For nearly a decade now, Merebeth has been a self-employed pet transport specialist. Her pet transport job was born of the financial crisis(危机)in the late 2000s. The downturn hit the real estate (房地产)firm where she had worked for ten years as an office manager. The firm went broke and left her looking for a new job. One day, while driving near her home, she saw a dog wandering on the road, clearly lost. She took it home, and her sister in Denver agreed to take it. This was a loving home for sure, but 1, 600 miles away. It didn' t take long for Merebeth to decide to drive the dog there herself. It was her first road trip to her new job.
Merebeth' s pet delivery service also satisfies her wanderlust. It has taken her to every state in the US except Montana, Washington and Oregon, she says proudly. If she wants to visit a new place, she will simply find a pet with transport needs there. She travels in all weathers. She has driven through 55 mph winds in Wyoming, heavy flooding and storms in Alabama and total whiteout conditions in Kansas.
This wanderlust is inherited from her father, she says. She moved their family from Canada to California when she was one year old, because he wanted them to explore a new place together. As soon as she graduated from high school she left home to live on Catalina Island off the Californian coast, away from her parents, where she enjoyed a life of sailing and off-road biking.
It turns out that pet transporting pays quite well at about $30, 000 per year before tax. She doesn' t work in summer, as it would be unpleasantly hot for the animals in the car, even with air conditioning. As autumn comes, she gets restless—the same old wanderlust returning. It' s a call she must heed alone, though. Merebeth says, " When I am on the road, I' m just in my own world. I've always been independent-spirited and I just feel strongly that I mush help animals. "
One of the executives gathered at the Aspen Institute for a day-long leadership workshop using the works of Shakespeare was discussing the role of Brutus in the death of Julius Caesar. " Brutus was not an honourable man, " he said. " He was a traitor (叛徒). And he murdered someone in cold blood. " The agreement was that Brutus had acted with cruelty when other options were available to him. He made a bad decision, they said — at least as it was presented by Shakespeare — to take the lead in murdering Julius Caesar. And though one of the executives acknowledged that Brutus had the good of the republic in mind, Caesar was nevertheless his superior. " You have to understand, " the executives said, " our policy is to obey the chain of command. "
During the last few years, business executives and book writers looking for a new way to advise corporate America have been exploiting Shakespeare' s wisdom for profitable ends. None more so than husband and wife team Kenneth and Carol Adelman, well-known former advisers to the White House, who started up a training company called " Movers and Shakespeares " . They are amateur Shakespeare scholars and Shakespeare lovers, and they have combined their passion and their high-level contacts into a management training business. They conduct between 30 and 40 workshops annually, dealing with half a dozen different plays, mostly for corporations, but also for government agencies.
The workshops all take the same form, focusing on a single play as a kind of case study, and using individual scenes as specific lessons. In Julius Caesar, for example, Cassius' s sly provocation (狡诈的挑唆) of Brutus to take up arms against Caesar was the basis for a discussion of methods of team building and grass roots organizing.
Although neither of the Adelmans is academically trained in literature, the programs contain plenty of Shakespeare tradition and background. Their workshop on Henry V, for example, includes a helpful explanation of Henry' s winning strategy at the Battle of Agincourt. But they do come to the text with a few biases (偏向): their reading of Henry V minimizes his misuse of power. Instead, they emphasize the story of the youth who seizes opportunity and becomes a masterful leader. And at the workshop on Caesar, Mr. Adelmans had little good to say about Brutus, saying " the noblest Roman of them all " couldn' t make his mind up about things.
Many of the participants pointed to very specific elements in the play that they felt to be related. Caesar' s pride, which led to his murder, and Brutus' s mistakes in leading the traitors after the murder, they said, raise vital questions for anyone serving in a business when and how do you resist the boss?
Look to many of history's cultural symbols, and there you'll find an ancestor of Frosty, the snowman in the movie Frozen. It appeared on some of the first postcards, starred in some of the earliest silent movies, and was the subject of a couple of the earliest photos, dating all the way back to the 1800s. I discovered even more about one of humanity's earliest forms of life art during several years of research around the world.
For example, snowmen were a phenomenon in the Middle Ages, built with great skill and thought. At a time of limited means of expression, snow was like free art supplies dropped from the sky. It was a popular activity for couples to leisurely walk through town to view the temporary works of chilly art. Some were created by famous artists, including a 19-year-old Michelangelo, who in 1494 was appointed by the ruler of Florence, Italy, to build a snowman in his mansion's courtyard.
The Miracle of 1511 took place during six freezing works called the Winter of Death. The city of Brussels was covered in snowmen—an impressive scene that told stories on every street corner. Some were political in nature, criticizing the church and government. Some were a reflection of people's imagination. For the people of Brussels, this was a defining moment of defining freedom. At least until spring arrived, by which time they were dealing with damaging floods.
If you fear the heyday of the snowman has passed, don't worry: I've learned that some explosive snowman history is still being made today. Every year since 1818, the people of Zurich, Switzerland, celebrate the beginning of spring by blowing up a snowman. On the third Monday of April, the holiday Sechselauten is kicked off when a cotton snowman called the Boogg is stuffed with explosive and paraded through town by bakers and other tradesmen who throw bread to the crowds. The parade ends with the Boogg being placed on a 40-foot pile of firewood. After the bells of the Church of St. Peter have rung six times, representing the passing of winter, the pile is lit. When the snowman explodes, winter is considered officially over—the quicker it is burnt down, the longer summer is said to be.
Enough " meaningless drivel " . That' s the message from a group of members of the UK government who have been examining how social media firms like LinkedIn gather and use social media data.
The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee' s report, released last week, has blamed firms for making people sign up too long incomprehensible legal contracts and calls for an international standard or kitemark (认证标记) to identify sites that have clear terms and conditions. " The term and conditions statement that we all carelessly agree to is meaningless drivel to anyone, " says Andrew Miller, the chair of the committee. Instead, he says, firms should provide a plain-English version of their terms. The simplified version would be checked by a third party and awarded a kitemark if it is an accurate reflection of the original.
It is not yet clear who would administer the scheme, but the UK government is looking at introducing it on a voluntary basis. " We need to think through how we make that work in practice, " says Miller.
Would we pay any more attention to a kitemark? " I think if you went and did the survey, people would like to think they would, " says Nigel Shadbolt at the University of Southampton, UK, who studies open data. " We do know people worry a lot about the inappropriate use of their information. " But what would happen in practice is another matter, he says.
Other organizations such as banks ask customers to sign long contracts they may not read or understand
but Miller believes social media requires special attention because it is so new. " We still don' t know how significant the long-term impact is going to be of unwise things that kids put on social media that come back and bite them in 20 years' time, " he says.
Shadbolt, who gave evidence to the committee, says the problem is that we don' t know how companies will use our data because their business models and uses of data are still evolving. Large colle ctions of personal information have become valuable only recently, he says.
The shock and anger when a social media firm does something with data that people don' t expect, even if users have apparently permission, show that the current situation isn' t working. If properly administered, a kitemark on terms and conditions could help people know what exactly they are signing up to. Although they would still have to actually read them.
I have the same 24 hours in a day as you do, but I have made specific choice that allow me to make the most of every day and still feel happy and relaxed.
Pick the most important.
Focus on spending time that for you is fun and productive. I chose the life of an adviser because I like to work with companies, but don' t want the life of a big company CEO. My choices are based on the lifestyle I want.
Combine your activities.
Many people go crazy trying to figure out how to spend time with friends, family, work, play, etc. Find ways to enjoy them in a combined manner. Build your social life around people your work environment. Find people in your company who share common interests and develop your career (职业) around the people and activities you love.
You would think learning takes more time from you, but actually there are always new ways of doing things that can save you time on daily tasks, freeing you up for the most important. Always be looking for a new way to gain back an hour here or there.
Lighten up.
The world won' t come to an end in most cases just because you left a few things undone. Celebrate progress and keep refining (改进) toward a happy productive existence. Every completion is a small victory that adds up in a big way.
A. Speed up.
B. Be an active learner.
C. Stop trying to balance time between them all.
D. Make choices about what is meaningful in your life.
E. The things you do well usually give you greater joy.
F. Perhaps these tips will help you make the most of your time.
G. This is why making lists is important in any productivity handbook.
In the 1960s, Douglas McGregor, one of the key thinkers in the art of management, developed the now famous Theory X and Theory Y. Theory X is the idea that people instinctively 1 work and will do anything to avoid it. Theory Y is the view that everyone has the potential to find satisfaction in work.
In any case, despite so much evidence to the 2 , many managers still agree to Theory X. They believe, 3 , that their employees need constant supervision if they are to work effectively, or that decisions must be imposed from 4 without consultation. This, of course, makes for authoritarian (专制的) managers.
Different cultures have different ways of 5 people. Unlike authoritarian management, some cultures, particularly in Asia, are well known for the consultative nature of decision-making — all members of the department or work group are asked to 6 to this process. This is management by the collective opinion. Many western companies have tried to imitate such Asian ways of doing things, which are based on general 7 . Some experts say that women will become more effective managers than men because they have the power to reach common goals in a way that traditional 8 managers cannot.
A recent trend has been to encourage employees to use their own initiative, to make decisions on their own without 9 managers first. This empowerment (授权) has been part of the trend towards downsizing: 10 the number of management layers in companies. After de-layering in this way, a company may be 11 with just a top level of senior managers, front-line managers and employees with direct contact with the public. Empowerment takes the idea of delegation (委托) much further than has 12 been the case. Empowerment and delegation mean new forms of management control to 13 that the overall business plan is being followed, and that operations become more profitable under the new organization, rather than less.
Another trend is off-site or 14 management, where teams of people linked by e-mail and the Internet work on projects from their own houses. Project managers evaluate the 15 of the team members in terms of what they produce for projects, rather than the amount of time they spend on them.
I used to frequently visit an old age home (manage) by the little sisters of the poor in our city Hyderabad. A. P. , India. There I met a gentleman by the name of Kurien in his late (eighty). He served the Indian army and retired. He has one son who is well educated and also married.
Mr. Kurien felt down with the life in his house decided to move into this old age home here in Hyderabad. We both began to share a lot of thoughts whenever we met and slowly it was a (day) affair that I used to spend some time with him discussing what he was doing in the army, camp fun etc. , he used to share with lots of joy.
I used to carry with me some snacks which we both used to sit under a tree and eat. I saw him really very happy in my (present). One day he told me with tears in his eyes " I really found a very good friend in you. I feel like (live) some more years to spend happy time with you.
As we departed, I told him, " Do not worry. We will have enough time together in the future. " I had an official meeting and could not go to the old age home the next day. The day after when I reached the home, his room (lock). I enquired and found that he was no more. He died very night we both met last.
I really miss him. I have not given him anything worthwhile except I used to listen to his words and share his thoughts.
