Mad To Work Here

Not sure how I missed this one. Not entirely sure if it's genuine, but the acting in the background is pretty good.

Apparently there's a strike going on - in Second Life.

Since the smoking ban in the UK was introduced in July it seems that the health of workers in the hospitality industry (that's "bar staff" to you and me) is more at risk, not less.

According to this article on The Caterer Blog over 10% of workers have suffered threats or actual violence after asking customers to stop smoking:

More disturbing are the personal testimonies given to Caterer.com about customers idiosyncratic behaviour when asked to stop smoking.

“When I told him to put his cigarette out, he pulled down his pants and started masturbating in front of me.”

And so it goes on...

According to Ananova, the Lord Mayor of Belfast has apologised to a council worker left with back injuries after he tried to leapfrog her while she was dressed as a tomato.

Well, the leapfrogging is one thing - it could happen to anyone, after all - but dressing as a tomato? Presumably that comes under "Any other duties" on her job description. But we're just guessing.

There is a quite extraordinary story in the New York Post in which a trader at $10 billion hedge fund SAC Capital claims that he was forced to take female hormone pills to improve his trading performance.

He allges that one of the firm's top bosses:

chided traders for being too aggressive - and that they must use a soft feminine touch to score in their trading pitches.

One junior trader claimed that the boss, Ping Jiang, a key producer at the big hedge fund, demanded that the young trader take female hormone pills to help erase his aggressive male ways so he could be more effeminate in his trading style.

Eventually, the hormones caused the junior trader to start wearing dresses, avoid his wife's touches altogether and allegedly begin a sexual relationship with his boss, the trader claims.

Apparently there was a "dry run" of the new Heathrow Terminal 5 recently and it appears that it didn't all go according to plan. Indeed, some people didn't get to go at all.

The baggage handlers (the people who make sure your luggage gets to Dubai while you're on a plane to Dubrovnik) apparently don't have any loos.

According to The Foreman they:

had to travel up two levels to relieve themselves. There were murmurs that it might be a permanent situation when the all-singing all-dancing terminal opens for real next year.

BAA were quick to stamp on those suggestions, assuring me there would be no need for baggage handlers to go in 'thunder boxes'. "There will be toilets for everyone throughout the building," a spokeswoman told me. Welcome relief for the baggage handlers no doubt.

What do your colleagues have adorning their desks? Some fluffy toys, a picture of their partner, a stress ball, a "motivational" poster?

All of them objectionable, but nothing compared to a hangman's noose.

There's a bit of a brouhaha going on over in the US at the moment regarding a CPS Energy supervisor whose cubicle was adorned with a noose. A co-worker took a photo of it and all hell has broken loose.

According to WOAI.COM:

Investigators at CPS Energy told me the manager believed the noose was a necktie.

During a protest Monday morning, activists chanted "CPS! Down with the noose!"

Dr. Howard Anderson of the NAACP said, "One would have to have been born early this morning to not recognize that a hangman's noose is racially offensive in America."

To many, a noose is a haunting historic symbol.

"The hangman's noose has got 12 knots on it," said union representative Ralph Merriweather. "12 knots by the Ku Klux Klan indicated it took 12 knots to hang a black man, to break his neck to kill him."

That's why these protesters say the noose had no business on the desk of CPS Energy Manager of Application and Maintenance.

Indeed. But wouldn't you be uncomfortable sitting in the next cubicle to this guy?

Spare a thought for 58 year old German bus driver Jochen Lorenz who has been sacked after being spotted taking a roll of toilet paper from the bus depot lavatory.

There's a fantastic story - complete with CCTV footage of the surprise in store for an armed robbber who tried to rob a a Long Island convenience store tended by "a woman of slight stature but explosive temper".

The woman, Hafize Sahin, 27, stalled the man and, thinking he might come behind the counter, pulled out an ax the employees keep around for trimming tree limbs outside. He pointed the gun across the counter, and Ms. Sahin, who was wearing a long dress and a headscarf, began swinging at him. The man fled the store empty-handed, and Ms. Sahin can be seen in pursuit to the parking lot in the store’s surveillance video, which was released by the Suffolk police.

See the video on the New York Times website.

Just came across this amazing picture on ICIS Chemicals Confidential which has added to my ever-expanding list of places I really do not want to work.

It shows the Berezniki 1 potash mine in Russia's Perm region. Apparently, the sinkhole was caused by flooding, and is now threatening the nearby railway line.

So, for the record, I do not want to work near the potash mines of Russia. Or in Russia, come to that.