Why is Silence in the Workplace No Longer Golden?

I amazed by the noise levels that are acceptable in the modern workplace.  I’m a self-employed wonk-for-hire — so I spend a lot of time working quietly by myself on my own terms — but sometimes I have to go to a client’s building and try to get work done in the cacophony that has become the public work space.  I have no idea how people get things don’t in the midst of the cubicle world where people yell into telephones and cellphones and each person has their own radio blaring and conversations take place from one corner of the workspace to the other and it is all done using a voice that curdles milk into whey.

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Posted in Business | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

Subliminal Sexual Discrimination via Voices on a Train

I read something interesting online a while ago, but I can’t remember the source material.  The gist of the story was that the pre-recorded automated announcements you hear in train stations – and other public transit hubs and modes — are purposefully driven by subconscious sexual stereotypes.  The female voices you hear provide “information” about the current stop and next stop, while the pre-recorded male voices give you warnings and orders like, “Get out of the way!”

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Posted in RelationShaping | Tagged , , , , , , | 12 Comments

The Importance of the Bully Documentary

For the duration of my public high school experience (prior to attending The Peddie School for the second part of tenth grade through my senior year) I was reassured by my brother that I didn’t have to worry about people verbally or physically abusing me because he would take care of me. When I got to the Peddie School I did not even notice that there was any bullying.

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Posted in Education | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Food for Bombs in North Korea

When I was in school, I read about a popular program that involved trading guns for various things that were considerably more helpful to society and less dangerous to it as well. There were trades of guns for food and guns for toys — the programs were meant to get guns off of the streets and to benefit the hopefully former gun holders. I feared that the same people may have just gone out and illegally acquired more guns so that they could get more toys and food but that was just me.

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Posted in Universe | Tagged , , | 2 Comments