Employment in the News

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Fraud Case - Strip Clubs and Fishing Trips on Taxpayer Money

13 WHAM News

by Jane Flasch

June 19, 2009

Rochester, N.Y. -- According to a federal criminal complaint, Robert Morone allegedly billed taxpayers for work on political campaigns, parades, fundraising events, and commercials.

According to the federal complaint, while on the Monroe County payroll, Morone routinely took Robutrad workers to a strip club. Worker "A" was paid while on fishing trips, worker "C" took his family on vacation to Cancun for a week, and worker "F" took off two weeks, but still collected a $4,300 paycheck.

When empathy becomes insulting

37signals.com

by David

April 25, 2013

Most corporate customer service departments seem to have been reduced to call scripts of apologies with no power whatsoever to actually address the problems they encounter.

That's the conclusion I'm left with after dealing with three business bureaucracies this year: Comcast, Verizon, and American Airlines. All train their front line people to glaze the interaction with the plastic empathy that's supposed to make you feel like they care, even when they demonstrably do not. It's the customer service equivalent of empty calories, but worse, it's also infuriating. There's simply nothing worse than someone telling you how sorry they are when you can hear they don't give a damn. Nothing worse than someone telling you that they're doing all they can, when they're aren't lifting a finger.

It's easy to blame minorities

37signals.com

by David

March 1, 2013

Yahoo has some 11,000 workers. Most estimates put the number of remote workers between 300 and 500. In other words, just 2-4% of the Yahoo work force. That's a tiny minority!

But that's exactly why it's been so easy to place the blame on them for Yahoo's ails. Minorities make for great scapegoats in all walks of life. If we can just place the blame on this small group of people, then it means there's nothing really wrong with the rest of us. Gruber summed up this sentiment as "Yahoo employees have been allowed to work remotely, and they have not excelled". In other words, Yahoo is a rudderless basket case, so it must be because of those 2-4% of the work force who are "goofing off". Heh.

Idiot-proofing is for Idiots

37signals.com

by Jamie

January 30, 2013

A few weeks ago I read a letter called Please Don't Help My Kids. This excerpt resonated with me: "It is not my job ... to prevent my children from feeling frustration, fear, or discomfort."

Doing something the first time is a challenge. I have 2 young kids, and I watch them struggle with the most rudimentary things. Eventually they figure it out. Usually it comes with tears and pleading. But that's how they'll learn to do the next thing. That's how they'll get the confidence to take on the next challenge. That's how you level up.

Writing tip: say the opposite

37signals.com

by Jason Z

January 25, 2013

Here's a great bit of advice from Jakob Nielsen's 2001 post about writing company taglines...

How to price something

37signals.com

by Jason Fried

January 10, 2013

Lately I've been spending some time with local entrepreneurs who are looking for business advice. Inevitably, the topic of pricing comes up. "How do I know how much to charge?"

There are lots of answers. You can make up a number and see if it works. You can test a few different prices at the same time. You can do traditional market research and see what you find. You can read pricing books and academic papers on pricing approaches, techniques, and behavioral psychology. You can see what others are charging. The good news about pricing is that you can guess, be wrong, but still be right enough to build a great sustainable business. Maybe you're leaving some money on the table, but, like my dad always says, no one ever went broke making a profit.

Some advice from Jeff Bezos

37signals.com

by Jason Fried

October 21, 2012

Jeff Bezos stopped by our office yesterday and spent about 90 minutes with us talking product strategy. Before he left, he spent about 45 minutes taking general Q&A from everyone at the office.

During one of his answers, he shared an enlightened observation about people who are "right a lot". He said people who were right a lot of the time were people who often changed their minds. He doesn't think consistency of thought is a particularly positive trait. It's perfectly healthy - encouraged, even - to have an idea tomorrow that contradicted your idea today.

Announcing the second "Switch Workshop": Gain fresh insight into why customers choose, or leave, your product.

37signals.com

by Jason F.

October 15, 2012

Customers don't just buy a product - they switch from something else. And customers don't just leave a product - they switch to something else.

It's in these switching moments that the deepest customer insights can be found. On the 2nd of November, a select group of 24 people will attend a unique, hands-on, full-day workshop to learn about "The Switch". Most businesses don't know the real reasons why people switch to - or from - their products. We'll teach you how to find out.

And then the music stopped

37signals.com

by David

July 30, 2012

Remember way back to, oh, six months ago when champagne was popping and markets were roaring?

Back when companies with no or few profits could premiere on the world stage to grand applause by merely converting a dollar into fifty cents? Those were the good times of boom, boom, pow. It's amazing how quickly everyone has gone from rocking out to that tune to loathing those same beats. But that's exactly what's happened to the pop stocks of just a few minutes ago. Here's a brief recap of just the last six months for three former stars...

A/B Testing: It's not about the results, and it's definitely not about the why

37signals.com

by Noah

May 2, 2012

In college, I worked for a couple of years in a lab that tested the effectiveness of surgical treatments for ACL rupture using industrial robotics. Sometimes, the reconstructions didn't hold.

The surgeons involved were sometimes frustrated; it can be hard to look at data showing that something you did didn't work. But for the scientists and engineers, all that mattered was that we'd followed our testing protocol and gathered some new data. I came to learn that this attitude is exactly what it takes to be a successful scientist over the long term and not merely a one-hit wonder. Occasionally, when we're running an A/B test someone will ask me what I call "success" for a given test. My answer is perhaps a bit surprising to some...

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