The sea level in Miami has risen ten inches since 1900; in the 2000 years prior, it did not really change. The consensus among informed observers is that the sea will rise in Miami Beach somewhere between 13 and 34 inches by 2050. By 2100, it is extremely likely to be closer to six feet, which means, unless you own a yacht and a helicopter, sayonara. Sunset Harbour is expected to fare slightly worse, and to do so more quickly.
Like I said, confidence is a funny thing. You have to somehow believe that the worst outcome simply won't happen. Sometimes you have to do that while knowing for a fact that the worst outcome is happening, all the time.
I was acting the part of what I call Quintessential Host, someone who seems to have anticipated every guest’s need and desire—and this is key—without breaking a sweat or having to try too hard. The role is a trap. It’s about martyrdom and the idea that you only get to enjoy yourself once everyone else has been taken care of. But it’s also a tad controlling.
But free to roam, with flights to any imaginable destination just a click away (credit card points!), an unlimited number of new people to meet, and nothing to tie me down but a backpack, I felt more unmoored than ever.
Interestingly, most management books describe peacetime CEO techniques while very few describe wartime. For example, a basic principle in most management books is that you should never embarrass an employee in a public setting. On the other hand, in a room filled with people, Andy Grove once said to an employee who entered the meeting late: “All I have in this world is time, and you are wasting my time.” Why such different approaches to management?
In reality, good assistants save their bosses much more than that. They ensure that meetings begin on time with prep material delivered in advance. They optimize travel schedules and enable remote decision making, keeping projects on track. And they filter the distractions that can turn a manager into a reactive type who spends all day answering e-mail instead of a leader who proactively sets the organization’s agenda. As Robert Pozen writes in this issue: A top-notch assistant “is crucial to being productive.”
__"I think walking is probably the single most underutilized tool in health and wellness,"__ says nutrition coach and personal trainer Jeremy Fernandes. According to Fernandes, the reason we rarely hear about walking as a major fitness tool—in the same conversations as stuff like yoga or expensive spinning bikes—is that people aren’t emotionally prepared for fitness to be easy. “Most people want to believe that working out and fat loss needs to be hard. If you need impossibly crushing workouts to get in better shape, then you’re not responsible when you fail,” he says. "But a basic program performed consistently—even a half-assed effort done consistently—can bring you a really long way, much further than going hardcore once in a while."
The research certainly concluded that the employees were working hard. Total hours worked were 30% higher than before the pandemic, including an 18% increase in working outside normal hours. But this extra effort did not translate into any rise in output. This may explain the earlier survey evidence; both employers and employees felt they were producing as much as before. But the correct way to measure productivity is output per working hour. With all that extra time on the job, this fell by 20%.
Isohumulone is the acid found in hops that gives beer its bitter bite. Though the IBU scale can be used as a general guideline for taste, with lower IBUs corresponding to less bitterness and vice versa, it's important to note that malt and other flavors can mask the taste of bitterness in beer.
The distributed office is not a placeless space. A Zoom call is a place; a Slack channel is a place; your manager’s inbox is a place. These are all “rooms” in which bosses can evaluate worker performance. It’s a fact of human diversity that different people thrive in different spaces, so we should expect that the virtual spaces of remote work will reward certain skills that went underappreciated in office settings.