News You Can Use: 4/22/2020


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  • Meticulous and Orderly, Germany Can Handle a Pandemic

    By reacting to the outbreak early, Germany also bought itself time to build on other “preexisting” strengths. Even before Covid-19 struck, it had far more beds in intensive care units than most other countries. It has been adding many more. So Germany still has spare capacity: About 10,000 of the more than 22,000 beds are free. This lets its hospitals save the lives of more of the patients coming in, and even take some from France and Italy.

    Yet another preexisting advantage, on the socioeconomic side, is a century-old labor law that prevents abrupt layoffs and lets employees get paid even when their work temporarily dries up. Called Kurzarbeit (literally “short work”), the program gets companies to keep paying staff up to 67% of their salaries even when there’s nothing to do, and the government reimburses them. More than 650,000 firms have signed up already, representing millions of employees, from bakers and cleaners to engineers. They and their families can stay financially resilient during the lockdown, and employees will be able to quickly return to work when the virus fades.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-04-16/coronavirus-meticulous-germany-knows-how-to-handle-a-pandemic

  • The Restaurant Impact From COVID-19
  • Before you forward that ‘uplifting’ email to homebound colleagues, think again

    But here’s why chain email, no matter how well-intentioned, is not the way to do it:

    It’s intrusive. When working from home, it’s hard enough avoiding distractions that siphon away our focus and energy without having to filter out time-wasters disguised as work matters.

    It may offend. One person’s inspiration is another’s irritation. Some people draw comfort from psalms and hymns; others’ love language is dirty limericks and Lizzo lyrics. Either group bombarding the other with their own particular form of “inspiration” is just asking for an HR intervention.

    It’s a security risk. Although this chain mail is benign, if annoying, some forwarded messages can carry malicious payloads. Social engineering spam and memes can lure people into revealing personal information. Scams like these have always been around, but they tend to proliferate during a crisis when people are most vulnerable. The coronavirus pandemic has been no exception.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/04/16/before-you-forward-that-uplifting-email-homebound-colleagues-think-again/

News You Can Use: 4/15/2020


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  • Thousands of techies in locked-down India are braving coronavirus daily to keep the world running

    “Many different areas in ODCs are blocked off with separate access cards…Even if the client wants to be considerate, it’s not possible because you may be violating a regulatory applicable policy,” said Benoy CS, vice-president of the digital transformation practice at research and consulting firm Frost & Sullivan. “Some ODCs won’t even allow mobile phones or anybody with a camera. These physical security measures cannot be implemented at home.”

    Firms like Wipro, India’s third-largest IT company, are seeking waivers, but it is risky, Benoy added.

    In any case, configuring corporate virtual private networks (VPN)—programming that creates a safe, encrypted connection over the public internet—to give access to multiple devices from different locations and building traceability has been a challenge for the industry. IT body Nasscom is working with the government for favourable policies on this front.

    https://qz.com/india/1834746/some-tcs-infosys-wipro-staff-go-to-work-amid-coronavirus/

  • How a stockpile of 39 million masks was exposed as fake

    Brady said federal investigators had reason to suspect the arrangement. The 39 million masks were advertised as N95 masks from 3M, the largest U.S.-based manufacturer. But 3M told federal investigators it manufactured only 20 million such masks last year, making that large of a stockpile unlikely unless the product was counterfeit.

    “We believe we disrupted fraud,” Brady said. “We are seeing [personal protective equipment] fraud in every variation, but mostly in respect to N95 masks. We have an anxious public, and resources are strained.”

    https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-11/coronavirus-seiu-masks-fraud-fbi

  • 10 joy-inducing aesthetics you should know

    This is a little hippie-dippie but maybe you will get something out of it…
  • Will We Forgive Amazon When This Is Over?

    When parrying claims that it’s a monopolist, Amazon often cites the statistic that e-commerce is only 16% of all retail. With stores closed and delivery the only safe option for many vulnerable people, it’s clear that proportion will spike in the coming months. Reports from employees and analysts indicate volumes in Amazon’s warehouses are on par with seasonal surges around the holidays. Market-research firm CommerceIQ reported sales of toilet paper are up 186%, while cough and cold medicine sales are up 862%.

    While demand for those products remains high, Amazon shoppers are unable to get many of the essential products the company says it’s prioritizing now. My search for toilet paper on Amazon yielded a jumbo 700-foot roll of commercial toilet paper in the first slot. In the second? A baffling block of text in lieu of a product image, stating that customers ordering this product after April 6 won’t receive it, so they shouldn’t bother. And everything considered nonessential takes more time than the two days Amazon conditioned us to expect.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/will-we-forgive-amazon-when-this-is-over-11586577604

  • Microsoft to give parents 12 weeks of paid leave to help deal with extended school closures

    Microsoft is offering a new benefit to employees dealing with extended school closures.

    Parents who work for the company can get three months of paid parental leave. It doesn’t have to be taken as a single chunk.

    Workers can take it a week, or event a few days, at a time.

    An estimated 1.6 billion students around the globe are home right now because their schools have closed due to the coronavirus outbreak.

    Many states, like Washington, where Microsoft is headquartered, have already said schools will not open again until the next academic year.

    https://www.8newsnow.com/coronavirus/microsoft-to-give-parents-12-weeks-of-paid-leave-to-help-deal-with-extended-school-closures/

News You Can Use: 4/8/2020


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  • Call for social media platforms to act on 5G mast conspiracy theory

    Broadband engineers have also faced physical and verbal threats by people who believe that radiation from 5G masts causes health risks and lowers people’s immune systems.

    The mayor of Liverpool, Joe Anderson, revealed he had received threats after he dismissed the theory as “bizarre”.

    Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove branded the conspiracy theories “dangerous nonsense”.

    And the NHS director, Stephen Powis, added: “The 5G story is complete and utter rubbish. It is nonsense – the worst kind of fake news.

    https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/apr/05/call-for-social-media-platforms-to-act-on-5g-mast-conspiracy-theory

  • Tech supply chains are still a complete mess

    On Friday morning, analysts at S&P’s Panjiva Research laid out a grim picture, with US sea imports from China (which includes most of the electronics you buy) down more than 50 percent in the first three weeks of March, a result of the countrywide lockdown in China. At the same time, the subcontracting companies that actually build the hardware (the most famous is Foxconn, but of course there are a lot of them) are thinking about getting out of China entirely, at least as much as they can. Wistron Corp, which does a lot of work for Apple, boasted last week that it could move as much as half of its business outside Chinese borders within a year.

    It’s a huge sea change for tech manufacturing, and while it has been building for a long time, it’s going to be a lot faster and messier because of the pandemic. It also means that, while these companies are scrambling for labor and parts, they’re also going to be scrambling to stand up a whole new set of factories.

    https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/4/21207276/tech-manufacturing-china-supply-chain-lithium-benchmark

  • Tech hack: These 4 steps will make your phone less distracting
  • Google’s director of talent explains how to write a killer résumé

    In addition to what you learned, think about the impact you’ve made in your previous roles and projects. People are often taught to use data in a résumé, but it needs to be connected to impact, says Ewing.

    “Include sentences to describe that data,” says Ewing. “You need language to bring it together.”

    If you are applying for a business role—in account management, for instance—convey your experience by sharing what you accomplished, how it was measured, and how it was done. For example, “I grew revenue from 15 small business clients by 10% quarter-over-quarter by mapping new software features as solutions to their business goals.”

    This framework can also apply to any relevant leadership positions, university honors, or other types of recognition. “It’s okay to humblebrag, but there is a way to do it with humility,” says Ewing.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90458024/googles-director-of-talent-explains-how-to-write-a-killer-resume

  • Know When to Stop Overdelivering at Work

    Understand what it’s costing you to always aim for outperformance. What else don’t you have time, energy, attention, and willpower for? Perhaps your own health, your big goals, or your family. If you assess that the costs are significant, try having a rule of thumb for when you’ll overdeliver. For instance, you might decide that in three out of ten situations in which you have the urge to do so, you will, but not in the other seven.

    She suggests switching to a mindset in which you give your employer and/or clients exactly what they ask for, within the discussed time frame—because that’s what both of you agreed to, after all. Doing extra work without extra compensation isn’t going to help your career as much as you might think it will, especially if you’re in the part of your career where you’ve already established a professional reputation and skillset.

    https://lifehacker.com/know-when-to-stop-overdelivering-at-work-1842060789

News You Can Use: 4/1/2020


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  • Two Best Friends and the Global Treasure Hunt for Coronavirus Supplies

    The Department of Health and Human Services estimated earlier this year that the U.S. could need more than 3.5 billion face masks if a pandemic took hold domestically, which it did with a vengeance this month.

    The problem is compounded by the decentralized nature of the U.S. health-care system. Whereas hard-hit nations like Italy and China can buy equipment for their whole country at once, U.S. hospitals less frequently band together.

    Prices for the coveted N95 mask, preferred for its ability to block out viral particles, have shot up this month from around $1 apiece to $5 or more, depending on the supplier, buyers said. A single hospital may burn through tens of thousands a day.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/two-best-friends-and-the-global-treasure-hunt-for-coronavirus-supplies-11585410259

  • 3M Making More Masks
  • How Decades of Offshoring Led to a Mask Shortage in a Pandemic

    The emergence of Covid-19 in China made the risks of concentrating production of US health workers’ protective gear in one country painfully clear. The initial outbreak in Hubei province caused a surge in demand for masks inside China, and cut supplies when authorities shuttered factories to halt the virus’ spread. Production of masks has now resumed and companies are expanding capacity, but not much of it has shown up outside China.

    One ripple effect has been ringing phones at Monadnock Nonwovens. The company has been swamped with inquiries including from manufacturers in the US, but mostly from elsewhere, such as Asia and South America, who are trying to expand their mask output, and sometimes scrambling to replace materials previously sourced from China.

    Hayward says he’s hired more workers and adapted some equipment to produce face mask material, rather than other products, around the clock. The material is made from fine strands of plastic on a machine about 40 feet long and 20 feet high that operates something like a paper mill, churning out nonwoven fabric with tight pores on giant rolls. So far, supplies of the raw plastic have held up.

    https://www.wired.com/story/decades-offshoring-led-mask-shortage-pandemic/

  • Instructional video for sewing the Olson mask
  • If you’re working from home, chances are you’ll save money

    There may be a clear silver lining to remote work: It often saves workers money by cutting expenses such as commuting costs, say remote workers and experts in the field. But you’ll likely face some tradeoffs, such as paying for more bandwidth to handle videoconferencing and office supplies – the type of “expenses that are normally provided within a traditional office setting,” says Amelia Green-Vamos, a Glassdoor career trends expert. Some employers say they plan to reimburse workers for those extra costs.

    Remote workers typically save about $4,000 a year by working from home, according to a study from FlexJobs, an online job service that specializes in flexible jobs. That comes from saving on commuting costs as well as paring spending on coffee, lunches and a professional wardrobe.

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/03/22/working-home-likely-save-you-money/5024967002/

News You Can Use: 3/25/2020


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  • Silicon Valley Was First to Send Workers Home. It’s Been Messy.

    In recent days, software developers sent home by Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook have complained of slow download speeds and mounting confusion over still-evolving new internal rules about what work they are allowed to perform, staffers say. Some workers can’t access crucial internal systems from home due to strict security policies meant to fend off outsiders—which now includes off-site employees.

    Alphabet Inc.’s Google was overrun with requests after it told its 119,000 employees to put in for “work from home” kits of monitors, cables and other technological must-haves, employees say. Facing a backlog and no certain date of delivery, many San Francisco employees came in over the weekend, despite requests from Google to avoid doing so, and hauled home desktop equipment and personal effects like family photos back with them.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/silicon-valley-was-first-to-send-workers-home-its-been-messy-11584190800

  • Farts, cats, naked bodies: People are failing hilariously at working from home

    Work culture will need to adjust to the new normal, in which toddlers and flatulent dogs are our coworkers. It inevitably will. But until then, here are some of the worst work-from-home fails we’ve seen in the past week. They prove that, however rough your work-from-home experience has been, it could have been a lot worse.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90478967/farts-cats-naked-bodies-people-are-failing-hilariously-at-working-from-home

  • Your Company Culture Isn’t an Office, It’s the People
  • At Schools Closed for Coronavirus, Online Work Won’t Count

    Schools are expected to advance students to the next grade, come fall, even with all the months of missed coursework, though many administrators say they haven’t addressed it yet. Teachers already dread what they call “the summer slide,” or information children lose over summer vacation, and schools haven’t yet said how curricula in the fall may need to be adjusted to make up missed work.

    In Washington state, where schools are closed statewide until at least April 24, the Education Department has warned against using online learning that isn’t equitable. At least one district in Bothell, Wash., halted the online model it had rolled out to students to address equity issues. Now, the Northshore School District superintendent said, in a letter to families this week, the district has launched a resource page online for families to keep students moving forward. This week, students are being encouraged to create projects that could be useful in relation to the current health situation, such as building a hand-sanitizer dispenser. A petition to restore online learning had over 11,000 signatures on Thursday.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/schools-closed-for-coronavirus-online-work-wont-count-11584643049