The Inside Job
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Goodbye Billable Hours
Continue reading… 2 CommentsEarlier this month I reported that pay cuts could be a good way for law firms to avoid layoffs. Today the New York Times has another--law firms are using alternatives to the decades-old practice of billing clients by the hour, a practice that irks many clients (and clients have more leverage in a recession).
The paper reports that for one firm, "instead of paying for hours worked, more clients are paying Cravath flat fees for handling transactions and success fees for positive outcomes, as well as payments for meeting other benchmarks."
There are arguments against billing by the hour that go beyond trying to appease clients during a recession. Here's one:
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Could the Recession Save Customer Service?
Continue reading… 9 CommentsI haven't opened my wallet for much more than breakfast and subway fare in months (a year?). I'm obviously not the only one. (Kevin Lane, a financial advisor in Prescott, Ariz., calls our nationwide flight to thriftiness "The New Frugality," and he sees it up and down the income strata. "Even wealthy people are re-evaulting their cell phone plans," Lane says.)
Last night, on my way home from work, I had a sudden desire to spend. Not much, just enough to ensure that I'm not taking "the new frugality" to an unhealthy extreme. Just to remind myself what it felt like to slap the credit card down on the counter and walk out with a shopping bag holding something a little unnecessary.
I stepped into one of those chain-store-but-still-too-expensive potion/lotion/soap stores to peruse the wares. The air was heady with the scents of lavender and peppermint and there was a general swirl of stress-melting blissfulness. I was absorbed in a line of spa products that seemed to promise better days and better moods ahead, when from behind me a rich, basso voice boomed: "Four minutes. You have exactly four minutes before we close."
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Why Lily Ledbetter is Controversial
Continue reading… 13 CommentsEven though Lily Ledbetter couldn't make her case to the Supreme Court, many of us probably believe that people should be able to sue for wage discrimination at a point beyond the 180-day period after their first discriminating paycheck, particularly if, like Ledbetter, we've worked at a place for years (decades!) and don't uncover the pay disparity until retirement.
But the merits of the law are actually fairly controversial. After all, President Bush didn't support it.
A recent WSJ editorial makes the objection clear--arguing that the Ledbetter act will "create a new legal business in digging up ancient workplace grievances." Here's more:
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How Slacker-Searchers Can Survive a Layoff
Continue reading… 31 CommentsAlmost all advice on surviving a layoff involves hard work. The paid daily grind gives way to the unpaid daily grind, as you "treat your job search like a job" and work your connections, perfect your resume, clean up your cover letter, and network, network, network.
But is that really the advice that everyone needs to hear? Don't most people who have just lost their jobs realize that to get another one, they're going to have to work at it? The fact that we're in a recession and the job market is lousy has moved well beyond page 4E in the business section--most people know about it.
So, there's definitely some merit in advice of a different kind, such as this guide to surviving a "post-layoff existence" at Fast Company. While some of the tips require actual work--like auctioning off your junk on eBay or going back to school--they do seem well attuned to the plight of the slacker-searcher.
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Starbucks Calls Off Decaf--After 12 PM?
Continue reading… 24 CommentsCall me crazy, but I would have thought Starbucks customers switched to decaf in the afternoon or evening, rather than imbibing the beverage before work in the early morn. But I'd be wrong.
Starbucks announced today that they will no longer have a pot of decaf at the ready after 12 p.m. each day. Instead, customers who request the brew will have to wait the four minutes it takes to brew a fresh one.
From a Starbucks statement E-mailed to Bloomberg:
“For many of our stores, the demand for decaf is greatly reduced in the afternoon,” the company said in the statement. “With our current standard of continually brewing decaf after 12 p.m. regardless of demand, we have seen a high amount of waste.”
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Target Layoffs Add to Toll
Continue reading… 25 CommentsOn the heels of massive job cuts at several major corporations yesterday, Target said today it would be laying off employees at its corporate headquarters in Minneapolis, reports the Star-Tribune.
A Target spokeswoman would not offer details on the number of positions that would be eliminated. The company offered a statement. Here's an excerpt: "We believe the decisions we are making, though difficult, represent appropriate actions to manage our business and maintain our competitive advantage going forward."
Target says it will have more details later today after employees are informed. In the meantime, there are plenty of rumors on the web, including on this Twitter feed (apparently written by a TV anchor and radio host in Minneapolis).
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Rush Limbaugh Defends John Thain
Continue reading… 50 CommentsFormer Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain's reported $1.2 million office makeover--said to have been done in early 2008, after Thain was hired to help save the ailing brokerage, and months before an agreement to sell Merrill to Bank of America--has really bugged taxpayers, since billions in TARP funds have been handed out to BofA to help the bank absorb Merrill and its bigger-than-expected losses.
But conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh had his own take on Thain's redecorating. He responded to comments reportedly made by President Obama--telling Republicans on the hill that they "can't just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done"--in a statement to National Review's Byron York, where Limbaugh focused on his issues with the massive stimulus package.
Some of his comments:
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How to Tell if Your Company Got Some TARP
Continue reading… 6 CommentsA lack of transparency in the use of government's TARP (Troubled Assets Relief Program) rescue money has rankled taxpayers. Good news then that Neil Barofsky at the Treasury Department is "preparing to ask every bank and company that's received a dollar from the $700 billion financial rescue to detail how the funds were used," the Washington Post reports. The banks and companies will get 30 days to comply and Barofsky can subpeona those who haven't been sufficiently open.
While awaiting the official TARP details, rankled taxpayers may find welcome comic relief in Anita Bruzzese's blog today-- "8 Signs Your Government May Have Received Bailout Money."
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Potbelly, Allstate Innovate for Recessionary Consumers
Continue reading… 9 CommentsPotbelly Sandwich Works is offering $4 "skinny" sandwiches--less bread, less cheese, less meat and a slightly lower price for those minding their waistlines or watching their wallets (not a small cut of the population).
Allstate is experimenting with a new lower-cost car insurance policy that would require policyholders to pay the typical $500 or so deductible for damage to their car, as well as another $750 deductible in "physical damage liability costs" in accidents they've caused, Crain's Chicago Business is reporting.
This recession is forcing companies to find ways to continue doing business with a much more frugal consumer. It's likely to conjure some creativity from among the employee ranks.
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Hillary Clinton's First Day on the Job
Continue reading… 5 CommentsSecretary of State Hillary Clinton showed up for her first day of work today at the State Department.
By all appearances, it was your typical first day with the normal introductions.
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John Thain's Driver Made $230,000: Report
Continue reading… 11 CommentsJohn Thain resigned from Bank of America today. But I really feel for John Thain's driver, who made more than a Supreme Court Justice for one year of work, according to documents dug up by Charlie Gasparino and reported at the Daily Beast. That's a job that will be hard to replace.
Thain was named CEO of Merrill Lynch in December 2007--a rocky time to start renovating the office with such staples as an $87,000 rug and an $18,000 desk, Gasparino reports.
An excerpt:
At the time, Thain was preaching the virtues of cost control, telling employees to reduce expenses including car services, entertainment and travel. In addition to the personal expenses on his office, documents show Thain paid his driver $230,000 for one year’s work, which included the driver's $85,000 salary and bonus of $18,000, and another $128,000 in over-time pay. Drivers of top executives are often paid about half that amount.
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Obama Gets Tough With White House Staffers
Continue reading… 8 CommentsPresident Obama on Day 1: He's freezing pay for White House staffers who make more than $100,000-- including chief of staff, national security adviser and press secretary, according to the AP.
New rules that prevent staffers from working on issues for which they've lobbied, prohibit taking gifts from lobbyists, and ban lobbying the administration for two years after leaving the payroll, are intended to improve ethics and also to "do something to make government trustworthy in the eyes of the American people," Obama said today.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said in a statement:
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Designer Jason Wu's Unusual Career Arc
Continue reading… 4 CommentsJason Wu, the 26-year-old designer of Michelle Obama's ivory inaugural gown, has not traveled the typical career path for fashion designers.
Wu started his career designing dresses (and hair and makeup) for dolls at toymaker Integrity Toys. Wu was in high school when he first submitted a design to Integrity through a company-sponsored contest and he continued with the doll-maker through design school and beyond. It's an unusual way to launch a fashion career, but Wu seems not at all fazed by the circumstances of his early years (so often we tend to apologize for departing from the standard career path).
He told WWD three years ago, "I didn't know doing dolls was going to become a career. ... If I hadn't done it then, I probably would have started in fashion earlier, but I don't think the collection would have been as mature."
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Country Has New President, Same Market
Continue reading… 0 CommentsHere in Washington today, the massive crowd filing onto the National Mall seemed certain of the power of change--momentous, all-consuming change. But on Wall Street, today's mood was a bit different.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 332 points today on worries about the health of the nation's banking sector. Wall Streeters apparently couldn't afford to be swept up by the new family's entry into the White House.
From the AP: "Traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange paused at times to watch the inauguration ceremony and Obama's remarks, but the transition of power didn't erase investors' intensifying concerns about the struggling economy."
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Ad Association CEO: Laid Off Employee Sent Hoax E-mail
Continue reading… 5 CommentsAt first it appeared yesterday that Jeff Haley, CEO of the Radio Advertising Bureau, had sent an E-mail to the association's employees indicating that three executives had been laid off because of their inflated salaries, "'particularly when those individuals have added so little value to this organization,'" the E-mail stated, according to Advertising Age.
But Haley told AdAge he didn't write the E-mail, noting instead that it had been sent a couple of hours after the association had laid off five employees and he thought it was likely created by one of them.
RAB expects to seek "legal remedies," Mediaweek reports.
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When a Sweatshop Job is Your Ticket Out
Continue reading… 2 CommentsIn the U.S., sweatshop work represents the very worst sort of the labor--the exploitative, lawless kind that pays pennies for long hours of tedious work in potentially dangerous environments.
For that very reason, Nicholas Kristof's piece on sweatshops in the New York Times is essential reading. Kristof writes from an area in Phnom Penh, where families live atop steamy garbage dumps and prowl among the refuse for plastic that can be recycled for cash (5 cents a pound).
To these families, "a job in a sweatshop is a cherished dream, an escalator out of poverty, the kind of gauzy if probably unrealistic ambition that parents everywhere often have for their children," Kristof writes.
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Librarians' New Job Title: Career Counselor
Continue reading… 2 CommentsI'm a major proponent of library usage. I have library cards in my wallet issued from the last three cities in which I've lived, and, while I haven't kept track, I can assure you that those cards have prevented the other cards (credit, debit) from some abuse. The really great libraries hold more free books, British miniseries DVDs, foreign language CDs, and quiet corners than one could ever make room for at home.
It's a no-brainer that money-conscious job seekers are availing themselves of the library's many great assets. Today's WSJ reports that library branches throughout the country are being inundated with job seekers who are looking for help in the form of career advice books, time on the computers, free Wi-Fi, and the librarians, themselves.
An excerpt:
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Gannett Requires Week of Unpaid Leave For Most of Its 31,000 Workers
Continue reading… 1 CommentMost of Gannett's 31,000 workers will be taking a week off in the first quarter--unpaid. The furlough is intended to prevent layoffs at the country's largest newspaper company.
Editor and Publisher has some of Gannett's editors' responses here. No surprise that Laura Rehrmann, managing editor of the Washington Bureau, reportedly told staffers in an E-mail: No, you can't take a furlough week next week." (Inauguration week--bad time for an unpaid vacation).
I've written a couple of times recently about how few companies seem to make cost-cutting efforts in regards to wages, instead choosing layoffs-- which, according to some research, may actually prolong recessions.
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Jobless Claims: Pay No Mind
Continue reading… 0 CommentsThe number of people filing initial claims for unemployment benefits rose last week to 524,000 from a revised 470,000 a week earlier, according to the Labor Department.
This is a bit higher than economists expected but it isn't much of a surprise, given that lackluster holiday sales hit retailers hard and the ongoing recession is affecting a broad swath of industries. Nevertheless, this particular piece of data may be something that we can ignore for now. Joshua Shapiro, chief U.S. economist at MFR, says in a note this morning that "the impossibility of correctly adjusting for varying seasonal patterns makes these data virtually useless on a weekly basis during much of December and all of January."
The weekly jobless claims data is probably not useful until the first or second week of February, he says, adding: "We encourage our readers to ignore anyone who attempts to use any single result during this period as evidence of anything."
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Update: Island Job Frenzy a Sign of the Times
Continue reading… 3 CommentsIf you've heard about the seemingly dreamy $104,000 "island caretaker" gig being offered by Tourism Queensland and you've thought: "Hey, what have I got to lose? I'll apply"--you're not alone. This is a global recession, after all, and there's no shortage of island lovers on any continent.
There were so many interested applicants yesterday that the website (islandreefjob.com--where video applications must be uploaded) crashed and officials were forced to setup a second server, according to the Australian. The newspaper reports that the inability to access the site created near panic among job seekers--many of whom have called embassies, government offices and news outlets.
The only way to get this job--a six-month promotional deal meant to drum up interest in Queensland tourism--is with a minute-long video application uploaded to the site.
