He didn’t bully women physically, but he did bully them emotionally and …

Relieving Stress

Stress was not a term we heard about in my day. We all had things we had to deal with but stress was not something people talked about or even acknowledged. We didn’t have the kinds of tests we have today to find out if there was anything physically wrong with a person, and very little was known about emotions being connected to illness. When people got sick and doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong, they called it psychosomatic …

Marrying for Money

We’ve all heard stories about mothers telling their daughters that it’s just as easy to fall in love with a rich man as a poor man and that money lasts longer than love. And then came the Feminist Movement and, for the last sixty years, women have been learning to support themselves and not depend on men to take care of their financial needs. But, now things are changing again. Whereas over the last half a century, women had been …

The Changing Perception of Job Security

Even after all these years, I still remember being paralyzed with fear at the thought of having to go on job interviews. Like so many other people, I kept thinking that if I could just get a job without interviewing for it, I know I could do it. And that was in the days before résumés became mandatory and jobs were more plentiful. In those days, if you were fairly good at your job, the chances were that you could …

Leaders and Followers

I have often wondered why parents spend more time training their children to follow orders rather than training them to think for themselves. In a culture where the common belief is that the masses are asses, it would make more sense to teach our children how to lead, rather than how to follow. The military takes to heart the words of Alfred, Lord Tennyson in his poem, The Charge of the Light Brigade, “Theirs not to make reply,/ Theirs not …

Financial Discontent

In these days of a failing economy, high unemployment, and massive home foreclosures, you would think that anyone who had a job that covered expenses would feel blessed. Instead, the opposite seems to be true. It sometimes seems as though a whole society is discontented with their lives even when they have so much to be thankful for. I can understand wanting to improve your lot in life and setting goals for yourself. I can even understand feelings of failure …

From Debt-Overload-Anxiety to Debt-Free-Anxiety

For those who are used to having an allowance and budgeting for the things you want, acting financially responsible with credit cards doesn’t seem like a tall mountain to climb, but it is. All of a sudden, you have thousands of dollars at your disposal and you don’t have any pressing financial needs or debts of any kind. For the first several years, you’re like a kid in a candy store, not knowing which things to buy first. At first, …

To Hell With Tradition

For as long as I can remember, Central Park in New York, always had horse and carriage rides. They were such a familiar sight that when you thought of Central Park, you automatically thought of those horse-drawn carriage rides. It was much the same as when you thought of cup, you thought of saucer, the two were inextricably linked together. And now, New York’s newest mayor, in his first week in office, has announced his plans to follow up on …

Unequal Division of Labor

One of the most common complaints is that one person ends up doing all the work. It doesn’t seem to matter if it’s a team project required for school, or work around the house, or in your job. The complaints don’t seem to vary. One person takes on the responsibility for getting the job done. It doesn’t seem to occur to that person that the reason s/he is the one who ends up doing everything is because he doesn’t complain …

Trading Overtime Pay for Flexible Hours

There is a new bill that was passed by the House of Representatives a couple of months ago that is on its way to the Senate. It’s called The Working Families Flexibility Act of 2013 and I’m a little concerned about some of the provisions in it. On the surface, it sounds wonderful. Flexible hours, flexible vacations, flexible everything. But one thing stood out as I was reading it, and that is that the employee doesn’t have any protections under …

Connie H. Deutsch