employment

Frustration is an essential element of the human condition.

Nowhere is it more essential than at work, where people can be openly hostile, appallingly manipulative or, if you happen to work in the San Francisco Bay Area, passive-aggressive till your toenails crack.

You don't know who your friends are, so you have to be careful where and to whom you air your frustrations. However, given its essentially public nature, perhaps Twitter is not the best place and Twitterers are not the best ears.

Some people, though, can help themselves no more than when they are confronted with a chocolate … Read more

Having worked on several continents, I know how difficult it can be to adjust to different cultures.

In Poland, for example, men kiss men at work. In the United States, on the other hand, they sue for that kind of thing.

So you have to feel for any American who is suddenly asked very nicely by his employer to leave the deep safety of the nation and venture to, say, the United Kingdom.

They're different there. They're tight-lipped and generally superior.

Kinder employers, therefore, create little handbooks to prepare unwitting expats for a new world.

The Sun got hold of a book … Read more

Zynga and Electronic Arts have agreed to drop their lawsuits against each other, according to a court document filed today.

The two gaming companies had been throwing legal punches since August, when EA accused Zynga of ripping off one of its social games. Zynga countersued EA shortly thereafter, accusing EA of unfair hiring practices.

Both parties have decided to dismiss their cases with prejudice, according to the document, which means they can't file future lawsuits about the same accusations. The companies are picking up the tabs for their own legal fees.

Zynga confirmed that the suits were resolved but … Read more

Six states have officially made it illegal for employers to ask their workers for passwords to their social media accounts. As of 2013, California and Illinois have joined the ranks of Michigan, New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware in passing state laws against the practice, according to Wired.

With Congress not being able to come to agreement on the Password Protection Act of 2012, individual states have taken the law into their own hands. Both California and Illinois agreed on password protection laws in 2012, but the laws didn't go into effect until yesterday.

The laws are designed to prohibit … Read more

Facebook today launched a job-board application, featuring 1.7 million listings from five different recruiting organizations.

The new application, a product of the Social Jobs Partnership that Facebook started last year with several public agencies, aggregates jobs that are already available through the separate organizations to give job seekers a central location to look for work.

This initial slew of jobs -- sorted by industry, location, and skills -- comes from BranchOut, DirectEmployers Association, Work4Labs, Jobvite, and Monster.com.

"Today's launch of the Social Jobs Application highlights what we've known all along -- that both recruiters and … Read more

Calif. Gov. Jerry Brown took to social media today to announce that he signed two privacy laws protecting employees and students from bosses and universities wanting to snoop on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media accounts.

"Today I am signing Assembly Bill 1844 and Senate Bill 1349, which prohibit universities and employers from demanding your email and social media passwords," he wrote in a Facebook post. "California pioneered the social media revolution. These laws protect Californians from unwarranted invasions of their social media accounts."

AB 1844 was designed to prohibit employers from requiring an employee or … Read more

It seems the job hunt is in your favor if you qualify for a job in IT. Though the job market is still recovering from the recession, more than half of IT employers said they plan to hire for positions throughout the remainder of the year, according to CareerBuilder's IT midyear job forecast, which is due out tomorrow.

The survey says 55 percent of IT employers said they were planning to hire full-time, permanent staff from July 1 through December 31, according to CareerBuilder. While this is a 1 percent decrease from last year, CareerBuilder said the market is … Read more

Job searchers can now approach their quest as many do for love -- relying on data and science. Or, at least, "science" (as most anyone who's ever tried online dating can attest).

Bright, a job search engine launching today, uses data to show employees and employers how compatible they are using a scoring system that CEO Steve Goodman said will revolutionize the hiring the process.

"We believe that there is a job for everybody that wants to be gainfully employed," he told CNET in an interview.

The company is backed by a variety of angel … Read more

Mother's Day exists not merely to make some people large profits, but also to raise sincere emotions.

Perhaps this is what inspired some working moms at Verizon Communications to appear in a video, which serves as a response to Verizon's current Mother's Day TV ad.

You might have been assailed by this TV ad. It's the one in which a mother and daughter spend the whole time weeping because they are both desperate for Droid Razrs or merely a desperate child-raiser and her daughter.

The point of the ad is to talk about what moms really … Read more