The Body Shop is adopting “open hiring”: No interviews, no background checks, no drug tests. When there is a job available, just answer three yes-or-no questions and the job is yours. It’s a new philosophy called “open hiring”—and it works.
Links
Stuff I find around the web that interests or amuses me.
Bookshop: A centralized shopping website for independent bookstores. Start here instead of at Amazon! Discovered through this Forbes article.
A “live laugh love”-style sign, but using text from the Long-Time Nuclear Waste Warning Messages. I love this.
Was the Democratic Nomination Rigged? A Reexamination of the Clinton-Sanders Presidential Race by Anthony J. Gaughan: “This article makes three central points. First, it contends that the overwhelming weight of evidence makes clear the 2016 Democratic nomination process was not rigged in favor of Hillary Clinton. Second, this article argues that the Democratic Party rules and state election laws actually hurt Clinton and benefited Sanders. Third, the article concludes that the controversy over the Democratic nomination race reflects a broader, bipartisan decline in public confidence in the integrity of American elections.”
Running A Con, Conference Or Festival In The Age Of A Burgeoning Pandemic!: “Get ahead of this now. Do not make us e-mail you to ask you what’s up. This isn’t about causing panic — it’s about undercutting it. It’s about reassuring us that you have this in your mind, with plans forming.”
Coronavirus: Don’t Panic!
Liberally adapted from this Washington Post article, a list of best practices for dealing with the coronavirus:
- Don’t Panic!
- The basics: Wash your hands regularly. Cover your nose and mouth when you sneeze. And when you’re sick, stay home from work or school and drink lots of fluids.
- Keep the shopping cart light: Surgical masks? If you’re not sick, you don’t need to wear them. The main point of the mask is to keep someone who is infected with the virus from spreading it to others. If you’re itching to buy something, you can stick to the typical respiratory-virus medicine: decongestants, anti-inflammatory drugs and acetaminophen for fevers.
- Practice makes permanent: One of the best things you can do to prepare for any emergency, including a coronavirus outbreak, is put together an emergency kit. It’s also important to have plans in place in case the outbreak disrupts your daily routines.
- Be mindful of where you are: Health officials have stressed keeping your distance from people who are sick, especially when it comes to respiratory viruses. It is worth considering limiting exposure to large groups, especially during flu season. In confined spaces, such as mass transit, it’s important to look around and see what’s going on, see where everyone’s hands are going and make a mental note to wash up later. But awareness cuts both ways—just because someone has the sniffles or has a cough, it doesn’t mean they have the coronavirus.
- Watch what you read: Hoaxes, lies and junk science about coronavirus have swirled online since the earliest cases were reported, mostly through social media. Look to trustworthy sources, such as the CDC, the World Health Organization and local health departments, to stay informed.
- Be kind: As coronavirus has spread, so, too, has anti-Asian prejudice. The WHO has urged government agencies to do what they can to prevent discrimination against specific populations, since stigmatization can fuel the spread of the outbreak by driving marginalized individuals to hide infection and avoid seeking treatment. Remember to not let fear override your common humanity about how you treat other people.
You’re Likely to Get the Coronavirus: Most cases are not life-threatening, which is also what makes the virus a historic challenge to contain.: “Certain containment measures will be appropriate, but widely banning travel, closing down cities, and hoarding resources are not realistic solutions for an outbreak that lasts years.”
How to win Monopoly in the shortest possible time: “Refuse to let bank fail. Rushing one million Monopoly dollars to you by airmail – carry on.”
Saint Expedite
From Julie McGalliard, the story of how she discovered “St. Expedite”, the “patron saint of getting things done in a hurry”.
Saint Expedite and me: Part 1:
Our guide took us through Our Lady of Guadalupe, which is the oldest church building in New Orleans. It’s Catholic, of course, but it also has — according to our tour guide — the only genuine Voodoo saint in the US. He showed us the statue of “St. Expedite” (yes, his placard has the quotes) and told us the following story:
This Italian-made statue of a young Roman Centurion is from the 19th century. It was secular, intended for a Garden District mansion. But it was delivered to the cathedral by mistake. The French-speaking nuns opened it and, seeing that it was similar in size and style to the statues of saints in the Cathedral, they assumed it was a saint they were unfamiliar with and put him on display, using the name stamped on the outside of the crate: Expedite.
Some time later they discovered their mistake and tried to remove the statue, but after much public outcry, they put him back up again. See, the local Voodoos had already taken Saint Expedite to heart as the patron saint of getting things done in a hurry.
[…]
It wasn’t until then that I made the connection between things I wanted being offered to me, on the contingency that I accept them RIGHT NOW, and having earlier asked for a blessing from the mysterious entity known as Saint Expedite.
And be sure to continue on to the next post, Saint Expedite and me: Part 2
“You know that statue that’s been in the crawlspace forever? I think it’s Saint Expedite.”
We thought this unlikely, to say the least. Because there aren’t statues of Saint Expedite — not in this country, anyway. The one in New Orleans was the only one, as far as we knew. As far as anyone knew. That’s why the tour guide could tell that story about the nuns and the mis-delivered statue, because he could be confident that nobody taking the tour had ever seen or heard of Saint Expedite before.
Still, we had to go to Port Townsend and check it out.
Fascinating story, and you know? It never hurts to keep things like this in mind when you’re in need of a little extra assistance.
Someone Built a Distraction-Free Cellphone With a Working Old-School Rotary Dial: “Haupt’s creation seems like it was brought to Earth from a parallel dimension where mobile phones took an entirely different evolutionary route, and where technologies like touchscreens never came to fruition.”