Everyone has a soft spot for mom. Whether she’s a gourmet cook or simply knows which grocery aisle has the Tuna Helper. Whether she was there with a bandage when you skinned your knee or she was too busy laughing at your klutziness. Whether she took you shopping for back-to-school clothes or sewed you embarrassing pink bunny costumes. Either way, mom was always there.
Of course, given the chance, everyone would vote for their own mom as the hardest working mother. But we want to know: Who would be your second choice? Would you go with adopt-a-holic Angelina Jolie or perhaps TV mom of eight Kate Gosselin? Maybe your mom of choice once laid her head on a pillow at the White House – or soon will. And oh yeah, happy Mothers’ Day!
The gang from “Beverly Hills 90210” chilled at The Peach Pit when the going got tough. The ladies from “The Hills” crash at mommy and daddy’s million dollar vacation pads when money can’t buy happiness. And when President Bush gets bummed over his approval rating, he can golf, fish and play the Risk board game deep in the heart of his Crawford, Texas ranch.
Everyone needs somewhere to hang out and relax. To reflect and move forward. And now America’s hourly workers and job seekers have Off the Clock. Think of it as yoga for your paycheck. Sure, the beanbag chairs and the old school “Donkey Kong” arcade game haven’t arrived yet, but please make yourself comfortable.
Within the walls of Off the Clock – SnagAJob.com’s new community/hangout for hourly workers and job seekers – you’ll find a ton of resources for both your working life, as well as the hours before and after you punch the clock: Connect to our MySpace profile and accelerate your job search. Get personal finance tips, hourly job news and plenty of punch lines in SnagABlog.com, our job search advice blog. And even send us your job stories, read others and win prizes in our new Share & Win! section.
Have fun. Tell your friends. And be sure to check back often. Off the Clock is a work in progress and we’ll be adding cool new features in the near future. We welcome your ideas; if you have any, please send them here.
When Mitch Buchannon ran in slow motion across the bikini-infested shores of SoCal, people sweated right along with him through their TVs. From Wichita, Kansas to Berlin, Germany, “Baywatch” fans helped catapult David Hasselhoff & Co. to B-level stardom. Heck, some would say he even had the best summer job ever, whether he was performing mouth-to-mouth on a porpoise or busting goons and perps in the short-lived “Baywatch Nights.”
Now it’s time to find out for certain. But we need your help. SnagAJob.com is putting “The Hoff” up against some stiff competition to find out who had (or has) the best summer job of all time. Some of these are real gigs, many are not.
Back in the day, you could land a job as an ice cream truck driver by writing your name and number on your still chill popsicle stick and handing it to Skippy. That was the application. Heck, you didn’t even need a license. (OK, that’s a lie.)
But times have changed, and according to a recent SnagAJob.com survey, nearly half (49%) of traditional hourly hiring standbys, including retailers and restaurants, say they don’t plan on adding summer workers this year. Yikes!
Employers blame the crumby economy and their belief that teen workers aren’t bringing their ‘A’ game to the workplace. In other words, they’re calling you slackers. Now it’s time to prove them wrong. (Cue the motivational “Rocky” theme song…)
So if you haven’t hit the pavement (or the Internet) and started your summer job search, now is the time. A whopping 76 percent of the 1,000 hiring managers who were interviewed expect to fill their seasonal jobs by May. So you can’t wait until after you’ve cleaned out your locker to start handing in applications.
It’s that time of year when men start sweating and women start smiling: Valentine’s Day. And what better time to ask America’s hourly workforce if they’ve ever picked up Cupid’s bow and slung a candy heart-tipped arrow at a couple of co-workers?
According to a recent SnagAJob.com poll, 25 percent of male respondents said they’re tried to hook up a co-worker, while 21 percent of female respondents said they’ve tried to play workplace matchmaker. Of these romantic networking attempts, men were a bit more successful than women in making love connections: 18 percent to 16 percent, respectively. More than 3,000 respondents voted in the poll.
Surprised? Watch an episode of “Sex in the City” or “Cashmere Mafia” and pop culture stereotypes might suggest the poll results would be opposite. And remember, to hook up co-workers, you actually need to be working first. (Details…) Start your job search by location now.
You work with two people who would be great for each other. Except they don’t know it – or they don’t even know each other. Do you pull the trigger and take a shot at love? (Sorry to steal Tila Tequila’s catchphrase.) Or do you bite your lip, save potential embarrassment and hope that love finds a way without wings?
That’s what SnagAJob.com is asking America’s hourly job seekers in our current poll. And with less than a month until Valentine’s Day, we need your help. So quit trying to sneak a few drops of Love Potion No. 9 into your co-workers’ coffee and vote already!
Considering that about 70 million Americans make a living through hourly jobs, you would think Hollywood would give the backbone of our labor force a bit more attention on the big screen. But they’d rather give us wizards, bank robbers, bridesmaids and talking, cartoon donkeys.
That said, here’s a look at the best portrayals of industrious workers featured in 2007 movie releases:
Dad from Juno: His name is actually Mac MacGuff (J.K. Simmons in real life) and he’s a down-to-earth, straight-shooting blue collar dude who waxes philosophically on heating and air conditioning. Mac is actually pretty darn funny…and handles “surprising” news pretty well. Yes, we’re talking about being preggers.
Motormouth Maybelle: Queen Latifah plays this DJ / ‘60s civil rights pioneer in the big screen remake of the musical “Hairspray.” It’s a performance so strong we can finally forgive her for “Taxi.” Sweeney Todd: Johnny Depp’s turn as “the Demon Barber of Fleet Street” makes Captain Jack Sparrow look like a boy scout. You’re better off getting a free bowl cut from a failing barber college student than jumping into Sweeney Todd’s coffin…err…chair.
You answered overwhelmingly in a recent SnagAJob.com poll: postal workers and couriers. In fact, 40 percent of the nearly 10,000 respondents voted for these hard-working gift and greeting card transporters over shopping mall santas, snowplow drivers, toy inventory takers and Dec. 26 returns workers.
Unless we can get Seinfeld’s Newman to volunteer, we doubt that these postal worker and couriers are available to accept this “award.” That’s because they’re currently fighting through their biggest mail volume week of the year. That’s right, the U.S. Postal Service expected to handle more than 270 million holiday letters and packages this past Monday alone. And on Wednesday, they expect to ship and receive more than 1.7 billion parcels!
So when’re you’re licking stamps, signing checks and trying to remember second cousin Patty’s new address, think about the people doing the dirty work on the streets and in the mail sorting centers. And when your Passion Suede color throw pillows arrive just in the nick of time, feel free to throw out a hearty thanks (or even a few bucks for a tip).
It’s that time of year when turtleneck-clad neighbors like to hand out cash tips, greeting cards and fruitcakes to everyone from their trash men to their paperboys.
But who really deserves these bonuses? Who works the hardest over the holidays? Who has the toughest job? And who goes home and cries the hardest?
We’re asking SnagAJob.com visitors which seasonal workers deserve to collect the most silver and gold. Here are your options – and a few reminders about how tough they have it:
• Shopping mall Santa – If the beard is fake, you get made fun of. If the beard is real, it gets yanked. Be safe: Stick with the Santa soul patch.
• Postal worker / courier – The Postal Service will handle more than 20 billion pieces of mail this season. That’s one letter for every awful rendition of a holiday song by a subpar pop band. (Mariah Carey, please retire “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.”)
• Snowplow driver – Homer Simpson made it look easy, but imagine working all day with one goal: not sliding off the road into a ditch and under a snow bank for a boy scout to find three months later after the winter thaw.
• Toy inventory taker – Many of them are still in therapy over the Great Tickle Me Elmo Riot of ’96.
• Dec. 26 returns worker – Forget the folding of sweater vests and piling up of hangers. Isn’t it depressing to know that a husband and wife who’ve been together 60 years still can’t get that gift giving thing right?
Before we begin this blog entry, we just want to apologize for getting that awful and addictive ‘90s tune from the Rembrandts stuck in your head: “I’LL BE THERE FOR YOU…”
We only mention the “Friends” theme song because when we asked America’s hourly workers what TV workplace they’d most like to have a job, more than a third chose the coffee house in “Friends.” (By the way, the name of the café was Central Perk, and it’s based on a real life joint outside of Boston at Brandeis University.) A whopping 34 percent of the more than 6,000 respondents chose the coffeehouse.
Coming in second was the ER in “Grey’s Anatomy” (25 percent), followed by the “Reno 911!” sheriff’s office (20 percent) and the warehouse in “The Office” (14 percent).
Bringing up the rear was the anonymous diner in “Seinfeld” (7 percent). By the way, the diner is actually Tom’s Restaurant in NYC, which was first made famous by Suzzanne Vega’s 1987 hit song “Tom’s Diner.”
Whoops…now you have two repetitive, borderline annoying songs trapped in your head all day. Our bad.
Everyone has a soft spot for mom. Whether she’s a gourmet cook or simply knows which grocery aisle has the Tuna Helper. Whether she was there with a bandage when you skinned your knee or she was too busy laughing at your klutziness. Whether she took you shopping for back-to-school clothes or sewed you embarrassing pink bunny costumes. Either way, mom was always there.
