ArcaMax

You don't get to be the editor of the "Smarter Living" section of The New York Times without a great resume and a lot of talent. (You also don't get to be editor with a sketchy resume and a smidgen of talent. I tried and look where I wound up.)

It's a surprise to read that the current editor, Tim Herrera, boasts that one of his "proudest ...Read more

I don't like to brag, but I am very busy. I am busy doing nothing, but it still counts. In fact, being busy doing nothing counts a lot more than being busy doing something.

If you doubt me, ask Olga Mecking.

Mecking is the author of "The Case for Doing Nothing," a recent article published in The New York Times.

The basic premise is that ...Read more

I love Kaizen. Everyone loves Kaizen. That only leaves one question -- what the heck is Kaizen?

Is Kaizen that hot new word game where you have to see how many words you can make using only six letters of the Mongolian alphabet? Is it an ancient martial arts discipline in which you train mind and body to face danger and then run like hell? Or ...Read more

Good news! It's not too late to save 2019.

Yes, your New Year's resolutions have been smashed. Your hopes and dreams have been dashed. Still, there is enough 2019 left to turn it around. All you have to do is read Anne Fisher's hopeful post on the Fortune website.

"5 Career Moves You'll (Probably) Make in 2019" is the title of the piece, and...Read more

Oopsy! I almost made a big mistake.

I signed on to glassdoor.com. Glassdoor is a company that rates other companies. The idea is that anonymous reviews from anonymous reviewers will warn off good job seekers from accepting bad jobs.

I am suspicious of online reviews. It's how I got myself trapped into watching six seasons of "Here Comes ...Read more

Interesting discussion at the Flat Earth Society last night.

Not only did our ruling overlords withhold the indisputable fact that the Earth is not round, but the powers that be have also kept from us the undeniable truth that the first human beings on our (flat) Earth were born in 1981.

Or so it seems.

1981 is the year generally accepted ...Read more

Just because your slacker mentality and fundamental lack of ability makes you a terrible employee doesn't mean there isn't another job waiting for you -- a job that comes with the bloated paycheck and all the scrumptious perks you deserve.

The name for this job is "manager."

That's right! Your failure as an employee and an itsy-bitsy dose of...Read more

Ten minutes.

That's all it took for you to figure out that your brand-new job was a real stinker.

And you had so much hope.

How much time had you spent hating your old job? How many job sites had you clicked on? How many interviews had you gone on?

Too many, that's how many.

But it finally paid off. They say there's an ass for every seat, ...Read more

Why's everybody always pickin' on me?

Those immortal words are from "Charlie Brown," the 1959 hit song by the Coasters, who are pretty darn immortal themselves.

In 2019, it isn't high school rebels who get picked on. According to Anna Goldfarb in her New York Times article, "The Right Way to Ask, 'Can I Pick Your Brain?'" it's "experienced ...Read more

If you're sick of your noisy, crowded office and think that working from home would be an improvement, I have news.

Your home is definitely an oasis of serenity, free of the endless distractions of a public workspace.

Unless you have children.

I can understand why you would forget that you have children. They're small and slippery and easy ...Read more

It's all Marie Kondo's fault.

Her popular Netflix series based on her best-selling book "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing" has America tidying up with such fervor that homes across America are empty and city dumps are overflowing. And now, the "KonMari Method" is leaving home and going to ...Read more

As mother used to say, "You're not the only pebble on the beach."

It's true. You may spend all your time thinking about yourself, but there are other pebbles out there and, as painful as this sounds, it could be to your benefit to hear what they have to say.

Or so I gleaned from a recent article by Kathy Caprino for Forbes.

Caprino is a ...Read more

Remember the old days?

Remember when your boss tracked the amount of work you did?

Not anymore.

Now, employers don't care about how much work you do. Now, the only thing employers track is how many steps you take.

In the words of Christopher Rolland, a writer at The Washington Post, "Welcome to a rapidly growing phenomenon in the workplace...Read more